Fish rot from the head down…

The more I read about leadership and try to comprehend it from an organizational perspective, the more I am reminded about this famous Russian proverb – “A fish rots from the head”.  An organization is a reflection of its top leader. Studying the fish video and learning from the simulations in class, there is a LOT to be said about where leadership actually stems from. It takes initiative, it takes change and the implementation of change to become a leader. I am not necessarily categorizing the “head” in the proverb as a CEO or anyone in a similar office but someone who can drive both the personal and organizational effectiveness to new heights. The fun environment in the Fish video, the working towards a common goal (in the case of the monks where respect for one another reigned supreme) all took a change…I’m still amazed at the lack of focus in an organization’s top leadership (including my present company) and what truly astonishes me is the lack of urgency when it comes to removing poor performing leaders. This, more often than not, leads to decreased productivity and staff morale. Leadership, in my opinion, has be held to a higher standard, especially when is comes to their ethics and moral perspectives. And when that happens that leader I believe would automatically rise to the helm of the organization to actually be a personification of all that it stands for…

Consideration of others…

Treating others with respect and just a broad spectrum of civility is an obligation every person who aspires to become a leader, has.

I think in our team, we have a fair amount of respect and consideration for one another. The problem surfaces when we face those “adversaries”….yes, we wanna crush ‘em! I have seen on several occasions where each of us (including me) have bad-mouthed another individual to the point that we don’t want to deal with them anymore and even stereo-type the entire unit they belong to! We fail to realize that our indifferences are ONLY at the professional level and soon transcend into the personal level. By fostering a positive climate where we could remind each other of respecting other teams and maintaining a professional attitude, we would affect our morale, our productivity and our reputation. A climate of dignity and respect for individuals on other teams would allow us to come up with other innovative ways of working with those teams. It would establish a relationship that would highlight the importance of respecting one another.

It would allow me to realize how my individual actions affected others. It would allow me to look beyond my trivial biases and enable me to clearly understand what actions are warranted to accomplish the task at hand.

Positive infection…

We recently hired a new Director for IT services who is very well acclaimed in the industry and comes with a lot of experience. Since this individual sits pretty high up in the pecking order in the organization, we were all pretty excited and anxious about what the leadership direction was going to be. It has been about 4 months now and we are already beginning to see some significant changes – processes are getting more streamlined with the reduced presence of bureaucracy, teams are getting empowered to make their own decisions and are held accountable for them, cross-functional teams are being governed more effectively and the individual person itself is VERY approachable. The person has a keen ear for listening and my guess is – a high EQ.  I along with others have seen some very positive steps towards approaching problems and resolving them and we are finally able to collaborate with other disparate teams. I hope this momentum continues as there is a whole LOT of crap still prevalent in the organization and this individual is not victimized by the legacy cultural environment that still dominates to date….

I believe, for good or worse, the senior leadership of every organization is infectious – the leader’s behaviors tend to be transmitted to their direct reports, who pass them on to their subordinates, and so on down. Eventually they permeate the entire organization, influencing activity at all levels. The “unwritten rules”  that come out of this infection ultimately get embodied in the organizational culture. It influences all types of individuals – ones who get promoted and ones hired into the organization. It almost creates this positive self-reinforcing feedback loop.  As I have witnessed first hand I can safely state that the implication of this example highlights the importance of how leaders can have a significant ‘viral’ impact on their organization.

Now, of course the practice of Leadership is also a choice…the choice of being infectious like the plague or infectious like good virtues and ethical behavior.

Change Management to Change Capacity

Our organization is currently plagued by all the things referenced in this article. It has been “overmanaged and underled” for quite some time now. Part of it is due to the industry (energy) we are in. Energy industries typically tend to be late adopters and highly monolithic in their approaches. As a technology professional I struggle every day due to two compelling reasons – there is no governance (even if it exists, it has insignificant) and momentum of change. I feel that our entire department is treated like internal consultants whose opinions are solicited but not exactly followed. Driving change almost always has come from external sources (consultants, industry experts, etc.) There was one particular incident where our department’s recommendation EXACTLY matched what the industry experts said but when it came to giving credit where it was due, no points for guessing who eventually received it!

I believe the concept of  transition versus change cannot be over emphasized. Employee engagement affects the organization tremendously. Effective leadership should heighten the emotional attachment an employee feels for his/her organization and thereby increase the discretionary effort exerted. The other concept described in the article that caught my attention was the one on “operator error”. Right now, our organization is driving change (on a sequential basis) through external consultants and internal staff groups. None of us are  aware of how the change impacts us since it is all being done behind closed doors. This has created an environment of massive speculation, fear and insecurity. Lack of alignment or in certain cases misalignment has resulted in inflexibility with our systems and incoherent collaboration between business areas. Redundancy of processes, systems and information is wide spread and the weird thing is that some of our “leaders” know about it and yet, do nothing about it.

I often hear the rumblings of goals and objectives that our company needs to achieve. But in my opinion they are often too amorphous or just a BHAG. Our department goals are clear and compelling but we live in a perennial fear of them not aligning with the organization’s goals.

I get a good share of criticism for some of the changes that I personally implemented in the organization and sometimes wonder “Is it worth it?”.

Shackleton Expedition – Lessons learned

In retrospect, a well done movie (although a little slow for my liking). The story was one of adventurous ambition, heroic survival against all odds and incredible endurance. It showcases the skills required for effective leadership especially of diverse groups in times of crisis. Here is what I learned:

• An eagerness to learn (as evidenced by Shakleton – a well-read man whose thirst for knowledge and exploration knew no bounds)
• Ability to mix with a diverse group of people
• Learning to see things from a different perspective and outside of oneself. I think this will allow more flexibility in one’s problem-solving abilities
• Ability to hire talented yet optimistic individuals. He may not have hired the most competent people for the expedition but he certainly hand-picked them for their attitude and passion
• I liked how he gave the crew a”reality check”. He transformed them such that they started to treat every crisis situation like it was business as usual
• His servant leadership – something that is probably more relevant now that it was in the bureaucratic past
• From a Good to Great perspective, Shackleton was definitely a Level 5 Leader – humble, fanatically driven, capable of understanding the need to produce results that would be sustained and of selecting successors
• Kept his wit of humor and optimism about him regardless of his own disappointment

• Emotional Intelligence is key – he immediately sensed what was going in within his crew at critical junctures of the expedition
• On the “First Who…Then What” principle of Good to Great, Shackleton was rigorous but not ruthless when it came to hiring. He knew that he had to act when he realized when he had the certain people in the wrong seat
• Fostered a culture of high discipline – Systematic, demanding, consistent, methodical, focused and in some instances dogged

I think overall the movie was a good illustration of all that we have learned thus far in the course (with the exception of ethics….I am a little skeptical there)

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