The Leading from the Heart Workshop®

SSOE

[5]Recognize the Best in Others

values-based leaders:

Values-based leaders recognize that each person’s talents are unique and

that a person’s best opportunity for growth is in exploiting those strengths.

vital integrities

Learning your ABCs

Vitality Curve

20-70-10

“Some think it’s cruel or brutal to remove the bottom 10% of

our people. It’s just the opposite. What is brutal is

keeping people around who aren’t going to grow and

prosper. There’s no cruelty like waiting and telling people late in their careers that they don’t

belong—just when their job options are limited and they’re putting their children through

college or paying off big mortgages.” Jack Welch

Jack: Straight From the Gut

Without specific, measurable, and well-communicated ranking criteria, employees will assume the worst about how differentiation decisions are determined.

WA

RN

ING

Sales Company-Wide

Top 20%

Bottom

10%

Sales by Department

way for younger andmake

Two class action lawsuits charged Ford with using the ranking system to force older, white employees out of the company in order to

more culturally diverse workers. Ford paid $10.5 million to settle the suits.

Minority and female employees sued Microsoft Corporation, alleging the company’s predominantly white male managers based forced ranking decisions on their own biases

rather than merit.

Conoco employees asserted the company’s ranking methods

discriminated against American citizens and older workers when it

laid off geophysicists and other scientists.

dangerousconsequence of differentiation is that we take for granted our so-called B players—while management glorifies superstars, and fires and replaces the weak, it ignores the majority in the middle

themost

“What really matters in organizational success is how the company utilizes the vast bulk of ordinary people, since that is what it will always have in greatest abundance.”

Adrian W. SavageB

“It’s not about the top; it’s about finding the right combination of people to accomplish the mission.”

Dana Beth ArdiHuman Capital Partner, JP Morgan Partners

“Some of the under performers may be the jewels in the rock that you have to

mine and develop. Some of those people who fall in the middle ranges of top-

grading can turn out to be your breakaway ‘A’ players once you put them

in the right seats.”

Dana Beth Ardi

What prevents our employees from

doing what they do best? Usually, our emphasis on what

they do worst.

When striving for improvement, most of us do the same thing: we take our strengths for granted, and concentrate all our efforts on conquering our weaknesses.

The vast majority of organizations

appear to believe that the

best way for individuals to

grow is to eliminate their

weaknesses. So they instruct

workers to recognize and focus on their deficiencies.

Gallop survey

question:

“At work do you have the opportunity to do what you do best

every day?”

Strongly Agree (20

percent)

Strongly Agree

38 percent more likely to work in business units with higher

productivity

50 percent more likely to work in business units with lower turnover

44 percent more likely to work in business units with high customer

satisfaction scores Source: Now, Discover Your Strengths Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton

achieve greatness

When we force our employees to strive for proficiency in everything, we miss the opportunity for them to

or mastery in something— in the one area where they may, indeed, achieve just that.

“Geeks are different from other people. If this comes as a shocking statement to you, you’re either oblivious

to others or unusually charitable with your opinion about others.” –Paul Glen, Leading

Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Technology

Just when you understand the difference between a megahertz

and a megapixel, geeks start talking about link rot and packet

jams.

GEEKSPEAK

Geeks resist mainstream or official authority structures.

They respect technical knowledge far more than

where a person resides on the organizational chart.

As leaders, we would prefer that geeks

behave like the rest of us. But our geeks’

personalities, even if grating to some, are

immaterial to their productivity.

GOODto great

mas·terNoun. An artist or

performer of great and exemplary skill; a worker

qualified to teach apprentices and carry on the craft independently.

Identifying each person’s strongest talents permits

everyone the opportunity to contribute what they do

BEST.

In business, we tend to attributecompetence—or lack thereof—to an employee’s learning capacity. We further presume that what separates proficiency from competence is individual attitude and aptitude.

But we tend to consider mastery out of reach, a level of attainment reserved for those few who possess natural intelligence, good fortune, or a head start.

TEACHINGMASTERY

Most business organizations still use the intelligence theory

approach to learning.

Using a clock to measure individual progress places all responsibility for learning on the employee.

Mastery “is not really a goal or a destination but rather a process, a

journey. It’s available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay

on it—regardless of age, sex, or previous experience.”

George Leonard, Mastery

vital

integrities

values-based leadership

Accept challenges and take risks

Master both listening and speaking

Live by the values they profess

Freely give away their authority

Recognize the best in others

Have a vision and convince others to share it

SIX

The Leading from the Heart Workshop®