Sustaining Change » Guest Author

Rethinking Retirement: Finding Middle Ground

Guest Author — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:39:25 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I call ‘Transition’ – a word I use because I don’t like the word (or even the concept of) ‘retirement.’

I realized that I had become locked into a binary mindset. Either a person retired in the traditional sense, leaving work completely, or continued working well past the traditional retirement age.

I’ve come to the realization that there is a middle ground between total retirement and working fulltime. (I can hear some people saying, “What took you so long?”) In the middle ground, a person continues to work but in a changed role. That’s one part of transition.

Business owners often keep working. They love their work. Work gives meaning to life. It’s a place to go, something to do. It’s the challenge of solving problems, the pleasure of interacting with others, having credibility in the community. And, as owners, they have the flexibility to make choices about their future involvement.

The new economy is forcing many people to reconsider ‘retirement’ and continue working to generate income to make up for the big drop in their 401k and other retirement funds.

For many, it’s the way they have wanted it all along. “I don’t want to quit altogether. I want to keep working but in a different role, at a different pace.”

I worked with many business owners and managers who have faced the same issue. It’s probably the most challenging question professionals will ever have to face. I came to the conclusion that, for many, especially professionals, it may not a binary choice: “Should I stay or should I go?” That’s not the right question.

I say this from my personal experience. When I was trying to decide whether it was time to move on from WENDEL I agonized over my decision for three years. I wrote about some of the issues I addressed in a newsletter article (in the article archives of this newsletter) “Don’t Retire – Transition.”

Instead, ask a different question: ‘How can I keep the company progressing – leaving my legacy – but change my role to enable me to do what I love to do and be free of those other responsibilities that I don’t want to do?” Maybe its: “How can I live a meaningful life while maintaining a reduced role in the business?” Another article (also in the archive) “Approaching Retirement” might help you with your deliberations.

Based on my own personal experience and my work with business owners over the past 20 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that they need to deal with their personal ‘transition’ issues – their ‘new’ role – before they can begin to explore succession planning. If they can’t/won’t clarify their new personal role they are unable to consider succession.

Are you pondering your personal transition? I suggest you start do the following:
A) Define your life goals,
B) Choose your new future,
C) Identify your ‘next steps’ to best achieve that future.

Then, you can address ’succession issues’ that are so important to your legacy.

It’s tough to ponder the whole transition challenge and look at it objectively – to step back from the day to day work and ‘just think about this.’ It’s key to set aside blocks of time, away from the work/business issues, to help give you focus. Maybe a ‘coach,’ someone experienced in addressing this challenge, can help you focus on your strategic life issues and add discipline to the process.

The future will not be the past all over again. It’s going to be different. Now is the time to get prepared!

Working with business leaders who are exploring their ‘transition’ options has become a focus of my work. If you’d like to explore your situation give me a call.

Peter Wendel

This article first appeared in Peter Wendel Group Newsletter and was published in Organizational Development Network of Western New York, April 22nd 2009.

Video & Book Review ‘Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell

Guest Author — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:54:25 +0000

: Cover via Amazon

Each month, one of our colleagues, David Chinsky offers a book review that he puts in his newsletter. The choice is selected to both engage and challenge leaders as they seek to make a difference in their organizations.
Their pick this month is Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. I share David’s preferences in authors and encourage you to visit his website.

By Guest Author David Chinsky

I must start by saying that Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. As a reporter for The New Yorker, and author of The Tipping Point and Blink, Gladwell impresses with his story telling abilities and easy reading prose.

In Outliers, Gladwell forces us to reassess what “really” accounts for success in life. By examining patterns that most of us overlook or ignore, Gladwell patches together explanations for success that are both compelling and sensible.

Two of the most interesting chapters in Outliers are “The 10,000-Hour Rule” and “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes”. Each of these stories help us look beyond the obvious to see what actually leads to success in the world around us. In a heart-warming epilogue, the author permits us to peek into his own life to see how having the right opportunities in life can explain a large portion of our success.

This gem of a book will alter forever the way the reader thinks of outliers, and present a perspective that will go on to challenge the way we see success in life, ours and that of others around us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to get a feel for some of this, here is a 16 minute video from Pop! Tech of Gladwell talking about his new book. Pop sociologist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell has honed in on a profound new question: what separates extraordinary and average people? Discussing findings from his much-anticipated book “Outliers,” Gladwell details how we’re squandering human potential everywhere from the football field to the classroom – and what we can do to change it.

Focusing on the Small and “Insignificant”

Guest Author — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:09:49 +0000

by Mary Jo Asmus, President of Aspire Collaborative Services LLC.

While vacationing with my husband, I had the good fortune to discover a macro lens on the point-and-shoot camera I’d purchased in the spring. After decades of traveling in Northern Michigan, thousands of miles of hiking (okay, maybe just hundreds), and waiting for my husband – an avid photographer – to take that “perfect” photo and get back on the trail, this is what it’s led to.

I’m now a fanatic with a macro lens. Since discovering this lens I’ve spent hours taking photos of things I never knew existed, trying to perfect a technique for gaining clarity about the small and seemingly insignificant.

As a result, my world has opened up. What I’ve never been able to see before has come alive with the possibility of light, shadow, the hidden and the barely visible. This macro lens allows me to see things that I couldn’t see without it: tiny filaments on a leaf… an interesting shadow on a flower… the perfect markings on a diminutive spider… and (to my utter delight) morning dew on a dozing bee who is waiting for the sun to warm and dry his wings before starting his daily routine.

These are the small, “insignificant” things I’ve missed all these years. While I have been focused on the large and seemingly significant while hiking – deer, chipmunks, even a bear – there has been a whole mini-world of activity and beauty that I missed. All of it is important and all of it contributes to a world that is whole, where possibilities are endless. My life is better for having discovered the macro lens.

Likewise, a leader can sometimes miss or dismiss the small and seemingly insignificant. This may include such things as saying a kind word of gratitude for work well done by a coworker, making a special effort to compliment a quiet employee who’s been dismissed as not having much to offer, or simply listening when someone needs it.

I understand and appreciate the importance of the big things leaders must do. Setting the vision, leading the team, and achieving the bottom line are very important activities. But in our haste to get these done, we sometimes don’t make time for what seems to be small and insignificant.

When we allow ourselves to notice and act on the small things, a whole new world can open for us. Suddenly, small things can turn into powerful, significant forces. That coworker we thanked may become a wonderful ally. The quiet employee may turn out to have a deep well of important wisdom to contribute.

Stop. Look. Take the time to view things you wouldn’t normally see. What have you been missing?

Mary Jo Asmus is an executive coach, macro lens fanatic, and president of Aspire Collaborative Services (www.aspire-cs.com) located in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

5 things Pixar teaches us about creativity on projects

Guest Author — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:12:11 +0000

By Jack Ferraro, PMP

In 1995, Pixar Animation Studios released their first blockbuster, Toy Story. As the first ever full-length computer animated film, it represented a breakthrough for the industry and signaled a bright future for the company. In the thirteen years since then, Pixar has enjoyed eight more huge successes – most recently this summer’s hit, Wall E.

Pixar’s creative genius has remained strong over a remarkable period of time. How have they managed to keep their films from becoming tired or predictable? The answer lies in the studio’s self-described peer-driven approach to the generation and development of creative ideas. Pixar’s president, Ed Catmull, describes the process in his recent HBR article as one in which makes it “safe for people to share unfinished work with peers, who provide candid feedback.” (“How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity,” by Ed Catmull. Harvard Business Review, September, 2008.) In contrast to typical management techniques that try to reduce risk as far as possible and provide for communication along “proper channels,” Catmull presents five daring steps to creative success from within:

Empower people to generate ideas. Instead of seeing creativity as a “mysterious solo act,” it is far more advantageous to see it as the result of free correspondence and collaboration across artificial boundaries. Why limit ideas to one department?
Create a culture of peers in which raw, unfinished work is acceptable. This keeps potential for improvement at a maximum and ideas fresh and ready for collaboration.
Keep communication unrestricted. If things don’t have to wait until the meeting, or until the manager has been told, hallways and chance encounters can become a birthplace for ideas and an asset to the entire project.
Encourage learning, and grow your people in multiple skills. This helps everyone understand and appreciate what various departments and divisions are doing. Additionally, people can see how their work fits into the project as a whole, giving their work more value.
Use post-mortems to discuss both the positive and the negative aspects of the project. By not focusing solely on what went wrong, you end up with a more honest discussion about the project as a whole.

Obviously, these methods have worked for Pixar, but can they work for other companies, and for projects whose outputs are not artistic in nature? Is creativity really that big of an issue for the majority of us who aren’t making movies? Yes. The reality is that projects are in and of themselves creative processes, no matter the form of the end deliverable. PMI even defines them as such – temporary undertakings that create something new or do something that’s never been done before. So even if project managers are not making a film or engaging in something creative in the artistic sense, they are definitely bringing people together, united by a common vision, in pursuit of an end that does not yet exist, and will not exist, unless they create it.

Project managers, as the ones who set the tone for collaboration and communication on their projects, have a lot of responsibility for the creativity of their teams. If the failure of an idea is linked to an individual, team members are unlikely to think boldly and unconventionally. Likewise, if work areas are strictly divided, individuals are less likely to consider how their work affects the project as a whole, and the overall focus remains narrow and linear. The problem that remains is that of risk management; how are we to keep risk under control while encouraging as much creativity as possible. Catmull’s perspective is striking: “Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur.” That is to say, risk management shouldn’t be about preventing leaps of faith, but about taking care of their consequences. Ask yourself right now: what am I doing to encourage leaps of faith by my team,, while planning for the potential consequences?

For strategic project leaders, the ability to foster creativity is a critical skill, and not the easiest one to acquire. No project is completed because of a single idea, but because of the intersection of a multitude of ideas; the more ideas you can bring together, the greater your chances of success.

Ed Catmull’s original article can be found here.

About Our Guest Author: Jack Ferraro, PMP is the founder of MyProjectAdvisor ®. He is a consultant, trainer, and mentor for project managers and teams seeking to excel at strategic project management. Jack is the author of the ground-breaking project management leadership book, The Strategic Project Leader: Mastering Service-Based Project Leadership, published in 2007 which also contains a section written by Roberta Hill.

Trouble at the Summit

Guest Author — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:20:08 +0000

By guest writer Mary Jo Asmus, President, Aspire Collaborative Services

High achievers may exhibit what George Parsons and Richard Pascale have described in Harvard Business Review as “Summit Syndrome”. We notice this phenomenon when an employee with an outstanding career becomes stagnant; or worse, she may sabotage her career by initiating unproductive arguments, failure to collaborate, or neglect for completing assignments. At its worst, the employee with this syndrome may become a candidate for disciplinary action or may leave the organization on her own (sometimes making a radical career change).

The Early Warning Signs Can Turn Ugly

I notice the early signs of Summit Syndrome when my superstar clients indicate a restlessness and craving for new challenges. They may feel that movement to ever greater challenges isn’t happening as quickly for them as it should. Sometimes they may even express a feeling of spiritual or emotional emptiness. New risky hobbies (bungee jumping at 50?) or wreaking havoc on their employees and peers in uncharacteristic ways (temper tantrums, berating others, micro-managing) may begin.

Their health may start to suffer.

This situation is more common than you might imagine. It is tough on them, those around them, and the organization. However, some guidance, clarity, understanding and a manager and a coach who are supportive and understand the circumstances can help get the high achievers back to their stellar selves. The best chance for success happens when the employee’s manager and an external executive coach partner to support the client from inside and outside the organization.

An Executive Coach Can Help

These high achieving employees are driven, but have temporarily lost focus and are sometimes perplexed about what action to take. Their exceptional drive makes them great candidates for coaching; they really want to improve. A coach can work with them and their manager to cut through the ambiguity and help them to get back on track. Once the employee has a vision of what is possible and can focus on what matters in their work, they are often back to climbing the next challenging mountain. These employees are worth their weight in gold, so the cost of executive coaching is a comparatively small investment. In this time of the “war for talent”, leaders can’t afford to lose these most valuable people who may only be temporarily derailed.

Recognizing Trouble on the Summit

Dear Leader,

Your best employees are often those who thrive on massive challenges. The people who have achieved outstanding results in organizations are frequently looking out for, and anxious to begin, the next big thing. They are also the employees that you want to keep. This is true whether the employee is a “high potential”; C-level or CEO; a twenty-something or a baby boomer. It is true regardless of the size of the organization or type of organization.

You May Be in Danger of Losing Valuable Employees

Sit up, take notice and act! Your top performer with high drive is restless. He may be musing about the next big assignment or showing signs of losing drive and focus. He may be suddenly disruptive to the organization or seemingly uncooperative. He may be micro-managing others, an atypical style for him. His performance may be deteriorating. All of these behaviors reflect back on your leadership in a negative way.

Make no mistake – this employee continues to “have what it takes” – unlike others you’ve seen who are incompetent or have just flamed out. You can throw all of the traditional leadership development and talent management programs in the world at him. These won’t help if this employee gets to the edge of losing his job or jumping ship to another career or organization. If caught early, the symptoms of Summit Syndrome can be treated and cured by a wise leader who pays attention and takes measures needed to keep the employee on track.

Ask Your High Achievers What They Need

The wise leader, when observing the characteristic behaviors of this syndrome in his high achievers might consider asking these formerly stellar employees these questions:

• What might be causing your restlessness?
• What strategies may we take to get you back on track?
• What opportunities in our organization might rekindle your passion?
• What will it take to get you ready for the next level?
• What actions can we take to get you back to your usual level of excellence?

We often think we know the answers to the problems our employees face. The fact of the matter is that your high-achieving employees are whole and resourceful, and may know the answers to these questions already – they just need to be asked.

Some outside assistance, in the form of an Executive Coach may be useful in getting to the core of the issues and assisting your valued employees in regaining their successes.

From the March 11, 2008 Aspire Collaborative Services Newsletter

Thinking about Stakeholder Management

Guest Author — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:19:26 +0000

By: Deon Binneman

An organization derives its reputation from its stakeholders. Therefore the perceptions that is created through the things stakeholders see, read, hear about or experience first hand.

But what is a stakeholder? The word stakeholder means anyone that has a legal, moral or economic stake in an activity. Some stakeholders have more clout than others, but that is also changing.

Ghandi was an activist. Today with the right tools, any one person can become an activist or a journalist, hence the rising of the citizen reporter phenomenon. I can have a block of shares in a company, worry about ROI irrespective of the number of people who are retrenched. Alternatively I can be a member of the media. I will have an interest in what your organization does…because the public has a right to know.

The term ‘stakeholder management’ refers to the development and implementation of organisational policies and practices that take into account the goals and concerns of all relevant stakeholders. The term Stakeholder Management also involves the dialogue, relationship building and process generation that take place between an organisation and its various stakeholders. Each of these stakeholders can affect an organisation’s reputation positively or negatively and necessitate different strategies to leverage the situation.

Key questions therefore to ask:

• Who are our stakeholders?

• What are our stakeholders’ stakes?

• What opportunities and challenges do stakeholders present?

• What economic, legal, ethical, and social responsibilities does our firm have?

• What strategies or actions should our firm take to best manage stakeholder challenges and opportunities?

- What strategies or actions should our firm take to best manage stakeholder challenges and opportunities?

– Should we deal directly or indirectly with stakeholders?

– Should we take the offense or the defence in dealing with stakeholders?

– Should we accommodate, negotiate, manipulate or resist stakeholder overtures?

– Should we employ a combination of the above strategies or pursue a singular course of action?

All of these are vital strategic questions to ask for any project, incident or issue. Reputation Risk emerges when the reasonable expectations of stakeholders are not met.

What is reasonable? Let me use an example. The recent amount of product recalls inc. Mattel, aqua dots and the Chinese examples illustrates this very clearly. As a consumer safety is a basic right. I therefore would expect an organization to communicate with me, and warn me of the advantages and drawbacks of a product including tips on how to use it.

But do companies do this? Only those who are enlightened, and not all are. It is only when a body like the FDA forces companies to correspond.

Take a look at the Supersize Me saga, where through a class action law suit, McDonalds were forced to start to use more ethical labeling and change their menus. Why did it happen in the first place?

They were out of touch with current thinking. It is the same with collaboration methods. There are companies who try and stop staff from accessing Facebook, write blogs and use other forms of social media, thinking they can control messages. Yet, we deal with people in companies. Real, live people – not spokespeople, not Corporate Heads, but normal day to day people.

How ready is your organization to engage with its stakeholders? Do they have an integrated or a fragmented approach to managing stakeholders in the organization? Would you like to learn more about this interesting and holistic field of management?

Deon Binneman – Reputation Management Speaker,
Consultant and Trainer, REPUCOMM,
mailto:deonbin@icon.co.za

A wonderful poem on mergers to begin the New Year

Guest Author — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:44:53 +0000

Mergered Tryst

Started with a written kiss
Down the path to wedded bliss
Arranged lovers not ready to consummate
Resisting the beckoning created fate

In the chaos of sudden tryst
This becomes that and that becomes this
rancorous notes become harmonious tune
by arcane ritual, by contractual rune

Yin drives the change into the heart
Yang nurtures the trembling start
Tao emerges as path aglow
Time carries all in relentless flow

Connected head to head
A wedding party of walking dead
Connected heart to heart
A wedding party of hopeful start

Marketed messages and threatening missives
Leadership and Management take and gives
Pull and shove
The hardened fist; the velvet glove

Vision! Process! Goals and Objectives!
Churning, yearning directives
Held high above tempestuous sea
Guiding hope for all to see

Fires purge and burn
As bounded turf is fought and earned
Hell on earth
Potential womb for heavenly birth

Pressure, stress
Demands for best
Plans found wanting
People flowing, performance haunting

And things are what they are
And things are what they are not
Black holes emerge to suck in the light
Shareholders astonished by the plight

Giddy ride as revenues plunge
The new bumping the old to expunge
Break even, break even
The managers pray to heaven

Heart reaches to heart for comfort stole
pieces become parts and parts become whole

And the new day dawns
Upon the Kings, the Queens, the Knights, the pawns

Where there was two
One stands anew
Partly planned
Partly chance’s hand

Yet…

In the beginning
the ending was there to see
but at the ending
twas the beginning that had come to be

by Edward Hampton