Talent without discipline can disappear on you!

 

 

Recently, I watched several CNBC videos from 2018 marking the tenth anniversary of the Great Recession and the collapse of the housing and banking systems. The interviews featured Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon. Their reflections were poignant, their accounts of the most dramatic moments hair-raising, and many of the lessons they drew feel highly relevant to today’s financial realities. I’ll save some of those insights for a future essay. But one comment—made, I believe, by Dimon or Buffett—stayed with me: “Talent without discipline can disappear on you.” It was offered in praise of the extraordinary talent and discipline of Paulson, Geithner, and Bernanke. The idea resonates with what I have witnessed over more than 40 years in my career: when talented, disciplined leaders work together, the impact can be remarkable.

At this stage of my career, I have the pleasure of coaching and advising leaders more from the sidelines than from center stage. Through board service and consulting, I remain involved with exciting companies, nonprofit organizations, and a foundation—all working to achieve their goals, overcome obstacles, and solve both day-to-day and strategic problems. Each is led by inspiring individuals or leadership teams. In some cases, those teams are rich in talent but struggle to establish disciplined business processes and decision-making. In others, strong processes abound, but the spark of talent needed to guide and inspire the organization is missing. Organizations need both talent and discipline to thrive. In leaders and leadership teams, that combination is rare—and vital.

Over the years, I have drawn on a wide range of voices to amplify the ideas in my essays. Today may be a first: the words of martial artist Bruce Lee. Although the quote comes from another discipline, its message applies powerfully to leadership:

 

“Strength without wisdom can become destruction. Knowledge without action can become meaningless. Talent without discipline can disappear. But when strength, wisdom, discipline, and character come together, a person becomes capable of creating a lasting impact.”

  

Bernanke, Geithner, and Paulson formed a leadership team of exceptional talent and discipline. Their example brings to mind another team of three leaders I know well. To protect their privacy, I will omit their names and, borrowing an inside joke, call them the “pandas.” I have known all three for many years and worked closely with them for decades. They are very different individuals, yet each brings distinct talents and disciplines to the challenges of the day. I have been close to this team in moments of triumph and in periods of profound difficulty. Whatever the circumstances or pressure, I have watched their talents and disciplines rise to meet the moment—not always seamlessly or smoothly, but usually in partnership and with a shared aim: to “make tomorrow a little bit better than today.” Great leadership teams prove themselves not only in moments of success and above-plan performance, but also in how they navigate the toughest times.

I encourage readers to consider the balance between talent and discipline in their own organizations and leadership teams. Where are the gaps? What strengths can be developed? Honest self-assessment can help each of us find a more balanced—and more effective—path forward as leaders.

postscript:  After posting the above essay, a reader passed along a note sharing a perspective of of the impact on organizations when the "Talent/Discipline" dynamic is out of balance in the senior leader of the organization... the following quote rings true to me:

"If one does not inspire talent, all the discipline or process in the world won't solve the lack of being inspired!"

One Down and Two Deep

No, this is not some shorthand clue from a crossword puzzle…. Instead it’s a succession planning/organizational development concept that I have been working on in my new role at Bolthouse Farms.

As many of you know, I worked at Bolthouse Farms from 2009-2015 and had a great run at the company during that time.  We drove a lot of growth and expansion in the business during those years and I was one of the partners that lead the sale of the company to Campbell’s in 2012. (https://www.thepacker.com/article/butterfly-buys-bolthouse-farms-campbell-soup). 

In hindsight there are a ton of things that I am proud of from those days and both the business dynamics, the exceptional results and the wonderful people I had a chance to work with during that time top the list!  After leaving the company in early 2015, I started a consulting business and had NO CLUE that I would ever get a chance to come back to that same company, being one of the partners that bought the company back from Campbell’s last summer, closing on the purchase in June 2019.  Now as one of the lead executives at the company, we are working hard to get the company stabilized and to rebuild it into a dynamic, high growth fresh platform centered on the idea of “Plant Powering People.” (more on that in a future post for sure!)

It’s rare in a person’s career to have a chance to come back to a business, almost five years after you left it and work on building or re-building a once strong legacy.  The Campbell’s years were tough for Bolthouse Farms, and there are a lot of things to repair/correct/improve/change to get the company back on a growth path but no area is more important in that perspective than rebuilding the talent at the company for that journey ahead.  It’s in that spirit that I have been thinking about this idea about leadership development and succession planning that is captured in the title of this essay….” one down and two deep.”

The idea is simple… every leader take a moment and think about their direct reports “one down”, not the entire team of leaders in your organization but just your direct reports. Sketch that group out on a single sheet and then ask yourself if every one of those individuals are performing well in their roles, leading their teams well, generating great results and are “ready now” to move up or over into new roles that the business might need as it grows and expands.  It’s no small feat to say, “yes” to all the above attributes but if you can say “yes”, then you are mark yourself in good shape “one down.”  While this is a big step, the real challenge is to push yourself to see if you have high performing/”ready now” internal leaders ready to fill all of those     “one down” roles if needed, the step that checks readiness “two deep.”  

On a recent flight I did this “exercise” and was pretty blown away by the results.  We are rebuilding the leadership level in the company now and all of my direct reports are new to their roles, and while most are “alumni hires,” (folks who had worked at Bolthouse Farms in the past and who have come back to create the next chapter of success and growth in the company’s 104 year young history,) all of my direct reports are new to their roles and are doing great…. but while “doing great,” certainly not “ready now” to move into another leadership opening if needed. (“One down”) The real eye opener was taking the next step… thinking deeply about “their direct reports” and THEIR readiness to move up or over if needed.  As I thought about that group, “two deep,” it is filled with talented folks doing great work, but not full with “ready now” leaders who could move into key openings if required.  

This is in no way a critique of our organization, quite the opposite. The team that has come together is fantastic, highly skilled, highly motivated and totally rocks!  I am privileged to work with a group of team members who are so focused on the mission of the company and the tough work ahead.  What the exercise DOES illuminate is the idea that a leader’s job about nurturing and growing leadership talent is never done! We need to work hard on identifying young leaders “coming up” in the organization and work on getting them the experiences/exposure/mentoring/etc. that will help them achieve their leadership potential in our company.  Try this exercise, looking “one down,” and assessing your leadership team’s readiness “two deep,” and cascade the approach to your leaders.  I am confident that it might be a bit eye-openeing but also very helpful as you build your organization’s leaders for the future!

The "Three G's" for Leaders

I have now had the pleasure to work in the business landscape for over thirty years, most of those in a variety of sales and marketing executive roles across number of well known consumer products companies.  Most recently, I have had the pleasure to advise a large number of senior executives as part of the consulting practice that I now lead.  Through all of those experiences, I have had the chance to work with VERY EFFECTIVE as well as VERY INEFFECTIVE / DESTRUCTIVE senior leaders.  While I do not believe there is a simple formula or model that leads to effective impactful leaders, I do believe there are a number of key considerations or practices that help effective leaders "practice" their craft.  Today's essay is about three attributes / practices ( the "active" voice is important in this essay) that I think are critical for leaders to be effective, the attributes / practices that I call " The Three G's for Leaders," Gratitude, Generosity, & Gumption!


Gratitude:


Definition:

NOUN

The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

This attribute is foundational for all of the "Three G's" and in this spirit I have highlighted it first in my list of three.  We are NEVER thankful enough, for the resources, teams, businesses, etc. that we have the chance to work with in our professional lives, none the less the friends, family, experiences, etc. that we have enjoy in our personal lives.  Always start by saying "Thanks!"  Great leaders "get it" that they have unique opportunities and responsibilities in their roles and should start by being thankful and appreciative of the role and the teams/businesses that surround them.  Too often leaders feel like they need to show how smart they are, or how decisive they are, or how powerful they are, ... rarely starting by showing how grateful they are to have the chance to lead the business/team at hand.  An important element of the definition above is the "active voice" of the last two words, "return kindness."  "Gratitude" is not only being appreciative, and being ready to show appreciation but to take action to "return kindness" to the organization /business that surround them.  Think to yourself how rarely the phrase "Leadership Kindness" is bantered around as a key trait for successful leaders .... maybe a theme for an upcoming essay ??


Generosity:


Definition:

NOUN

• 
  

  The quality of being kind and generous.

This attribute / practice emanates from the first "G", and is completely active in tone and orientation.  As leaders, are you taking intentional actions to be "generous" to your direct reports, to your key clients/customers, to your board or your executive team ???  These aren't considerations that I see very often advising key leaders today, and I saw them rarely across my corporate leadership roles. Leaders that I encounter are always SO BUSY, SO STRETCHED, SO DRIVEN, SO STRESSED, etc. but never "SO GENEROUS."  I totally understand that this idea / practice is really hard, who has the time to find slots in their over-scheduled calendars to take actions of kindness or generosity??  While I relate to the fact that this is hard, I want to suggest that it is not something to try to "schedule" into your lives, but to incorporate into your being!  We rarely consider that we need to breathe, walk, eat, drink, sleep, use the bathroom, etc. just to live.  Could we work to find ways to incorporate "generosity" into our day to day rhythms, to be as regular and natural as getting our morning coffee or commuting to work??


Gumption:


Definition:

NOUN

 Shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness.

Businesses always have ups and downs, just like the cycles of cultures and civilizations, no organization travels along a straight up ( or down) trend lines.  Leaders need to be ready for the twists and turns around every corner, which is why I have seen "gumption" as a key attribute / practice of successful leaders.  This idea of having "spirited initiative and resourcefulness" in the face of dynamically changing business circumstances really rings true to me personally.  As Chief Customer Officer for Bolthouse Farms (2009 - 2015), I faced a number of business situations that I felt could have dramatically damaged or destroyed the business during my tenure. I remember three such specific moments across my six year tenure and while I was pretty "freaked out" in each circumstance, I kept active and kept looking for ideas and solutions to the immediate challenges we were facing.  I am not sure how "shrewd" I was,  but I was certainly "spirited" and "resourceful" as we worked our way out of each of those three treacherous situations.

As leaders, I hope that we can all remember the "Three G's" in good times and bad, working to take action to bring "Gratitude," "Generosity," and "Gumption" into our leadership roles in the days ahead.  Stay active in your practice of the craft of leadership, keep looking for ways to incorporate these three ideas into the regular rhythm of your professional life and if possible, find ways to teach and model these three practices to the young leaders around you!


Note: in the essay above I have used the phrase "attribute / practice" with intent.  I don't want anyone to think that "The three G's" are learned in some business school class, or are inherent qualities of certain leaders but not others!  We must all keep practicing the craft of leadership and keep looking for ways to improve our skills and approaches across many areas,  and certainly in these three!

How to survive a riptide ... Professionally!

While this may seem like a crazy title for a blog essay, I wanted to share some insights that are both practical for beachgoers as summer approaches and hopefully helpful to professionals dealing with changing dynamics and "dangerous tides" in their workplaces!

I had the chance last week to be in Florida for a board meeting and after the opening night board dinner, went out for a quick stroll on the beach as the sun was setting.  A warm and lovely night, a beach filled with shells and other walkers but no one out swimming in the very warm night air and water.  I asked my host why no one was out in the surf and he mentioned the dangerous riptides in the area and pointed over to a warning sign.  While not exactly the sign I have included in this essay, nonetheless a warning to swimmers of the dangers and precautions of riptides.  The sign stuck with me and thus this story of oceanic metaphors.

While I am hopeful that few of us have encountered actual riptides in the surf, I am certain that many of us have dealt with dangerous "tides" in our companies and organizations.  I had the chance to be part of three or four major corporate restructurings during my last few years at Coke and I now have a number of clients and friends dealing with major upheavals professionally.  In these circumstances, I want us to reflect on and apply the advice from the sign above and work hard to "Break the grip of the rip" in the ever changing landscapes of our work environments.  Lets look at each point of advice from the "Rip Currents" sign and apply them professionally:

1.) "Don't fight the current." After just a bit of research I found out that the huge majority of rip tide linked fatalities comes from swimmers trying to "fight the current" and swim directly back to shore, ultimately becoming fatigued and drowning in the waves.  The same seems true in the landscape of corporate restructurings.  Don't try to "fight the current" and "swim against the tide" of what the company had decided to do.  Organizations so often come to these inflection points for reasons of lack of growth, innovation, lack of competitive differentiation, or lack of productivity and see organizational restructuring as the only way to cut cost and boost EBITDA and EPS.  While we can debate those issues in another essay, in these circumstances organizations are often desperate to cut jobs, save costs and improve profitability (and hopefully productivity) and it's rarely productive to try to "fight" those trends/decisions.

2) "Swim out of the current, then to shore."  As you can see from the helpful diagram, it recommends swimming or floating "with the current", looking for "escape points" to be released from the tide and head to shore.  Often "riptide advice" includes the idea of swimming or floating "parallel" to the beach in order to find a weak spot in the dangerous tide,  or a release point of the current.  Such good advice to apply professionally!  Once in the midst of organizational turmoil, find spots or moments when you can "swim parallel to shore," looking for new structures/constructs that you might find productive for yourself or your team.  As the sign shows, it may take some time and some"swimming" before the escape points are found, but the only way to find them is to "go with the tide/current" as you are looking for a safe release!

3) "If you can't escape, float or tread water."  Don't exhaust yourself needlessly fighting the current!  Our ability to float or tread water professionally never feels very productive, but it may be REQUIRED to get yourself in position to find that release point a bit later in the process.

4) "If you need help, call or wave for assistance."  Too often our pride gets in the way of "asking or waving" for help in the work environment.  If you don't feel good about any sources of help from inside your company or enterprise, look outside for coaches, mentors or others that are not "in the rip current" with you, who might have a "fresh perspective" and the strength to help you navigate your way to shore.


Well that's enough of the "rip current" metaphor for today, but remember that you aren't in the surf alone, so many have had to deal with this same dynamic, these same dangerous and destabilizing "tides!" Try to remember a few points of this advice and find ways to "break the grip of the rip" professionally!!

Three "Common Denominators"

As I touched on in a recent post, I have the chance in my consulting practice to work with a wide variety of clients and companies.  Ranging from food and technology startups, to billion dollar produce and engineering companies, to a massive global bio-technology organization the breadth of companies and verticals is significant and humbling.  What is interesting across all of my experiences/engagements is that while the companies and industries vary greatly, there continues to be a small set of common issues/challenges/opportunities... or "common denominators"... that are the center of my work across assignments.  Today I want to reflect on the three "common denominators" that I keep bumping into most often.


The Impact of Personal Leadership

Leaders matter and have a real impact on an organization and so often these individuals lose track of the importance of their roles, their work, their actions, and their impact.  Think about times in your career where there has been a leadership change and that moment signaled a real change in the business and company culture, good or bad.  I think back to a leadership change that i witnessed very closely where I left a key leadership role and watched an organization really struggle both in its marketplace performance metrics and its employee engagement and company culture.  In my consulting work, I often work with leaders who underestimate their impact and are candidly not prepared for the leadership roles they occupy.  This idea of nurturing/building future leaders has come up as a priority that I am taking into many of my client assignments today.  How can we help the future leaders of tomorrow get ready, build skills, and maybe even practice a bit in their roles today??
I have written a number of essays on leadership, two that are among the most read essays on this blog and may be worth reading (or maybe re-reading) to amplify this topic:

> "A Teachable Point of View"; https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/05/teachable-point-of-view.html

> "The Three Impact Points of Leadership"; https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/03/three-impact-points-of-leadership.html


"Execution" is a/the strategy

In assignment after assignment I keep running into the dynamic where good or even great ideas are executed poorly in the marketplace and performance metrics suffer.  Execution matters and this idea of focusing on the "how" not just the "what" is a big deal and is becoming a major focus in my consulting practice.  Maybe it just doesn't seem "sexy" or intellectually sophisticated to "sweat the details" and work on an execution/implementation plan for a project but as I continue on in my 30+ year business career it seems more important than ever.  Recently I wrapped up a project for a large client who has really struggled in their market over the past few years and lost a significant amount of market share.  They wanted to understand the key actions/strategies of their primary competitors, trying to understand how they took so much share over the past five years.  After digging into the data, it became clear that there was no magic equation or unique insight that the competitors brought to market, they just "out-executed" my client at every turn, across a number of years and the marketplace impact had been dramatic.  Here are a few essays on this topic that maybe helpful to review:

> "Plan the "How", not just the "What""; https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/plan-how-not-just-what.html

> "Good ideas executed brilliantly"; https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2017/04/good-ideas-executed-brilliantly.html


"Focus" is key for all, do fewer things better

We live and work in a time when the tempo of business has never been faster and the need to balance and handle a wide variety of topics,priorities, and projects is a day to day reality.  Its hard to remember that I started my business career in the mid eighties, with no cell phones, no internet, just the beginning of PC's and the technology today lets us do so much more than I could have ever imagined 30+ years ago!  It's in this context that I have seen the need to improve our "focus" and actually work hard on doing "fewer things better."  Just because we can "pull off" a project or a meeting doesn't mean we should do that if we can't do it well.  There are so many examples of this dynamic to review but a recent one brought a smile to my face.  I was sitting at the Raleigh airport, waiting for my flight back to Atlanta, and my gate just happened to be at the base of the escalators coming from security.  I watched a young man, trying to put on his belt, carry a backpack and a coat, and pull his roller-bag while texting or emailing on his phone as he stepped onto the escalator.  It was almost comic to watch, but while thankfully no one was hurt, he dropped his roller bag which fell down the escalator and somehow lost track of his belt (I am still not sure where the belt ended up) and the calamity at the bottom of the escalators was astounding.  'Do fewer things better" immediately came to mind in that moment as it often does in my client engagements today.  I often work to "take things off" my clients' plates, so we can actually focus in on fewer priorities and work hard to  execute them well.  Again, the following are a few essays that bring this idea more to life:

> "Inflection points of a business, focus on fewer things to insure success" ; https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2017/11/inflection-points-of-business-focus-on.html

> "Myopia, a strategy for sales, business, and life" : https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2015/10/myopia-strategy-for-sales-business-and.html


These three "common denominators" continue to surface across my business landscape today and may be present in yours.  Take a few minutes and reflect on some of the linked essays and see how you might be able to share these ideas with your teams and put them into practice in your assignments today!

"Grit"... a Foundation for Leaders

Almost three years ago, I wrote an essay titled "The Importance of Grit"(https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-importance-of-grit.html)  , where I discussed the work that Professor Angela Duckworth had done on the role of "Grit" vs. IQ as a predictor of academic success in students.  In that essay, I suggested that this concept of "Grit" not only rang home for me in the academic context that Professor Duckworth referenced, but it was directly relevant to my experiences in business.  Now almost three years later, I am more confident than even that the relevancy and importance of "Grit" in the professional landscape is significant and I want to go further today that we need to think about "grittiness" as a required, "foundational" skill/attribute for leaders.

As a reminder, Professor Duckworth defined "grit" as the combination of "passion, perseverance and stamina," and her research suggested that a student's "grittiness" had a  stronger correlation for academic success than a student's IQ scores.  My professional experience, now for over thirty two years, reinforces this finding in the professional business environment.  The most successful executives, and specifically the most successful business leaders that I have had the chance to work with were not always the smartest folks in the room.  Usually it was a mix of an individual's "passion, perseverance and stamina" (their "Grit"), combined with a unique set of skills, experiences and motivation that won the day.  I don't think this is only true historically.  In today's VERY high tempo change-filled, highly competitive workplace the leaders that are succeeding today need a lot more than high IQ's to find enduring success.

"Grit" for Senior Leaders:  I currently have the chance (and honor) in my consulting practice to work with a number of C-suite level executives across numerous industries and company sizes.  While each individual is dealing with radically different business/marketplace dynamics, a center point in each of my discussions is the need to "persevere" through times of change/challenge and to have the patience and "stamina" to face the truth of the challenges ahead and to lead their organizations with personal commitment/"passion" through the rough spots ahead.  Without realizing it, I have been "coaching Grit" all through 2017!  We can't have a false expectation that any executive is so smart that they can out think the challenges of the marketplace.  Innovation is happening too quickly, competition is moving dramatically, change and challenges are accelerating in ways that senior business leaders will simply not be able to "out smart"!  As an example imagine if you were a senior executive at Walmart or Kroger today.  Five years ago (or maybe even five quarters ago) the idea that Amazon would be a major threat for the grocery dollar in America would have been nowhere on the horizon but earlier this year with the announcement of Amazon buying Whole Foods, the market caps of both Kroger and Walmart took a major hit.  "Smarts" alone will not succeed competitively vs. Amazon, but I assure you that "perseverance" and "stamina" will be required in large supply!

Teaching "Grit":  This idea of "grit" as a foundation skill/attribute for leaders clearly rings true to me. As many of you know, I deeply believe that great leaders are also great teachers, and interestingly my most widely read essay is on that topic, "A teachable point of view"(https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/05/teachable-point-of-view.html).   .  As leaders, we have a huge impact on our teams by what we prioritize and what we reward.  We need to find ways to actually allow our teams to struggle and face challenges, as ways to "build muscle" on "perseverance."  We need to allow competitive challenges or market place dynamics to push our teams into having to endure setbacks over time to "build muscle" on "stamina."  Finally, we need to find the spark of "passion" inside ourselves, and share it openly with our teams, in order to inspire our organizations to have the courage or confidence to step up and share their "passion" for the business/enterprise/brand/mission themselves.  Great leaders are great teachers and we need to find more ways to "teach grit" now more than ever.

This essay could continue, thinking about how to interview for "grit", or how to help frontline leaders foster "grit" among their teams, etc.  My focus today is to suggest that the business landscape ahead will be more dynamic, more challenging, higher tempo, with more change than the landscape historically and now more than ever we need to prioritize organizational "grittiness" in order to create "success" in times of accelerating "change"!

Look through the "other" end of the telescope ...

Across the business landscape there are headlines every day of companies realigning or restructuring their operating models to meet changing competitive challenges.  In some instances it is a retailer closing unprofitable stores, in another it may be a manufacturing entity consolidating their supply chain to improve efficiency and quite literally the list goes on and on.  When companies struggle to compete and “win,” they often look to the well-worn world of realignment/restructuring “consultants” to help them “improve” their operating model with an eye towards future success.  Having seen this trend “up-close” in a variety of contexts, it is tempting for me to “opine” on the mid-long term efficacy of these actions.  Possibly saving that content for a future blog essay, today I want to comment on the very real human side of these actions.

In a moment of coincidence, two companies from my past are executing restructuring efforts this summer and I am hearing from a number of associates/executives “impacted” in these actions.  In some circumstances they are 50+ year-old execs, being offered “early retirement” packages well before their personal plans for retirement.  In other situations, they are 30+ year old execs, 10+/- years into their careers facing the first real “speed bump” of their professional lives, and numerous situations in-between.  This essay was triggered from one such discussion that I had earlier tis week with someone on the younger end of the “impacted” spectrum.

The phone call I received early this week started innocently enough.  The woman on the other end of the line and I had worked together closely for a number of years and have known each other for the past 8 +/- years.  She had recently been “impacted” by a restructuring effort and her job was being outsourced to a third-party company.  (Very common in the restructuring playbook.)  Once we dug through the emotions of the moment, and her sadness, anger and frustration about why this plan even had to happen, she shared the core of her concerns and anxiety.  As part of the process, she was going to have to “interview” with the “third party” company for her old job and that interview was late this week.  The prospect of sitting on the other side for the table from a group of interviewers, each with their “telescopes” (her imagery) zeroed in on her every comment was a bit of a “freak-out.”  Certainly an understandable response!

Pulling out an old essay and encouraging her to “P/B/R: Pause, Breathe, & Reconnect" (see more at https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/07/pbr-maybe-not-what-you-think.html) we talked about the upcoming interview and I encouraged her to “look through the other end of THEIR telescopes.”  Think about THEM and their needs/issues.  Here THEY were, trying to find talent and build an organization to meet the needs of their new client.  THEY needed people like her; people with exceptional track records, strong well-documented accomplishments, with demonstrated leadership talents/skills/etc.! THEY NEEDED HER!!  Looking through the “other end of the telescope,” they weren’t coming to the interview to identify and explore this woman’s flaws/weaknesses.  They were coming to the interview to identify and explore her talents, qualities and experiences.  Once again, they NEEDED & WANTED her to be great!

The phone call closed out a bit after this discussion and she seemed focused and ready with a new attitude toward the upcoming interviews .  While I will be anxious to hear the outcome of the interview experience from my old friend, I am confident that we can all learn a lesson from the “telescope” imagery.  Too often we get “stuck” by looking at the “telescopes” in our work lives solely from OUR end, rather than pausing for a moment (remember “P/B/R”) and working to “look through the telescope form the other end!”

Three Dimensions of Career Growth

Recently I had the chance to have a candid conversation with a young work colleague who was considering a job/company move.  She is early in her career, performing at a high level, and was more than intrigued with this new opportunity/offer.  Before engaging on the specific role/title/comp plan of this opportunity, I asked her to reflect on this role on “three dimensions” and we would “chart out” how this opportunity might fit into her career plan.

Now with over 30 years of a professional career (wow is time flying!) my personal experience has suggested that we often get too caught up in titles and compensation elements rather than staying focused on three key foundational elements/dimensions for long term career growth and success; these three “dimensions” being:

1    1.) Skill Development

2    2.) Business Impact expansion

3    3.) Organizational Experience breadth

In other words, when assessing a new role or opportunity, lets reflect on it through the triple lens of “Skills, Impact, & Experience.”

Skills: lets use the x-axis (model above) for this dimension and ask your self how well the opportunity being reviewed DEVELOPS your current skill set.  Does this role allow or even force you to build new skills and learn how to deploy them in the work environment?  Too often opportunities become available that utilize your historic skills without offering the chance to build new skills.  The broader the opportunity to build new skills, the farther “right” you would plot the opportunity on the x-axis.  The opposite is also true.  If an opportunity would only allow/require you to use a very narrow set of your skills, not allowing you to even “keep current” on your existing sill set, you would plot it to the “left” on the axis.

Impact:  lets use the y-axis for this dimension and ask your self how well the opportunity being reviewed EXPANDS or increases your impact on the business.  A specific individual comes to mind that over her career took a number of “lateral” roles, each one offering opportunities that allowed her to work on bigger and broader parts of the business.  The greater the impact expansion, the farther “up” you would plot the opportunity on the y-axis.  Even if an opportunity is a “promotion” but has you having an impact on a smaller part of the business than you are currently “touching,” you would plot it farther “down” on the axis.

Experience:  lets use the z-axis for this dimension and ask yourself how well the opportunity being reviewed BROADENS your set of professional experiences.  Too often we get “pigeon holed” into narrow roles, with every successive move actually narrowing/limiting the work experiences.  This is a dangerous tendency, especially early in one’s career.  It’s vital that you work on broadening work experiences as a way to put your “expanded skills” to work in the professional setting.  Like above, the more the role broadens your experiences, the farther “forward” you would plot the opportunity, and the more the role narrows/limits your experiences, the farther “away” you would plot it on the z-axis.

I won't try to do an on-line plot as an example, but try this model out on a recent role/opportunity you have reviewed.  See if the role plots to the “right/up/toward you” quadrant (which would be great!) vs. the “left/down/away from you” quadrant (which would not be great!)  Keep this model handy as you reflect on opportunities going forward, and I am confident that you will find it productive to drive career growth and success over the long term!

Four Corner Approach for Talent Assessment and Review

In a recent work session with a wonderful new client, we had a discussion about some of their key executives and how they were performing in their roles.  While not a start-up, this is a small, high growth, privately funded company filled with opportunities and challenges.  As the discussion expanded, I realized that my client had a lot of opinions/feelings/perspectives and experiences with these associates, just no framework to assess/discuss their performance.

Quickly, in typical “Levisay fashion,” I grabbed a marker and went to the flip chart and started drawing out my “Four Corner Strategy” for talent assessment.  While certainly not groundbreaking in any way, it gave us a framework to work through relating to each exec, allowing us to have a more structured discussion, and in a number of cases was pretty illuminating in it’s implications.

“Four Corner” Approach

With marker in hand, I drew out a large box, with a 4x4 grid inside, and identified each of the four quadrants: 1.) Skills, 2.) Experience, 3) Motivation, 4.) Work Ethic.  We then had a discussion as to whether any of the boxes should be weighted more or less than one another.  For our discussion, we kept each the equal weight, but could have made adjustments at this step.  With the grid set, we pulled up a specific individual and their specific role and made sure that we were clear about the role’s requirements.  With that set, we went through each of the grids with surprising clarity and efficiency:

1    1.) Skills:  having just reviewed the skills required for the role, it was pretty easy to assess whether the individual had the skills, and more importantly had demonstrated those required skills on the job.  After a quick review, I asked my client to rate the associate 1-10 (1 being low, 5 being fair, 10 being exceptional)

2    2.) Experience: In the same manner, we thought about the experiences someone needed to perform this role well, and again after a quick review, I hade my client rate the associate 1-10.

3    3.) Motivation: While a little less tangible that the “factors” above, we discussed how “motivated/energized/engaged” the associate was to do their role; not overall in their work life, but the specific job that we were discussing.  Again another rating 1-10.

4    4.) Work Ethic:  Was the associate showing a strong drive to get their job done, close out emails/calls with peers or customers, working hard to get major objectives done, etc.  This is a very “visible” part of the review and drove a quick review and rating.  Again score 1-10.

With the 4x4 grid complete, it was interesting to review the ratings!  While only the first time through, we had rated a few associates in similar roles, and their “cumulative scores” ranged dramatically.  One individual scored a 17, while another scored a 28 and at the beginning of the discussion we knew there were differences, but now we had a way/framework to dig in.  While not exactly like an academic grading system, I did encourage my client to think that a cumulative score of 36 (9 out of 10 average score on each factor) would be outstanding, a 32 (8 out of 10 average) would be very good, a 28 (7 out of 10 average) adequate, and anything below 26 (a 6.5 out of 10 average) we should think about as unacceptable.  Well to say the least the scores of the individuals raised some serious questions, and actions are underway to work on performance improvement plans and possibly an impending exit.

I share this story not to myopically advocate this approach over another model. There are numerous talent assessment frameworks being utilized broadly in business today, and many of them work very well.  I am a strong advocate of adopting a single framework and “working it hard’ across your team.  Find an approach that works for you and use it consistently across departments and functions.  Build skills as senior executives on how to assess and develop talent within your organization, and after a 30+year business career I am more convinced than ever that human talent is and will be the most precious resource for executives in business.