Tag: Training

6 Things You Can Do Today to Prepare for Leadership Tomorrow

Written by David Barrett on December 1, 2015. Posted in Articles.

Many of us are in what I call a pre-leadership position. We are in a role where we are managing people and making mid-level decisions on projects and initiatives that are important to the health and success of our organizations. Generally, we are looking forward to a future as a senior leader – here or elsewhere.

If you know me or have heard me present, or been a regular reader of this blog, you might know that I often refer to our Professional Strategic Plan: a process that creates an action plan for our professional future. Within the plan, we will find action items to get us from ’here’ to ‘there.’

So what if we are managing today and want to become leaders tomorrow? What should I find in the list of action items in my Professional Strategic Plan?

Actually, there are two parts to this list: one for immediate action and one that addresses parts of the plan that can’t happen overnight.

This week we start with the short term list. 6 things we can do today to prepare for leadership tomorrow. In my presentation “From a Good Manager to a Great Leader” I call this ‘act like a leader before you are one”:

1. Knock your responsibilities out of the park.

In everything you do, do it beyond expectations. Kill it – day in and day out. This level of performance will get recognized by your managers, your peers and especially the leaders in your current organization. This is one of the most important traits of any future leader. Show your stripes now.

2. Help your boss succeed

My Father-in-law used to say “make heroes out of everyone around you.” You do not have to be the star attraction to get recognized. The ‘supporting role’ is often the more important and many times the most rewarded.

3. Seize leadership opportunities, no matter how small.

Take on anything you can now to practice being a leader. Events, presentations, marketing campaigns, new product launches – anything. You won’t be left out there alone, hopefully. Use the experience to learn and to explore your new skills.

4. Don’t be a jerk

Jerks complain a lot but don’t contribute to any solutions. Jerks make life miserable for others and put our organization’s reputation at risk with behavior that is unacceptable these days. Jerks don’t believe in teamwork and don’t believe that paying it forward has any merits. Don’t go there.

5. Find role models

Find people whom you want to emulate, who are doing what you want to do in the future or stand out as examples of the kind of leader you want to be. If you know them personally, foster that relationship, feed it, nurture it and make lots of notes. If they are a public personality and inaccessible in person, read everything they write, watch them on Youtube or on Ted Talks and attend any event that gets you closer to their thoughts, ideas, and dreams.

6. Build Relationships

Now. Not later. Connect with key people in your life on a regular basis. Set dates in your calendar to touch base every few months. Find new relationships that might be able to connect you with key people some day in the future or who are authorities in their own right. The relationships in your professional life are probably the most important asset you have. Now is the time, when you don’t need it, to seek out and establish your professional support system so that it is there for you when you really do need it.

The Harvard Business Review (Fall 2014) said, “If you want to become a leader, don’t wait for the fancy title or the corner office. You can begin to act, think, and communicate like a leader long before that promotion. Even if you are still several levels down and someone else’s calling all the shots, there are numerous ways to demonstrate your potential and carve your path to the role you want.”

Are you planting the seeds today for your new leadership position tomorrow?

Come see David at the Toronto Workshop Series December 7-8, 2016

How to Optimize Your Agile Team

Written by Judith Mary Khan on November 23, 2015. Posted in Articles.

Leaders, be they program managers, executives, or directors, need to support this team. A simple guiding principle for leadership is to understand that the people who work in an Agile environment want to perform. From that, good leaders need to understand each team member’s unique skill set, talents, and career goals.

And to make it a human experience, understand what the team member ‘likes.’ I put this in quotes because I believe it was one of the best interview questions I ever was asked. The top executive asked, ‘what do you like…?’ It was an opportunity to respond quickly with a professional answer, but to also connect in a human way. I answered promptly and got the job offer. On the first day, I felt the upper management had both insight into my skills, and an understanding of what made me tick.

Good leaders are able to exercise this insight and then work from a place where they have enough information to make sure the right people are in the right roles. And, to complete setting up the environment for people to express their talents and interests, the leadership needs to set the bar for respect and professionalism. This will vary from organization to organization, but an insightful leader will know how to meet the unique cultural and individual needs of the team. This is especially accessible in an Agile team, the work moves so quickly, and the team works so closely together, good leadership with clear vision expresses itself readily.

Optimizing the Agile BA and all of the Agile Team

In order for leads to gain a clear understanding of the BA team’s capabilities, it is crucial that the leaders know each of their BAs. Take a pH test and ask yourself questions about those whom you direct:

Do you know your BA’s backgrounds? Strengths? Weaknesses? Aspirations?
How long have they been a BA
Why are they a BA?
What are their career goals?
Are they CBAP certified? If not, do they want to be?
Are they happy with their role?
Do they feel productive at the end of the day?
Do they come in with new ideas in the morning?
Is there something they want to do on the team, but haven’t had the chance to?
Do they have an idea they want to share? A concern?
Do they have kids? If so, how many?
Do they have pets? If so, how many?
Where would they like to go for lunch if you asked?
What do they like to do besides work?
What makes them tick?

Other questions to ask yourself or ask your team members:

Have you provided a framework for your team to perform? Not a rigid, over-worked process but the essential structures to support an efficient workflow.
Have you published this info? Examples are IT management 101’s like: ‘Do you have backups? And do people have a way of knowing who are backups?’ or ‘Do you capture and publish knowledge with an efficient tool that is available to the team?’
Very importantly, for the sake of continuity amid changes: ‘Do you have an exit plan for team members leaving and onboarding?’
Do you treat contractors with equal interest and respect as FTE’s? Do they feel like valued members of the team?
Do you listen to your team?
Do you listen ‘between the lines’?
Do you ask team members what they think? Do you listen to their answers and empower them to usher their ideas?
Are you sensitive to the cultures and multi-cultural dynamics among team members? Do you know about the cultures your team members may have come from?
Perhaps most importantly, are you available to your team members? Do they feel they can talk to you?

With this kind of increased knowledge of the team’s dynamics, managers can be empowered to make decisions that provide the infrastructure to optimize performance. This is a win-win situation for the individuals involved and the eventual output of the project.

Related Article: Want a Successful Agile Team? Include a BA!

Another possible method to gain insight into how your Agile and BA team is performing, and to understand where BA energy is going, is to use a BABOK-centered tool that I once had the chance to put to use. In a large organization where I worked, the BA team was disheartened by their workload, but even more so, the type of work tasks and activities that occupied most of their days. One BA shared with me that he barely felt that he worked as a BA! The management and directors felt the team was weak in its performance. They were oblivious to the root causes of mediocre delivery. Their idea was simplistic: to put more pressure on the already unhappy BAs. I needed to make a persuasive case to management to reorganize and re-delegate how work got done.

In order to capture exactly how the BA team was under-utilized, I constructed a calculator that was based on the Key Processes Areas of the BABOK. The instructions were as follows:

Step 1: At the end of each week, BA’s should enter the percentage of time that she/he had spent in each of the BABOK KPA’s listed. For work that did not fall into one of the KPA’s, it should be entered as a ‘non-BA activity’. Ten percent would automatically be allocated to administrative time.

Below is a sample:

Note: Be sure that BA’s have autonomy in this data capture, and that it does not become ‘hourly’ time tracking.

Step 2: Capture the percentages for a month, then summarize in one graphical representation.

Step 3: Capture this information for 3 months (1 quarter), summarize, and present in a graphic presentation.

Step 4: Collect what activities constituted ‘Non-BA Activities’ and describe it in the presentation to management.

Step 5: Present this information to management and executives involved in decision making.

Step 6: For management, use this information to plan for greater use of BA talent and skills, use this information to support BA team members in strengthening their weaknesses and planning education for the teams. For leadership, use this to diagnose a project’s weaknesses or challenges to delivery. Incorporate this into strategic thinking and decisions.

This is one tool, one way to gain insight into the true dynamics and functioning of a team. The set of questions can be very useful, especially for the out-of-touch leader. An Action plan could be derived using these, and including more, customized to your unique team. By using information in a meaningful way, leaders can be empowered to make truly innovative decisions. Over time, this will build the framework for an Agile team to be optimized, and for a success story all around!

Enterprise Leaders are Crucial to Success

Written by George Konstantopoulos on November 16, 2015. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Enterprise Leaders are Crucial to Success

An enterprise mindset is defined as the ability to balance the goals of your business unit along with the broader interests of the enterprise. Naturally, to be considered an enterprise leader one must hold an enterprise mindset.

An enterprise leader does not think nor operate in silos. In alignment with their ambitions for collective progress, these leaders demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the organization and how the various components of the firm all contribute and operate together. As well, these leaders devote their time to help develop the right capabilities for the firm and share their resources and knowledge across the business.

The 3 traits that I believe define an enterprise leader are listed below.

A Sense of Purpose

An enterprise leader has a deep sense of purpose. They are passionate about their careers and the companies they serve. These leaders truly desire to enable and realize transformational change within their organizations and the communities in which it serves.

Most importantly, these leaders view their purpose differently. Enterprise leaders understand the impact of their actions on people’s lives. For example, they consider their role as the enabler of job growth for a community and nation versus a means for expense management.

Additionally, enterprise leaders have a sense of belonging and acceptance with their organization. They accept the company culture and build time within their strategies to help preserve, expand and improve organizational culture. They lead by example and help others understand the importance of purpose.

Daring to Disagree

Enterprise leaders use a structured, diplomatic and professional approach fully equipped with facts and not dogmatism to challenge conventional wisdom. They are driven by an altruistic, noble and purposeful intent and are not fearful to challenge conventional wisdom for the greater good of the firm.

Early in my career through the use of research, statistics, and actual client feedback I respectfully disagreed with a politically charged business decision my employer at the time had made. My data and challenge were accepted, and the decision was reversed. Shortly after the decision was reversed market conditions and industry growth forecasts drastically changed. The unexpected and negative change in conditions and forecasts proved that by not moving forward with the original decision the firm avoided a significant financial loss and negative impact on the client experience.

Related Article: Poor Managers Thwart Good Organizations

Margaret Heffernan in one of her brilliant TED talks discusses a more severe example highlighting the importance of challenging conventional wisdom.

“Alice Stewart, a female scientist at Oxford University in the 1950’s, was a very talented scientist who dared to disagree. She was branded as odd and a troublemaker. Alice empirically proved the correlation between children born with cancer and their mothers who had been x-rayed while pregnant with the same children. Her research and studies were immediately rejected by the medical community at Oxford and beyond. It took 25, a lot of children dying and purpose driven courage from Alice to have her findings finally accepted. Her findings and recommendations were accepted worldwide, and the use of medical x-rays during pregnancy and early childhood were stopped.”

What would have happened if Alice simply remained quiet or was scared to disagree?

Develop and improve

An enterprise leader constantly seeks opportunities to help develop and improve themselves and the enterprise which they serve. This leader is not scared of the unknown. In fact, they attract and find new, difficult yet thought provoking and enlightening ways to increase the strength and competitiveness of the enterprise. They are lifelong learners who proactively stay ahead of their competition by being addicted to knowledge and progress. They are innovators who thrive on disrupting their industry and exploiting competitor idleness.

An example of a collaborative developmental exercise is the creation of formal, internal peer-to-peer support networks. Open and safe forums where enterprise leaders can discuss key challenges with others as well learn and develop together.

The siloed leader’s mindset has expired.

Developing enterprise minded leaders is crucial for organizational success.

Leadership Lessons: Implementing Change – Phase 4 – Create Desire to Change

Written by Peter de Jager on November 10, 2015. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Leadership Lessons: Implementing Change – Phase 4 – Create Desire to Change

Editor’s note: We will be showcasing each phase of Peter de Jager’s methodology in weekly posts. Click here for phase 1, phase 2, and phase 3. Check back every week to read the next phase.

“A body at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an outside force.”

That’s as much an observation about people as it is about physics. If there are no outside forces, then nothing changes. Sometimes the ‘key’ to change is nothing more than making people aware of the outside forces. One of the downsides of the status quo is that it lulls us into a false sense of security and we need to be shaken awake in order to change.

What Problems exist in Status Quo?

Nothing is ever perfect, that includes the current status quo. The imperfections in the status quo, create points of leverage that can help move a change forward. What is it about the current situation that has been a well known hindrance in the past? How dissatisfied is the target audience with the status quo? What exactly causes that dissatisfaction? If you don’t know the answer, ask the target audience – they do, in great, exacting, painful detail.

What are the alternatives?

What alternatives are there to the current status quo? There is always more than one way to do things. Why did we choose this particular status quo? What other options did we have? What other options can we create? Does it really matter, in the long run, which option we choose? If not, if they are all relatively equal, why can’t the target audience choose which one they should move to?

What are personal Benefits to Changing?

Just as there are always problems with the current status quo, there will also be benefits in any new situation. It’s a useful exercise to help the target audience to list those personal benefits.

What problems would Change Solve?

Will the change being proposed solve existing problems? How? If not, why not? It is a mistake to think everyone involved in the change sees all the benefits of the change. It’s perhaps a tedious task to list the benefits, it’s also very beneficial to those who may not fully understand all the implications of the change. It’s difficult to communicate enough during change; it’s impossible to communicate ‘too much’.

What core values would Change reinforce?

What, out of everything the current status quo provides, will be reinforced by the proposed change? This is another way of communicating what will stay the same, only more so. This is surprisingly, a very powerful bit of information. People need stability, and knowing what won’t change in the coming months will offer more solace in the face of chaos than you might expect.

What opportunities would Change Create?

Change is not just about escaping problems in the existing status quo. It should also be about creating an environment of new opportunities. Do not assume the target audience can see those opportunities without being told, informed, communicated to etc. The primary task of the Change Inflictor is one of a communicator. Informing and re-informing people of what is going on and why.

How to Stop the Long-Winded: With Class

Written by Kupe Kupersmith on October 27, 2015. Posted in Articles.

I was on a call the other day with people from around the world. Usually, these calls are awesome. The fact that I get to work with people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy, and beyond is amazing to me. Life is not always awesome, though.

This last call was not fun. Apparently I was one of those long-winded people. A reaction from the meeting chair ended up hurting my feelings. I felt shut down. I stopped sharing my ideas. Some of you may be saying, “good, you and the other long-winded people need to keep quiet for a while.” Maybe you have a point. The short term goal of shutting me up moved our agenda along. The long-term impact was I stopped providing ideas in the meeting. That is not a good thing.

What happened was we were discussing a topic and asked to provide questions if we had one. I had a question, so I started in. My question was not yet well formed. I started talking trying to formulate the question. I am an extrovert, so I talk to think. At some point during my dissertation, the chair of the meeting piped in “Kupe, Kupe, Kupe!” I don’t know maybe there were 10 Kupes before he got my attention. I was trying to talk fast so I could get to my question. I was not rambling for the sake of rambling, I promise! I finally stopped and he said, “Kupe, you are going on and on, do you have a question? WHAT is your question?” That’s when my feeling got hurt, that’s when I stopped talking out loud and said “whatever” in my internal voice. I think I even threw up the “Whatever” sign. You know, making a “W” with your 2 hands. We didn’t have video, he couldn’t see me. I’m 44, but I can still act like a child! I ended up asking a question. But you could hear a new tone in my voice. I became disengaged. For the rest of the meeting, I shut down.

I know some of you are saying to yourselves, “jeez Kupe, man up. We need to have thicker skin than that.” Believe me, I know. I do have pretty thick skin. My kids say that they love that I don’t care what others think. The context there is I do goofy things trying to embarrass them. Needless to say, I am very comfortable with who I am, my thoughts and beliefs and don’t get my feelings hurt often.

The point is, even people with the thickest skin can get their feelings hurt or get defensive. You need to make sure you are facilitating meetings where people feel they have input. Where they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. The goal is buy-in. I talk about this more in a post titled “Your goal is not to shut people down just for the sake of sticking to an agenda.”

There is a real problem here. You need to make people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. You also only have so much time. The long-winded are a challenge. The ones that don’t speak are a challenge too, but they don’t take up any time. What are you to do?

In a face-to-face situation, peer pressure comes into play. When you have a long-winded person going on and on, people start shifting in their chairs, looking at their phones, etc. People start to see their team’s reactions and may adjust. In a remote session that peer pressure is gone. Many people are on mute and you don’t see anyone. It actually makes the long-winded even longer-winded because they are not getting feedback. In my case, I was not sure people on the call were understanding where I was going with my thoughts, so I kept going. That is until the rude “KUPE” to the tenth power came from the chair.

Some would say, it’s all about relationships. If you have a good relationship with the people you work with, then you can be less politically correct. I am a huge believer in relationships and promote it all the time. Even if you have great relationships with others, you need to be careful. I have a great relationship with the chair of this meeting. I have a really good relationship with the others on the call. In my situation, the chair did need to stop me. In hindsight, I was really long-winded. In many of your meetings there may be a person or two that needs to be stopped.

Is there a better way than coming across as abrasive? Is there a way to do this without hurting others feelings? More importantly, is there a way that does not stop engagement from others?

My tip is don’t leave it up to the person running the meeting. That puts all of the pressure on one person to keep a meeting running smoothly. Eventually, that person snaps and comes out with a statement that can shut down the talker. It needs to be clear in the meeting that everyone has the right/ability to get the long-winded to wrap up. Come up with a code word or sound. When that sound is made or word spoken the talker needs to wrap it up. This can be used for face-to-face meetings too, although it is critical for remote meetings. Make sure everyone knows it is not personal. It’s about making meetings more efficient.

Don Palmer from The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank recently told me about an analogy he used to show his executives the effect of showing displeasure when project managers present project status reports that included issues. He refers to it as hitting the goalie. Don explained there is a rule in hockey that prohibits players from hitting the opposing team’s goalie. This originates from not having many people want to play goalie. Kids want to play offensive, goal-scoring positions. So, there were not a lot of goalies out there from which to choose. If a team hit the goalie and the goalie was injured, teams would have to go to a backup goalie. Then if the backup goalie was injured, there was no one else left to play the position. This would completely alter games. In the project status world, Don explained if you badgered the project manager for bringing up issues during status reporting, PMs would begin to present all positive results during the project. Then in the end the projects would fail because they were hiding the truth all along to avoid the public badgering. This behavior did not allow executives to make decisions along the way to get the projects back on track. Don explained that badgering a PM is like hitting the goalie and pushed to have a “no hitting the goalie” rule. Now in status meetings if one executive is badgering a PM, another executive will say, “you are hitting the goalie.” I think this is brilliant. This is now a term that everyone understands and respects. It also results in PMs sharing the information as it is and not sugar coating the status of their projects.

There is no silver bullet. Feelings will get hurt. Your goal as a leader is to work consistently towards obtaining full participation. The outcome you are looking for is buy-in from the group. You gain buy-in by allowing the team to share their thoughts.

To not hitting the goalie,

Kupe