DDI’s Talent Management Intelligence

The Ballad of John and Steve

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

As I've spent the last week working and vacationing in Tokyo and Kyoto Japan and falling in love with this country, I was surprised to have John Lennon on the brain.  Not only is Yoko Ono from Tokyo, but I have been surprised by how much the peace sign is alive and well here in the Far East. It seemed that tourists posing for pictures, young and old, east and west (mostly east as observationally at least tourism has not returned to normal following what they refer to as the “Eastern Japan Great Earthquake Disaster”) broke out into a spontaneous display of a vote for peace.  Echoes of John and Yoko pleading "all we are saying is give peace a chance" have been reverberating in my mind. John was an intimate partner to me, a man I never met who sparked a love for music that today still inspires me and bonds me with my children. When “Sgt. Peppers” came out I was hypnotized.  I still am.  And I remember with abundant clarity exactly where I was when I found out of his death in Dec 1980; the grass wallpaper on my parents' den wall, the ABC-TV newscasters name (Ernie Anastos) who read the announcement; the glassy-eyed vacuous stares of the throng outside the Dakota Hotel on the TV; the lump in my throat that lasted for what felt like years.

And, as I sit here typing on my iPad, I will also remember the night in Kyoto when I found out about the death of Stephen Jobs.  Another intimate friend never talked to.  The shrines to him evocative of those to Lennon; he melded business with art through the look and feel of his innovations and the now omnipresent sound track of my travels.  Of course I knew he was a very sick man and the rattle I feel in my 50s is much less than that of the emotional youth hearing about John.  

I was not surprised to hear that Lennon and the Beatles were very much heroes to Jobs as well.  In the end perhaps both men measured themselves not by their own recognition or wealth, but by their ability to, as Jobs put it, “make a dent in the universe.”  Perhaps their greatest success was nothing less than inspiring others to greatness, to innovate in ways never dreamt.  In our recent Global Leadership Forecast which included 1900 HR Professionals and 12,500 leaders in 74 countries, we found that only 38% of leaders felt the quality of leadership was acceptable, only 25% when we asked the same question of HR professionals. Further, we found that the leaders’ ability to foster creativity and innovation was one of the 5 critical leadership skills of the future, along with managing change and identifying future talent. 

We can’t expect every leader to be the genius that Jobs or Lennon were, but they can learn to be the spark that creates the environment for greatness. For example, they can learn to inspire insatiable curiosity, make it okay to challenge perspectives, and meld those with the discipline to get things done.  And, as Jobs might have said, that would certainly be “insanely great.”

Barry Stern Ph.D. is vice president, Consulting Services and Delivery for Development Dimensions International (DDI). Follow him on Twitter.

Are You an Exceptional Boss? Some Things to Ponder

By Mike Hoban

October 16 is Boss’ Day.  It’s interesting – it is not a Hallmark invention like many people suspect.   Nope.  A woman named Patricia Horoski, who was an employee at State Farm Insurance in Illinois, registered the holiday with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1958.  She thought bosses should have a day of appreciation of their own.  She chose October 16 because it was her father’s birthday and she considered him to be an excellent boss. 

If you’re a manager, would your team members consider you to be an excellent boss?  How likely is it you’ll get an e-mail, an e-card a high-five or some other sort of supportive acknowledgement from those who report to you on Boss’ Day?  Maybe it won’t happen because no one wants to be considered a suck up.  Or maybe because it’s a weekend day and no one remembers .  But maybe it’s because, well, they don’t consider you to be one of those excellent bosses. 

So there could be a good reason for Boss’ Day to come and go with nary a word from your team, but it’s still worth looking in the mirror and asking yourself the following questions:

• When was the last time you said to one of your direct reports, “Thanks for _____” (fill in the blank, being specific and timely)?
• How many times in the past week have you authentically asked your direct reports “What do you think?” and then acted on the input?
• When was the last time you admitted to your direct reports that you were wrong on a business decision you made?
• When was the last time you even admitted to yourself that you were wrong on a business decision you made?
• When was the last time you publicly credited one of your direct reports for excellent work, even downplaying whatever role you might have played in the outcome?
• Do you almost always resist the urge to second guess your team member on a decision she made on an assignment you delegated to her?
• When was the last time you told your boss he/she was doing a good job and why?
• How often do you speak favorably to your direct reports about your boss when he/she is not around?
• Could two or more of your direct reports describe a time in the last 6 months when you went to bat for them on a significant issue?
• Would most of your direct reports say that they trust you as a boss and as a person because of the specific things you do (and don’t do) in leading and managing them?

Those are some of the things that excellent bosses do.  And those are the kinds of things that give direct reports a reason to remember and acknowledge Boss’ Day. Work on giving them a reason for next year.

Mike Hoban is a Senior Consultant for Development Dimensions International (DDI).