Corner Office, Adam Bryant; New York Times, Interview with Rachel Ashwell, founder of the home furnishings retailer Shabby Chic: What’s Wrong With Saying ‘I Don’t Know’?:
"Q. What turns you off in interviews?
A. One thing is a kind of arrogance, the “yeah-yeah” people who think they know everything. I’ve seen people who just think they know it all, and then it happens over and over again. And that’s where I just think, “Oh no.” Because that, to me, is a character quality. It comes from a place of fear and wanting to please, or maybe thinking that you know everything.
I think the words “I don’t know”’ — in a positive way — is a little phrase much avoided, and I don’t really know why. I just turned 50 and there’s still plenty I don’t know and that’s something that I often tell my staff. If you don’t know something, it’s just so much better to say so. Guessing can cause all kinds of problems. But the point is not to be passive either, and to take responsibility and go find out what it is. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/jobs/25corner.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with with Bill Carter, partner in and founder of Fuse, a youth marketing agency; New York Times, 4/18/10
Corner Office, Adam Bryant; New York Times, Interview with Bill Carter, partner in and founder of Fuse, a youth marketing agency:
"Q. So, what kind of leader are you now?
A. I think that I’m fair, because I try to be honest and direct in a helpful way. If you want people to be at their best, and if you want the whole company to be on the same page all the time, you need to be willing to communicate directly with people. In our office, what we’ve achieved is that being direct is not a personal attack.
I did learn that, to some degree, in my college lacrosse experience. When my coach was coming down on me or somebody else, it never felt like a direct attack. Now, it felt awful, but I never thought he was being mean-spirited about it. I never thought he was doing it for any other reason than he wanted us, as a team, to be on the same page and to be the best that we could be.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved? What do you do more of, or less of?
A. One of the things I do more of now, and probably a better job of now than I did 10 years ago, is being really present in our office when I’m there. I think many senior people, C.E.O.’s and presidents of companies, both small and large, obviously spend a lot of time outside of the office. What I used to tend to do with the 50 percent of the time that I was in the office would be to go into my office and shut the door, literally or figuratively, and delve back into the real core responsibilities of that day or that week. And I might as well have not been in the office. I wasn’t interacting with other staff, both senior and junior staff. I wasn’t gauging anything that was going on in the staff, learning anything new, or understanding the challenges that people were facing.
I’ve learned that when you’re in your office and you’re in that position, the best thing you can do is spend at least 50 percent of your time in the office communicating with as many staff as you have time to communicate with. Holing yourself up in your office is not the way to learn about what’s happening in the organization. The information doesn’t flow up to you when you’re in a closed-door situation like that.
I think that if you look at your core responsibilities a little less literally, you’d probably want to spend more time with your staff, because what are most C.E.O.’s really in charge of? Well, they are in charge of setting strategy. They are in charge of creating the best work environment. They are in charge of finding the best talent. How can you possibly do that by isolating yourself in your office and only communicating with people from accounting or your outside legal counsel or the majority of the people that are probably the ones e-mailing you?
Your junior staff people are not e-mailing you. And if you don’t go down the hall and talk to that person, you’re not going to know the real challenges."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/jobs/18corner.html?pagewanted=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse&scp=4
"Q. So, what kind of leader are you now?
A. I think that I’m fair, because I try to be honest and direct in a helpful way. If you want people to be at their best, and if you want the whole company to be on the same page all the time, you need to be willing to communicate directly with people. In our office, what we’ve achieved is that being direct is not a personal attack.
I did learn that, to some degree, in my college lacrosse experience. When my coach was coming down on me or somebody else, it never felt like a direct attack. Now, it felt awful, but I never thought he was being mean-spirited about it. I never thought he was doing it for any other reason than he wanted us, as a team, to be on the same page and to be the best that we could be.
Q. How has your leadership style evolved? What do you do more of, or less of?
A. One of the things I do more of now, and probably a better job of now than I did 10 years ago, is being really present in our office when I’m there. I think many senior people, C.E.O.’s and presidents of companies, both small and large, obviously spend a lot of time outside of the office. What I used to tend to do with the 50 percent of the time that I was in the office would be to go into my office and shut the door, literally or figuratively, and delve back into the real core responsibilities of that day or that week. And I might as well have not been in the office. I wasn’t interacting with other staff, both senior and junior staff. I wasn’t gauging anything that was going on in the staff, learning anything new, or understanding the challenges that people were facing.
I’ve learned that when you’re in your office and you’re in that position, the best thing you can do is spend at least 50 percent of your time in the office communicating with as many staff as you have time to communicate with. Holing yourself up in your office is not the way to learn about what’s happening in the organization. The information doesn’t flow up to you when you’re in a closed-door situation like that.
I think that if you look at your core responsibilities a little less literally, you’d probably want to spend more time with your staff, because what are most C.E.O.’s really in charge of? Well, they are in charge of setting strategy. They are in charge of creating the best work environment. They are in charge of finding the best talent. How can you possibly do that by isolating yourself in your office and only communicating with people from accounting or your outside legal counsel or the majority of the people that are probably the ones e-mailing you?
Your junior staff people are not e-mailing you. And if you don’t go down the hall and talk to that person, you’re not going to know the real challenges."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/jobs/18corner.html?pagewanted=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse&scp=4
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Jilly Stephens, executive director of City Harvest; New York Times, 4/ 11/10
Corner Office, Adam Bryant; New York Times; Interview with Jilly Stephens, executive director of City Harvest:
"Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody’s boss?
A. I was working for a big international charity. I was in Romania and was leading a team of international surgeons and nurses and engineers, and we were transitioning the leadership role to me. The person I was taking over for turned to me and said, “So, what would you do in this situation?”
It was tough. I can’t recall exactly what we were dealing with, but I remember that my response was, “Well, I think we need to get some more information and we need to talk to these people.” Which is what we did.
I think that was the lesson very early on. You may have a hunch about what’s happening or what’s going on. But you really have to take the time to talk to people and find out. And oftentimes your hunch is wrong.
Q. Other lessons?
A. The thing that comes immediately to mind was the first time I was responsible for implementing the results of a strategic plan, and was faced with the inevitable resistance from people who didn’t like the new direction.
Q. What was the context?
A. It was this medical charity. It’s an aircraft that’s converted to house an operating room, and you fly into developing countries to do surgery to restore sight. The strategic shift was recognizing that we’re never going to end global blindness like this. We need to go deeper into the communities where we’re working.
That was very threatening to the people at the organization who existed just to move this plane from country to country. What I began to experience in the leadership role was a lot of resistance, even down to refusing to go to the place where everyone in the entire organization was gathering from around the world to figure out how we were going to implement this.
I just realized there and then that, well, they had their opportunity to get on board and we’ve done everything we can to help them get on board. The organization has to move on and it looks, unfortunately, as if it’s going to be without them.
Q. What was the lesson from that experience?
A. You’re not always going to bring people along. Maybe they just can’t get with the new direction. It’s important to give them a moment to sort of realize what’s coming, give them a moment to understand it, to get on board, and really work closely with them to encourage them to get on board. But if it appears they can’t do it, then the organization has to move on. The organization really has to come first.
Q. How would you describe your leadership style?
A. I’m somebody who likes to support staff, to have in place things that our staff needs to do a really fantastic job. One of the ways we do that here at City Harvest is to have really clear expectations. The staff have clear objectives that they have to meet throughout the year...
Q. Was there a job you had as a teenager that prepared you the best for leadership?
A. At 17, I worked as a horseback-riding instructor — taking groups of people, often with children, out onto beaches, onto highways. Looking back on it, that was a big deal, and it was a lot of responsibility. We had to pay careful attention to make sure everybody was just doing the right thing, that everybody knew what they had to be doing and that they were doing it the right way.
Q. How do you hire? What questions do you ask people?
A. I’m looking for people who can express concisely what it is that appeals to them about the job they’re interviewing for. That’s always quite an interesting opening question, and I’m always surprised at the number of people who can still be answering it 15 minutes later.
I’m looking for people who are passionate about whatever job it is that they’re applying for here at City Harvest, and that they’re passionate about our mission: to help feed hungry New Yorkers.
Q. What’s it like to work with you day to day? Do you do a lot of all-hands meetings?
A. I’m more low-key. I do walk around. I’m introverted by nature, so I’m not somebody who’s holding sort of big rah-rah meetings. I love the idea of having a big bell outside my office that we can ring when we get a big donation, but it’s just not me. But I do spend time talking with people.
Q. A lot of managers are introverted, yet they’re expected to be extroverted in leadership roles. What’s your advice for them?
A. Find what fits for you. My predecessor here ran fantastic all-staff meetings every month that were just jaw-droppingly good. She was just so magnetic. I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t a mantle I should try to shoulder.
What works for me are these small group things, and we’ll come together as an organization maybe quarterly, usually around something significant like the beginning or the end of harvest season, which is the time when we raise most money and most food. Then I’ll spend time with people informally. But that big rah-rah meeting, I just can’t pull that off. I’d love to think I can, but I can’t.
Q. What’s your best advice to people who are becoming managers for the first time?
A. It’s important that you communicate clearly with people who are going to be reporting to you, that you be as open as possible about who you are, what they should know about you, what they should understand about you, and how you like to operate.
I remember learning that very early on in my own career — having to sit and think about what I needed to let people know about me. I even said to people that I’ve been told that I look angry a lot of the time, and I’m usually not. It’s just my face, so just don’t be put off by that.
Again, just be very clear about what you expect of the people who are going to be reporting to you. Meet with them regularly. Help keep them on track. Understand what it is they need to succeed. That’s it.
Q. What is your best career advice to somebody who’s just getting out of college?
A. Take a gap year. As someone who’s traveled the world extensively and who has nephews and nieces growing up in Europe where the gap year is very common, I just think it’s invaluable to get out there and experience the world and experience other cultures, because you’ve got a lifetime of work ahead of you. I just think to draw on that year of spending time outside of your immediate world is a good thing to do."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/business/11corner.html
"Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody’s boss?
A. I was working for a big international charity. I was in Romania and was leading a team of international surgeons and nurses and engineers, and we were transitioning the leadership role to me. The person I was taking over for turned to me and said, “So, what would you do in this situation?”
It was tough. I can’t recall exactly what we were dealing with, but I remember that my response was, “Well, I think we need to get some more information and we need to talk to these people.” Which is what we did.
I think that was the lesson very early on. You may have a hunch about what’s happening or what’s going on. But you really have to take the time to talk to people and find out. And oftentimes your hunch is wrong.
Q. Other lessons?
A. The thing that comes immediately to mind was the first time I was responsible for implementing the results of a strategic plan, and was faced with the inevitable resistance from people who didn’t like the new direction.
Q. What was the context?
A. It was this medical charity. It’s an aircraft that’s converted to house an operating room, and you fly into developing countries to do surgery to restore sight. The strategic shift was recognizing that we’re never going to end global blindness like this. We need to go deeper into the communities where we’re working.
That was very threatening to the people at the organization who existed just to move this plane from country to country. What I began to experience in the leadership role was a lot of resistance, even down to refusing to go to the place where everyone in the entire organization was gathering from around the world to figure out how we were going to implement this.
I just realized there and then that, well, they had their opportunity to get on board and we’ve done everything we can to help them get on board. The organization has to move on and it looks, unfortunately, as if it’s going to be without them.
Q. What was the lesson from that experience?
A. You’re not always going to bring people along. Maybe they just can’t get with the new direction. It’s important to give them a moment to sort of realize what’s coming, give them a moment to understand it, to get on board, and really work closely with them to encourage them to get on board. But if it appears they can’t do it, then the organization has to move on. The organization really has to come first.
Q. How would you describe your leadership style?
A. I’m somebody who likes to support staff, to have in place things that our staff needs to do a really fantastic job. One of the ways we do that here at City Harvest is to have really clear expectations. The staff have clear objectives that they have to meet throughout the year...
Q. Was there a job you had as a teenager that prepared you the best for leadership?
A. At 17, I worked as a horseback-riding instructor — taking groups of people, often with children, out onto beaches, onto highways. Looking back on it, that was a big deal, and it was a lot of responsibility. We had to pay careful attention to make sure everybody was just doing the right thing, that everybody knew what they had to be doing and that they were doing it the right way.
Q. How do you hire? What questions do you ask people?
A. I’m looking for people who can express concisely what it is that appeals to them about the job they’re interviewing for. That’s always quite an interesting opening question, and I’m always surprised at the number of people who can still be answering it 15 minutes later.
I’m looking for people who are passionate about whatever job it is that they’re applying for here at City Harvest, and that they’re passionate about our mission: to help feed hungry New Yorkers.
Q. What’s it like to work with you day to day? Do you do a lot of all-hands meetings?
A. I’m more low-key. I do walk around. I’m introverted by nature, so I’m not somebody who’s holding sort of big rah-rah meetings. I love the idea of having a big bell outside my office that we can ring when we get a big donation, but it’s just not me. But I do spend time talking with people.
Q. A lot of managers are introverted, yet they’re expected to be extroverted in leadership roles. What’s your advice for them?
A. Find what fits for you. My predecessor here ran fantastic all-staff meetings every month that were just jaw-droppingly good. She was just so magnetic. I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t a mantle I should try to shoulder.
What works for me are these small group things, and we’ll come together as an organization maybe quarterly, usually around something significant like the beginning or the end of harvest season, which is the time when we raise most money and most food. Then I’ll spend time with people informally. But that big rah-rah meeting, I just can’t pull that off. I’d love to think I can, but I can’t.
Q. What’s your best advice to people who are becoming managers for the first time?
A. It’s important that you communicate clearly with people who are going to be reporting to you, that you be as open as possible about who you are, what they should know about you, what they should understand about you, and how you like to operate.
I remember learning that very early on in my own career — having to sit and think about what I needed to let people know about me. I even said to people that I’ve been told that I look angry a lot of the time, and I’m usually not. It’s just my face, so just don’t be put off by that.
Again, just be very clear about what you expect of the people who are going to be reporting to you. Meet with them regularly. Help keep them on track. Understand what it is they need to succeed. That’s it.
Q. What is your best career advice to somebody who’s just getting out of college?
A. Take a gap year. As someone who’s traveled the world extensively and who has nephews and nieces growing up in Europe where the gap year is very common, I just think it’s invaluable to get out there and experience the world and experience other cultures, because you’ve got a lifetime of work ahead of you. I just think to draw on that year of spending time outside of your immediate world is a good thing to do."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/business/11corner.html
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Andrew Cosslett, chief executive of InterContinental Hotels Group; New York Times, 4/4/10
Adam Bryant, New York Times; Corner Office: Interview with Andrew Cosslett, chief executive of InterContinental Hotels Group:
"Q. How do you hire?
A. If I’m recruiting people for very senior positions, I will delve quite extensively into what makes them tick. I will look into how many times in their life they’ve been seriously tested emotionally, physically, where they’ve had to stand on their own feet and deal with something that they couldn’t be prepared for. That could be in the business context. It could be in the family context, social context.
And the ones who are the best, I’ve found, are the people who have had to confront something very difficult, and they’re the people you can rely on when the going gets really tough because they’ve been there, and they know what they can do...
Q. How do you test yourself?
A. I just have lunches with general managers of hotels. And because they know me and I’m trusted, they know they can speak very straight. The culture we’ve built in the business is one of great trust and openness and candor. And they know that they’ll only get rewarded for being open. The only people who suffer in I.H.G. are ones who don’t come up and say what they think and what’s on their mind.
In business, the big prizes are found when you can ask a question that challenges the corporate orthodoxy that exists in every business. In every business I’ve worked in, there’s been a lot of cost and value locked up in things that are deemed to be the way we do things around here, or they’re deemed to be critical to — in the hotel world — a guest experience. So you have to get talking to people and ask questions. I just keep asking people, “Why do you do that?”...
Q. What’s your best career advice to somebody who has just graduated from college?
A. Leave home. Go as far away as possible from what you know. I think you’ve got to be tested, and you’ve got to test yourself. So my best career advice would be life advice. Go and find out who you are and what you can deal with and put yourself in some positions that will be distinctly uncomfortable. Forcing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great learning in life.
The second would be: keep asking questions. There’s a lot of perceived wisdom in most industries that haven’t hasn’t been challenged for years. The trick in business is not to care too much. Because if you care too much, you won’t ask questions and you won’t challenge because you’ll care too much about your position and what someone’s thinking about you.
I was always relatively cavalier in my early career because I always thought if I don’t make it in business, I’ll go and do something else anyway. I always have given 100 percent to everything I’ve done, but I’ve always had a slightly maverick side that actually stood me in great stead, because it enabled me to ask those difficult questions and be the burr under the saddle.
The third one is: have a sense of humor. It’s a lot easier to get through most things if you’ve got a smile on your face. It doesn’t have to be a chore. So just lighten up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/business/04corner.html
"Q. How do you hire?
A. If I’m recruiting people for very senior positions, I will delve quite extensively into what makes them tick. I will look into how many times in their life they’ve been seriously tested emotionally, physically, where they’ve had to stand on their own feet and deal with something that they couldn’t be prepared for. That could be in the business context. It could be in the family context, social context.
And the ones who are the best, I’ve found, are the people who have had to confront something very difficult, and they’re the people you can rely on when the going gets really tough because they’ve been there, and they know what they can do...
Q. How do you test yourself?
A. I just have lunches with general managers of hotels. And because they know me and I’m trusted, they know they can speak very straight. The culture we’ve built in the business is one of great trust and openness and candor. And they know that they’ll only get rewarded for being open. The only people who suffer in I.H.G. are ones who don’t come up and say what they think and what’s on their mind.
In business, the big prizes are found when you can ask a question that challenges the corporate orthodoxy that exists in every business. In every business I’ve worked in, there’s been a lot of cost and value locked up in things that are deemed to be the way we do things around here, or they’re deemed to be critical to — in the hotel world — a guest experience. So you have to get talking to people and ask questions. I just keep asking people, “Why do you do that?”...
Q. What’s your best career advice to somebody who has just graduated from college?
A. Leave home. Go as far away as possible from what you know. I think you’ve got to be tested, and you’ve got to test yourself. So my best career advice would be life advice. Go and find out who you are and what you can deal with and put yourself in some positions that will be distinctly uncomfortable. Forcing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great learning in life.
The second would be: keep asking questions. There’s a lot of perceived wisdom in most industries that haven’t hasn’t been challenged for years. The trick in business is not to care too much. Because if you care too much, you won’t ask questions and you won’t challenge because you’ll care too much about your position and what someone’s thinking about you.
I was always relatively cavalier in my early career because I always thought if I don’t make it in business, I’ll go and do something else anyway. I always have given 100 percent to everything I’ve done, but I’ve always had a slightly maverick side that actually stood me in great stead, because it enabled me to ask those difficult questions and be the burr under the saddle.
The third one is: have a sense of humor. It’s a lot easier to get through most things if you’ve got a smile on your face. It doesn’t have to be a chore. So just lighten up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/business/04corner.html
A civil senator; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/4/10
Jeffrey Lewis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; A civil senator:
"On April 4, 1991, Pennsylvania lost a favorite son, voters lost a U.S. senator who put their interests first before the politics of the day, and the nation lost a moderate Republican who understood, valued and cared about rebuilding this nation's human and physical infrastructure. John Heinz understood that bipartisanship, civility and integrity were the roots of legislative success and political longevity.
With the passage of the national health care legislation, the bitterness, unpleasantness and animosity displayed by members of Congress in some ways is reminiscent of the Congressional battle over passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
In an April 1978 speech to the American Association of University Women, Sen. Heinz shared his concerns over why the ERA was not moving forward. His comments reflect the mindset of a passionate, caring and thinking Republican legislator who clearly understood the pulse of the American people and today his words still echo the issues Congress cannot overcome:
"The stubborn battle over the ERA reflects a growing malaise in American society, and one that concerns me greatly. If I am right, it should be a grave concern to you and all Americans. We are losing our tolerance of diversity, our understanding of different circumstances and points of view, and good will toward those who reflect those differences. I think the reason for this failure of spirit, is a lack of confidence; a lack of confidence in our leaders, our institutions and even ourselves. We Americans have always been renowned for our ability to meet and conquer tough problems..."
What John Heinz discussed then is unfortunately still true today. He was elected in an era when civility was woven into the fabric of the legislative process. Name calling, if it did occur, was left to the backrooms, not a public forum and certainly not the floor of the U.S. Congress. No one, Republican or Democrat, would have tolerated the callous disregard for the presidency of the United States.
During Sen. Heinz's era, respect for the legislative process was paramount. These legislative colleagues certainly disagreed on many issues before them, but neither their race nor their religion, ever entered the public debate. It was always about the substance, the strategy and your ability as a legislator to convince your colleagues.
In a speech to the graduates of Wilkes College in May 1979, Sen. Heinz shared his definition of leadership:
"Real leadership, whether it is political, economic or moral, involves persuading people to do something now that will bear fruit in the future. But too many people live only in the short-term. Instead of clearly seeing what is demanded of us in this changing world ... of learning from the past, instead of charting a new course for tomorrow, too many Americans are allowing themselves to be manipulated into quarreling with the past and denying the realities of the future.... Americans risk losing the future and missing the great opportunities that lie before us as a nation."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10094/1047478-109.stm
"On April 4, 1991, Pennsylvania lost a favorite son, voters lost a U.S. senator who put their interests first before the politics of the day, and the nation lost a moderate Republican who understood, valued and cared about rebuilding this nation's human and physical infrastructure. John Heinz understood that bipartisanship, civility and integrity were the roots of legislative success and political longevity.
With the passage of the national health care legislation, the bitterness, unpleasantness and animosity displayed by members of Congress in some ways is reminiscent of the Congressional battle over passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
In an April 1978 speech to the American Association of University Women, Sen. Heinz shared his concerns over why the ERA was not moving forward. His comments reflect the mindset of a passionate, caring and thinking Republican legislator who clearly understood the pulse of the American people and today his words still echo the issues Congress cannot overcome:
"The stubborn battle over the ERA reflects a growing malaise in American society, and one that concerns me greatly. If I am right, it should be a grave concern to you and all Americans. We are losing our tolerance of diversity, our understanding of different circumstances and points of view, and good will toward those who reflect those differences. I think the reason for this failure of spirit, is a lack of confidence; a lack of confidence in our leaders, our institutions and even ourselves. We Americans have always been renowned for our ability to meet and conquer tough problems..."
What John Heinz discussed then is unfortunately still true today. He was elected in an era when civility was woven into the fabric of the legislative process. Name calling, if it did occur, was left to the backrooms, not a public forum and certainly not the floor of the U.S. Congress. No one, Republican or Democrat, would have tolerated the callous disregard for the presidency of the United States.
During Sen. Heinz's era, respect for the legislative process was paramount. These legislative colleagues certainly disagreed on many issues before them, but neither their race nor their religion, ever entered the public debate. It was always about the substance, the strategy and your ability as a legislator to convince your colleagues.
In a speech to the graduates of Wilkes College in May 1979, Sen. Heinz shared his definition of leadership:
"Real leadership, whether it is political, economic or moral, involves persuading people to do something now that will bear fruit in the future. But too many people live only in the short-term. Instead of clearly seeing what is demanded of us in this changing world ... of learning from the past, instead of charting a new course for tomorrow, too many Americans are allowing themselves to be manipulated into quarreling with the past and denying the realities of the future.... Americans risk losing the future and missing the great opportunities that lie before us as a nation."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10094/1047478-109.stm
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Tips for Making Small Talk With Bigwigs; Harvard Business Review, 3/22/10
John Baldoni, Harvard Business Review; Tips for Making Small Talk With Bigwigs:
"One of the things that can befuddle managers, even experienced ones, is how to make small talk with the big boss.
When you are talking about someone who has authority over you, be it your boss's boss or the CEO, the word "small" becomes relative. Anything involving a boss can have a big impact. Conversation with a superior can be fraught with peril but it can also be a great opportunity. Peril comes from the fear of saying the wrong thing; opportunity arises because you can reveal a new dimension of yourself to other.
You can increase the odds of success if you prepare. Yes, actually plan out what you will say to the senior manager. This works well if you know that the CEO is coming to visit your department or if you have the opportunity chat with him at an all-employee gathering. So here's what you can do.
Do your homework. Learn the issues the senior team is focused on. Ideally everyone in the company should know the strategic priorities. Bone up on these so you know them, too. Think in advance what you will say to a senior person if you meet her in person. Work out a key message about your projects, your career and yourself. This is good practice whether you meet a senior person or not. Finally, if it's a more social meeting, you might try to learn of a boss's personal interests — hobbies, sports he or she likes, or their volunteer activities.
Be yourself. When you are introduced to the senior leader, make eye contact as you shake hands. Smile and act relaxed. Feel free to ask questions about what's going on in the company. If appropriate, talk about what you are working on. This is your opportunity to use your messages. Strive to be brief and to the point.
Read the situation. Keep speaking if the boss is interested; if not, thank the person for his time and move on, even when you didn't get the opportunity to use your key messages. In some ways your sense of decorum is more important than what you say. Rattling on when no one is interested marks you as lacking in self-awareness; knowing when to end the conversation says much about your ability to read the situation.
Such preparation is good when you know in advance you may meet a senior executive or a member of the board, but what about accidental encounters, say at the airport, a social gathering, or even a sporting event? The good news is that what works for prepared encounters works for impromptu ones. Just assume that someday soon you will run into a senior person and prepare for it as you would for a more predictable encounter. And that preparation will pay off in other contexts too, such as during team meetings or conversations with clients.
That's why you should practice your key messages from time to time, say on your drive to work. You can even practice by recording them on your mobile phone, just to see how you sound. The exercise will give you confidence that you have what it takes to have a clear and coherent conversation with people in power.
One of my favorite stories about Winston Churchill, taken from Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, is an encounter he had with a young New Zealand airman during the Second World War. The airman had crawled out of the cockpit of a bomber with an engine on fire and extinguished the flames. When Churchill met the young man he noted the lad's nervousness. "You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," Churchill said. When the man said he was, Churchill replied, "Then you can imagine how awkward and humble I feel in yours."
Never forget that senior leaders are people first; executives second. Never forget your own personal abilities. And never forget that making small talk can have a big impact on your career."
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/tips_for_making_small_talk_wit.html
"One of the things that can befuddle managers, even experienced ones, is how to make small talk with the big boss.
When you are talking about someone who has authority over you, be it your boss's boss or the CEO, the word "small" becomes relative. Anything involving a boss can have a big impact. Conversation with a superior can be fraught with peril but it can also be a great opportunity. Peril comes from the fear of saying the wrong thing; opportunity arises because you can reveal a new dimension of yourself to other.
You can increase the odds of success if you prepare. Yes, actually plan out what you will say to the senior manager. This works well if you know that the CEO is coming to visit your department or if you have the opportunity chat with him at an all-employee gathering. So here's what you can do.
Do your homework. Learn the issues the senior team is focused on. Ideally everyone in the company should know the strategic priorities. Bone up on these so you know them, too. Think in advance what you will say to a senior person if you meet her in person. Work out a key message about your projects, your career and yourself. This is good practice whether you meet a senior person or not. Finally, if it's a more social meeting, you might try to learn of a boss's personal interests — hobbies, sports he or she likes, or their volunteer activities.
Be yourself. When you are introduced to the senior leader, make eye contact as you shake hands. Smile and act relaxed. Feel free to ask questions about what's going on in the company. If appropriate, talk about what you are working on. This is your opportunity to use your messages. Strive to be brief and to the point.
Read the situation. Keep speaking if the boss is interested; if not, thank the person for his time and move on, even when you didn't get the opportunity to use your key messages. In some ways your sense of decorum is more important than what you say. Rattling on when no one is interested marks you as lacking in self-awareness; knowing when to end the conversation says much about your ability to read the situation.
Such preparation is good when you know in advance you may meet a senior executive or a member of the board, but what about accidental encounters, say at the airport, a social gathering, or even a sporting event? The good news is that what works for prepared encounters works for impromptu ones. Just assume that someday soon you will run into a senior person and prepare for it as you would for a more predictable encounter. And that preparation will pay off in other contexts too, such as during team meetings or conversations with clients.
That's why you should practice your key messages from time to time, say on your drive to work. You can even practice by recording them on your mobile phone, just to see how you sound. The exercise will give you confidence that you have what it takes to have a clear and coherent conversation with people in power.
One of my favorite stories about Winston Churchill, taken from Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, is an encounter he had with a young New Zealand airman during the Second World War. The airman had crawled out of the cockpit of a bomber with an engine on fire and extinguished the flames. When Churchill met the young man he noted the lad's nervousness. "You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," Churchill said. When the man said he was, Churchill replied, "Then you can imagine how awkward and humble I feel in yours."
Never forget that senior leaders are people first; executives second. Never forget your own personal abilities. And never forget that making small talk can have a big impact on your career."
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/tips_for_making_small_talk_wit.html
Corner Office, Interview with Debra L. Lee, chairwoman and chief executive of BET Networks; New York Times, 3/28/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Debra L. Lee, chairwoman and chief executive of BET Networks: Sometimes, You Have to Say ‘My,’ Not ‘Our’:
"Q. What were some key leadership lessons for you?
A. One occurred when I was appointed chief operating officer at BET. Before that, I was general counsel, and over time I had taken on more and more business projects.
When I was promoted to the new role it was assumed that I was picked as the successor to Bob Johnson, our founder. It was a good training ground.
But when Bob left and I became C.E.O., I had to learn different skills, and I had to become the leader of the company. I had to decide what my vision was, what I’m passionate about, and how I motivate my executive team to help me carry out my vision and my goals. For me, it was tough for a while to even say “my.”
Q. Why?
A. I’m a consensus builder and I like having my executives on the same page and I like motivating them in that way — let’s talk about it, let’s all agree on it.
But I found very quickly that as C.E.O. I couldn’t do that anymore. I really had to be the individual who took charge and was clear about what my vision was, was clear about what my passions were, so that I could believe in what we were doing. Then I could pass that on to the executives, but still be open to their needs and desires and what they wanted to accomplish. But as the leader of the company, it had to be about where I wanted to take this company, and it took me a few years to get used to that...
Q. Looking back, it sounds like it was a big leap to go from general counsel to C.O.O.
A. As general counsel, you’re taught research, research, find out every case, find out every opinion, think about it. It’s almost like you’re a judge.
So when I went from being general counsel to C.O.O., that’s the way I first approached it. I’d go into senior staff meetings and I’d listen to advertising and sales folks, I’d listen to the programmers, I’d listen to everyone. And then my job was to go away, think about it and make a decision. Well, that doesn’t work. By that time, they’re all going off in five different directions.
I had to learn to make decisions quicker on the spot and follow my gut. You’re not going to have all the information. You’re not going to be able to run the numbers and come up with the perfect answers.
Q. You went from being part of a team of executives to managing that team.
A. Yes, these are your friends, and all of a sudden they’re reporting to you. Early on, I was not decisive enough and I was not clear in my instructions. People saw that as a sign of weakness and an ability to keep doing what they wanted to do — “You didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that; this is the way I’ve always done it.”
So I found over time I had to be more precise and give more directions. It was no longer, “Hey, we’re friends and we’re all in this together.” It’s, “I’m the one making the decisions about your salary and your promotion and your future and whether you’re going to a make it here.” And that’s a much different relationship than when you’re someone’s peer.
There was also an expectation that I didn’t know enough about their departments in order to manage them. They knew I had a learning curve, so they could withhold that information and still be able to do what they wanted to do until I got up to speed and understood where I needed to change things. So there’s a little gamesmanship that went on for a while — “She doesn’t know anything about this.”
Q. So how did you deal with that?
A. I got more and more involved in what they did. That was painful at first for me and for them, and I studied the industry as a whole. I became friendly with other people in the industry, and found out how they did things. I’m on several corporate boards, so that was a great learning experience for me. I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about being on other boards. You can see how things are done differently, and you can bring management techniques and other kinds of methods to your company.
I didn’t get an M.B.A. I got a master’s in public policy, which taught a little bit of management. But I think it’s more about experience. You have to really see how companies are run.
Theories help, but I think it’s really just seeing it in action — whether it’s your own company or whether it’s observing someone else’s company. It’s kind of an on-the-job learning experience. I don’t think you can get an M.B.A. and then be perfectly positioned to run a company. I think you have to grow up in that company. I think you have to learn all aspects of it.
You have to understand that management is a skill. It took me a while to understand that that’s really what I do from day to day, that management is really my job. You say you’re a C.E.O., but what do you do?
When I was general counsel, I could say I keep the company out of legal trouble. I knew exactly what my job was, but as C.O.O. and C.E.O., you’re really a manager and a leader, and those are things that you have to learn over time. You have to learn how you do it and how it works for you and what kind of people relate well to how you do it.
I talk about this a lot, and I talk to women’s groups about it. I think men and women manage differently, and I think women have to learn to be comfortable that their management style may be different from a man’s, and that’s O.K."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/business/28corners.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse
"Q. What were some key leadership lessons for you?
A. One occurred when I was appointed chief operating officer at BET. Before that, I was general counsel, and over time I had taken on more and more business projects.
When I was promoted to the new role it was assumed that I was picked as the successor to Bob Johnson, our founder. It was a good training ground.
But when Bob left and I became C.E.O., I had to learn different skills, and I had to become the leader of the company. I had to decide what my vision was, what I’m passionate about, and how I motivate my executive team to help me carry out my vision and my goals. For me, it was tough for a while to even say “my.”
Q. Why?
A. I’m a consensus builder and I like having my executives on the same page and I like motivating them in that way — let’s talk about it, let’s all agree on it.
But I found very quickly that as C.E.O. I couldn’t do that anymore. I really had to be the individual who took charge and was clear about what my vision was, was clear about what my passions were, so that I could believe in what we were doing. Then I could pass that on to the executives, but still be open to their needs and desires and what they wanted to accomplish. But as the leader of the company, it had to be about where I wanted to take this company, and it took me a few years to get used to that...
Q. Looking back, it sounds like it was a big leap to go from general counsel to C.O.O.
A. As general counsel, you’re taught research, research, find out every case, find out every opinion, think about it. It’s almost like you’re a judge.
So when I went from being general counsel to C.O.O., that’s the way I first approached it. I’d go into senior staff meetings and I’d listen to advertising and sales folks, I’d listen to the programmers, I’d listen to everyone. And then my job was to go away, think about it and make a decision. Well, that doesn’t work. By that time, they’re all going off in five different directions.
I had to learn to make decisions quicker on the spot and follow my gut. You’re not going to have all the information. You’re not going to be able to run the numbers and come up with the perfect answers.
Q. You went from being part of a team of executives to managing that team.
A. Yes, these are your friends, and all of a sudden they’re reporting to you. Early on, I was not decisive enough and I was not clear in my instructions. People saw that as a sign of weakness and an ability to keep doing what they wanted to do — “You didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that; this is the way I’ve always done it.”
So I found over time I had to be more precise and give more directions. It was no longer, “Hey, we’re friends and we’re all in this together.” It’s, “I’m the one making the decisions about your salary and your promotion and your future and whether you’re going to a make it here.” And that’s a much different relationship than when you’re someone’s peer.
There was also an expectation that I didn’t know enough about their departments in order to manage them. They knew I had a learning curve, so they could withhold that information and still be able to do what they wanted to do until I got up to speed and understood where I needed to change things. So there’s a little gamesmanship that went on for a while — “She doesn’t know anything about this.”
Q. So how did you deal with that?
A. I got more and more involved in what they did. That was painful at first for me and for them, and I studied the industry as a whole. I became friendly with other people in the industry, and found out how they did things. I’m on several corporate boards, so that was a great learning experience for me. I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about being on other boards. You can see how things are done differently, and you can bring management techniques and other kinds of methods to your company.
I didn’t get an M.B.A. I got a master’s in public policy, which taught a little bit of management. But I think it’s more about experience. You have to really see how companies are run.
Theories help, but I think it’s really just seeing it in action — whether it’s your own company or whether it’s observing someone else’s company. It’s kind of an on-the-job learning experience. I don’t think you can get an M.B.A. and then be perfectly positioned to run a company. I think you have to grow up in that company. I think you have to learn all aspects of it.
You have to understand that management is a skill. It took me a while to understand that that’s really what I do from day to day, that management is really my job. You say you’re a C.E.O., but what do you do?
When I was general counsel, I could say I keep the company out of legal trouble. I knew exactly what my job was, but as C.O.O. and C.E.O., you’re really a manager and a leader, and those are things that you have to learn over time. You have to learn how you do it and how it works for you and what kind of people relate well to how you do it.
I talk about this a lot, and I talk to women’s groups about it. I think men and women manage differently, and I think women have to learn to be comfortable that their management style may be different from a man’s, and that’s O.K."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/business/28corners.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse
A Library That Most Can Only Dream Of; New York Times, 3/28/10
Audrey Kaminer, New York Times; A Library That Most Can Only Dream Of:
"You, over there, mouthing off about the death of print. Keep it down; this is a library. Not just any library: This is Battery Park City’s public library branch, the city’s newest, greenest one yet, and it’s quite a sight to behold.
To the left as you enter is an ecologically correct circulation desk made — though you’d never know it — from recycled cardboard, and topped with a bouquet of fresh tulips. Should you find a crowd, try the sleek self-service stations a couple of steps away. Some of the library’s 36 Internet-connected computers lie just around the bend. Overhead, a jigsaw puzzle of scalene triangles zigs and zags along the ceiling.
Follow it back past the entrance to the children’s zone, a playful arrangement of orange beanbag chairs, orange screen savers and an orange mat that curves up under the terrazzo staircase (made of recycled glass chips, of course) to create a lounging nook that feels like the inside of a conch shell.
Instead of the comforting mustiness of older libraries, the whole space is filled with oxygen and light, streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and bouncing off the blond wood floors (made from lumber salvaged during the manufacturing of window frames, thank you). “They wanted as much as possible for this branch to be a showcase for how pleasant and how interesting a branch can be,” said Tim Furzer, who oversaw the project for the firm 1100 Architect. It worked.
Atop those sculptural stairs, in an area carpeted with a material made from repurposed truck tires, visitors can peruse magazines and newspapers, use the restroom (at my neighborhood library, it’s off limits to adults) or just relax as the sound of young laughter floats up from below. Gaze out at the landscaped terrace and, beyond, the Hudson River.
The existence of this beautiful 10,000-square-foot library, which opened on March 18, prompts so many questions: How could such state-of-the-art technologies be marshaled in service of the old-fashioned act of book reading? How could such fancy design be affordable in an era of wrenching budget crises? And in choosing where to build the coolest, greenest new branch around, why pick Battery Park City, a neighborhood already so blessed with amenities?
Conversations about this branch date back at least a decade, when local residents started contacting elected officials and library representatives, noting how the area’s population had grown. Good community organizing, a well-connected population and responsive officials were, however, only part of the equation.
The library’s journey from wish to reality involved an additional element — the mere mention of which makes a certain kind of conspiracy theorist tingle, like a villain emerging from a cloud of white smoke and twirling his moustache: Goldman Sachs.
That’s right, Goldman Sachs, the investment bank variously regarded as the true genius of the financial world and “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,” as Matt Taibbi wrote last year in Rolling Stone. When Goldman announced its move to Battery Park City in 1995, it donated $1 million to a community center and $3.5 million to the library branch. Welcome to the neighborhood.
The location, at 175 North End Avenue, was donated by the Battery Park City Authority. City and state kicked in the rest of what eventually grew to a $6.7 million construction budget.
“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Billy Parrott, the library manager. “It’s just perfect. Everything’s easy to get to, easy to use.” Within days of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, children — such a presence in Battery Park City that they make Park Slope, Brooklyn, look like a retirement village — have already made the place their own."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28critic.html?scp=1&sq=battery%20park%20library&st=cse
"You, over there, mouthing off about the death of print. Keep it down; this is a library. Not just any library: This is Battery Park City’s public library branch, the city’s newest, greenest one yet, and it’s quite a sight to behold.
To the left as you enter is an ecologically correct circulation desk made — though you’d never know it — from recycled cardboard, and topped with a bouquet of fresh tulips. Should you find a crowd, try the sleek self-service stations a couple of steps away. Some of the library’s 36 Internet-connected computers lie just around the bend. Overhead, a jigsaw puzzle of scalene triangles zigs and zags along the ceiling.
Follow it back past the entrance to the children’s zone, a playful arrangement of orange beanbag chairs, orange screen savers and an orange mat that curves up under the terrazzo staircase (made of recycled glass chips, of course) to create a lounging nook that feels like the inside of a conch shell.
Instead of the comforting mustiness of older libraries, the whole space is filled with oxygen and light, streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and bouncing off the blond wood floors (made from lumber salvaged during the manufacturing of window frames, thank you). “They wanted as much as possible for this branch to be a showcase for how pleasant and how interesting a branch can be,” said Tim Furzer, who oversaw the project for the firm 1100 Architect. It worked.
Atop those sculptural stairs, in an area carpeted with a material made from repurposed truck tires, visitors can peruse magazines and newspapers, use the restroom (at my neighborhood library, it’s off limits to adults) or just relax as the sound of young laughter floats up from below. Gaze out at the landscaped terrace and, beyond, the Hudson River.
The existence of this beautiful 10,000-square-foot library, which opened on March 18, prompts so many questions: How could such state-of-the-art technologies be marshaled in service of the old-fashioned act of book reading? How could such fancy design be affordable in an era of wrenching budget crises? And in choosing where to build the coolest, greenest new branch around, why pick Battery Park City, a neighborhood already so blessed with amenities?
Conversations about this branch date back at least a decade, when local residents started contacting elected officials and library representatives, noting how the area’s population had grown. Good community organizing, a well-connected population and responsive officials were, however, only part of the equation.
The library’s journey from wish to reality involved an additional element — the mere mention of which makes a certain kind of conspiracy theorist tingle, like a villain emerging from a cloud of white smoke and twirling his moustache: Goldman Sachs.
That’s right, Goldman Sachs, the investment bank variously regarded as the true genius of the financial world and “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,” as Matt Taibbi wrote last year in Rolling Stone. When Goldman announced its move to Battery Park City in 1995, it donated $1 million to a community center and $3.5 million to the library branch. Welcome to the neighborhood.
The location, at 175 North End Avenue, was donated by the Battery Park City Authority. City and state kicked in the rest of what eventually grew to a $6.7 million construction budget.
“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Billy Parrott, the library manager. “It’s just perfect. Everything’s easy to get to, easy to use.” Within days of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, children — such a presence in Battery Park City that they make Park Slope, Brooklyn, look like a retirement village — have already made the place their own."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28critic.html?scp=1&sq=battery%20park%20library&st=cse
Friday, March 26, 2010
Male Professors Face Their Own Challenges in Balancing Work and Home; Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/21/10
Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education; Male Professors Face Their Own Challenges in Balancing Work and Home:
"A fair amount has been written about efforts by women on college faculties to balance the demands of academe and home, but little scholarly attention has been paid to how male faculty members deal with such concerns.
Maike Ingrid Philipsen, a professor of education at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the 2008 book Challenges of the Faculty Career for Women (Jossey-Bass), recently teamed up with Timothy P. Bostic, a research scientist at Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education, to try to close this gender gap. In doing the research for Helping Faculty Find Work-Life Balance: The Path Toward Life-Friendly Institutions, to be published by Jossey-Bass in the fall, they interviewed 41 male professors, who were at various stages of their careers. The professors came from a community college, a flagship university, a historically black college, a comprehensive public university, and a small, private university focused on the liberal arts.
Mr. Bostic and Ms. Philipsen shared what they had learned with The Chronicle in an e-mail interview:..."
http://chronicle.com/article/Male-Professors-Face-Their-Own/64763/
"A fair amount has been written about efforts by women on college faculties to balance the demands of academe and home, but little scholarly attention has been paid to how male faculty members deal with such concerns.
Maike Ingrid Philipsen, a professor of education at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the 2008 book Challenges of the Faculty Career for Women (Jossey-Bass), recently teamed up with Timothy P. Bostic, a research scientist at Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education, to try to close this gender gap. In doing the research for Helping Faculty Find Work-Life Balance: The Path Toward Life-Friendly Institutions, to be published by Jossey-Bass in the fall, they interviewed 41 male professors, who were at various stages of their careers. The professors came from a community college, a flagship university, a historically black college, a comprehensive public university, and a small, private university focused on the liberal arts.
Mr. Bostic and Ms. Philipsen shared what they had learned with The Chronicle in an e-mail interview:..."
http://chronicle.com/article/Male-Professors-Face-Their-Own/64763/
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Guy Kawasaki, a co-founder of Alltop, a news aggregation site; New York Times, 3/21/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Guy Kawasaki, a co-founder of Alltop, a news aggregation site, and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures: Just Give Him 5 Sentences, Not ‘War and Peace’:
"Q. So how did the transition into management go?
A. When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naïve belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker’s books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help them actualize.
My thinking was: I’m a natural leader, so I’m going to study what’s hard and mathematical like finance and operations research, not the touchy-feely stuff that would be easy.
When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people. The warm, fuzzy stuff is hard. The quantitative stuff is easy — you either don’t do much of this as a manager or you have people working for you to do it.
Maybe it was just my education, but much of education is backwards. You study all the hard stuff, and then you find out in the real world that you don’t use it. As long as you can use an HP 12 calculator or a spreadsheet, you have the finance knowledge that you need for most management positions. I should have taken organizational behavior and social psychology — and maybe abnormal psychology, come to think of it.
Q. So how did you learn to do it?
A. First, over time, you develop some knowledge and expertise in managing and leading — in many cases because you’re forced to.
Second, you learn to put in a cushion between you and the front line. You should hire people who are better at doing things than you are. So, in my case, I was not the warm-and-fuzzy manager, so I tried to hire people who reported to me who were warm-and-fuzzy types to provide a buffer. If you can’t do it, you should find somebody who can...
Q. So how do you create a sense of mission in a company?
A. The foundation is the desire to make meaning in the world — to make the world a better place. We believed in the Mac division that we were making the world a better place by making people more creative and productive. Google, at its core, probably believes it’s making the world a better place by democratizing information. So it starts from this core of how you make meaning, which translates into some kind of physical product or service that actually delivers...
Q. Other thoughts on hiring?
A. A major issue is with how interviews are conducted. There’s a body of research that says you should conduct first- and second-round interviews by phone, not in person.
This is because when you interview in person, many variables come into play that have nothing to do with competence. So is the person good-looking or not? Is the person dressed appropriately or not? Lots of factors can sidetrack you. There should also be a checklist of questions that you ask every candidate on the phone instead.
Another issue is that most people believe they are good interviewers, and that they are good judges of character. They’re wrong. That’s why you see clones of the boss in some companies: everybody is white, tall and from an East Coast private school."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/business/21corner.html?sq=kawasaki%20corner%20office&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1269194581-EdksMHmKIqAm9fh+DyIBuQ
"Q. So how did the transition into management go?
A. When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naïve belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker’s books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help them actualize.
My thinking was: I’m a natural leader, so I’m going to study what’s hard and mathematical like finance and operations research, not the touchy-feely stuff that would be easy.
When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people. The warm, fuzzy stuff is hard. The quantitative stuff is easy — you either don’t do much of this as a manager or you have people working for you to do it.
Maybe it was just my education, but much of education is backwards. You study all the hard stuff, and then you find out in the real world that you don’t use it. As long as you can use an HP 12 calculator or a spreadsheet, you have the finance knowledge that you need for most management positions. I should have taken organizational behavior and social psychology — and maybe abnormal psychology, come to think of it.
Q. So how did you learn to do it?
A. First, over time, you develop some knowledge and expertise in managing and leading — in many cases because you’re forced to.
Second, you learn to put in a cushion between you and the front line. You should hire people who are better at doing things than you are. So, in my case, I was not the warm-and-fuzzy manager, so I tried to hire people who reported to me who were warm-and-fuzzy types to provide a buffer. If you can’t do it, you should find somebody who can...
Q. So how do you create a sense of mission in a company?
A. The foundation is the desire to make meaning in the world — to make the world a better place. We believed in the Mac division that we were making the world a better place by making people more creative and productive. Google, at its core, probably believes it’s making the world a better place by democratizing information. So it starts from this core of how you make meaning, which translates into some kind of physical product or service that actually delivers...
Q. Other thoughts on hiring?
A. A major issue is with how interviews are conducted. There’s a body of research that says you should conduct first- and second-round interviews by phone, not in person.
This is because when you interview in person, many variables come into play that have nothing to do with competence. So is the person good-looking or not? Is the person dressed appropriately or not? Lots of factors can sidetrack you. There should also be a checklist of questions that you ask every candidate on the phone instead.
Another issue is that most people believe they are good interviewers, and that they are good judges of character. They’re wrong. That’s why you see clones of the boss in some companies: everybody is white, tall and from an East Coast private school."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/business/21corner.html?sq=kawasaki%20corner%20office&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1269194581-EdksMHmKIqAm9fh+DyIBuQ
Thursday, March 18, 2010
[Book Review] How Librarians Can Save The World; NPR, 3/5/10
NPR; [Book Review] How Librarians Can Save The World:
"Say the word "librarian," and most people conjure up a frumpy, bespectacled woman shushing people — Marion the Librarian. The image is outdated, Marilyn Johnson argues in her impassioned celebration of librarians and archivists, cleverly titled This Book Is Overdue. Johnson is a former magazine editor and the author of The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries — another wittily titled appreciation of another underappreciated art. She is no stranger to research — and just how helpful a good librarian can be in navigating the overwhelming, "madly multiplying beast of exploding information."
Time was you went to the library to borrow a book or research a term paper. Now, people visit libraries to use the Internet, search job openings, attend readings. They are as likely to borrow DVDs as books. Librarians today continue to organize and manage mountains of information — both its storage and the public's access to it. But they do so, increasingly, with degrees in "information science" (as opposed to library science), incorporating new technology and proving that there's "room in libraries for both books and bytes."
To profile "a profession in the midst of an occasionally mind-blowing transition," Johnson favors quirky stories about cyber-missionaries or tattooed librarians over the day-to-day operations of community libraries and issues of budget constraints. She finds that a group defined by discretion and helpfulness in person is often "clamorous" online, where hip librarians in the burgeoning "biblioblogosphere" blog under handles that include Info Babe, Miss Information and Swiss Army Library. They complain, among other things, about "signs we never thought we'd need to make," including rules prohibiting taking the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue into restrooms.
Johnson also gets pulled into the odd, virtual world of Second Life — too deeply, for our taste — where librarians create avatars and invent scores of virtual libraries, which she suggests isn't just an amusing diversion, but may be a sort of "research-and-development department for the profession."
A more stirring chapter tells of the Connecticut Four, librarians who courageously defended "our right to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures" by standing up to the FBI and the Patriot Act, with the help of the ACLU. Libraries, they tell her, are "where people can make up their minds about controversial issues. It has to be private."
If librarians are finders, archivists are keepers. Johnson addresses questions of what's worth saving — she seems to feel that everything is — and, as crucial, how to avoid "the looming nightmare of lost digital data." Do we really need librarians when we can just do a Google search ourselves? Oh yes, Johnson writes, citing multiple examples of librarians who "could wring things out of Google" that ordinary mortals can't begin to find. Her book offers a compelling case that even — or especially — in these tough times, librarians are "invaluable and indispensable" and "a terrible thing to waste." An overdue tribute, indeed."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124316231
"Say the word "librarian," and most people conjure up a frumpy, bespectacled woman shushing people — Marion the Librarian. The image is outdated, Marilyn Johnson argues in her impassioned celebration of librarians and archivists, cleverly titled This Book Is Overdue. Johnson is a former magazine editor and the author of The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries — another wittily titled appreciation of another underappreciated art. She is no stranger to research — and just how helpful a good librarian can be in navigating the overwhelming, "madly multiplying beast of exploding information."
Time was you went to the library to borrow a book or research a term paper. Now, people visit libraries to use the Internet, search job openings, attend readings. They are as likely to borrow DVDs as books. Librarians today continue to organize and manage mountains of information — both its storage and the public's access to it. But they do so, increasingly, with degrees in "information science" (as opposed to library science), incorporating new technology and proving that there's "room in libraries for both books and bytes."
To profile "a profession in the midst of an occasionally mind-blowing transition," Johnson favors quirky stories about cyber-missionaries or tattooed librarians over the day-to-day operations of community libraries and issues of budget constraints. She finds that a group defined by discretion and helpfulness in person is often "clamorous" online, where hip librarians in the burgeoning "biblioblogosphere" blog under handles that include Info Babe, Miss Information and Swiss Army Library. They complain, among other things, about "signs we never thought we'd need to make," including rules prohibiting taking the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue into restrooms.
Johnson also gets pulled into the odd, virtual world of Second Life — too deeply, for our taste — where librarians create avatars and invent scores of virtual libraries, which she suggests isn't just an amusing diversion, but may be a sort of "research-and-development department for the profession."
A more stirring chapter tells of the Connecticut Four, librarians who courageously defended "our right to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures" by standing up to the FBI and the Patriot Act, with the help of the ACLU. Libraries, they tell her, are "where people can make up their minds about controversial issues. It has to be private."
If librarians are finders, archivists are keepers. Johnson addresses questions of what's worth saving — she seems to feel that everything is — and, as crucial, how to avoid "the looming nightmare of lost digital data." Do we really need librarians when we can just do a Google search ourselves? Oh yes, Johnson writes, citing multiple examples of librarians who "could wring things out of Google" that ordinary mortals can't begin to find. Her book offers a compelling case that even — or especially — in these tough times, librarians are "invaluable and indispensable" and "a terrible thing to waste." An overdue tribute, indeed."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124316231
Last-minute cut in current year's budget; branches will be named tomorrow; Library Journal, 3/17/10
Lynn Blumenstein, Library Journal; Last-minute cut in current year's budget; branches will be named tomorrow:
"Faced with cutting $2 million from its budget within the last three months of the current fiscal year, the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC), NC, will lay off at least 140 employees, resulting in the closure of at least 12 out of 24 library locations, pending final library board approval.
While many libraries announce closures as an apparent act of brinksmanship, PLCMC, also known as Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, said that the timing of the cut means "it is no longer possible for the Library to defer lay-offs and location closings."It could get worse. For FY10-11, PLCMC was told to prepare for a huge "target reduction" of $17 million out of a $31 million budget, PLCMC spokesperson Cordelia Anderson told LJ, though she noted that such preliminary numbers are negotiable.
The library gets about 92% of its funding from Mecklenburg County. It was the 1995 Gale/LJ Library of the Year.
Meeting tomorrow
The library board will announce the specific branch closures after a March 18 meeting. They are to be determined by four factors, said Anderson—cost, usage, proximity to other branches, and size. [3/18 Update: the branches to close are Beatties Ford, Belmont, Carmel, CheckIt Outlet, Cornelius, Hickory Grove, Independence Regional, Mint Hill, Morrison Regional, Myers Park, Scaleybark, and Sugar Creek.]
The award-winning ImaginOn library, devoted to children and teen services, isn’t exempt, said Anderson. It is located one block away from the main library. There are 22 branches.
Layoffs, closures in April
Branches will close and staff will be laid off as of April 3, at 6 p.m. Leased facilities will shutter, as per individual lease agreement.
PLCMC will determine layoffs by its Reduction in Force policy. The criteria include job classification, job performance, and seniority. Decisions won’t be location-specific.
In addition to fewer locations, hours, and staff, patrons will be dealing with other budget impacts, including less frequent building maintenance, more limited technology resources, and longer wait times for books and other materials.
Speaking out
PLCMC has publicized ways for customers to voice their opinions and offer support, said Anderson. County commissioner contacts, a link on its home page to the ongoing budget process, and information on how to financially support PCMC are all part of its communication efforts.
Said Director Charles Brown, "The decision to cut library staff and close library locations was extremely difficult. We value the contributions of our exceptional library employees…. I’m heartbroken for what they face and for what we face as a community with the closure of almost 50% of our libraries…. These are difficult times. Charlotte Mecklenburg libraries haven’t seen such large-scale reductions since the Great Depression when it had to close its doors completely""
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6723200.html
"Faced with cutting $2 million from its budget within the last three months of the current fiscal year, the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC), NC, will lay off at least 140 employees, resulting in the closure of at least 12 out of 24 library locations, pending final library board approval.
While many libraries announce closures as an apparent act of brinksmanship, PLCMC, also known as Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, said that the timing of the cut means "it is no longer possible for the Library to defer lay-offs and location closings."It could get worse. For FY10-11, PLCMC was told to prepare for a huge "target reduction" of $17 million out of a $31 million budget, PLCMC spokesperson Cordelia Anderson told LJ, though she noted that such preliminary numbers are negotiable.
The library gets about 92% of its funding from Mecklenburg County. It was the 1995 Gale/LJ Library of the Year.
Meeting tomorrow
The library board will announce the specific branch closures after a March 18 meeting. They are to be determined by four factors, said Anderson—cost, usage, proximity to other branches, and size. [3/18 Update: the branches to close are Beatties Ford, Belmont, Carmel, CheckIt Outlet, Cornelius, Hickory Grove, Independence Regional, Mint Hill, Morrison Regional, Myers Park, Scaleybark, and Sugar Creek.]
The award-winning ImaginOn library, devoted to children and teen services, isn’t exempt, said Anderson. It is located one block away from the main library. There are 22 branches.
Layoffs, closures in April
Branches will close and staff will be laid off as of April 3, at 6 p.m. Leased facilities will shutter, as per individual lease agreement.
PLCMC will determine layoffs by its Reduction in Force policy. The criteria include job classification, job performance, and seniority. Decisions won’t be location-specific.
In addition to fewer locations, hours, and staff, patrons will be dealing with other budget impacts, including less frequent building maintenance, more limited technology resources, and longer wait times for books and other materials.
Speaking out
PLCMC has publicized ways for customers to voice their opinions and offer support, said Anderson. County commissioner contacts, a link on its home page to the ongoing budget process, and information on how to financially support PCMC are all part of its communication efforts.
Said Director Charles Brown, "The decision to cut library staff and close library locations was extremely difficult. We value the contributions of our exceptional library employees…. I’m heartbroken for what they face and for what we face as a community with the closure of almost 50% of our libraries…. These are difficult times. Charlotte Mecklenburg libraries haven’t seen such large-scale reductions since the Great Depression when it had to close its doors completely""
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6723200.html
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Help us shape the future of the Association!; American Library Association, 3/9/10
American Library Association; Help us shape the future of the Association! [The information below was sent as an email message.]:
Dear Colleague:
We would like to invite you to help shape the future of our Association.
ALA is currently in the process of developing a new strategic plan that will guide us for the next five years. At this point, we need your help to ensure that the plan represents the best thinking of all our members.
The planning process began over a year ago with a member survey. Since then, we have conducted an environmental scan, held meetings with elected leaders to develop draft goals and objectives, and solicited comments and suggestions from hundreds of ALA groups. Now, it is time to come back to you.
We are very much interested in your thoughts and comments, and will incorporate them in the plan as it goes to the ALA Executive Board and then to ALA Council for adoption this summer. Five years ago, over 2,500 groups and individual members submitted comments and helped shape the Ahead to 2010 plan. Now, we are asking you to help shape our 2015 plan.
To review the plan and comment, please visit http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/39dfg43753 and complete a brief questionnaire on the plan. Comments may be submitted through Friday, March 19th.
For more information on the 2015 and 2010 plans, including the environmental scan and member survey results, see http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/missionhistory/plan/2015/index.cfm
Thank you for your help as we plan for the future,
Camila Alire
President
Keith Michael Fiels
Executive Director
Dear Colleague:
We would like to invite you to help shape the future of our Association.
ALA is currently in the process of developing a new strategic plan that will guide us for the next five years. At this point, we need your help to ensure that the plan represents the best thinking of all our members.
The planning process began over a year ago with a member survey. Since then, we have conducted an environmental scan, held meetings with elected leaders to develop draft goals and objectives, and solicited comments and suggestions from hundreds of ALA groups. Now, it is time to come back to you.
We are very much interested in your thoughts and comments, and will incorporate them in the plan as it goes to the ALA Executive Board and then to ALA Council for adoption this summer. Five years ago, over 2,500 groups and individual members submitted comments and helped shape the Ahead to 2010 plan. Now, we are asking you to help shape our 2015 plan.
To review the plan and comment, please visit http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/39dfg43753 and complete a brief questionnaire on the plan. Comments may be submitted through Friday, March 19th.
For more information on the 2015 and 2010 plans, including the environmental scan and member survey results, see http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/missionhistory/plan/2015/index.cfm
Thank you for your help as we plan for the future,
Camila Alire
President
Keith Michael Fiels
Executive Director
The Container Store, What We Stand For, Our Foundation Principles (TM)
The Container Store, What We Stand For, Our Foundation Principles (TM):
"Not only was The Container Store built on great products, but it was structured around some very basic and fundamental values and business philosophies about treating employees, customers and vendors with respect and dignity - we call them our Foundation PrinciplesTM.
They were formalized in 1988, when we opened our Houston store (our first outside of Dallas). That store made us take a look at our business a little harder. From the day we opened the doors, we did three times more business than we had ever experienced at any of our other stores, which became quite overwhelming to our employees. We already had a 10-year-old company with strong values and culture; however, communicating this to an entire store of new employees, most who never had been exposed to our stores or our way of doing business, was quite a challenge.
Kip (Chairman & CEO) struggled with how to clearly communicate our culture so that all the employees in the Houston store would act and make decisions using the same set of values and knowledge as the employees in the rest of the company.
So Kip referred back to a file he had started many years ago called his “philosophy epistle file” where he’d put various anecdotes, musings and philosophical phrases that he admired. During his time in school, the things in the file were on a philosophical level and as he started college, they took more of a business slant. He chose many examples to communicate the message that no matter how big the company became, our guiding principles and values would stay the same and over the years these were condensed into our Foundation Principles™.
By understanding and supporting these principles and philosophical guidelines, we can all respond in unison to similar circumstances. In other words, we act as a unit, all working in the same direction toward the same goal. Retail is far, far too situational to attempt to achieve a concerted effort through inflexible rules and policies.
So, instead of using the typical phone-book-sized retail procedural manual to guide our decision making, we use these Foundation Principles™ to keep us on track, focused and fulfilled as employees. With this combination of values-driven business philosophies and a one-of-a-kind product selection, The Container Store’s goal is to become the best retail store in America."
http://standfor.containerstore.com/our-foundation-principles/
"Not only was The Container Store built on great products, but it was structured around some very basic and fundamental values and business philosophies about treating employees, customers and vendors with respect and dignity - we call them our Foundation PrinciplesTM.
They were formalized in 1988, when we opened our Houston store (our first outside of Dallas). That store made us take a look at our business a little harder. From the day we opened the doors, we did three times more business than we had ever experienced at any of our other stores, which became quite overwhelming to our employees. We already had a 10-year-old company with strong values and culture; however, communicating this to an entire store of new employees, most who never had been exposed to our stores or our way of doing business, was quite a challenge.
Kip (Chairman & CEO) struggled with how to clearly communicate our culture so that all the employees in the Houston store would act and make decisions using the same set of values and knowledge as the employees in the rest of the company.
So Kip referred back to a file he had started many years ago called his “philosophy epistle file” where he’d put various anecdotes, musings and philosophical phrases that he admired. During his time in school, the things in the file were on a philosophical level and as he started college, they took more of a business slant. He chose many examples to communicate the message that no matter how big the company became, our guiding principles and values would stay the same and over the years these were condensed into our Foundation Principles™.
By understanding and supporting these principles and philosophical guidelines, we can all respond in unison to similar circumstances. In other words, we act as a unit, all working in the same direction toward the same goal. Retail is far, far too situational to attempt to achieve a concerted effort through inflexible rules and policies.
So, instead of using the typical phone-book-sized retail procedural manual to guide our decision making, we use these Foundation Principles™ to keep us on track, focused and fulfilled as employees. With this combination of values-driven business philosophies and a one-of-a-kind product selection, The Container Store’s goal is to become the best retail store in America."
http://standfor.containerstore.com/our-foundation-principles/
Corner Office, Interview with Kip Tindell, chief executive of the Container Store; New York Times, 3/14/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Kip Tindell, chief executive of the Container Store: Three Good Hires? He’ll Pay More for One Who’s Great:
"Q. How do you hire for a senior position from the outside?
A. I’m going to ask a lot of sort of business philosophy questions. I’m going to try to make sure that you’re capable of understanding that business is not really a zero-sum game, even though a lot of people think it is. I’m going to make sure I like you personally, because I think that’s a good gauge. I’ve spent a lot of time teaching other managers to not be afraid to use that as a criterion.
Q. So what are the specific questions?
A. Well, it’s kind of a discussion more than questions. We’ll go into our heartfelt feeling about the type of business that we are. We believe that we’re trying to build sort of a mutually interdependent group of stakeholders made up of the employees, the customers, the vendors, the community — and all of those people are interdependent and balanced. So we’ll talk about that a lot and just see how they sort of react. Some people will think that sounds nutty or impossible. We’ll also work in a statement that communication and leadership are the same thing and see how they react to that.
Q. Is there anything unusual about the way you run meetings?
A. We’re big on what we call the whole-brain concept, which is simply trying to eliminate silos. So we probably have more people than we need in each meeting, and we don’t believe that’s unproductive. In fact, we think it creates a whole-brain awareness. We get a lot of innovation that way.
There’s a real belief in meetings on our part. They’re passionate. They’re long. They’re frequent. We get tired of being in meetings all the time. I know the whole world feels that way, but I actually think we’re at meetings more than just about any other business I can think of. I think it’s really good for us because of the communicative culture we have.
Also, probably 85 percent of our top leaders are women. I don’t want to get into a generalization here, but guess who tends to communicate the best? So I think there’s a natural tendency for more group communication here than there would be if 85 percent of our top leaders were men."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14corners.html
"Q. How do you hire for a senior position from the outside?
A. I’m going to ask a lot of sort of business philosophy questions. I’m going to try to make sure that you’re capable of understanding that business is not really a zero-sum game, even though a lot of people think it is. I’m going to make sure I like you personally, because I think that’s a good gauge. I’ve spent a lot of time teaching other managers to not be afraid to use that as a criterion.
Q. So what are the specific questions?
A. Well, it’s kind of a discussion more than questions. We’ll go into our heartfelt feeling about the type of business that we are. We believe that we’re trying to build sort of a mutually interdependent group of stakeholders made up of the employees, the customers, the vendors, the community — and all of those people are interdependent and balanced. So we’ll talk about that a lot and just see how they sort of react. Some people will think that sounds nutty or impossible. We’ll also work in a statement that communication and leadership are the same thing and see how they react to that.
Q. Is there anything unusual about the way you run meetings?
A. We’re big on what we call the whole-brain concept, which is simply trying to eliminate silos. So we probably have more people than we need in each meeting, and we don’t believe that’s unproductive. In fact, we think it creates a whole-brain awareness. We get a lot of innovation that way.
There’s a real belief in meetings on our part. They’re passionate. They’re long. They’re frequent. We get tired of being in meetings all the time. I know the whole world feels that way, but I actually think we’re at meetings more than just about any other business I can think of. I think it’s really good for us because of the communicative culture we have.
Also, probably 85 percent of our top leaders are women. I don’t want to get into a generalization here, but guess who tends to communicate the best? So I think there’s a natural tendency for more group communication here than there would be if 85 percent of our top leaders were men."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14corners.html
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Tachi Yamada, MD, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program; New York Times, 2/28/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Tachi Yamada, MD, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program, Talk To Me: I'll Turn Off My Phone:
"Q. How did you first learn to become a manager?
A. I think the most difficult transition for anybody from being a worker bee to a manager is this issue of delegation. What do you give up? How can you have the team do what you would do yourself without you doing it? If you’re a true micromanager and you basically stand over everybody and guide their hands to do everything, you don’t have enough hours in the day to do what the whole team needs to do.
Learning how to delegate, learning how to let go and still make sure that everything happened, was a very important lesson in my first role in management. And that’s where I learned a principle that I apply today — I don’t micromanage, but I have microinterest. I do know the details. I do care about the details. I feel like I have intimate knowledge of what’s going on, but I don’t tell people what to do.
Q. How do you have a granular understanding of what somebody’s working on without actually doing the work?
A. Every day, I read about 1,000 pages of documents, whether grants or letters or scientific articles, or whatever. I have learned what the critical things to read are. If there are 10 tasks in an overall project, what is the most critical task among those 10? What is the one thing that everything else hinges on? And what I’ll do is I’ll spend a lot of time understanding that one thing. Then, when the problem occurs, it usually occurs there, and I can be on top of what the problem is.
Q. How do you develop that ability to understand the key thing?
A. It’s just having enough experience to understand when problems do occur and how they occur, why they occur, and being prepared for that particular problem. Problems can occur in the other 10 areas, but they won’t determine the outcome of the overall project. But there may be one or two points where the outcome of the entire project is at stake, and there you’d better be on top of it.
Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?
A. One very important partner I had in life was my father. He was a senior managing director of Nippon Steel Corporation and was one of the architects of the reconstruction of Japan after the war. He negotiated the first World Bank loan to Japan after the war to the steel industry, and it helped develop heavy industries in Japan. His outlook was always international. Very early, he sent me to the United States. I was 15. He sent me to a boarding school, Andover.
His whole idea was that you can’t possibly be competitive in the world unless you actually go outside your own geography and learn the way other people live and think. That probably was the most important lesson I learned — that what’s out there is more important than what you already know, and that you’d better go out and learn what it is out there that you don’t know.
Q. What else?
A. A second key lesson was from a doctor named Marcel Tuchman. He was the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life — I mean, full of human kindness. And every time he met somebody, you had the sense that he cared more about them than anything else in the world.
So what I learned from him is that when you actually are with somebody, you’ve got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters. I think that’s critical.
So, for example, I don’t have a mobile phone turned on because I’m talking to you. I don’t want the outside world to impinge on the conversation we’re having. I don’t carry a BlackBerry. I do my e-mails regularly, but I do it when I have the time on a computer. I don’t want to be sitting here thinking that I’ve got an e-mail message coming here and I’d better look at that while I’m talking to you. Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/business/28corner.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1267888463-SP+bu0L5swFDQQW1uoBpxg
"Q. How did you first learn to become a manager?
A. I think the most difficult transition for anybody from being a worker bee to a manager is this issue of delegation. What do you give up? How can you have the team do what you would do yourself without you doing it? If you’re a true micromanager and you basically stand over everybody and guide their hands to do everything, you don’t have enough hours in the day to do what the whole team needs to do.
Learning how to delegate, learning how to let go and still make sure that everything happened, was a very important lesson in my first role in management. And that’s where I learned a principle that I apply today — I don’t micromanage, but I have microinterest. I do know the details. I do care about the details. I feel like I have intimate knowledge of what’s going on, but I don’t tell people what to do.
Q. How do you have a granular understanding of what somebody’s working on without actually doing the work?
A. Every day, I read about 1,000 pages of documents, whether grants or letters or scientific articles, or whatever. I have learned what the critical things to read are. If there are 10 tasks in an overall project, what is the most critical task among those 10? What is the one thing that everything else hinges on? And what I’ll do is I’ll spend a lot of time understanding that one thing. Then, when the problem occurs, it usually occurs there, and I can be on top of what the problem is.
Q. How do you develop that ability to understand the key thing?
A. It’s just having enough experience to understand when problems do occur and how they occur, why they occur, and being prepared for that particular problem. Problems can occur in the other 10 areas, but they won’t determine the outcome of the overall project. But there may be one or two points where the outcome of the entire project is at stake, and there you’d better be on top of it.
Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?
A. One very important partner I had in life was my father. He was a senior managing director of Nippon Steel Corporation and was one of the architects of the reconstruction of Japan after the war. He negotiated the first World Bank loan to Japan after the war to the steel industry, and it helped develop heavy industries in Japan. His outlook was always international. Very early, he sent me to the United States. I was 15. He sent me to a boarding school, Andover.
His whole idea was that you can’t possibly be competitive in the world unless you actually go outside your own geography and learn the way other people live and think. That probably was the most important lesson I learned — that what’s out there is more important than what you already know, and that you’d better go out and learn what it is out there that you don’t know.
Q. What else?
A. A second key lesson was from a doctor named Marcel Tuchman. He was the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life — I mean, full of human kindness. And every time he met somebody, you had the sense that he cared more about them than anything else in the world.
So what I learned from him is that when you actually are with somebody, you’ve got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters. I think that’s critical.
So, for example, I don’t have a mobile phone turned on because I’m talking to you. I don’t want the outside world to impinge on the conversation we’re having. I don’t carry a BlackBerry. I do my e-mails regularly, but I do it when I have the time on a computer. I don’t want to be sitting here thinking that I’ve got an e-mail message coming here and I’d better look at that while I’m talking to you. Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/business/28corner.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1267888463-SP+bu0L5swFDQQW1uoBpxg
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Coaching in the Library; American Libraries, February 2010
Ruth Metz, American Libraries; Coaching in the Library:
A professional coach can help leaders and staff up their game in dealing with an ever-changing environment and shrinking resources:
"The greatest challenge to library organizations is to continuously adapt in an ever-changing, ever-more-complex environment. Library leaders need to direct the continuous redevelopment of libraries. The ability to tackle this and other institutional challenges effectively is fundamental to the success of leaders and the survival of libraries. One way to achieve this is through the use of coaching."
http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/02182010/coaching-library
A professional coach can help leaders and staff up their game in dealing with an ever-changing environment and shrinking resources:
"The greatest challenge to library organizations is to continuously adapt in an ever-changing, ever-more-complex environment. Library leaders need to direct the continuous redevelopment of libraries. The ability to tackle this and other institutional challenges effectively is fundamental to the success of leaders and the survival of libraries. One way to achieve this is through the use of coaching."
http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/02182010/coaching-library
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Open Letters, Cynthia Richey, Director, Mt. Lebanon Public Library; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/23/10
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Open Letters, Cynthia Richey:
A call to action
"The critical state of library funding, described in Bob Hoover's article about the American Library Association's study of library use and funding, will have long-term, deleterious effects on our communities and residents if not rectified soon. ("Nation's Libraries Get More Use, Less Funding," Nov. 15)
The article highlights the importance of libraries in our communities. Public libraries offer many benefits to residents: providing technology and the shared resources it gives everyone access to; supporting job seekers, small business owners and distance learners; offering crucial curricular support and lifelong learning opportunities; and helping non-English speakers learn a second language or study for citizenship, to list a few. Public libraries are crucial partners with parents in starting a child's education at the very beginning of life. These services support the state's economy and educational system and are freely available to everyone regardless of socio-economic status.
Libraries have adapted to social changes and remain vital and relevant. But libraries face too many challenges as they struggle to reconcile an increasing demand for services with diminishing resources. Adequate funding for public libraries is essential in a democratic society. ALA's study is a call for action.
CYNTHIA K. RICHEY
Director
Mt. Lebanon Public Library
Mt. Lebanon"
http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/openletters/archive/2010/02/23/a-call-to-action.aspx
A call to action
"The critical state of library funding, described in Bob Hoover's article about the American Library Association's study of library use and funding, will have long-term, deleterious effects on our communities and residents if not rectified soon. ("Nation's Libraries Get More Use, Less Funding," Nov. 15)
The article highlights the importance of libraries in our communities. Public libraries offer many benefits to residents: providing technology and the shared resources it gives everyone access to; supporting job seekers, small business owners and distance learners; offering crucial curricular support and lifelong learning opportunities; and helping non-English speakers learn a second language or study for citizenship, to list a few. Public libraries are crucial partners with parents in starting a child's education at the very beginning of life. These services support the state's economy and educational system and are freely available to everyone regardless of socio-economic status.
Libraries have adapted to social changes and remain vital and relevant. But libraries face too many challenges as they struggle to reconcile an increasing demand for services with diminishing resources. Adequate funding for public libraries is essential in a democratic society. ALA's study is a call for action.
CYNTHIA K. RICHEY
Director
Mt. Lebanon Public Library
Mt. Lebanon"
http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/openletters/archive/2010/02/23/a-call-to-action.aspx
Letters to the editor, Barbara Mistick, Director, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/22/10
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Letters to the editor, Barbara Mistick, Director, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh:
Libraries are a wise investment
"I applaud Bob Hoover for his coverage of the financial plight of our nation's libraries ("Nation's Libraries Get More Use, Less Funding," Feb. 15). The quote from Larra Clark of the American Library Association sums it up best: "If libraries were a private business, people would be investing in them."
Libraries across Pennsylvania play a key role in the educational fabric of the community. Each day, millions of citizens count on their libraries for job-search assistance, educational resources, computer and Internet access, as well as free books and information. Demand for library services has increased dramatically during this recession as libraries serve people looking for work, families on tight budgets and retirees grappling with shrinking savings.
This is a critical time for our libraries. Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed 2010-11 budget for the commonwealth calls for another devastating reduction in funding for public libraries. With this proposed budget, the public library subsidy has decreased from $75.1 million in 2008-09 to $58.8 million in 2010-11. Further cuts put critical library services in jeopardy and threaten long-term funding.
Last year our city pulled together in an unprecedented fashion to save our libraries. But the threat to our library system has not passed. The $600,000 from the city of Pittsburgh is only for 2010. And the projected table games revenue won't fully cover the growing gap between revenues and expenses. We must urge our elected officials to provide long-term dedicated funding. Libraries are worth the investment.
BARBARA K. MISTICK
President and Director
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Oakland"
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10053/1037629-110.stm
Libraries are a wise investment
"I applaud Bob Hoover for his coverage of the financial plight of our nation's libraries ("Nation's Libraries Get More Use, Less Funding," Feb. 15). The quote from Larra Clark of the American Library Association sums it up best: "If libraries were a private business, people would be investing in them."
Libraries across Pennsylvania play a key role in the educational fabric of the community. Each day, millions of citizens count on their libraries for job-search assistance, educational resources, computer and Internet access, as well as free books and information. Demand for library services has increased dramatically during this recession as libraries serve people looking for work, families on tight budgets and retirees grappling with shrinking savings.
This is a critical time for our libraries. Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed 2010-11 budget for the commonwealth calls for another devastating reduction in funding for public libraries. With this proposed budget, the public library subsidy has decreased from $75.1 million in 2008-09 to $58.8 million in 2010-11. Further cuts put critical library services in jeopardy and threaten long-term funding.
Last year our city pulled together in an unprecedented fashion to save our libraries. But the threat to our library system has not passed. The $600,000 from the city of Pittsburgh is only for 2010. And the projected table games revenue won't fully cover the growing gap between revenues and expenses. We must urge our elected officials to provide long-term dedicated funding. Libraries are worth the investment.
BARBARA K. MISTICK
President and Director
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Oakland"
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10053/1037629-110.stm
Corner Office, Interview with Jana Eggers; New York Times, 2/21/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Jana Eggers, chief executive of Spreadshirt: Should I Hire You? I’ll Ask the Receptionist:
"Q. How do you hire?
A. I’m going to ask you a lot about what you did. Of course, I’m interested in why you want to come to Spreadshirt, and those are usually the kind of ice-breaker questions to get people comfortable, because that’s what they’ve been thinking about, and what they’ve prepared for.
But what I really want to know is what they’ve done, because that is the biggest indicator of what they’ll do. I don’t mean specific things like, “Oh, I implemented this e-mail program.” I’ll ask: “Well, how did you do that? Who was involved? What was the biggest challenge you faced in doing that?” I’m interested in seeing how they organized themselves, how they think about projects, how they think about other people around them. There are very few jobs in any company these days where one person goes in and does it alone. They always have to interact with other people.
Q. What else?
A. I’m also going to see how they treat the receptionist. I always get feedback from them. I’ll want to know if someone comes in and if they weren’t polite, if they didn’t say, “Hello,” or ask them how they were. It’s really important to me.
I also check references myself. A lot of times people may leave that to their H.R. people or to someone who works for them. But, to me, it’s really important to talk to the person and build a rapport. I really want to know, what am I going to see? Everybody has challenges. One of the questions I usually ask on references is, “Where should I spend time coaching this person?”
Q. What qualities are you looking for in hires?
A. I’m usually listening for passion. I want that passion, because that passion is what’s going to get you through your failures. It’s when the tough things happen that a person’s real personality comes out.
And I’m looking for whether someone’s aware that business is a team sport. You have to communicate. How do they describe the team, their role on the team? I always like to get their perspectives on the management, too."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/21cornerweb.html?scp=1&sq=jana+eggers&st=nyt
"Q. How do you hire?
A. I’m going to ask you a lot about what you did. Of course, I’m interested in why you want to come to Spreadshirt, and those are usually the kind of ice-breaker questions to get people comfortable, because that’s what they’ve been thinking about, and what they’ve prepared for.
But what I really want to know is what they’ve done, because that is the biggest indicator of what they’ll do. I don’t mean specific things like, “Oh, I implemented this e-mail program.” I’ll ask: “Well, how did you do that? Who was involved? What was the biggest challenge you faced in doing that?” I’m interested in seeing how they organized themselves, how they think about projects, how they think about other people around them. There are very few jobs in any company these days where one person goes in and does it alone. They always have to interact with other people.
Q. What else?
A. I’m also going to see how they treat the receptionist. I always get feedback from them. I’ll want to know if someone comes in and if they weren’t polite, if they didn’t say, “Hello,” or ask them how they were. It’s really important to me.
I also check references myself. A lot of times people may leave that to their H.R. people or to someone who works for them. But, to me, it’s really important to talk to the person and build a rapport. I really want to know, what am I going to see? Everybody has challenges. One of the questions I usually ask on references is, “Where should I spend time coaching this person?”
Q. What qualities are you looking for in hires?
A. I’m usually listening for passion. I want that passion, because that passion is what’s going to get you through your failures. It’s when the tough things happen that a person’s real personality comes out.
And I’m looking for whether someone’s aware that business is a team sport. You have to communicate. How do they describe the team, their role on the team? I always like to get their perspectives on the management, too."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/21cornerweb.html?scp=1&sq=jana+eggers&st=nyt
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Nation's libraries get more use, less funding; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/15/10
Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Nation's libraries get more use, less funding:
"The community reaction to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's financial problems was one of last year's big stories around here. Drowned out by the local din, however, was the fact that the same story about libraries was repeated across the country.
Preliminary figures from a new American Library Association survey of how libraries fared in 2009 show that nearly 75 percent of them were handed significant government budget cuts, forcing libraries to reduce services. Pennsylvania registered a 27 percent reduction in state library aid.
Only three states -- New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas -- increased funding.
At the same time, demand for services was growing, fueled in part by rising unemployment. The jobless were flocking to their public libraries to use their Internet services to look for work.
The Carnegie reported a steady increase in visits and circulation between 2004 and 2008 despite Pittsburgh's ongoing drop in population.
The ALA study said that 76 percent of respondents reported increases in usage at computer work stations last year, while only 3 percent said usage was down.
The American Library Association teamed with the Center for Library and Information Innovation at the University of Maryland on the survey that collected data from 46 states in November. Four didn't respond -- Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire.
"It's our first opportunity to take a look at what's happening at libraries around the nation," said Larra Clark, the ALA's project manager on the research.
"A lot of libraries depend on local funding, so it's been hard to track the trends from state to state. Basically, what we're releasing now is a snapshot of the overall library situation."
The complete study will be available this summer, she said.
"Libraries have been first responders in this financial crisis," Ms. Clark said, "providing job hunting services including free Internet access. But 21st century libraries can't meet demands with 20th century funding," she added.
"I'm sorry to say that some people don't understand the role libraries play in advancing technology, including free classes on how to use the Internet," Ms. Clark continued. "Circulation is up, usage is up, computer use is up. If libraries were a private business, people would be investing in them."
What stirred the Pittsburgh community to act was the Carnegie Library's proposal to close four neighborhood branches and merge two others this year. It shelved the plan when Pittsburgh City Council promised a temporary increase of $600,000 in aid this year.
The library also is due an estimated $850,000 from a tax on Rivers Casino revenues once the casino is offering table games following the go-ahead from the state last month. Allegheny County's 44 municipal libraries are due about $100,000 less if revenue projections hold.
The ALA study discovered, however, that libraries were being closed across the country last year. Thirteen states, including Pennsylvania, reported shutdowns, with Indiana listing the most, more than five. (Specifics will be in the final report.)
The commonwealth budget also slashed statewide programs that allow community libraries to share information and connect their users to sources around Pennsylvania.
One service, the Electronic Library Catalog, called Ask Here PA, was eliminated. Cuts of 57 percent were made on the POWER Library (which provides access to full-text periodical articles, newspapers, major encyclopedia, photographs, charts, etc. for people of all ages), interlibrary delivery of materials and a statewide library card.
"These actions are penny wise, but pound foolish," Ms. Clark said. "By cutting off shared services, Pennsylvania has increased the gap between affluent and less affluent resources."
She pointed out that libraries in poorer communities depend on state resources while the state can provide all libraries with significant resources at less cost.
"Pennsylvania is very clear example of the ripple effect. By cutting services that link libraries and other institutions, students on all levels are hit hard, especially those doing research," Ms. Clark said.
Also slashed by the new budget was the appropriation to operate the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, including the State Library operations in Harrisburg. It was cut $2.1 million, a 47.8 percent reduction from the last fiscal year.
In local library news, the New Hazlett Theater, headquartered in the former Allegheny Regional Library building on the North Side, is spearheading an effort to find new uses for the space that the Carnegie will abandon by the end of the year.
Representatives from the Warhol and the Children's museums, the city and the library are also involved. The Pittsburgh Public Theater formerly occupied the theater space, once a music hall.
The 120-year-old structure was badly damaged by lightning in 2006, forcing the shutdown of library services to the public. The building is now called the Allegheny Repository and holds the Carnegie Library's Heritage Collection of 150,000 historical artifacts, some dating to 1617. The collection will move to the East Liberty Branch when that building's renovation is completed at the end of the year.
A new Allegheny branch building, designed by Loysen and Kreuthmeier Architects, opened last year on Federal Street. Now, the group has hired that firm to review the structure and propose ways to renovate the building for new uses.
The Community Design Center and the Hazlett raised $20,000 for the study. Sara Radelet, theater executive director, said she hopes the report will be ready by March 3.
At a meeting at the theater Feb. 4, architect Karen Loysen reported that the building was in a deteriorating condition due to "significant water damage" and termed the cost of utilities "exorbitant."
Although the city owns the building and uses a basement area for a senior citizens' center, the library and the theater share the utility bills for the entire structure, with the library's share $250,000 annually.
Ms. Radelet said the study has two goals -- a "nuts-and-bolts" survey of the building and ways to best use the enormous space, more than 45,000 square feet.
"I don't think anybody wants to mothball the library space and just walk away from it," she said, "but to come up with imaginative ways to make the best use of it."
More public meetings on reusing the building are planned, she added, but are yet to be scheduled.
The original building is Andrew Carnegie's first library given to an American municipality (others were open only to workers at his factories at first) and marks its 120th birthday this month."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10046/1036006-84.stm
"The community reaction to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's financial problems was one of last year's big stories around here. Drowned out by the local din, however, was the fact that the same story about libraries was repeated across the country.
Preliminary figures from a new American Library Association survey of how libraries fared in 2009 show that nearly 75 percent of them were handed significant government budget cuts, forcing libraries to reduce services. Pennsylvania registered a 27 percent reduction in state library aid.
Only three states -- New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas -- increased funding.
At the same time, demand for services was growing, fueled in part by rising unemployment. The jobless were flocking to their public libraries to use their Internet services to look for work.
The Carnegie reported a steady increase in visits and circulation between 2004 and 2008 despite Pittsburgh's ongoing drop in population.
The ALA study said that 76 percent of respondents reported increases in usage at computer work stations last year, while only 3 percent said usage was down.
The American Library Association teamed with the Center for Library and Information Innovation at the University of Maryland on the survey that collected data from 46 states in November. Four didn't respond -- Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire.
"It's our first opportunity to take a look at what's happening at libraries around the nation," said Larra Clark, the ALA's project manager on the research.
"A lot of libraries depend on local funding, so it's been hard to track the trends from state to state. Basically, what we're releasing now is a snapshot of the overall library situation."
The complete study will be available this summer, she said.
"Libraries have been first responders in this financial crisis," Ms. Clark said, "providing job hunting services including free Internet access. But 21st century libraries can't meet demands with 20th century funding," she added.
"I'm sorry to say that some people don't understand the role libraries play in advancing technology, including free classes on how to use the Internet," Ms. Clark continued. "Circulation is up, usage is up, computer use is up. If libraries were a private business, people would be investing in them."
What stirred the Pittsburgh community to act was the Carnegie Library's proposal to close four neighborhood branches and merge two others this year. It shelved the plan when Pittsburgh City Council promised a temporary increase of $600,000 in aid this year.
The library also is due an estimated $850,000 from a tax on Rivers Casino revenues once the casino is offering table games following the go-ahead from the state last month. Allegheny County's 44 municipal libraries are due about $100,000 less if revenue projections hold.
The ALA study discovered, however, that libraries were being closed across the country last year. Thirteen states, including Pennsylvania, reported shutdowns, with Indiana listing the most, more than five. (Specifics will be in the final report.)
The commonwealth budget also slashed statewide programs that allow community libraries to share information and connect their users to sources around Pennsylvania.
One service, the Electronic Library Catalog, called Ask Here PA, was eliminated. Cuts of 57 percent were made on the POWER Library (which provides access to full-text periodical articles, newspapers, major encyclopedia, photographs, charts, etc. for people of all ages), interlibrary delivery of materials and a statewide library card.
"These actions are penny wise, but pound foolish," Ms. Clark said. "By cutting off shared services, Pennsylvania has increased the gap between affluent and less affluent resources."
She pointed out that libraries in poorer communities depend on state resources while the state can provide all libraries with significant resources at less cost.
"Pennsylvania is very clear example of the ripple effect. By cutting services that link libraries and other institutions, students on all levels are hit hard, especially those doing research," Ms. Clark said.
Also slashed by the new budget was the appropriation to operate the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, including the State Library operations in Harrisburg. It was cut $2.1 million, a 47.8 percent reduction from the last fiscal year.
In local library news, the New Hazlett Theater, headquartered in the former Allegheny Regional Library building on the North Side, is spearheading an effort to find new uses for the space that the Carnegie will abandon by the end of the year.
Representatives from the Warhol and the Children's museums, the city and the library are also involved. The Pittsburgh Public Theater formerly occupied the theater space, once a music hall.
The 120-year-old structure was badly damaged by lightning in 2006, forcing the shutdown of library services to the public. The building is now called the Allegheny Repository and holds the Carnegie Library's Heritage Collection of 150,000 historical artifacts, some dating to 1617. The collection will move to the East Liberty Branch when that building's renovation is completed at the end of the year.
A new Allegheny branch building, designed by Loysen and Kreuthmeier Architects, opened last year on Federal Street. Now, the group has hired that firm to review the structure and propose ways to renovate the building for new uses.
The Community Design Center and the Hazlett raised $20,000 for the study. Sara Radelet, theater executive director, said she hopes the report will be ready by March 3.
At a meeting at the theater Feb. 4, architect Karen Loysen reported that the building was in a deteriorating condition due to "significant water damage" and termed the cost of utilities "exorbitant."
Although the city owns the building and uses a basement area for a senior citizens' center, the library and the theater share the utility bills for the entire structure, with the library's share $250,000 annually.
Ms. Radelet said the study has two goals -- a "nuts-and-bolts" survey of the building and ways to best use the enormous space, more than 45,000 square feet.
"I don't think anybody wants to mothball the library space and just walk away from it," she said, "but to come up with imaginative ways to make the best use of it."
More public meetings on reusing the building are planned, she added, but are yet to be scheduled.
The original building is Andrew Carnegie's first library given to an American municipality (others were open only to workers at his factories at first) and marks its 120th birthday this month."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10046/1036006-84.stm
Schottlaender named 2010 Melvil Dewey Medal Award winner; ALA Press Release, 2/10/10
ALA Press Release; Schottlaender named 2010 Melvil Dewey Medal Award winner:
"Brian E. C. Schottlaender, The Audrey Geisel University Librarian at the University of California, San Diego, has been chosen to receive the American Library Association’s 2010 Melvil Dewey Medal Award, sponsored by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). This prestigious professional honor, given in recognition of creative leadership of high order, is named after Melvil Dewey, who was actively interested in library management, library training, cataloging and classification and the tools and techniques of librarianship. Schottlaender has excelled in each of these areas."
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/february2010/dewey_gov.cfm
"Brian E. C. Schottlaender, The Audrey Geisel University Librarian at the University of California, San Diego, has been chosen to receive the American Library Association’s 2010 Melvil Dewey Medal Award, sponsored by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). This prestigious professional honor, given in recognition of creative leadership of high order, is named after Melvil Dewey, who was actively interested in library management, library training, cataloging and classification and the tools and techniques of librarianship. Schottlaender has excelled in each of these areas."
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/february2010/dewey_gov.cfm
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Vineet Nayar; New York Times, 2/14/10
Corner Office, Interview with Vineet Nayar, chief executive HCL Technologies [http://www.hcltech.com/]; New York Times, He’s Not Bill Gates, or Fred Astaire:
"A. Most C.E.O.’s are not as great as they’re believed to be. There are exceptions. There is Bill Gates. There is Steve Jobs. There is Larry Page. But I’m not one of them, and so many of us are not them.
So, if you see your job not as chief strategy officer and the guy who has all the ideas, but rather the guy who is obsessed with enabling employees to create value, I think you will succeed. That’s a leadership style that evolved from my own understanding of the fact that I’m not the greatest and brightest leader born. My job is to make sure everybody is enabled to do what they do well. This is part of our “Employees First” philosophy.
Q. Talk more about how you create that culture.
A. You have to create a culture of pushing the envelope of trust. How do we push the envelope of trust? By creating transparency.
Q. Give me an example.
A. All HCL’s financial performance information is on our internal Web. We are completely open. We put all the dirty linen on the table, and we answer everyone’s questions on our internal Web site. We inverted the pyramid of the organization and made reverse accountability a reality.
So my 360-degree feedback is open to 50,000 employees — the results are published on the internal Web for everybody to see. And 3,800 managers participate in an open 360-degree and the results — they’re anonymous so that people are candid — are available on the internal Web for those who gave feedback to see. So, that’s reverse accountability.
The other thing we did was make sure everybody understands that the C.E.O. is the most incompetent person to answer questions, and I say this to all my employees very openly.
Q. How do you communicate that?
A. One thing I learned was to communicate in extremes. So I asked myself, how do I communicate to employees to not look up to me, but to look within, to communicate that I’m one of you, to destroy that hierarchy? So I decided I’m going to go into this big gathering of employees dancing to a very famous Bollywood song. And I can’t dance for nuts, right? I was dancing in the aisles with these employees and making lots of noises. What happened? It completely destroyed the gap.
I’ll give you one more example with the way we handle business planning. So, what is the absolute power of the C.E.O? You come and make a presentation to me about what you’re going to do, and I will sit in this chair God has given to me and tell you if I like the plan or not. The power of the hierarchy flows from the fact that I will comment on what you write.
As my kids became teenagers, I started looking at Facebook a little more closely. It was a significant amount of collaboration. There was open understanding. They didn’t have a problem sharing their status. Nothing seemed to be secret, and they were living their lives very openly, and friends were commenting on each other and it was working.
Here is my generation, which is very security-conscious and privacy-conscious, and I thought, what are the differences? This is the generation coming to work for us. It’s not my generation.
So we started having people make their presentations and record them for our internal Web site. We open that for review to a 360-degree workshop, which means your subordinates will review it. Your managers will read it. Your peers will read it, and everybody will comment on it. I will be, or your manager will be, one of the many who read it. So, every presentation was reviewed by 300, 400 people.
What happened? There were two very interesting lessons that I learned. One, because your subordinates are going to see the plan, you cannot lie. You have to be honest. Two, because your peers are going to see it, you are going to put your best work into it.
Third, you didn’t learn from me. You learned by reviewing somebody else’s presentation. You learned from the comments somebody else gave you. For the 8,000 people who participated, there was a massive collaborative learning that took place.
Q. You’ve done a lot of tinkering with how the organization operates. Have all the initiatives worked?
A. The failures are far in excess of successes.
Q. Give me an example of what didn’t work.
A. I used to write a blog every week because I thought people wanted to know what was going through my head. But one employee told me that, “Actually, we want to participate in solving a problem.” So, the blog got converted into me asking a question: “This is a problem I’m having. How will you solve it?” This is one example of how we started going in one direction, and the direction completely changed to another."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/14cornerweb.html?pagewanted=1&ref=business
"A. Most C.E.O.’s are not as great as they’re believed to be. There are exceptions. There is Bill Gates. There is Steve Jobs. There is Larry Page. But I’m not one of them, and so many of us are not them.
So, if you see your job not as chief strategy officer and the guy who has all the ideas, but rather the guy who is obsessed with enabling employees to create value, I think you will succeed. That’s a leadership style that evolved from my own understanding of the fact that I’m not the greatest and brightest leader born. My job is to make sure everybody is enabled to do what they do well. This is part of our “Employees First” philosophy.
Q. Talk more about how you create that culture.
A. You have to create a culture of pushing the envelope of trust. How do we push the envelope of trust? By creating transparency.
Q. Give me an example.
A. All HCL’s financial performance information is on our internal Web. We are completely open. We put all the dirty linen on the table, and we answer everyone’s questions on our internal Web site. We inverted the pyramid of the organization and made reverse accountability a reality.
So my 360-degree feedback is open to 50,000 employees — the results are published on the internal Web for everybody to see. And 3,800 managers participate in an open 360-degree and the results — they’re anonymous so that people are candid — are available on the internal Web for those who gave feedback to see. So, that’s reverse accountability.
The other thing we did was make sure everybody understands that the C.E.O. is the most incompetent person to answer questions, and I say this to all my employees very openly.
Q. How do you communicate that?
A. One thing I learned was to communicate in extremes. So I asked myself, how do I communicate to employees to not look up to me, but to look within, to communicate that I’m one of you, to destroy that hierarchy? So I decided I’m going to go into this big gathering of employees dancing to a very famous Bollywood song. And I can’t dance for nuts, right? I was dancing in the aisles with these employees and making lots of noises. What happened? It completely destroyed the gap.
I’ll give you one more example with the way we handle business planning. So, what is the absolute power of the C.E.O? You come and make a presentation to me about what you’re going to do, and I will sit in this chair God has given to me and tell you if I like the plan or not. The power of the hierarchy flows from the fact that I will comment on what you write.
As my kids became teenagers, I started looking at Facebook a little more closely. It was a significant amount of collaboration. There was open understanding. They didn’t have a problem sharing their status. Nothing seemed to be secret, and they were living their lives very openly, and friends were commenting on each other and it was working.
Here is my generation, which is very security-conscious and privacy-conscious, and I thought, what are the differences? This is the generation coming to work for us. It’s not my generation.
So we started having people make their presentations and record them for our internal Web site. We open that for review to a 360-degree workshop, which means your subordinates will review it. Your managers will read it. Your peers will read it, and everybody will comment on it. I will be, or your manager will be, one of the many who read it. So, every presentation was reviewed by 300, 400 people.
What happened? There were two very interesting lessons that I learned. One, because your subordinates are going to see the plan, you cannot lie. You have to be honest. Two, because your peers are going to see it, you are going to put your best work into it.
Third, you didn’t learn from me. You learned by reviewing somebody else’s presentation. You learned from the comments somebody else gave you. For the 8,000 people who participated, there was a massive collaborative learning that took place.
Q. You’ve done a lot of tinkering with how the organization operates. Have all the initiatives worked?
A. The failures are far in excess of successes.
Q. Give me an example of what didn’t work.
A. I used to write a blog every week because I thought people wanted to know what was going through my head. But one employee told me that, “Actually, we want to participate in solving a problem.” So, the blog got converted into me asking a question: “This is a problem I’m having. How will you solve it?” This is one example of how we started going in one direction, and the direction completely changed to another."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/14cornerweb.html?pagewanted=1&ref=business
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Corner Office; Interview with Susan Docherty, General Motors; New York Times, 2/7/10
Corner Office, Interview with Susan Docherty, who leads United States sales, service and marketing team at General Motors; New York Times, Now, Put Yourself In My Shoes:
"Q. How do you hire?
A. I like building teams with people who come from very different backgrounds and have very different experiences. I don’t just mean diverse teams, in terms of men and women or people of different color or origin. I like people who have worked in different places in the world than I have because they bring a lot more context to the discussion. That’s something that I value a tremendous amount.
I make sure that when I’m looking at people for my team, it’s not just what’s on their résumé — their strengths or weaknesses or what they’ve accomplished — but it’s the way they think. I can learn twice as much, twice as quickly, if I’ve got people who think differently than I do around the table.
Q. Can you talk more about how you hire?
A. I’m always in hiring mode. Always. When someone comes in for an interview, and they’re polished, and they’re practiced, and they’ve honed their résumé — everybody can give a great first impression. But what’s most important is seeing how people handle interactions on a day-to-day basis, when you’ve got days that are good, bad and ugly. It’s about how you handle the day-to-day interactions with your peers. It’s about how you treat the people on your team.
I have these little cardboard cards. And if I have an open position, and I’m considering a certain person, I grab one of these cards, and I write 1 through 10 on it. And I always try to get input about that person from other people. I don’t tell people necessarily, “Hey, I’m thinking about hiring so-and-so. What do you think about them?”
I might say, “Give me two great things that you like about this person, and two areas where you think they have a developmental opportunity.” And when you ask people like that, off the cuff, when you’re in an elevator or waiting for a meeting to start, you get some really candid feedback. So I get input from 10 different people — from the person’s supervisor to people who are on their team, and also from someone completely outside of the organization, like an ad agency or a supplier...
Q. So you’ve got your input and you’ve decided to interview someone for a job. What are you asking them?
A. One of the first questions I ask is, “Can you describe a decision that you made, or a situation that you were involved in that was a failure?” And I don’t need to know how they got to the failure. But I need to know what they did about it. How they handled that is the best illustration of whether or not they’re an innovative thinker and are comfortable taking some risk.
Q. Any other acid-test question?
A. I always ask people, “If you could be in my shoes today, what would be the top three things you’d do?” When most people prepare for an interview, they’re very focused on their prior experiences and examples of what they’ve done. And I think that you really do get some very candid, on-the-spot thinking when you ask them what they would do if they had my job. It demonstrates to me how they think on their feet without being prepared.
Sometimes I get answers back that are very in-the-moment, tactical answers. Sometimes I get very leader-like questions about vision, about things that are way beyond stuff that we’re currently thinking about. I love that question, because it’s very telling about how people think. And then there are other people who give a very balanced view, with thoughts on the short-, medium- and long-term. So I get a real quick read on strategic versus tactical thinking.
And it’s nice to get an outside perspective of how these people view me as a leader and what I really am focusing on, versus what they think I should be focusing on. I love that question. And by the way, I ask that question not just when I’m getting ready to hire somebody; I ask that question of people who are in a lot of lower levels within the organization.
Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?
A. Whether you have a really small team or a really big team, communication needs to be at the forefront. It needs to be simple. It needs to be consistent. And even when you’re tired of what the message is, you need to do it again and again and again. Because everybody listens at different levels, and everybody comes to the table with a different perspective and a different experience. And the same words mean different things to different people.
On some very key things, people need to internalize it, and they need to own it. And when they do, you’ll know that you’re effective as a leader, because you hear them saying it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/business/07corner.html
"Q. How do you hire?
A. I like building teams with people who come from very different backgrounds and have very different experiences. I don’t just mean diverse teams, in terms of men and women or people of different color or origin. I like people who have worked in different places in the world than I have because they bring a lot more context to the discussion. That’s something that I value a tremendous amount.
I make sure that when I’m looking at people for my team, it’s not just what’s on their résumé — their strengths or weaknesses or what they’ve accomplished — but it’s the way they think. I can learn twice as much, twice as quickly, if I’ve got people who think differently than I do around the table.
Q. Can you talk more about how you hire?
A. I’m always in hiring mode. Always. When someone comes in for an interview, and they’re polished, and they’re practiced, and they’ve honed their résumé — everybody can give a great first impression. But what’s most important is seeing how people handle interactions on a day-to-day basis, when you’ve got days that are good, bad and ugly. It’s about how you handle the day-to-day interactions with your peers. It’s about how you treat the people on your team.
I have these little cardboard cards. And if I have an open position, and I’m considering a certain person, I grab one of these cards, and I write 1 through 10 on it. And I always try to get input about that person from other people. I don’t tell people necessarily, “Hey, I’m thinking about hiring so-and-so. What do you think about them?”
I might say, “Give me two great things that you like about this person, and two areas where you think they have a developmental opportunity.” And when you ask people like that, off the cuff, when you’re in an elevator or waiting for a meeting to start, you get some really candid feedback. So I get input from 10 different people — from the person’s supervisor to people who are on their team, and also from someone completely outside of the organization, like an ad agency or a supplier...
Q. So you’ve got your input and you’ve decided to interview someone for a job. What are you asking them?
A. One of the first questions I ask is, “Can you describe a decision that you made, or a situation that you were involved in that was a failure?” And I don’t need to know how they got to the failure. But I need to know what they did about it. How they handled that is the best illustration of whether or not they’re an innovative thinker and are comfortable taking some risk.
Q. Any other acid-test question?
A. I always ask people, “If you could be in my shoes today, what would be the top three things you’d do?” When most people prepare for an interview, they’re very focused on their prior experiences and examples of what they’ve done. And I think that you really do get some very candid, on-the-spot thinking when you ask them what they would do if they had my job. It demonstrates to me how they think on their feet without being prepared.
Sometimes I get answers back that are very in-the-moment, tactical answers. Sometimes I get very leader-like questions about vision, about things that are way beyond stuff that we’re currently thinking about. I love that question, because it’s very telling about how people think. And then there are other people who give a very balanced view, with thoughts on the short-, medium- and long-term. So I get a real quick read on strategic versus tactical thinking.
And it’s nice to get an outside perspective of how these people view me as a leader and what I really am focusing on, versus what they think I should be focusing on. I love that question. And by the way, I ask that question not just when I’m getting ready to hire somebody; I ask that question of people who are in a lot of lower levels within the organization.
Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?
A. Whether you have a really small team or a really big team, communication needs to be at the forefront. It needs to be simple. It needs to be consistent. And even when you’re tired of what the message is, you need to do it again and again and again. Because everybody listens at different levels, and everybody comes to the table with a different perspective and a different experience. And the same words mean different things to different people.
On some very key things, people need to internalize it, and they need to own it. And when they do, you’ll know that you’re effective as a leader, because you hear them saying it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/business/07corner.html
Thursday, February 4, 2010
To CC or BCC — In Job Searches, There's Little Question; Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/17/10
Don Troop, Chronicle of Higher Education; To CC or BCC — In Job Searches, There's Little Question:
"Career-minded academics know there are certain key moments to go on the job market: Straight out of grad school. Immediately after publishing a talked-about book. And, as a safety net, the year that one goes up for tenure. Regardless of when they do it, most job seekers expect their flirtations to stay more or less private—at least until the campus visit.
So the apology was swift and to the point last month after a new history-department employee at the Johns Hopkins University accidentally identified 106 job applicants to one another in a mortifying mass-e-mail blunder.
William Rowe, the history-department chairman, says he told the outed academics in his bcc'd message that a clerical error was to blame, "and we apologize for any embarrassment we may have caused you."
Three days after Mr. Rowe's mea culpa, the University of South Carolina similarly identified 46 applicants who had responded to an advertisement for "multiple tenure-track positions" in the School of Library and Information Science. The mass e-mail message invited applicants to sign up for one of 20 interview slots at the annual conference of Alise, the Association for Library and Information Science Education, which took place last week in Boston.
This time, however, the apology never came.
Samantha Hastings, director of South Carolina's library school, says that the group message, with addresses visible, was deliberate and was part of "an experiment" to efficiently schedule interviews in a limited time. "We had determined that everyone that we contacted had given us permission to use their names," she says. "The step prior to that mass e-mail was that, 'We're going to send a mass e-mail. Are you all right with that?'"
As it turned out, some were not all right with it, and none of the roughly half-dozen applicants who responded to an e-mail inquiry from The Chronicle remembered being asked...
Privacy breaches can also have legal implications, though no one interviewed for this article could recall an instance in which a college was penalized for revealing a candidate's name. Nonetheless, Mr. Rowe says, the e-mail incident at Johns Hopkins raised the antennae of the university's legal department."
http://chronicle.com/article/To-CC-or-BCC-In-Job/63543/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
"Career-minded academics know there are certain key moments to go on the job market: Straight out of grad school. Immediately after publishing a talked-about book. And, as a safety net, the year that one goes up for tenure. Regardless of when they do it, most job seekers expect their flirtations to stay more or less private—at least until the campus visit.
So the apology was swift and to the point last month after a new history-department employee at the Johns Hopkins University accidentally identified 106 job applicants to one another in a mortifying mass-e-mail blunder.
William Rowe, the history-department chairman, says he told the outed academics in his bcc'd message that a clerical error was to blame, "and we apologize for any embarrassment we may have caused you."
Three days after Mr. Rowe's mea culpa, the University of South Carolina similarly identified 46 applicants who had responded to an advertisement for "multiple tenure-track positions" in the School of Library and Information Science. The mass e-mail message invited applicants to sign up for one of 20 interview slots at the annual conference of Alise, the Association for Library and Information Science Education, which took place last week in Boston.
This time, however, the apology never came.
Samantha Hastings, director of South Carolina's library school, says that the group message, with addresses visible, was deliberate and was part of "an experiment" to efficiently schedule interviews in a limited time. "We had determined that everyone that we contacted had given us permission to use their names," she says. "The step prior to that mass e-mail was that, 'We're going to send a mass e-mail. Are you all right with that?'"
As it turned out, some were not all right with it, and none of the roughly half-dozen applicants who responded to an e-mail inquiry from The Chronicle remembered being asked...
Privacy breaches can also have legal implications, though no one interviewed for this article could recall an instance in which a college was penalized for revealing a candidate's name. Nonetheless, Mr. Rowe says, the e-mail incident at Johns Hopkins raised the antennae of the university's legal department."
http://chronicle.com/article/To-CC-or-BCC-In-Job/63543/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
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