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New Year, New Hope, New Choices

January.  A New Year.  A new decade. 

Do you have new year’s resolutions that look something like this?  

• More time with the family
• More time at the gym or yoga
• More time reading
• More time on vacation

All of these goals are about finding better balance.  But I believe these goals create more exhaustion. All are requiring more of your time, which is something you don’t have!  By adding more tasks to an already busy schedule, will it really create balance?

If you want these resolutions to stick,  it is also important to add the leadership goal to “elevate from Exhausted Hero to Strategic Manager”.  First, delegating individual contributor work to create space for more strategic work. Next focus on getting ahead by managing your team, not managing your tasks.  You should spend over 50% of your work week focused on planning for the future by setting a vision for the months ahead, planning to avoid future roadblocks, and positively influencing the change for your team.  

As a leader, you need to get ahead and stop feeling like you are always reacting.  Choose to lead. Choose to delegate. Choose to create a path forward for your team to follow.  Choose the proactive leadership approach that will create more time for family, your health, your development, and your being. 

If you’re an executive, ask yourself:

• How did you learn to become a strategic manager?  One who spends most of your days in leading others, and little of your time in executing.
• Where did you learn the skills and tools necessary to focus on managing and leading your team, rather than getting mired in the day-to-day fires?
• Did you have a mentor or former boss who demonstrated for you the essentials of being the foremost leader and not the foremost do-er? Did you learn by shadowing them or through other forms of osmosis? Or did you participate in a management or executive level training program?
• Did your current or previous employer invest in your future by providing you training? Or workshops with a consultant? Or 1:1’s with a coach? Or all the above?

As executives, we’ve likely had formal leadership training beyond that of our direct reports. Which means if you are supervising an exhausted hero, a leader trying too hard to do it all, then a dose of formal training could help them to avoid burnout.

Today, corporate America doesn’t invest in leadership training and coaching like it used to. Think back to the heydays of GE and IBM management training, when corporations equipped generations of leaders with the skills and tools they’d need to manage teams, and some day rise into the company’s executive senior leadership.

Nowadays, once supervisors and executives identify a high potential person, the common practice is for them to say, “Let’s just throw him/her in the deep end! They’ll figure it out.” But “figuring it out” isn’t always the case. Burnout is usually the outcome.

McKinsey cited “74% of US leaders and 83% of global leaders think they are unprepared for their new roles.” John Ryan, the President and CEO of the Center for Creative Leadership wrote in an article that nearly two thirds of new managers never received any leadership training, so they don’t know how to shift from standing out as an individual to leading a team.

A little bit of training and coaching can go a lot further than just the bottom of the deep end. Rather than making our high-potential employees sink or swim, the onus is on all of us to get these individuals the training they need to overcome their exhausting habits.

Executives today must fully understand their responsibility to nurture talented subordinates in a way that avoids burnout.

This Thanksgiving week, I hope many are taking the time to be with family. But I also know this is a week to stop, process, and find new perspective on work life integration.

Through all my executive coaching initiates this year, there is a common theme, exhaustion! Leaders are working hard to drive change, maximize transformation, and deliver results. But as timelines are shortened, resources are conserved, and priorities continue to multiply, these leaders continue to take it all on themselves. The superhero mentality to try to “save the world“ doesn’t last long. Soon, the superhero is replaced by the exhausted hero. The firefighter that is scurrying from fire to fire trying to put out fires, but not seeing the big picture of how fires start.

And it is taking a toll on the American workforce. Exhausted Hero’s are taking less care of themselves and their balance. Check out this data from the U.S. Travel Association, Oxford Economics and Ipsos found that out of the 768 million vacation days in the U.S. were left unused in 2018. 236 million vacation days were completely forfeited with $65.5 billion in benefits lost. More than half of Americans (55%) failed to use all their time off in 2018. Are you one of the many Americans this week who is taking the minimal time off because “there is too much work to do?”

As you enjoy the Thanksgiving break, take time to evaluate how you are spending your time. Are you driving results, completing tasks, and serving as a technical expert? Or are you spending time managing your team, creating vision, and influencing change? If you are a leader of people, don’t be an exhausted hero. Be a strategic manager who delegates, influences change, sets vision, and most importantly coaches your people. It isn’t about achieving less. It is about using the team strategically to accomplish more.

The role of a Corporate Exhausted Hero is not a life sentence. It isn’t even decided by others. It is a choice you make: to lead or to do.

If you are lucky, you have leadership role models. For me, I have a few. And one of the best is Lynn Morris Wiggins.

I worked at a large national retailer that was implementing a whole new supply chain system. In that supply chain system, there was a new forecasting tool and a new replenishment process. Both were important for getting the right product, to the right store, at the right time.

Lynn Morris was a senior vice-president overseeing the project, and one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked for. She was a truly Strategic Manager. Lynn inherited and elevated a team of about twenty team members participating in this big change, with two expert Working Managers reporting to her. The first knew everything about forecasting in that organization, and then became an expert on how to use the new tool in forecasting as well. The second Working Manager worked on the replenishment side of things, on how to manage the supply chain.

Structuring her team in this way gave Lynn the ability as a Strategic Manager to step out of the details of execution. She was able to focus on influencing senior leadership and communicating what was coming next in the project. She got decisions out of them them early because she presented all ideas to them early. She was able to set a clear vision for the team of what they were trying to accomplish. She did this through monthly meetings, where the team collaborated together and reviewed, “How are we doing in our work to achieve these goals? Is there anything we’re doing that is against these visions?” Lynn did an excellent job leading change. She was always six to eight months ahead identifying and removing roadblocks.

In addition, Lynn coached her team. She did not get into the details of replenishment and forecasting, but instead coached those two Working Managers to truly own their projects and make decisions themselves. She didn’t tell them what to do, but she helped them think, and through that she was able to really make them empowered leaders who stood up for what they were doing and how they were doing it for the organization.

To this day, if Lynn Morris (now Wiggins) were to call anyone from that team and say, “Hey, I’ve got a job for you,” we would move our families to go work for her. Because she built trust, understanding, and excellence!

I asked Lynn once how she became a great Strategic Manager. She said she was a strong Working Manager who just kept taking on more and more responsibilities. She started thinking more strategically and became overwhelmed. She wished executive coaching was available, but was thankful she had multiple mentors who were able to provide advice. Over time, Lynn learned how to delegate and trust others. This gave her time to focus on strategic planning. Then, she learned to coach. As she became a senior leader, she spent time coaching her direct reports in becoming better leaders. And she supported their participation in executive coaching and leadership development programs.

Hopefully you have an example of a great leader like Lynn in your work history.   Take time to reflect on what characteristics and behaviors you need to display to be a strong Strategic Manager.

A Strategic Manager is somebody who has the complete buy-in of their team. They always look calm, cool, and collected, because they seem to know what’s coming and how to handle it. When a fire erupts, they immediately turn into the fire chief, rather than a firefighter. They organize the team’s command center (literal or metaphorical) before fires even start for strategy and response, similar to how emergency teams prepare for and respond to crises.

On a day-to-day standpoint, Strategic Managers spend a lot of time connecting with their teams, which builds a level of trust between those individuals that just doesn’t exist with an Exhausted Hero (aka. firefighter). Strategic Managers hold one-on-ones with individuals on their team, and check in on projects without diving in and being involved in the projects themselves. They don’t spend a lot of time in extra computer systems; they don’t even pull their own reports. They spend their days primarily in meetings and communicating via email.

If this sounds horrible to you, and exemplifies what you hate about leadership, you must realize that all these emails and meetings a have singular, powerful purpose: to mobilize.

Communication is the only way to mobilize teams. When strategically mobilized, a team can always achieve better results than a solo Exhausted Hero. That’s why Strategic Managers invest so much time and energy into connecting with their team, to mobilize efficiently and effectively.

When not mobilizing, Strategic Managers spend their days looking ahead, seeing what’s coming, and brainstorming how to influence the coming weeks and months. “This project is going to miss a deadline. How do I get that in front of the people that need to know about it now?” Or, “We’re going to need more resources on this project. Who can make time to help us?” Or, “We’re going to need to shift this to another plant. How do we do that? Let’s start thinking about that now.” They don’t wait until there are twenty-four hours left to address issues, because they see them coming in advance and can anticipate needs and resources.

If you are managing an Exhausted Hero who needs to elevate their skills to Strategic Manager, consider hiring an Executive Coach or implementing a Leadership Development Program for your company. They most likely will not figure it out themselves. Invest in your team today!

The Ideal Strategic Manager

Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to meet a handful of individuals who truly exemplify what it is to be a Strategic Manager.

Very early on in my career, I worked with Rick Maguire,  senior vice-president of inventory management at Target. Rick always amazed me when a fire came up: either he already knew the answer, or he was quickly he able to frame the problem and move the team forward.

Because Rick spent so much time analyzing what was going on, analyzing what the future could be, and checking in with his leaders, he was able to see clearly where others just saw fog.

He had checkpoints in place to make sure that what he was expecting was happening. He “inspected what you expected.” Rick definitely had his moments when he would get upset or angry when something didn’t happen, but it was usually after the plan was in place and somebody dropped the ball—not because something happened that he hadn’t thought of.

As a senior vice president and a Strategic Manager, he was able to be forward-thinking and have his managers underneath him keep a clear understanding of where things were.

And Rick was one of the biggest supporters of the development of his team, investing in large leadership development programs, mentor programs, and executive coaching to get his team ready to take on more and more.  

For our team, Rick’s foresight and clear expectations resulted in a happy, engaged, and productive work environment. It was challenging work, but I still think fondly of that experience today.

I learned from Rick that you can achieve it all by not doing it all.  His ability to lead a clear vision, influence change, and coach his team created results that he could have never reached by doing it all himself! 

Leadership Development is more than On-the-Job

I’ve spoken to thousands of executives who today are the top of a company, and I’ve asked them all the same three questions. First: Earlier in your career, did you experience leadership coaching and/or management training that significantly impacted your elevation from manager to executive? In response, the vast majority of older executives I’ve spoken with said yes.

My follow-up question: Are you investing in your employees with the same degree of leadership and management coaching and training? The vast majority of older executives said no.

My final question: How do you expect your employees to learn the leadership skills and tools that you possess if you’re not investing in similar formal training and coaching? The vast majority of executives blinked once or twice. I almost could see a lightbulb go off in their head.

When talking about their development, most executives point to a mix of sources that spurred their rise from manager to executive.  A training program, tied in with some mentorship and coaching, plus some big responsibility from their supervisors who delegated to them a handful of challenging projects, is the usual mix.

As we look at training’s place in today’s world, we see it’s a shadow of what it once was in defining leadership and developing talent.  And here is why.

The 70-20-10 Model for Learning and Development is a common formula based on studies of effective learning experiences.  The model states that individuals get 70 percent of their learning from job-related experiences, 20 percent from interactions with others, and 10 percent from formal training or workshops.  The model was created in the 1980s by three researchers and authors working with the Center for Creative Leadership, a nonprofit educational institution in Greensboro, N.C. The three, Morgan McCall, Michael M. Lombardo and Robert A. Eichinger, were researching the key developmental experiences of successful managers.

Although I highly agree that 70% of learning experiences happen on the job, it doesn’t mean throw new leaders into the deep end and see if they can “learn it on the job”.  I think the 70 20 10 model illustrates the need for blended learning. Take 10% of your time and take a formal learning experience to learn the new process, skill, or behavior. Then through a mentor or manager (20 percent of learning), and 70 percent of learning on the job, it blends together for effective learning.  By throwing them in the deep end without the 10 percent formal learning, does not result in effective learning.

As we continue to cut costs and streamline the business, management training programs are often what’s cut in budgets, because most executives believe it’s a priority for tomorrow, but outweighed by other of-the-moment priorities. And executives lie to themselves that their learners will learn 70 percent by just being on the job, and then they cut the training budgets eliminating leadership development programs.

Luckily, helping your employees develop is an investment much less costly than burnout and turnover. Time for executives to invest in the coaching and development of the next gen leader.

Did you hear this summer that the World Health Organization included burn-out as an occupational phenomenon that has factors influencing health status and influences the frequency of contacting health services?

WHO defines burn-out as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.  It is characterized by three dimensions:

• Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
• Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
• Reduced professional efficacy. 

When I read this definition, I think of the Corporate Exhausted Hero.  That leader that tries to take it all on as an individual contributor, a manager, and a leader.  They are focused on getting tasks completed themselves, while also trying to pull themselves up to the big picture to build a strategy for the future.  They try to keep their team happy but rarely can focus more than a week or two into the future. 

Burn-out will continue to drive turnover in corporate America, especially with these Exhausted Heros.  As the Exhausted Hero continues to take on more work, takes less vacation, and works longer hours, their burn-out becomes overwhelming and these high potential employees will continue to be faced with the choice to leave or just try to hold on. 

Exhausted Heros need to focus on elevating to a Strategic Manager.  By focusing on these core skills, they can pull themselves from the brink of burn-out:

• Create a Vision:  This forward thinking skill allows both the leader and the team a roadmap to the future that sidesteps major roadblocks.
• Influencing Others:  By identifying who needs to be aligned with the plan and take intentional steps to convince them  to get onboard, leaders can eliminate additional roadblocks and keep the work going
• Leading Change:  By staying ahead on the change curve, leaders can communicate to the team, leadership, and key partners where projects are in the process of change.  If people understand where they are and where they are going, change is way less daunting!
• Coaching & Delegating:  Strategic Managers pass ALL individual contributor work to the individual contributors through delegating projects and tasks, and by coaching their teams to success. 

Many Exhausted Heros struggle elevating to Strategic Manager on their own. If you are an Exhausted Hero or manage an Exhausted Hero, consider hiring a Leadership Coach or building a Customized Leadership Development Program.

Today, I had the great pleasure of facilitating a culture transforming workshop at QuinStreet, a global digital marketing company. This awesome group of women reminded me that leadership development is a multiple choice game.

Women’s Development – At QuinStreet, a female senior leader created a women’s program that includes culture transforming workshops, informal mentors, and networking.

High Potential Development – With the State of Colorado, I am co-creating a leadership development program focused on high potential talent. Through facilitated workshops that occur every quarter, one-on-one leadership coaching, and a 360 degree feedback tool, this organization is focused on developing this important and influential group.

Leadership Expectations – At Streamline Brands, a national swim school company, we have created a series of customized leadership programs focused on defining the expectations for leaders in the organization. Every month, I facilitate a workshop focused on a new defined leadership expectation.

Executive Development – At Advertising Production Resources (APR), I am working with the top 20 within the organization to define leadership and they continue to grow.

Executive Coaching – Some organizations are focused one leader at a time, providing executive coaching with extra support to elevate their leadership. I am currently working with executives in energy, government, retail, manufacturing, information technology, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship.

No matter the method, it is critical to create dedicated leadership development programs for your organization. This not only creates leaders, improved productivity, and elevates effectiveness, it also ignites employee engagement and value.