Brian Anderson BA Search Group

People who excel at what they do

2009-08-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

People who excel at what they do

1. People who excel work with enthusiasm. Regardless of whether the job is big or small, give it your best. Great performers give their best effort, no matter the size of the audience.

2. People who excel sharpen their skills. They never stop developing, growing, learning, and improving: If your ax is dull and you don’t sharpen it, you have to work harder to use it. It is smarter to plan ahead.

3. People who excel keep their word. They are reliable. They can be counted on to do what they say they’ll do. So they excel because people of integrity are rare in our society.

4. People who excel maintain a positive attitude. Even under pressure, or change, or unrealistic demands, they don’t allow themselves to become negative.

5. People who excel do more than is expected. This is a secret that every successful person has discovered. You’ll never excel by only doing what is required.

Regards,
Brian Anderson
BA Search Group
President

brian@basearchgroup.com
www.basearchgroup.com
"The Power of One"

THE PERFORMANCE EQUATION

2009-03-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

THE PERFORMANCE EQUATION

Ask any group of professionals to define the elements of performance and you will get a list, a long list. Ask them to define the relationship between these elements and you will get a discussion, a long discussion. Long lists and long discussions are not actionable.

I have reduced these lists down to four basic elements and defined the relationship between each element.

Knowledge (1)
To achieve high performance people must “know” what they are doing, and be “proficient” in doing it. Knowledge of the steps in a good decision making process, for example, increases one’s performance in decision making. Knowing how to do each step in a decision making process also increases performance. The more in-depth the knowledge the more one knows what and how to do things.

Skills (2)
Skill is one’s level of proficiency in doing tasks. Knowing the steps in decision making, and knowing how to do each step, does not necessary mean one can perform each tasks well. Knowing how to play golf, for example, does not translate into being a good golfer. One must be able to swing the club’s with some proficiency – we call that proficiency skill.

Roadblocks in the Environment (3)
To achieve high performance, people must have the opportunity to use their ability to perform. Environmental roadblocks are those aspects of an organization’s infrastructure and culture that inhibit the use of ability. A training program to develop high performance teams, for example, may be rendered useless by a hostile culture and negative attitudes as participants learn that, “This is not the way we do things around here!

Attitude (4)
To achieve high performance, people must be willing to use their knowledge and skills, and be willing to overcome the inherent environmental roadblocks that will inhibit their performance. When we consolidated the elements related to the willingness to perform we came down to one element, attitude.

There has been a great deal written about the effect of attitude on performance.

To maximize performance and the organizations return on its investments in performance, you must ask three critical questions:

1. Do people have the ability to perform?
2. Do people have the opportunity to perform?
3. Do people have the willingness to perform?

If the answer to any of these question is no, maximum performance will not be achieved.

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.

Regards,
Brian Anderson

President, BA Search Group
P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at
http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/.

Conflict: The Dance

2008-10-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

Conflicts between people are a normal, natural and inevitable part of life--at work, at home and in all our relationships with others. Unfortunately, most of us don't really accept this fact and we still get surprised and distressed when it's clear that a conflict has emerged.

As long as everything is going along smoothly, it's easy to be considerate and respectful of another person's needs. They are in no way interfering with our own. But the emergence of a conflict can change all that--now we can feel threatened, anxious and angry. The same person whom we enjoyed working with yesterday now seems like an adversary. That's because of our vast, past experience with conflict, most of which was negative.

We have a negative attitude toward conflict primarily because we haven't learned constructive ways to deal with it--in fact, the converse is true: we have learned destructive ways of handling conflict. As children, as students and as employees (and too often as spouses) we have experienced losing in a conflict because parents, teachers and bosses use/d their power to win at our expense. Even though we know the feelings of resentment, anger, dislike, even hostility that we experience as a result of losing, the win-lose posture is deeply ingrained and when we get in positions where we have power over people, we often choose to win at their expense.

A great deal of research shows the damaging effects that win-lose conflict resolution has on interpersonal relationships. It creates distance, separation, dislike, even hatred. It's the main reason people leave their jobs for new ones and marriages break up.

How conflicts get resolved is the critical factor in any relationship. In fact, it is the most critical factor in determining whether a relationship will be healthy or unhealthy, mutually satisfying or unsatisfying, friendly or unfriendly, deep or shallow, intimate or cold.

As most of us are aware, there is an alternative to the win-lose posture. It's often been called "win-win" or "no-lose" because the goal is to find a solution to the conflict that meets the needs of both people. Resolving conflicts this way requires three important attitudes and behaviors: 1) the attitude that conflict in general presents the opportunity for constructive change; 2) the willingness to engage in the process of mutually searching for a solution that meets the needs of both people; 3) the communication and problem solving skills that it takes to make this win-win method work. Too often, people want to resolve conflicts this way, but either are not truly willing in their heart of hearts to work for a mutually-acceptable solution or do not have the skills required to work together to find one. When this occurs, the win-win method is doomed to failure.

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.

Regards,

Brian Anderson

Brian Anderson
President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com

Urban Outfitters

2008-08-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Urban Outfitters has recently restructured and filled what was formerly one vacant president position for its Anthropologie brand into two senior-level management positions. After a lengthy and deliberate search for the Anthropologie vacant president position, they have concluded that a combined leadership structure was the optimal approach for furthering the brand's North American development.

Thought to Ponder:

Great leaders recognize that when to lead is as important as what to do and where to go. Every time a leader makes a move, there are really only four outcomes that can result.

The wrong action at the wrong time.

The right action at the wrong time brings resistance.

The wrong action at the right time is a mistake.

The right action at the right time results in success.

Your thoughts on the succession strategy and what key component needs to be in place for the co-leading to be successful?

Strategic Planning

2008-08-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

Strategic Planning
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group, RCC

Strategic Planning has made a comeback worldwide. Companies, governmental agencies and nonprofits are all adopting it. Although Strategic Planning has been around for years and the basic tools are well known, many leadership teams still stumble in the planning and execution stages. The basic eight pairs of "do's and don'ts" are based on the experiences of a wide range of organizations. They will help you lock in your prospects for success and avoid common pitfalls.

· DO follow the (modified) KISS principle: Keep it Simple and Sustained. Less is more. Your goal is to create goals and objectives that focus your work for the next year or two. Limit the goals and objectives to one page so you can manage on the "top page."

· DON'T set too many Goals or Objectives or go into greater detail than necessary. Too many details, goals or objectives lead to confusion, conflicting goals, micromanagement and failure to execute. A successful plan is not measured by the pound.

· DO follow all of the steps as described in proven planning methodology as it was designed. You chose it because of its reputation. Learn from others' success.

· DON'T skip steps or do them partially. If you bought an expensive briefcase, you wouldn't immediately change the handle, put on a different carrying strap or have it dyed another color. Avoid tinkering with the process, since you have no data to justify your changes.

· DO stay focused on the Mission. The Mission, what the organization wants to do or be, is central for planning and day-to-day execution. Before you accept any goal, objective, strategy or tactic or take action ask, "How will this help fulfill the Mission?"

· DON'T do things because "we've always done it," or "I think we should do it even though it doesn't fit our Mission." Without the Mission driving your decisions, you will miss innovative solutions, drift off course or become reactionary.

· DO use the "brain dump" activity to alleviate the urge to begin the Tactical Plan prematurely. You are an excellent tactician and, faced with a problem, you quickly suggest solutions. This is a liability in strategic planning where you and your team have to create high level goals and specific objectives based on the Mission. List every idea the team has. Set these ideas, the "brain dump," aside until you are ready to create the tactical plan.

· DON'T begin laying out the Tasks before the Mission, Goals and Objectives are clearly stated. The Mission sets the context for the Goals, which are the context for Objectives, specific, measurable results. Choose tactics to achieve these higher level results from your brain dump at the END of the process.

· DO Measure, Measure, Measure! Select useful, significant measurements for all goals, objectives and tactics. What information do you need to make decisions? Revisit KISS: Keep It Simple and Significant.

· DON'T avoid measurement because it is hard to do. Measurement may be difficult, especially when dealing with customer satisfaction, employee morale or effectiveness. Define some way to measure these intangibles so you can gauge progress during execution.

· DO measure quality of results, wherever possible. Quality measures how customers judge your products or services. This provides the best information for strategic decision making and keeps you focused on the mission and customer.

· DON'T select productivity measures, just because they are easier to define. Important as it is, productivity does not tell you if you are creating a product or service that the customer wants. You can always make junk faster. When you focus on quality, you are more productive, since you reduce costly rework.

· DO provide support, resources, training, guidance, direction and coaching to assure everyone's success. People cannot perform well unless they have everything they need to do the job. The plan is only as good as its execution, which depends on great people management.

· DON'T dump people into situations without providing what they need to get the job done. Delegation means understanding what the person needs to get the job done and providing it. You can only hold people accountable for what they can actually control.

· DO Manage by Fact: We are judged by our results. Good planning sets the stage for good performance. Review results regularly to make decisions and manage. The basic dialogue: "Are we on target?" "Yes" "Keep up the good work." "No" "What is your plan to get back on target?" Targets are just targets. Look for root causes of undesired results. When you are not getting the desired results, investigate the root causes and modify your plans or targets appropriately.

· DON'T manage by intimidation, placing blame or gut feel. These approaches don't work since people may comply but they won't be fully engaged. Don't ignore off target data or make excuses. The opposite of the "blame game" is denial. If a goal or objective is not reached, investigate, find the root cause, devise a solution and re-plan. Unfounded hope is not a strategy for success in the real world.

Strategic Planning works because it disciplines the organization to harness the intellectual energy of all employees and guides the organization in a clear direction.

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.

Regards,

Brian Anderson

President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/.

Team Building Through Change

2007-09-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Team Building Through Change
Brian Anderson, BA Search Group-RCC

When a company attempts a transformation focused on its operations, a sound plan and a robust execution strategy are not necessarily enough. Another important factor in the success of this type of initiative—involving everything from simplifying processes and improving the efficiency of equipment to modifying an entire supply chain—is the designation of specific employees as “change agents” who lead the organization through the journey.

Change agents are leaders who cut across the organization and its business units without regard to the traditional hierarchy. Often these men and women are freed from day-to-day tasks in order to focus solely on leading and driving change. Directly or indirectly, they implement new processes, train employees on new procedures, and act as role models to demonstrate new and better ways to work. For example, change agents might spend more than 50 percent of their time visiting areas undergoing change, auditing progress, or advising managers on how to improve performance.

Organizations that overlook the importance of an appropriate change agent program risk paying a high cost. Consider, for example, an Asian pulp and paper company that created a change agent team to drive its lean-operations program. The group reported directly to top management and was staffed with new hires. However, senior executives failed to recognize and combat the tenacity of the operating group’s silo mentality and culture. Plant managers, who held the real organizational power, resisted what they saw as intrusion by a team of young outsiders, leaving management with no choice but to abandon the change program after several months. The change agents could not establish themselves as a credible force in an organization that valued experience and seniority over youth and innovation.

Experience suggests that a carefully constructed change agent program is essential to any reorganization effort. Such a program requires three elements: a thoughtful design, the careful recruitment and development of personnel, and close integration between the change agent team and the organizational areas targeted for transformation.

Two of the most important tasks when creating a change agent team are defining the roles of its members and establishing a reporting structure.

As in any organization, each individual on the change agent team has a specific role. For example, executers are responsible for implementing solutions, experts use their extensive knowledge to solve difficult problems, coaches train line employees in the new processes, custodians ensure that knowledge is shared across organizational units, and controllers track what’s been done and what must still be accomplished. How much emphasis an organization places on each of these roles will depend on the nature of the change program and the existing culture of the organization; for instance, an organization with a weak culture of accountability will need more coaches and controllers in order to ensure consistency.

As for reporting structures, there are two possible models. One is to create a centralized change agent team that reports directly to the top team. The other, decentralized option is to keep change agents in their respective groups so that they report through a dotted line to a central change agent leader. In our experience each of these approaches has its advantages and drawbacks, and no one plan will work for everyone. A centralized change agent team encourages new ideas, the thorough development of new thinking, and a standard set of solutions across the organization. Alternatively, the decentralized model tends to foster greater skill building, the quicker dissemination of the program’s values, and better customization of solutions for each site or group. Short-term priorities, the long-term rollout plan, and the culture of the existing organization are all factors that must be considered when determining which change agent structure will be most effective. For example, at the Asian pulp and paper company mentioned previously, where plant managers saw the centralized model as an outside intrusion into their operations, a decentralized plan might have been more effective.
Recruiting and developing the best team

With a change agent organizational structure in place, the next step is to identify and recruit the best team possible. A crucial component is spelling out the benefits and opportunities members will receive as a result of moving outside their existing career paths.

A useful litmus test when considering possible change agents is to anticipate the reaction from other staff members when an appointment to the new position is announced. Selecting high-performing people who are already well respected within the company sends a clear signal that management takes the program seriously. Moreover, a credible set of team members will be better able to drive change and implement recommendations.

Change agents need more than raw analytical power to solve complex business problems; interpersonal skills are also critical if they are to lead others through change. Important traits for a potential change agent include empathy, strong communication skills, perseverance in the face of challenge or ambiguity, and an ability to deal with conflict constructively.

Change agent teams must also make a strong effort to hire people with an appropriate mix of skills. A balance should be struck between young “academic types” who have strong analytical capabilities and seasoned managers who have proven track records within the organization. Working together, these two types of employees complement each other, broadening the team’s skill base and providing for the two-way transfer of knowledge and capabilities within the team.
Potential change agents need to understand the explicit benefits and career opportunities that will be open to them as a result of joining the change effort. The best employees often hesitate to take an assignment that may last only 18 months—which is usually the minimum amount of time required for a transformation—fearing that it will damage their careers in the long run.

To counter these fears, high-performing organizations tend to develop a formal career plan for change agents. Some make participation a requirement for promotion to senior management; others build a career-development track within the program. Such mechanisms can prove to be highly effective recruiting tools, motivating potential candidates by offering short-term benefits—including opportunities to build new capabilities and exposure to new areas of knowledge—as well as the longer-term payoff of career advancement. Companies with traditionally weak human-resources processes may find it worthwhile to invest in a distinct HR system for change agents, including specific recruiting, development, and compensation schemes.

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting. Regards,

Brian Anderson
President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE MADE OF?

2007-04-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE MADE OF?
Emotional intelligence comes down to four important skills.
The First Two Skills Focus On You:

(1) Self-Awareness - Your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen. This includes keeping on top of how you tend to respond to specific situations and certain people.

(2) Self-Management - Your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behavior. This means managing your emotional reactions to all situations and people.

The Last Two Skills Focus More On Your Contact With Other People:

(3) Social Awareness - Your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and get what is really going on. This often means understanding what other people are thinking and feeling, even if you don't feel the same way.

(4) Relationship Management - Your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the emotions of others to manage interactions successfully. Letting emotional awareness guide clear communication and effective handling of conflict.

WHAT DOES EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE LOOK LIKE?

The four parts of the emotional intelligence model are based upon a connection between what you see and what you do with yourself and others.

WHAT I SEE
WHAT I DO
PERSONALCOMPETENCE
Self-Awareness
Self-Management
SOCIALCOMPETENCE
Social Awareness
Relationship Management

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.
Regards,

Brian Anderson

Brian Anderson
President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/

Trust Me: Communication Is Key

2006-12-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

By Brian Anderson BA Search Group, RCC

Effective communication involves much more than sharing information. It is about building trust.

"To see real change and gain significant benefits from their strategies, leaders need to establish an environment of trust. Leaders who are trusted - even in times of great difficulty - are skilled communicators."

My experience suggests the following communications fundamentals when leading in times of change and transition:

Communicate relentlessly. Now is not the time to keep quiet. Leaders need to be able to communicate information, thoughts and ideas clearly - and frequently - in different media. Find many ways to share information; keep processes open and transparent.
Listen. Good communicators are also good listeners. Allow people to air their gripes and complaints. Pay attention to what others are saying, thinking and feeling. What is said? What is left unsaid?
Explain the change. People are often skeptical of change. Share your thinking and the trade-offs you've weighed - not just the final decision or strategy.
Make an appeal. Draw on a sense of loyalty, courage, morality or other principles that tie the organization's change strategy to what is important to people.
Articulate expectations. Clearly explaining why, how and when things need to happen will set expectations and create a healthy level of stress and pressure. It also establishes a mechanism for monitoring and addressing performance.
Be visible. If you communicate well, you won't be out of sight. Find ways to interact with all of your stakeholder groups.
Confront problems and conflict. Don't postpone dealing with challenging issues or conflict. By avoiding the difficult people or difficult issues, you can do great harm to yourself, your co-workers and your organization.
Be honest and open. A commitment to genuine change requires honesty, clarity and truth. An effective leader will ask the hard questions and foster an environment of honesty and candid discussion.
Show respect. Treat people with genuine concern and sincere consideration. Spend time with them, ask them about the things they are interested in and consider their hopes as important as your own.
Make room for doubts. Establish a climate that processes resistance rather than attempting to squash it. Don't dismiss, write-off or label employees too easily or too quickly.
Don't dismiss the old. Ignoring, demeaning or dismissing people and "the way things used to be" prevents them from moving on. Help people through transition by acknowledging their history and attachments.
Be sincere and authentic. Communicate truthfully and honestly, follow through with what you say and avoid deception. Don't try to bury or deny your own reactions to ongoing events. People pay close attention to their leaders in such times and are looking for indications that they are real people who are capable of having human emotions like their own.
Trust people to handle the truth. Tell them what you know and own up to what you don't know. Avoid putting a false positive spin on decisions or events that are inherently negative or difficult to handle.
Demonstrate that you can handle the truth. People may not readily tell you the truth or give you feedback. You have to set the tone and model the behavior that makes truth-telling okay. Stay connected to a broad circle of people and make it clear that you want them to share their concerns and ideas.

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.

Regards,

Brian Anderson

President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/.

Learning, Leadership and Servant Leader

2006-10-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

Learning, Leadership and Servant Leader

Learning and leadership go hand in hand for true servant leaders. Some might say the two are intrinsically linked. Consider the learning model of apprentice, journeyman, master and teacher. Each stage requires a cycle of learning and mentorship from a more experienced teacher or master coach.
One of the places that you learn how to lead is by having been mentored at some point in your life by a good teacher or master coach. They move you from being a novice to an apprentice to a journeyman to a master teacher over a period of time. One key to creating a great team, movement or organization is to empower your people. To do that, you can’t just go, ‘You’re empowered — go out and do this.’ You have to mentor them. You have to teach them how to make decisions within the boundaries that you’ve set up. Boundaries might include vision, purpose, values and goals.

Another skill I have used over the years, ask, ask all new people in a leadership role to think back to one of the most powerful learning experiences they have had, consider who taught the lesson, where they were in their career and then evaluate why was it such a powerful experience. Great leaders should always be trying to influence people to be their best, to be as magnificent as they can be and to accomplish agreed-upon goals. One of my favorite authors, Jim Collins ‘Good to Great’ found two characteristics of great leaders: Will, which is determination to be the best, to follow vision, and accomplish a goal. But the thing he never anticipated is that they’re humble you cannot be a good learner unless you humble yourself. If you think to yourself, ‘Who’s this person?’ ‘I don’t need this,’ etc., you’re caught by your EGO. You’ve closed off your learning valve, and now you’re into yourself. Learning from good mentors has helped me more than anything to be a good mentor and leader for others. In addition to great leaders being learners and humble, I believe they also possess a heightened level of self-awareness. This enables them to answer this important question: Are you there to serve or be served?

People with humility don’t think less of themselves — they just think about themselves less, every leader, whether new or seasoned, has to look into their heart because leadership starts on the inside and moves out. It starts with the question: ‘Why are you leading?’ Are you there to serve or be served? Naturally, most people don’t want to admit they’re self-serving. A clue to determine whether this is true is to ask leaders about their behavior. For instance, ‘How do you respond when you get feedback? Feedback is an opportunity to learn. If you give feedback to someone who thinks they own their position, what do they do? They have to defend what they own. If you tell them anything, particularly something negative, they have to deny you.
You can always tell a person with a servant heart because when you give them feedback, you know what they say? ‘Thank you.’ ‘Is there anyone else I should talk to?’ I never thought about that.’ ‘That wasn’t my intention.’ Learning to be a Servant Leader is a life long journey, sound like a journey your ready for?

Ready for the next step? Email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.
Regards,

Brian Anderson
Brian Anderson
President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/.

Character Development

2006-09-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

Character Development
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group, RRC

Most of us think that "character" is established by the time we reach adulthood — either you have it or you don't. I believe that character can be developed and strengthened over the course of a lifetime. In fact, one of the key responsibilities of leaders is to establish an effective process of character development — not only for themselves but also for their subordinates."

How can leaders do this? Follow the "Five E's" are the path to take: example, education, environment, experience and evaluation.

Example: Leadership by example is the ability to influence others through actions and attitudes. It is a powerful way to develop character because it leverages the natural human tendency to emulate the behavior of individuals held in high esteem. People like to model themselves after those who have power and authority, who are successful and respected. Leaders' behavior sets the standard for the entire organization.

Education: Organizations can set up formal and informal training that focuses on the importance of character, the potential pressures on and challenges to character, and the short- and long-term implications of a lapse of character. Education might include discussions of case studies and scenarios that involve difficult moral or ethical choices. Leaders from various levels in the organization should take part in the training because this gives them a shared frame of reference.

Environment : An organization's environment plays a huge role in determining whether the character development of leaders is encouraged or impeded. The environment is essentially the organization's culture — its collective personality, attitudes and outlook — and the culture is shaped and developed over time by the actions and values of people in the organization. Senior leaders can establish an environment that is open to character development by creating a clear, detailed, practical set of organizational values and by ensuring that everyone in the organization lives those values instead of just going through the motions. If contradictory behaviors are expected and rewarded, the articulated values hold no weight.

Experience: Some jobs and assignments are extremely challenging and carry great responsibility, whereas others are more routine. The former are more likely to enhance character development. In view of this outcome, senior leaders should ensure that, as part of the overall development process, high-potential employees are given "stretch" positions and assignments requiring them to make difficult choices, which can help them better understand and develop character. In addition to challenging high potentials and providing an environment conducive to character development, such assignments provide good indications of the character strengths and weaknesses of those who might become the future leaders of the organization.

Evaluation: Ongoing feedback is a key element of any developmental experience, and character development is no exception. Feedback provides information that lets leaders know how their character measures up and how they are progressing toward their character development goals. For feedback to be effective, however, clear expectations regarding patterns of behavior need to be established and communicated. Leaders can then have quarterly feedback sessions with their bosses to gauge their progress, reviewing specific instances when their character was challenged and either stood fast or cracked. Organizations can also add sections on integrity, ethics, adherence to values and other character-related behaviors to their performance evaluation forms. Leaders can monitor their own behavior, periodically reviewing and reflecting on their character.

Ready for the next step? Call or email me at Brian@basearchgroup.com with dates and times that work for you, and we’ll set a meeting.
Regards,

Brian Anderson
Brian Anderson
President, BA Search Group

P.S. - Visit www.basearchgroup.com for a complete overview of my services, or visit my blog for leadership tips at http://basearchgroup.blogspot.com/.

The Interview Question “give me an example”

2006-07-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Interview Question “give me an example”
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group, RCC

If you want to get at the truth about a candidate – any candidate – I caution you against relying on "give me an example" questions. As the behavioral interview evolves, more training companies are encouraging clients to focus on this type of question, believing that the best way to assess candidates is to directly ask for examples of how they've displayed a certain competency. But if used incorrectly, these questions are an inadequate way to assess a candidate. The fact is using "give me an example" questions can telegraph to the candidate what an interviewer is looking for while also allowing them to omit negative aspects of their work history. Once the question is asked, many candidates immediately know what to say to suggest they have a particular competency. Sometimes the examples candidates give are accurate and sometimes they're embellished or worse, completely fabricated.

But in even the best cases, you're probably not getting the whole truth because you're not hearing about someone's entire work experience. What's more, candidates have a wealth of resources to help them learn how to nail these common questions. Noted interview coach Robin Kessler just released a book, "Competency-Based Interviews," that serves as a how-to guide on acing questions geared towards revealing competencies. And Fortune magazine recently showcased a Boston-based company that charges upwards of $3,000 to coach novice candidates on how to interview. The evidence confirms what we already know about the next generation of candidates – they will be much more prepared to give polished answers to typical interview questions. While "give me an example" questions are ineffective for interviewers, they're also unfair to candidates.

For one thing, they force unnatural responses. Individuals organize their memories around their past job experience, not around instances when they've demonstrated a particular competency. When pressed for an answer, some candidates may come up with a poor example, giving the appearance that they're weak in an area where they actually may be very strong. Or, if they sense what the interviewers are looking for but can't cite an example, they may just make one up. Candidates who can't think of an answer at all fare the worst, as the experience of having nothing to say can be so frustrating that it ruins the entire interview. I don't advocate completely dismissing "give me an example" questions, but they have their time and their place. Ideally, the questions belong at the end of the interview as a safety net to ensure a candidate has a quality not yet discussed. Think of it as putting together a mosaic of the candidate's past behavior, and "give me an example" questions fill in the last pieces.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
www.basearchgroup.com, Brian@basearchgroup.com

2006-07-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

It All Begins With Leadership

2006-07-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

It All Begins With Leadership
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group, RRC

Business leaders often ask, “How does my organization get results?” Very simply—it all begins with leadership.

Great leaders inspire and serve their people. They provide vision and direction and equip their people with the skills and knowledge needed to generate results. Great leaders understand the needs of their employees and utilize different leadership styles depending on specific developmental needs. They understand that people need to be coached and supported as they bridge the learning-doing gap and transfer what they learn into everyday practice. Surprisingly, great leaders can be found at every level in the organization, because leadership happens whenever people use their ability to positively influence others.

Unfortunately, many people’s ideas of leadership boil down to exercising power and control over others. That might get people’s attention, but it’s no way to tap their innate goodness and inspire great results.
Too often, the leadership many people see is characterized by the phrase, “It’s all about me,” and all the money, recognition and power move up the hierarchy. These leaders act like the sheep are there only for the benefit of the shepherd. It’s often an unconscious practice based on years of watching poor role models, yet it’s a trend that needs to be changed.

Impact studies conducted with leading companies highlight the critical role that leadership plays in determining a company’s success or failure. Poor leadership doesn’t just hold employees back from reaching their full potential, but actually sends them in the wrong direction and seriously impacts morale, employee retention and financial performance.

The development business is all about people and results. Our life’s passion is to unleash the power and potential of people for the common good. Working with thousands of organizations, we have learned that leading at a higher level is a transformational journey that begins with self-leadership, moves to one-on-one leadership, then team leadership and, finally, organizational leadership:

· Self-Leadership: Before leaders can hope to lead anyone else, they must know themselves well enough to realize that leadership is not about them. It’s about serving their vision and values, their customers, their people and the bottom line. When leaders truly know themselves, they develop radical self-acceptance and are able to take full advantage of their strengths and most positive qualities.
· One-on-One Leadership: Once leaders have life in proper perspective—they know it’s not all about them—they are able to develop trusting relationships as they lead other individuals. This is where leading situationally comes into play. Great leaders know how to tailor management styles to individual employees. They realize that they must understand their people well enough to give them the direction and support they need to succeed.
· Team Leadership: As leaders develop trusting relationships with people one-on-one, they become ready to develop teams. Effective leaders working at the team level must realize that to be good stewards of the energy and efforts of those working with them, they must honor the power of diversity and acknowledge that “none of us is as smart as all of us.”
· Organizational Leadership: The final stop on our transformational leadership journey will be organizational leadership. This is when leaders are not just leading a team, but a number of teams and departments. The focus here is managing change and developing an organization that creates both great results and high satisfaction.

Leading at a higher level is more than an announcement—it is a commitment to lead in a different way. It isn’t a change that happens overnight. The great thing about this journey is that there are personal and professional rewards every step of the way.

There is no best leadership style. A good leader knows it takes different strokes to lead different folks. What works in one situation or domain may not work in another. For the time being, remember: Great leaders are here to serve, not to be served.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
www.basearchgroup.com

Finding Spiritual Courage: Risking the Unfamiliar to Have the Future We Want

2006-06-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

Finding Spiritual Courage: Risking the Unfamiliar to Have the Future We Want
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group

In life we have seen dramatic rescues and individual acts of heroism, people risking physical harm or even their lives in the face of terrible threats. Courage is required when there is fear of harmful consequences that are likely to result from one's action, be it charging an enemy machine gun in wartime or cliff climbing without safety lines in civilian life. Risking one's personal safety for the welfare of the platoon or jumping into ice cold water to save a drowning flight attendant are definitely courageous acts with real physical danger facing the hero. Trust is a huge component in taking courageous action. If one is risking real danger, one trusts they will be successful despite the fear they are feeling. In some cases, the action comes instinctively, seemingly without forethought, but fear is there as soon as they think about the situation, even if it is after the event!The world will always require people to put themselves at physical risk for the sake of their fellow citizens, like firefighters and police officers. Another kind of courage is being called for in these times of exponential rates of change and the enormous impact which technology adds to the changes we experience. This kind of courage is not necessarily physical, although it could have longer-term physical implications. The kind of courage we are presently lacking is to risk embarrassment, lost social status or peer approval. Thoreau said it long ago: "Dissent without action is consent." Like the teenager who hesitates to go against the group even though he or she knows they are doing something wrong or members of a mob who get caught up in mass hysteria and turn their backs on normal civilized constraints, too many of us are simply "going along" with the crowd. Not enough of us are questioning the wisdom of our silent condoning, the legitimacy we are lending to the way things are going.Breaking the silence, ending the "going along," requires spiritual courage, the courage to stand tall for your conscience, your sense of right and wrong, the wisdom you may possess that others appear to be lacking.

This kind of courage allows one to risk the unfamiliar, the unknown and the untried when there's an implied promise of a better future for others once the stand is taken. Systems remain dysfunctional because the people in them refuse to challenge the status quo, refuse to take the risk, preferring the familiar even if it is uncomfortable or painful. The dysfunction is maintained because people prefer the known and familiar to the unknown or unfamiliar, even when it holds promise for a better alternative! This is crazy! It shows how attached we can become to the familiar, the known, the reality in which we've learned to survive. You've heard it said that people hate to change. This is a very commonly-held belief. Yet we persist in trying to change others - whether it is our spouses, a relative, partners or co-workers. Eventually, wiser more mature people learn the only person they can change is themselves. Wiser souls focus inward. They work to change their own beliefs, to think and act differently, thereby changing the systems in which they work and live. When they change, their systems change. This commitment to change oneself, to think and act differently, requires a rare brand of mature courage that is sorely needed today. Technology has accelerated both the speed at which change is occurring as well as the degree of impact these changes have on the world. We no longer live in a cause-effect world where we can remain isolated in our actions and misdeeds, only affecting a few people around us. We have made our world into a massive array of complex and interacting systems, adding our own complexity to what Mother Nature had already given us. There are no simple solutions to society's challenges any more. Those days are past. Like Einstein told us almost a century ago, our consciousness must evolve to match the complexity of our world.

The way we think has to grow exponentially to keep pace with what we think about. Pairing outmoded thinking with exponentially increasing technology eventually will lead us to disaster. Like the toaster repairmen trying to repair satellites in outer space, or children driving 300 mph racing cars or cooks overseeing nuclear reactors, we're over our heads and lagging far behind in our abilities to resolve our challenges. Perhaps it is time to take a stand for our evolving humanity, like the Roman slave Spartacus, and declare that we are more than machines, more than "naked apes" and more than digitized humanoids. Let us openly embrace our human spirit and allow ourselves to transcend the conditions we have created rather than remain subject to them, to claim mastery over the systems we've created rather than remaining slaves to them. Like Spartacus, let us emancipate ourselves and proclaim our full humanity.Einstein also told us that we are still an infantile society. We human beings are hardly fully-evolved. Let us call for more spiritual courage, an increased willingness to break out of our skin of familiarity or the petty limitations of what we expect from our consciousness and allow ourselves to dream bigger about how we think, what we do and what we expect for our future. Let us break out of the mold of guesswork or prediction about how things may be in the future and, instead, take a wiser more mature stand for what we want. Then, let us do everything in our power to bring about that future.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
www.basearchgroup.com

Join me on LinkedIn

2006-04-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Hello
Great to see you on LinkedIn, for maximum exposure to your profile please review the following steps. This will increase visibility for executive search consultants, past coworkers, old friends and alumni to search and review You!!

First, LinkedIn is 5.5M users strong, it’s also the number one networking tool in the world and growing with over 10,000 new members daily. More recruiters are using this tool to search and source candidates than all the top job boards ( 4 million searches made per month ). What does this mean for you?! Exposure!!
I have been asked what if my current employer of HR department views my profile on LinkedIn. Great question; the real straight answer, LinkedIn in design is an online networking tool. Your reply is yes, I am on LinkedIn as you know I am a member of example; ( Chicago chamber of commerce and also wanting to re-connect with alumni from NIU ). Your company policy or HR department will have no problem with that answer as LinkedIn in true form is all about networking you can’t help it if a recruiter contacts you due to the fact your profile is everything their client is looking for.

Please follow steps for best results.
Your profile should be like an on-line resume, list your current job and provide strong key words, example account manager, top producer, include job title, role and function.
List two to three past jobs and populate as the first.
List all groups, associations, clubs, volunteering, church, fraternities, sororities, ect.
List academic completion i.e. Northwestern MBA, Management
Interests, this is all key words ( example) politics, networking, Chicago chamber of commerce, leadership development, rotary club,
Very important, plug in your email or contact number in your profile if you want to make it easy for people to get connected to you.

Why is all this data important? Here is a brief example, I am an executive search consultant, I am looking for a candidate living in Chicago market, went to Northwestern has worked in product development management and worked for Shure Inc. If all the key words are in the profile that person will pop up on the search list I now can review and contact them. It’s that easy! The key to this tool is to "see and be seen". You may want to conduct your own search campaign, example; you go to the LinkedIn home page select people, go to keywords: key in hiring manager, scroll down to target area location, key in Chicago, zip code 60504 and then hit search. All hiring managers in that target search will pop now you can research and contact them.
If I cant’s be directly involved in your search, I believe this tool and my network of over 1850 global contacts can be. Contact me anytime.

Regards,
Brian Anderson President, BA Search Group
www.basearchgroup.com

The Talent Conundrum

2006-02-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

The Talent Conundrum
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group

That the quality of management determines the success of an organization is a truism. But in the modern world the realization and assessment of management quality has become a critical challenge for Chief Executives and Boards of Directors who are ultimately responsible for getting it right.
What does attracting, retaining and developing executive talent involve and what tools are there to help an organization maximize its potential in this critical area.

Although much will depend upon the organization’s own vision, reputation and potential, consulting services such as retained executive search are available to maximize an organization’s possibility of success in the talent marketplace. Working effectively with executive search consultants can contribute to a comprehensive talent management strategy even though the real commitment to the strategy must come from the top of the organization.

Some leading CEOs consider that they spend as much as 50% of their time on key personnel issues. Assessing and counseling the C-level suite of officers, identifying and evaluating fast track internal talent, ensuring that a compelling recruitment proposition exists for outside hires, developing a positive culture that rewards achievement and raises the performance level of the organization. Many of these challenges will depend for their success upon the leadership qualities of the CEO – it is he or she who has the success of the organization in the palm of their hand. But they will not achieve success unless they work through other key executives – and it is the quality and motivation of those executives that is crucial.

With luck, foresight and good management excellent executives can be grown from within an organization. But there is too much change, too many variables at work in the market and within an organization to assume that all will go according to plan and that outside hires at senior levels will never be needed. There are some who would even maintain that, however good your own organization is at growing from within, a healthy and perhaps liberal injection of outside talent is crucial if the organization is not to become self satisfied and moribund.

So, how can executive search consultants help? What is it that they can bring to the table that is unlikely to be achieved by an organization on its own? And how should an organization work with a search firm to realize the hoped for benefits of an external hire, given the risks and costs involved in the process?

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
www.basearchgroup.com, Brian@basearchgroup.com

The Quality of Management Teams: Looking Beyond Experience

2006-01-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

The Quality of Management Teams: Looking Beyond Experience
by Brian Anderson BA Search Group

Everybody knows that venture capitalists rate the quality of a company’s management team as the most important factor when weighing an investment decision. Is that really so? And, what does, quality, mean in the context of an entrepreneurial growth company. If you look closely, you recognize that entrepreneurial experience and a venture capital track record are the reflections of more fundamental capabilities. What are they, and what can you do to build and present a more fundable team?

The Experience Advantage

The link between the entrepreneurial experience of a company’s team and the attractiveness to a VC has become axiomatic. As one venture capitalist asserted a few months ago:

"Management teams are very different today than they were several years ago, they’re better at solving problems, they’re better skilled in organizational development. The number one factor in deciding whether to invest in a start-up or early stage company is the quality of the management team".

The conventional wisdom is that serial entrepreneurs are advantaged in obtaining venture capital, because their heightened human capital (business building skills) and social capital, (access to resources through personal networks) reduces investor risk. Not surprisingly, empirical evidence supports this assumption. Serial entrepreneurs are roughly 25% to 30% more likely to receive venture capital funding than novice entrepreneurs. However, it also seems that diminished investor risk translates into commensurately higher pre-money valuations. According to work by David Hsu, now at Wharton, serial entrepreneurs having had success with their previous ventures receive a pre-money valuation boost of 45%.
So, investors make trade-offs. On the one hand, experienced entrepreneurs reduce risk, but that reduction in risk comes at a significant cost to the investor. Hsu references a study of investment theses from actual VC investment memoranda that summarized the perceived strengths and weaknesses of early stage investment opportunities. In 60% of the cases, the experience of the management team was mentioned as a reason for investing. In other words, management experience is an important? but not always the principal factor in evaluating an investment opportunity.

Problem Solving Capacity as a Measure of Entrepreneurial Quality
Entrepreneurial experience is a proxy for a more fundamental capability, the ability to learn and adapt in the face of ambiguity. Business researcher Amar Bhidés study of different categories of business initiatives underscores how relatively high levels of ambiguity characterize venture-backed companies and differentiate them from the majority of businesses. Mathematician-turned-sociologist Duncan Watts notes, Unlike uncertainty, which one can think of as random draw from a known distribution, ambiguity reflects what decision makers do not know. Planning in the context of venture capital, doesn’t connote prediction. Rather, a realistic business plan identifies the limits of the known and strategies. Jeff Shuman at The Rhythm of Business observes that entrepreneurs simply can’t know in advance all of the important aspects of matching their business model to evolving customer needs. The process of entrepreneurship is a process of learning. A great entrepreneur is somebody who can learn, and solve problems in real time.
Easier said than done. There are significant barriers to learning in the real world of business. The business world doesn’t readily accommodate controlled experiments; there are delays and dynamic complexity. Furthermore, we’re hindered by selective perception and our tendency to protect our personal sense of competence. In his classic work, Chris Argyris explains how defensive reasoning inhibits learning by the smartest people.

So, one would expect investors to look for evidence that an entrepreneur can learn and adapt. it’s a proposition that fits with the experience of Rob Ryan, the founder of Ascend Communications . He made a lot of money for his venture capital investors through a systematic process of experimentation and adaptation.

It (Really Does) Takes a Team
It’s fashionable to talk about the importance of a management team, but that doesn’t stop us from lionizing founders. Is it possible that a really strong founder is all that’s really required?
In a word? no.

Having a founder who is skilled at learning and adapting is a necessary, but insufficient condition. The notion of team is more than a fad, it’s a structural requirement for problem solving in an ambiguous environment. More from Watts:

When solving complex problems in ambiguous environments, individuals compensate for their limited knowledge of the interdependencies between their various tasks, and uncertainty about the future by exchanging information, knowledge, advice, expertise, and resources with other problem solvers within the same organization. Ambiguity, in other words, necessitates communication between individuals whose tasks are mutually dependent. And when the environment is rapidly changing, so too are the problems, hence intense communication becomes an ongoing necessity. The problem of coping with chronic ambiguity is therefore equivalent to the problem of distributed communication. Firms that are bad at facilitating distributed communications are bad at solving problems, and therefore bad at handling uncertainty and change.

The lack of hierarchy found in successful venture-backed companies isn’t the result of collectivist, politically correct thinking. It’s an adaptation to ambiguity. Hierarchies require that the founder serve as the central information router, but an individual’s ability to route information isn’t scaleable. A robust information-processing firm, one that can effectively distribute information in a variety of environments, has the characteristics of a multiscale network. In a multiscale network, most horizontal communication occurs within the core of the management team, but a significant amount of horizontal communication occurs in the periphery as well. That is, people in line functions actually talk to each other in order to solve problems. Furthermore, in multiscale networks, there is significant vertical communication between the core and periphery. As Watts concludes, The superior robustness of multiscale networks also conveys better scaling properties and can grow to larger sizes before suffering failure. Many founder-managed companies exhibit hierarchical tendencies. After all, multiscale networks are less efficient than hierarchies in the sense that distributed communications places a burden on people with production responsibilities. If your people are in meetings, they aren’t making sales calls, providing customer service, or delivering the company’s product or service. Nevertheless, hierarchies aren’t robust, and will almost certainly fail when faced with growth and ambiguity.

Various research and anecdotal evidence suggests that there exist organizational attractors around group sizes of 7, 60 to 80, and 150 that seem to be a function of social grooming (i.e., the cost of building and maintaining social relationships). Given an average revenue per employee per year of about $160,000 in the U.S. (a ratio that varies widely across industries), a 60 to 80-person firm corresponds roughly to $10 million in sales. Perhaps not coincidentally, that's about the minimum size for a company to be considered eligible for growth capital. It may be that private equity investors have learned that a baseline indicator of requisite organizational problem-solving capacity tends to be demonstrated at this range of employee size. Prior to the 60 to 80-employee level, it may be possible for a talented entrepreneur to muscle results out of a hierarchy, even though such results aren't sustainable as the company continues to grow.

In sum, in the context of venture capital, an organization that has a team composed of good to very good individuals who really communicate both horizontally and vertically within the organization is better than a hierarchy dominated by a single, very capable founder. Quite simply, heterarchies are less vulnerable to failure, are better at recovering from catastrophe, and are more scaleable in the face of ambiguity than are hierarchies.

It Takes a Network
Having a strong core team, however, is also insufficient. The resiliency of a firm is very often a function of informal and serendipitous relationships among employees in all levels of a company and their professional peers, customers, and suppliers. Others have documented the anatomies of such communities of practice. For purposes of this discussion, I’d like to focus on the continuing importance of geography. Collaborative technologies do, indeed, make it easier for us to create and maintain social relationships across distance. A new generation of social networking software is beginning to help us search our social networks more easily and effectively. These technologies are particularly helpful in regard to relationships based on more narrowly construed professional affinities. However, as the relevant dimension of relationships changes, geographic proximity often re-asserts itself as a delimiting factor.
No matter how capable and motivated your core team, the adaptability of your company may be diminished to the extent that it is located far from the centers of relevant communities of practice. On balance, the benefits of your company’s location may outweigh the negatives. Nevertheless, be aware of the need to build and maintain bridges to the broader business world. For example, recruiting, training, travel, and branch office strategies, augmented by collaborative technologies, can all help. It’s also becoming clear that encouraging and training your employees in the use of their social networks to solve problems works better than forcing them to build, contribute to, and maintain centralized, knowledge-bases.

How to Present the Quality of Your Team
Assuming that you are among the majority, that is, you are not a serial entrepreneur with a track record of venture capital success, there are a number of things you can do to strengthen the perception of the quality of your team:

Cover the basics. Of course investors look for evidence that your team is composed of smart people who have meaningful and complementary domain expertise. Furthermore, capability without commitment is meaningless. To the extent possible, document competencies and commitment.
Demonstrate your capacity to learn. Investors want you to be an expert. But, they need experts who have the capacity to learn and adapt. Your plans should be presented as the limits of what is known, not what is knowable. Be honest about the gaps in your knowledge, and be clear about your strategies to fill those gaps. Be ready to provide examples of how you have adapted in the past in order to achieve a goal.
Be a team. An organization chart isn’t a team. Be prepared to demonstrate your teamwork when challenged by VCs during due diligence. If all eyes turn automatically toward the founder at every point, you are in trouble. On the other hand, a demonstration of team rapport shouldn’t give the impression of management by committee. After all, learning requires iterative decisions and actions, not just group discussion and contemplation. Finally, it’s necessary and efficient for one person on your team, most likely the CEO, to be the fund raising point person. However, don’t confuse efficiency with effectiveness. Include your core team when appropriate. Absent evidence of a compelling track record, the VC?s safe bet is to assume that you don’t have much of a team.

Demonstrate links to communities of practice. Your location shapes the benefits and weaknesses of your company’s collective connectivity to potentially important communities of practice. Be forthright about how you are going to leverage your strengths and mitigate the weaknesses in your employees, networks. How are you going to build and maintain necessary relationship bridges?

Push prospective investors regarding their ability to add value. Work to reach a shared understanding with prospective investors regarding the strengths and weaknesses of your team. Push VCs hard on how they can, and will, act to bolster your company’s capabilities. Rest assured that the term sheet will reflect the venture capital firm’s self-assessment of its value-add. Make sure that you are going to get what you are paying for. If you are the weak link in your team, it’s best to know that upfront. Whether or not you cede control to your investors, you owe them, and the rest of your shareholders, a shared commitment to a value creation and realization strategy.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
http://www.basearchgroup.com/

Time Management

2005-12-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

Time Management
"A different take on how top executives really spend their time"

Ok, you’ve probably heard dozens of times that if you want to be more efficient and therefore more effective you need to use some type of "time management" system. Well surprise, the research on how top executives spend their time clearly shows that many of the precepts championed in time management courses, although appearing to make logical sense, if followed religiously as most time management programs demand, would actually decrease an executives ability to be effective. Furthermore, understanding just how effective executives actually spend their time can impact how you select and develop executive talent. In this overview I will outline three key takeaways from research regarding executive effectiveness, one of which executive recruiters will not want to hear. John P. Kotter, the author of the Harvard Business Review article, What Leaders Really Do, and the Konosuke Mashusita Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business School conducted research into the daily work life of effective leaders. He literally shadowed top executives, observing and noting their actions and interactions through typically work days. What he observed would shock and horrify most "time efficiency" experts. Top executives have agendas that "allow them to react in an opportunistic (and highly efficient) way to the flow of events around them, all the while knowing that they are doing so within some broader and more rational framework." In other words, there is meaning behind the madness.

The three key takeaways follow:

1. I’m sure this will be no surprise to most busy executives but top executives spend most of their time with others…but mostly not in planned meetings. The "average general manager spends only 25% of his/her time alone, and that alone time is spent largely at home, on airplanes, or while commuting." Time management gurus invariably tell people to stick to a firm schedule and don’t allow unnecessary interruptions. Time management experts exhort executives to "make people make appointments with you…guard your time zealously." However, most of the useful information an executive gets comes from informal, on-the-fly interactions with subordinates, customers, peers, board members and bosses. Top executives and managers are constantly and efficiently conducting brief impromptu meetings with people to gather needed information, influence others and to get things done. Many of their conversations are 2 minutes or less, disjointed and often punctuated with humor. If they relied exclusively on formal meetings and channels for their information they would be behind the knowledge curve most of the time.

2. Beware of the executive who stays in her office with the door closed or tells you that she has no time to talk with people outside her department! Top mangers spend time with many people, not just their direct reports and their bosses. What’s critical about this type of interaction is that top executives know that much of their ability to influence others comes through the informal networks they develop. They understand that developing mutually beneficial relationships enables them to get things done even if they don’t have direct authority in a situation. Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about "sucking up," to people (what one executive told me he thought I meant by building relationships with people). I’m talking about engaging in sincere, respectful interactions with a wide variety of people with whom they are often in some way dependent, vs. holing up in their offices with their noses to the grindstone. Top executives ask lots of questions, discuss wide-ranging topics often unrelated to work, all the while building relationships. Kotter noted that "excellent performers ask, encourage, cajole, praise, reward, demand, manipulate and generally motivate others with great skill in face-to-face situations." Excellent performers "rely more on indirect influence than do the ‘good’ managers, who tend to apply a narrower range of techniques with less finesse."

3. Now the bad news for executive recruiters and a heads up for senior executives who don’t want to spend money on management development. Kotter also concluded that because top executives spend so much time developing networks and nurturing relationships within their organizations that hiring executives from outside the organization is to be avoided if possible. "Putting someone in an executive position who does not already know the business or the people involved simply because he or she is a successful ‘professional manager,’ is risky." It usually takes an outsider six months or more to get up to speed in a large organization even if the executive is a domain or subject matter expert. Therefore, Kotter suggests "especially for large and complex businesses…that ‘growing’ one’s own executives should be a high priority, " and that the money spent on executive recruiters might be better spent on developing internal talent. Unfortunately, however, he noted, "in light of the booming executive search business, one has to conclude that either companies are not trying hard (at developing executive talent) or their efforts simply are not succeeding." To add further credence to Kotter’s research, I refer you to a terrific article by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, titled, The Talent Myth, Are Smart People Overrated? where he attacks the practice of simply hiring the best and brightest as the surest way to success.

Interestingly, Kotter recommends that whether you promote from within or hire from the outside, that for the first three to six months on the job it’s best to allow the new executive to spend most of her time collecting information, establishing relationships, selecting a basic direction for her area of responsibilities, and developing a supporting organization if you want her to get up to speed fast. Getting bogged down in accomplishing specific tasks or to work on pet projects can actually be counterproductive. In summary, highly effective leaders leverage their interpersonal skills and nimbly nurture and navigate multiple and complex interpersonal relationships to motivate and influence people to get things done. Simply being smart and technically qualified isn’t enough for the long haul; you need to be interpersonally adept.

Brian AndersonPrincipal / Founder BA Search Group an executive recruiting, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.

Being A Leader Doesn't Make You One

2005-10-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Being A Leader Doesn't Make You One
By Brian Anderson President, BA Search Group

Most leaders have the technical expertise to do their jobs effectively. In fact, that's usually the reason they were promoted to a leadership position in the first place. But technical know-how is only part of what it takes to be an effective leader. Many managers and executives may be surprised to learn that it's not even the most important part. Technical expertise and knowledge are prerequisites to good leadership; they're necessary, but not sufficient. The ability to relate with and motivate the people who report to a leader is far more important. Much research shows that when people can work in a climate of respect, caring, honesty, collaboration, cooperation and trust, they maximize their contributions to the organization. In other words, leaders simply do not succeed without people skills -- yes, that "touchy-feely stuff." Most leaders aren't born with the relationship skills they need. When it comes to dealing with people problems, newly promoted leaders too often feel like they're winging it. And when inevitable problems and conflicts arise, they feel frustrated, even helpless. Characteristics of the most effective leaders

They decrease the power differential between self and team members.
They create conditions for distributing the leadership function throughout the group.
They show respect for intrinsic worth of team members.
They show respect for team members as individuals who are different from the leader.
They understand that people aren't there to be used, directed or influenced to accomplish only the leader's aims.
They listen with empathy.
They demonstrate acceptance.
They express his or her own beliefs, needs and ideas honestly, clearly and without blame.
They work to resolve conflicts in a way that creates mutual need satisfaction.

Do a quick self-check, If you lead people, you owe it to them (and to yourself) to honestly and frankly assess the current conditions your team members are working under. The following questions, approached with an open mind, can help you identify opportunities to improve your leadership skills, and to make your team more productive, more satisfied, more loyal to you, and more likely to recognize and remedy team conflicts and people problems before they get out of hand.
Do I really trust the capacity of the team and of the individuals on it to solve the problems facing us? Or do I basically trust only myself?
Do I create a climate in which my team can have creative discussions by being willing to hear, understand, accept and respect all input? Or do I find myself trying to influence the outcome of discussions?
Do I honestly express my own beliefs and ideas without trying to control those of others? When there are problems and conflicts, do I make it possible for them to be brought out into the open, or do I subtly communicate that they should be kept hidden?
Embodied in each of these questions is a different, proven, tested people skill. And just as technical expertise is learnable, so too are people skills. It's an endeavor that takes training and practice, practice, practice, but the payoffs in morale, productivity and energy are both measurable and immeasurable.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
http://www.basearchgroup.com/

The edge is becoming the core...

2005-09-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

The edge is becoming the core...

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group.

What do I mean by this? The edge is where the action is - in terms of growth, innovation and value creation. Companies, workgroups and individuals that master the edge will build a more sustainable core. While our primary focus will be on business activity, our perspectives will also be relevant to leaders of other kinds of institutions as well - educational, governmental and social.

The edge is giving rise to a new common sense model. We all perceive and act based on "common sense" assumptions about the world around us and the requirements to achieve our goals. Every major technology shift has produced a fundamentally new common sense model. Our goal is to understand and describe key elements of the new common sense model emerging from technology innovations - especially the invention of the microprocessor and the introduction of packet-switched networks - that were introduced in the early to mid-1970s.

Four Domains of Human ActionWhat do I mean by edge?
We will be focusing on the edges of four different domains of human action - social, enterprise, market and learning.
The social domain involves the complex relationships between how we define our individual identities and the forms of social participation that we pursue to shape these identities.
The enterprise domain looks at how we organize to create economic value and how we define the boundaries of these economic entities.
The market domain explores how we compete and collaborate on a global scale to create, deliver and capture economic value.
The learning domain seeks to describe how we learn, with particular emphasis on the interaction between individual learning and group learning.

Complex dynamic loops shape the evolution of each domain and the interdependencies across domains. Many analysts have described elements of each of these domains, but no one has sought to explore systematically how these domains interact with each other. I believe that the biggest opportunities will arise where the edges of these four domains interact and generate tensions that need to be resolved. It is this intersection that defines the first dimension of our research agenda.

To effectively pursue this research agenda, we will need to incorporate two other dimensions of investigation as well. Four Global ForcesOn the second dimension we need to better understand four long-term global forces and how they interact with the four domains described earlier:· Public policy - especially the broad movement to remove barriers to entry and barriers to competition· Technological innovation at three levels:- the continuing improvement in price/performance in digital hardware building blocks and new techniques for designing, building and delivering software- the changing architectures for organizing these hardware and software building blocks- the movement into new arenas of these components and architectures (e.g., the mobile Internet, smart objects, bioinformatics and telematics)· Demographic - especially the changing age demographics around the globe· Cultural - especially the emergence of global youth cultures, the growth of the creative class and the growing importance of religion in cultures around the world.

Effective Strategies for Creating ValueAs uncertainty increases and the pace of change accelerates, managers will need to develop new approaches and tools to make sense of the evolving environment and to make progress in terms of creating value. This constitutes the third dimension of the research agenda - helping managers to define and execute strategies for successfully navigating across this new landscape.

For this purpose, I will focus in particular on the role of FAST strategies as a foundation for shaping opportunities to create significant value.
FAST strategies bring together four management imperatives - Focus, Accelerate, Strengthen and Tie together.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an Executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market. http://www.basearchgroup.com/

Assessing Characteristics of Leadership Effectiveness

2005-09-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

Assessing Characteristics of Leadership Effectiveness – Self Report Survey
By Brian Anderson BA Search Group

Circle Yes or NO. 24 questions.

Comfort with ambiguity:
Y or N Are you willing to take calculated risks?
Y or N Are you comfortable with a certain level of disruption and conflict?
Y or N Are you comfortable making decisions and taking action without having "all the facts?"

Empathy:
Y or N Do you empathize with other people’s needs, concerns, and goals?
Y or N Would staff members confirm that you show such empathy?

Insight:
Y or No Can you accurately understand the needs and motivations of others?
Y or No Do you have an accurate understanding of your own limitations…not just your strengths?

Persistence; frustration tolerance
Y or N When pursuing a goal, do you maintain a positive, focused attitude, despite obstacles?

Excellent communicators
Y or N Do you listen closely (rather than have a response ready before the other person finishes)?
Y or N Are you comfortable running meetings?
Y or N Are you comfortable making presentations and speaking in public?
Y or N Do you have the skills needed to negotiate in a variety of settings?

Politically astute
Y or N Could you diagram for yourself your organization’s power structure?
Y or N Can you articulate the concerns of your organization’s most powerful groups?
Y or N Can you identify those individuals within your organization that will support you when needed?
Y or N Do you know where to turn for the resources you need?
Able to use humor
Y or N Do you know how to use humor to relieve tense or uncomfortable situations?

Emotional self-control:
Y or N In situations that are full of turmoil and confusion, do you stay calm and levelheaded?
Y or N Would your colleagues and subordinates say that you are able to acknowledge your mistakes, failures and limitations without being overly defensive?
Y or N I am able to be flexible in my dealings with others.

Self-aware
Y or N Are you aware of and can you describe how your own patterns of behavior impact others?
Y or N In assessing a situation, I look at my biases and adjust my assessment accordingly.
Y or N I watch how others react to me to better understand my own behavior.
Y or N It’s easy for me to recognize what emotions I’m experiencing in a particular situation.

Remember that this non-validated survey should be used as an "early warning" system only. If you really want to measure your effectiveness as a leader, to get a more granular bead on how well you are doing and to figure out where to put your developmental energy, you’ll need to conduct a formal assessment that uses valid tools and criteria linked to your organization’s particular needs and culture. Leadership characteristics that work at Microsoft may not necessarily work at Washington Mutual.

If you are ready to take charge and make a proactive move to enhance your career, change your career, improve your time management skills, sharpen your skills or maybe for the first time understand how you are wired and communicate, then email Brian Anderson right now to set up your free 1-hr consultation, Brian will respond with-in 24 hours Brian@basearchgroup.com. BA Search Group fees are tailored to each specific case and client. The general rule however is a minimum of $125 per hr with a 3-hrs minimum commitment. Brian Anderson understands the concept of under-promising and over-delivering is the only way to meet and exceed his client’s expectations. Brian also wants to maintain you as a client and create "raving fans" this does not happen unless you get results. So contact Brian Anderson right now, your only investment is you need I say more?

The 11 Secrets to Sales Leadership

2005-08-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

The 11 Secrets to Sales Leadership

In his classic book, "Think and Grow Rich", Napoleon Hill discussed the eleven secrets of leadership. Recently, as I was reading the book, it occurred to me that the attributes of strong leadership and effective selling have a tremendous amount in common. After all, to be really successful in sales, you need to be a leader, both within your own organization, as well as to your clients and customers.

To paraphrase management guru Peter Drucker, a leader is someone who not only does things right, but who also does the right things, while helping others do the same. The same holds true in sales: how better to serve your clients than to really know and understand what they do, and to truly help them do it better?
With that in mind, here are Mr. Hill’s eleven secrets to leadership, as they apply to leadership in selling:

1. "Unwavering Courage": Selling successfully requires courage; taking a risk where the odds may seem stacked against you; courage to make that extra call, to deal with the tough client or prospect, and to not let anything deter you. As Hill says, courage is "based upon knowledge of self and one’s occupation.

2. "Self-Control": The ability to set a course for yourself and take disciplined action each day is a key attribute of all successful salespeople.

3. "A keen sense of justice": Knowing right from wrong - understanding what is fair and just - allows you to make, wise informed decisions.

4. "Definiteness of decision": Deciding on what you want to achieve, and then doing whatever it takes to get there, even in the face of obstacles and setbacks, is crucial to your success. For those who don’t quite make it, failure can usually be traced back to a lack of decisiveness about what they really want.

5. "Definiteness of plans": In Hill’s words, "the successful leader must plan his work, and work his plan. Truer words were never spoken when it comes to selling. Plan your time, and then take action on your plan each and every day.

6. "The habit of doing more than paid for": Want to sell more? Go the extra mile for your clients. Want to get the respect, admiration, and cooperation from your internal "clients" – the people you need to rely on to implement or help you close sales? Go the distance for them as well.

7. "A pleasing personality": Is selling a popularity contest? No, but would you buy something from someone who was nasty and rude?

8. "Sympathy and understanding:" Selling is about understanding what people DO, and then helping them do it better. Plain and simple.

9. "Mastery of detail": Ah, yes… The devil, as they say, is in the details. Ever work really hard to close a sale, only to have it fall apart because of some small detail that falls through the cracks? What may seem like a small detail to you can be a crucial one, maybe even a deal-breaker, to your prospect, customer, or client.

10. "Willingness to assume full responsibility": No matter how much customer support your company provides, you are the prime representative of your organization. If you try to pass the buck to someone else, you lose respect and credibility. "But it really wasn’t my fault that the shipment was delayed in customs and then the delivery truck was attacked a pack of wild dogs…" Doesn’t matter; accept the responsibility for any problem and all details, and then do whatever needs to be done to make things right. Your clients need to know that you are their advocate.

11. "Cooperation": You can’t do it alone. Sales is a collaborative effort. Your prospects need to collaborate with you; you need the cooperation and assistance of others both inside and outside your organization to make things happen. The best salespeople are those who can work well with others, and with whom other people want to work.

Think about these eleven areas of leadership, and ask yourself how you do on each of these items. Find areas where you can make improvements and chart your course to work on improving what you do each day; incremental improvements each day become exponential over time.

Brian Anderson Principal / Founder BA Search Group an executive recruiting, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
http://www.basearchgroup.com/

Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers

2005-07-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Why do some executives ascend to the top and prosper, having extraordinary careers, while others of equal talent never reach their potential or aspirations?

James M. Citrin and Richard A. Smith of Spencer Stuart, one of the world's most influential retained executive search firms, set out to explore this question. Based on in-depth original research, Citrin and Smith identified straightforward patterns evident in extraordinary careers Patterns of Extraordinary Careers: The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction by Citrin and Smith provides strategic career advice based on these patterns that can be used by everyone who wants to build a rewarding and personally-satisfying career turns out that extraordinary careers follow a strikingly consistent trajectory, marked by five distinct patterns that distinguish the very top from the rest of the pack what are the five patterns of extraordinary careers? They are as follows:

Understand the Value of You: People with extraordinary careers understand how value is created in the workplace, and translate that knowledge into action, building their personal value over each phase of their careers.

Practice Benevolent Leadership: People with extraordinary careers do not claw their way to the top, they are carried there.

Overcome the Permission Paradox: People with extraordinary careers overcome one of the great Catch-22s of business: you can't get the job without experience and you can't get the experience without the job.

Differentiate using the 20/80 Principle of Performance: People with extraordinary careers do their defined jobs exceptionally well but don't stop there. They storm past predetermined objectives to create breakthrough ideas and deliver unexpected impact.

Find the Right Fit (Strengths, Passions and People): People with extraordinary careers make decisions with the long-term in mind. They willfully migrate toward positions that fit their natural strengths and passions and where they can work with people they like and respect.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an Executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
http://www.basearchgroup.com/

The Group Mind or The Team Advantage

2005-07-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Brian Anderson BA Search Group

In today’s business it’s obvious…or it should be, that each of us has only a part of the expertise or information we need to get our jobs done. As a result, we are more dependent on each other than our "American" independent spirit may want to acknowledge. We were raised on the myth of the "individual" who can rise to the top and do anything if he or she only tries hard enough. That only gets us so far anymore. Robert Kelly of Carnegie-Mellon University has been asking people for over 20 years "what percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?"

In 1986 the answer was about 75 percent but by 1997 the percentage had slid to between 15 – 20 percent.

(1) According to Howard Gardner of Harvard in "Frames of Mind," "intelligence does not stop at my skin." "My network of associates -- office mates, professional colleagues, others whom I can dispatch electronic messages and my computer and other databases (web)" are important. We need each other. And… believe it…the group mind is frequently smarter and can generally make better choices. For example, in one experiment, students studied and worked in groups while taking a college course. For their final exam, they first took a portion of the exam individually. Then, after they turned in their answers, they were given an additional set of questions to answer as a group (they hashed the questions out together). Results from hundreds of these groups showed that 97 percent of the time the group scores were higher than those of the very best individuals.

(2, 3). Have you ever noticed that in the television show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" that when the contestant asks the audience to pick an answer, the audience choice is right more often than the so-called expert that the contestant queried over the telephone.

For the executive and leader, not surprisingly, an even more important point is that we’ve discovered that some groups/team out-perform others because of some very important reasons. Superior intellect and technical talents alone do not make people great team members. All things being equal the team that works better as a team will out score and out perform teams where the members do not function well together. In a study of group IQ by Wendy Williams and Robert Sternberg at Yale, the interpersonal skills and compatibility of the group members emerged as key to their performance.

(4) They found that those team members who were socially inept, out of tune with others’ feelings, were a drag on the whole effort – especially if they lacked the ability to resolve difference or communicate effectively. "Social effectiveness of the group predicted how well it would do, more than did the individual IQs of its members!" There conclusion: "Groups perform better when they foster a state of internal harmony. Such groups leverage the full talent of their members." Now, internal harmony does not equate to complacency.

I’ve helped some highly motivated, assertive teams improve how they work together and they didn’t miss a beat. In fact, they got more done because less time was spent on dealing with interpersonal B.S. that undermined how they functioned. According to Daniel Goleman of Harvard, "lubricating the mechanism of the group mind so that it can think and act brilliantly demands emotional intelligence." So, how do you build internal harmony? The primary task is to engender trust. Once you develop trust, you can work toward collaboration. Then the fun begins. Because team members who trust one another can collaborate to help each other develop. Your fellow team members are in the best position to provide developmental insight, encouragement and reinforcement to you and each other. And, through mutual accountability, you can keep each other on task. The team that holds each other to your developmental commitments grows together. Books and articles cited in this briefing: 1. "Working with Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman 2. "Group Versus Individual Performance" by G. W. Hill 3. "Interactive Minds" by Roger Dixon 4. "Group Intelligence: Why Some Groups are Better Than Others" by Wendy Williams and Robert Sternberg

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an Executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market.
http://www.basearchgroup.com/

Two Myths about Executive Coaching

2005-05-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Brian Anderson BA Search Group

Executive coaching has become "the" leadership development method for some very good reasons. However, there are two myths about coaching that should be dispelled.

Myth #1: If you fix the individual, the problem goes away.
Sometimes an executive will be labeled as "the problem" when, in fact, their disruptive behavior is often a symptom of systemic problems within an organization. The "problem" executive may not be entirely blameless. However, it's all too easy to blame organizational problems on a "problem child" rather than look at the more complicated and messy issue of how employees and executives relate with each other.

For example, I was asked to work with a senior executive who had been identified as being abrasive, complaining and generally difficult to work with although extremely technically competent. Sound familiar? This, by the way, is the most common reason cited in the research on executive coaching for referring a derailing executive for coaching.

In this case, after I conducted interviews with the senior team, important observers and next level down employees, it became apparent that this executive was outspoken, impatient and could be interpersonally clumsy and rude at times. However, a good deal of her unproductive behavior grew out of her frustration with a lack of "honesty and directness" between members of the executive team. These were a group of "nice" people who were passive aggressive with each other. They had a hard time "telling it like it is." Rather than openly disagree in meetings, executives would simply ignore, stonewall, or use subterfuge to shoot down initiatives they did not support. The so-called "problem executive" would, for example, leave a meeting thinking that she had buy-in only to find out later that her colleagues didn't assign people to support her project as agreed. She would then aggressively confront the offending executive, who would deny and then complain to the CEO about the other executive's rudeness, etc.
You get the picture. Obviously, the problem was bigger than the "identified patient" to use a term from family therapy. Yes, she needed to learn how to be more diplomatic and effective in her communication. And, just as importantly, the executive team needed to learn how to be more direct and honest with each other. If the executive team did not face "their" problem, fixing or replacing the executive would have been a short-term solution only to reappear in the form of another identified patient later on. Or, worse yet, the company could flounder because the executives couldn't/wouldn't come to grips with the issues the "problem" executive saw and forcefully, but ineffectively, communicated.

Myth # 2: Executive coaching is primarily a tool for helping derailing or derailed executives.
Helping derailed executives used to be the primary focus of executive coaching and is still often the first use of coaching for many companies. Most of my calls from companies who have never used an executive coach before are calling about providing help for one of their executives who has derailed. In the past five years or so, however, in Fortune 500 companies and quickly moving beyond those, coaching has moved from a remedial tool to the primary method of developing executives, especially for star performers and high potential executives. Why? Three primary reasons:
1. Coaching star performers is a better and less risky investment. Executives have figured out that by employing the same methods, time and energy that are used to bring a derailed executive back on track to develop star employees, the end result will be that those star employees (proven winners) will end up performing at an even higher level. Think Tiger Woods. Tiger has a coach because he wants to play at the top of his game...all the time. Tiger doesn't rest on his laurels.
2. Coaching embraces the "adult learning model," by providing just in time, just-what-I-need, individualized training for very busy executives. Busy executives do not want to spend unnecessary time attending generic one size fits all leadership development workshops where, if they are lucky, maybe 10% of the information they will receive will be relevant to their particular situation and needs.
3. According to the research on employee retention, one of the most important reasons top employees stay with companies is that they are provided with opportunities to learn and grow. Executive coaching is experienced by employees as a terrific benefit with long-term payoffs.

Key take-away:
 Think of executive coaching as a tool within the broader context of leadership development. It's not the end all.
 Conduct a thorough assessment of the situation not just of the "identified patient" when problems (symptoms) occur before considering a solution.
 Consider using executive coaching as a tool for developing and retaining high potential and star performers. Not only will you get more bang for your buck by lifting good people to a higher level; you will be employing one of the most effective methods for retaining key employees…providing them with developmental opportunities. Great employees stay with companies where they can learn and grow.

Brian Anderson
Principal / Founder BA Search Group an executive recruiting, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market. www.basearchgroup.com