Bootstrap Leadership Blog

Last year, I joined my brother Scott and three (new) friends – Doug, Paul and Rob – on a weekend climb of Mt. Baker, in northwest Washington.  Aside from a great experience (we reached the 10,778 foot summit and returned safely), I took away several leadership lessons that reminded me of how often leadership translates to everyday life. 

# 1 – Leadership starts with credibility.  All of us have successful resumes in the real world, but when it comes to climbing, Rob had the most knowledge and experience, and therefore was the clear choice to be expedition leader.  On all climbing related decisions, we followed his direction and deferred to his judgment.  Without question, this made the climb easier and less stressful.

# 2 – The team needs shared goals and mutual accountability.  While we were all focused on the same goal (reaching the summit), we clearly understood the main objective – getting back down the mountain safely.  Every decision was made with the safety in mind, and we shared responsibility for each other’s well-being on the rope.  Perhaps it was being literally roped together for 10 hours, but we were all keenly aware of the concept of “team” throughout the climb.

# 3 – Leaders need to be flexible, and listen to feedback.  Rob did a wonderful job of making judgment calls as weather or snow conditions changed, and was receptive to feedback throughout the climb.  At one point Doug and Scott made a route suggestion on our downhill trek that Rob quickly accepted, and at all times he “listened” to the tension on the rope from weary climbers (OK, that was mostly me) to take a breather at times.  The rope, in fact, was a beautiful metaphor for feedback, teamwork, signals for assistance, and shared accountability.  When you’re literally hooked together as a team, you don’t have much choice but to cooperate and support one another!

# 4 – It takes mental and physical energy to succeed.   Leaders need to be in tune with their teams regarding both mental and physical energy.  In this case, our task was mostly physical – waking at 12:30 am to head for the summit in the dark, climbing non-stop for nearly 10 hours, ascending and descending 14,200 total feet in 28 hours on little sleep, etc.  But the real challenge was controlling emotions and staying focused mentally – in fact, it helped to make much of the final push in the dark with just our headlamps, as it kept us focused on “one step at a time” (another metaphor for short-term wins).  Again, we all did a great job of keeping each other’s spirits and positive energy high. 

# 5 – Nothing beats accomplishing a goal with others.   Had one of the team not summitted, we wouldn’t have approached the excitement and satisfaction we felt that morning.  The fact that we put everything aside for the team, sharing equipment, food and energy, and helping each other to the top made the experience one to remember for all of us.  Accomplishing a challenging goal with others is what leadership is all about. 

I’ll take away some awesome memories of this weekend – but the biggest is the power of teamwork.  If you get a team of people together who really want to help each other succeed, there’s almost nothing you can’t do!

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but performance management is getting a second (or third or fourth) look these days.  Without question one of the most controversial organizational processes of the last 50 years, performance management is getting some interesting recent publicity.  What started as a way to differentiate performance for the purposes of applying compensation morphed into a sort of “feedbackapolooza” with the advent of competency ratings and the balance of “what” and “how” (results and behaviors).  This was received as mostly good news in the Human Resources arena, as it helped us reward and recognize teamwork and civil obedience among the workforce.   

Personally, I’m a fan of the equally weighted “what” and “how” model, but now it looks like the pendulum might be swinging back a bit.  In last week’s Wall Street Journal, I read about a recent Hewitt Associates study that found 11% of manager’s and 10% of other employees’ performance reviews were being based ONLY on results (using objective measures).  These numbers were up from 7% and 8% respectively in 2005.  The survey further stated that 33% of all executive’s ratings were derived solely from results, which is up from 20% in the 2005 survey.  OK, so these might feel like small moves, but they do represent a bit of a trend. 

Two new books are also finding their way into the performance management discussion.  The first is called One Page Talent Management (Effron and Ort, 2010) which presents a case for framing the behaviors any employee is being held accountable for as an actual goal – one that can be measured in terms of progress toward completion, just like results objectives (however subjective this assessment might be).  In other words, we might not rate every employee on the same set of 7-8 behaviors, but rather set up unique behavioral elements of the performance appraisal that fit each person’s specific development plan (determined during the goal setting process).  In a sense, this probably tips the scale a little bit back to results, as it seems reasonable to include only 1-2 of these “how” development efforts per year, whereas you might have 3-4 “what” goals.  An interesting approach to be sure (btw, this is a terrific book with lots of solid ideas).   

The second book is Get Rid of the Performance Review! (Culbert and Rout, 2010) and it has a simple premise that really pushes the envelope – it calls for the unequivocal end to performance reviews as we know them.  Culbert, a UCLA management professor, teams up with Wall Street Journal senior editor Lawrence Rout to tell us why performance reviews are bogus and how they undermine both creativity and productivity.  Culbert and Rout do offer an alternative - the performance preview, which is designed to hold people accountable for their actions and their results and give managers and their employees the kind of feedback they need to improve their skills.  It’s especially intriguing as a tool for teams.

One of the cool things about working in leadership development is watching the macro trends within HR.    I feel the sands shifting with performance management and the performance review process… it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if we see a movement back toward a results focus, or away from annual reviews entirely. 

This is one I’d like to here from you on – what’s your company doing with performance management, and do you have any innovative ideas?  Or what do you think of the premise of doing away with it altogether?

In reverse order, these are my selections for the best books on influencing others:

# 5 – The Speed of Trust (Covey, 2008)

Trust is so integral to our relationships that we often take it for granted, yet in these crazy times, we need to nurture and value trust more than ever. Drawing on anecdotes and business cases from his years as CEO of the Covey Leadership Center, the author effectively reminds us that there's plenty of room for improvement on this most essential of all traits.  Covey outlines 13 behaviors of trust-inspiring leaders, such as demonstrating respect, creating transparency, righting wrongs, delivering results and practicing accountability.  In my mind, this is a perfect primer for influencing others – after all, getting people to do what you want them to do is pretty hard without trust.  

# 4 – Influencing Others (Silberman & Hansburg, 2000)

This is probably the most “how-to” of the books on this list.  The authors have written numerous books on a variety of business relationship-oriented subjects.  This book provides practical advice for managers and leaders who have to influence up, down and across the organization. 

# 3 – Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Cialdini, 2006)

Don’t be too fooled by the “psychology” term here – this is a practical book with great advice for anyone in business.  Cialdini introduces you to six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency. Each principle is backed by social scientific testing, and is filled with examples and anecdotes that you’ll recognize.  Influencing really is persuading, when you get right down to it, and this book paints a broad picture of how to effectively persuade others.   

# 2 – Crucial Conversations (Patterson, et al 2002)

Crucial conversations are interpersonal exchanges at work or at home that we dread having but know we cannot avoid.  This popular book offers a seven-point strategy for achieving productive conversations that inevitably arise in our professional and personal lives.  The techniques in this book are geared toward getting people to lower their defenses, create mutual respect and understanding, increase emotional safety, and encourage freedom of expression. Among other things, readers also learn about the four main factors that characterize crucial conversations; I include it here because I think influencing others starts with getting your own foundation firmly set, and this book helps you work through any high impact situation with confidence.

# 1 – How to Win Friends & Influence People (Carnegie, 1998)

This is the grand-daddy of all self-help books, first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies, and is just as relevant today (this is an updated version of the original) as it was over 70 years ago.  Carnegie believed success was 85% due to "the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people."  He teaches underlying principles of appreciation and influence and offers lessons that could have been written today such as “seeing the situation from the other person's point of view.”  As fascinating as it is to read for its timeless advice, it’s also just a really sensible book on the subject.  

There you go – that’s the list.  Let me know if I missed one!