Leadership Cafe

Inprov - How did it work for Zander?

Ed Zander is out the door.  Greg Brown has succeeded into the role of CEO at Motorola.  When asked about improvisational leadership, Ed Zander repsonded as shown below.  My issue is that what he describes seems more static than improvisational leadership:  a change to an "operating system" as Zander describes his "playbook"  is usually a long term change aand contradictory to the notion of doing audibles, isn't it? 

I think you have to have some type of cadence to what you’re doing, especially a company of this size. The team has to have a stake in the ground to follow a process. I think in certain areas of the company you need a cadence, you need a playbook, you need to have it—GE calls it the operating system. We called it at Sun something different. How are we going to do leadership development? How are we going to do strategy? How are we going to get our numbers?  How do we measure ourselves? …But, having said that, the best companies are the ones that can do audibles in the huddle. I don’t think we’re there yet because they’re not used to me yet and I don’t think we as a team are ready to call audibles.

—Ed Zander, Former Chairman and CEO, Motorola

about improvising during his first year on the job

From my book, Sudden Impact on the Job

Wordless Wednesday: Backseat Driver

My Scottish Terrier, Wrigley

When have you improvised?

Improvisation is a difficult term to define. Many leaders admit to using it, but few can say specifically what it is.

When CEOs Say They Have Used Improvisation

A couple of extended clips from interviews with CEOs of major corporations provide a starting point for understanding improvisation—if not what it is, at least when they say they have used it.

I feel like that’s been the way of life here. Much of what I was doing wasn’t planned… It is because so many of the things I’ve been dealing with really aren’t predictable. If somebody had said to me when I came here in January ’02, OK, Pat Russo, not withstanding what you make of it—that plan, that industry, all that stuff that everybody can see today? I’ve got a crystal ball and let me tell you what my crystal ball says. My crystal ball says your market is going to cut in half—the North American market in 2003. You are going to have to make massive cost reductions in this business. You’re going to have do some capital market offers because you’re going to burn through cash, your credit ratings are going to decline, your credit lines are not going to hold, your shareholder suits will need to be resolved. If somebody had said this to me, I wouldn’t have believed them but then I would have said, “OK, I will accept that, now let me think ahead with how I’m going to deal with that.” The problem is that so much of what we managed though in my first twelve to twenty-four months was happening to us—a credit downgrade…as an example. At the time, everyone believed the industry growth would just continue and a lot of folks got it wrong. In fact, I was doing an interview once with a guy from a magazine and he was very arrogant and insulting. I just looked at him and said, “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think we’re stupid?  Do think the people who work for this company with the history of Bell Labs are stupid people?”  Give me a break. NOBODY saw this coming. It was kind of like why didn’t you know, why didn’t you see…Anyway, so I feel like I’ve done a lot of improvising. I’ve done a lot of reaching for a combination of solutions and alternatives, brainstorming with key folks around me and saying, okay, that won’t do it, we’ll do this, we’ll do that and do it this way instead of that way. That to me is improvising.

—Pat Russo, CEO and President, Lucent Technologies

Every day. You never have enough data. You never have enough knowledge. There’s no scheme that’s written out- so everyday. I’ll be on the phone when we’re finished with the USOC [US Olympic Committee] talking about their key initiatives for the rest of the year. There’s no map. I’ve never run a compensation committee. I’m the chair. You go with it, you just go with your gut and the information you can glean from the moment and what you want to have happen in the future. It’s great. That’s the best part about this job—that there is no map. You and your team make it or break it.

—Stephanie Streeter, Chairman, CEO and President, Banta Corp. (and USOC member)

Oh, my God. Everything, especially in a turnaround of a small company, it’s like whistle me a few bars and then I’ll sing along. Where are we going to get the cash flow to get it done, the beliefs that you can do these things…we didn’t know for a fact that a lot of these ideas we had would work. Sometimes we go along and we’d be making changes and improvising, keeping people focused. Me, improvising personally….it’s sort of like the guys who’ve come out of the Gulf war or anybody who’s been in prior battles—they trust their gut. I have to have improvised in the same way based on everything I learned from Vanstar and before. Now, we have more real time data so “gut” is much more supported because more information is available. Very rarely though did we get information instead of data. You have to be able to get the information in a way you can take action. The good news is that in a small company we now that the tools to get that information and to access it more quickly.

—Jay Amato, CEO, Viewpoint (now retired)

As revealed above, even among prominent CEOs, there is not much agreement about why, when, how, and where improvisation occurs, or even what improvisation is. Yet each of them felt that they improvised within the first 18 months of the job—some more often than others, some more specifically than others, and some more consciously than others.

So, when have you improvised to lead your team to bigger and better results?

Smile - It's Wordless Wednesday

Happy Wordless Wednesday: Photo credit to Jenny Leigh

Improvise for Success!

Last week I spoke at the Institute of Supply Management in  Milwaukee about “jump-starting” your career in the new year.  Since my interest is in improvisational leadership, I gave the group seven principles of performance improvisation that could enhance their careers;

1. Know the rhythm of the players.  It is important to first of all, understand your own rhythm.  Are you a fast decision maker, impatient with others who aren’t?  Are you an analytical decision maker who wants to make sure that all the options are considered – unlike those guys who want to fly by the seat of their pants?  To be effective, you need to understand the rhythm of those whom you play with and adjust accordingly to improve hand-offs, decisions and group performance.  How would you describe your rhythm vs. the team you most work with?
2. Serve the narrative.  In performance improvisation, the “narrative” is the theme of the sketch being performed.  To be effective, the players must continue the theme in order to allow others to connect, contribute and carry on the performance.  The “narrative” in business may be the mission of the organization or on a more organic level the goals of your work group as they relate to the bigger narrative of the organization.  What is your group’s narrative?
3. Be fun to play with.  Everyone wants to play with someone who passes the ball., stays upbeat even in the worse of times, encourages rather than criticizes, supports as well as stars – you got the picture.  So, are you fun to play with?
4. Make your partners look good.  The more that you pass the work, the theme, the plan to your partners in a way that favors their strengths or makes them look good, the more they will produce, the more they will in turn pass it back to make you look good. Remember how Mom used to say:  “What goes around, comes around…”  It does!  How can you make your partners look good?  Conversely, how can you let your partners know what they can do to make you look good?
5. Be generous.  If you have an idea, don ‘t hoard it.  Share it.  Not only make your partners look good, but share your ideas.  The most incredible form of flattery – and effectiveness- is when your idea comes back to you as someone else’s.  Now you may say – yes but…I’m not going to get credit if they don’t know it’s mine.  Believe me, you will.  And, if you hold onto your idea and never share it, what do you think happens?  You so obsess on that idea that your brain goes into hibernate on any other possibilities or new ideas so that you become stagnant. 
6. It’s a small playing field – with a long memory.  Whatever business or endeavor for which you are a member, that old saying of what comes around, goes around ALWAYS applies.  Thus, don’t EVER burn any bridges.  As I gave my talk, this point resulted in big nods from the audiences.  First of all, personally, you will always need references, but even more karmic, is that people you never expected to work with again or cross paths with again (like maybe they’re now the decision maker with the biggest potential account your company needs to close ) will emanate somewhere in your life when you least expect it.  Keep those bridges clean, swept and snow-plowed!  Any experience with this one?
7. Create your own “riff.”  In jazz improvisation, your riff is your own personal signature.  When anyone in the jazz world walks into a club and hears the trumpeter, he or she can tell if it’s Wynton Marsalis, Chris Botti or Louie Armstrong.  What is your passion?  What is your unique way in the world – or on the job?  What will people always identify about you?  We just had a surprise birthday party/roast for my husband yesterday and it was interesting to see that people roasting him intuitively got his riff – his signature (which was quite amusing) – as they roasted him.  Do you know what your riff is?  If not, ask ten colleagues what they think it is and see how many are in the same ballpark…

While these are my 7 tips for improvisational leadership, maybe you have other suggestions. Please add your best in the comments section below.

And don't forget..Have a great day – as my friend Phil Gerbyshak would say – Make it a great day!

So what?

I got a comment back about my breaking the status quo post.  It said, “So what?” 

That’s fair.  The “so what?” is that in my experience, breaking the status quo in the workplace has lead to breakthrough ideas for new products such as the first flat-rate long distance phone service – which ironically now is nearly status quo and taken for granted.  At the time, all the executives thought we were crazy but let us try and it opened up a whole new market for long distance (18 to 25 year olds). 

More recently I worked on a start-up triple play (telecom, high speed Internet and cable TV) where we sold our services to entire buildings rather than one apartment dweller at a time. We put together a package just for condos and got endorsed by the biggest condo association in the city; thus, catapulting the revenues of our new business.

For me, I have explored new places and new ideas personally and in my business life that if I were worried about the status quo would not be on my list. 

Try it – do the most outrageous thing you can think of that you’ve always told yourself you couldn’t do - even though you wanted to. 

Go ask for that job you’ve always thought about, seek out a person who you’ve always wanted to meet, sign up for rock climbing….   

Let me know how it goes and I’ll keep you posted too….

Improvisational Leadership

The topic of my next book is going to be improvisational leadership.  I’ve defined the term through interviews with CEOs about their job performance.  I also have measured the effectiveness of their performance based on their companies’ financial results – which I have found is sorely lacking in the work of many leadership “experts.”  The leadership terms I’ve defined mirror many of those in the jazz genre.

Miles Davis, renowned jazz saxophonist, was a master of improvisation. While he was known for his adroit musical skill as a soloist, Davis rarely played without a group. And, he always “comped” his players—taking turns soloing, encouraging them to form their own improvisations and rejoining for further variation and new themes. Each player would have the opportunity to build on the others’ performance.

Davis was a part of a group. He did not conduct the musicians as in a traditional band or orchestra—yet he was the leader. He was the one who ultimately determined the direction for the group by setting the initial key, tempo and, typically, eight bars of melody. From performance to performance, even when the group started from the same settings, the outcome would be different every time because of variations in each player’s contribution, the audience, the stage, and so on.

Leaders in every profession find themselves improvising. While they set the direction, any number of variables surface that demand the leader change course or vary the original theme. For CEOs, the variables are myriad.

While Davis was able to set direction, in many cases CEOs cannot or if they can, they have to constantly change it. Initial direction may have to be changed because of environmental factors such as economic considerations, corporate regulations, or organizational constraints. In addition, personal factors such as industry experience, succession conditions, and cognitive skills have an impact on how the direction is set and achieved.

In the current business environment, the tenure of new CEOs is very tenuous. If they don’t swiftly perform effectively for their audiences, they are gone. According to a Challenger Gray study (Bates, 2004), the average CEO tenure in 2004 was 9.8 years. Carly Fiorina lasted five and a half years at Hewlett-Packard, Peter Dolan four years at Bristol Myers Squibb, Harry Stonecipher two years at Boeing, and Perry Odak five years at Wild Oats.

Were these CEOs adroit at improvising or were they playing the same theme over and over again hoping to achieve different results? When could they have improvised, changing the theme, the tempo, or the key for more effective outcomes?

I'd love to hear what you think: How and when should any CEO, leader or manager improvise?   

Imagine....

Since predictability and routine make me feel lifeless and unhappy, I have always sought a lifestyle that is varied enough to be mentally stimulating and challenging.   Thus, after years of climbing the corporate ladder, moving my family from house-to-house, city-to-city and country-to-country, I chose to start my own company and write the book that had been ruminating around my brain since I left my first job several decades earlier (it’s never too late!).

I’m pretty independent, freedom-loving, and easily bored.  So, I decided at the same time to go back and get my PhD, start a real-estate development company, motivate college kids to become entrepreneurs and speak to groups about eliciting their leadership passion and high octane performances.

In the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to present my ideas nationally and globally.  This past year took me to India where I not only presented my book and my PhD dissertation but was able to experience the spirituality of the Ganges. My yoga teacher says I’m the busiest person she knows….and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I am starting this blog because I want to share how to  bypass the status quo and lead with your strengths and talents.  In turn, you will find you elicit high performance from the others around you through what I have identified and defined as improvisational leadership™ (which is probably going to be the topic of my next book.) 

Imagine. Invest. Impact.

Who or what has inspired your imagination? 

Break the Status Quo

All my life I have experienced a deep inner restlessness and discontent with the status quo, calling me to seek out adventure, excitement, and the unconventional. As a child, I was often in trouble for speaking out of turn or interrupting adults with questions. I was always leading the neighborhood gang on some new adventure or expedition.  My mother and I would take cross-country road trips at a time when that kind of behavior was not the norm.  In high school, when the other girls were hanging out in their bikinis and basking in those evil ultraviolet rays, I was basking in the jungles of Mexico or the cathedrals of Europe. When I would have doubts about some new venture to which I had committed, my mother would ask, “What’s the worst thing that can happen to you?”  which has become my life’s mantra.

My life so far has been centered on the themes of new ideas, change, travel and experimenting with new ways of doing old things. When I was in business school, I was often one of the few girls in the class.  As I progressed into the corporate world, I often encountered the “good old boys network” or the “not invented here syndrome” and muscled by to achieve new programs and milestones.  I was on the forefront of setting up new divisions, new marketing strategies, new sales tactics and new business models in corporate settings and later in start-ups. 

What about you? Do you have a life mantra?  How have you maneuvered around the status quo for success?