tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2114344570118440862024-03-05T00:21:32.844-08:00 Awareness to Action Preparing Leaders for What's NextEnneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-91473254425757292812013-07-13T08:27:00.002-07:002013-07-13T08:27:50.450-07:00Focus On Your Strengths?It's popular advice these days to "focus on your strengths," and not worry about your weaknesses. The theory goes that we should just focus on the things that we are good at and tailor our jobs to those strengths. If your not good at finance and looking at a balance sheet makes your eyes glaze over but you are great with customers and can't wait to get up in the morning and sell something to someone, focus on selling and leave the rest to someone else, right?<br />
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In general, this advice is sound and it may work for most jobs, but many leaders don't have the luxury to be that specialized. The higher you rise in an organization, the more broad your skill set needs to be and the more magnified your shortcomings become. A weakness that didn't matter earlier in your career may matter now, or it may matter at the next level of your career.<br />
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This is not to say that you have to work on every weakness you have--you only have to work on the ones that matter. I can't dunk a basketball or hit a curve; should I spend a lot of time working on those weaknesses? Of course, not; I don't play basketball or baseball so those weaknesses don't matter. If I were a minor league baseball player who wanted to go pro but I was weak on hitting curves; you better believe I should work to improve on that weakness. Effective career management, and effective management and leadership, is dependent on <i>both</i> capitalizing on your strengths and overcoming relevant weaknesses.<br />
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There is a simple reminder I always give to my clients--you get promoted for your relevant strengths and you get fired for your relevant weaknesses. You have to pay attention to both.Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-53247286348929468102013-07-03T06:27:00.002-07:002013-07-03T09:52:40.481-07:00The Empty Cup<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9fRw6eLR0kfAlRJOF7jt70iG4YN8kowQ91WKLqJmieVUB-Tl6pGy1oO7or-qac8lP4xMREAu0GTMY5AZvqXnnRWfXYPZwyTwD6n6k3H2613vWOderFmfeEOYLb-EkKxJlYRHO7BM-3p3I/s600/14-cup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9fRw6eLR0kfAlRJOF7jt70iG4YN8kowQ91WKLqJmieVUB-Tl6pGy1oO7or-qac8lP4xMREAu0GTMY5AZvqXnnRWfXYPZwyTwD6n6k3H2613vWOderFmfeEOYLb-EkKxJlYRHO7BM-3p3I/s320/14-cup.jpg" width="320" /></a>Some people already know everything, and are more than happy to let you know it, even when they claim to be asking your opinion.<br />
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In the Zen Buddhist tradition, there is the parable of the tea cup that can help us from being one of those people.<br />
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A scholar from the west knocks on the door of a venerable zen master and announces, "I would like to learn from you."<br />
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The zen master invites him in and the scholar proceeds to tell the master everything he knows about zen. The master waits for his visitor to stop, but he just keeps going. In time, the master starts to prepare tea. He boils the water, puts the tea in the pot and waits for it to steep; he prepares the cups. All the while, the scholar talks.<br />
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The zen master begins to pour tea for his guest, slowly and carefully. When the tea reaches the brim, the master continues pouring and the tea runs down the side of the cup and across the table. The scholar leaps back to avoid the hot tea and says, "Stop! It's already full."<br />
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The zen master stops pouring, looks at the scholar and quietly says, "Your mind is like this cup; it is already full. You must first empty your cup if you want to taste my tea."<br />
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The lesson here is that if we want to learn we must stop talking and listen. We must understand that others have much to teach us if we allow them to do so. We need to remind ourselves that it is okay to say "I don't know."<br />
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We must do our best to not be full-cuppers.Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-61266421666580205972013-07-03T05:56:00.001-07:002013-07-03T06:08:33.804-07:00What Leaders Read; or, Management as a Liberal Art <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj196Kb4p9fvUlJNenc9x5WPwa1-bla1oVi50ExAvVbOhKoDdzk_29dSfJynUWaOxvXCMemOKptrI6CAdPvFTcSeDUWyR_ggIZjqWA0vpaV0Apqp5j_gYWkUeOdaJ5GRn40bDagIJclWbaD/s1600/Books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj196Kb4p9fvUlJNenc9x5WPwa1-bla1oVi50ExAvVbOhKoDdzk_29dSfJynUWaOxvXCMemOKptrI6CAdPvFTcSeDUWyR_ggIZjqWA0vpaV0Apqp5j_gYWkUeOdaJ5GRn40bDagIJclWbaD/s320/Books.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23.390625px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's always interesting when a recurring theme pops up in coaching sessions with different clients. In separate meetings o</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">ver the past week, three senior vice presidents raised the topic of books and what books, or kinds of books, leaders should read. One also asked,</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 23.390625px;"> "In your experience, are most senior leaders voracious readers? I get different answers when I talk to people."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">I thought about it for a moment, and responded that not every senior leader I knew was a voracious reader, but the most successful among them were voraciously <i>curious</i> and they sought to expand their understanding of the world whenever possible. A broad base of knowledge about the world simply equips you to be better armed to address the challenges that come your way. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Peter Drucker famously wrote that m</span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;">anagement</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>... deals with action and application; and its test is its results. This makes it a technology. But management also deals with people, their values, their growth and development—and this makes it a humanity…. Management is thus what tradition used to call a 'liberal art': 'liberal' because it deals with the fundamentals of knowledge, self-knowledge, wisdom, and leadership; 'art' because it is practice and application. </i></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Managers draw on all the knowledge and insights of the humanities and the social sciences—on psychology and philosophy, on economics and on history, on the physical sciences and on ethics.</i> ("The New Realities")</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">So whether they know it or not, most leaders are students of the world, though the way they prepare for the pop quizes--the countless tests and tribulations that arise to face a senior leader--may vary. For some, this preparation includes a lot of reading, for others it is traveling or talking to people. Still others prefer watching documentaries, or listening to audio courses or podcasts. People learn in different ways, so <i>how</i> you learn is not the point; <i>that</i> you learn is what matters. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><b><i><u>Putting Together Your Curriculum</u></i></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Everyone's interests and needs are different and a good liberal arts education is broad while allowing one to go deeper in areas of particular interest. In the rest of this post I will recommend some classics as well as some general overviews of a particular topic. The reader is encouraged to dive in deeper when curiosity strikes.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Leadership and Management</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">One of my clients was explaining how he used to read all the latest leadership books, but now he didn't find them very interesting. This was hardly surprising, I replied; as an SVP and functional head in a multibillion dollar business sector, you should find most of what appears in popular leadership self-help books to be a bit beneath you. The truth is, while many leadership books contain useful tips, most of them are not going to be of much value to senior leaders. One exception I would point out, is Drucker himself. Alfred North Whitehead is alleged to have said that all western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. In the same way, just about any good idea found in most management books was already written by Drucker. Save yourself time and energy and go back and read Drucker when the desire to read a leadership book arises. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-Drucker-Management-Essentials/dp/0061345016/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372814463&sr=8-1&keywords=the+essential+drucker" target="_blank"><i>The Essential Drucker</i></a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Effective-Executive-Definitive-Harperbusiness/dp/0060833459/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1372814514&sr=8-2&keywords=the+essential+drucker" target="_blank"><i>The Effective Executive</i></a> are a great start. I also recommend the <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Army-Leadership-Handbook-Techniques/dp/1616085622/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372815648&sr=1-2&keywords=us+army+leadership+handbook" target="_blank">US Army Leadership Handbook</a></i>, the best nuts-and-bolts leadership book you'll find.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Biography and History</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Many leaders want to learn by example from great leaders, so they turn to biography when they become bored with leadership self-help books. Biographies of great leaders can be very informative, and authors such as Robert Caro, Jon Meacham, Ron Chernow, Edmund Morris, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and David McCullough can weave riveting tales. The thing to remember about biographies of great leaders, however, is that what worked for them may not necessarily work for you. Sometimes leaders succeed despite themselves, and sometimes their success was situational. A case in point is Churchill, whose leadership style was masterful during wartime but less so during peace. That said, reading biographies can be very informative, and one quickly finds that there are very few novel situations; if you are facing a leadership challenge, there is a good chance that someone has faced it before and learning how they met the challenge can save you a lot of headache and heartache.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Even more useful than reading biographies of great leaders, perhaps, is reading history. History provides context, and any piece of data is more useful when we understand the context. Companies often worry about losing tribal knowledge and try to manage their workforce so that all the senior workers, who carry that knowledge, don't leave at the same time. Someone has to educate the newer people. Part of being a leader is understanding the external forces that shape, hinder, or help the business. Not understanding history is the same as losing tribal knowledge in a workforce--understanding the context enables one to address circumstances more effectively. My favorite brief history overview is E.H. Gombrich's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-History-World-E-Gombrich/dp/030014332X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372818395&sr=1-1&keywords=gombrich+little+history+of+the+world" target="_blank">A Little History of the World</a></i>. I frequently encourage clients to pick an era and region that is of particular interest to them and dig in, and to find an author who holds their attention and read a few of his or her books. It is hard to go wrong with Barbara Tuchman, Theodore White, William Dalrymple, Peter Ackroyd, and Simon Schama.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>The Hard Sciences</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Most leaders seem more comfortable with the hard sciences than with the soft sciences. That said, rounding out one's scientific literacy is as useful as it is intellectually stimulating. Natalie Angier's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Whirligig-Beautiful-Basics-Science/dp/0547053460/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372819074&sr=1-1&keywords=the+canon+natalie+angier" target="_blank">The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science</a></i> and Hazen and Trefil's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Science-Matters-Achieving-Scientific-Literacy/dp/0307454584/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372819182&sr=1-1&keywords=science+matters+achieving+scientific+literacy" target="_blank">Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy</a></i> are my favorite primers. I recently began reading William Bynum's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-History-Science-William-Bynum/dp/0300136595/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372820452&sr=1-1&keywords=william+bynum+a+little+history+of+science" target="_blank">A Little History of Science</a></i> and am enjoying it as well. I tend to be drawn to the biological sciences, and always recommend that any thinking person develop a better understanding of Darwin's theory of natural selection, widely considered by scientists to be the most important idea, ever. One of my favorite introductions is David Sloan Wilson's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Everyone-Darwins-Theory-Change/dp/0385340923/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372819418&sr=1-1&keywords=evolution+for+everyone" target="_blank">Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives</a></i>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">When it comes to physics, it is hard to beat Richard Feynman. Try <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Character-Physical-Modern-Library/dp/0679601279/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1372819605&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Character of Physical Law</a></i> as a starting point. I also enjoyed Feynman's essays on the nature of science, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-All-Thoughts-Citizen-Scientist/dp/0465023940/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372819753&sr=1-1&keywords=the+meaning+of+it+all+feynman" target="_blank">The Meaning of It All</a></i>. And, while I've never been able to wrap my head around relativity, I've found Albert Einstein's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Opinions-Albert-Einstein/dp/0517884402/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372819858&sr=1-1&keywords=ideas+and+opinions" target="_blank">Ideas and Opinions</a></i> to be riveting. Einstein demonstrates that, despite the stereotype, brilliant people need not be socially inept or narrow in scope.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Philosophy</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Though Feynman, in particular, would never admit it, these last two works are better thought of as philosophy than hard science, and I think philosophy is the discipline most neglected by leaders. It is philosophy that teaches us how to think about the facts we learn, how to test ideas, how to order knowledge. It is philosophy that teaches us how to think critically, and every great leader I have known is a rigorous critical-thinker. Nigel Wharburton's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-History-Philosophy-Nigel-Warburton/dp/0300187793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372821410&sr=1-1&keywords=little+history+of+philosophy" target="_blank">A Little History of Philosophy</a></i> (see what Gombrich started...) is a great introduction, as is his podcast <i><a href="http://www.philosophybites.com/" target="_blank">Philosophy Bites</a></i>. Since our view of the world influences how we lead others in it, being conscious of one's philosophical assumptions is a critical rite of passage for leaders. Every leader should wrestle with the implications of Plato's <i>Republic</i>, for example, or Machiavelli's <i>The Prince</i>. (I recommend reading about <i>The Republic</i> before trying to tackle the original; and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Platos-Republic-Biography-Books-Changed/dp/0802143644/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372821869&sr=1-1&keywords=simon+blackburn+republic" target="_blank">Simon Blackburn</a></i> is a good start.) I also think a book like Jim Holt's <i><a href="http://why%20does%20the%20world%20exist%20an%20existential%20detective%20story/" target="_blank">Why Does the World Exist: An Existential Detective Story</a></i> forces us to think about questions and challenge our assumptions. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Finally, the philosopher who I think every thoughtful person should be acquainted with is David Hume. Few minds had the clarity of Hume or the impact on the modern sensibility that he did. Again, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Hume-Simon-Blackburn/dp/1847080332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372822197&sr=1-1&keywords=simon+blackburn+hume" target="_blank">Blackburn</a> provides a good introduction.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Psychology</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">"Amateur psychologist" is one of the hats that every leader must wear. While familiarity with theorists such as Freud, Jung, Adler, et al is useful, I think that more recent developments in the cognitive sciences are more valuable for leaders. I recommend Kahneman's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372822808&sr=1-1&keywords=thinking+fast+and+slow" target="_blank">Thinking Fast and Slow</a> </i>and Tavris and Aronson's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0156033909/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372822901&sr=1-1&keywords=mistakes+were+made+but+not+by+me" target="_blank">Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)</a></i>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Mythology, Religion, and the Classics</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Once, over dinner in a small town outside of Frankfurt, a client recommended that on my next visit I stay at a place called Hotel Bacchus. I replied that I would; "After all, any hotel named after the god of wine and fertility must be a great place," I joked. My host was taken aback and laughed. "Sorry," he said, "I'm just shocked to meet an American who knows who Bacchus was." To be a truly educated person, one should have at least a passing familiarity with mythology, religion, and the classics. Most of our culture is based on mythological stories of the gods, sacred texts, and the writings of Shakespeare, Homer, Ovid, etc. Ignorance of these underpinnings of culture is akin to being color blind; we see, but we lose the subtleties and the richness. Start with Joseph Campbell's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Live-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0140194614/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372848617&sr=1-5&keywords=joseph+campbell" target="_blank">Myths to Live By</a></i>. I also recommend Stephen Prothero's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Religious-Literacy-American-Know---Doesnt/dp/0060859520/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372808433&sr=1-2" target="_blank">Religious Literacy</a></i>. (I'll note, by the way, that while Hotel Bacchus was a very pleasant hotel, there was nothing particularly bacchanalian about it.)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Being Global</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Today's global economy requires that all senior leaders must be global in their outlook. There are many useful books available on understanding different cultures, but among my favorites are Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Waves-Culture-Understanding-Diversity/dp/0071773088/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372851883&sr=1-1&keywords=riding+the+waves+of+culture+understanding+cultural+diversity+in+business" target="_blank">Riding the Waves of Culture</a></i>, Hooker's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Working-Across-Cultures-John-Hooker/dp/0804748071/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372852103&sr=1-1&keywords=working+across+cultures" target="_blank">Working Across Cultures</a></i>, and Cabrera and Unruh's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Being-Global-Think-Transformed-World/dp/142218322X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372852140&sr=1-1&keywords=being+global" target="_blank">Being Global</a></i>. I also recommend international news publications such as <a href="http://www.ft.com/" target="_blank">The Financial Times</a>, <a href="http://www.economist.com/" target="_blank">The Economist</a>, and <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/" target="_blank">Foreign Policy</a>, all of which have excellent apps and online editions.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Being global also means that many senior leaders travel extensively. Most of these trips are short and there is little spare time. However, I think it is critically important to occasionally allow for time to visit the places we are flying in and out of. A liberal arts education is incomplete without the inclusion of culture and travel allows for exposure to experiences one cannot get in any other way. Learn a few words of the local language, eat the local foods, visit museums and places of worship. It is one thing to see the Mona Lisa in a book; it is wholly another to stand in front of her. One cannot be unchanged standing in Paris's Pantheon, wandering through Istanbul's Blue Mosque or Cairo's Sultan Hassan Mosque, basking in the radiant colors of the El Grecos in Madrid's Prado, or walking into Florence's Santa Croce Cathedral and seeing the sarcophaguses of Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Galileo.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;"><i>Beyond Books</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Of course, there are other ways to learn. Most senior leaders don't have the time to take classes, but downloadable lectures and audiobooks are easily available. I like <a href="http://www.thegreatcourses.com/" target="_blank">The Great Courses</a> and <a href="http://audible.com/">Audible.com</a>, and the free podcasts available on iTunes are a treasure trove. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">The joy of a liberal arts education is that it presents life as an endless buffet. This list of recommendations is short and as notable for what it <i>doesn't</i> include as for what it does (I can't help but notice that it is English language- and US-centric; <i>c'est la vie</i>). Half the fun is designing your own curriculum and I hope this helps you get started. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;">Spend a lot of time in the car or flying? Download some of the excellent courses from "The Great Courses" (</span><a href="http://www.thegreatcourses.com/">www.thegreatcourses.com</a><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;">), the countless free podcasts available on iTunes, or an audiobook from </span><a href="http://www.audible.com/">www.audible.com</a><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;">. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">Joseph Campbell</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 23.390625px;">http://www.amazon.com/Religious-Literacy-American-Know---Doesnt/dp/0060859520/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372808433&sr=1-2</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 23.390625px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Teaching Company</span></span>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-87129862530730974512013-02-25T04:49:00.002-08:002013-02-25T04:49:39.855-08:00The "Leadership Personality," Part 2 An interesting piece of feedback arrived after my last blog, <i><a href="http://mariosikora.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-leadership-personality.html" target="_blank">The "Leadership Personality."</a></i> A correspondent felt that my view was a "bit too relativistic," <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">that "p</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">rosocial, humble, and honest are better than narcissistic and disagreeable in my book- even if their financial results are better." Frankly, I couldn't agree more, and the reader may have viewed my post as out of context with what I've written before. It raises some questions that should be addressed, however. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">My view that adaptability is perhaps the foundational personality quality of leadership success is, I think, still valid and does not assume that <i>any</i> behavior is acceptable as long as you get short-term results. Adaptability is a long-term strategy, by which I mean that a leader should be adapting to their environment in ways that will work over the long term, not just in the moment. A leader can browbeat subordinates into submission and get better financial results over the short-term, but he or she will quickly lose effectiveness by demotivating the workforce and driving away the good people who can get jobs elsewhere. Some qualities do work better over the long-term, and are thus more adaptive; others may work work well in the short-term but be less adaptive.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">So what personality qualities should a leader strive for in order to be more successful? Here are a few:</span></span><br />
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>Honesty</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>integrity</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"> are critical; if a leader is dishonest they will lose followers quickly.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>Prosociality</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"> is voluntarily acting in ways that benefit others. Leaders who look for the good of the group will be followed more than those who only focus on their own interests.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>Humility</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">. A synonym for humility is "down-to-earth," and I think good leaders exemplify this quality. Not only are they approachable and human, they are realistic in their assessment of themselves (meaning that </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>self-awareness</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"> should be part of this list). A realistic view of oneself will ensure that a leader sees that there is always room for improvement, that they will always have weaknesses and flaws, that they need others in order to be successful. They will see that arrogance is nonadaptive in the long run.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>Confidence</i>. Confidence must also be based on realism. If one has a track record of success in a given area, one should feel confident that they can continue to be successful. Reality-based confidence in oneself inspires others to follow.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>Inhibition mixed with power drive</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">. I agree with David McClelland* that the best leaders seem to have a high need for power combined with high inhibition. They want to have an impact on the world, but they do so for the benefit of the whole rather than themselves alone.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>A drive for results</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">. Without results one does not stay a leader very long.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><i>Openness to experience</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">. Without a willingness to expand, experiment, and learn it will be impossible to adapt to the changing of the environment.</span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Again, the qualities that go into what it takes to be a good leader are many, and often circumstance driven. Some of those qualities are non-negotiable and this list, though incomplete, is a good place to start.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">*See McClelland and Burnam's Harvard Business Review article <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/pubhealth/isett/Session%2003/McClelland%202003%20POWER.pdf" target="_blank">"Power is the Great Motivator"</a> or McClelland's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Power-Experience-David-C-McClelland/dp/0470581697/ref=pd_rhf_sc_p_t_1_25HY" target="_blank">"Power: The Inner Experience."</a></span></span>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-51562676725386892022013-02-23T11:47:00.000-08:002013-02-26T03:25:22.441-08:00The "Leadership Personality"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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Don't be a Dodo</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">During a workshop the other night I was asked what personality type I encountered most frequently in my work with leaders as an executive coach. After reflecting for a moment, I responded that while I've worked with many good leaders of each type, I seem to end up with working most frequently with Eights, Nines, and Threes. There was some surprise to this, and people started saying things like, "Really? I thought there would be more _____s." I was quick to point out that there is no ideal leadership personality and that were many reasons why I may have encountered this distribution, including pure chance or the fact that most of my work comes from word of mouth and people are inclined to take suggestions from people who are like them.<b> </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The truth is, I don't think that any personality style is necessarily better suited to leadership than others, and that there is no ideal personality profile for a leader. Leadership success has many factors, and personality is only a part of the picture. I've seen extreme introverts who were successful and extreme extroverts who were effective leaders; I've seen very charismatic leaders succeed and fail, and leaders with no charisma at all succeed and fail. I've also seen leaders who were highly effective in one set of circumstances fail miserably in another.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As far as I can tell, there are many, many characteristics that in one way or another factor into leadership success, but circumstances dictate which of those characteristics are required at any given time. Thus, introverted leaders can be successful as long as circumstances don't require more extraversion. Leaders without charisma can be successful as long as circumstances don't require more charisma. What works <i>here</i> may not necessarily work <i>there</i>; what works today may not work tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, I would argue that the single most important leadership characteristic is adaptability--the ability to shift from non-adaptive patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior to adaptive patterns of the same.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This is why understanding personality is so important--not because some personalities are better at some things than others, but because habitual personality patterns keep us locked in old patterns and create obstacles to adapting to the changing demands around us. If we don't thoroughly understand those patterns it is more difficult to change. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">When I work with a client I help them see how their preferred strategy keeps them stuck and how they can rewrite that strategy so that they can adapt and become more flexible. If a client is trapped in a maladaptive narrative about what it means to be, say, <i>striving to be peaceful</i>, we work to broaden that definition and help them overcome the internal obstacles they create to behavioral change. They learn, for example, that by addressing conflict when it is small they can have more inner peace in the long run. We work within the client's inherent value system so they embrace change rather than reject it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Everyone can be a better leader, no matter what their personality style. The best leaders learn to understand that, but also hold their personality lightly and they are willing to be more flexible while still being committed to their fundamental values. Those who refuse to change, rigidly embracing their personality as it is and always was rather than being willing to adapt, tend to go the way of the Dodo bird.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://mariosikora.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-leadership-personality-part-2.html" target="_blank">Click here for a follow up post, <i>The "Leadership Personality" Part 2</i>.</a></b></span></div>
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Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-49747428600794591082013-02-13T06:19:00.001-08:002013-02-13T06:24:03.103-08:00Charisma, and How to Get More of ItDo leaders need to be charismatic in order to be successful? I don't think so, but charisma certainly helps and I think it is possible for everyone to increase their "charisma quotient." Thus, those who want to lead would do well to pay a bit of attention to this quality.<br />
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The original Greek roots of the word <i>charisma</i> refer to a gift of grace given by the divine, and this may have led to the commonly held view that, when it comes to charisma, you either have it or you don't. Anecdotally, we all know people who seem to have that X-factor that draws attention and makes people want to follow; when they enter a room, it feels like <i>two</i> people have entered. We also know people who seem to completely lack that X-factor; when they enter a room it feels as if two people <i>left</i>. These experiences with other people can reinforce the "have it or not" view of charisma.<br />
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This view is unfortunate because it often stops people from trying to become more charismatic, which then hampers the fulfillment of one's leadership potential. The rest of this post explores how we can overcome this bias and work on increasing your charisma quotient.<br />
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As with leadership, there is probably no necessary and complete model of qualities, traits, or attributes related to charisma, but I have found a list that I think serves as a good starting point. According to <i>New Scientist</i> magazine,* psychologist Ronald Riggio "has identified six traits or skills that he believes are essential: emotional expressiveness, enthusiasm, eloquence, self-confidence, vision, and responsiveness to others." Charismatic people, according to Riggio, have a good balance of all of these qualities, and having <i>too</i> much of any of them probably reduces one's personal charisma. (Robin Williams, for example, may be entertaining on stage, but how much time would you really want to spend with someone <i>that</i> expressive?)<br />
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I find that it is best to take these qualities and work on them one at a time, starting with areas in which you are already pretty good and then working your way toward the ones in which you need the most improvement. Here are some exercises to get you started:<br />
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1. <i>Emotional expressiveness</i>. Now I admit that this will feel a little silly, so do it alone. Further, it helps if you take a little time to clearly identify the benefit of increasing emotional expressiveness; it is almost impossible to make any changes that we don't believe have a true benefit. Once convinced of the benefit of increasing emotional expressiveness, start paying attention to people who demonstrate the right amount of this quality--those who show their emotions on their faces and in their gestures in a positive way. Then, take a few minutes to watch yourself in the mirror and mimic some of their facial expressions. In other words, <i>practice</i> expressing your emotions. Yes, it feels weird. Get over it. Later, when you find yourself about to interact with someone, whether it is a meeting with an individual or a group, think about what emotional state you would like to convey--is it optimism, excitement, resolve, intensity? That emotional state, and <i>act as if</i> you were someone who conveyed that emotional well. It should be subtle, don't overdue it, but let yourself go a little more than you usually would. You'll notice the change, and others will as well.<br />
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2. <i>Enthusiasm</i>. Decide <i>what</i> you are excited about. Describe, to yourself at least, <i>why</i> you are excited about it. Ask why <i>others</i> should be excited about it. Take it upon yourself to get them excited about it too. The actions and expressions will come to you naturally if you are very clear in why you are excited and why others should share that enthusiasm. Clarity of purpose and the conviction that others should share that purpose are critical to demonstrating enthusiasm.<br />
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3. <i>Eloquence</i>. The best ideas in the world are of no value unless they are well-communicated to others. Improve your vocabulary. Take an interest in words; when you encounter a word you are not absolutely sure of, take my mothers advice and "Look it up! That's why we have a dictionary." (I like Merriam-Webster's online dictionary at <a href="http://www.m-w.com/">www.m-w.com</a>.) Become a better writer and a better speaker. I highly recommend William Zinsser's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Anniversary-Edition-ebook/dp/B0090RVGW0/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1360762281&sr=8-9&keywords=zinsser" target="_blank">On Writing Well</a>," and Roger Ailes's "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-the-Message-ebook/dp/B00735HK94/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360762419&sr=1-1&keywords=ailes+you+are+the+message" target="_blank">You Are the Message</a>." Buy these books today. Put them on your Kindle or iPad or Android. Read them. Start putting their lessons into use. Then read them again.<br />
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4. <i>Self-confidence</i>. True self-confidence only comes from a sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, most people are far more accomplished than they realize, so they are less confident than they should be. I often encourage clients to conduct an "accomplishments audit." Write down a list of the things you have done and accomplished in your career. Be extensive and objective; avoid false humility, don't bother listing the blunders (this is not a recommendation to ignore areas for improvement, but that is a different exercise...). Keep the list handy. Review it frequently. Your self-confidence will rise.<br />
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5. <i>Vision</i>. It's old advice, but people still avoid it: Take some time and define your vision for your team, your organization, yourself. Visions can--and should--evolve, but we meander when we don't have an explicit vision of where we are going and why (and <i>meandering</i> is not a sign of charisma). Visions need not be grand, but they need to be <i>clear</i>. Share your vision with others at every opportunity. If anyone on your team cannot describe your vision for the team or the organization, you need to work on this more.<br />
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6. <i>Responsiveness to others</i>. The satirist Fran Lebowitz once said, "Most people don't listen, they simply wait their turn to talk." Responsiveness to others starts with actually listening to other people rather than thinking about what you would like to say, and letting them know you are listening to them through the use of <i>occasional</i> brief paraphrases, such as "What I heard you say is...." (I used the word <i>occasional</i> on purpose; don't paraphrase everything everyone says, you will give them the creeps.) Think about what other people's needs are, and help them meet those needs. <br />
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*Young, Emma, "The X Factor," <i>New Scientist</i>, 23 June 2012.Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-20525707163281814282013-02-13T03:14:00.000-08:002013-02-13T03:14:04.438-08:00Some Thoughts on Leadership<!--StartFragment-->
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(Note: This is an excerpt from a much longer article called "Awareness to Action Leadership," which can be found </span></i><a href="http://mariosikora.blogspot.com/2012/03/awareness-to-action-leadership.html" target="_blank"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">here</span></i></a><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">.)</span></i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Working with leaders, you can’t help but think a
lot about leadership. Over the years I’ve developed a lot of opinions on the
topic, and perhaps gained a few insights. In this post, I’d like to introduce
the approach to leadership that I take with my clients, something I call
“Awareness to Action Leadership.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It’s important to define terms, so let me define
what I mean by leadership. There are as many definitions of
leadership as there are leaders and people writing about leaders, but this one
works for me: successful leadership is the act of influencing others to
effectively achieve a desired result consistently and over time. There are
a couple of assumptions implicit in this definition, namely that leadership
involves the engagement of others, that good leadership improves circumstances,
and that in order to get results over time one must lead in a way that makes
others want to follow. Thus, treating people well is inherently more effective
than treating them poorly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I’d like to start with some opinions I’ve formed:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is no secret formula.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leadership is very context specific; what works in
one situation for one person may not work in another situation, or even for a
different person in the same situation. Effective leadership requires
adaptability to the variables of individuals, contexts, and goals.
Circumstances may require a leader to call upon any of a very long list of
skills, competencies, attitudes, or behaviors. The challenge is that we can
never know in advance what those variables may be at any given time. Thus, a
leader must be a student of leadership, continually improving his or her
abilities, and constantly monitoring the environment for cues as to what
abilities need to be developed. As Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the
strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one
most responsive to change.” Nowhere is this more true than in leadership.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<i><div class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Because there is no secret formula, we should always beware those who promise a
secret formula. If a consultant tells you that his or her list is complete or
“necessary and sufficient,” walk slowly to the door.</span></span></div>
</i><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leaders are “born” </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “made.”</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Not born, perhaps, but there does seem
to be some innate set of intangible qualities that many leaders have that
non-leaders don’t. I don’t know whether they are born with these qualities or
whether they are the result of early experience, but they tend to be in place
by the time the leader gets to adulthood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">That said, almost anyone--given the requisite
intelligence, drive, and fundamental task competence related to their job—can
improve their leadership ability. Not everyone is a born leader, but everyone
can become a better leader.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Good leaders have an almost-compulsive need to
lead.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For whatever reason, the best leaders seem to
unable to not lead. Some do it out of a desire to achieve
their private goals, some do it for the rewards of the position, but the best
can’t explain why they want to lead; they just have some inner drive pushing
them toward the front. They often report a desire to see results or shape their
environment, and they often feel that they must do it because
no one else is capable or willing. Others sense this drive in them and
unconsciously follow. Whatever the (often <i>post-hoc</i>) rationale, the need to lead
seems to come from an irresistible urge deep in the psyche.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Good leaders work harder than most people.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Delegation, working at the right level, and some
degree of work/life balance are important leadership qualities. However, the
best leaders have a love for the job of leading and put countless hours into
doing it well. They think about work all the time; they are constant learners,
always seeking to improve; they are willing to get on a plane and fly across
the world, to start the day early, and to end it late. Good leaders might fail
because they are outsmarted or because they didn’t have the right skills or the
right team or the right product they needed for the circumstances, but they
will never fail because they didn’t work hard enough.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leaders are (and should be) judged on the results.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There seem to be two broad camps when it comes to leadership theory; one
I think of as the hard-line camp and the other I think of as the soft-line
camp. The latter is focused on what are traditionally called “soft-skills,”
interpersonal skills, empowerment, team work, etc. The hard-line camp, more
dominant among senior business leaders, focuses on getting bottom-line results.
Soft skills matter, but primarily because they are usually needed to get
results over the long term (and secondarily because being nice to people is
simply good form). A leader can browbeat people into getting results for a
while, but eventually people (the good ones, at least) leave or fail to perform
at a high level. Sustainable leadership uplifts and motivates people in
positive ways. But it is a mistake to neglect the cold, hard facts of
life as a leader: if you do not get results you have failed and you will not be
the leader for very long. A good leader is able to keep results at the
forefront of everyone’s concerns and perform some of the unpleasant deeds (such
as reducing costs and inefficiencies, firing underperformers, delivering
unpleasant feedback, engaging in conflict, etc.) necessary to get the results.</span></span></div>
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</i></div>
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Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-63820180198122226802013-01-16T11:51:00.001-08:002013-01-16T11:51:17.259-08:00Increasing Political Savvy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQh2y4nVU9ZnSql4qFLClXPPy4dJ9CapYuqw34i458kqtG75yGn4CkejrS9glTqC_jcPNJM5EafgYjys4JaADvIYI1nVdNOVH3ZvZXV5YUzYcRYXYPt1MZ33vglTNaLNFPY_FsTViqNyc/s1600/lincoln.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQh2y4nVU9ZnSql4qFLClXPPy4dJ9CapYuqw34i458kqtG75yGn4CkejrS9glTqC_jcPNJM5EafgYjys4JaADvIYI1nVdNOVH3ZvZXV5YUzYcRYXYPt1MZ33vglTNaLNFPY_FsTViqNyc/s320/lincoln.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the movie "Lincoln."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In my <a href="http://mariosikora.blogspot.com/2012/11/lincoln-and-politics-of-organizations.html" target="_blank">last post</a> I wrote about the movie "Lincoln" and its depiction of politics in action. In this post we'll take a look at some of the things you can do to increase your political savvy and thereby increase you ability to be effective and exercise influence.<br />
<br />
Most of us have a complicated relationship with what is generally referred to as "political savvy" in organizations, and our view of the term is generally negative. We all know someone who rose to a position of power and influence based on political skills, self-promotion, and connections rather than merit. None of us want to be <i>that</i> person. Unfortunately, in our efforts not to be that person we overreact and develop an aversion to politics that can undermine our ability to influence others.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
This phenomenon is one of the most common obstacles leaders face when trying to move from middle management to senior management: they have allowed their aversion to being <i>that person</i> undermine the development of their influencing skills. As a result of actively avoiding politics, they lack political savvy.<br />
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Here are some ways to improve this important competence.<br />
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The first thing someone has to do in becoming political savvy is to realize the value of it and be very clear about why developing more of it is in your best interests. As "Lincoln" demonstrates, we can achieve noble ends with politics as well as nefarious ends, and it does little good to "have a True North if we get lost in the swamps on the way there." Good leaders commit to developing good political skills with the understanding that they are necessary to getting good work done.<br />
<br />
A second objection is that organizational politics waste time that could be spent <i>working</i>. I italicize <i>working</i> in this instance because organizational politics are also hard work! And they are a <i>necessary</i> part of work. Whenever two or more people are affected by an action, conflicting needs and values come into play. The way we resolve these conflicts is through <i>politics</i>. Ignoring those needs and value conflicts will ensure that our initiatives stall. Politics are part of the task, not a needless distraction from work.<br />
<br />
So, once we're committed to becoming more politically savvy, what can we do?<br />
<ul>
<li><i>It always helps to start with a best practice analysis, and the best people to analyze are those around you who are politically savvy</i>. Look for those who influence others in a way that you respect rather than focusing on those who do it in a superficial or substance-less style. Make a list of the things they do--how they address people, how they speak, how they listen, how they get things done. Pick two or three things from that list that you would feel comfortable doing and then create an action plan to start doing them.</li>
<li><i>Become a student of politics, influence, and power</i>. Read books on leaders and pay attention how they exercise politics. Be very careful here: Some will read a biography of a famous leader such as, say, Patton and think that his style--tough, demanding, abrasive--is the best way to lead. In fact, it was Patton's lack of political savvy that ultimately hindered him from achieving even more than he did. Learn to distinguish between the political capabilities that result in a leader's success and the incidental qualities that may have held them back.</li>
<li><i>Network, network, network</i>. Stretch outside your normal circle and get to know people. Identify influencers in your organization and find a way to interact with them. Be strategic about networking with influencers and don't waste their time. Find a way that you can be helpful to them. It is also very effective to ask them for a small favor. We all tend to raise the value of those in whom we invest in some way (psychologists call this "an investment bias"); if you can get an influencer to do you a small favor that doesn't cost them much time or energy, they will naturally see you as more valuable and worth-knowing than they did before.</li>
<li><i>Focus on feelings</i>. Like it are not, we are emotion-driven creatures rather than data-driven creatures. We feel first; second, we try to figure out why we feel a certain way or simply rationalize our emotion-driven decisions. Of course, we always want to try to overcome this pattern in ourselves and be as data-driven as possible, but we have to understand that if we want to influence people we have to speak to their emotions and support it with data. Good politicians know that you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. Effective "campaigning" for your ideas is part of being an influencer, and this is done through an acknowledgement of and appeal to the emotions of others (the poetry). Of course, the campaigning must be followed up with data, strategy, and execution (the prose). A simple exercise when trying to influence others is to give some thought to how you want people to <i>feel about themselves</i> (rather than about <i>you</i>), and tailor your message accordingly. </li>
</ul>
<br />
Politics can be treacherous, and many people do unsavory and self-serving things through political means. However, being politically savvy is the only way to get things done. As the movie Lincoln said, you can only get to the goal if you don't get lost in the swamps along the way.<br />
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BOAEnneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-71661594773870475712012-11-27T06:53:00.001-08:002012-11-27T06:53:32.549-08:00"Lincoln," and the Politics of OrganizationsThe movie "Lincoln" is a two-and-a-half-hour master course in politics. Focusing on Lincoln's efforts to pass the 13th amendment to end slavery and featuring a spellbinding performance by Daniel Day-Lewis and a brilliant script by Tony Kushner, the movie should be mandatory viewing for leaders of all types. It makes crystal clear why "politics" and leadership are intricately and inseparably linked.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It's common for my coaching clients to sneer at the mere mention of the words "office politics." Most people are uncomfortable with the idea that simply working hard and doing what is right is not all that matters in our work life, that we sometimes have to "play the game" in order to see our goals come to fruition.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I have seen two major reasons for the disdain of organizational politics: </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">First, we have all seen people who seem to use political skills untethered by ethics. That is, they use deception, cronyism, backstabbing, and intimidation to get their personal goals. They advance their agenda independent of the good of others, and they seem to lack substance. No one wants to be <i>that</i> person so we express disdain for office politics and avoid them. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Second, organizational politics can be difficult and require skills that we don't learn in a classroom. Those who disdain organizational politics usually don't want to face this fact--that they don't have good political skills and it would take work to develop them--preferring to simply demonize the activity rather than try to learn how to do it effectively. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The first objection is a straw-man argument, however--focusing on gross generalizations that are often not true of effective office politicians. Yes, some people are Machivellian, self-serving, substance-free incompetents who get ahead because of their ability to schmooze; but the number of these people is smaller than we might suspect. Some people are effective politicians and do so to further an agenda of substance and benefit for the group. "Lincoln" dismisses this objection when Lincoln says to Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, a staunch anti-slavery advocate, "What good does it have true north if you get lost in the swamps on your way there?" </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The second objection is usually the true obstacle, even if we are not conscious of how it shapes our resistance. Simply put, organizational politicking is hard work (another point that "Lincoln" demonstrates). </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">One definition of "politics" from Merriam-Webster Online is </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><i>the total complex of relations between people living in society</i>. Think about that for a moment--"the total complex of relations...." People are complicated and often contradictory. They often don't know what they really want, and when they do they don't always know the best way to get it so they often flounder around relying on emotion and gut intuitions rather than clear logic and rationality. Interacting with one person is challenging enough; when you start adding multiple stakeholders with multiple agendas, the <i>complex of relations</i> can become daunting. The more important the goal, the more treacherous and challenging the waters become. It is tempting to throw up our hands and reject the politics of getting things done as an ignoble undertaking.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">But rejecting the politics of getting things done means that we never reach true north; we get lost in the swamps. Thus, those who want to really get things done, who want to accomplish big things, who want to see their good ideas come to fruition, must "go back to school" and learn those abilities that you didn't learn earlier.* Those abilities include developing general qualities such as emotional intelligence, strategic skills such as an understanding of power dynamics and basic psychology, and tactical skills such as the ability to compromise and find a quid pro quo. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">In my next post I will list some ways in which you can become more skilled in organizational politics.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><i>*Chris Argyris's idea of "skilled incompetence" is important here, the idea that the more successful (or perhaps just the older) one becomes the more psychologically difficult it is to place oneself in the beginner's role and learn the basics of a given task or competence.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-89255378166947728042012-04-25T09:18:00.000-07:002012-04-26T16:39:46.280-07:00Incompetent But Confident: The Dunning-Kruger Effect<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><i>"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">Charles Darwin</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">We've all heard of the Peter Principle, the idea that people tend to be promoted to the level of their incompetence. Few are aware of an even more dangerous phenomenon, however--the fact that the least competent among us are the least able to see their incompetence, otherwise known as the "Dunning-Kruger Effect."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">Described by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) is the phenomenon where the people who are <i>least</i> competent in an area are the <i>least</i> able to judge their competence and the <i>most</i> likely to be overconfident in their expertise. They will also be least likely to be able to recognize competence in others, so they tend to ignore or dismiss experts because they don't actually recognize their expertise. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">One of the best examples of the DKE is the Stephen Colbert show, in wh</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">ich he plays an ignorant host with little knowledge but very confident opinions about everything. Other blatant examples include:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">The couch potato ranting at the television about how he could hit the pitches that the slumping third baseman is missing.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">The celebrity without any understanding of science who gives medical advice to an audience on Oprah.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">New Age mystics with no training in physics who tell others how to change their reality with the power of their minds and quantum physics.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">Protesters with no understanding of business realities who rail against evil corporate practices.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">Climate-change deniers with no understanding of climate science who rant about the climate-change "hoax."</span></li>
</ul>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Unfortunately, the DKE affects us all. It is almost trite to say that we don't know what we don't know, but this fact has great implications. </span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">Humans are wired for certainty. Our brains don't like loose ends or open questions, so it seeks to wrap things up in neat little stories that make our existential anxieties go away. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">At the same time, our brain is wired for energy efficiency, meaning that it will seek the simplest way to make uncertainty go away. It creates stories about the world, giving us a sense of closure and certainty but blocking out new or conflicting information. It will disincline us from seeking information that would cause us to spend time and energy reconciling our beliefs with the facts. The less information we have about a topic, the more simplistic our story about that topic is and the less willing we are to put in the time and energy to becoming informed and competent. The more ignorant we are, the more our brain will fight against seeing our ignorance because, by the logic of the brain's intuitive cost-benefit analysis, it makes more sense to fool us with overconfidence than to invest the energy into learning all the things we need to learn to build competence.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">In fact, there is a cognitive bias called "the Backfire Effect" which describes how the more someone tries to convince of us the wrongness of our views, the more we defend those views and resist changing them, facts be damned. (This is why arguments based on logic and reason are so ineffective against the kinds of people described above.) The Backfire Effect helps hold the Dunning-Kruger Effect in place.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">As with many cognitive biases, there are ways to mitigate the impact of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in our own lives. </span></span></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">The first step is to simply be aware of the phenomenon and learn to see it in others (while understanding that you are not immune from it). </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">When voicing an opinion about something, ask yourself, How do I really know this to be true? How much do I really know about this topic? How could I learn more about it? What are the rationales for points of view that conflict with mine? </span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">Appreciate the value of expertise. Yes, experts are not always correct and one should always apply critical thinking. But, especially in technical issues, there is generally value in expertise and the consensus of experts is usually correct. Using climate change as an example, the vast, vast number of climatologists (i.e., the experts) say that it is an real and anthropogenic problem. Those who disagree with this tend to be non-experts or experts in a field other than climatology. It is logical to weigh the view of the experts vs the non-experts in the same way you would when assessing a surgeon: Would you seek treatment from a heart surgeon or a car mechanic if you need a bypass? Expertise matters.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">Work to develop your expertise in areas that matter to you. Oddly enough, one of the findings of Dunning and Kruger's research was that the higher the level of one's expertise, the more likely one was to correctly assess one's competence. In other words, highly competent people in a particular area are able to assess their strengths and recognize their weaknesses better than people with average or below-average expertise. </span></li>
</ol>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-84906176945208810042012-04-07T05:52:00.001-07:002012-04-26T17:03:57.975-07:00Motivated Reasoning<br />
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<i>One of an ongoing series on traps of the mind.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I never watched the show “The X Files,” nor did I see either of the movies, but the tag line for the second movie caught my attention:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tRFx5R7zlPEuuyflEboebaqEtZMUgeNC_Z2eqF5TiaZ0aFrLZ9dF3lNWigjIZIglzwYsA0D_WhXTu0xKd9O7v3uAbZiejWiTTiCM80_tvuh8ikTWxFU4cVI3OEgbvWmrhFOph13FRXO6/s1600/I+Want+to+Believe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tRFx5R7zlPEuuyflEboebaqEtZMUgeNC_Z2eqF5TiaZ0aFrLZ9dF3lNWigjIZIglzwYsA0D_WhXTu0xKd9O7v3uAbZiejWiTTiCM80_tvuh8ikTWxFU4cVI3OEgbvWmrhFOph13FRXO6/s200/I+Want+to+Believe.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a>“I want to believe.”</div>
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It caught my attention because it so clearly sums up the way many people approach the extraordinary—they <i>want</i> to believe. They want to believe for a variety of reasons: it seems more “enlightened” to embrace the mystical and mysterious; there is great psychological satisfaction on being among those with inside knowledge of deep and hidden truths; real life can be disappointing and speculation more attractive than reality; they have fantasy-prone personalities; etc.</div>
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Thanks to the cognitive bias of <i>motivated reasoning</i> it is easy for such “want-to believers” to find evidence for their beliefs and overlook or simply dismiss evidence that contradicts it.</div>
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Motivated reasoning (sometimes called <i>motivated cognition</i>) is actually a phenomenon that incorporates a number of cognitive biases such as biased assimilation and identity-protective cognition in a way that helps people reason their way toward a(n often nonconsciously) predetermined conclusion. It is a modern and fancy way of restating Hume’s assertion that our feelings form our conclusions and our reason finds a way to support them.</div>
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Motivated reasoning is frequently on display whenever people are discussing issues to which they are either ideologically identified or in which they have a personal stake in the outcome. It is the true believers of every stripe who will take any piece of data and twist it to support their point of view and deny any confounding evidence, no matter how strong.</div>
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Just a few examples include:<br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Those in the energy-related businesses who deny the science of climate change and the ecologically minded who embrace anything labelled "green" whether it is truly green or not.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Religious believers who deny the science of evolution because it conflicts with their convictions.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Liberals who always reason their way to a liberal conclusion and conservatives who always reason their way toward a conservative conclusion.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>New-age mystics who distort quantum physics to support their cosmologies.</li>
<li>Conspiracy theorists who see any disconfirming evidence as further evidence of the conspiracy in which they believe.</li>
<li>Anti-business activists who refuse to believe anything good about corporations and the people who lead them (and the uber-capitalists who refuse to listen to legitimate complaints).</li>
<li>And, yes, it includes those among the skeptical and science-minded who cling to views despite new evidence.</li>
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It is important to realize that we are all afflicted with a tendency toward motivated reasoning. We all have self-interests, prejudices, and emotionally held beliefs that we easily reason our way toward, and while we can sometimes easily see it in others it is very difficult to see motivated reasoning in ourselves. This last thought should stop us in our smugness when criticizing others’ thinking and keep us humble about our own.</div>
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Further, motivated reasoning is not just seen in social, political, or faith matters. It affects almost every decision we make and it can influence the way decisions are made in organizations. People unconsciously argue toward a conclusion that befits their worldview. </div>
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Members of a leadership team will almost invariably argue for a strategy or allocation of resources that serves the their interest or the interest of their group's function. Engineers reason toward a conclusion that serves the engineering group; marketing argues toward a different conclusion. This is not (necessarily) because the individuals are consciously out for their own benefit; it is because we are motivated to reason toward what we believe. Because we tend to develop our beliefs from our unique perspective, and we tend to develop conclusions that benefit ourselves or our group. There is nothing (necessarily) unethical in this, we are simply more aware of the rationale for a conclusion from our own perspective than we are of that from another. (Engineering understands the needs and value of engineering better than it does those of marketing, for example.) We then argue toward those conclusions based on good-faith, but with motivated reasoning.</div>
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Overcoming motivated reasoning requires effort and vigilance but is worth the price. In addition to employing the basic skills of critical thinking, it helps to ask yourself, “What would I really like to believe? What would be the best conclusion for me or my team?” and similar questions to make yourself aware of your biases. Then, ask, “What would I really <i>not</i> like to believe? What conclusion would be to the detriment of me or my team?” Make a rigorous attempt to falsify your favored argument and find evidence that supports conclusions that run counter to your interests.</div>
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Most of all, it is important to commit to follow the truth wherever it leads and to live with the conclusions. We should avoid clinging defensively to a point and taking pride in consistency of belief. Instead, we should view changing our beliefs based on new evidence as a sign of maturity and intellectual integrity. </div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-42665214044753426202012-03-12T14:33:00.000-07:002012-03-12T14:33:00.705-07:00"Understanding Michael Porter"<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">"Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy" </span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><i>by Joan Magretta</i></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Michael Porter, of course, has been a leading theorist in all matters strategy and competition for a couple of decades. His books, in addition to being physically weighty are often intellectually weighty and not viewed as easy reads. Magretta, a former strategy editor for the "Harvard Business Review" and author of the excellent primer "What Management Is" has done a fine job at providing an accessible but informative overview of Porter's ideas in about 200 pages. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Capturing the essence of the book in an epilogue, Magretta lists "Ten Practical Implications" of Porter's work. Those implications are:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">1. Vying to be the best is an intuitive but self-destructive approach to competition.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">2. Thee is no honor in size or growth if those are profitless. Competition is about profits, not market share.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">3. Competitive advantage is not about beating rivals; it's about creating unique value for customers. If you have a competitive advantage, it will show up on your P&L.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">4. A distinctive value proposition is essential for strategy. But strategy is more than marketing. If your value proposition doesn't require a specifically tailored value chain to deliver it, it will have no strategic relevance.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">5. Don't feel you have to "delight" every possible customer out there. The sign of a good strategy is that it deliberately makes some customers unhappy.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">6. No strategy is meaningful unless it makes clear what the organization will <i>not</i> do. Making trade-offs is the linchpin that makes competitive advantage possible and sustainable.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">7. Don't overestimate or underestimate the importance of good execution. It's unlikely to be a source of sustainable advantage, but without it even the most brilliant strategy will fail to produce superior performance.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">8. Good strategies depend on many choices, not one, and on the connections among them. A core competence alone will rarely produce a sustainable competitive advantage.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">9. Flexibility in the face of uncertainty may sound like a good idea, but it means that your organization will never stand of anything or become good at anything. Too much change can be just as disastrous for strategy as too little.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">10. Committing to a strategy does not require heroic predictions about the future. Making that commitment actually improves your ability to innovate and to adapt to turbulence. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I highly recommend this book.</span><br />Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-10853620184706348062012-03-11T13:29:00.002-07:002012-03-11T13:29:42.578-07:00Awareness to Action Leadership<br />
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>By Mario Sikora</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(for a pdf version of this article, please send an email to me at mario@awarenesstoaction.com)</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i></i></span></span>Working with leaders, you can’t help but think a lot about leadership. Over the years I’ve developed a lot of opinions on the topic, and perhaps gained a few insights. In this post, I’d like to introduce the approach to leadership that I take with my clients, something I call “Awareness to Action Leadership.”</div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It’s important to define terms, so let me define what I mean by </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">leadership</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">. There are as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders and people writing about leaders, but this one works for me: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">successful leadership is the act of influencing others to effectively achieve a desired result consistently and over time</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">. There are a couple of assumptions implicit in this definition, namely that leadership involves the engagement of others, that good leadership improves circumstances, and that in order to get results over time one must lead in a way that makes others want to follow. Thus, treating people well is inherently more effective than treating them poorly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I’d like to start with some opinions I’ve formed:</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is no secret formula.</span></span></i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leadership is very context specific; what works in one situation for one person may not work in another situation, or even for a different person in the same situation. Effective leadership requires adaptability to the variables of individuals, contexts, and goals. Circumstances may require a leader to call upon any of a very long list of skills, competencies, attitudes, or behaviors. The challenge is that we can never know in advance what those variables may be at any given time. Thus, a leader must be a student of leadership, continually improving his or her abilities, and constantly monitoring the environment for cues as to what abilities need to be developed. As Charles Darwin wrote, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Nowhere is this more true than in leadership.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a name='more'></a> Because there is no secret formula, we should always beware those who promise a secret formula. If a consultant tells you that his or her list is complete or “necessary and sufficient,” walk slowly to the door.</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
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<i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leaders are “born” </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “made.”</span></span></i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Not </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">born</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, perhaps, but there does seem to be some innate set of intangible qualities that many leaders have that non-leaders don’t. I don’t know whether they are born with these qualities or whether they are the result of early experience, but they tend to be in place by the time the leader gets to adulthood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">That said, almost anyone--given the requisite intelligence, drive, and fundamental task competence related to their job—can improve their leadership ability. Not everyone is a born leader, but everyone can become a better leader.</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Good leaders have an almost-compulsive need to lead.</span></span></i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For whatever reason, the best leaders seem to unable to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">not</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> lead. Some do it out of a desire to achieve their private goals, some do it for the rewards of the position, but the best can’t explain why they want to lead; they just have some inner drive pushing them toward the front. They often report a desire to see results or shape their environment, and they often feel that they </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">must</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> do it because no one else is capable or willing. Others sense this drive in them and unconsciously follow. Whatever the (often post-hoc) rationale, the need to lead seems to come from an irresistible urge deep in the psyche.</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Good leaders work harder than most people.</span></span></i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Delegation, working at the right level, and some degree of work/life balance are important leadership qualities. However, the best leaders have a love for the job of leading and put countless hours into doing it well. They think about work all the time; they are constant learners, always seeking to improve; they are willing to get on a plane and fly across the world, to start the day early, and to end it late. Good leaders might fail because they are outsmarted or because they didn’t have the right skills or the right team or the right product they needed for the circumstances, but they will never fail because they didn’t work hard enough.</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Leaders are (and should be) judged on the results.</span></span></i><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There seem to be two broad camps when it comes to leadership theory; one I think of as the hard-line camp and the other I think of as the soft-line camp. The latter is focused on what are traditionally called “soft-skills,” interpersonal skills, empowerment, team work, etc. The hard-line camp, more dominant among senior business leaders, focuses on getting bottom-line results. Soft skills matter, but primarily because they are usually needed to get results over the long term (and secondarily because being nice to people is simply good form). A leader can browbeat people into getting results for a while, but eventually people (the good ones, at least) leave or fail to perform at a high level. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Sustainable leadership uplifts and motivates people in positive ways. </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But it is a mistake to neglect the cold, hard facts of life as a leader: if you do not get results you have failed and you will not be the leader for very long. A good leader is able to keep results at the forefront of everyone’s concerns and perform some of the unpleasant deeds (such as reducing costs and inefficiencies, firing underperformers, delivering unpleasant feedback, engaging in conflict, etc.) necessary to get the results.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So how does one become a better leader?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> As I said, there is no magic formula to leadership; the list of skills, competencies, and attitudes that a leader may be called upon to demonstrate is long and it is difficult to predict which will be necessary at what time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">What follows is a framework for leadership development. I call this framework “Awareness to Action Leadership” because it is inspired by the Enneagram and some of the concepts from my book “Awareness to Action: The Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence, and Change.” Those familiar with the Enneagram may recognize that the framework is based on the nine points of the diagram and the three instincts. This correlation is loose, and the framework should be viewed independently of specific personality traits related to the Ennea-types. But since I use the Enneagram as a typology with my clients it makes sense to correlate the leadership model to it as a convenience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is an old zen saying that if you want to become enlightened, you simply have to stand straight and breath. Doing so, however, requires years of effort and training. In the same way, good leadership begins with awareness and results in action, but there is a lifetime’s worth of study and work that go into making one an Awareness to Action Leader. We need to focus on the fundamentals—the broad concepts of leadership—all the time and also be able to dive down into focusing on very specific skills and competencies when necessary. The “Awareness to Action Leadership” framework can help us do that and is a useful guide for leaders and those who advise them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In short, Awareness to Action Leadership:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">1.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Starts with four broad questions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">2.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Identifies four simple leadership models that help to answer those questions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">3.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Provides a robust list of leadership competencies that are often required in leaders.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">4.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Identifies a series of leadership stages that often determine which competencies are requisite.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Change often begins with asking the right questions. I encourage leaders to continually ask themselves these four:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">1.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Am I continually working to improve my performance?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">2.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Am I relating to others like a leader?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">3.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Am I thinking the way a leader thinks?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">4.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Am I preparing myself to scale (to take on larger challenges)?</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">To help my clients answer these questions, I’ve created four simple models. Again, these models are useful heuristics (or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">mental models</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">), not magical formulas. I will describe each model in more detail in future articles, but the rest of this article gives a high-level overview.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The first model, which pertains to performance improvement or self mastery, is the Awareness to Action process I developed with Robert Tallon in our book. It has three sequential steps: increasing </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">awareness</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> of oneself and one’s circumstances; rewriting one’s story about the world to create </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">authenticity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> or alignment between one’s beliefs and one’s goals; and taking deliberate, methodical </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">action</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> toward those goals. See Figure 1. (For Enneagrammers, this model correlates to the inner triangle—points 9, 6, and 3—of the Enneagram figure.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Again, I will describe these models in more detail in future articles, but one can find more information on the Awareness to Action Process in this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-OCyZA8uyI&feature=channel" target="_blank">video</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> or in the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Awareness-Action-Enneagram-Emotional-Intelligence/dp/1589661257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331378003&sr=8-1" target="_blank">book</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The second model relates to the way a leader interacts with others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">At the heart of leadership is </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">power</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">—which I broadly define as the capacity to produce an effect but which also includes things like responsibility for and control over the distribution of resources. It is important to acknowledge the role of power in leadership relationships; it’s a topic that many people are uncomfortable with it. Ignoring the implications of power, however, pushes it into the shadow and leads to ineffective and inappropriate use. A good leader needs to be a student of power, understanding its implications, its nuance, and when to use how much of it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As Figure 2 indicates, power needs to be balanced by </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">connection</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">detachment</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, two qualities that must exist in a dynamic tension with each other. Leaders must have the ability to connect to others and, simultaneously, to remain emotionally unattached. Without the ability to connect, a leader won’t have followers; without the ability to remain detached, a leader won’t be able to make the difficult, dispassionate decisions often required in positions of authority. Connection and detachment must exist in a dynamic tension with each other while the application of power lessens and intensifies based on the circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(These qualities correlate to points 8, 5, and 2 of the Enneagram.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The third model (figure 3) relates to the way leaders should think. Like power is to leadership relationships, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">rigor</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> is to leadership thinking. Leaders do not need to be the smartest person in the room, but they need to be committed to rigorous, critical thinking. It is their responsibility to question, probe, and challenge information that is presented to them. The leader has no one else to blame if mistakes occur because no one took the time to ask the right questions. Of course, leaders must also use discretion on how aggressively to challenge data; their time is limited and they can’t obsess over the details of every decision. A general rule is that greater potential consequences require greater rigor; matters of lesser consequence require less rigor. In other words, a request to spend $1 million deserves more rigor than a request to spend $1,000.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Rigor must be balanced by </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">curiosity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">creativity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">. In this context, curiosity is a broad hunger for knowledge and experience that may have no clear, immediate benefit other than being innately interesting. The great management thinker Peter Drucker always referred to management as a liberal art; I believe that great leaders think like liberal arts majors—wanting to know a little bit of something about everything. This curiosity must exist in a dynamic tension with creativity, however, which here refers to the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">desire to bring something into being</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (in addition to doing so in new and unique ways). Too much curiosity means that nothing gets done; too much creativity means that what gets done is not very interesting or useful. Without rigor, the leader won’t know if the right thing is getting done or whether it is getting done correctly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(These qualities correlate to points 1, 7, and 4 of the Enneagram.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Fundamental to being in business is the need to grow the business, especially in a publicly traded company. Thus, in addition to asking “How do we grow the business?” a leader must be asking, “Am I able to grow </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">with</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> the business (i.e., am I able to scale to larger roles and greater responsibilities)?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As I’ve already said, the factors that affect leadership performance are many. However, over the years of coaching leaders in a variety of organizations I have found that three fundamental competencies are critical to a leader’s ability to rise through the ranks and assume greater responsibility: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">developing subordinates</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">; </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">building and leveraging an effective network</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">; and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">appropriately promoting oneself</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Developing subordinates into strong individual performers and a coherent team ensures that a leader can work at the right level, doing more-strategic work rather than having to do lower-level work to cover for weak subordinates. (To help my clients understand the significance of this I always tell them that if they are working at the wrong level they are being overpaid and should request a pay cut.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Building and leveraging an effective network increases capacity because it expands one’s range of available resources. In short, a leader with a broad network knows who to go to in order to get things done. They get more done faster.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Appropriate self-promotion of course means that one is more likely to be noticed and assigned larger roles. However, this is the competency that many of my clients find to be the most uncomfortable to work on—no one wants to be </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">that</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> person who gets ahead through self-promotion rather than ability. Thus, I encourage people to look at this issue from a business perspective rather than a “personal-gain” perspective. At a fundamental level it is the responsibility of everyone in an organization to let people know what they are capable of. A leader (or anyone else) in an organization who has unrecognized skills or abilities is an underutilized resource. Leaders have a fiduciary responsibility to the company to help make full use of the resources; thus, it is incumbent upon every leader to give an accurate account of what they have accomplished and what they are capable of.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(These competencies roughly correlate to the three instinct domains found in Enneagram literature. I refer to these instinct domains as Preserving, Navigating, and Transmitting rather than the traditional “self-preservation,” “social” and “sexual” for reasons I explain elsewhere—most thoroughly in this series of youtube videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtEecjPBsTM&feature=channel). It is easy to see how networking correlates to “navigating” and how self-promotion correlates to “transmitting.” Admittedly, it is a bit more of a stretch to correlate “developing people” to “preserving” if it is viewed merely as the more-traditional instinct of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">self</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">-preservation. However, Preservers tend to also focus on the well-being and nurturing of those within the nest, not just themselves. Since a leader has a responsibility for the general well-being of their subordinates, I am comfortable with the analogy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Figure 4<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">These four heuristics or models are useful for leaders to keep in their mind. They also provide a skeleton on which to hang a lengthy list of more-specific skills, attitudes, or behaviors that make leaders more effective. Space does not allow me to go into to detailed explanations of each of these competencies or explanations of how to improve in them, but they are included here for illustration. (See Tables 1-4)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, it is important to understand how the leadership level or tier may influence what competencies one should focus on. Again, there are many ways to think about this issue—Elliot Jacques, for example identifies seven leadership strata—but I like to break them down into levels of responsibility and in terms of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">direct</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">indirect</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">strategic</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> leadership. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Direct leadership</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> is more hands-on and active, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">indirect leadership</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> is less hands-on and more influence-based, and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">strategic leadership</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> is more focused on setting direction and inspiring others. It is important to note that effective leaders practice elements of direct, indirect, and strategic leadership at all levels, but the leadership tier one is acting in determines where the preponderance of one’s leadership approach should be focused.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The leadership tiers are:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">1.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Manager of Individuals (Direct Leadership)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">2.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Manager of Managers (transitioning from Direct to Indirect Leadership)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">3.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Manager of a Function (Indirect Leadership)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">4.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">General manager of a business unit (transitioning from Indirect Leadership to Strategic Leadership)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">5.</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">CEO (Strategic Leadership)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Table 5 provides a guide to what competencies are most critical at which level. Again, this list is not meant to be exhaustive, and their placement on the various tiers is not iron-clad. As a leader one must get good at worrying about what one needs to worry about and not worry about the rest. The Awareness to Action Leadership framework provides a useful checklist when thinking about what one should worry about, thus providing a useful starting point for ongoing leadership development. Most high-performing leaders first work to master the competencies required for their current level of responsibility and then seek to develop the competencies for the next level before they get there. You’ll never get fired for being ahead of the leadership learning curve.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In summary, the Awareness to Action Leadership framework provides a framework for leadership development; a guide both for leaders and for those who advise them. Leadership is more art than science, and no rules or models are absolute and complete in themselves. However, starting with the four big questions then burrowing down to more specific competencies provides a structured rather than haphazard approach to leadership development. Cross-matrixing those competencies with the five leadership tiers helps leaders prioritize their development in the absence of any specific situational demands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Future articles will describe the competencies in more detail and provide advice on how to develop them.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b>Table 1: Performance Improvement<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Personal discipline/execution focus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 33.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Time management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 33.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Follow up/follow through<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 33.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Project management skills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 33.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Monitoring results/benchmarking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 24.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Need for Achievement<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 24.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Need to Win<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 24.3pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Persistence<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;"><tbody>
<tr><td colspan="3" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Table 2: Leadership Relationships<o:p></o:p></b></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Power<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Connection<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Detachment<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Need for Power<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Will<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">A bias for closure<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Comfort with responsibility<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Resilience (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">“Stoic optimism”)</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.55pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Empathy (Theory of Mind)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.55pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Conflict management skills (strong relationships, clearly saying yes or no, defining needs and objectives, willingness to compromise)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.55pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">Graciousness</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.55pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">Magnanimity</span></span></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.55pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">Communication skills</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 45.9pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Listening<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 45.9pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Paraphrasing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 45.9pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Motivational skills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 45.9pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Disciplined message delivery (town halls, email, one-on-ones, etc.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 19.8pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Work-life balance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 19.8pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Willingness to hold people accountable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 19.8pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Ability to make unemotional decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 19.8pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Maintaining executive distance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="ALL" style="page-break-before: always;" /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;"><tbody>
<tr><td colspan="3" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Table 3: Leadership Thinking<o:p></o:p></b></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Rigor<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Curiosity<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Creativity<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Focus/prioritization<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Disciplined use of processes and procedures <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Strategic Thinking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 49.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Understanding second-order consequences<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 49.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Balancing short-term and long term<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 49.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Balancing micro- and macro-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Critical thinking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Decision making tools<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Complexity management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 23.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Continual learning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 23.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Global mindset<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 29.7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Desire for Constant Improvement/Reinvention<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 29.7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">A desire to bring something into being<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 29.7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Systems Thinking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 29.7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Long-term vision<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;"><tbody>
<tr><td colspan="3" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b>Table 4: Leadership Scalability<o:p></o:p></b></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Developing Subordinates<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Building and Leveraging a Network<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Appropriate Self Promotion<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Consistent, direct feedback<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Managing quality, quantity, and time commitments<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Succession planning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Assigning stretch assignments<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Mentoring across boundaries<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.2pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Career Management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.2pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Political savvy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.2pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Relationship building<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 22.2pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Reputation management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: initial; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 2.05in;" valign="top" width="148"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 17.1pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Personal Brand Management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 17.1pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Executive Presence<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Composure<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Manners<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Interpersonal ease<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Clarity of communication<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Cosmopolitanism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Polish<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Command<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Authenticity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Public speaking ability<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Humor and self-deprecation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Optimism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">A coherent story—message clarity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Fitness/Energy/Stamina<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Confidence<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.4in; text-indent: -9.9pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Holding the space<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 17.1pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 11pt;">o<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Media Savvy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="ALL" style="page-break-before: always;" /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial;"><tbody>
<tr style="height: 13pt;"><td style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; height: 13pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Table 5: The Five Leadership Tiers<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 13pt;"><td style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; height: 13pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i> Manager of Individuals (Direct Leadership)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Managing quality, quantity, and time commitments<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Manners</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Assigning stretch assignments<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Consistent feedback<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Adaptability/Flexibility<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Self observation (ability to stand outside oneself)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Manage confidences<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Personal discipline/execution focus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Time management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Follow up/follow through<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Project management skills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Monitoring results/benchmarking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Empathy (“Theory of Mind”: being able to infer and relate to another person’s internal experience)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Conflict management skills (strong relationships, clearly saying yes or no, defining needs and objectives, willingness to compromise)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Communication skills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Listening<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Paraphrasing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Motivational skills<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Disciplined message delivery (town halls, email, one-on-ones, etc.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Focus/prioritization<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Disciplined use of processes and procedures<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Manager of Managers (Direct/Indirect Leadership)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Succession planning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Career Management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Political savvy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Graciousness</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Relationship building<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Reputation management<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Need for Achievement<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Need to Win<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">External locus of control<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Persistence<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Appropriate self-promotion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Work-life balance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Willingness to hold people accountable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Ability to make unemotional decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Strategic Thinking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Understanding second-order consequences<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Balancing short-term and long term<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Balancing micro- and macro-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Critical thinking<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Decision making tools<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Continual learning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Working at the right level<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>Manager of a Function (Indirect Leadership)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 80.95pt;"><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; height: 80.95pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Mentoring across boundaries<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Acting ability<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Maintaining executive distance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Global mindset<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Desire for Constant Improvement/Reinvention<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">A desire to bring something into being<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #dfdfdf; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>General manager of a business unit (Indirect Leadership/Strategic Leadership)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: initial; border-left-color: black; border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: black; border-right-style: solid; border-style: initial; border-top-color: black; border-top-style: solid; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-top: 0in; width: 6.15in;" valign="top" width="443"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.75in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6pt;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Executive presence<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Composure</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Magnanimity</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Interpersonal ease<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Clarity of communication<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Cosmopolitanism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Polish<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Command<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Authenticity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Public speaking ability<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Humor and self-deprecation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Optimism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">A coherent story—message clarity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Fitness/Energy/Stamina<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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</div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-8497756176854150012012-03-06T08:14:00.001-08:002012-03-06T08:14:27.886-08:00Videos on Critical ThinkingCheck out this great set of <a href="http://io9.com/5888322/critical-thinking-explained-in-six-kid+friendly-animations" target="_blank">videos on critical-thinking skills</a>. They are designed to be useful to children, but they make a great introduction for adults as well.Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-12575084780577286252012-01-29T06:24:00.000-08:002012-01-29T06:33:32.168-08:00Traps of the Mind (Part 2)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the last </span></i><a href="http://enneagramlearning.blogspot.com/2012/01/traps-of-mind-part-1.html" target="_blank"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">article</span></i></a><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, I talked about how the brain has evolved for survival rather than accuracy. Now we'll look at some specific biases or shortcomings of the way the mind interprets our inner and outer experience.</span></i></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Cognitive Dissonance</span></b></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. </span></i></span><br />
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If we are to believe Fitzgerald, it is probably safe to say that there are few truly first-rate intelligences amongst us. Holding two opposed views in mind at the same time is very difficult to do because the brain experiences cognitive dissonance and wants to resolve mental conflicts, and it often does so without our awareness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In their book, "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): How We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts," Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson define cognitive dissonance as:</span></span></div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> "... a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent, such as 'Smoking is a dumb thing to do because it could kill me' and 'I smoke two packs a day.' Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish; </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">people don't rest easy until they find a way to reduce it.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">" (p. 13, italics added)</span></span></div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In many ways, cognitive dissonance is necessary for our well-being; again, the brain evolved for survival, not accuracy. Further, it is important to remember that our brain evolved to be modular and very often one part of the brain wants one thing and another part of the brain wants something else. For example, one part of the brain says "eat sweets" while another part of the brain says "take care of your health." Both of these impulses serve our survival, but they can cause inner turmoil. If we didn't develop a way to resolve psychological contradictions we would be in a state of perpetual paralysis. Cognitive dissonance allows us to act; acting allows us to survive.</span></span></div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The downside, of course, is that it can cause us to overlook important information and we may make poor decisions. Each of us can easily become the smoker who overlooks the health threats, the person who gives in to the desire for sweets too often. Cognitive dissonance can cause us to stop questioning our actions, beliefs, and biases in many areas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In his book, "Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence," the founder of cognitive psychology Aaron Beck points out that none of us, even the most hateful, gets up in the morning with the intention of doing the wrong thing. We all believe that we are justified in our actions because our intentions are in some way noble. Maladaptive behavior usually results from maladaptive thinking rather than malicious intent. It is cognitive dissonance that allows us to misbehave, because it can (mis)shape our thinking. We all see ourselves as </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">good</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (or at least </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">just</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">) people; when we have an urge that others might objectively deem </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">bad</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, we find ways to rationalize it. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Good people don't do bad things; I am a good person, therefore my actions are justified.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Cognitive dissonance may aid survival, but it can impede growth, and it can certainly impede our ability to see ourselves and our world accurately. It is not uncommon for clients receiving feedback from a 360 assessment to experience cognitive dissonance and start rationalizing the negative comments: "Well, I know who said that and he never liked me because I got a job he wanted." "People may have that perception of me, but it's not the way I really am." It is relatively easy for an experienced coach to get past these rationalizations, but the examples demonstrate what we do in our own heads all the time--we often (nonconsciously) filter through data in order to create a consistent and creative narrative in our minds. And the theme of that narrative is generally </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I am right, I am justified, I have no need to question my assumptions. </span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So what should we do in order to combat the sometimes nefarious results of cognitive dissonance?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The first step is to be aware of the phenomenon and to watch for times when we fall victim to cognitive dissonance. The best way to understand something is to become a student of it. We have to train ourselves to see something before we can manage it. This analysis can lead to a period of self-doubt and slight paralysis--we can become temporarily Hamlet-like in out questioning of ourselves--but that period ends as we learn to resolve the inner conflicts in a healthy and conscious way.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The second step is to get into the habit of challenging our assumptions. Scientists call this "falsification," trying to disprove our hypothesis rather than simply trying to prove it to be true. We don't want to do this all the time and begin questioning our every decision or action, but we should do it for the important ones. The more important a decision is, the more rigorous we should be about challenging the assumptions that lead us to it. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The third step is to seek and be receptive to feedback. The tricky part about cognitive dissonance is that we often can't see it. Others can help us see our own blind spots and contradictions. Develop a personal advisory board of people who will give you honest feedback and help you challenge your assumptions. Be sure you don't shoot the messenger when you solicit such feedback. Listen, keep an open mind, and change your mind when it is the right thing to do.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, grow comfortable with saying "I was wrong." I would argue with Fitzgerald and say that the sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to say "I was wrong." Rather than being a sign of weakness, it shows that we are receptive to new information and not stuck in our thinking for psychological or dogmatic reasons. The economist John Maynard Keynes was once accused of hypocrisy for contradicting an earlier statement. He retorted, "When the evidence changes I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We should all seek to overcome the negative effects of cognitive dissonance and examine our contradictions. We should resolve those contradictions when we can. We should embrace them when we must (it is okay to eat sweets within moderation as long as we make efforts to be healthy, for example). And we should get into the habit of asking ourselves Keynes's question.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Stay tuned.... Future posts will cover more traps of the mind.</span></i></div>
</div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-62160661691670844792012-01-22T05:26:00.000-08:002012-01-28T17:50:29.874-08:00Traps of the Mind (Part 1)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">by Mario Sikora</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We like to think we see the world clearly, that our perceptions are reliable, that our thinking is logical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">When we take a moment to step back and look at ourselves, however, we realize that this is not always the case. In fact, we often see the world through a variety of filters, our perceptions can be unreliable, and our thinking can be logically flawed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This is not a new observation, of course; many ancient wisdom traditions are rooted in the idea that we are hindered by illusions and must learn to see clearly in order to become enlightened. The modern scientific literature on the inaccuracy and dysfunction of the brain is vast, and a list of useful books on the topic appears at the end of this post.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the last post, “Thinking Like a Leader,” I wrote about why effective thinking was important. In this and future posts, I’ll discuss how some of the structures and processes of the brain can work to fool us. Then subsequent blogs will discuss tools for improving rigor, as well has how to cultivate the curiosity and creativity I wrote about previously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In order to understand how our brains fools us, we have to understand one fundamental fact about the evolution of the brain: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">the brain evolved to help us survive, not to help us accurately comprehend the world around us</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">. For the latter, we need help and future articles will focus on the tools that help us see the world clearly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Those familiar with the science of biological evolution may have heard statements such as “evolution only cares about survival and reproduction.” This statement is only partially correct, but its implications usually do not fully register on people. This is a shame, because the implications are profound. (If anyone really wants to understand the nuances of the human psyche, they have to understand the science of evolution, and a short list of good introductory books is listed at the end.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Before I talk about the implications, however, let me clarify what is meant by the statement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Evolution by random mutation and natural selection is a blind, unintelligent, and indifferent process. It doesn’t “care” about anything because there is no </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">intelligence</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">consciousness</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> involved in the process </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">to</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> care. Evolution is also purposeless and without intention. Anthropomorphized evolution is a convenient shorthand, however, and almost impossible to avoid but it is important to understand that evolution is not deliberately working toward an end result. It progresses through a simple, blind algorithm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">That algorithm goes something like this:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Any act of replication of DNA (through, say, sexual or asexual reproduction) introduces random variations called mutations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If these mutations increase the chances that the organism will reproduce (by, say, increasing chances of survival so that the organism lives long enough to reproduce or by increasing its reproductive fitness), there is an increased chance that the organism will pass on these genes to offspring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nXLXfuyxBs0fjimRxAMcpAQEL_YbkV3dNRXizUcA2rP6qKYm8QCCcdN5GRcMYIp5TLlbx-IXn6lpjfbkVyNTWF-Vrrmi7glKHRrRkrBUQkDKxZmU60F5uhLTCM1JcGE3-wAe6lhFVX3f/s1600/Slide03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nXLXfuyxBs0fjimRxAMcpAQEL_YbkV3dNRXizUcA2rP6qKYm8QCCcdN5GRcMYIp5TLlbx-IXn6lpjfbkVyNTWF-Vrrmi7glKHRrRkrBUQkDKxZmU60F5uhLTCM1JcGE3-wAe6lhFVX3f/s200/Slide03.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Figure 1</span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Through simple statistical likelihood, those mutations that increase reproductive fitness will influence the evolution of the successive generations of the species (even as it morphs, over time, into completely different species).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This very simple, but very elegant, algorithm, constantly repeated over unimaginably vast amounts of time, accounts for all the characteristics of all the species on our planet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Our brain has evolved over eons and natural selection has “equipped” it with characteristics to help us survive and reproduce. Sometimes, those very same characteristics actually inhibit our ability to see the world around us accurately. Natural selection has saddled us with intuitions that keep us safe or make our lives easier, and has wired us so that we will be certain of the accuracy of these intuitions, even when the intuitions are </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">not</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> accurate. Thus, Feynman was correct, we each are the easiest person for us to fool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Take one very simple illustration of this phenomenon—the tendency to see patterns whether they exist or not. Look at the first photo accompanying this article. What do you see? Yes, you see two dots and a curved line on a piece of paper, but you also see a face. Why? Because your brain is wired to see important patterns, especially patterns related to things that can help us or harm us. We see faces all the time—religious figures on burned toast or a cinnamon role, a man on the moon. We humans are pattern-spotting marvels, and we are constantly spotting patterns whether they exist or not. When we intuit a pattern, our brain disinclines us to doubt ourselves because it is generally more advantageous to stubbornly believe we see a pattern where it doesn’t exist than it is to doubt ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOVRUrw6Nawesni12decbaR4jThcFoE2srZl7GFLPU8yI0_kNywSUNYNLrFmXnYyv8qL2oHeUfh9MEQAnXe3RhOvOqnVndcaceKVpZgipbUnZD-ifi522HsJjbDIuIxmtBJA4ksM7aJm1p/s1600/tiger+in+grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOVRUrw6Nawesni12decbaR4jThcFoE2srZl7GFLPU8yI0_kNywSUNYNLrFmXnYyv8qL2oHeUfh9MEQAnXe3RhOvOqnVndcaceKVpZgipbUnZD-ifi522HsJjbDIuIxmtBJA4ksM7aJm1p/s200/tiger+in+grass.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Figure 2</span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Take a look at the second photo (Figure 2). Because of our heightened ability to see patterns, it is relatively easy for us to see the tiger amongst the bushes. Let’s go back in time. Four of our distant relatives, let’s call them Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty are walking along and hear a rustle in the bushes. They turn to look and Fred and Wilma perceive the pattern of a tiger in the bushes, and they run away. Barney thinks he sees something too, but says to himself, “It could be a tiger, but I’m not sure.” He trots a small distance, but stops to wait and see if he was right in his assumption. Betty doesn’t even see the pattern and wonders why everyone is running.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It turns out that the rustling in the bushes was just the wind, and Betty later has a good laugh at the expense of Fred and Wilma when telling the story to others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The next day, the four are out for another walk. Again, there is a rustle. Fred and Wilma see the pattern of a tiger, and despite Betty’s mocking of them the previous day, they run off again. Barney takes a few steps but stops, again, not implicitly trusting his intuitions. Once again, Betty doesn’t see the pattern and stays in place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This time, however, the rustling is not the wind; it is a tiger. Fred and Wilma get away and survive to have many babies, most of whom share their brains’ traits. Betty, on the other hand, becomes the tiger’s lunch. Barney survives this time but, lacking an implicit faith in his pattern-recognizing intuition, is not long for this world and leaves few or no offspring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">We have these accuracy-inhibiting characteristics “engineered” into our brain because false positives, such as those that Fred and Wilma had a tendency toward, cost us very little. However, false negatives, such as that to which Betty was prone, can be fatal. Doubting our intuitions, such as Barney did, can do more harm than good. The simple algorithm determines that those with a bias toward seeing patterns that did not exist and were overly certain about their intuitions had a better chance of reproducing. We are their offspring. We share their traits--we sometimes see things that aren't there and we are overly sure of our naive intuitions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So here we are, thinking of ourselves as holders of the truth, knowers of our reality, rational and clear-eyed beings with memories like digital recordings. We know that the mind is prone to illusion, but we believe that is mainly the problem of the deceived or foolish “others” and we believe that we see though </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">maya</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> and hold truths unknown to the masses. In truth, we are loaded down with more cognitive biases than we could ever imagine (for an interesting list go to: </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t want to paint too bleak a picture of the situation. In general, the brain does a pretty good job at accurately assessing and interpreting our environment. We are right </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">most</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> of the time. But we are wrong enough that we need help, and this is why the tools related to good, rigorous thinking are critical. They help us get from being “pretty good” in our assessments to “very good.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the challenges of the brain are purely structural. For example, we don’t see well in the dark so we do perceive objects very well at night. We also have not evolved to comprehend the things that are either much smaller or much larger than we tend to deal with in the normal course of life. We can follow and comprehend the evasive pattern of an antelope, for example, but we can’t truly comprehend the workings of quanta or the vastness of space.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I will focus less on structural issues than on cognitive biases, which according to the </span><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/cognitive_bias.htm" target="_blank"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Science Daily website</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> are “any of a wide range of observer effects identified in cognitive science and social psychology including very basic statistical, social attribution, and memory errors that are common to all human beings.” </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is an extensive list of cognitive biases listed at </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, and for a great overview of the topic I recommend Daniel Kahneman’s new book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In upcoming posts I will address the following cognitive biases, because I think they are the ones most critical for leaders and those who advise them to understand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Cognitive Dissonance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Confirmation Bias <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Unreliability of Memory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Motivated Reasoning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Belief Polarization<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Correspondence Bias<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Agenticity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Essentialism<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Self-serving distortion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For Further Reading:</span></i></b></o:p></div>
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<o:p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">On cognitive biases:</span></i></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even When You Are Not" by Robert Burton</span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us" by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons </span></o:p></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">On evolution:</span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Why Darwin Matters" by Michael Shermer</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters" by Donald Prothero and Carl Buell</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins</span></div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-32247481020546216372012-01-17T17:21:00.000-08:002012-01-20T13:02:30.163-08:00Thinking Like a Leader<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiPGL3PKBy6kyFfLgqYiJ19gV5w-r4vIDadUGxAWzMzyq1ba9afGCDvxN8vqreY6cIwwKpQDjG_6PgBdzPriNSaZ5RH53kr2ztZoXLZMrmG2ETNZRmbNMQUgTEPVgrtlpRuL_DU3XibAJF/s1600/Slide1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiPGL3PKBy6kyFfLgqYiJ19gV5w-r4vIDadUGxAWzMzyq1ba9afGCDvxN8vqreY6cIwwKpQDjG_6PgBdzPriNSaZ5RH53kr2ztZoXLZMrmG2ETNZRmbNMQUgTEPVgrtlpRuL_DU3XibAJF/s320/Slide1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Like many symbols, the Enneagram makes convenient scaffolding for intellectual constructs. Attempts to create memorable and useful maps and models are often enhanced by a visual pattern. They help the learning process because easily remembered logical patterns help the concepts to which they are attached take root in the brain.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">One of the reasons that the Enneagram is so compelling is because of its striking visual pattern, which comprises simple interlocking patterns that create a robust system. Yes, the descriptions of the Ennea-types is useful and valid, but I believe that one of the reason the Enneagram sticks with people is because of the impact of the logic of the visual patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Over the years of working with leaders I have taken advantage of this scaffolding to create a leadership model that describes a set of attributes related to a leader's self mastery, relationships with others, and habits of thinking. Mapping these attributes to the Enneagram not only creates memorability, it also helps to highlight the dynamic interrelationships of these attributes. That is, rather than just seeing the qualities as discreet and independent competencies, mapping them to the diagram helps people better understand how they can support (or impede) each other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It is important to recognize that there is nothing magical about the scaffolding, and that no model placed on top of the scaffolding is complete or perfect. Leadership is a complex endeavor, and no list of leadership qualities or traits will be complete in and of itself. That said, I have found this model to be a useful foundation upon which to build.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As stated above, the model covers three broad areas: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">self-mastery</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (which can essentially be understood as self-motivated behavioral change), </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">relationships with others</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (particularly subordinates), and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">leadership thinking</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (habits of mind that improve judgment and decision-making).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This series of blog posts will address the three attributes related to leadership thinking: </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">rigor</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">curiosity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">creativity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, which, in this model, correlate to points 1, 7, and 4 of the Enneagram, respectively. Again, I want to emphasize that there is nothing inherent in these points of the Enneagram diagram that correlate to these attributes, it is simply a useful and sensible heuristic that fits nicely with some general concepts about the Enneagram of personality. It is not to imply that Ones are necessarily more rigorous, Sevens more curious, or Fours more creative that people of other types.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Effective leadership thinking is a big topic, so we’ll break it down into parts. We’ll start off with why it’s important, and then discuss some of the obstacles to effective thinking. In future blog posts I’ll talk about these three attributes in more depth, along with some resources and exercises for developing each of them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Before I explain why I chose these three attributes to focus on, it would help to explain why effective thinking is so important for leaders.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve coached leaders in a variety of small and large organizations for nearly 15 years and I can comfortably say that they tend to be smarter than average. Management theorist Elliot Jacques</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> makes a very compelling case that as you go higher in an organization, the more raw intelligence a leader needs to have because he or she must be able to handle more and more complex sets of variables. That is, you have to be smart to think through the complexity of managing 20 people and a budget of, say, $5 million; but the complexity of running a $3 billion business unit with 10,000 employees requires even more native computing power. However, having the requisite raw intelligence is not enough; the best leaders have good systems for thinking and processes for sorting and analyzing information. These systems vastly improve the quality of their judgment and decision making, which improve their business results. Good business results allow them to progress in their careers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">(It is important to point out that requisite intelligence is not necessarily sufficient for leadership success. A variety of other factors come into play—choosing good talent, for example, and having the self-confidence to empower that talent. Emotional intelligence (EI) is critical to leadership success. EI comprises a variety of competencies ranging from self-awareness and self-management to empathy and political awareness, and a deficiency in this “intelligence” is often the downfall of even the smartest people. However, what much of the literature on emotional intelligence indicates is that EQ is a success factor that separates people with the requisite IQ to do their job. It is not a replacement for requisite thinking skills.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I’m often bemused by the downplaying of the importance of good critical thinking in some circles, particularly in the postmodern-influenced academic and new-age spiritual circles, which tout “other ways of knowing” and the equivalence of individual “truths.” Likewise, the world of punditry thrives on pushing opinion, rather than critical analysis of facts, through charisma, emotion, and volume. This tendency shouldn’t be a surprise, however; when the consequences of one’s decision-making and analytical skills are insignificant, there is little reason to rigorously challenge your emotionally attractive biases. When the consequences are substantial, the cost of not valuing these skills is much more obvious.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Take for example, the emphasis on Evidence-Based Practice in the medical profession</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, the CIA’s emphasis on critical thinking and analysis</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">3</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, and the US Army’s focus on rigorous after-action reviews</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">. These are areas where lives are on the line, and I am grateful that people in these fields take the time to develop rigor. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Most businesses are not a matter of life or death, but the stakes are high. The way leaders think influences their decisions, their decisions influence the company’s success, and the company’s success determines whether or not their employees have jobs and their investors have secure retirements.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">How leaders think matters.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">So why these three attributes: rigor, curiosity, and creativity?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The word </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">rigor</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> has a number of definitions, and in this case I am referring to the “strict precision” of thought. Leaders who think well bring strict precision to their analysis of information. They are constantly inundated with data from a variety of sources, including subordinates, bosses, customers, and vendors, all of whom have their own agendas and may be working on partial or incorrect data. The leader needs to understand how to effectively challenge data because decisions based on poor evidence results in poor decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In essence, effective leaders apply the scientific method:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">They form a provisional clear and precise hypothesis based on empirical observation;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">They rigorously test their hypothesis, seeking first to justify the hypothesis and then to try to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">falsify</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> (disprove) their own hypothesis;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">They control for variables and retest their hypothesis;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">They draw a conclusion but always remain open to the significance of new data, revising their conclusion as appropriate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? And one might fear that it leads to rigidity (another definition of rigor is “harsh inflexibility,” which is just as problematic as the lack of rigor). This is a legitimate concern, and the effective leader learns to apportion their rigor to the consequences of the decision. Decisions that have small consequences (such as, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">what shall I have for lunch?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">) can be less rigorous and more intuition-based; decisions with great consequences (such as, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">should we move our manufacturing to a low-cost country?</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">) require more rigor and less reliance on intuition</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">5</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Overdone, rigor can be lifeless and sterile, focused more on why things </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">can’t</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> be done than on what </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">can</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> be done. Those familiar with the Enneagram can easily see the correlation to Ennea-type One and, as with personality type, it is not the strategy itself that is problem, it is whether one is applying it to much, too little, or just enough. Likewise with rigor; the right amount is important. Too much can unnecessarily slow down the decision making process; too little leads to flawed decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the illustration that accompanies this post, the vertical arrow represents the need to calibrate the degree of rigor to the situation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Rigor by itself does not make for effective thinking, however, and rigor must be supported by </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">curiosity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">creativity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Curiosity</span></span></i><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">, which correlates to point Seven of the Enneagram in this model, is inquisitiveness and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">an eager desire to know. Curiosity is not goal-directed beyond this desire to know, and the most curious minds pursue knowledge and information for the pure pleasure of the pursuit and the knowing. For leaders, this curiosity involves the pursuit of knowledge in areas that may not have a direct impact on business decisions. It is inquisitiveness about other people and how they live, it is the attempt to know things about the world with an understanding that those things may never prove useful in an obvious way. At the same time, the curious leader knows that one never knows what person or piece of information </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">will</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> prove useful one day, and that the broader the scope of one’s knowledge is the more likely he or she will have the a piece of information at the time it becomes useful, or at least a better idea of how to find an answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Unchecked curiosity can be a problem, however, because it can lead to a lack of discipline and action. The leader should always work on developing and satisfying their curiosity, but it must exist in a dynamic tension with the attribute at the other corner of the triangle, creativity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Creativity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> is the ability to create, and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">create</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> means “</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior.” While we tend to think of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">creativity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> as imaginative, “outside-the-box” thinking, here it is the desire to act and bring something into being that didn’t exist before. Again, those familiar with the Enneagram can easily see the correlation between creativity and Ennea-type Four.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Creativity and curiosity make rigor alive and vibrant, and they exist in a supportive but dynamically tense yin-and-yang relationship. Too much curiosity and nothing gets done; too much creativity and what gets done is not very interesting. Some situations require us to flex more toward creativity; others require us to flex the other way. The horizontal arrow in the diagram represents this tension.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As the arrows indicate, there are no fixed answers to how a leader must think. He or she must have all three qualities and use them in proportion to the circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is more to say on each of these attributes and how one can develop them further, and I will elaborate in future posts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The next blog, however, will focus on the built in flaws in our cognitive abilities that are the biggest obstacles to effective thinking.</span><span style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Footnotes:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Jacques, Elliot, and Stephen D Clement, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Executive Leadership: A Practical Guide to Managing Complexity</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></div>
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<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.hsl.unc.edu/services/tutorials/ebm/whatis.htm">http://www.hsl.unc.edu/services/tutorials/ebm/whatis.htm</a></span></div>
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<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">3</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/index.html">https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/index.html</a></span></div>
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<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4</span></span></sup><a href="http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/tc_25-20/tc25-20.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/tc_25-20/tc25-20.pdf</span></a></div>
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<sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">5</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Psychologist Gary Klein has done interesting work around the value of intuitive responses in emergency situations that can be applied in some leadership situations. See this article for an interesting discussion between him and Daniel Kahneman, who takes a more analytical approach. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategic_decisions_When_can_you_trust_your_gut_2557">https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategic_decisions_When_can_you_trust_your_gut_2557</a></span></div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-67911679951530268902011-08-27T15:10:00.001-07:002012-01-20T13:02:59.160-08:00Always question the dataJust wanted to share this link to an article by John Kay.
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<a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dfe55458-ccb6-11e0-b923-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1WGmcAT6x">On sex, lies, and the pitfalls of overblown statistics</a>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-91466388472600370082011-08-15T07:41:00.000-07:002012-01-20T13:03:16.739-08:00Pick of the Week: IBD 10 Secrets to SuccessI don't normally pay much attention to lists that claim to hold the secrets of success. They tend to make one of two basic errors:
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The first error is that they tend to be faddish and heavy on wishful thinking--focused on the bright business idea of the moment or pushing the ideas of a particular leadership guru who is hyping his or her latest book.
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The second error is that they are often just the personal credo of some successful person. This means that they are prone to the correlation/causation fallacy. Just because a successful person has a particular list of traits does not mean that those traits led to his or her success or that they will work for the rest of us.
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The Investor's Business Daily newspaper, on the other hand, has a list of ten "secrets" that I think are worth attention (the list can be found <a href="http://www.cfs.purdue.edu/CSR/courses/csr309/documents/IBDs10SecretstoSuccess.pdf">here</a>). What I like about this list is that they are not secrets at all, and they don't offer simple, magical solutions. They are common sense guidelines that if you follow, and if you work hard, and if you are just a little bit lucky, will increase your chances of accomplishing your goals.
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IBD also publishes articles each day based on one of these secrets, and they're available free online (click <a href="http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Management.aspx">here</a>).Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-77574056845804594412011-07-21T07:16:00.000-07:002012-01-20T13:06:07.684-08:00Pick of the Week: The Basics of Science<i>I've been busily preparing for the International Enneagram Association board meeting and conference next week and unable to post as much as I'd like, but I did want to get out this pick of the week before leaving for Fort Lauderdale....</i><br />
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My inclination in both my education and the early part of my career was more toward the humanities than anything else, so I am grossly undereducated when it comes to the sciences. Later in life, however, I came to appreciate how important the sciences are for all of us as we try to make sense of our world--whether it is trying to make better business decisions, better decisions regarding the health and well-being of our families, or better decisions about who we should vote for. </div>
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I'm often surprised at how easily people fall victim to the misinterpretations or distortions of science, whether it be the distortion of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" (a term actually coined by Spencer) by the Wall-Street types or a distortion of the observer effect in quantum physics by the New-Age crowd. As with any other tools, the sciences can be misused and abused to further our preexisting biases or agendas.</div>
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To overcome these tendencies, it is helpful to spend some time with a good primer or two on the basics of science. Understanding what Darwin <i>really</i> meant or what the observer effect <i>really</i> is, for example, can help us past our biases and illusions about the world and how it works. My two favorite such primers are: "The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science" by Natalie Angier and "Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy" by Robert Hazen and James Trefil. While Angier is a more engaging writer, her style can seem a little too cute at points and she lacks the simplicity and crispness of Hazen and Trefil's book. Either one is a very worthwhile read.</div>
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<i>Note: Whenever I write about science, I get emails or comments stating the obvious "well, science doesn't address values..." or "you're just a scientistic reductionist" arguments in defense of less than rigorous ideas. I am not saying science addresses values, nor am I advocating logical positivism, nor am I undervaluing the importance of subjective experience. I am not saying that reading, say, Richard Feynman has any anymore inherent value than reading Virgil or the Upanishads. I am saying that an accurate understanding of science helps us see the world more clearly and can help free us from illusion.</i></div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-5077712463067000982011-07-16T16:47:00.000-07:002011-07-16T17:15:32.873-07:00Pick of the Week: The US Army Leadership Field ManualI just started a book on General George C. Marshall and it made me think of this book and how important it is. I'm always a bit reluctant to recommend it, especially to my non-US friends and clients. I hate the idea of being seen as someone who in anyway glorifies war. My father grew up as a refugee in war-torn Germany and if one lesson stuck in my head from hearing his stories, it is that war is always bad, even when it is the least bad option. However, the <i>US Army Leadership Field Manual</i> may be the single best book on leadership I've ever read.<div><br /></div><div>I am always much more interested in hearing what people with "skin in the game" have to say about almost any topic, and you can't get anymore genuinely invested in results than leaders in combat. The <i>Field Manual</i> has many things going for it:</div><div><ul><li>It is battle-tested--literally. Over the years, ideas that don't work got weaned out because they could lead to people dying.</li><li>It is written in clear, simple, and direct language. There is no hint of a consultant or professor trying to impress you with the sophistication or originality of his or her ideas, and it is not filled with the self-glorifying tales of ex-CEOs. It is written in simple, declarative sentences that leave no room for ambiguity. Its authors' goals are to clearly and unambiguously share important knowledge. </li><li>It acknowledges that different skills are needed at different levels of any hierarchy and different stages of one's career. It clearly articulates those stages, making it easy to find what qualities are necessary given your leadership circumstances.</li></ul><div>My shelves are filled with hundreds of books on leadership; this is the one I keep returning to. If you are a leader or work with leaders, add it to your shelf too.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><i>The US Army Leadership Manual is, I believe, a public-domain publication. The version I have was edited and produced by McGraw Hill in 2004.</i></div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-49734080808860377982011-07-08T17:48:00.000-07:002011-07-08T18:03:40.201-07:00Pick of the Week: "On Writing Well" and Polish Poets<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Times; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">I have two recommendations this week.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; ">First, I recommend anyone who hasn't read it to pick up a copy of William Zinsser's "On Writing Well." When I work with leaders, we almost always end up talking about their ability to communicate. Leaders need to communicate clearly so people understand what is expected of them and how to deliver on those expectations. Nothing is more dispiriting to an organization than having people waste time going the wrong direction because the leader was not clear. In fact, clear communication affects every part of our lives and all of our relationships. Effective communication is direct, concise-but-sufficient (it says enough without droning on), coherent, and consistent. Zinsser's book teaches writers (anyone who writes) how to do this better than any book I've ever read (I'll take it over Strunk and White any day.) Good writing requires good thinking--coherence, logic, accuracy, etc.--so writing well will make you a better thinker. Writing also carries over into good speaking because it forces one to become disciplined in crafting and delivering a message. One's sentences follow in a logical order that keeps the listener engaged rather than inviting them to tune out. Good communication skills are the secret weapon of effective leaders in all areas of life. Arm yourself well; read this book and learn its lessons.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; ">My second pick is more broad: "Polish poets." Perhaps it's mid-life re-appreciation of my Polish heritage, but I've been immersed in modern Polish poets lately. I've always tried to stay away from sentimentality and exuberance in poetry, and there is no fear of stumbling across them with these writers. Rather, these poets tend to exemplify the Poles' ability to wistfully endure hardship and oppression, to stare life in the face without blinking or backing down, and to be dignified without taking themselves or anyone else too seriously.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; ">Milosz would be a little too obvious I think, so his volumes sit largely as-yet-unexplored on the shelves. It started by chance with Zbigniew Herbert (I was captivated by the photo on the cover of his "Collected Works"), and quickly spread to Adam Zagajewski and Janusz Szuber. Reading Tadeusz Rozewicz, my newest discovery, is like receiving a light slap in the face by a slightly stern uncle urging you to wake up and see--<i>really see</i>--the world around you. (His picture reminds me of my grandfather, a quietly urgent man who took a bullet trying to stop Hitler.) But most of all, I've fallen in love with Nobel-laureate Wislawa Szymborska, the kindly, gentle, and ferociously intelligent aunt to Rozewicz's intimidating uncle. If you like poetry, or simply appreciate good writing that captures the essence of people with hard-won soul, give them a try.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span></span>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-76580997534433795792011-07-04T07:00:00.000-07:002011-07-04T03:59:55.802-07:00Look Outside Before You Look Inside"One of the basic assumptions of the field [of social psychology] is that it's not the objective environment that influences people, but their constructs of the world. You have to get inside people's heads and see the world the way they do. You have to look at the kinds of narratives and stories people tell themselves as to why they're doing what they're doing. What can get people into trouble sometimes in their personal lives, or for more societal problems, is that these stories go wrong. People end up with narratives that are dysfunctional in some way." Timothy Wilson (<a href="http://edge.org/conversation/social_psychological_narrative">http://edge.org/conversation/social_psychological_narrative</a>)<p></p><p class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I'm a big fan of Wilson and his book "Strangers to Ourselves." Wilson makes a compelling case that there is a downside to too much self-reflection because it is literally impossible for us to see all of the workings of our own mind. We think we know ourselves but we don't, and the best way to learn about ourselves is not necessarily to go inside but to go outside and get feedback from objective parties. Going inside to explore our narratives often just makes our existing narratives stronger and more difficult to change. </span></p><p class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">One of the beauties of the Enneagram is that it provides an objective listing of our tendencies. Whenever I am accused of "Eight-ish" behaviors, my first reaction is to rationalize and justify my behavior. In time, however, I often see how I behaved in one of the habitual Eight-ish patterns that I wrote about in my own book. It is this combination of feedback and objective perspective that get me past the land mines of looking inside for the explanations of my behavior. </span></p><p class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">At the same time, the Enneagram can point us to the central theme of many of the narratives that Wilson talks about in the quote above. At the heart of our stories is, often, our preferred strategy, and learning to rewrite the definition of our preferred strategy can help us to change our story and, ultimately, our behaviors. For me, the preferred strategy is "striving to be powerful," and I get into trouble most often because my narratives are rooted in an immature or outdated of what it means to be powerful; I may, for example, be acting on the assumption that being powerful means being forceful rather than being kind. I can't change the behavior if any new behaviors run counter to my non-conscious narratives.</span></p><p class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">So the pattern for creating change is to go outside first and then go inside: </span></p><p class="p1"></p><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Seek feedback on what needs to change (and to be open to ongoing feedback) either from others or from tools such as the Enneagram; </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Decide what changes need to be made; </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Reflect on your existing narratives and how they make you resist the changes you need to make; </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Explore how your definition of your preferred strategy holds that narrative in place;</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Redefine your existing strategy so you can change your narrative;</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Practice the new behaviors until they become the norm. </span></li></ul><p></p><p class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">(For more on rewriting the story, see the book "</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Awareness-Action-Enneagram-Emotional-Intelligence/dp/1589661257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309776645&sr=8-1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Awareness to Action</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">" or </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-OCyZA8uyI&feature=related"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">these videos</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> on youtube.</span></p>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-8176929632817753182011-06-30T10:42:00.000-07:002011-06-30T10:50:32.119-07:00Pick of the Week: Good People Doing Bad Things, and Vice Versa<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I'll admit it--I love TV. Not reality TV, or any show that involves a judge of any kind, and don't get me started on the inanity of most newscasts. But we live in an area of exceptional scripted drama if you know where to look. Three shows in particular, I believe, rise to the level of great art and great art tells us as much about the human condition as the insights of the best psychologists and philosophers.<br /><br />The first show is "The Wire," a sprawling look at the cops, criminals, and politicians populating Baltimore's underbelly that aired for five seasons on HBO and is available on DVD or through HBO's HBOGo service. The dialog is pitch perfect and subtle wit pervades the writing. What makes "The Wire" so special, however, is its "there but for the grace of God" quality; watching it you realize how much environment, circumstance, and family and friends shape the person we become and the choices we make. The show avoids drug-dealer-with-a-heart-of-gold cliches while still making people that we should find despicable compelling, interesting, sympathetic. I don't think it is too much of a stretch to call "The Wire" a masterpiece of storytelling, Tolstoy-esque in scope, about flawed (and thus real) humans trying to make the best of the cards they were dealt.<br /><br />If "The Wire" evokes Tolstoy, then "The Sons of Anarchy" evokes Shakespeare. I did not have high hopes for this show about the trials and tribulations of a </span><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1309455703_0" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">northern California </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">motorcycle club, and of course comparing anything to Shakespeare goes too far, but the show has a cast of characters as compelling as any I've ever seen. Matriarch Gemma evokes Lady Macbeth in her deviousness and ability to manipulate and her drive to be a source of strength to the men around her who she sees as sometimes too weak to save themselves and "the family." Gemma's son and club vice-president, Jax Teller, evokes Hamlet, searching for guidance on how to be a man and future king from a murdered father. Club president Clay </span><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1309455703_1" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Morrow</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, Gemma's husband, evokes Lear as he wrestles with the trials of being an aging ruler with an no obvious successor to carry out his vision for his kingdom. The beauty of "SoA" is that it makes us care deeply for people who under any normal circumstances we might fear and loathe; criminals and outlaws who can display profound humanity moments before they commit inhuman acts.<br /><br />I have no literary analogy for "Breaking Bad," but it is an arresting drama about what happens to an everyman faced with circumstances that are extraordinary, but still circumstances we can easily see ourselves facing some day. High school chemistry teacher Walter White finds out that he has cancer and decides to manufacture methamphetamine as a way to get enough money for his family to live on after he is gone. Walt is a brilliant person who carries the weight of his own and his wife's diminished expectations, but he comes alive once that he has a mission and a way to apply his knowledge and training in a practical (if illegal and anti-social) activity. The care and craftsmanship that he applies to producing meth almost makes you forget that he is engaging in the production of something that may benefit his family but will bring calamity on those who use it. More so than the other two shows, "Breaking Bad" asks what happens when a fundamentally decent person does something bad for ostensibly good reasons, and how far will he go once he has crossed the lines of where he thought his boundaries were?<br /><br />All three shows demonstrate the importance of place--inner-city </span><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1309455703_2" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Baltimore</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, rural </span><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1309455703_3" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">California</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, the </span><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1309455703_4" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-color: rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Arizona</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> suburbs--as a contributor to who we are, and they show that being human means making choices in difficult circumstances and then having to live with the consequences of those choices and an altered sense of who we are.<br /><br />Great art teaches us about our world, and about ourselves; you can learn a lot from watching these shows.</span></span>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211434457011844086.post-84455168272828936502011-06-25T06:02:00.000-07:002011-06-25T07:44:34.740-07:00So You Want to be a Coach...Many of the people who contact me for advice on how to use the Enneagram in their coaching practice are therapists or psychologists who have little understanding of the workings of business. They assume that the tools and tactics that work in one environment--the therapeutic engagement--will simply transfer to another. This, unfortunately, is not the case.<div><br /></div><div>There's nothing more disheartening than to see people leap into consulting or coaching ill-equipped--it leads to failure and does damage along the way--so I'd like to offer a few thoughts and resources that might be useful to people making the transition into the coaching/consulting world. </div><div><br /></div><div>A caveat is needed: my focus is on corporate executive coaching and consulting, not "life coaching." They are different fields and, since I am not a "life" coach I have no idea what it takes to succeed in that arena.</div><div><br /></div><div>The coach should be focused on one thing: helping the client meet the client's goals. You are not there to heal the client, to make the client a better person, or to help the client identify the "right" goals as you see them. You should not be trying to change their metaphysical, political, or social points of view. If you do not like the client's goals, you should not take them as a client.</div><div><br /></div><div>Succeeding as a coach depends on understanding and empathizing with the client. I have been asked what I do when I have to work with someone I don't personally like. The truth is, I have never had this happen--I've always been able to find something I like about my clients. I believe this is because I am innately curious about people, I find people very interesting, and I'm relatively non-judgmental about how people live their lives but challenging of people's ways of thinking. I think these are good qualities for a coach to have.</div><div><br /></div><div>It helps to understand how people's minds work. Obviously, psychological training helps here, but it is not necessary. Remember: a coach is not doing therapy and they shouldn't try. I find that the Enneagram is a great tool for coaches because it helps to identify the obstacles to growth and can be useful for charting a path to improvement.</div><div><br /></div><div>The most critical thing that someone going into corporate coaching or consulting must have is an appreciation for the mindset of business people and a basic knowledge of how business works. This might seem self-evident, but I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who think that they can become coaches or consultants without having any experience in the corporate world or, even worse, a disdain for it. I've seen this disdain from some who come from a humanities-type background; they think the business world is crass, dirty, or in some way craven, but they also want to make money off it. Your clients will see through this hypocrisy.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is also important to have a basic understanding of the business environment your client faces. For example, if you work with small, entrepreneurial companies you should understand small, entrepreneurial companies, the kind of people that work in them, the specific business challenges those companies face (liquidity almost always being the most pressing). You should understand how these companies are different from large, multinational corporations. </div><div><br /></div><div>I work primarily with large multinationals, so I'll focus on them. As coach going into that arena you should have a very basic understanding of finance and know: what margins are and why they are important; the difference between revenue and profits; why cost of capital is important; etc. You should know the difference between marketing and sales departments and why they often have tension; why there is often tension between engineering and marketing departments; the distinction between supply chain and procurement and how they are related. You should have a fairly thorough understanding of human resource and organizational development principles. You should have an appreciation for and facility in navigating highly complex organizational politics. You should also understand that you will be working with very intelligent, aggressive people who will see right through you if you pretend to have expertise you do not.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many of these things can be learned from reading, and I'll list some resources at the end of this post. Many of them can only be learned through experience, however, and much of that experience can only be gained by diving in and doing the work. If you do not have a corporate background but want to become an executive coach, I encourage you to start small and start humble. Get some experience however you can, and see each engagement as a learning experience as much as a teaching experience. Remember that while your clients know far more about their environment than you ever will, you are an expert at doing what you do. In the same way that you might be smarter and more successful than the plumber who comes to fix your sink, they have expertise you don't and you count on them to be better than you at what they do.</div><div><br /></div><div>Resources</div><div><br /></div><div>There are a million business, leadership, and coaching books and training programs on the market. Most of them are almost worthless. You can always tell the ones that were written by people who haven't actually done the work but think they have a great theory. They remind me of a book on swimming by someone who has never gotten their hair wet. One should be critical and skeptical in this arena. Here are a few resources I have found to be valuable.</div><div><ul><li>I always recommend Ram Charan's "What the CEO Wants You To Know" to people going into the coaching/consulting world. It is a short little primer on the fundamentals of business and bears reading and rereading. Most of Charan's books are worth reading. </li><li>One should be steeped in Peter Drucker. The dean of management thinkers is as fresh today as he was 50 years ago. "The Essential Drucker" is a good start; "The Effective Executive" is indispensable. </li><li>There are many specialties and approaches that executive coaches can take, and one must identify one's own expertise and style. Someone who has influenced mine is Marshall Goldsmith, and I recommend his "What Got You Here Won't Get You There." (I still remember walking into a bookstore and seeing it for the first time--the perfection of the title literally stopped me in my tracks and I groaned, "Why didn't I think of that?"</li><li>Read the newspaper and business journals. I read the "Financial Times" and "Wall Street Journal" every day and the "Investor's Business Daily" on occasion. All three have excellent websites. I also highly recommend "The Economist," though it is so content-rich that I find its weekly schedule very difficult to keep up with. For those who do international work, I recommend "Monocle" magazine as well.</li><li>Whether you do international work or not, chances are that your client's face the challenges of an international workforce. I recommend "Cultures and Organizations" by Hofstede and Hofstede and "Riding the Waves of Culture" by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner.</li><li>Spend a little time each day watching the Bloomberg network; I find some of the other business channels a bit grating, but Bloomberg feels like it's for grown ups.</li><li>Beyond the International Enneagram Association, I don't belong to any organizations, though I probably should. When I started consulting I joined the Chamber of Commerce and groups like SHRM and ASTD, but found little value in them as they tended to be made up of a lot of people looking for work. It is important to have some sort of social connection if you are self-employed, however, so I recommend finding something to belong to.</li></ul></div><div><br /></div>Enneagram Learning Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848956957731865032noreply@blogger.com