Who is culpable, for instance, for extraordinarily high CEO wages?   Considerable finger wagging has been going on in the press at CEOs about this.  It isn’t the CEO who sets his or her own salary; it is the board of directors.  Yet boards of directors were invisible to the press in these stories.  Often our assumptions may lead us to conclusions that malign others without full consideration for the facts.  This disturbs me greatly but I know I have done it, too.  Why is that?

Walking with a friend, I mentioned a situation that was just this kind of wrongful maligning, and she asked me, “How long does it take to find a witch?”  She was referencing the days in Europe from 1480 to 1700 when legally sanctioned and official witchcraft trials resulted in from 40,000 to 100,000 executions. It was decided someone was a witch, and that person was immediately burned at the stake.  Perhaps it is popular to not trust CEOs because the media are on a CEO witch-hunt.

While we’ve moved beyond flagrantly burning people at the stake, we still do character assassinations every day in the form of judgment and gossip.   Some of this finger wagging and witch-hunting and broad-brush painting is projection — making someone else responsible for what we, ourselves, don’t want to be responsible.  So I ask myself, is my promise about business leaders leading with integrity and love and listening for people’s greatness about convincing leaders to be that?  Or is there some culpability in how I, and others listen for a leader to be great?

I believe there’s a pandemic malaise that creates its own dissonance and a noise within which leaders are trying to lead.  The expectation that leaders should be responsible for all wrongs is abdication of personal responsibility, and in the United States anyway (where I live), it is a serious problem.

I would like for EVERY individual in an organization, be it government, non-profit or for-profit, to SEEK OUT and TAKE UP their part in building successful entity, using the energy they spend criticizing leadership and putting it into taking personal responsibility to own their own accountability for results.

For more on this topic you can request on this website, www.accountabilitypays.com, the larger thesis from which this excerpt was taken.

Seeing into the future is rather like running in heavy fog eyes wide open.  I was recently invited to participate in a strategic planning session for a not-for-profit organization where the CEO wants to see 30 years out into the future.

I proposed a people analysis as part of this process because there is an assumption that some of those folks who are currently in the organization will still be there to carry out this vision.  Some will not, the math doesn’t work.   Age is not your friend in this exercise.  Or in Steve Jobs’ case, illness was not his friend nor was his illness our friend.  I don’t know about you but I miss him!

In the fuzzy environment of the global financial crisis, technology advancements, and unpredictability of the environmental issues, there is something exciting about skipping all of those considerations and saying “this is where we WANT to be.”

Our favorite recent runaway successful leader Steve Jobs said, “ A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them.  Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.” That is vision in the face of a crumbling economy, yes? At Accountability Pays we use all Apple products.

Vision is an inside job that belongs to the leader. Moreover, it differentiates a successful leader from an also-ran leader.   But it isn’t enough to just envision the future, without giving it legs.  Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

Jobs could have believed in putting quality products into the market and flopped but general consensus says he tenaciously adhered to a winning combination of innovation AND a veracity about quality AND an incredible sensibility for design to differentiate those products from ANY competitor.  He had the capacity and the drive to translate his vision into more market share than any company anywhere in any industry.

Here is a teaser quote to send you on your way to visioning.  Who said this?  “Apple’s market share is bigger than BMW’s or Mercedes’s or Porsche’s in the automotive market. What’s wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?”

Your comments are welcome and invited.  Feel free to give your examples, your stories.

Transparency is core to trust, which has been covered in prior blogs.  So is authenticity.   Here is what the foremost author on emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman, Primal Leadership:  Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence says about authenticity and leadership.

“The triad of self-awareness, self-management, and empathy all come together in the final Emotional Intelligence ability: relationship management.  Here we find the most visible tools of leadership — persuasion, conflict management, and collaboration among them.  Managing relationships skillfully boils down to handing other people’s emotions.  This, in turn, means that leaders be aware of their own emotions and attuned with empathy to the people they lead.

“If a leader acts disingenuously or manipulatively, for instance, the emotional radar of followers will sense a note of falseness and they will instinctively distrust that leader.  The art of handling relationships well, then, begins with authenticity: acting from one’s genuine feelings.”

In building the biotechnology company Amgen, that “over the next 20 years went from a struggling entrepreneurial enterprise into a $3.2 billion company with 6,400 employees, they delivered consistent profitability and growth.”  How did CEO George Rathman avoid what is called by Jim Collins the “entrepreneurial death spiral?”  Amgen was a culture of discipline. Rathman “understood that the purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline — a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.”  Jim Collins, Good to Great.

If you have been following my blogs you know Jim Collins sings my favorite song.   Get the right people paired with discipline and business grows, authentic dialog and transparency are natural expressions in the organization.  Get the wrong people and it is impossible to get great results from poor performers with excuses in lieu of results. Before dismissing these people, however, some authentic mirror work is required to determine if it is their ineptitude, or your lack of leadership that is the source of poor performance in results.  Last week’s blog invited the possibility that you are accountable for everything.  Certainly you are accountable for choosing to fire, tolerate, or educate poor performers.  Before choosing, are you measuring what matters?

In a fully functional, authentic business environment, your key executive team will have authentic conversations making it popular to take responsibility, to seek failures sooner, to be completely transparent.  And Daniel Goleman points out that fully functional leaders have conversations that include real feelings, not posturing and not pretending.

Is this your daily experience?

Personally, I got appointed the babysitter when I was the oldest of 4 children.  It has taken me YEARS of committed introspection into the topic of accountability and what is available out of being accountable, to bring any lightness to this topic.  I did name my company “Accountability Pays,” so I do see a light at the end of the tunnel. Unless we want to suffer the consequences, we are accountable at work and at home, however we define it.

What if we could bring fun, play and ease to the conversations we have about being accountable?  The conversations I’ve usually had were focused on making someone wrong.  And if you’ve gotten to adulthood, you already know how that plays out!  It is not pretty for either party, when being made wrong or making another wrong.  It is the blame game, sound and fury signifying nothing, some version of “If you were different, if you were responsible, if you did things like I do them then all would be fine.”  That conversation does not usually go well UNLESS you are committed to coming out the other side with both people whole and complete, no kidding.  One of my fellow thinkers on this topic said it this way;  “The relationship is committed to workability for everyone.”

If being accountable — all of us being accountable — were fun, playful, easy what would be available?

Some of you think I’ve been smoking some illegal substance.  No, I have not.  What I know from my own experience, and sharing experiences with others, is that when everyone is accountable (clear, focused, results oriented) then the entity (relationship, organization) exudes vitality.

Think about a time when everyone did what they were supposed to do and you experienced what some call “flow.”  Stuff just got done!  People supported the whole with whatever was required, without being asked, even if it didn’t fit neatly into their job description.  Almost every one can think of one experience like that, and it was memorable, but seemingly not repeatable.  Why is that?  What I just described is the experience of being accountable with fun, play, and ease.

Here are a few quick rules that I’ve found work to bring fun, play, ease — and therefore vitality — to conversations for accountability.

1. Don’t make people feel that they are wrong for doing it the way they are currently doing things, even if you don’t think they are right.
2. Engage them in a discussion of what is possible if all pull on the oars of the boat headed in the same direction.
3. ASK for their impression of what could be done, and LISTEN.
4. Assume that if they do not understand you, it is because you did not communicate fully, not because they were stupid/not listening/whatever you made up about them.
5. Remind them of how great it will be when celebration time comes around.
6. Make them feel part of something bigger than themselves, something that is important.
7. Watch them come alive.  Watch them dip into their inner reserves.  Watch them perform beyond your expectations, as a valued and valuable team member.

Look further and you will find many companies distinguishing themselves by pursuing the triple bottom line; Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, Panera Bread, The Container Store, Whole Foods — being purposeful in a larger sense while pursuing self-interest.  The proof of effectiveness is in the financial, social, and environmental effects and is often associated with the monikers “sustainable” organization, or corporate citizenship, or conscious capitalism.  For more examples,  http://www.forbes.com/impact-30/lander.html.

Besides being the conscious thing to do, the triple bottom line has appeal for ‘A’ players — people who want to work for a purpose greater than themselves, who will work harder for the privilege of making a difference.

Breakaway Success is accomplishment beyond measure.  And yes, to get there, measure, measure, measure!  But only measure what is meaningful.

What is meaningful?  Most accountants measure what has already passed, and that has to be measured — sales, profits, ROI, G&A, etc.  Nothing new here and not necessarily meaningful to top performers, particularly younger workers who decide where to work based on the green/social capital of the organization.

And yes, financials are important. The Harvard Business Review, January 2010 issue’s presentation of The Best-Performing CEOs in the World said their objective was to present a long-term measure to assess CEOs and to inform CEO searches and succession planning, looking at stock returns, the fundamental scorecard for CEOs of public companies.  They looked at three measures:  country-adjusted return, industry-adjusted return and change in market capitalization during their tenure.

The following are words and phrases emanating from the 2011 CEO Summit on Conscious Capitalism. http://vimeo.com/33738729. Well-being of the people, the world.  Value for stakeholders.  I win, you win, the world wins.  Businesses operating from higher ideals that animate business. Profit is the byproduct, and purpose underlies that.  If you make a difference, often the money will take care of itself.

Paradoxically, NOT focusing wholly on profit will provide more profitability because the focus is on win-win.

How is your organization measuring its success?  I am eager to hear your stories.

Different teams require different structures, so for example sales teams require CRM.  That should be obvious, but for some organization it isn’t.  They probably aren’t reading this blog, because they have fallen behind in their technology savvy.

Today there is no excuse for not capturing sales data.  If you experience resistance from your sales management or a sales team member, you may be getting feedback from someone who doesn’t want to be measured, which suggests that person isn’t an ‘A’ player.  Look more deeply.

Senior executive teams need meetings with one another on a regular basis, and I do not mean meetings that get put off when there’s an emergency.  Consider that there are emergencies because you aren’t strategically thinking together regularly.

‘A’ teams need a leader who challenges them to think their best thoughts, be on their best behavior as a leader.  Challenging conversations are a structure.  They need report cards, theirs from you and theirs to you the CEO/President/Founder/Grand Poo-Bah of any title.  They need off-sites for strategic thinking and planning.  Those are structures.

What else do they need as a structure?  Executives need to be able to count on having conversations that matter deeply, whether they ask for them or not, in part because they need to learn how to hold those conversations with those who report to them.  I recently was asked to help a CEO hire a senior executive.  We used the Harrison Assessment to profile the candidate against the expectations of the position.  His results scared the potential employee off.  The CEO’s executive coach said to me, “Probably a good thing.  If the candidate doesn’t want to delve more transparently into himself then he won’t be a good fit for this team.”

If you need support for generating conversations that matter, on this website you can order senior executive team conversation starters.   And if you want to keep and inspire ‘A’ teams with structures, you will look beyond the obvious ones, which you know with your eyes closed.

“When we began the research project, we expected to find that the first step in taking a company from good to great would be to set a new direction, a new vision and strategy for the company, and then to get people committed and aligned behind that new direction.

We found something quite the opposite.

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there.  No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it. They said, in essence, “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus.  But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.”

If it were my organization, I think a safer bet would be to know something about where the bus is going so I could get people who are aligned with that vision of the future.  Probably that future isn’t sealed in absolutes with the business plan written, but the future is in the mind’s eye of the founder or the current leader and can be elucidated.

Dr. Peter Drucker said, “The ability to make good decisions regarding people represents one of the last reliable sources of competitive advantage since very few organizations are very good at it.”

I can tell whether human resources (the people) in an organization are valued by two indicators:  1) the senior human resources executive is a member of the strategic executive team or not, and 2) to whom the human resources department reports.  In a company of any size where human resources is a department, if the senior executive of that department does not report to the CEO, how likely is it that the key leverage of an organization — its people — is under-valued?

Pretty high.  So that is the first seat that I would get right, and the rest of the people equation will begin to foster success that should drop to the bottom line.

What is the scenario at your organization?  Comments?  Observations?

• I hope maybe Jack will improve over time.  He just needs better (fill in the blank).
• I don’t want to admit a mistake to my board.  (Read I don’t want to look bad).
• I hired them, I’ll live with them — they are my people, for good or for bad.
• “Fire drill” mentality around here right now means too many emergencies to change guard now.  I’ll wait for a better time.
• I have no guarantee I could do better next time.  (Read I don’t trust myself/HR/the department heads/ to hire right, and I am resigned about ever getting better help)
• But I LIKE Jack, he’s a really good guy.
• Maybe it’s me…….  (Read I don’t provide great instruction, I’m not a great communicator, I don’t know this person well enough, they need another chance, I’m too far removed from his/her actual performance so I don’t want to override decisions made by department heads, etc.)

While I have heard some version of every one of those excuses, they are probably not why you might be tolerating less than optimal performance.  I assert that it is because you lack adequate feedback and/or feedback mechanisms, so that even if you wanted to, you don’t have the information from which to change horses.

That said consider the possibility that you may have people in your organization acting like ‘B’ players because that’s how they are being managed.  If given sufficient challenge, they might rise to the occasion.  Given a manager/leader whose values/vision they respect and admire, a vision they align with they might become ‘A’ players.

When I suggest hiring ’A’ players, I first recommend looking in that mirror.  Then I recommend inviting others to hold up the mirror for you.    Your people are your key leverage point to success, so this inquiry should not be put off. Shifting your priority on people could shift your other bottom line.

Ask yourself the question, “Who are you that your people would grow to their full potential through your leadership?

How do you engage your employees?  How do you measure performance?  Is that working?  Send me your stories.

What is Employee Engagement? 

Here’s what I see.  Employee engagement is employees working in an organization in a way that an owner would work, with something at stake in the future success of the organization and a sense of worth that comes from contributing to something greater than their own self-interest.

So when managing the philosophy of human resources in your organization, what are the principles that would garner either engagement or optimally passion for people doing their job?

We are currently putting in new flooring, and two guys are downstairs as I write this blog chatting away in another language as they set the tiles that we will live with for many years to come.  Are they artisans designing my future environment, attending to whether the tiles look good in that configuration?  Or are they talking about their evening, a good steak, their children and just making a dollar?

If you are working from the triple bottom line — profits, people, and planet — your employees’ attitudes matter.  If you want employees to be responsible for the bottom line then they have to have a stake in the results the company produces, and that does not mean your job is to make them HAPPY.  Rick Tate of Impact Achievement Group recently wrote an article pointing out that it is productive employees who have great morale, yet many performance reviews reflect a belief that great morale leads to productivity.   Happy is a result of productivity, not an access to it.

You are responsible for their experience of productivity in many ways, one of them is what you measure.  “A” players like to be measured, and “A” teams like to be measured.  If you are measuring what matters they know it, you know it, and you will have engaged employees.

How do you measure employee engagement (or better yet, passion)?  I welcome your stories!

I have a dream that leadership opportunities come only to those who demonstrate that their decisions are informed by deeply held core values. Lee Thayer, author of Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing and I are on the same page about that.

Lee says, “The right values and beliefs are the “right stuff.” If you don’t have “the right stuff,” then you are not going to accomplish anything extraordinary, either individually or as a leader of others. And if those key others are not right-minded, right-hearted, and right-spirited (if they don’t have “the right stuff”), then your mission will likely fail. The right values and beliefs are critical because values and beliefs do not take us where we want to go. They take us in the direction they go. Their direction and their ends are inherent in them. They are blind to everything but their own ends. Get them right, and they will carry you along to where you want to go. Get them wrong, and they will carry you along to wherever they are headed.”

In your organization haven’t you observed someone with a title who has position power, but someone else has credibility and whose decisions people would choose to follow? I certainly have. If hiring choices have been good optimally the person with position power also is someone people would choose to follow. That scenario is least stressful on all systems and the people in them. It is also the path to extraordinary success.

Yet when was the last time you had a conversation with someone in leadership about their character as evidenced by the values that underlie their decisions?

Maybe it’s time to bring that background issue to the foreground at an executive session. Your employees know who you are, really.

I invite your comments, questions, and thoughts.