A running list - Leadership

This is a compilation of thoughts on leadership I've periodically updated over the last 5 years. It is by no means comprehensive. It started after lunch one day with a good friend and co-worker (thank you, Mr. Cardoza) and unfortunately only gets updated when I remember it exists and happen to be close to my PC.

It was about 5 years ago that I first had actual employees reporting to me. I previously had matrix-manager roles, where people were temporarily assigned to me for projects or whatever, but this was different. This was the whole enchilada. These were not production-line workers. They weren't flipping burgers, tending a bar, or working a cash register. They were top-level, highly educated, skilled and experienced professionals. Many had at least one masters degree, and none had less than a bachelors. These were the kind of employees I had to set annual goals for, write annual and mid-year reviews for, make salary and bonus decisions for, and unfortunately in a few cases, fire or let go due to business conditions. These were real, seasoned career veterans, some making over 100K per year, and one of them had over 40 years of programming and operations experience with the same company. Some were older than my parents. Intimidating to say the least, for a 31-year-old.

Additionally, these were true knowledge workers. Each had their own area of expertise. Many were left over from major software implementations over the years. Like building maintenance people, but better because they had actually built the building. No wonder they are viewed as high cost. Can you imagine if every house or building built retained the architect as their primary maintenance person?

5 years later, I have not crashed and burned. I haven’t been a superhero, but I’ve done well. At one point, when the economy was still booming, I had almost 50 people, employees and contractors, which I was responsible for. At the peak, 20 of those were actual company employees, and I had three other managers working for me with their own teams. I’ve had to make lots of hiring decisions, and on that, I’m batting about .800. The number of employees reporting to me has reduced, due to my company’s distaste for contractors, dead weight, and the cost-cutting that ensued after the economy crashed. A bad economy will change the climate pretty quickly, if your leadership knows what they are doing. Fortunately for my company, our leaders took action early. Fortunately for me, I was a top performer. If you’re not making money, you can’t spend money on anything but the essentials. That environment gave me the opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. It sucked, and it has been hard, and lots of hard discussions ensued…but then again, if the right thing to do was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Each one of the points below represents a deep personal understanding, not just something regurgitated from a textbook, MBA class, or HBR article. Each one could be its own blog entry, complete with personal anecdote. An expert is, after all, someone who has made all the mistakes, and I’ve made plenty.

• Those you lead are your subordinates first, friends second

• Lead by example…but remember that example has to be most relevant to the level you’re at. Eisenhower’s daily routine had little in common with the average GI. But front-line officers and NCO’s had a lot in common with the average GI. Don't act like Eisenhower unless you are, in fact, Eisenhower.

• Don’t dilute your authority by getting too close

• Recognize and make the tough decisions

• Don’t hesitate on the decisions that need to be made quickly, and know the difference

• Manage your own insecurities.  

•A good mentor is like a good shrink.

• Be the first to the table with the plan

• Always have a plan (A, B, C, etc.)

• Good, honest, accurate feedback is priceless, and very rare. Very few people have the balls to be completely honest to your face. When they are, encourage it by listening and assessing, and not getting defensive.  But if they are just being a-hole, don't waste your time, and let them know it.  Constructive criticism is easy to identify, and should be welcomed, but pointless criticism is a waste of everyone's time and the learning experience should be re-directed back at the source.

• Don’t fear asking questions, lots of them – in the beginning

• Don’t ask questions late in the game that should have been understood earlier

• Stack the deck in your favor thru effective planning

• Don’t set yourself up for failure by not planning effectively

• Understand the difference between the time for planning and the time for execution

• If you can do something about it, why worry? If you can’t do something about it, why worry?

• Visualize the end early in the game, preferably before your competitors

• Take intelligent risks – work those angels

• Listen to good music – take a break

• Never lose sight of your value proposition. Reaffirm it every day

• Understand your input/value-add/output equation

• Understand the transactional nature of human relations

• You get what you pay for. Italian stucco is better than Mexican stucco just like American code is better than Indian code.

• Only pay for what you need.

• Use praise wisely – only after tangible results that are easy to identify. If results are not obvious than they are probably meaningless.

• Don’t just play the game – transcend it

• Manage to the simplicity on the far end of complexity; master your craft. Rely on the good people that work for you to work through the complexity. But be ready at a moment’s notice to jump into that complexity the minute you suspect something is wrong

• Focus on the critical few first

• Be courageous; Courage is the ability to follow your own principles, even when you are scared to death (see Honor)

• Make no assumptions. Stuff doesn’t happen unless you make it happen. Follow up on everything. Get it in writing.

• There is nothing more valuable than a well-written contract.

• Every meeting, either with subordinates or superiors, is a chance to set expectations. Don’t squander those opportunities, keep expectations high.
•Don't allow operational fiefdoms, unless you don't mind operations usurping creative.

Like I said, this is just a partial list, but a pretty solid reflection of my current views on leadership. Management is a different story for me…complete with a whole list of good fundamentals, blocking/tackling, and other coaching analogies, and will eventually become another blog entry. Please comment freely on the points/thoughts above. One of them mentions the value of good feedback…

Update, 5/30/2013:
•Sweat the details
•Have Honor.  Having Honor means doing the right thing, despite the personal consequences.  
•Master the fundamentals first.  Then have an opinion.
•Once you've found yourself, live so that others may have the same joy.  In other words, give them the luxury of being themselves in a protected environment.  Just don't remove the reality of someday having to leave that environment.
•Remember the rule of three:  Never strike first.  Use words and ideas until you've been struck 3 times and protocol has been followed 3 times.  Have 3 documented cases where you followed the rules designed to protect you.  Then, pound them into submission.  Even if you lose, it's a powerful message.

The park in Airport West

Airport West is a suburb of Melbourne, where I'm working for the time being. No family or friends around means I can spend an inordinate amount of time working. However, I take long lunches because my lunchtime is in the same time zone as dinnertime the previous day for my friends and family back home. It's the best time for me to call home, and the only time slot that I can hear from Natalie and Ethan.

Not long ago I found a public park near the plant. It consists of a footy oval, a cricket oval, a community center, and some playground equipment. At lunchtime on weekdays, it's empty. I discovered it one day after deciding, somewhat randomly, that I wanted to wander back through the nearby neighborhoods instead of heading straight back to the plant after a lunchtime sandwich at Nando's. I felt like exploring, but mainly, I just wanted to take my time. There were no pending meetings to go back for, and it was sunny and cool. So I parked in the empty parking lot facing the footy oval, turned the engine off, rolled down the windows, and just let myself be.

It turned out to be one of those deeply existential moments that happen from time to time. You know, those moments where everything becomes vivid, like a lucid dream. The moments that pierce reality and speak directly to your soul. In these moments, you remember in vivid detail the inputs of all your senses, including your state of mind and what was running through it at the time.

So I took it in, recognizing that moments like this were rare. A breeze was blowing. I could hear the sound of cars on the tollway in the distance and the occasional clacking sound of a commuter train on the nearby Cragieburn line. I could see and hear the gum trees around the field swaying with the breeze. I heard the squeaking of the swings in the playground as they also swayed in the breeze. I recall the cognizance of the fact that I was 9000 miles from home. I felt the warm sun on my bare arm, hanging out the car window, as I stared at the somewhat mundane scene in front of me. Then, I vividly imagined Natalie and Ethan, laughing and playing on that empty playground, half a world away from home. I heard their voices, laughs, and shrieks of joy. For a moment I hugged them and held them close, feeling their little bodies against mine, then putting my hands on their little heads, feeling their hair and then letting them go again to play on the playground. I smelled the scent of the shampoo in their hair, I saw their bright, pure smiles. At that moment I loved them and missed them more than I ever had before. My daughter, and my son.

I know they will grow up. I know they will live their own lives, carve their own paths, account for their own successes and failures. They will listen to me and ignore me, love me and hate me. They will ask why and why not. They will want to know what happened, and what didn't happen. They will think, they will feel, they will remember. They will question, they will conclude, then they will question again.

I can't dictate or force any of that. Like that moment in the park, I can just be. I can lay down a few rules and answer a few questions. But most importantly, I can love and treasure them for being here with me, right now, sharing the journey.

If I died tomorrow, a lot would be left undone. But I could sleep happy, if my children knew and understood how their Daddy felt about them, how deeply he loved them, that day in the park in Airport West, half a world away.

What I love

The things we see.

The way we see.

The way she listens.

The way she understands.

The way she sounds, even from the moment I first heard the sound of her voice, on that January afternoon.

The way we read each other.

The way she smiles.

The moments she smiles.

The candid pictures.

The flowers in her hair.

The vintage shoes and dresses.

The way she touches me.

The way she feels.

The way we can communicate deeply without talking.

The eyes...ever the eyes.

The way she absorbs the moment.

The way she loves our children.

The special place we share.

The memories we create.

The road trips we take.

The interests we share.

The music we love.

The colors of her hair.

The goals and dreams we share.

The way I feel, when I go to sleep, knowing that I am loved.

The way I feel, when I think about the whole of my existence, and know that I have found that one kindred spirit, the one that can only come along once in a lifetime, and realize she is mine and I am hers.

The future and what it holds.

Why Star Trek sucks

Because it's not Star Wars, and in my formative years, that was the difference. The vision George Lucas created in sci-fi was far superior to anything Roddenberry and later Berman created, and I'm not just talking about the special effects. Lucas created classic human drama, enhanced and expanded by fantastic technology, but still plagued by the same individual and societal shortcomings that makes good drama. While Roddenberry tried to do the same thing, Star Trek's basic premise of humankind's enlightened societal condition and superior sense of ethics ultimately cheapened anything Kirk or the crew of the Enterprise accomplished. Of course they always prevailed, and in a perfect way. In a universe as seemingly perfect as the Federation, where you can't even find wrinkled clothing, much less a speck of dirt...anywhere...or equipment that shows even the slightest signs of wear and tear, would you expect any less of them? At least Luke Skywalkers landspeeder looked like the typical POS old Camaro a teenager would drive.

Now don't get me wrong...Star Wars took a turn for the worse after the first 3 movies. And it doesn't stack up to really good sci-fi, like Dune or the new BSG series. So it's not perfect. But at least Lucas had a good premise to work with.

Star Trek also sucks because, for the most part, over the years, it just kept getting worse. Flipping channels, I just watched a few more minutes of Star Trek: Voyager and I got that same sick feeling in my stomach like when I try to watch Jerry Springer, Toddlers and Tiaras, or Judge Judy. It's just so campy and unrealistic. Also, as I get older, I have less and less patience with most sci-fi as I gain a deeper appreciation for good storytelling and dramatical narratives, which, except for the aforementioned examples, sci-fi is really bad at.

Alfred Hitchcock said that drama is just life with all the dull bits removed. Good sci-fi is a good combination of drama and futurism. But it's still about the drama first, the futurism second. Star Trek (and Stargate SG-1, for that matter) is too far removed from real life, and therefore falls into the category of bad drama. I can't respect it, therefore I have a hard time enjoying it.

It could be argued that Star Wars is bad futurism. There are no real explanations for how some technology works or even theories it is based on. At least Star Trek tries to explain itself using our current understanding of physics. But maybe that's the point...I can live with bad futurism, because its the drama that draws me in. If I want raw futurism, I'll just watch the Discovery channel.

There are a few more things about Star Trek that bug me:

• Humankind is perfect, now that they are "mature" enough, as a species.
• Aliens all look like humans with makeup.
• Bad guys all sound strangely like Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.
• In later series, excessive time travel exacerbates bad plot lines
• Given the variance of cultural, social and political habits and practices within our own species and on our own planet, I have to question the casual relationships the humans have with several dozen alien species after only a few hours or years of contact.
• Everyone speaks English.
• The Ferengi.

Interesting how much more appealing the new Star Trek movie from 2009 was. It incorporated many elements that made Star Wars work so well, (the "used future" for example) almost as if Lucas had produced it. This new direction could work well.

Advice to the kiddos

Educate yourselves in something you love, or at least like.

Live your life as you want it first, then get married, if that's what you want, not the other way around. Don't get married to find yourself. Find yourself as preparation to getting married and then maintaining an honest relationship.

For example, if you come to the conclusion that you are most happy crunching numbers and solving complex problems, and that involves living in a big city, wearing a suit to work and carrying a briefcase into a big glass building every day, accept and embrace it. Alternately, you may find that living in the suburbs, preparing lesson plans and teaching eighth graders is more satisfying. If either of these or a million other scenarios appeals enough to you to make a life out of, make it happen early after college. Then, in that circle of personal and professional satisfaction, you may be blessed to meet someone in your circle that is not only compatible, but the one. You don't just have to be what you want, you have to exist in that want and see what the gods provide for.

The 6 pre-requisites of marriage:

-Educate yourself

-Date and be with lots of people

-Spend lots of time with a potential mate. Don't fall in love early, get past the infatuation and see what happens, then think about marriage

-Be over 30.

-Be established in your career and life's pursuits.

-Remember, this is just your Dad speaking.

Don't worry about marriage or sex or having babies. Worry about the relationships you develop by being true to yourself. If you're true to yourself, you will attract those that will stand by you because they value the same things. They will be the basis of your life-long friends, and one of them will likely be your soul mate.

Don't dismiss that voice in your heart. Sometimes it will disagree with what others are telling you or persuading you to do. That voice is unique to you, and the messages it sends are meant for you to interpret. Do what you will, but do not ignore that voice.

If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The only guaranteed formula for success in life is hard work and preparation... intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically...and the rest is luck. But if you're smart, you can stack the cards in your favor.

Don't invest in anything with too much readily available information. Don't expect to get ahead doing what everybody else does. Look at what everybody else is doing, then at least find a way to do it better, or better yet, do something extraordinary. (Example: don't build a faster train. Build an airliner.) If you read something in the Wall Street Journal, and get inspired to invest in something, realize, you're at least 2 million people too late. The early bird catches the worm, and he didn't need the WSJ or some TV advertisement telling him to invest in gold or rare coins. His instincts guided him. (Plus some hard work and preparation that got him there in the first place. See previous paragraph.) Opportunity is when preparation meets luck.

Your parents love you unconditionally, want the best for you, and would jump on a grenade for you. That doesn't mean they know anything about parenting, it just means they are going to do their best, and like it or not, that's all you're going to get. What you become is far more dependent on the decisions you start making as early as you are able. Luckily, some of your parents realize we are raising parents and adults, not children, and are allowing you to grow and experience what it means to be human and are not just an isolated ego-enhancing experiment for mom or dad.

Listen to opinions, but remember they are just opinions, not reality. At the end of the day, you decide.

Respect and use the rules of science. Science is not just a set of tools, it is a way of thinking, rational and unbiased thinking.

Fear absolutes and unassailable solutions. Anyone that claims to have found "the answer" is lying, or asking for money. Don't get ripped off. Scientists and Artists realize that every solution is just a step in the process to perfection. Don't presume the conclusion, you'll end up stale and trapped by others. Rather, embrace the journey there, and accept that there is no destination but the journey. The only truth lies in universal principles, and only a few are apparent. Live by those principles alone, combined with what the gods tell you. Do not listen to the exploitative religions, belief systems, weight loss plans, fast-money programs or other marketing scams that take advantage of those principles and extend them into servitude and revenue streams. At the end of the day, if you want to know the truth in the real world...follow the money.

Be true to yourselves. Make your life what you want it. Know that you are always loved.

Sunrise

I've seen lots of sunrises. At many altitudes...Phoenix, over the Superstitions. Greer, over the pines on the canyon wall. Flagstaff, through the pines on Mt Eldon, watching the light reflect off the face of the love of my life. Tucson, over the Santa Catalinas. Melbourne, over Mt. Dandenong from the 30th floor of my apartment.

All brilliant, but not so brilliant as the one I saw last week on the way to Melbourne from Los Angeles.

Qantas flight 94 left LA at 1120pm on a Wednesday. The big A380 took off, heading west, chasing the already set sun, but would never catch up with it. It's a 15 hour flight to Melbourne on a very large plane with about 600 passengers aboard. After about 12 hours, the sun lapped the earth, and came up from behind us. Sunrise from 38000 feet is a bit different,

It started with a vague light that wasn't moonlight, more like coming from below. There was a good moon out that night and lots of stars were still visible. What startled me was when the sun started to rise it only created some narrow bands of color; orange and yellow color located near the horizon. The net effect, which is where the real celestial brilliance occurred was in seeing the full spectrum of sunrise all the way thru to night,

I could see the indigo blue sky, compete with constellations (like the southern cross:) bright and visible, faded into a pink then orange band of sunrise, emanating from the sun as it moves across the ocean we were crossing.

Eventually, I could see day arising and night retreating in one view.

To see a sunrise is amazing enough. But to see one where, in one view, you can see the sun rising and the night retreating, framed by the deep indigo blue of the upper atmosphere, on top of the curvature of the earth is something hard to describe. It looked surreal, almost fake...but I couldn't look away.

Eventually, the sun overtook the moonlight and the starlight and illuminated the clouds below in a bright white, and drowned out any stars still visible. It was day time, and it had snuck up on us.

Interesting commentary

Extreme and bizarre religious ideas are so commonplace in American history that it is difficult to speak of them as fringe at all. To speak of a fringe implies a mainstream, but in terms of numbers, perhaps the largest component of the religious spectrum in contemporary America remains what it has been since colonial times: a fundamentalist evangelicalism with powerful millenarian strands. The doomsday theme has never been far from the center of American religious thought. The nation has always had believers who responded to this threat by a determination to flee from the wrath to come, to separate themselves from the City of Destruction, even if that meant putting themselves at odds with the law and with their communities or families. . . . We can throughout American history find select and separatist groups who looked to a prophetic individual claiming divine revelation, in a setting that repudiated conventional assumptions about property, family life, and sexuality. They were marginal groups, peculiar people, people set apart from the world: the Shakers and the Ephrata community, the communes of Oneida and Amana, the followers of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

– Philip Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs

The best fruit of religious experience are the best things that history has to show… The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves have been flown for religious ideals.

– William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it…

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world.

– Bertrand Russell, Why I am not a Christian

My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

– Bertrand Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?

Both revelation and delusion are attempts at the solution of problems. Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent…

Religious faith is an answer to the problem of life… The majority of mankind want or need some all-embracing belief system which purports to provide an answer to life’s mysteries, and are not necessarily dismayed by the discovery that their belief system, which they proclaim as “the truth,” is incompatible with the beliefs of other people. One man’s faith is another man’s delusion…

Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the number of people subscribing to it.”

– Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay

Critical examination of the lives and beliefs of gurus demonstrates that our psychiatric labels and our conceptions of what is or is not mental illness are woefully inadequate. How, for example, does one distinguish an unorthodox or bizarre faith from delusion?

Gurus are isolated people, dependent upon their disciples, with no possibility of being disciplined by a Church or criticized by contemporaries. They are above the law. The guru usurps the place of God. Whether gurus have suffered from manic-depressive illness, schizophrenia, or any other form of recognized, diagnosable mental illness is interesting but ultimately unimportant. What distinguishes gurus from more orthodox teachers is not their manic-depressive mood swings, not their thought disorders, not their delusional beliefs, not their hallucinatory visions, not their mystical states of ecstasy: it is their narcissism.

– Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay

There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: A people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware: a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time–or even knew selflessness or courage or literature–but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.

– Annie Dillard, For The Time Being

(Fundamentalist movements) are embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis. They are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religious belief. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. They fear annihilation, and try to fortify their beleaguered identity by means of a selective retrieval of certain doctrines and practices of the past. To avoid contamination, they often withdraw from mainstream society to create a counterculture; yet fundamentalists are not impractical dreamers. They have absorbed the pragmatic rationalism of modernity, and under the guidance of their charismatic leaders, they refine these “fundamentals” so as to create an ideology that provides the faithful with a plan of action. Eventually they fight back to resacralize an increasingly skeptical world.”

– Karen Armstrong, The Battle For God