Ann Oliveri

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Evoking Excellence in Others

Highly collaborative, ad hoc teams are transforming the way we work. So it's not too surprising that command-and-control managers are being replaced by leaders who function more like coaches, running practices, tuning up performance.

Rather than looking to industrial-era management cookbooks, we are better served looking to the growing literature on executive coaching.

One of my favorite coaches' coach is James Flaherty, whose approach is rooted in pragmatist philosophy: what is true is what works.  When you  name it, you know it.  When you see it, you can change it. 

His approach to working with individuals is not unlike my work as a marketing coach to organizations that mobilize individuals with a shared purpose, enable personal and professional growth, and advance economic ends through responsible means.

Rather than merely fix behaviors, Flaherty makes the case for working toward true satisfaction and effectiveness. In Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others, Flaherty sees commitment to a larger purpose as the engine of a life well lived.

And, if purpose is the engine, the transmission that shifts commitment into performance are five competencies: intellect; emotion; will; context; and, soul.  (His definition of context is also mine--the array of meanings, relationships, actions, and possibilities that arise once a purpose is declared.)

For associations, the ultimate member experience builds those five competencies, simultaneously, merging membership with identity, and making your association truly indispensable. So, maybe Flaherty's book is also the ultimate membership manual, too.  First published in 1988, a new third edition of Flaherty's classic is due out next week.

Rework

A "minimalist manifesto," Rework reveals the operating principles of 37Signals, the wildly successful perpetrators of Basecamp, Campfire, and other truly useful distributed work tools for the Fortune 5,000,000. You can download an excerpt at 37signals.com/rework/ that include some of my favorite essays, such as Underdo Your Competition and Workaholism. 

Here's a taste:

Workaholics "create crises.  The don't look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes. They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more."

"If all you do is work, you're unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision-making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what's worth extra effort and what's not. Any you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired."

"Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done."

Do less. Be more. Rework.

Just-In-Time Insights

Seth Godin is like comfort food.  Our view of what marketing is, and is not, is in synch, so just when I think I have lost my mind, a Seth Godin blog post or its equivalent, a chapter in his latest book, appears and I am one with the world again. 

So, in some ways, Seth Godin is my litmus test. Bloggers who "don't get" Seth Godin get eliminated from my dashboard, my feed.  Colleagues--especially those who don't work in marketing--who forward a Godin post, get a lot more attention.

In February, reading Godin's Linchpin on Kindle while commuting by rail through Washington's blizzards was an intravenous drip of good sense, holding chaos at bay, strengthening resolve, clarifying the road ahead.

Last week, I answered the final question in one section of Linchpin entitled Showstopper!  "The opposite of being a cog is being able to stop the show, at will.  What would it take for you to stop the show?"  A few pages later, there was a rationale so on target, it is a little creepy.

Saying No.

"There are two ways the linchpin can use 'no.'

"The first is to never use it.  There's a certain sort of indispensable team member who always finds a yes.  She always manages to find a way to make things happen, and she does it.  It's done.  Yes.

"Those people are priceless.

"Amazingly, there's a second kind of linchpin.  This person says "no" all the time.  She says no because she has goals, because she's a practical visionary, because she understands priorities.  She says no because she has the strength to disappoint you now in order to delight you later.

"When used with good intent, this negative linchpin is also priceless.  She is so focused on her art that she knows that a no now is a worthy investment for the magic that will be delivered later."

Here's to all those who say no with good intent.