Leadership for Results

Tom Barker

Description

It is widely recognized that leadership is a critical factor in enabling any organization to adapt to its environment through implementing strategy, thereby surviving and thriving. This book takes research from a diverse range of fields on human behavior and distills it down into three themes in which leadership behavior is vital. Author Tom Barker labels these three themes Intentions, Influence, and Information, and their typical actions are described and illustrated by examples. Readers are taught how to achieve common purposes, collective decisions, and credible results.!--nl--Leadership For Results is aimed not only at executives but all managers responsible for implementing strategy, including their advisors in areas like Human Resources, Information Technology, Quality and Finance. It is applicable to organizations large and small, in the private sector, public sector, and not-for-profit.

Sujets

• Business
• Qualité, hygiène, sécurité, environnement
• Total Quality Management
• Gestion et management
• Economics

Informations

• Publié par: ASQ Quality Press
• Date de parution: 02 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780873894135
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Advance praise forLeadership for Results:

Every leader reading this book can identify with the examples: “Boy, is that an accurate description of what goes on in my organization.” It makes you want to make the book required reading of your leader- ship team.

Mary Symoens Quality Manager Denso Manufacturing Michigan

If only executives would realize the power of “intentions, influence, and information,” they would all have new tools to become more effective leaders and to impact their company positively instead of causing chaos. Dr. Barker keeps his approach at a truly leadership level and continues to look at the big or global picture while giving the reader case studies and real-life examples that show a more granular view. I would recommend this purchase to all my colleagues, as well as all the people I can influence both in and out of the field of quality.

Laura M. Kinney Audit Manager Adaptis

It closes the gap on what the individual worker and groups (depts.) know intuitively and what their leaders need to know, but often don’t. . . . I could not put it down. It is quick reading, concise and highly intelligent, but easy to follow. . . . Amust for developing managers and developing executives.

Cheryl D. Stokes Senior Compliance Specialist Abbott Laboratories, Diagnostics Division

Too many other books on leadership lately have taken the parable format, heavy on concept but lean on applicability and examples. The ideas presented inLeadership for Resultsshould be easily applied to a wide variety of industry situations.

Michael Dempsey Director of Quality Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals

Easy reading style and excellent examples. It does not spring from the author’s head like so many “how-to” management books appear to do. There is background and justification taken from the literature— some of which is research based. I am unaware of another book exactly of this type.

Victor E. Sower Professor of Management Sam Houston State University

Also available from ASQ Quality Press:

Finding the Leader in You: A Practical Guide to Expanding Your Leadership Skills Anton G. Camarota

Inside Knowledge: Rediscovering the Source of Performance Improvement David Fearon & Steven A. Cavaleri

Transformational Leadership: Creating Organizations of Meaning Stephen Hacker and Tammy Roberts

Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change Brien Palmer

The Six Sigma Path to Leadership: Observations from the Trenches David H. Treichler

The Synergy of One: Creating HighPerforming Sustainable Organizations through Integrated Performance Leadership Michael J. Dreikorn

The Quality Improvement Glossary Donald L. Siebels

Simplified Project Management for the Quality Professional: Managing Small & Mediumsize Projects Russell T. Westcott

Work Overload: Redesigning Jobs to Minimize Stress and Burnout Frank M. Gryna

To request a complimentary catalog of ASQ Quality Press publications, call 800-248-1946, or visit our Web site at http://qualitypress.asq.org.

Leadership for Results

Removing Barriers to Success for People, Projects, and Processes

Tom Barker, Ph.D.

ASQ Quality Press Milwaukee, Wisconsin

American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203 © 2006 by ASQ Quality Press All rights reserved. Published 2005 Printed in the United States of America

12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Barker, Tom, 1951– Leadership for results : removing barriers to success for people, projects, and processes / Tom Barker. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87389-669-6 (soft cover : alk. paper) 1. Leadership. 2. Management. 3. Corporate culture. 4. Work environment. 5. Success in business. I. Title.

HD57.7.B3663 2006 658.4092—dc22

ISBN-13: 978-0-87389-669-6 ISBN-10: 0-87389-669-6

2005022049

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Publisher: William A. Tony Acquisitions Editor: Annemieke Hytinen Project Editor: Paul O’Mara Production Administrator: Randall Benson

ASQ Mission: The American Society for Quality advances individual, organizational, and community excellence worldwide through learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange.

Attention Bookstores, Wholesalers, Schools, and Corporations: ASQ Quality Press books, videotapes, audiotapes, and software are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchases for business, educational, or instructional use. For information, please contact ASQ Quality Press at 800-248-1946, or write to ASQ Quality Press, P.O. Box 3005, Milwaukee, WI 53201-3005.

To place orders or to request a free copy of the ASQ Quality Press Publications Catalog, including ASQ membership information, call 800-248-1946. Visit our Web site at www.asq.org or http://qualitypress.asq.org.

Printed on acid-free paper

Contents

List of Figures and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Chapter 1 Why Do Organizations Need Leadership? . . . . 1 What Is a Leader? How Will This Book Help Leaders? . . . . 1 Removing Barriers to Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Setting up the Conditions for Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Leaders Don’t Go with the Flow; They Create the Flow . . . 5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Chapter 2 What Do Effective Leaders Do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Insights into How Executive Leaders “Create the Flow” . . . 7 Leadership Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Leader’s Recipe for a Good Movie: Right Script, Right Cast, and Right Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Chapter 3 Effective Leaders Are All Too Rare, But They Are Out There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Leaders Stretch People’s Thinking Where It Matters Most . 15 The Leadership Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Competencies That Leaders Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter 4 Key Leadership Steps in Each Theme . . . . . . . . 23 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Chapter 5 Barrier #1: Passive Conformity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Conformity and Why It’s a Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Corrosive Conformity at NASA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

v

vi

Contents

Bosses Set the Tone on How Much Conformity They Expect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Herd Thinking Replaces Hard Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . Group-Think and Conformity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 6 Barrier #2: Adversarial Competitiveness . . . . . Adversarial Competitiveness and Why It’s Bad News . . . . . The Prisoners’ Dilemma, or How Go-and-Take Behavior Replaces Give-and-Take Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impact of Competitiveness between Supervisor and Employee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How a Culture of Competitiveness Takes Hold . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 7 Barrier #3: Arrogant Complacency . . . . . . . . . . Complacency and Why It Leads to Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . Complacency and Nortel’s Fall from Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Sick Sigma Thinking Replaces Six Sigma Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 8 Intentions: Promote StakeholderFocused Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why We Need Stakeholder-Focused Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . Finding Stakeholder Needs That Are Hidden in Requests for Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discovering an Unspoken Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Achieving Aligned Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 9 Intentions: Identify Purposes That Meet Stakeholder Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Purpose as DNA of Successful Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . The Long-Term Impact of a Clear Purpose on Market Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Impact of Purpose on the Design of a Structure: MIT’s Building 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Impact of Purpose on the Evolution of a Structure: The Marshall Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 10 Intentions: Align Stakeholder Purposes . . . . . . Purpose Spreads by Seizing Our Imagination . . . . . . . . . . .

33 34 36 36 39 39

41

42 43 44 45 45 47

48 49

51 52

54 55 56 57

59 60

60

61

63 65 67 68

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vii

Purpose as a Mental Swiss Army Knife for Organizing and Prioritizing Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Leaders Communicate Purpose Every Day in a Different Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 The Impact of Common Purpose on Aligned Actions . . . . . 71 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Chapter 11 Information: Promote FactBased Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Improvement Requires Willingness to Review Data on Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 The Importance of Review Based on Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Personal Commitment to Blame-Free, Effective, Action- Oriented Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Why Dead Reckoning Is Often Dead Wrong . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Chapter 12 Information: Identify Conclusions that Address Stakeholder Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Sift the Data to Separate the Crucial Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Prevent Misleading Ourselves and Others with Data . . . . . . 85 Separate the Crucial Facts by Developing a Storyline or Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Seeing the Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Buffet’s Principles for Seeing the Implications . . . . . . . . . . 88 Stakeholders’ Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 The Dynamics of the Stakeholder Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Chapter 13 Information: Align Stakeholder Decisions . . . . 93 Getting Difficult Decisions Made . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Three Steps to Drive Difficult Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 How Outdoor Guides Get People to Make Difficult Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 How a Review Could Have Prevented the Exxon Valdez Environmental Disaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Getting Alignment on Decisions with Each Stakeholder Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Chapter 14 Case Study of a Business That Got Back on Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Data on the Letts Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Strategy Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

viii

Contents

Conclusions on the Letts Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Decisions of the Letts Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Chapter 15 Influence: Promote GiveandTake Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Personal Behavior of Leader Is Crucial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 To Promote Give-and-Take, Talk Less about Yourself . . . . . 114 To Promote Give-and-Take, Ask More about Them . . . . . . . 115 How Personally Promoting Give-and-Take Works . . . . . . . . 116 Personally Promoting Give-and-Take through Respectfulness and Credibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Personally Promoting Give-and-Take through Transparency and Objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Example of Promoting Give-and-Take Behavior: Apollo 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Use of Symbols in Promoting Give-and-Take Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 When Give-and-Take Can Succeed and When It Cannot . . . 122 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Chapter 16 Influence: Identify Ground Rules That Guide Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 The Need for Ground Rules for Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Ground Rules Can Take Many Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Creating Ground Rules for Give-and-Take: A Sales and Service Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Alignment of Goals and Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Chapter 17 Influence: Align Stakeholder Behavior . . . . . . . 133 Modeling and Monitoring the Behavior Described in the Ground Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 How Credibility Can Align Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Example of Credibility of Results Aligning Stakeholder Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Example of Aligning Stakeholder Behavior: A School . . . . 139 Using the Rules of Credibility to Impact Project Results: Red Adair and the Kuwait Oil Wells . . . . . . . . . 140 Using the Rules of Credibility to Improve Workplace Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

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Chapter 18 Case Study: Using the Leadership Model to Understand Past Failures and Create Future Successes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Sometimes a Management Team Is Its Own Worst Enemy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Devising a Simple Survey to Get Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Influence: Using Give-and-Take in Project Roll-out . . . . . . 147 The Biggest Lesson for the Management Team . . . . . . . . . . 148 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Chapter 19 Key Questions for Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 A Strategy for Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Influence: Promote Give-and-Take Behavior within Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Influence: Promote Give-and-Take Behavior within Your Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Influence: Promote Give-and-Take Behavior with Your Boss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Intention: Promote Stakeholder-Focused Thinking in Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Intention: Promote Stakeholder-Focused Thinking within Your Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Intention: Promote Stakeholder-Focused Thinking in Your Boss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Information: Promote Data-Based Decisions with Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Information: Promote Data-Based Decisions with Your Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Information: Promote Data-Based Decisions with Your Boss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 On Your Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165