finding and supporting your open leaders

Finding and Supporting

Open Leaders

Charlene Li

Altimeter Group

May 14, 2010

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#openleader

© 2010 Altimeter Group

Open Leadership

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Having the confidence

and humility to give up

the need to be in control,

while inspiring

commitment from people

to accomplish goals

How to give up control,

and be in command


Why did you follow that person?

Think of your favorite leader

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Believes that most people want to do their best

want to be responsible, trustworthy, and honest.

• Pessimists believe that most people cannot be trusted

because they are looking for an advantage.

Two characteristics of optimistic leaders.

• Curiosity – driven by a deep quest to learn constantly

and see social technologies as a way to do this.

- E.g. Dell and Starbucks

• Humility – able to admit when you need help or have

made a mistake.

- E.g. Kodak

The Optimistic Leader

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Believes that more heads are better than one.

―It is very arrogant to think you can make better

decisions than the thousands of people below you.‖

- Cris Conde, SunGard CEO

Recognizes and rewards collaboration.

• As opposed to individual accomplishments.

Cisco shifted from command-and-control

individualistic approaches to collaboration over

seven years.

• Accelerated in last two years thanks to social and

collaboration technologies.

The Collaborative Leader

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Find and develop your open leaders

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Cautious Tester

Realist Optimist

Worried Skeptic

Transparent Evangelist

Pessimist Optimist

Collaborative

Independent


Convincing the curmudgeon

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Who can best work with

a Worried Skeptic?

It’s a fad and

waste of time.

It’s too risky.

What’s the

ROI?


Examples of Realist Optimists

Lionel Menchaca

DellEd Terpening

Wells Fargo

Lovisa Williams

US Dept. of State


Realist Optimists Cautious Tester and Worried

Skeptics

• Help them understand the value of being open.

• Keep Transparent Evangelists nearby to learn how to

work with Pessimists.

Transparent Evangelists take on outward facing

functions and responsibilities to open up the

organization.

Supporting your archetypes

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Best Buy’s First Social Media Experts

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Steve Bendt &

Gary Koelling


They harnessed Best Buy’s biggest asset

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The Blue Shirts


BlueShirtNation.com supported Best Buy’s

front line employees


Steve & Gary had an executive sponsor

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Barry Judge

CMO of Best Buy


They kept telling him one thing…

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―Barry, you gotta get a blog!‖


Barry’s first post

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―I was so relieved when it was over—it was just

two sentences to get started.‖


The Premier Black Fiasco

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6.8 million

emails sent

instead of

1,000 test


Barry’s response

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―…we screwed up the execution which makes

me feel sick about the customer trust that we

have impacted.‖


Openness became a strategy

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Open market testing of new logo


+2,200 Best Buy employees provide

support on Twitter

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Being authentic

Mastering transparency

Developing and encouraging open leadership

Skills and behaviors of open leaders

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I seek out and listen to different points of view.

I make myself available to people at all levels of

the organization.

I use social technologies effectively to

communicate.

I actively manage how I am authentic.

Being authentic

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I take the time to explain how decisions are being

made.

I reach out to customers frequently via social

technologies, wherever they may be.

I encourage people to share information.

I update people regularly using social

technologies.

I publicly admit when I am wrong.

Mastering transparency

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I identify and actively nurture potential open

leaders at all levels of the organization.

I train and encourage people to use open

leadership skills.

I encourage the use of social technologies

throughout the organization.

I create a support network for open leaders.

I ask "What did I/we learn" when things fail.

Develop and encourage open leadership

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Prepare for new workflows

Social technologies will disrupt

traditional organization structures


Social media triage

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Can you add

value?

Evaluate the

purpose

Respond in

kind & share

Thank the

person

Unhappy

Customer?

Dedicated

Complainer?

Comedian

Want-to-Be?

NegativePositive

Yes No

Do you want

to respond?

No

Response

No

Yes

Take reasonable

action to fix issue

and let customer

know action taken

Are the facts

correct?

Gently correct the

facts

No

No

No

Yes

Are the facts

correct?

Does customer

need/deserve more

info?

Yes

Explain what is being

done to correct the

issue.

Yes

Is the

problem

being fixed?

Yes

Let post stand and

monitor.

No

Yes

NoYes

Yes

Assess the

message


1. Respect that your customers

and employees have power

2. Share constantly to build trust.

3. Nurture curiosity and humility.

4. Hold openness accountable.

5. Forgive failure.

The New Rules of Open Leadership

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Conduct the open leadership assessment and

determine your archetype.

• Do a 360 degree evaluation to keep yourself honest.

• Create a plan to support all archetypes in your org.

Conduct a skills and behavior inventory.

• What skills and behaviors do you have to support open

leadership?

• For the ones you are missing, how will you develop or

compensate for them?

Action Plan

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Thank you

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Charlene Li

[email protected]

charleneli.com/blog

Twitter: charleneli

For slides, send an email to

[email protected]

For more information & to buy the book

visit open-leadership.com

finding and supporting your open leaders

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