In Jason’s not for profit work and in our own offices, we’re faced with the choice of performing social work everyday or having a mindset that is socially aware and concerned.  Sometimes the easy answer is to provide all the answers to the tough questions that are being asked of those we help.  The more difficult solution is to pave the way for those to find the answers on their own.

Jason and his staff, as well as the staff here at St. Louis Staffing, work very hard finding the opportunities needed to place people into meaningful positions and satisfy their human need to work.  There are overflow needs that come about from both our work.  Often Jason must help his clientele find places to live, appropriate clothing to wear (especially on an interview) and some basic financial knowledge to make sure they can take care of themselves.  Our staff often helps our employees decide on places to live based on the work we might have for them, we have helped in making decisions for medical treatment for their children and recommended schools.

In all the examples mentioned above, there can be a temptation to do the work for those asking for it.  That is exactly the wrong message to send and the wrong attitude to take in order to help people.  Doing things for people who are perfectly capable of doing it themselves is a hinderance to the outcome of self sustainability that everyone is trying to reach with a social mindset.

If you give a man a fish, he will have a single meal.  If you teach him how to fish, he will eat all his life.  Kwan-Tzu

• There are some brilliant people out there willing to take chances
• The most successful ideas were a collaboration of thought from different disciplines
• We all need to encourage innovation

I was impressed with practical, useful, outlandish and fun nature of the products entered.  There are too many to list here but the students recognized the need in the marketplace and responded to it well.  Some ideas were very early in the stage of development but others were ready for market and just needing an investor or the confirmation from some professionals that it had a prayer in being successful.

Invariably the best ideas had multiple team members from multiple disciplines of thought.  When business students teamed up with engineering students and included thoughts from law students as well as a sprinkling of professors, the ideas were well-rounded, believable and you could see a short path to market readiness.  There were a few ideas that came only from one discipline or another and you could tell they were pretty raw.  I believe this teaches all of us a lesson in collaboration and cooperation.  Seeking the counsel of others is certainly advisable.

As business leaders, we need to encourage all those with ideas to pursue innovation.  The cash prizes awarded in this competition were meaningful, but hardly worthy of the time spent.  Innovation is important for the good of the economy as a whole, not just the personal, monetary rewards that come with success.  Too often good ideas are laughed at or brushed off as fanciful.  Opportunity lies in the minds of great thinkers.  Everyone can dream big dreams and you never know where the next best mousetrap will come from.

Then yesterday evening, I attended a panel discussion hosted by Cross Collaboration discussing how we can provide more job and career opportunities for the unemployed in St. Charles County.  There was a great representation from panelists that help provide resources for the unemployed along with audience members, like myself, who have a vested interest in growing the job opportunities in St. Charles County.  The discussion after the discussion led me to a group of local pastors working with convicted felons from St. Charles County and providing direction and guidance for them to find work and support themselves and their families.  One ministry in particular, Connections to Success, and one of its representatives, Jason Cleaveland, and I discussed how we can work together to not only provide the counseling necessary, but how we can educate more hiring managers as to the skilled workforce that is available and somewhat untapped in ex-convicts.

I admit this is not a new phenomena but one that grows worse each year.  Business and social leaders must come together to solve this problem.  Simply shutting out ex-convicts will not make the problem go away.

You may have heard of or even read a great book, Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (blueoceanstrategy.com).  In it there are very practical illustrations about how companies have made their competition irrelevant and created a new marketplace where only their products exist and thrive.

Similarly comes the attached blog posting from Kaihan Krippendorff (http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kaihan-krippendorff/outthinker-mavericks-out-innovate-competition/force-your-competition-defend).  Krippendorff is a master strategist.  He was first recommended to me by Verne Harnish from Gazelles.  His books, The Art of the Advantage, The Way of Innovation and Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile all speak to gaining the upper hand on competition and creating a space in the marketplace where you succeed.

I recommend both these resources as opportunities to be in a place where your competitors have not dreamed of being and realizing your business goals.

He makes some good points that all business leaders should be questioning within their organizations.  Mainly, how are we viewing innovation within our areas of control?  Are we solely concerned with just bringing something new to our customers or are we trying to provide something of real value?

The author gives an excellent synopsis of what constitutes “awesomeness” in the product we’re offering.  It can be summed up by saying that the product is needed, it’s been tested and perfected and it’s being delivered by people who really love what they’re doing as opposed to those interested in earning a paycheck.

So the next time you’re concerned with not being innovative enough to capture your customer’s attention, try shooting for the “awesome” in your current product.  Your customers just might respond by saying “Where has this been, and when did you come out with it?”

August 2, 2009    New York Times

Corner Office
By Adam Bryant
This interview with John T. Chambers, chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What are the most important leadership lessons you’ve learned?

A. People think of us as a product of our successes. I’d actually argue that we’re a product of the challenges we faced in life. And how we handled those challenges probably had more to do with what we accomplish in life.

I had an issue with dyslexia before they understood what dyslexia was. One of my teachers, Mrs. Anderson, worked with me and she taught me to look at it almost like a curveball. The ball breaks the same way every time. Once you get used to it, you can handle it pretty well.

And so I went from almost being embarrassed reading in front of a class — you lose your place, and I read right to left — to the point where I knew I could overcome challenges. I think it also taught me sensitivity toward others.

I learned another lesson from Jack Welch. It was in 1998, and at that time we were one of the most valuable companies in the world. We were the stock of the ’90s, and I said, “Jack, what does it take to have a great company?” And he said, “It takes major setbacks and overcoming those.” I hesitated for a minute, and I said, “Well, we did that in ’93, and then we did it again in ’97 with the Asian financial crisis.” And he said, “No, John. I mean a near-death experience.” And I didn’t understand exactly what he meant at that time.

Then in 2001, we had a near-death experience. We went from the most valuable company in the world to a company where they questioned whether the leadership was really effective. And in 2003, he called me up and said, “John, you now have a great company.” I said, “Jack, it doesn’t feel like it.” But he was right. It was something I would have given anything to have avoided, but it did make us a much better company, a much stronger company.

Q. Any other important lessons you’ve learned?

A. My parents are both doctors. They taught me very early in life that when there’s an accident happening, that’s when you’ve got to be the calmest. And yet that’s when most people are not. And so they taught me early on if there was a phone call coming in from one of their patients — my dad was an obstetrician/gynecologist — he said, “You’ve got to listen very carefully because often their emotion doesn’t really say what’s going on.” So I’ve learned when something with tremendous stress happens, I get very calm, very analytical.

Q. How has your leadership style evolved over time?

A. I’m a command-and-control person. I like being able to say turn right, and we truly have 67,000 people turn right. But that’s the style of the past. That was great when you were a single product, when the market was moving slower and one executive or an executive team could run the whole company.

Today’s world requires a different leadership style — moving more into a collaboration and teamwork, including learning how to use Web 2.0 technologies. If you had told me I’d be video blogging and blogging, I would have said, no way. And yet our 20-somethings in the company really pushed me to use that more.

Q. Did you need to be pushed?

A. Well, at first, I didn’t like the message. I thought I was very leading-edge in terms of how I communicated. My team just kept pushing, and I finally said, “Why do you want me to do this?” And they said, “John, if you don’t do it our company won’t learn how to do this. It won’t be built into our DNA for the way we interface with customers, our employees. The top has to walk the talk.” I was expecting text blogging and we did video blogging.

The first one was a little bit uncomfortable, because it’s very unprofessional. You just basically put a camera there, and you go. By the second one, I realized this was going to transform communications — not just for the C.E.O., but it would change how we do business.

Q. How do you find out what employees at all levels of the company are thinking?

A. Each month, I have breakfasts where we don’t allow a V.P. or above in the session. It is free form — probably anywhere from 500 to 1,500 people attend physically and virtually — and we go for an hour and 15 minutes, and any question is fair game. It’s done in a family-type environment, with candor both ways. I learn tremendously from it.

Q. You mentioned what you’ve learned from Jack Welch? What about from others?

A. Sandy Weill at Citi taught me very early on that when you’re interfacing with people who have dramatically different views from yours, you immediately gravitate to the areas that you share in common, and then focus on those. That’s how you build relationships, even with people who might have different views or different attitudes toward business than you.

Q. Who else do you rely on for advice?

A. My wife. We’ve been married for 35 years and she’s been there through the good times and the bad times. She has a way of picking me up when I get knocked on my tail, and I don’t get knocked down too often. But also if I get a little bit overconfident she brings me back to earth.

The other day, I was practicing a concept with her and saying, “You know, there are two major mistakes that I make and Cisco makes repeatedly.” She looked at me and she said, “Only two?”

My mistakes are always around moving too slow or moving too fast without process behind it. And it’s something that, if we’re not careful, we’ll repeat again and again.

Q. How do you hire?

A. First thing I want to ask you about: tell me about your results. I never get hard work confused with success. So I’d walk you through the successes you had, what did you do right in those.

At the same time, I’d ask you to tell me about your mistakes and failures. And that’s something people make a tremendous mistake on. First, all of us have had mistakes and failures. And it’s surprising how many people say, “Well, I can’t think of one.” That immediately loses credibility. It’s the ability to be very candid on what mistakes they’ve made, and then the question right behind that is, what would you do differently this time? You learn more about a person in those first two questions than almost anything else.

Then I ask them who are the best people you recruited and developed, and where are they today? And that tells an awful lot.

Third, this one I have to do a little more gently: I try to figure out if they’re really oriented around the customer. And when I recruit somebody or we acquire a company, you know in five minutes how they feel about customers. Are they driven by the customer, or is the customer just somebody who gets in the way?

And then I look at their communication skills, and one of the largest parts of communications is … what?

Q. Listening?

A. You betcha. Seeing how they listen, how they interpret it, and are they willing to challenge you? And then I look at their knowledge in the industry segments, especially the area that I’m interested in. And as basic as it sounds, those six or seven elements are what over the last two decades I’ve used to recruit and develop people.

Q. What’s changed in the last few years?

A. Big time, the importance of collaboration. Big time, people who have teamwork skills, and their use of technology. If they’re not collaborative, if they aren’t naturally inclined toward collaboration and teamwork, if they are uncomfortable with using technology to make that happen both within Cisco and in their own life, they’re probably not going to fit in here.

Q. Teamwork is an intangible. How do you make sure they have it?

A. Well, I might ask you right off the bat: “What sports do you play?” I’ve only played team sports all my life. Even when I played tennis, I always played doubles, not singles. One of the quickest ways to find out is to say, “Who would know best about your teamwork skills?” And I call somebody who I know in common and ask about their teamwork skills.

And that’s where you learn if people are being candid. If they say up front, “I need to be a better team player,” that gets you over the hurdle. But if they say, “I’m a very good team player,” and then I go out and check and find that you’re not, then it’s probably not the right spot for you.

Q. What do you think business schools should teach more of, or less of?

A. Normally I’m very careful about giving others advice, because anybody who thinks they can come into an environment that they’re not familiar with on a regular basis and tell you how to do your job better is probably overconfident and very likely wrong.

However, you can share experiences you’ve learned and say, “Here are some of the things you ought to focus on.” And I would say, as an example, “Here’s where I think the future of business is going, in terms of collaboration and teamwork and the use of these technologies.”

I can very frankly say that when I was trained, it was about me, it was about personalization, and how to win as an individual. But the future is about, how do groups think together collaboratively, and how do you add discipline to that? Very few of the business schools really teach that today, both in practice and with the necessary technologies.

So if I’m looking at where I recruit — it’s about the best and brightest, and who’s well prepared. But I would like to see business schools teach more of the collaboration skills, and more of the Web 2.0 skills, in practice and capability.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Leadership and Communication: The Broken Connection

Much has been written and said about the connection between leadership and communication, but sadly this connection has not always found its way into the practicalities of the workplace.

Arguably, the primary purpose of the CEO is to set and articulate the company’s vision and mission.  In collaboration with his or her executive team, heady goals and exciting plans often emerge at the start of each year: new directions, new markets, innovative ways of doing things or even new things to do.  Quite often these ideas are announced with great fanfare to the employees, and sometimes to shareholders and customers.   In the minds of the executive, this constitutes communication.

Why, then, do so many of these great plans not come to fruition?

One reason is that those who must implement the plans and ideas – the front line employees and more junior levels of management – never really buy into the excitement, and that’s because the visionaries at the top don’t take the time or make the effort to communicate them effectively.

If you are a CEO with a vision or a great plan, ask yourself these questions:

• Do the employees share my vision?
• Do they even understand it?
• Have I provided a means for all employees to see where they and their jobs fit into my grand vision?
• Have we, as an organization, made it easy to even possible for those on the front lines of the company to implement the company’s strategy?

Answering the questions will be enlightening, but also difficult unless you actually enter into a dialogue with employees.  But how do you do that?  How can you have a truly meaningful communication with employees at all levels about these subjects?

One highly effective tool is the World Cafe.  This is a variation on the tried and true small group discussion methodology, but conducted in an environment that’s set up to create the easygoing, comfortable atmosphere of a cafe.  Certain questions are posed to the entire group, and then discussed at individual tables.  They move to another table for another discussion.  Give each group a copy of your mission statement or strategic plan summary, and then ask questions such as:

• What do I understand this to mean?
• How does my work affect the implementation of this plan?
• What can I, or my team, do on a practical level to contribute to implementation?

Other question along these lines can be added, depending on what you want to discover.

The World Cafe process provides an opportunity and creates a need for people to discuss topics they normally don’t even think about.  What makes it so exciting is the unexpected insights that come out of the discussions.

Senior executives who enter into such a dialogue with their employees will come to understand the true connection between leadership and communication, with results that can have a direct, positive impact on the bottom line.

Article Source: www.leadershiparticles.net

In our own world of staffing and employing people, we can see that our customers want more than just bodies to fill positions.  Having been down the road of “just get me someone in here to do this job” in the past, more and more customers want a good fit for the task at hand even if that means more interviewing, testing and background checking.  Employment is becoming less “disposable” even at the entry level positions.  This means not being able to just wait for the right candidate to arrive or wait for the phone to ring after the ad is posted in the local paper.  Advances in technology have made it easier to reach out to candidates, but there is a certain level of talent needed to find what seems to be the right candidate, then make sure they are the right candidate, then make sure they’re the best fit for all concerned.

Just hoping for a good outcome by placing someone in a position and hoping they acclimate is a thing of the past.  Most people recognize that the notion of an ROI by employed position is an effective guage (even if it’s not an exact measure) of company productivity.  There are ample tools available to companies these days to make sure you’ve got the right person in the right seat on the bus.  Staffing and recruiting companies are one possible opportunity.  Contact your local company that specializes in the type of position that you need to have filled.  They can walk you through their processes and discuss rates and terms.  Allowing these professionals to do some of your heavy lifting will allow you to focus on your core business and relieve you of many headaches.