A521.9.4.RB_ReflectionsOnLeadership_LouBeldotti

A521.9.4.RB

Reflections on Leadership

            Stoic looks and the “whatever” look.  That’s what I see in the picture above.  General George S. Patton has a “whatever” look on his face as General Omar Bradley and General of the Army and Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, stare at him with stoic looks.  It is well known that Ike and Patton did not get along.  Patton was a renegade.  Patton was well known for his unconventional leadership style.  He could care less about what his superiors thought.  He went so far as to create his own uniform and carried two “non-government issued” pearl handled pistols.  However, Patton was a great interactive leader.

            In chapter 12 of Denning’s text (Denning, 2011, chapter 12), Denning puts emphasis on the “interactive leader”.

·         The interactive leader works with the world rather than against it.

·         Interactive leadership both adds and subtracts elements from the leadership palette.

·         Interactive leadership builds on personal integrity and authenticity.

·         Interactive leadership doesn’t depend on the possession of hierarchical authority.

·         Interactive leadership benefits from an understanding of the different narrative patterns that can be used to get things done in the world.

·         Above all, interactive leadership entails active participation in the world rather than detached observation. 

            Throughout my years of leading Soldiers, I have always been participative.  I have never been one to say “do this” or “do that”.  I have always said, “let’s do this” or “let’s do that”.  I have never had a problem with getting my hands dirty.

            Denning continues in his text with the following:

·         Leadership that participates

·         Leadership that connects

·         Leadership that is like conversation

·         Leadership that is possible

·         Leadership that fits the modern need

·         Leadership that is not for everyone

·         Leadership that is relatively free of ego

·         Leadership that is like Judo

·         Leadership that has feeling

·         Leadership that avoids “Apollo run amok”

·         Leadership that includes beauty

            So, as mentioned earlier, I am an interactive leader.  This guy does not sit on his laurels.  I also find integrity of both myself and my follows so very important.  Being real and being honest has helped me in many situations.  I have had many situations in my past military experience where I had to fall on my sword or have others fall on their own.  This is the way I was raised.  I have always been a believer in, “honest is the best policy”.

            Empathy and sympathy are also very important to me.  As a leader, being “cold hearted” doesn’t get you far.  Being empathetic and sympathetic sends a message to the follower that you are approachable, understanding and compassionate.  I have used this as a military leader and a school teacher…probably more so as a teacher.

            Moving forward, I have a plan to adapt “leadership that is not for everyone”.  Since I already have no problem stepping on a few toes, I think that status quo needs to sometimes be pushed back again.  Change is usually good, after all.  I also plan to adapt “leadership that is like judo”.  If I plan on “rocking the boat”, you have to put up a “fight”.  One statement from Denning really hit home with me – “You don’t fight your opponents:  you invalidate them.”  (Denning, 2011, page 282)

Reference

Denning, S. (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

A521.8.4.RB_MakingContact_LouBeldotti

A521.8.4.RB

Making Contact

            I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and came from a loud Italian family.  I was the kid who went outside in the morning and did not return home until the street lights came on.  I would meet people throughout the day and never acted shy.  If they were close to my age, I would try to make friends.  As new friends, we would go to the amusement park, arcade and beach that very day.  These new friends had no problem knocking on our door the next day to see if I could come out and play.  My grandparent’s beach house was always filled with strange faces that my brothers and I had just met.  My grandmother would feed us all lunches of sandwiches, pastina with butter and parmesan, leftovers from the night before or whatever was on hand.  I think this kind of dynamic holds true to even kids today.  However, our world have changed over the last 30 – 40 years and parents are much more cautious about allowing their children to wander the streets all day long.

            Fast forward to the 1980s and I found myself in the US Army surrounded by hundreds of perfect strangers from all over the United States.  Tall people, short people, pudgy people, black people, white people, Asian people, Hispanic people, handsome people, ugly people and a sprinkling of odd people.  Every kind of person you could imagine.  I was definitely out of my element and comfort zone.  I had grown up in New England…Massachusetts to be exact…and honestly, I had only been around Italians, Irish and Greeks.  This may sound ridiculous but up until I was in my teens, I had never personally met a black person or Hispanic person.  I had seen Asian people at Chinese restaurants but that was my only exposure to culture.

            Finding myself in a melting pot of people, I drew on my former behavior as a kid and made many friends.  As a matter of fact, I am still close friends with many of these people that I met over 30 years ago. 

            I found that I was naturally comfortable around just about anyone.  If there was any discomfort, I would kick in my humor.  Humor was and is my way of making myself feel more comfortable and the people around me feel more comfortable.  Will Rogers said it best (Goodreads, 2016), “I never met a man that I didn’t like”.  I completely relate to Will Rogers.  I find friends around every corner.

            I believe I really learned to “work a room” when I became a Recruiter.  With the training that was provided to me over the course of my eight year recruiting career, my inner-type A was truly released. 

            In chapter 14 of the book, Messages: The communication skills book, McKay, Davis and Fanning (McKay, Davis & Fanning, 2009) lay out ways of making contact when there is a fear of strangers.  During my experiences as a Recruiter, I received training from Zig Ziglar, Lee DuBois, Brian Tracy and many more.  I believe that McKay, Davis and Fanning were on the same sheet of music as these motivational speakers.  These three put emphasis on the following:

·         Analyze what you say to yourself

·         Reframe your approach behavior

·         Reframe rejection

·         Deal with the emotional blow when rejected

·         Plan to get rejected

·         Use body language

·         Use Icebreakers

·         Questions

·         Active listening

·         Self-disclosure

            My former training offered all of this advice and I use it to this very day.  It was a great refresher reading chapter 14.  I continue to use these tools even with my JROTC Cadets.

References

Goodreads. (2016). Will Rogers quotes. Retrieved on July 22, 2016 from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/132444.Will_Rogers

McKay, M., Davis, M. & Fanning, P. (2009).  Messages: The communication skills book.  Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications

A521.7.4.RB_SecretStructure_LouBeldotti

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Secret Structure

            Are there secrets behind what we say?  Do our stories have cryptic means…hidden clues to what we really mean?  I say no.  This would confuse our audience leaving them asking, “What did he/she mean to say?” or “Huh?”.  Great communicators use a certain structure when communicating.  Unlike “The Da Vinci Code” author, Dan Brown, great communicators do not send cryptic messages that would have the listener thinking that they were in a game of “Clue”.

            Great communicators allow their message to ebb and flow.  In Nancy Duarte’s TED video (Duarte, 2010), Ms. Duarte indicates that there is a pattern to communication.  As I watched her video, I noticed a dragon tooth pattern like the top of a castle parapet develop.  The pattern started low, ebbed and flowed and ended up high.  I’ll explain.

            Ms. Duarte said that the communicator started out by flowing with the “what is”.  She then ebbed with the “what could be”.  Depending on the length of the speech, there could be many ebbs and flows or just a few.  The ebbs and flows would go on with the “what is” and what could be” and culminated in the “new bliss” or ending.

            Ms. Duarte used the late Steve Jobs of Apple fame and the late Dr. Martin Luther King to illustrate this pattern.  She highlighted Jobs’ introduction of the iPhone and Dr. King’s “I have a dream speech”.  Two very iconic speeches that have absolutely changed the world both with electronic communication and religious freedoms and Civil Rights.

            These speeches ebbed and flowed.  “What is…What could be…what is…what could be…what is…what could be…new bliss”. 

            Whether the presenter added personal stories, videos and guest speakers, the pattern was the same.

            Although I was unaware of this pattern, I’m sure that I have used it. 

            I will now try to use the pattern in my future presentations.  I like it.  It makes sense.

Reference

Duarte, N. (2010). Uncovers common structure of greatest communications.  [Video File].  [TEDxEast].  Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks

A521.6.3.RB_HighPerformanceTeams_LouBeldotti

A521.6.3.RB

High Performance Teams

            As a 27-year Army retiree, I am very familiar with high performance teams.  In a combat situation, performance could make the difference between life and death of your team.  In the corporate world, performance could make the difference accomplishment of a task or failure.  It also can dramatically affect the bottom line.

            In Stephen Denning’s text (Denning, 2011, pg 156), Denning lays out six characteristics of high performance teams:

·         High-performance teams actively shape the expectations of those who use their output –and then exceed the resulting expectations.

·         High-performance teams rapidly adjust their performance to the shifting needs of the situation.  They innovate on the fly, seizing opportunities and turning setbacks into good fortune.

·         High-performance teams grow steadily stronger.  Over time, members come to know one another’s strengths and weaknesses and become highly skilled in coordinating their activities, anticipating each other’s next moves, and initiating appropriate responses as those moves are occurring.

·         The members of a high-performance team grows individually.  Mutual concern for each other’s personal growth enables high-performance teams to develop interchangeable skills and hence greater flexibility.

·         Fueled by interpersonal commitments, the purpose of high-performance become nobler, team performance goals more urgent, and team approach more powerful.

·         High-performance teams carry out their work with shared passion.  The notion that “if one of us fails, we all fail” pervades the team.

            These characteristics really speak to me when considering my past military experiences.  They speak to the shared vision and focus of a Brigade, Battalion, Company, Platoon, Squad and individual Soldier.  They work and train as a team but also grow individually with each member encouraging the other.  They all are concerned with the accomplishment of the mission and share the same values although they are also individuals.  They collaborate and learn from mistakes.  They train as they would fight.  There is friendship, love, respect and comradery among Soldiers.  To emphasize this, they remain friends forever even when they move on to different units or leave the military.  Personally, I still maintain a relationship with people that I met 33 years during basic training and also many that I met over my decades of service.

            Because of this type of relationship, we became “plug and play”.  We could leave one unit and immediately be plugged into another unit without missing a beat. 

            So what does working together really mean?  I can tell you that as a school teacher, team work is pretty scarce.  It seems that in my current occupation, it is every man or women for him or herself.  It was definitely culture shock when I left the Army and experienced this type of behavior.  I digress.  In Denning’s text Denning, 2011, pgs 161-163), he lays out the four patterns of working together:

·         Work Group

·         Team

·         Community

·         Network

            By definition, these four patterns are self-explanatory.  From my perspective, I believe that work groups, teams, communities and networks are synonymous…it’s just semantics.

            During my experiences in the Army, these four patterns didn’t always pull together a cohesive team.  You see, although we tried our best to work together, there were times (although not many) that we faced problems…this was because people are who they are.  There were loners, nerds, introverts, extroverts, knuckleheads and just plain idiots. 

            How to overcome and gel these folks together required innovative leadership.  As a leader, I needed to be a friend, mentor, brother and father, therapist and authority figure.

            There were many positive experiences.  One positive experience I can recall is during the Battle of Falluja (for my unit).  Communication was fluid and each team member seemed to know what the other team mate was thinking.  We lost not a single Soldier and repressed the enemy through destruction or surrender.

            It’s hard to recall a negative experience but I do recall a member of our unit who exercised toxic leadership.  This was a hard on to overcome because he was the Platoon Sergeant.  If he did not like a unit member, he would enlist the help of other members of the unit to abuse the un-liked member.  It became so bad that we would have unit members show up to formation with black eyes and fat lips.  I did my best to get on this individuals good side to avoid the abuse that he could so easily cause.  Because I was a young Soldier with limited experience, I had no idea what to do.  Now, with years of experience under my belt, the right thing to have done would have been to report him and have him removed.  He was definitely not a team player and had his favorites or who I would refer to as his “enforcers”.

Reference

Denning, S. (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling: mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

           

A521.5.4.RB_AligningValues_LouBeldotti

A521.5.4.RB

Aligning Values

Below is a Workplace Values Exercise that I recently took:

Workplace Values Exercise

Here’s the premise. Before you even think about continuing with this exercise make sure you have plenty of free time to spend with it; time to think and reflect on what you truly value. Are you ready?

Your first step it to rate the importance of each of the workplace values on our list. We’ve left a few blank lines at the end of our list in case we have missed something that you value in your work. Finally be sure to be honest with yourself; no one is judging nor scoring your results so lying to yourself does no good.

Rate the degree of importance that you place on each of the following workplace values using this scale:

1 = Very important to me
2 = Reasonably important to me
3 = Somewhat important to me
4 = Not important to me at all

I am interested in jobs and careers that include:

2     creating/building things
1     mental challenge/mentally demanding/problem-solving
3     physical challenge/physically demanding
1     opportunity for balance between work life and family life
1     flexibility in work structure
1     intellectual status an acknowledged “expert” in a given field
1     order and structure
2     high degree of competition
1     integrity and truth
1     rewarding loyalty and dependability
1     having self-respect and pride in work
1     stability and security
2     strong financial compensation and financial rewards
2     being recognized for quality of work in a visible/public way
1     having a positive impact on others and society
1     using creativity imagination; being innovative
3     variety and a changing work pace
1     professional development and on-going learning and growth
2     friendships and warm working relationships
2     teamwork and work groups
4     glamour prestige respect or a level of social status
3     routine predictable work projects
3     deadlines and time demand/pressure challenges
1     clear advancement tracks/opportunities for advancement
3     tranquility comfort and avoidance of pressure
4     dealing with the public/day-to-day contact with the public
3     using cutting edge or pioneering technologies or techniques
2     opportunities for supervision power leadership influence
1     making decisions having power to decide courses of action
1     respect recognition being valued
1     autonomy independence freedom
2     precision work with little tolerance for error
2     adventure and excitement
—– ————————————-
—– ————————————-

Your second step is to try and identify the 10 most important values to you. Circle each of these most important values from the list above.

Your third step is to now narrow down your list of 10 to the five core values you hold most sacred — that you can’t live without in your job/workplace — and place them below: 

1.  Opportunity for balance between work life and family life.
2.  Stability and security.
3.  Professional Development and on-going learning and growth.
4.  Clear advancement tracks/opportunities for advancement.
5.  Autonomy independence freedom.

Congratulations! You now have a list of core workplace value that represent who you are… it is this core group of workplace values that help determine your level of satisfaction with your job and your career — and which should be used to judge the level of “fit” with any future job company or career change.

Now comes the tougher part. How well do your core values fit with your current job career path and employer — and what if anything are you going to do about these results?

According to Denning (Denning, 2011), “A genuinely ethical community has three basic components.  The first is trust:  the general expectation among members that their fellows will behave ethically toward them.  The second is loyalty:  acceptance of the obligation to refrain from breaching one another’s trust and to fulfill the duties entailed by accepting that trust.  The third is Solidarity:  caring for other people’s interests and being ready to take action on behalf of others, even if it conflicts with personal interests”. 

This exercise was very subjective.  Moreover, I believe that the author is trying to illicit a desired answer and result.

As a school teacher, I am bound by many values.  Most importantly, protecting the children in my charge.  However, as an organization, I, and my fellow teachers, live by Denning’s three basic components.

These components each apply as indicated.  We, as a whole, know that each of us will behave ethically toward each other, our students and their parents and guardians.  There is an inherent level of loyalty and we will be true to each other, our school, our students and their parents.  Finally, we will support each other and support the interests of all.

References

Hansen, R. S. (n.d.). Workplace Values Assessment: Do You Know the Work Values You Most Want in a Job and an Employer — and Does Your Current Employment Reflect Those Values? A Quintessential Careers Quiz. [Quintessential].  Retrieved on June 30, 2016 from https://www.livecareer.com/quintessential/workplace-values

Denning, S. (2011).  The leader’s guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass