Category Archives: Leaders

Cricket, Leaders, Professionals, Sport

Lessons From Backyard Cricket

A friend of mine Darren Hill recently posted this article. I liked it so much that I asked him if I could share it with you and he has agreed to let me do so. If you would like to find out more about Darren please visit http://www.darrenhill.tv/ or www.changeworksnt.com.

One of the great Aussie/NZ pastimes in summer is partaking in a few sessions of backyard cricket. As I sit here, my shoulder sore and tired after a few too many overs with the tennis ball, I reflected upon the similarities backyard cricket share with our workdays as we re-enter the workplace after the New Years/ Christmas break. I decided 3 things were worth considering…

New rules are interesting
I love that you invent an array of new rules to make the game of backyard cricket more interesting. One-hand-one-bounce, the car is out, and four runs for hitting the white bucket; these are new rules adopted to make it fun and interesting. What new rules could your team at work adopt to make the playing field more interesting?

Uneven pitches are fun
My backyard has lumps and bumps on the pitch that make a well aimed tennis ball dance all over the place. Depending upon your outlook, this can be frustrating or it can be fun. I for one love the challenge and uncertainty of not knowing where the ball is going to go. If 2010 is a ‘bumpy pitch’ for you, revel in the challenge rather than complain about the groundskeeper.

Celebrate success
After a hard session in the sun, there is nothing better than a cool drink in the pool. Relaxed conversation about the game just played is always enjoyable, and the respite from previous exertion in the hot sun is appreciated by all. When do you take time to have a relaxed conversation at work? Do you allow yourself or your team respite after a project and express gratitude towards each other? If these things aren’t present, then why would you put in your best next time around?

So as you return to work after your breaks, come in off the long run, keep your bat and pad together, but most of all, enjoy playing for your team. With 52 overs (weeks) to face, 2010 will be a great session!

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
High Performance, Leaders, Leadership, Professional Development, Professionals, students, What Matters, What Really Matters

What Really Matters! Volume 1, No 2, 2009 ebook


This ebook is all about Personal and Professional Development. It has been derived from articles published on The Organisations That Matter Learning Network from July 1st to September 30th 2009.

This ebook is the second in a series of three for 2009.

Download the ebook here

Feedback and comments are welcome.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
High Performance, Leaders, Leadership, Professional Development, Professionals, students, What Matters, What Really Matters

What Really Matters! Volume 1, No 1, 2009 ebook


This ebook is all about Personal and Professional Development. It has been derived from articles published on The Organisations That Matter Learning Network up until June 30th 2009.

This ebook is the first in a series of three for 2009.

Download the ebook here

Feedback and comments are welcome.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
2010, ebook, Leaders, Professionals, Seth Godin, What Matters, What Really Matters

What Matters Now – Free ebook by Seth Godin


In less than three hours after it was released in the USA this ebook has been made available to members of The Organisations That Matter Learning Network. Seth Godin is one of the world’s marketing Guru’s. No wonder when he is able to attract the calibre of people like Tom Peters to contribute to a free book! Enjoy!

what-matters-now-1_Page_01.jpg

what-matters-now-1.pdf

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Feedback, Leaders, Leadership, Managers, Professionals, Respect, Values, What Matters, What Really Matters

How to show respect when in the role of a manager

Recently a participant in a leadership development program for managers asked, “I’ve discovered that ‘respect’ is a core value of mine. What are some practical ways that I can ensure that this value is present in the way that I behave as a manager?”.

The following is the list of suggestions that emerged from the conversation that was conducted with this participant and another four people at their table. It is important to note that the following behaviours can be conducted irrespective of the culture that exists within the organisation.

  • Take the time to get to know each member of your team individually. This means that you would know the names of their partner, their children (if they have any). You would remember their hobbies and passions and genuinely inquire about how they are going with those pursuits. If you had a poor memory you would create a structure to ensure that you could remember these things. An example of such a structure is creating notes for each of the members in your team.
  • You would have a clear understanding of the career path that each of your team members is travelling and raise their awareness of any opportunities that would enhance their development in that direction.
  • You would let people do their jobs and trust them with appropriate authority for their roles. As much as possible you would stay out of their way but you would be explicit with them about why you would do that.
  • When bad information about your company was required to be shared with your team, you would share it. You would not ‘sugar coat’ the news.
  • You would provide performance feedback to your team members and make it as easy as possible for them to provide you with feedback. You would not ‘sugar coat’ feedback.
  • You would be proactive about ensuring that the remuneration of your team members was ‘fair’ in the context of your organisation and industry. This means that if you discovered that someone’s package was not ‘fair’, you would do whatever your system would allow you to do to rectify that situation.
  • You would recognise and reward your team members for their contributions.
  • You would be proactive with letting your team members know about opportunities that might take them out of your team if your view was that the opportunity aligned with their career aspirations as you understood them.

This list of examples is just a start. Once again it is important to note that these behaviours can be adopted irrespective of the overall culture within the organisation.

What are your examples of how, as a formal leader you have practiced the value of ‘respect’ in your role? How have you catalysed Conversations That Matter®? Or, if you would like more information about how to practice the examples provided above, please let me know.

Again, please add your comments to this article as I would like to learn from your experiences in putting the value of ‘respect’ into action.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Leaders, Leadership, Professional Development, Professionals, Storytelling

Discover Three Steps To Bring Your Organisation’s Values Alive Through Storytelling

Organisational values are too often left to gather dust on office walls. If you are a leader and your organisation has values, how regularly do you bring those values alive in conversations with your team members? The usual response is, “Not very often.” Yet when we ask leaders if they believe in their organisation’s values they reply with a resounding, “Yes!”.

So what is the problem? Why is it that so many leaders struggle to host conversations with their team members about their organisation’s values?

The answer often lies in two issues. Firstly leaders simply forget to take responsibility for keeping their organisational values alive by talking about them with their team members. Such behaviour is simply not on their radar.

Secondly, many leaders aren’t taught how to tell effective stories. It is assumed that leaders know how to tell stories. In part this is true. People DO know how to tell stories. However, telling effective stories is different. Telling effective stories requires some structure.

Thankfully most storytelling structures are quite simple. Here’s one that most of you will remember from your childhood. The structure was effective then, and it is still effective now.

Step 1 – Start the story.
This usually involves setting the scene and context of the story. For stories regarding the organisations values you would explain a situation and set the scene that you are going to explain how the organisation’s values can be used in real situations.

Step 2 – Explain the middle section of the story
This usually involves the details about what happened and who did what. It is where the rationale behind how the values were used would be explained.

Step 3 – Finish the story
This section provide the “So what!” part of the story. What was the result? In this case, what was the impact of using the organisation’s values to guide decision making and actions.

These three steps effectively catalyse Conversations That Matter®.

An example

Start
When I was on the executive team of a medium sized business some legislation was passed that affected $14million of our revenue. In 12 months time it would be gone. This revenue directly paid the salaries of over 200 people.

Middle
Having already performed some scenario planning on this outcome, the executive team met to confirm what would be done for the staff to ensure that the values of integrity, teamwork, service and community were upheld throughout a difficult period. A decision was made to use the organisation’s training and development budget to up skill the staff in resume writing, interview skills and outplacement programs to ensure that as many staff as possible could find new jobs.

End
All staff who wished to access the support were provided with the training and outplacement support that they required. While it was a difficult period for everyone involved staff consistently reported that while they wished that the situation had not occurred, they were delighted with the support that the organisation had provided them throughout their transition. The vast majority of staff found new jobs and opportunities that fitted with their career aspirations.

A significant benefit of storytelling is that it helps people to makes sense of situations. After you have told a story it is worth asking people if the story has triggered any similar examples that also might show the organisation’s values in use. When listening to their stories listen for the start, middle and end. Not everyone tells stories correctly so they might miss out some important parts of the story. If you are listening you can help them out. For example, if someone shares a story but leaves out the end, ask, “What happened? What difference did your actions make?”. You’ll be amazed at the difference asking such questions can make to the quality of your team members storytelling.

Using this technique can create highly engaged and flowing workplace conversations. Without even knowing it your team members will start to deepen their understanding of what your organisation’s values really mean in action. So, set aside 15 minutes once a month in your team meetings and see if you can bring your organisation’s values alive through storytelling. Follow the simple start, middle and end structure and you’ll be surprised just how effective it can be. Please leave a comment or let me know how you go using the three steps for organisational storytelling.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Leaders, Leadership, Mentor, Mentoring, Reverse Mentoring, What Matters, What Really Matters

“Reverse mentoring” reframes traditional views – or does it?

“Reverse mentoring” is meant to reframe traditional views of mentoring. According to Gill South’s article in the New Zealand Herald reverse mentoring is a process where senior leaders deliberately seek out young staff or aspiring female staff to access their views of the world.

While reading the article I found myself thinking, “This isn’t new, this is what mentoring already does.” As a facilitator of mentor training programs I’m yet to experience mentors (who are volunteers in the programs that I facilitate) who do not expect to learn a great deal from their mentee. In fact, most of the mentors with whom I have worked have explicitly stated that they want to be mentors to access a different perspective on their company.

To enable you to make up your own mind the full article can be viewed here.

While I might not agree with the term “Reverse mentoring” I do agree with the benefits of forming true mentoring relationships that Gill lists. From a senior staff perspective accessing views from people within the organisation that you might not have direct contact with provides a smart and strategic reason to become a mentor. Fortunately there is a resurgence in company mentoring programs and Gill’s article will contribute to that trend. If you are a senior staff member and not involved in a mentor program I encourage you to become involved now. The relationship you form will benefit both your mentee and yourself, possibly more than you realise.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Career-Accelerator, Leaders, Leadership, Professionals, Servant Leadership, What Matters, What Really Matters

Dee Hock – An example of a Servant Leader

Dee Hock, founding CEO of VISA International was the driving force behind the creation of one of the most dynamic, complex organisations of our time. Despite being pragmatic in its pursuit for profit, VISA is also a highly values based organisation. Dee Hock was a Servant Leader and his approach is an example to us all.

Dee Hock is one of the most influential people of our time, yet few people are aware of his extra-ordinary influence on creating sustainable organisations through an approach known as Servant Leadership.

Dee Hock was the founder and CEO Emeritus of VISA International, an organisation that to this day is regarded as the most profitable business on earth. Yet most people know very little about VISA such as where it is head-quartered, what its history is, who created it, why it was created and who works for it. To many people’s surprise when they do commence their research on this amazing organisation they discover that it was founded upon an interesting paradox. First, VISA International is an organisation grounded in solid values, second it is an organisation that has a pragmatic pursuit of profit. How can two seemingly opposite pursuits co-exist?

One of the ways that these two opposite pursuits can co-exist is through the concept of Servant Leadership. Robert K Greenleaf first penned this concept in 1970 in an essay titled The Servant as Leader. In many ways the deep concept of Servant Leadership is captured by the test that Robert described in his essay. The test is as follows:

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

Many leaders practice the opposite of Servant Leadership. They see the people who report to them as being truly ‘sub-ordinate’ (the origin of this word means, “Sub – order”) and they believe that their direct reports exist to ‘serve’ the leader. In contrast Servant Leaders consider that the people who report to them are people who should be served. But service in this context is not about ‘doing their job for them’. Rather, it is about creating an environment that enables a leader’s direct reports to be the best they can be in their service of the organisation.

Servant Leadership also extends to serving the people to whom you report, serving your key stakeholders, your customers (or clients) and the broader community. So this means that while the formal leader is serving their direct reports, their direct reports are also serving them. Another interesting paradox! In addition Servant Leadership does not have to be limited to people who are in formal leadership roles. Servant Leadership can be practised by anyone, at any time, in any role.

Dee Hock published a book titled The Birth of The Chaordic Age in 1999. In 2005 it was re-published under the title One From Many. The book is exactly the same and both versions are currently available through Amazon and other good book-stores. It is well worth adding this book to your personal library.

For many people the concept of Servant Leadership seems natural yet they are not sure how to practice it. Please share your experiences and/or ask questions to enable us all to extend our understanding of Servant Leadership.

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Career-Professionals, Elite Sport, Goals, Leaders, Professionals, Purpose, students, What Matters, What Really Matters

Learn About The Relationship Between Purpose and Goals

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“We have Happy Feet starting this week.”, said my seven year old daughter as we sat down for dinner.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s a program at school where we see how many laps of the track around the school that we can complete. It goes for two weeks.”

“What part of the school day will you get to participate in this program?” I asked.

“It starts this Thursday and we’ll do it at morning playtime.”

“So you don’t have to do it?”

“No, I want to and I’m going to do it every day. I want to run like you. It’s good for my health and fitness.”

This conversation took place the night after I had completed the Melbourne Marathon. I can’t explain how happy I felt to hear my daughter spontaneously start this conversation. In all honesty, a spontaneous conversation like this one makes me feel even happier than when I complete a marathon (and believe me, I usually feel pretty happy when I get to the finish line!).

My life is so busy and hectic that if I didn’t have goals like completing a minimum of two marathons per year, it is quite likely that I might not do any exercise at all. One of my life’s purposes, however, is to set a good example to my four children about health and fitness. Completing two marathons per year is a concrete goal that I set myself that enable me to live that purpose. A conversation like the one described above provides clear evidence to me that my purpose is working. Over time, examples like this provide more and more motivation for me to continue to ‘live my purpose’.

In the Integrated Personal Planning programs that we provide many participants are very good at identifying goals for themselves. However many people are not clear about the higher purpose to which their goals relate. For example, many people may have a health and fitness goal to lose a certain number of kilograms. For this example, let’s say five kilograms. Unless they relate this goal to a higher purpose these people are at considerable risk of achieving their goal, but then slipping back into the bad habits that caused them to be overweight in the first place. The result; within a very short timeframe they put the five kilograms (and often more) back on. This is a familiar story for many, many people.

Clarity about your purpose may mean that more than one goal is created to help you to ‘live’ your purpose. If your goal is to lose five kilograms, maybe your purpose might be to live a healthy and more balanced lifestyle so that you can physically do want you want to do. For example, you may have one goal to lose five kilograms, and another goal to maintain your weight for five years after you have achieved your first goal, and another again to complete one holiday per year that involves some hiking. All these goals would work together to assist you to ‘live’ your purpose.

Linking goals to your purpose reduces the risk of oscillating between success and failure as it relates to your goals. Another function of having a clear purpose is that it enables you to continue to set new goals as you near the achievement of your current ones. For example, I always ensure that I know the next marathon that I will be doing after I complete the current one that I am booked in to run. This ensures that when I finish my current marathon (and achieve a goal) that I don’t fall into the trap of saying to myself, “Oh, I’ll get back into training when I work out what marathon I’ll do next.” Six, twelve, 24 months etc. could easily ‘fly by’ and before I knew it I would have stopped living my purpose and become unhealthy. Maintaining tension with ongoing goals as they relate to your purpose can be very, very powerful!

It is important that I note that I am not advocating that you all go out and start running marathons. That’s just what works for me. In fact health and fitness goals are relative to your current situation, so it may in fact be a bigger achievement for many of you to run/walk five kilometres than it is for me to run 42kms. Maybe swimming is your thing, or maybe it is averaging a certain number of exercise to music classes per week over a 6 month period. Having goals is what is important, and relating them to a higher level reason for doing them (i.e. your purpose) is even more powerful.

Many people also get stuck with regard to working out their purpose as it relates to their goals. Purpose is not unique. Is my purpose to set a good example of being healthy and fit to my four children (as well as being healthy and fit to be able to do whatever it is I physically want to be able to do in my life) particularly unique? No, it isn’t. Is my goal to run a minimum of two marathons per year also unique? No it isn’t. What IS unique is how I bring those goals into reality. The way I train and the marathons in which I choose to compete are unique to me. What is also unique is how living my purpose and achieving my goals contributes to me creating the future that I desire (see The Power of Personal Vision by Andrew O’Brien for more information).

My challenge to you is to identify the goals that you are currently striving to achieve and then articulating to yourself what higher purpose those goals are serving. The following three questions can be helpful in helping you to work out your purpose:

1) Why is this goal important to me?
2) What are the benefits of achieving this goal?
3) How does achieving this goal relate to the future that I want to create for myself?

Please feel free to share your thoughts with our learning community because the more examples that we have that highlight the relationship between purpose and goals, the more other members of our community will be able to work out the relationship between their goals and their purpose for themselves.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Focus, Leaders, Leadership, Strategy, Team

What leaders can do to maintain focus on organisational objectives

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For many years I have been leadership development programs for graduate students who have a minimum of five years work experience. The focus of the program is to enhance the capacity of the participants (even if only in a small way) to successfully perform in a mid to senior leadership role. The participants in the programs come from a broad range of cultural and work experience back-grounds, which is one of the many reasons that I enjoy facilitating the program. As part of the program I ask the participants to generate questions, that if answered would help them to better perform their role as a mid to senior leadership role.

A recent question that I was asked was, “What is the most important thing that you have to do as a manager to keep your team focused on organisational objectives?”.

There are many factors that relate to answering this question. In this blog I will provide one approach that a leader can use to enhance the capacity of the team that they lead to stay focused on (and achieve) organisational objectives and goals.

Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, leaders, leadership, Yes For success, visionStep 1.
Does your team know the organisational objectives to which it is contributing? This may seem like a silly question but my experience has taught me that it isn’t. Too many managers aren’t able to clearly and quickly articulate the organisational objectives to which the performance of their team is contributing. If you are in this situation then it is your responsibility to find out. The answer can usually be found in the organisation’s Strategic Plan or Annual Plan. These documents will exist but all too often their implementation seems remote from a mid-management perspective because a gap often exists between planning and operational activities.

Step 2.
Once you have identified the objectives outlined in your Strategic Plan, the next challenge for you is to communicate how that plan relates directly to your team members. A simple and effective tool, irrespective of the level of the people who report to you, is to use the One Page Strategy Map invented by Kaplan and Norton. An example of such a map can be found here.

Many organisations use the Balanced Scorecard methodology for their Strategic Planning and even if a different methodology is used, the high level strategies can often be focused and presented on a single page.

Step 3.
Literally sit down with each member of the team that you lead and, with a highlighter in hand, highlight each aspect of the Strategy Map to which their work directly relates. On many levels the act of highlighting different aspects of the content on the Strategy Map is far less important than the conversation that you will be having with each member of the team as you go through this process. These conversations will create a clear and specific level of understanding about what each person does and how that contributes to the achievement of organisational objectives.

Step 4.
At the conclusion of your conversation ask your team member if they have identified any work that they are doing that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere on the map. The answer to this question will not automatically mean that they are doing something that they shouldn’t be doing, but it certainly should indicate that further inquiry into this work should be considered.

Step 5.
Ultimately any work performed by the members of the team that you lead should be able to be explained in the context of how it contributes to the strategies outlined in the Strategy Map. Any other activities may be a waste of time and may indicate a loss of focus from the real work that should be performed. If possible, conduct a whole team conversation to enable each team member to clearly and concisely articulate their contribution (and collectively your team’s contribution) to the achievement of organisational objectives.

If you follow the five steps above and regularly talk about the progress that your team is making toward the achievement of the objectives outlined on your organisation’s One Page Strategy Map you will have an enhanced capacity to help your team members maintain focus on the work that they should be doing.

What is your experience with using Strategy Maps or similar tools to enhance the focus of your team? Or, if this blog has encouraged you to try this approach for the first time, please let us know how you go.

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Gary Ryan enables talented professionals, their teams and organisations to Move Beyond Being Good.
View a TedX Talk by Gary here.