Podcast: Beth Fisher-Yoshida and Kathy Geller on Transnational Leadership

Our fantastic AMA Edgewise has a podcast up from our AMA Innovations in Adult Learning gurus Beth Fisher-Yoshida and Kathy Geller on transnational leadership.

Transnational Leadership Development by Beth Fisher-Yoshida and Kathy Geller acquaints readers with the paradoxes and mental processes leaders need to relate successfully to people with different backgrounds, cultures, and societal identities. The book advises readers on how leaders may learn to see, feel, and experience the world with different lenses; take the necessary amount of time to reflect on what they know and what they need to know; find new ways to communicate; and be resilient in the face of this unique challenge.

Listen HERE.

John Baldoni on How Companies Can Earn Back Trust

The following is a guest post by John Baldoni, author of Lead by Example: 50 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Results.

One of the casualties of the economic crisis is a massive loss of trust in senior corporate leadership. Trust erosion began before the meltdown. Surveys by Watson Wyatt done two years ago showed that only half of employees had faith in their bosses. Emerging data is likely to confirm this downward trend. And with good reason, employees have watched their senior leaders evade accountability by receiving large salaries and huge bonuses as their companies were sinking.

As bad as things are, however, most employees still have their jobs. And that includes managers and it is they who must pick up the pieces. So the question is can trust be restored and if so how? The answer to the first is yes, the answer to the second requires explanation. Here are some things to consider:

Assume mistrust. An executive seeking to restore trust in the wake of poor management must assume that the only trust remaining is mistrust. This is not being pessimistic; this is being realistic. When people feel they have been misused and eve abused by previous management, they are resentful and suspicious. For all they know, the next manager is the same as the previous one. All bad!

Bend over backwards. Knowing the odds does not mean acting suspicious. The manager seeking to restore trust must deal openly with individuals. While you may believe that employees in general mistrust management, act as if individual employees can be reached. Be approachable and accessible.

Start small. State clear objectives. Solicit input on those objectives. At first people will be tentative, and may only tell you want you want to hear. Therefore, you must make it clear that feedback, even push-back, is acceptable. Make it clear you will only succeed if people pull together. Also make it safe for people to disagree.

Expect a return. A manager who is investing herself to improve trust deserves a dividend in return – the support of the team. That is, employees must do what is asked of them. When the manager works hard to restore trust and gets nothing in return then it is time for change. If they don’t agree, they may decide to leave, even with the encouragement of the boss.

When trust occurs in the workplace, employees are more likely to commit rather than comply. The latter is okay if you are going through the motions, particularly when times are good. But, now in tough times, commitment is essential. Resources and people are stretched so thinly that everyone must do more than her part; we must exert the extra effort. That can only happen when people trust the men and women run their organization. Trust matters. All you have to do is earn it.

John Baldoni is an internationally recognized leadership consultant, speaker, and author of six books, including LEAD BY EXAMPLE: 50 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Results. He was named one of the “30 Most Influential Leadership Gurus” for 2007 by www.LeadershipGurus.net. He has been featured or quoted in many publications, including USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and Investor’s Business Daily. He is a frequent keynote and workshop speaker, writes a monthly column entitled “On Leadership” for CIO.com, a weekly blog about leadership for Fast Company, and contributes regular columns for HR.com. He also maintains a popular website at www.johnbaldoni.com.

John Baldoni on the Top 15 Things Leaders Need to Know in Tough Times

John Baldoni, author of Lead by Example: 50 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Results, is sharing the top 15 things leaders need to know to inspire results in tough economic times.

1. Demonstrate character. It forms the foundation of everything a leader says and does.

2. Be accountable for your actions and responsible for the actions of others.

3. Check your ego at the door (and keep it there).

4. Promote resilience. There is no shame in getting knocked down; it’s getting back up that matters.

5. Get in the habit of asking questions but do not expect easy answers. Make it safe for people to ask you questions, too.

6. Manage around obstacles. The path to fulfilled goals is seldom straight.

7. Management is the discipline of detail. Leadership is the art of thinking beyond details in order to make things better.

8. Drive innovation by encouraging everyone on the team to think and act creatively. Good ideas can come from anyone at anytime.

9. Encourage dissent about issues but promote civility around people.

10. Create a winning culture so that people feel confident about themselves and their work.

11. Change always happens. Learn to anticipate, embrace and adapt to it and teach others to do the same.

12. Teach others “the how”… then get out of the way and let people do their jobs.

13. Honor tradition but seek to do things that benefit people today and for tomorrow.

14. Get off the pedestal. Leadership is less about who you are than what you do!

15. Lighten up. Take the work (but not yourself) seriously!

John Baldoni is an internationally recognized leadership consultant, speaker, and author of six books, including Lead by Example and Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders. He was named one of the “30 Most Influential Leadership Gurus” for 2007 by www.LeadershipGurus.net. He has been featured or quoted in many publications, including USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and Investor’s Business Daily. He is a frequent keynote and workshop speaker, writes a monthly column entitled “On Leadership” for CIO.com, a weekly blog about leadership for Fast Company, and contributes regular columns for HR.com. He also maintains a popular website at www.johnbaldoni.com

Jane Linder on Innovation’s Steely Spine

The following is a guest post by Jane Linder, author of Spiral Up: …and Other Management Secrets Behind Wildly Successful Initiatives (AMACOM 2007). She is writing about how managers can drive innovation during the recession.

What have we learned over the past 15 months? In “normal” times, confidence accounts for about half of the value in the stock market. There are two kinds of banks in the country—those that line up to take the stimulus money and those that prefer to work things out on their own. The experts can be dead wrong—did diversification protect your 401K? Some people who appear successful are thieves.

I’m going out on a limb here: this recession is the best opportunity we’re going to have in our lifetimes to figure out what it really takes to thrive. The lessons may be brutal, but at least they are clear. And these are not the lessons of self-indulgent, complacent idea generation. They are hard-won, gut-level lessons about the steely sort of innovation that gives us a real future. Here goes…

Substance actually does matter. Creating the appearance of value may support an organization for a time, but it won’t last forever. Today’s harsh glare is revealing what actually works. It’s now easier than ever to distinguish bedrock from fluff.

Would you rather have your money in Citibank or Johnson Bank, for example? Johnson Bank just turned down a $100 million capital infusion from the US Treasury. According to executives of this privately-held, Racine-based bank, it didn’t need the money. It remains profitable.

There are new voids in the marketplace left by those “expert” solutions that turned out to be wrong and those highly regarded organizations that turned out to be shams. New entrants and nimble players will fill those gaps by restoring customers’ trust.

For example, before you buy insurance or invest in a bond, will you turn to the rating organizations that have been advising us how much risk we are assuming? Most people won’t trust a new rash of regulators to provide that information either. The market is wide open for a new solution that substitutes true insight for false control.

All the paeans to open innovation notwithstanding, this is a great time to tell the good business partners from the bad ones. Ask yourself who is introducing you to new customers and standing beside you when things get a little tight. Even more telling, ask yourself who is failing to keep their promises and trying to sneak out from under their commitments. Who is trying to leave you holding their bag? Will you ever share your best work with them again?

Customers are still spending money, but only on the things that really matter to them. Now that the din of abundance has quieted down, customers’ indelible needs are coming through. This is precious. By tuning our ears to the pitch of our customers’ deeper desires, we have half a chance of satisfying them.

If we ever thought innovation was a comfortable experience, well, we’ve learned. Ultimately, there are no substitutes for optimism and hard work. If you don’t have something to look forward to, look harder. Figure out what you want and go for it. The bedrock way: with integrity. Don’t give up. That’s what it takes to thrive. Game on.

Dr. Jane Linder is the author of Spiral Up and Outsourcing for Radical Change. She has worked as a senior executive at Accenture and as a professor at Harvard Business School. Currently she is an owner and managing director of NWN Corporation, the fastest growing IT services company in the US.

Don & Sheryl Grimme on Becoming a Manager During a Recession

The following is a guest post by Don & Sheryl Grimme, management trainers, speakers, and authors of The New Manager’s Tool Kit (AMACOM 2008). In this post, they offer advice to managers suddenly thrust into a management position during tough times.

If you are a first-time manager, you were probably very capable as an individual contributor, which is why you were chosen for your current role. However, you may not be feeling that same level of competence in your new job …yet. You’re facing a very different set of challenges. Chief among them is getting things done through others.

Perhaps you’ve taken on management responsibilities sooner than you expected because of lay-offs – thrust in to a position that until recently, someone with more experience fulfilled. You may be reeling, feeling a bit over your head. Don’t worry; there are lots of resources out there for new managers. There are books (like ours!), blogs, and podcasts all devoted to guiding you on your journey.

Even experienced managers are struggling to cope with the ramifications of the current economic crisis. All of you are charged with keeping your organization afloat in the wake of dramatic cutbacks. You are expected to accomplish more with less, creating the danger that you and your reports are becoming seriously overworked.

In 2005, an in-depth study conducted by the Families and Work Institute found that one third of all U.S. employees were chronically overworked – coping with job demands through long hours, bringing work home, nights away from home, overtime with no notice, shift work, and job pressures.

If that was the case four years ago, it’s even more so today. Employees are worried about their own job, the future of the organization for which they work, their industry, and their career. Employees and their managers now need to work smarter and harder.

Recent studies have found that such demands have a negative impact, not only on morale, but also on performance. This demand for high performance is having a negative impact on that performance. Workers, and those who lead them, are burned out.

So, what is a new manager to do? Well, you can start by limiting job demands:

• Discourage excessively long hours and taking work home, wherever possible.
• Minimize nights away from home (e.g., with virtual meetings).
• Reduce overtime (which is a good way to cut costs); and plan for it in advance.
• Accommodate personal preferences in shift assignments, whenever possible.
• Make sure that your performance expectations are reasonable
• Use motivation (rather than pressure) to encourage your employees to meet those expectations.

And there is some good news! Workplace support, such as benevolent supervision, teamwork, and recognition, protects employees from the negative effects of today’s increased job demands. So, beef up your workplace support to ameliorate the negative impact of job demands on performance.

This increase includes reciprocating for the greater demands you’re placing on employees. Notice that all those job demands curtail employees’ personal lives? Balance these professional demands by providing opportunities to deal with personal demands and desires.

Encourage employees to take some time to interact with family and friends during work hours. We realize that this is in direct opposition to typical practices, but those practices are based on an out-of-date, 9-to-5 paradigm. You need to show your understanding at this crucial time for your employees, both professionally and personally.

• Permit personal phone calls and allow family and friends to access the workplace within reason.
• Allow employees to access personal email and non-work websites, at least during rest breaks and lunch hours. Ban access to obscene, violent or harassing sites, but don’t get carried away.
• Be generous in providing time off to handle personal needs, e.g., doctors’ and dental appointments, dropping kids off at day care, etc.

One of a manager’s first duties is to care for and protect those reporting to him/her. If you provide them with the support they need, your employees will in turn support you and your organization. While you are new to the management position, a solid foundation with your team will be your first step to becoming a great manager.

Don and Sheryl Grimme train organizations in every sector of the economy and are frequent speakers at major conferences. They have been interviewed in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal. They are the authors of a new book for first-time managers, The New Manager’s Tool Kit (AMACOM 2008). The Grimmes live in South Florida and travel throughout the country to deliver their training and speaking services. Visit their website at GHR-Training.com.