Our current approach to leaders and leadership can perhaps best be crudely summarized as follows:  “leaders are people who have particular qualities and engage in particular behaviors that result in their being people others choose to follow”.  Leaders, for example, have charisma and inspire people with compelling visions.  They “walk their talk” while enabling and empowering others to act to challenge the status quo and bring about a new future.

Based on this approach, and its many variations, our formula for developing leaders could be called the “Have-Do-Be Formula”.  The application of this formula leads us to employ various training and development techniques to give leaders who wish to become more effective, or non-leaders seeking to become leaders, those qualities (the “have’s”) and practices (the “do’s”) which, if successfully employed, will result in their being leaders or more effective leaders.  The challenge confronting academics, consultants, coaches, and trainers, therefore, is to identify THE “have’s” and “do’s” which truly define leaders and effective leadership and to successfully and effectively convey those to current and prospective leaders so that they too may exhibit them.  That we have not yet identified this holy grail of “have’s and do’s” is evidenced by the countless number of books and articles released every year on the subject of leadership.

Given the pervasiveness of the “Have-Do-Be Formula”, why is it that we do not see far more dramatic results in the development of leaders and leadership?  One explanation is that although we have made substantial progress, we still haven’t discovered the essential “have’s and do’s” of leaders and effective leadership.  So the search goes on.  A second explanation is that our training and development is not completely effective, so even though if we have found the essential “have’s and do’s”, we aren’t able to develop them fully in others.  Yet a third explanation is that we are good at training people in the essential “have’s and do’s”, it just that they do not fully implement them.

No doubt there is some validity to each of these explanations.  What is somewhat disturbing, however, is that none of these explanations focus on whether the underlying formula is valid.  After years of teaching practicing managers and reading the literature on leadership, I have come to question the validity of the underlying model and no longer teach it in my MBA management classes.

The “Have-Do-Be Formula” assumes leaders and leadership exist independent of assessment and interpretation.  That is, it assumes there ARE leaders and there IS leadership as an objective occurrence in the world that any competent observer can see and that differences in perceptions are either contextual differences or error variance.  But what if we are not simply describing some objective state or condition, but are instead reporting on a contextualized interpretation based on some experience? That is, what if the “have’s and do’s” we believe lead to being a leader have nothing to do with being a leader or effective leadership, but are simply the result of our attempts to differentiate, after the fact, between people we call leaders and people we don’t?  If this is the case, then we are treating the consequences of leadership and being a leader (i.e., the “have’s and do’s”) as the causes.  What this means is that rather than a “Have-Do-Be Formula”, we would have a “Be-Do-Have Formula”.

What do you think?

No doubt, inspired understanding can get people excited and energized, and there are numerous books and websites that focus on being an inspirational leader.  But inspired understanding is not enough.  If it were, Obama and other inspirational leaders would be far more effective and successful than they are.  If leaders want reliable action from others they will need requests and accountability.

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is to assume that when people understand something, they will take the appropriate actions on their own.  That somehow the excitement and engagement that comes from being inspired will automatically translate into effective action.  Unfortunately, understanding, even inspired understanding, does not cause reliable action.  During the 2008 Presidential campaign, there was considerable speculation whether the younger voters who were inspired by Obama would, in fact, vote.  This speculation shows that the link between inspired understanding and action is not direct or tight.

How many times have we attended meetings, conferences, or seminars in which we were inspired by what was said and then left the event and did nothing?  We may have talked about how great the event was, or even what difference it would make if people did the things that were talked about, but then still did nothing.  Or, maybe some of us did take action.  Maybe we were one of the one’s who saw the value and importance in what was said and initiated some actions on our own only to find that no one else was.  No, inspired understanding is not enough.

If leaders want action, reliable action, then the way to get people into action is by having performance conversations in which they make requests and then holding people accountable for their promises through closure conversations. The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) conducted a study to determine under what conditions people are most likely to complete a task. Their results indicate that people are six times more likely to do something when they promise actions, results, or outcomes to someone else (65%) than when they just hear a good idea (10%).  And they are almost certain (95%) to complete a task when they have a scheduled appointment where they will be held to account for their promise.

Requests provide people with an opportunity to take specific actions that forward the accomplishment of something that may, or may not, inspire them.  Well formulated requests let people know what is wanted and needed, when it is wanted and needed, and why it matters.  Getting people inspired and not making a request gets everyone buzzed, but gives them no outlet for the energy.  As the ASTD study shows, leaders who assume inspired understanding is sufficient will be frequently disappointed.  People may “feel good” about the leader and the message, but little will happen.

But requests must come with accountability.  Accountability is built in the interactions between people in which they account for the status of the promises they made to each other.  As the ASTD study shows, if this accounting does not happen, there is a substantial reduction in the likelihood people will do what they promised.  As a result, leaders lose credibility and trust by failing to follow through on their requests.

Inspired understanding clearly can energize people.  But if leaders want reliable and appropriate actions, they will combine inspired understanding with requests and accountability.  Otherwise, they run the risk of becoming “motivational speakers” people like listening to, but do nothing with what they hear.

Escape hatches, however, can undermine our success. When it comes to the promises we make, it helps us keep them if we cultivate a “no alternative” attitude in which failure is not an option.  One way to do this is to root out any talk about “I’ll try”, or “I’ll do my best”, or “I’ll see”.  I have a friend Blair who has a habit of saying “No problem” in response to the requests made of him.  When I first heard Blair say that, I asked, “How can you say ‘no problem’ when you don’t know if it can be done?”  His response was “If I go into something with that point of view, I am much more open to what is required and willing to take it on because I was the one who said it wan’t going to be a problem.  This doesn’t mean it won’t take work or that there won’t be setbacks, there almost always are, it’s just that it gives me a different context in which to work than ‘I’ll try.”  For Blair, saying “no problem” was a way of burning the boats.

Another way to create a “no alternative” attitude is to make promises to people you would never consider not keeping it.  Stephanie, a manager, wanted to hire a staff person.  Her boss, however, was unwilling to commit the additional resources.  Undeterred, Stephanie promised that if the goal for which the staff person was being hired was not achieved, then her boss could not only assign the staff person to someone else, but also reduce her development budget (a big deal in this organization).  By making this promise, which her boss accepted, Stephanie was burning the boats.

If you’re serious about making and keeping a promise, take a tip from Caesar: he wasn’t interested in trying, he was interested in conquest.  As Yoda, the Jedi master in Star Wars said to Luke Skywalker “Do or do not.  There is no try.”   If you want more than half-hearted efforts from people, find a way to help them burn the boats.

When Ed Koch was mayor of New York, he was concerned about the number of accidents resulting from bikers darting in and out of traffic. Determined to solve the problem, he had “bike lanes” painted on the sides of city streets. But instead of making things better, the bike lanes actually made things worse. Drivers, undeterred by the double yellow lines identifying bike lanes, crossed them so frequently that police could not write enough tickets, and accidents involving bikers increased. As a result, Mayor Koch had the bike lanes removed, ending a futile exercise that cost the city millions of dollars.

Plenty of editorial space was given to criticizing the blunder and Koch’s poor judgment. Reporters, looking for blood, sought interviews with the beleaguered mayor. In one television interview he agreed to, which was scheduled to last thirty minutes, the host was armed with a list of questions that were sure to make Koch look bad. The host began by asking, “Mayor Koch, you spent millions of taxpayer dollars to paint those bike lanes only to remove them. That tax money could have gone to valuable social services. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Pausing, Mayor Koch replied, “You’re absolutely right. It was a huge mistake. I made the wrong decision, and I apologize.” The host, stunned by the mayor’s response, gathered herself and proceeded through her list of questions, each of which was an accusation of some kind. To each accusation, Mayor Koch gave a similar response, admitting the mistake and apologizing for it. The interview lasted for only five of the scheduled thirty minutes after which the topic was dropped, never to be raised again.

Mayor Koch’s success in this interview demonstrates the power of what we call Closure Conversations. By acknowledging the facts that New Yorkers already knew—that the bike lanes were an idea that didn’t work—and then apologizing for it, Mayor Koch completely disarmed the issue and brought it to a close. In the process, he restored some of his credibility and the confidence New Yorkers had lost in his stewardship of the city.

Closure Conversations can restore credibility and confidence, reduce resentment, build accomplishment and accountability, add velocity to projects, and increase the engagement of participants and potential participants.  Try them – they work.

[From “The Four Conversations: Daily Communication that Gets Results” by Jeffrey and Laurie Ford, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, p. 131-2]

Here is what Paul has to say about it:  “While I continually ask my boss for deadline and priority setting, I often receive non-committal responses or am blatantly ignored when I attempt to clarify his requests.  He has also taken to using the excuse that his boss “demands it now” and that is why he does it.”

Clearly there are times when bosses are under the gun to get something to happen immediately.  Emergencies do happen and unexpected opportunities arise with short response windows.  When these arise, bosses are completely justified in asking that things be done “now”.  But these should be rare occasions, not standard operating procedure.  The fact that bosses can demand something be done now doesn’t make it good leadership practice.  And passing the blame, as this boss does, only further undermines credibility, reduce other’s confidence, and creates victims who are not accountable.

Habitually asking for things “now” is inconsiderate, disruptive, and reduces the likelihood of getting them “now”.  It is inconsiderate because it denies people the opportunity to plan and schedule their work while increasing their levels of uncertainty and stress.  It is disruptive because these types of interruptions result in missed deadlines on other projects and assignments, lower productivity, and increase inefficiencies.  As a result, things that are wanted “now” can actually take longer to achieve than they would have if planned for in advance.

Habitually asking for things “now” contributes to a “fire fighting” culture where people become increasing resentful (resistant?), resigned, and disengaged.  You can almost hear the resentment and resignation in how Paul describes his response to when his boss demands “now”: “I just pull out my sheet, point to the deadlines, and say “We’ll keep working at it.”

Contrast this with what Paul says about his own use of deadlines:  “I have been highly successful in by cooperatively establishing timelines for projects.  Doing so has endeared me to my resources and I feel they are going the extra mile to meet the established deadlines.  I work at restraining the urges to push the “now” button so that when I do, I get a “now” response.”

There are times when, as Paul says, managers need to push the “now” button.  But it is possible to minimize its use.  One way to minimize its use is to plan. There is a popular saying that “Your failure to plan is not my emergency.”  Unfortunately, for people like Paul, the failure of a boss to plan does become their emergency.

Planning doesn’t have to be an elaborate process.  At a minimum it involves looking at the work that is due in the coming week(s) and making the appropriate requests in a timely manner.  One tool that can support managers in doing this planning is a weekly schedule in which they schedule not only meetings and appointments, but when work needs to be to them in order for them to meet their obligations.  Without some structure for reminding us of what is due and when, managers are left to their memories, which are not always reliable, and can result in suddenly remembering that something is needed “now”.

On the surface, habitually demanding things be done “now” might look like it works.  Deeper down, however, leaders and managers are contributing to the very things that undermine the productivity and performance they seek to achieve.  Leaders who are interested in building engaged, accountable, and reliable performers will reconsider this practice.

If you go into any workplace, what you will see is people doing things.  They are talking to each other, walking from one place to another, working on their computers, sitting in meetings, etc.  In short, what you see is people and their behavior.  What you don’t see are such context factors as the hierarchy of authority (titles and reporting relationships), workflow, accountability, trust, personal relationships, goals and objectives, or most of the other things that happen “in between” people.  People and behavior are in the foreground, context factors are in the background.

Why does this matter?  Because it leads to what is called the “fundamental attribution error” in which observers overattribute behavior to the dispositional factors (e.g., attitudes, emotions, motivations, skills, traits) of people rather than to contextual factors.  I can see you and your behavior, but I can’t see all the context factors or how they are impacting you.  As a result, when you do something – more often when you don’t do something – I look to you and you alone for the explanation.  I assume it has something to do with your commitment, your attitude, your motivation, your competence, whether you care, etc.  I don’t look to me and our relationship, or to the myriad things you have to deal with, or any of the factors going on between you, me, and others.  In short, your behavior is a function of you and you alone.

The impact of making this “error” is that if I want you to behave in some different way, for example, being more accountable, then I will try to alter your disposition in some way.  I might send you to training, talk to you about the value of being accountable in an attempt to motivate you to be more accountable, or any number of other things to change your disposition.  What I won’t do, however, is consider other context explanations, such as our conversations, and whether your being accountable is a function of the requests I make and whether I consistently follow up on them.

In my MBA class on management, I assign the book “Leadership and Self Deception” (I strongly recommend it).  Its and easy and engaging book in which the “hero” of the story discovers he has been interacting with people based on erroneous attributions, how and why he made those attributions, and the impact the errors have had on his leadership.  What I find particularly interesting is that students don’t want to talk about how they make similar attribution errors and how to overcome them.  They want to talk about how then can stop their boss or the people around them from making the error!

That was the second part of my insight – the fundamental attribution error is extremely persistent.  Even in the face of evidence to the contrary, people will continue making the same attribution error.  In other words, telling people, even demonstrating to people, that they are making an error, an error that has negative real life consequences, they will persist in the error.

For years I have wondered why it was that even though countless of articles and experts have said it is not possible to motivate others, that motivation is an internal state, managers persisted in wanting to know “How can I motivate them?” I now see an answer – they believe behavior is a function of disposition, not context, and anything said to the contrary is ignored.  That belief makes my job harder and reduces the opportunity for breakthroughs in leader effectiveness.

No one is a stranger to failure.  We failed repeatedly before we learned how to sit, stand, walk, or ride a bike.  If you drive a car with a manual shift, you probably failed many times before you learned how to coordinate successfully the pressing of the clutch and gas pedal to produce a smooth shift.  Failure is a natural, and in most cases, inevitable result of trying something new, something we have not yet learned how to do.  In other cases, failure is the result of trying something that we are already good at, but which didn’t work at the time.  For example, Michael Jordan, one of the most accomplished basketball players of all time, is quoted as saying  “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Thomas Edison once said “I haven’t failed,  I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”  There are two things of interest in what Edison said.  The first is that when he said “I haven’t failed”, he was speaking in terms of his overall goal, which was to find a filament for the light bulb.  Clearly each of the 10,000 attempts he made failed to produce the needed filament.  Failure, then is relative to the objective, goal, or purpose you are striving to achieve.  No objective, goal, or purpose, no failure.

The second is that Edison used failure as feedback.  Each time we fail, we have the opportunity to invalidate ourselves by saying something like “I am so stupid,” or “I will never learn this”, or any number of other things that make us feel incompetent, inadequate, or insufficient.  Edison didn’t do that (at least in this quote).  He used the failure as feedback on what didn’t work – an d learned from it.  The value of failure is that it tells you that what doesn’t work.  It doesn’t tell you why something doesn’t work, only that it doesn’t.  Failure, then, is valuable feedback if you are willing to listen to and learn from it.  And therein lies the opportunity.

Odds are, not everything you do will work.  Few of us achieve every objective, reach every goal, or accomplish all of our purposes.  Failure is inevitable, even for star performers like Jordan and Edison.  The issue is not whether you will fail, but what will you do when you do?  One thing you can do is to blame others (e.g., coworkers, customers, managers, etc.) or blame conditions and circumstances (e.g., order process, reward system, information systems).  Doing this, however, results in learning nothing new.  By blaming conditions and circumstances, including other people, we pass up the opportunity to learn new ways to interact with others or to try new techniques which may be more effective.  In a very real sense, we condemn ourselves to repeat what didn’t work.

Alternatively, we could use the failure as an opportunity to discover what it was about what we did (or didn’t do) that could have contributed to the failure.  Was it something I said or failed to say? Did I prepare myself and others completely?  Although considered the best player of his time, Michael Jordan was said to have practiced more than any of his teammates.  This included practicing the kinds of shots he might be called on to make to win the game.  He used his failures as an indication of what he needed to work on, what he needed to practice.  Failures weren’t an invalidation for Michael, they were important to future successes because he was willing to use them as feedback and develop his own abilities rather than blame others.

Management is simple, but it isn’t easy.  But, we can make it easier if we are willing to use failures as feedback for developing ourselves rather than as opportunities for blaming others.

I have had the opportunity to work for six different Deans at three different Universities – Christine is the seventh.  And you know, all six of the prior Deans had one thing in common.  If you were to meet with them, you met in their office when they were available.  Christine is different, and it’s a difference that people notice and talk about.

A couple of weeks after joining the college, Christine was walking past my office on the 7^th floor (her office is on the second) on her way to talk with a colleague.  Upon seeing her, I called out “Dean on the floor, Dean on the floor.”  She turned and, put her finger to her lips and said “sssshhh – don’t tell anyone”, and entered my office.  Whereupon several of my colleagues, having heard the “ruckus”, congregated in my office and we had a jam session with the Dean for about 10 minutes.

Now, this might not be remarkable in your organization, but none of my previous deans at any university ever did that.  People noticed.

Last week, I got an email from Christine’s secretary asking when I was available for a meeting with her.  We arranged the time at which time I was informed that Christine would be coming to my office.  It turns out, that she is meeting with all the faculty, and she is going to their office for the meeting.  Now, it might not be unusual for senior managers in your organization to come to your office or cube to meet, but this is not the norm most of the faculty are use to.

What makes all this a game changer is that it alters the relationship between dean and faculty.  It makes the dean more of a partner and a colleague rather than someone to whom you report.  And, it shows respect and regard for the faculty.  It’s one thing to say you respect and regard someone, it’s quite another to show it in your actions.  Christine is showing it in a small, but significant way.  Surprisingly, it is not the big things that frequently make or break leaders, it’s the small things – like going to their office.

What would happen if you were to suddenly start meeting in the offices and cubes of people you have come to you?  What would happen if “they” started coming to your office?  It would probably change the game for you – and them.

I am in the midst of preparing my upcoming MBA class on management.  It is the core class in the Working Professional Program, so all the students are working full time. As part of my preparation, I am searching for new material that gets me, and hopefully the students, thinking about new things or old things in new ways.  In my pursuit, I have come across two videos I think you might find of interest.

The first is of Malcolm Gladwell giving a TED talk on what turns out to be the folly of pursuing universal truths (I recommend the 20 minutes it takes to watch it).  Many managers seem to believe there is “the” tip, technique, method, style, etc., which if they learned it, would make them really successful.  I call this the holy grail of management – the belief in a perfect and universal form of leadership.  It doesn’t exist.  Gladwell gives a very compelling argument, based on the diversity of consumer products, why such a search is in vain.  Rather than look for universals, he proposes we settle in to dealing with the diversity we actually confront.

The second video is by Barry Schwartz giving a TED talk on the paradox of choice (another 20 minutes of your life).  What I find interesting about this video is he challenges the belief that more freedom means more choices, and more choices means more satisfaction and happiness.  One implication of Gladwell’s video is we need myriad choices for effectively leading and managing the diversity we confront.  But Schwartz argues the more options we have, the less satisfied and happy we are.  So, if we are to be happy, we need fewer choices, not more.

So, there you have it.  The more we look for a holy grail of management, the more options (tips, techniques, etc) we discover there are for leading and managing, and the more dissatisfied and discontent we become.  What’s the solution?  Well, there is no “the” solution (another holy grail?).  However, one of the things I get from the two videos is that there is no need to keep looking for the “perfect form of leadership” as there are many forms that work really well.  Rather, you may be better off finding a few that work really well for you and then continue to develop those through concerted practice (but that’s another book).

Ask any MBA student how you get people to do what you want and you are likely to be told “incentivize” them.  And if that doesn’t work?  Well, you just didn’t use the right incentive.

No, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the comment, but it got me thinking “Have we become victims to incentives?”  There is no doubt that incentives can play a role in whether or not we do something.  Many of us would not do objectionable work if there wasn’t some sort of incentive (positive or negative) to encourage us.

When asked why managers make ethically or operationally questionable decisions, my MBA’s frequently point to the incentive system under which the managers were working – as if the managers had no choice.  Such an answer, however, confuses encouragement (the intent of an incentive) with constraint.  They talk as if the managers’ choices were completely and absolutely constrained by the incentives; they had no choice, they HAD to do what they did.  In short, they were victims to the incentive system.

Barry Schwartz, a psychologist, points out in his TED talk on the loss of wisdom that our reliance on (and blame of?) incentives (and rules) may actually undermine our incentive for doing what is right, what we are passionate about, or what will make a difference for others.  It seems to me that every time we blame incentives for why we do or don’t do something, we make ourselves more and more a victim to “them” and less and less responsible for our own actions.

Incentives are one form of information in a constellation of factors that contribute to our choices, but they are not THE cause of what we choose.  That responsibility belongs to us.