Common Roots: Shifting Context – Leadership Springs from Within

Posted on January 30, 2022January 30, 2022 by Kimberly Wiefling

What does a rubber chicken like this one?

Have to do with a book like this one?

Well, Kimberly Wiefling (rubber chicken lady) met Linda Alepin (now author of above book) when they started their study of generative leadership as young professionals.

Kimberly was inspired by the principles of vision, listening, and dreaming to become widely known in the leadership arena, particularly working with innovative Japanese companies.

Linda took the same principles into industry, academia, founding a not for profit that worked with hundreds of people around the globe and, finally, to this book.

Join Linda as the author (and Kimberly as a participant) on Friday, February 4 from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM PST (GMT -8). You will hear stories of people from around the world who are featured in the book.

It’s FREE. Register at bit.ly/shifting-context-launch.

Shifting Context: Leadership Springs from Within is available for pre-sale at Amazon https://amzn.to/3IHdJFS.

Here is what Rayona Sharpnack had to say about the book:

“Shifting Context: Leadership Springs from Within is an important book at an important time in history. Research consistently shows that countries who seriously invest in women’s and girls’ empowerment get a dramatic return on their investment financially, socially, and in all ways that matter for a civil society.

The women featured in this book are exemplars of that important investment!

The book will inspire you, move you, and remind you of the hidden power that women have to make all of our lives better. Kudos to Linda and Barbara for their essential leadership in this movement for social entrepreneurship!”

—Rayona Sharpnack, Founder/CEO at Institute for Gender Partnership and Women’s Leadership, Inc.

These true stories of sheroes and heroes from around the world will inspire you. They demonstrate how leadership that springs from within brings about real social change.

If you are a passionate leader who wants to create greater impact do not miss this book launch and be sure to read the book.

Becoming a Student of Leadership – Making Leadership a Practice, by Jeffrey Page

Posted on July 28, 2021July 28, 2021 by Kimberly Wiefling

If EVER there was a book excerpt MADE for our blog, THIS IS IT! AND Jeff mentions CLUCKSTERS and CHICKENS!! What could be MORE scrappy??!! Enjoy scrappy gal pals! – Kimberly

About the Book

Becoming a Student of Leadership – Making Leadership a Practice is a book about leadership in the broadest sense of the word. It asserts that we all serve as leaders in some way, and we need to become students of leadership to learn how best to lead from our various positions within an organization. As students, we must practice with a drive to continually improve and with the humility to know that we’ll never be finished learning. The most effective leaders spend less time trying to prove what they know and more time creating opportunities for everyone to learn.

The book is written as a series of stories, meditations, and essays about various aspects of leadership including the influence of ego, the importance of humility, the power of radical candor, and the ability to address adversity with generosity and an assumption of positive intent. Many of the pieces present stories about Jeff’s work and life experiences — and often about his mistakes and shortcomings — that led him to revelations about how to become a better leader.

Book Excerpt

Jeff felt the following excerpt of “Becoming a Student of Leadership” might resonate with readers of the “Scrappy Women” blog – and not only because of the word “scrappy” is in the title. As you will see in the excerpt below, Jeff and his wife Lisa admire and applaud the scrappiness of daughter Nicole…

Get Scrappy

When my wife Lisa and I think of our daughter Nicole, there’s one word that usually comes to mind: “Scrappy.”

Describing Nicole as scrappy is an expression of our fondness and admiration for her bold and determined, go-getter attitude. We don’t think of the word’s more quarrelsome connotations. If anything, Nicole is conflict-averse.Continue reading→

How Entrepreneurs Choose What to Delegate and Outsource

Posted on October 1, 2018October 1, 2018 by Avery Phillips

When it’s your business on the line, it makes sense to want to control every aspect of it. However, taking on too much or doing everything yourself are good ways to get burnt out. Once you do, you are no longer effective, and your business could suffer.

Owning or running a business is a big responsibility, but you don’t have to do it alone. You can choose what you want to focus on and then delegate other tasks to staff members. When you learn to delegate, everything runs smoother.

So how do you find that balance? Here are some tips on how to decide what you want to control and what you want to delegate to others.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

As children, we are taught we have to work ourselves to death to be successful. Later in life, we find out that is not really the case. A better way is to work smarter, not harder.

Before you start your day, identify a few priorities that you need to get done. Don’t make a big list, just the top five. Focus on each one for 90 minutes and then take a break to recharge.

Use good management software and mobile apps to help you collaborate and communicate easily with your team. Software like Slack, Asana, and Google can help you to share the load. Let technology take some of the burden off of you.

Effectively Managing Staff

You’ve hired your superstar team of high-performers now it’s time to put them to the test. Instead of babysitting their every move, train them well and give them the resources and support to do their job effectively. Giving them responsibility frees you up to manage your business.

Your focus needs to be on strategy and keeping all the pieces together. You oversee a lot of departments, and if you are doing all the work, you will not be able to see the big picture. Take a step back and delegate to your staff all those little tasks that eat up your day.

Put into place checkpoints and milestones where your employees update you, so you know where they are regarding progress. The simple act of setting expectations ensures you will have the information you need when you need it. Removing worry from the equation will help you clarify what your job should be.

Hand Over the Keys

Highlight employees skills and motivate them with praise on the things they are doing well. Minimize their shortcomings and try not to dwell on them as much. You do not want a demoralized workforce.

Once you hand over the keys and let someone else drive, you’ll be able to survey the landscape and brainstorm new ideas. You will also have the time and energy to manage your teams more effectively without finite thinking. Expand your horizon by delegating and get more than you ever expected.

Until you take the plunge and try handing over some of your daily tasks, you won’t believe how freeing it can be. You have a mental list already of the things you would like to do someday if you had the time. Make the time today by delegating those pesky jobs that get in the way of progress.

Train Your People Well

Nothing can replace a good training program. If you want your staff to excel, train them well and provide useful resources and support. Give them wings to fly, and they will surprise you by taking off and soaring with your business goals in hand.

It’s hard to trust others with something you know you do the best. So, train them to do it exactly the way you do and how you want it done. Monitor their progress in the beginning and, when you are satisfied, let them take over that task without micromanaging them.

Make common tasks repeatable, so they are easy for anyone to take over. Document and create video instructions to make it easy for new hires to follow the process. Implement systems so you can trust your people will do things the way you want them.

Balancing Delegation With Cash Flow Expectations

A harsh reality of being a small business owner is dealing with cash flow. When it’s just you, it is easier, but when you are paying a staff, things can get more complicated. The good news is that this can help you determine what to delegate or outsource.

The key to managing finances for your business is to know where you stand at any given moment. You don’t have to dig deep into every number, but you should be aware of the big picture and what you need to pay and what you expect for revenue.

In some cases, it might make more fiscal sense for you to take on some tasks rather than delegate them. If you can do it cheaper without compromising your efficiency, then save the money. However, if you struggle with certain jobs, it might be better to outsource them and spend the money to get them right.

Benefits of Delegating

Delegating frees you up to focus on the larger issues of moving your business forward. Growth is where you should be putting your energy. Leave the day-to-day minutia to the people you hired to handle it.

Delegation and trust build confidence and commitment in employees. People like to be involved and trusted to do their jobs well. Positive reinforcement to employees is like honey to flies.

You as the boss are the big picture thinker and strategist. When you share the work, you demand the respect of those working for you. Delegation shows you are a team player and trust your employees to work with you, not just for you.

Smart People + Smart Leadership = Happy Customers? by Lucy Freedman

Posted on July 5, 2016July 9, 2016 by Kimberly Wiefling

Interpersonal Intelligence for Technical Organizations

By Lucy Freedman, developer of the SYNTAX of Influence, co-author of Smart Work (the second edition of Smart Work: The Syntax Guide to Influence, is available at HappyAbout.com or Amazon. ).

Originally published at http://svforumelsig.blogspot.jp/

When I first started my business, a mentor quizzed me about what it meant to have a business. Does coming up with a great idea make it a business? Clearly no. Does having a product make it a business? What about an office, employees, marketing? No, no, and no, he said. You have a business when you have a customer. Aha.

In the world of technology, we can get so focused on the product or process that the relationship part of the business receives a minimal amount of mindshare. Sure, when we need to make a funding pitch, attract a key executive, or give a customer presentation, we put attention into those relationships. Even then, it’s typical of technologists to be mostly content-oriented and not so focused on tuning into the interests of their audience. There’s room for growth.

While the ability to relate well with funders, talent, and customers is important for business success, the internal communication in a company is equally important. What customers and VC’s really want is for the product to work and meet their needs in a timely and cost-effective way. For that to happen, managers and teams need to be able to get on the same page and come up with solutions and answers. Knowledge needs to be mobilized. Deadlines need to be met. Problems need to be solved. All this takes communication that is both focused and flexible.

The Challenge

The kinds of interpersonal intelligence that allow people and teams to collaborate well tend to be underdeveloped in engineering organizations for three main reasons.

Engineers are generally not drawn to learning “soft skills”
Engineering leadership is mostly made up of engineers
Most interpersonal skills training is oriented more toward personal growth than practical business interactions.

As a result, efficiency, accurate and relevant sharing of knowledge, and delivery to the customer are often hampered by turf battles, planning disconnects, and just plain miscommunication.

Is this just a depressing downer, condemning engineering organizations and their customers to clunky communication, relieved only by those special high-tech + high-touch individuals who can navigate well both technically and interpersonally? Although many are resigned to this state of affairs, there are lights flickering here and there.

Bright Lights and Good Books

In fact, at a past Silicon Valley Engineering Leadership Community meeting, Ron Lichty presented a “Crash Course” based on his new book with co-author Mickey W. Mantle, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams (Addison-Wesley, www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net ). They address important considerations for people who move up the technical ladder from writing code to managing people.

Another new and highly recommended book on this subject is Team Geek: A Software Developer’s Guide to Working Well with Others by Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman (O’Reilly Media, 2012). It’s very entertaining reading and addresses expanding circles of influence, from your own team to the organization to the user community.

A few years back, Michael Lopp wrote the insightful and humorous book, Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager (Apress, 2007). Michael gives practical advice for many of the situations that recur in software development. He names some of the types of people you’ll run across – such as Mr. Irrelevant, Laptop Larry, Curveball Kurt, the Snake, and Free Electrons. Cleverly written, full of useful homilies.

What all of these books have in common is the practical experience of the authors, who have lived what they are writing about. They share illustrative stories that those who follow in their footsteps will easily relate to.

De-coding How People Work

As an outsider who can’t code my way out of a paper bag, I have been taking a different approach for the past few decades of working as a consultant, coach, and facilitator for high tech companies. Programmers understand the structure, or syntax, that is required for code to work. I have studied the structure, or syntax, that is required for human communication to work.

What I have discovered is that the smart people who know how to code have an easier time learning interpersonal skills when they have access to the proper syntax for communicating. Hundreds of engineers have experienced and applied the SYNTAX model to their workplaces. People who considered themselves non-people-oriented have shown that with several relatively small changes in their communication, they can achieve great improvements in their working relationships.

This is not about sentence structure or grammar. If you consider that people are pretty systematic in how we organize our perceptions and our behavior, it makes sense that you can detect each person’s syntax, and hence, get more predictable results with them. There’s also a structure, a syntax derived from studying outstanding performers, that makes communication work better. Our model, SYNTAX, represents that architecture so that people can easily learn it.

It’s explained in detail in the book Smart Work, which I co-authored with Lisa Marshall. If you are interested in getting a look at it, or even writing a review, please contact me at syntaxoffice@syntx.com and I will gladly share it with you.

Smart Leadership

When leaders in an organization start practicing SYNTAX principles, or some of the other excellent suggestions in the books listed above, they create a climate where it is much more natural for others to collaborate productively as well. It’s a matter of good design of human systems – whether writing effective, clean code for applications that will benefit people, or holding effective, clean meetings where work gets done and agreements are solid, it’s about designing intelligent human systems.

Whether through the stories and rules of the road derived from experience, or through applying a systematic, structured approach to interpersonal behavior, everyone benefits when a technical organization develops its conscious competence at communicating.

Engineering is about solving real-world problems and creating innovations that make a difference. It takes smart people working well together to do this successfully. With smart people, smart leadership, and outstanding communication, you get happy customers. That, plus your satisfaction at meeting your own high standards, makes it worthwhile to master the softer skills.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lucy Freedman is Founder and CEO of Syntax for Change, working with change leaders in technology companies to spread collaborative leadership throughout their organizations and to their strategic partners. Lucy has trained and certified both internal and external facilitators who have implemented Syntax programs in companies such as Agilent, HP, Sun, Oracle, EDS, Tokyo Electron, Intel, National Semiconductor, and Cisco Systems. Visit SyntaxforChange.com for an explanatory video and to request a complimentary sample chapter of Smart Work: The Syntax Guide to Influence. Direct email is lucy@syntaxforchange.com.

Leaders Make the Future by Sue Lebeck

Posted on March 4, 2014February 26, 2020 by Kimberly Wiefling

(Originally posted at Sue Lebecks’s blog on www.innovatingsmart.org, May 24, 2011)

Great title, yes? It’s not mine! This title and the inspiring book behind it belong to Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future. The full title, published in 2009, is Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World. Thought you’d read all the leadership books you’ll ever need? Think again.

As Bob expresses in his opening lines:

“We are entering a threshold decade… [a VUCA world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.] Self-interest will not be enough: leaders will need to broaden their concept of self to include the larger systems of which they are a part… Traditional business leadership mandates won’t be enough. Leaders must… embrace the shared assets and opportunities around them… This will be a very tough decade to be a leader, but it will also be a very exciting and meaningful time to lead, with the right set of skills and appropriate expectations.”

So, what are those new leadership skills for an uncertain world?

Today’s SMART innovation story, which is a visual revisit of the inspiring tale of Serious Materials (check out the just-completed video) includes evidence of several of these new essential leadership skills. For example, the maker instinct is alive and well in Kevin Surace’s story. Redirecting his Silicon Valley high tech experience and skills in the direction of clean tech, Kevin has gotten serious about becoming a Maker, developing products to help re-create the built environment. The skill of clarity enabled him to see beyond the common and critical problems of fuels and transportation to focus on this much larger problem of buildings and materials. An immersive learning ability has made him a quick study for the possibilities present, and an apparent adeptness for rapid prototyping and experimentation has enabled him and his team to realize many of those possibilities already.

In addition to these four potent skills, Bob’s book identifies the need for six other critical skills, and articulates them in fresh and clear language. Key among these is dilemma flipping, the “ability to turn dilemmas — which, unlike problems, cannot be solved — into advantages and opportunities”. The Institute for the Future’s Ten-Year Forecast (found on the inside cover of the book) reveals dilemmas everywhere. Dilemmas lurk amidst competing social diasporas, terrorism-redefined warfare, and the uber-expectations of baby-boomers (especially when juxtasuposed with the challenges posed by sustainability goals). Dealing with these dilemmas will require the ability to “remake” a situation — “reimagining and making again.”

Close behind dilemma flipping, also fresh and important is the skill of bio-empathy — the “ability to see things from nature’s point of view”. “Bio-empathy is about seeing human activity as nested within envrionmental stability and vice versa.” This necessary modern skill is applied, nurtured and propagated as a design and engineering lens through the further leadership of Janine Benyus and the Biomimicry Guild and Institute she has built.

Constructive depolarizing and quiet transparency round out a 21st century leader’s artfulness kit — moving minds and building trust along the way. Finally, smart mob organizing and commons creating are among today’s power tools, helping leaders to engender their leadership principles at scale.

Leaders make the future indeed. How are you a leader? What is the future you are making? We would love to hear your story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sue Lebeck is an innovation management specialist working to advance smart, sustainability-driven systems. A researcher, product management and development specialist and innovation manager, Sue brings her diverse background in software, psychology, media and collaboration to the work of sustainability innovation.

Through the GotSMART? suite of services, Sue offers internal research and communications services to her clients’ leadership and marketing functions; assists initiative leaders in mapping their sustainability-driven stakeholder needs to technology requirements; and facilitates the implementation process. With GotSMART? smart leaders get the extra support they need.