Dare To Be Different

At 21, he worked at a poultry processing plan during college. After experience in nearly every role in operations, he was named general manager and supervised 500 people. Knowing what people did gave him a platform to understand their routines, challenges and risks.

“Leadership is getting people to exceed their own expectations,” says G.J. Hart, CEO, California Pizza Kitchen.The high-performing CPK chief focuses lots of attention on talent development. Earlier this year, he shared six leadership steps he relies on with the New York Times.

(1) Be the best you can be. You can’t lead anybody if you can’t lead yourself. Know what you need to work on.

(2) Dream big. Identify big possibilities and get started, now.

(3) Lead with your heart first. People respond to authenticity.

(4) Trust your team and help them grow.

(5) Do the right thing – always. Integrity will prevail.

(6) Serve the people on your team. Put the cause before yourself.

Hart, a Dutch immigrant, says his own style has evolved. Today, he’s more patient and tolerant. His most important tip? Courage.
“Any leadership role is about stepping out…having the courage to be different, because you have to be different to be a leader.”

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed.D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillips Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems and social change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See: http://www.pwkinc.com

Seeking Social Benefit

How do we lead new, more effective ways to deliver social benefit? For many decades, private sector management has applied this lever to their parallel performance challenges. Bill Gates recently extolled its value. A reasonable answer to the question: measurement.

The Gates Foundation 2013 annual letter spells out accomplishments and an ambitious agenda. But, a key message is measuring for managing. “I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition,” wrote Gates. He cites the intent to eradicate polio. And, describes timely, local, accurate measurement is a prequel to “figure out what is wrong, and fix it.”

Performance Management
Measurement is intimately connected to performance management. Performance management relies on data collection, analysis and course correction. Increasingly, the public, stakeholders, funders and others ask:
• What value are we getting?
• What more can our work deliver?
• How are we changing lives and systems?
These are all fair questions that paid (and volunteer) manager-leaders are eager to answer, too.

In Michigan, measurement has had serious application in early childhood development efforts. First Steps, in partnership with Grand Rapids Public Schools, has focused on what works under what conditions in high-risk neighborhoods with vulnerable children. For example, in less than a week, a pre-kindergarten “camp” positively affected the socio-emotional status of children along with adoption of routines. In addition, Play & Learn groups showed changes in children’s language and literacy skills. Because of measurement, it’s possible to demonstrate progress, thoughtfully adapt programs and identify the value interventions contribute to children, their families and the education system.

Funds for Results
In most contexts, funds are given for the promise of a desired change or intended result in the nonprofit sector. However, as resources are more scarce, connecting funding with proven success may become more common. New financing instruments called social impact bonds require explicit results to continue funding. The planned results and associated cost savings are built into the economic model. And, even the US government is exploring the idea of results-based resources in their programs that offer financial support for social challenges (called Pay for Success).

The discipline of measurement is underutilized, perhaps because of the distinct skills it requires. It also carries some risk, because it points out poor program design, plans and/or implementation. Measurement can certainly identify waste. Notably, not everyone has the same vibrant passion for efficiency and effectiveness.

Social Progress
The old adage goes: You can’t manage what you don’t measure. While “social engineering” has plenty of detractors and critical issues in it – much of our tax exempt or civil sector have huge caches of social, political and economic capital aimed at social change that can deliver more, better value.

Literacy and competencies in measurement are essential to both leapfrog and routine progress. These days, a noble cause is only a great start. Authentic claims about impact or serious change must be grounded in precise measurement. Ask Bill Gates.

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed.D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillips Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems and social change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See: http://www.pwkinc.com

Provoking Progress

Goal success relies on some critical attributes and practices. Research suggests discipline, strategy, adaptation, decisiveness, and will matters. To deliver breakthroughs and be “out front,” leaders need to be agile, creative risk-takers. All of these factors can contribute to progress or innovation.

Innovation can be understood in three types: evolutionary, revolutionary and disruptive.

Evolutionary refers to improvement in a current market that can be expected. For example, in health care more nurse-delivered care is evolutionary.

Revolutionary refers to improvement that’s not expected. For example in dentistry, dental therapists may be certified and licensed to replace dentists in some care settings.

Disruptive refers to improvement that is unexpected and lots more. It can create new customers, competitors, value and a marketplace previously unidentified. For example, the application of networking and information technology to healthcare has (and will) generate new enterprise. Sensors or robotics that assist patients in specific ways can prevent new costs and complications.

Some change can be replication with “tweaks” or evolutionary. But, there’s lots of room for both revolution and disruption as you (with others) imagine, plan and deliver results. Generating innovation requires new attitudes, thinking and processes.

Gary Shapiro’s latest book, “Ninja Innovation” calls out some important qualities associated with success. Ninjas were spies for the Japanese noble class and valued for skills and training. They were smart and adept professionals. A contemporary US counterpart might be Special Forces personnel.

A few of Shapiro’s ninja innovation characteristics are:
• A ruthless dedication to secure the goal.
• Building the right, great team.
• A disciplined attitude with unwavering focus on the goal.
• Environmental sensing and adjustments to plan.
• Both risk-taking and rule breaking with ethics.

As an agent for change, your choices and actions catalyze others. The factors that can influence individual and organization success are intertwined. We each have direct control of our own attitudes, knowledge, skill and behavior. Where’s the ninja in you?

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillips Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See: http://www.pwkinc.com.

Lincoln Lessons

Your choices and actions can make great contributions to both public and private value. Recent attention and related discussion around the film, Lincoln, offers a spotlight for some powerful lessons in managing and leading. The movie focuses mostly on the 13th Amendment, which made slavery unconstitutional. However, the leadership Lincoln demonstrated in the period before the Emancipation Proclamation is also significant and revealing.

The Situation. Lincoln was burdened by the tensions created in a commitment to abolish slavery but preserve the Union. Opponents were merciless in criticism and allies were very frustrated. He was troubled by huge loss of life from the Civil War, depressed by his own child’s death, faced intense political opposition and other practical difficulties.

Lincoln Attributes. Most historians and contemporary observers agree that Lincoln was resilient, patient, thorough, emotionally intelligent, showed moral clarity and passion, was accessible, present, authentic, intuitive and credible. He was also known for his honesty and humility.

Lincoln Competencies. A review of his skills and knowledge indicate Lincoln was a careful listener, a capable analyst and strategist, adaptive, integrative and evidence-based. His management choices were well-timed and he was a deliberate thinker.

The Lincoln Lessons

(1) Keep the big goal constant. Disciplined thought and action against that North Star will ensure forward progress. Lincoln never wavered on his intended primary result.

(2) Be accessible. Leadership doesn’t hide behind closed doors as it ensures only isolation, insulation and elitism. Lincoln engaged in “open hours” with citizens at the White House and communicated constantly with those inside and outside his influence.

(3) Actively seek diverse opinion and thought. A range of thought was key to great perspective. Inclusion is an important principle. Lincoln invited his rivals’ opinions and experiences.

(4) Humility and honesty win. Ego, lies and manipulation take time and energy. Lincoln’s character was consistent and reliable. He rarely sought retribution or vengeance and kept a long view.

(5) Expect challenge and adversity. Change involves opposition and risk. Lincoln faced tough opponents and new obstacles repeatedly.

(6) Adapt tactics to context. Gathering information, sensing and interpretation are vital tasks which inform revision. Lincoln was willing to alter plans.

(7) Recognize timing matters. An emotional or even fast response may not be best. Lincoln waited strategically to share the Emancipation Proclamation after a battle victory for good reason.

(8) Share responsibility and success. Know that others have important contributions to make. Find and engage great people. Lincoln worked with and through a team. Competent managers act this way.

(9) Be persistent with complexity. Don’t react, respond. Think long enough to untangle the knots. Lincoln was known for his intellectual exploration.

(10) Messages matter. Effective communications are important in connecting with people. Lincoln used humor and told stories with a lesson. Compared to others, his public comments were short and clear.

Harvard Business School uses a case on Lincoln’s presidency to illustrate good practices. Our 16th president was very capable, but not flawless. Nobody is. But, his choices can offer inspiration and constructive example.

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillips Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : http://www.pwkinc.com

A Cardboard Bicycle

It’s what everybody wants and all organizations need.

Innovation.

Innovation is a word used so often – it’s worthwhile to define to assure shared understanding. Innovation is a process. It is a particular kind of process that yields value. Innovation has three key factors: (1) it has to be replicable, (2) have a reasonable cost and (3) satisfy a specific need.

In the private sector, innovation is spurred by market competition to meet customer expectations or demands. In the social sector, it’s driven by a commitment to better serve a vulnerable population or remedy a social concern.

How Does Innovation Happen?

Most often the process of innovation involves a deliberate application of information, imagination and initiative that yields more, better or different value from resources. It includes all the processes which generate new ideas, services and products. There are two general types of innovation: evolutionary and revolutionary.

• Evolutionary innovation reflects continuous incremental advances in an existing idea, service or product.
• Revolutionary innovation is disruptive and entirely different or new.

A Chocolate Teapot & Cardboard Bike

Depending on where you sit, Izhar Gafni’s work may be tough to categorize. He has invented a cardboard bicycle. Initially, bikes were made of wood. These days, premium bikes are aluminum or carbon. But, Gafni’s model is a derivative of the original material: cardboard is a particular weight of paper that is wood-based. He uses origami principles to fold cardboard in a unique way and then coats it with resin before cutting out the shapes needed to create bike parts. He recycles solid rubber from car tires to create bike tires and the chain. Recycled bottles are the source of pedals and brakes.

Gafni’s cardboard bike weighs what most conventional bikes do and can support an adult rider. His innovation could help millions of people with basic transport. The cost is estimated at $9-12 a unit. Innovation is powerful. Even if you’re not in the market for a cheap bike, Gafni’s work can inspire…He created something feasible and strategic that sounds impossible!

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillip Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : www.pwkinc.com.

Avoid Strategy Sabotage

A primary challenge in strategy development is anticipating the future – correctly. It’s a tall order. Strategy creates public and private value. It’s central to every organization and team.

Determining the actions most likely to secure your intended results employs strategic planning. Creating strategy, for a program or entire organization, generally requires a series of explicit steps. While a routine function, the process of strategy development offers plenty of opportunity for error.

In this list, I’ve noted the most common “sins.” Consider these as you guard against missteps and improve the quality of your strategy development.

1. Failure to know where you are now. Clarity about your current situation is essential if you are pointing towards a new target. Strategy has everything to do with decisions about the optimal route for the outcome you intend. If you don’t know the current situation then you have no good data on how to create forward action. Shaky ground isn’t equal to a solid foundation – so it’s vital to get this part right.

2. Difficulty in detecting patterns. Your “read” of the context and forecast for the future is important to analysis, interpretation and application. Seeing patterns and anticipating new ones are vital to strategy development. Testing whether others “see” things the same or different and knowing why is a good idea.

3. Lack of choice points. A clear specification of issues and their perceived implications are vital in strategy development. Framing both the challenges which impede progress and the context which will catalyze motion are critical to decisions about forward actions.

4. Unwillingness to acknowledge bias. We all have opinions and perspectives based on prior experience and training. How deeply these are held and whether we can accommodate and explore new mental models affects the discussions and review of strategy. Being aware of bias can mitigate it.

5. Absence of actionable measures. A few and the right measures are important as touchstones for determining progress. To inform decisions or actions, measurement must be part of any strategy. It provides feedback data to confirm existing direction and to indicate necessary course corrections. Winston Churchill said it.” However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

6. Reluctance to review capacity. It’s possible to desire a new outcome, but the potential for achieving it relies heavily on what assets your program or organization has in hand for execution. Do you have the skillful talent integral to the work ahead as well along with the financial resources and time to make results a real possibility? An “internal audit” will surface both needs and assumptions about organization/team capacity that are key to strategy success.

7. Inadequate engagement. Who participates in strategy development matters a lot. It’s also vital to the subsequent socialization and implementation of strategy. Be sure dissent and minority opinions are aired to “kick” strategy. Careful consideration should be given to who participates and when in your process.

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillip Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : www.pwkinc.com.

In Pursuit of Ignorance

Charles Darwin, 1881

“Knowledge is a big subject. Ignorance is bigger…and it is more interesting,” says Columbia University neuroscientist Stuart Firestein. He claims exploring the unknown is the true engine of science. Ignorance, he says, helps scientists concentrate their research.

Firestein’s book, “Ignorance: How It Drives Science” argues that what we don’t know is more valuable than building on what we do know. He believes ignorance follows knowledge. Knowledge enables scientists to propose and pursue interesting questions. Rather than big tangles like the “How was the Universe formed?” Firestein favors the more specific. In the social and private sectors, this perspective has enormous merit for both routines and innovation.

Great Questions

Inquiry can catalyze learning and support change. In a recent proposal to an influential funder, we posed work with colleagues as applied research. The primary question: What early childhood learning investment works best with which kids? Why? This raises others:

• When is the best time to provide intervention and enrichment?
• How many opportunities are available in each intervention and enrichment opportunity?
• What gains are made at what cost?
• What proportion of 4-year olds are most at risk?
• How are children distributed along a continuum of need? 

Thoughtful Ignorance

According to Firestein, “Thoughtful ignorance looks at gaps in a community’s understanding and seeks to resolve them.” A historic example underscores this opinion. Deeply religious Victorian society in the late 1800s was shocked by Darwin’s suggestion that humans and animals shared common ancestry. His “non-religious biology” asked some vital questions about the origin of the species and revealed  new, big ideas. Apparently, Charles Darwin was a prescient forecaster for Firestein. Long ago Darwin said: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

Identify what you don’t know. Be willing to ask great questions; vigorously pursue discovery. These attitudes and practices yield improvements and change.  

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillip Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : www.pwkinc.com

New: The Logic  Model Guidebook (2013) just published by SAGE.

Lessons From The Bread Guy

Whole grain or white ?

If you don’t eat there – it’s likely you’ve seen the Panera Bread name. Ron Shaich is the founder, chairman and co-CEO. He’s running an immensely popular chain of bakery-cafes. It’s a growing business and trend-setter in “quick casual” dining. I think he’s a fascinating manager-leader with lessons to share.

Why?

People: The Weighted Factor

While his first and early interest was profit — his primary one, now, is people. He believes how they are organized and work together mean everything to organization performance. This guy tells applicants in interviews they have a shared objective: value.  How can the individual and the employer provide mutual value to each other? He considers the interview an important chance to relax traditional exchanges and identify the intersection of an individual’s skills with their potential to make a contribution.

Key to the Panera Bread culture is a rule: no jerks.  Shaich says that his “no jerk” rule started out as a more precise anatomical reference but has been sanitized. As important, he focuses his team on  tangled, tough work with optimism and mastery. He welcomes complex challenges because tackling them yields a competitive advantage. He reasons:  if the work is simple, then any other organization can do it well, too.

Delivery & Discovery Muscles

In a recent New York Times interview, Shaich offers insights on an effective organization.  He says how work gets done is the “delivery muscle.’” Shaich calls improvement and innovation efforts the “discovery muscle.” While the delivery muscle is feels safe, analytic and rational, he believes it frequently overwhelms strategies and related decisions. He thinks this muscle can encourage disconnected roles and functions internally.

He believes companies and other organizations often err because the discovery muscle is under-developed . The discovery muscle sees new patterns and approaches. It represents getting ahead of current thinking and leaps of faith that trust instinct and pursue risk. The discovery muscle forces focus on the whole organization and responsive action with a forward view.

Learning Requires Inquiry

Shaich considers his style a combination of both directed and adaptive. He is consistently reflective. In his own words: “I am constantly asking about everything – what works and what doesn’t.”  The Panera recipe is successful. In short, it looks like this: great talent, mastery, lots of questions, and balanced muscles.

This leader is a learner who discovers and delivers.

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillip Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : www.pwkinc.com

Break Throughs Take Will and Capacity

Yiannis Boutaris, 70, a successful Greek winemaker has been mayor of Thessaloniki for 18 months. Thessaloniki, Greece, is a sprawling city of 800,000 people on the Aegean Sea. It is second in size only to Athens.

Bankrupt & Corrupt

Boutaris inherited a city on the brink of bankruptcy (nearly $130 million in debt), with outdated laws and regulations, corruption, manufacturing decline and few tourists. His predecessor and 17 colleagues have been indicted – accused of stealing about $38 million.

Under these conditions, pundits gave the new mayor little prospect for success. Bloated municipal employment, inadequate basic services, discord with Turkey, and tangled regulations were all accepted as “normal.” However, this wiry septuagenarian who sports a pierced earring and frequently punctuates his point of view with profanity, knows two fundamental factors vital for change: will and capacity.

Will & Capacity

Will is the practical and political determination to persist. Will endures both obstacles and critics. It prevails. Boutaris advises: “When you propose the slightest change, people say no. If you do it all at once, it is a different thing. Something has to break through.” He adds: “You cannot step back, if you step back you lose.”

Capacity is about the strategic management acumen to make smart, hard choices that enable performance. Capacity reflects knowledge, skills, training and experience. Boutaris has made unpopular but effective decisions about budgets, employees, public policy and external relations. He is changing practices with a focus on different and better.

Whether a community, an organization or individual, will and capacity are requisites for change to occur.

Boutaris is undeterred in his reforms. (For more, see NYT Saturday Profile.) To date he has begun recycling programs, resumed relations with Turkey, grown tourism, and instituted unheard of practices at City Hall: job descriptions, goals and evaluations. He has cut city costs by 30%. One man insists on making his hometown a place of progress and growth.

I bet it happens.

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillip Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : www.pwkinc.com

The Wonder of Willpower

David Blaine has been buried alive for seven days, encased himself in a block of ice for three, endured a 44-day fast and held his breath for 17 minutes. Blaine has willingly experienced physical pain, trauma, and deprivation in amazing displays of self control. He is an endurance artist. He’s unusual.

Endurance Artist

Few people are endurance artists, but most of us want to be effective. Like Blaine, highly successful people manage themselves through internal motivation – often called willpower.

By comparison, when more than a million people were surveyed about a range of personal strengths, which virtue was identified least often? Although honesty, kindness, humor, creativity, bravery, and modesty are often cited – self control is dead last.

Constant Temptation

Desire in humans, a perceived need or want, is prevalent. In about half of waking hours people are challenged with a temptation. The most commonly resisted desire is an urge to eat, followed by sleep, and leisure. To cope with desires – people most often look for a distraction, suppression or simply attempt to avoid the lure of an experience or object.On average, people succeed in resisting temptation only about 50% of the time.

As you might guess, poor self-control correlates with all kinds of personal trauma: compulsive spending, domestic violence, crime, chronic anxiety, explosive anger, procrastination, bad nutrition, alcohol and drug abuse. Conversely, managers rated most favorably by their peers and staff also score high in self control. Observers will most often use descriptors like disciplined or focused.

Build Willpower

It’s possible to build willpower. Here are some suggestions to develop your resolve:

Do a little more. If you jog three miles daily – add another half mile.

Respect decisions. Make a choice, stick with it. Don’t waffle.

Do things differently. Explore new ways and habits.

Be committed. Don’t “try.” It is shorthand for maybe. Do it.

Start again and again. Each attempt has value, don’t quit.

Surround yourself with support. Ally with others who pursue ambitious, shared goals.

Willpower is all about what you ought to do – not what you want to do.

Budgets Force Choices

After studying thousands of people, scientists say it’s conclusive: everyone has a finite amount of willpower. Our will can weaken…and the same limited energy “bank” is called on for all tasks. So, each of us has to budget. Taking on too many simultaneous demands ensure failure with some. It means priorities are absolutely essential to success.

The demands of managing and leading change are intense. Willpower can support  long-haul endurance for the inevitable challenges you face. Grow yours!

-Lisa Wyatt, Ed. D. is chief strategy officer and partner in Phillip Wyatt Knowlton, Inc. PWK is a performance management resource for systems change with clients worldwide. Lisa has cross-sector and international experience. She is an author and W.K. Kellogg Leadership Fellow. See : www.pwkinc.com