Carnival of Quality Management and Articles Blog Festival – April 2013

Welcome to April 2013 edition of Carnival of Quality Management and Articles Blog Festival.

I have only three broad divisions of the articles for this month’s edition of the Blog Festival:

One relating to core Quality area, and another relating to areas that leads to a better organization, better life over a period of time, and the other one relating Change Management.

Articles relating to the Core Quality Function -

Four Ways to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Root Cause Analysis Process
Root Cause Analysis is all about improving your bottom line in safety, environmental compliance and profitability. This paper explores measuring the effectiveness of Root Cause Analysis as a business process intended to produce business results. The author provides examples of the primary KPIs that will help you keep your finger firmly on the pulse of your RCA process.

Five Ways to Boost Quality in Manufacturing Operations – John Mills, executive vice president of business development, Rideau Recognition Solutions

1. Reward success
2. Measure team performance
3. Avoid abstract
4. Study peers and success stories
5. Process over product

Manufacturing is a precise business that tolerates errors poorly, as Boeing appears to be finding out right now. Strike a balance on your line. Reward teams that find ways to creatively boost output without sacrificing safety. Reserve penalties for only the most serious errors.

And be mindful of history. Every production line experiences trouble from time to time, but recurring mistakes are inexcusable.

And quite useful and interesting articles, from Bizmanuals:

How to Create A Policy & Procedures Manual –

Among the tools prescribed to help create the manual, Business Process Map is the heart of the manual creation. And in a related article, Top 10 Policy Procedure Templates, for which the requests keep pouring in, can be browsed.

Management by Procedures is how McDonalds or other successful franchises manage their business.  You start by defining your process using a process map to build visual communication and understanding.  Next, write down what needs to get done, by whom, and when.  Then deploy and practice the procedure.  Perfect the procedure until you have a consistent process just like a franchise would need to roll this out to hundreds of others.

What Process Approach Questions are Used for a Process Audit? –
Process auditing is focused on determining process effectiveness and the ability to achieve planned results.

Ask The Experts takes up  a detailed reply to a question relating to Clause 7.6 of ISO 9001-2008 in Measurement System Analysis.

SIPOC – Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer – is an interesting method to look at the critical-to=quality requirements of the process. The question on SIPOC relates to healthcare industry, and is thus very useful for quality professionals from other industries to understand the concept.

And omnibus round ups by borawski– of the series of articles under a subject for the month:

Roundup–Quality In Unexpected Places -  for March 2013

Roundup–Risk and Failure in Quality and Science for February 2013

And here is an omnibus collection of the articles that do have a bearing on the quality of life that you live – at the organization, at personal or social levels -

Learn To Prioritize Effectively

To prioritize effectively, it is important to think about what activities, tasks, responsibilities, etc. are most important to you and deserve your time. So how do you decide what is “important?” I use a simple criterion to define what is important and where I spend my time. I define things I can do as good, better, and best.

In a speech given by Dallin H. Oaks speaks about how to prioritize effectively and make correct choices. He spoke about the difference between good, better, and best choices.

Do you have a “Go-To” Top10?

All of us have situations which are problematic. They can range from minor irritations and something irksome, to outright emergencies. We all need a ‘Go-To” Top 10. These will be your top 10 top professional connections to whom you can turn in a crisis or even with a problem or a question.

Five Ways To Turn Your Crisis Into A Comeback – by Tim Milburn –

1. Recognize what got you headed in the wrong direction in the first place. [else, you may be doomed to repeat those things, again and again.]
2.  Ask yourself: Why?
3.  Set your sights on a goal, a target.
4. Do something every day.
5. Find joy in the process

The Not Knowing Path of Being an Entrepreneur – By Leo Babauta

Lots of people… try to control the outcomes. Unfortunately, the ability to control outcomes is an illusion.

Here’s How to Walk The Not Knowing Path:

1. Admit you don’t know
2. Watch for (the source of) anxiety
3. Tell yourself you’ll be OK
4. Consider worst-case scenarios
5. Know your principles
6. Act on your principles, not on (your) goals or plans
7. Breathe and  smile.

The Fundamental Problem in Management – Timothy Kastelle

The fundamental problem in management is that the world is uncertain, and people hate dealing with uncertainty…The problem with requiring certainty is that when you do, you fail to act.. All of the bad aspects of bureaucracy come from trying to build systems that provide certainty in a world that is by its very nature uncertain…The more businesses I work in and talk with, the more convinced I become that the single most important management skill to develop is a tolerance for ambiguity.

Dr. Deming’s Joy at Work, Happiness & the High Performance Organization – Key factors that lead to a happy life also have direct implications for creating a happy and productive workplace. – Lawrence M. Miller, www.ManagementMeditations.com

1. Build great teams! Be sure that every employee serves on a well-functioning team with knowledge of its purpose and its performance. Encourage celebration of winning team goals and setting records.
2. Build internal social networks. Build social networks around common interests and competencies. These become learning networks that provide both the joy of social relationships but also the joy of learning.
3. Be sure to practice respect for people and recognize that the world’s greatest experts are those who are on-the-spot, with their hands on the work. This builds their self-esteem and encourages learning.
4. Institute a process of gaining flexibility through multi-skilled, cross trained employees who can optimize the effectiveness of their teams.
5. Stop wasting money where it doesn’t pay off and spend it where it does. Pay employees for gaining skills and achieving performance. Value high performance by paying for it.
6. Know and promote the worthy purpose of your organization. Ennoble your employees by connecting them to a spirit of service. This is the essence of leadership.
7. Hire optimists and not pessimists. Generate hope and optimism by clearly stating where we are going and why it will be great when we get there. Generate creative dissatisfaction in yourself and your employees.

Five Questions CEOs Should Ask about their Supply Chain –

Minimizing supply-chain-disruptions requires taking a best-in-class approach from the highest levels of the company – Brian Nolf and Gerhard Plenert, Wipro Consulting Services

1. Is quality built into your supply chain, or do inspection and correction occur after the fact?

2. Is supply chain management a strategic senior level position in your organization or is it a part of an operations activity?

3. Is the movement of information and money as critical in your supply chain as the movement of materials? In other words, does it take longer to create paperwork and process payments than it takes to deliver the goods?

4. Do you have a built-in change management process that constantly reviews the elements of your supply chain and looks for opportunities to improve quality and operational efficiency—or do your systems, policies and procedures block improvement?

5. Does your supply chain minimize the amount of touches and the touch time in supply chain transactions, so as to reduce the number of potential failure points?

The issues surrounding these five questions revolve around culture; capability, flexibility, capacity and technology; systems and processes; repeatability and reliability; and collaboration.

Understanding Quality: Duty Towards Self – Tanmay Vora
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.” – Robert M. Pirzig

THE 10/10/10 RULE FOR TOUGH DECISIONS – BY: CHIP HEATH AND DAN HEATH
It’s good to sleep on it when there are tough choices to make, but you also need a strategy once you wake up–which is why you should employ the 10/10/10 rule.
To use 10/10/10, we think about our decisions on three different time frames:

• How will we feel about it 10 minutes from now?
• How about 10 months from now?
• How about 10 years from now?

WHY THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION IS IN IDEAS, NOT PRODUCTS – BY: KAIHAN KRIPPENDORFF
As we kicked off the 18-hour flight home, I devoured a series of articles in theSingapore Times featuring the winners of the “Singapore Business Awards”: a doctor, an insurance CEO, an advertising exec, and a coffee product seller. Each started careers with little and now leads huge, fast-growing, disruptive businesses.

Dissect the reasons they give for their success and you will see a series of what I call “fourth options”: strategic choices that your customers love and that your competitors won’t copy.

Income points to what it takes to introduce a “fourth option.” First, you introduce a new concept or distinction (e.g., “honest insurance”). This new term is a language tool that helps people reshape how you do things. It is not a new product, but something else–a concept or narrative or category. Second, this new concept starts changing behavior (people change their KPIs, shift their processes). Third, this new set of behaviors allows you to do something different and new (e.g., pay out where others won’t). Finally, competitors want to copy you but decide that to do so require too much behavioral change to be worth it.

Jesse Lyn Stoner  culls out these The 6 Benchmarks of High Performance Teams
1)       Alignment: Alignment around a shared vision.
2)      Team Effectiveness: Effective team processes.>
3)      Empowerment: Power to do what is necessary.
4)      Passion: Energy, enthusiasm, and confidence.
5)      Commitment: Deep commitment to the team and to each other.
6)      Results: Sustained outstanding results.
We also have three articles relating to Change Management:

The first one dates back to April 2004 on ‘strategy + business’: – 10 Principles of Change Management – Tools and techniques to help companies transform quickly. – By John Jones, DeAnne Aguirre, and Matthew Calderone

We have a current related article, too:

The Discipline of Managing Disruption – To Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, coauthor of How Will You Measure Your Life?, a primary task of leadership is asking questions that anticipate great challenges. -  by Art Kleiner
Clayton Christensen’s most recent book, How Will You Measure Your Life? (coauthored with James Allworth and Karen Dillon, HarperBusiness, 2012), links the discipline of managing disruption to the kind of long-term thinking that is necessary if one is to step past today’s pressures and build a strong personal and professional legacy.

The Agility Factor – by Thomas Williams, Christopher G. Worley, and Edward E. Lawler III

When the measure of performance is profitability, a few large companies in every industry consistently outperform their peers over extended periods. And they maintain this performance edge even in the face of significant business change in their competitive environments. The one factor they seem to have in common is agility. They adapt to business change more quickly and reliably than their competitors; they have found a way to turn as quickly as speedboats when necessary.

To round up the present edition we will take a look at Management Carnivals lined up by John Hunter –

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #188

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #189

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #190

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #191

I keenly await your feedback, as well as inputs for making the this carnival more varied and informative.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs

2012 was the year when I was on the freelance wanderlust on reading on the net. Among several subjects I pursued, one topic which has attracted my attention was Quality Management, in its quite wide spectrum.

If Tanmay Vora’s QAspire or Rajesh Setty’s wide-ranging articles or ASQ came up on the radar early on and have drawn my major (reading and seriously pursuing) attention, my quest for more and more wider ranging blogs /authors has remained quite fruitful.

Come 2013, and I firm up my freelancing reading into following a serious hobby of writing on what I like of what I read.

So here comes Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs, to be published on every third Sunday of the month.

In order to collect a fair number of articles under one roof, I have chosen the format of Carnival.

I have chosen this format because, “blog carnivals are a great way for bloggers to recognize each other’s efforts, organize blog posts around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere” (Courtesy: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/p_about.html).

I will be publishing these Carnivals as posts on my Blog – The world is too small? or Is it? Under  — — Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs category.

The focus of articles and blogs here would be relating to the Quality as a Profession and as Way of Life.

So, I look forward to 20^th Jan.,2013, the first-ever  3^rd Sunday when I plan to publish the First edition of this Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

Ignite Passions and Achieve .. Goals

While translating the article,  #4 Dream BIG!, from Rajesh Setty’s series of articles under the title “Distinguish yourself ”, I went on to listen to the promotional video clip of  Marcia Wieder, the author of the book “Make your dreams come true” in the article.

http://content.bitsontherun.com/previews/TMNhcdtj-Km5FPYDl                          Dreaming is Serious Business

We may keep the promotional aspect of the clip aside, for the time being, and do imbibe the principles she has succinctly outlined to enable business executives, in fact any one aspiring to achieve ‘something’ in the life,  to “ignite passions and achieve ..  goals” by systemically drawing upon the power of dreaming.

Indeed, our something has to be a precise statement of purpose and we have to do several things, passionately, to make the dream happen!

A detailed visit to the site has quite a few additional benefits, too.

The Speed in a Modern Life

I am presently reading the sequel to “The monk who sold Ferrari”  -  Leadership Wisdom” by Robin Sharma. And now here is the coincidence that I have two articles from regular reading web-shelf on the subject of “moving Too fast” and (Executive)  ” Burnout” by Ben Fanning , in a guest article on “Great Leadership“.

So, this post – to bring in the essence of both articles, without precluding the “MUST read” each of the article and practice what they have said.

In Gentle Friday Reminder: Go Slow, Shri Tanmay Vora gently reminds us of a harsh aspect of the way we live our life today: “Life is too short (really) to zoom past it. At the end of a succinct article, thereby still , probably, facilitating the current mindset of whizzing mankind interest of reading the article for top-to-finish, he has ceratinly ‘gently’ jolted the reader by quoting “an amazing blogger, Nicholas Bate says: “Chase quality of life, not standard of living. The former is what most of us actually want”.”

Ben Fanning has retained the matter-of-fact narrative style befitting   the Management Genre of the Literature. The entire article - Why Burnout Should Alarm Executive Leaders - has a good deal of wisdom neatly stacked making it quite easy on an otherwise harassed, on verge-of -burn-out ‘modern’ executive to read the article. And the Bonus Tip “Celebrate the Small Wins – Find something to celebrate with your team every day. Even the smallest of wins can help build momentum to achieve bigger goals.” gives a small electric shock for the race for increasingly BIG wins in SHORTEST possible time.

Great Leadership: Building Your Leadership Brand

[ Great Leadership: Building Your Leadership Brand.- The Guest article, by Beth Armknecht Miller, of Atlanta, Georgia, Founder and President of Executive Velocity, a leadership development advisory firm on The Great Leadership, an excellent blog by Dan McCarthy spurred me to write a response to the article.

Ultimately, it was too long enough to be posted as a comment to the original  article. Hence this post.]

The article’s emphasis – “define what leadership is to you” – requires being underlined,so that the real intent of such an excellent advice is hardwired among the practicing managers:

The article goes on to delve deeper into ‘defining’ ‘your own leadership by squarely positioning three searching questions, which we further analyze in terms of the analogy of the “Product Brand” used in the article:

1. “Genuine” and “True:

For any product to be elevated to a cult , the preferred, brand, it is mandatory that its core characteristics – be its design, be its engineering, be its physical or material or  any other fundamental ‘properties’ by any name – must always be consistent with the  promise of the fulfillment of the need or the requirement of its user that a product or service inherently carries with itself..

Any dilution in the ‘core’ invariably leads to the down fall of the ‘image’ of the product..

This is true of Leadership as well. Leadership, its most fundamental core, is not merely a profession or a vocation. It is a passion. The extent or the nature of the passion may depend on several factors internal to the person – the personality style, impact of one’s upbringing etc.-  or external to the leadership  as an organism – surrounding ‘ecosystem’, the purpose of the organization, the then strategic intents of the top management, organization’s’ relative competitive position etc.- , but the fact remains that as long as the person has an internal stream of inspiration flowing, the leadership as an organism survives.

The core of any Leadership is the ethos of the Leader – values, beliefs, intentions, principles, practices and all that makes a person what he or she is.

2. “Inspire” others:

This is somewhat equivalent of 4 (or sometimes known as 5) Ps of the product.

Good products are ‘sold’ but good brands are ‘bought’! Excellently conceived and executed Ps can help ‘sell’ the product, but only when the product meets (or exceeds) the requirements or needs of the user, it becomes The Brand which is ‘bought’ irrespective of any (or perhaps, all) competitive pressures.

So is the case of Leadership. A well thought out and manifested Leadership Style can ‘sell’ itself to target constituency, but in order for the Leadership” to be willingly ‘bought’, it ought to “inspire(s) those around (you) to perform their very best”.

The extent and nature of voluntary inspiration that The Leadership provides to the target constituency determines its brand value.

3. The “results”

Call them KPIs of performance of the product or the Leadership.

In the modern age, what was considered purely altruist in the previous centuries – Religion, Arts, Charity etc. – also get measured in terms of what or how much is achieved.

The results, continuing our analogy with Product, have to be sustained over the life cycle. We still have traces of the tradition where the past glory of a product is archived in a museum. In similar manner, the past glory of the Leadership that was may get chronicled or may be referred to in the present context.

However, increasingly, the value of leadership has indeed shifted to the extent of its impact on the way it enables handling the present, thereby making future appear more cognisable.

The lasting of the Leadership Brand is the impact that it leaves in terms of shaping the future of its constituency.

In the ultimate analysis, the author, Beth Armknecht Miller, rightly cautions thatthe ‘Leadership’ must remain rooted to the inherently “natural” grain. The moment it ‘sounds’ [or ‘appears’] cosmetic, it indeed “loses its credibility”. This is where it may tend become a ‘practice’ rather than a ‘spirit”.

Leadership Traits – to be Developed and Maintained – @ April 2012 Leadership Development Carnival, hosted by Shri Tanmay Vora

We have had a detailed look at several interesting fares on the offer at the April 2012 Edition of Leadership Development Carnival, hosted by ShrI Tanmay Vora. We looked at the The Boss,  , Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea’ and CHANGE at length in the words of the writers of the original articles.

We now conclude our visit to the Carnival by taking a similar detailed look at a major group of articles, bound by a common thread of Traits and Qualities, required to be acquired and maintained by the persons who are destined to play role of effective leaders in their respective organizations.

We begin our present tour with an evergreen subject of leadership versus Management. Bret Simmons in his post “The Difference Between Management And Leadership” spells out in clear terms why the distinction is accurate; however, focusing on it is dangerous. We might think that Warren Bennis’s axiomatic statement  “managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.” seems to ratify the distinction as if these are two parallel lines, who never meet each other. In the new chapter to the paperback edition of his book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, Bob Sutton states that bosses tend to consider “generating big and vague ideas as the important part of their jobs – and to treat implementation, or pesky details of any kind, as mere “management work” best done by “the little people.” Even if left unsaid, this distinction reflects how too many bosses think and act. They use it to avoid learning about people they lead, technologies their companies use, customers they serve, and numerous other crucial little things.” (p. 264).” Bret Simmons adds that “the best leaders continually pursue skills that enhance their mastery of management efficiencies. The best managers always realize that effectiveness is the real goal, and efficiency is necessary but not sufficient for sustaining a healthy organization. The best organizational citizens understand how their roles are interdependent with every other role in the organizational leadership process.”

At our next stop, Tim Milburn considers ‘Developing Lifelong Leaders’ tagline of his website his life’s mission. In an effort to more clearly define what he means by lifelong leader, he has spelt out “Three Traits Of A Lifelong Leader”to identify this type of person: First he is a Life Long Learner [“If a person is motivated to learn, that person has the potential to lead.”]. Secondly, he takes Responsibility [If a person has a track record of taking responsibility, that person is a promising candidate for leadership”.] And thirdly, he empowers and walks the people through Change. [“If a person can empower the change-resistant to become change-receptive, that person has incredible possibilities for leadership”.]

Thus, lifelong leadership would also mean:  “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” ~Albert Einstein. As Jane Perdue explains, in her article “7 Ways to Maintain Momentum”, that failure has to be seen as ‘dealing with hitting one of life’s unexpected speed bumps.’  And the solution lies in seeing ‘what happened to you as a “teachable moment” for exploring, growing and learning instead of allowing yourself to withdraw.’ She has a bouquet of 7 Tips to help maintain the momentum. Each tip has an excellent quote. For the purpose of this visit where we intend to take home our learning, we will store these quotes:

“1] “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

2] “The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” ~Carlos Castaneda

3] “Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

4] “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” ~Aldous Huxley

5] “He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” ~Abraham Lincoln

6] “The difference between can and cannot is only three letters. Three letters that can shape your life’s direction.” ~Remez Sasson

7] “Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.” ~Brian Tracy

The next time you’re cruising down the highway and see the road sign that reads “keep moving, change lanes later” – smile and follow the good advice.”

Till now we have seen ways and means to ‘maintain’ what is ‘acquired’ to be an effective leader. But in real life, it is never a good strategy to aim to remain where you have reached. The moment, you decide to focus on staying where you are, the decline has started. That is why Utpal Vaishnav, in his article, “Want to Make a Difference? Be Unreasonable”   invites to stop living normal life. He goes on state:

“Consider for a moment what actually happens when you fantasize about something?

You visualize something which is impossible or improbable in reality.

You hit the bull right. Even the Oxford dictionary confirms: Fantasy means an idea with no basis in reality.

Stop living so called ‘normal’ life is the first step to be able to create something incredible that you wouldn’t be able to, otherwise.

Being able to be unreasonable is the key.

One great source of learning to be unreasonable is the children around us. In Indian mythology it is considered that a child below five years is a divine form of God. I often explore and find that saying to be profound.

A child doesn’t care about what’s normal or what’s right and what’s not. The child would speak something that’s not appropriate, the child would break something which shouldn’t be broken, the child would write something weird on drawing room wall or the child would play basketball in the kitchen.

Many a times, the same child would create something which nobody else had ever created. May it be so little or of no value in the physical world, but a creation is a creation.

Act matters.

Often, reasons are self-imposed, or based on others’ experiences which we have heard and based our reasoning – sense of what’s right and what’s wrong – onto that.

In other words, reasons are sources of limitations. Actually, there’s nothing wrong in being reasonable, except the fact that being reasonable is a not so powerful tool to create the future you want.

Being reasonable offers you a sense of predictability and safety.

Predictability is the enemy of creativity. It would be interesting to reflect on what Bernard Shaw said:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adopt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

If you’re trying to create something that will make a difference, choose to be unreasonable.”

And of course, let us come back to the fact that when all is said and done, person in the leadership role has the, at least, moral responsibility to attain what is “good” for the  Purpose of the Organization over longer term of the Organization’s life span. Mark Bennet  ,in his post, Sustainable Means More Than Recycling, brings out the issue in a new light:

“Think in terms that go beyond simply making your organization “a great place to work”, or “an environmentally friendly company”, or “good for society”, or “making the best product or service” – those can be just as narrow as “best risk/return record in the industry” if viewed as siloed, separate things.

Think instead about how all the pieces do fit together – how customers value your products/services is affected by your impact on the earth’s resources and environment, what your employees think about what their work means affects delivering a superior return to your investors across all that they value. These factors all interact in the outside world, as more people are beginning to understand, so your organization must also determine how it fits into that web of interaction.

An excellent book that focuses on the “how” with well-researched examples, is “Management Reset” by Ed Lawler and Chris Worley. It describes what the authors refer to as “Sustainably Managed Organizations”, in contrast to the long-standing “Command and Control Organizations” and the more recent “High Involvement Organization.”

Sustainably Managed Organizations (SMOs) weave together all the aspects of the organizations relationships with economic, social, and environmental stakeholders (not just “shareholders.”) They break out their approach to how SMOs operate into the major components that every organization must attend to if it really wants to achieve any meaningful change: Strategy, Structure, Talent, and Culture.

Leadership is needed in all four of these components if the change effort is to have a chance of success. Most of all, leadership can have the largest positive impact through talent – the way people are treated, and culture – how behavior is guided…if it would only put the needed focus there.

Think about it – the places where organizations have gone off the rails and landed in the headlines on topics such as corruption, environmental disaster, and financial collapse of outrageous origin have been due in large part to culture and how certain behaviors were encouraged, tolerated, or rationalized.

Now think about how those negative outcomes affected the broader set of investors and their future decisions regarding those organizations.

We’re way past getting by with “Our people are our most important asset.” Organizations must now be able to explain how they manage their talent to generate value and create superior business performance – most of all to their people. Executives must be the primary talent managers, understanding how the workforce capabilities enable/constrain strategic options and impact execution.

Think what can happen when leadership is focused on how they manage talent and shape behaviors to the same extent it is focused on strategy and structure.”

We end our this tour of the carnival with the definitive listing of 10 key qualities of effective staff officers (equally applies to great leaders)by Michael Wade [of Execupundit.com]

The effective staff officer exhibits the following:

1. Honesty. Important information is not hidden, filtered or distorted. It is surfaced in a manner that will gain the necessary attention and the analysis is not weighted with a bias against other viewpoints.
2. Initiative. Matters that require attention are promptly addressed. Deference is given to the proper procedures and areas of responsibility but subjects are not allowed to languish. Problems and questions are anticipated and addressed early on.
3. Discretion. Words and behavior that cast doubt on the professionalism and integrity of the work unit are strictly off-limits.
4. Openness. Rank is not unduly invoked. Concerns and objections are carefully considered. Options are not manipulated to produce a rigged result.
5. Knowledge. The procedures, substance, and needs of the job are known. That knowledge is never static.
6. Judgment. Excellent decision making skills are combined with wisdom and good old common sense.
7. Urgency. Making things move is not enough. They must move in the right direction. Continually restoring the status quo is not acceptable.
8. Intuition. Spotting problems and sensing when something is not quite right is vital. Attention is paid to both the tangible and the intangible.
9. Coordination. Proper roles are respected and the deft coordination of those roles is standard.
10. Humility. There is a keen appreciation of when to speak up, when to back off, and when to be silent.

We carry the message of legendary Pele – “Everything is Practice” – as a memento of   comprehensive tour of the Carnival.

The Boss . . . . @ the April 2012 Leadership Development Carnival by Shri Tanmay Vora

[The Boss is widely discussed, most hated, most often the butt of the jokes, mostly hated animal of the organizational zoo. The Boss articles in the present April 2012 edition of Shri Tanmay Vora’s  Leadership Development Carnival explore a different dimension of the Leader in the role of the Boss.]

The demographic distribution in any organization obviously puts The Boss at a natural disadvantage. But this is not the reason why Mr. Wally Bock   “urge(s) to try it out, before commit(ting)”.  Mr. Wally Bock has seen the first-time bosses “unfold” and sometime “unravel” for over 25 years. In his experienced view, the boss is a leader who is “responsible (and accountable) for a group and the group’s performance”. Helping his team and team members to succeed is so very different work that becoming a boss amounts to “a career change”.

As the Boss, he needs to natural inclination to accept responsibility, has to make decisions, talk to others about performance and has to love helping others to succeed – all the characteristics of a true leader.

Mr Bruck also cautions that “It takes a decade or more to achieve any sort of mastery and you will never master it all.”

Becoming a good boss and maintaining the position is akin to Alice In Wonderland where one has to keep running in order to stay where you are. Mr.  David Burkus quite succinctly puts forward the concept of “an S-curve  where entropy begins near the top.As we move toward the top, we start to change the way we behave. Our days seem mindless, we experience more anxiety and our less likely to be growing and learning. In addition, we find ourselves in conflict more with our environment and peers. O’Neil argues that when we reach this top, we need to take a step back and observe our needs and ourselves.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke, offers an addendum to O’Neil: we don’t just need to step back to observe, we need to step back to avoid hurting ourselves and others.

Ariely (2010) introduced the concept of “self-herding,” which is to say that humans make decisions about future behavior based on past behavior. Therefore, when we act out in anger in a situation we are more likely to behave the same way the next time we encounter that situation, whether angry or not.

This is how well meaning leaders develop into terrible bosses. As they approach the tip of the S-curve, as burnout and entropy sneak in, they act out against their people. The next time they face a similar situation, whether rested or not, they may act the same way. Gradually, they turn toward this dark side.

Leaders must develop awareness for when anxiety, conflict and burnout creep in. When this happens, the not only need to observe but they need to resist negative actions – as they may have lasting effect on themselves and their team.”

In a related video talk , Mr. Burkus goes on elaborate why the boss afflicted by the Peter’s principle   ‘sucks’ his team and provides means to keep away from this pitfall.

On a very different note, Art Petty lists At Least 10 More Things to Stop Doing if You’re the Boss .  Never preach what you will not do for yourself, not only handle difficult issues relating to the team performance but also be seen to act , do not act like a friend if you cannot indeed be a friend, never try to see over the backs of the team, ensure that your own goals remain tightly aligned to that of your team, share praise in public and criticism in private, do listen to your team’s views, never be seen to shy away from the inherent role-based responsibilities and be ready to share the due credit of a good job are her simple sounding tenets. When I was reading the complete article, I could not stop looking at myself, because it seemed that this is some sort of confession. And it seems that there many more who also share similar apprehensions, since she was soon flooded by four times the comments on her article enumerating “At Least 20 Things to Stop Doing as a Leader”.

This brings us to a question: Is your Boss killing your ideas?. Mr. Rajesh Setty is his usual to-the-point in this no holds-barred, but a neatly balanced article. Mr. Setty here focuses on a triad possible solution of how to handle the issue of Your Boss killing Your Ideas.

“The first thing to remember is that an idea is rarely looked at its merits on a standalone basis. Your idea is one of the many on his or her table and he or she has to pick among the best available options at that point in time.

Antidote: The way capitalize on this is to clearly know both your organization’s priorities, your Boss’ priorities and what else is on the table of your Boss. With that knowledge, you can paint a picture with your idea

The second thing to remember (and probably more important than the first one) is that every idea has a weight associated with it and the major part of the weight for your idea comes from “who you are” to the Boss and to the organization.

The third thing to remember is that while you are thinking about the “idea,” your Boss is thinking also about the “execution of the idea” and ALL changes needs to be made with people and systems to make this a reality. If the story does not pan out well in his or her mind, the idea gets rejected quickly.

Antidote: There are two things you need to become really good at – 1) continuing beyond the idea alone and thinking about all aspects of execution 2) the art of telling a great story.”

You are smart and the idea that got rejected is not the LAST great idea that you will ever get.

And still, If you’ve been hitting the snooze button lately on weekday mornings instead of hitting the shower—or find yourself taking the long way around to avoid passing by the corner office, you may just be working for a TOT, that is, a “Terrible Office Tyrant.”

TOTs are bosses who act strikingly similar to children, oftentimes toddlers in their Terrible Twos. Why does this happen? Because we’re all human, and behind the professional facade are grown kids who act out and can’t moderate their power.

However the modern boss – colleague [no more a subordinate!] relationship is expected to be built on the foundation of a transparent two-way communication. Mr. Dan McCarthy strongly advocates that you have got nothing to lose, and everything to gain by talking to the boss in his article How to Discuss a Problem with Your Manager. He explains that “if you talk to your boss, chances are, one of four things will happen:

1. Your boss may have had no idea that whatever he/she was doing or not doing was having an impact on you.

2. Your boss may be dealing with some other issue that has nothing to do with you, and again, was unaware of his/her behavior.

3. In either scenarios #1 & #2, your boss may be perfectly happy with your performance, and you’ll feel much better knowing that (and withdraw those job applications on Monster).

4. Your boss may actually be upset with you – and for some reason, has been avoiding telling you. In this case, you’ll at least have an opportunity to find out what the problem is.

Once you know that, you can work on making it better. If it’s something you can’t make better or don’t want to, then at least you’ll know where you stand and can pursue other options for the right reasons.”

Here is a small piece of advise I read while I was re=freshing my search about Shri Azim Premji’s famous talk about the employees leaving a boss rather than a company:

CALM: Communicate, Anticipate, Laugh, and Manage.

• Keep the lines of communication open; anticipate problems and solutions; use humor (it is the great diffuser); and      manage up by being a positive, proactive problem solver.

(this is the first of the detailed exploration of the previous post:  Carnival of Leadership Development – April 2012 – By Tanmay Vora

Carnival of Leadership Development – April 2012 – By Tanmay Vora

Shri Tanmay Vora, originally a core quality professional, also has inherent natural knack  to look at the world around from a human perspective. He is also, inherently, very innovative in his observations about what he sees or reads or expereinces.

I have had benefit of a chance visit to his blog , which has now been my regular joint to visit. Each visit is a treat in itself.

Leadership Development Carnival is one of such activities where we have the benifits of his innovative and creative bent. The Leadership Carnivals is an intititive led by Shri Dan McCarthy.

He has edited the carnival for April,2012 .

Shri Vora has cast his net wide quite wide and has thus presented a gourmet bouque of  around 26 articles in the present edition.

I plan to take each of the articles for an indepenedent review in subsequent posts during the month.

Who Killed CHANGE? By Ken Blanchard, John Britt, Pat Zigarmi, and Judd Hoekstra

I just finished reading this book -’Who Killed Change?’

The story features a Columbo-style detective, Agent Mike McNally, who’s investigating the murder of yet another change. One by one, Agent McNally interviews thirteen prime suspects, including a myopic leader named Victoria Vision; a chronically tardy manager named Ernest Urgency; an executive named Clair Communication, whose laryngitis makes communication all but impossible; and several other dubious characters.

Here is introduction to this book:

John Britt, Pat Zigarmi, and Judd Hoekstra, coauthors of the new book “Who Killed Change?” with Ken Blanchard, talk about the book and what they think people will learn by reading this new and exciting murder-mystery:

Pat Zigarmi on Leading the CHANGE:

“Our  Iceberg Is Melting“ - Based on the novel by John Kotter, Penguins depict the real challenges that organizations face daily. Our management course at the University of Georgia put together this video to offer a video summary of Kotter’s novel and inspire interest in a great novel about leadership and leading change in an organization.

The following clip summarizes the Key  Learnings:

Indeed a very readable - in fact a must-read – book on how to support CHANGE, by every one who wish to implement Change or even by those who do not wish to implement Change – because Change is inevitable and ever so difficult ! ! ! ! !

See Seven types of persons here

1. Those who create complications but do not themselves know what they have done!?!?!?
2. Those who are at least aware that they have created complications, but do nothing for the solution.
3. Those who are at least aware that they have created complications, and then transfer these complications by informing others.
4. Those who are at least aware that they have created complications, and then ‘inform’ others by ‘sticky-notes’ [now by e-mail or SMS].
5. Those who are at least aware that they have created complications, and ensure self-awareness not to permit the repetition [We invite them for the jobs here.]
6. Those who are at least aware that they have created complications, and ensure that others are aware not to permit the repetition. [We have open doors for jobs for them, always]
7. Those who are at least aware that they have created complications, search for the solutions and also ensure own and others’ awareness for avoiding the repetition. [We are on the constant look out for such leaders.]

[[Observed at the hardboard at the Reception counter of an Engineering Company]]

Courtesy: http://nilenekinarethi.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/seven-kinds-of-people/