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LEADERSHIP WIRED
John C. Maxwell's FREE Semimonthly Newsletter
Designed To Maximize Your Leadership Potential.

May 2005 - Volume 8, Issue 9
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In This Issue:

* Maxwell Moment – Look and Listen
* Leadership@Large – Surveying the Leadership Landscape
* Interview – One-on-One Leadership
* Quick Quotes – Good Question

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Maxwell Moment
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LOOK AND LISTEN
By Dr. John C. Maxwell

The main boardroom at my office is an odd shape. The large
conference table in the room was designed for the space, which
means that it's also an odd shape. 

Architecturally speaking, the table is a beautiful piece of
furniture. The craftsmanship that went into it is readily
apparent. And I suppose it makes good use of the space in the
room. But the first time I saw it, I knew immediately that a
leader didn't build it. 

Let me explain. When I sit in a meeting where important
conversations are taking place and decisions are being made, I
want to see every one of the people visually. I want them in
front of me. I want to see their eyes. I want to watch their
actions.  I want to read their body language.

At this table, I can't do that. 

If I look to the left when seated at the table, I see the back
of somebody's head. That drives me absolutely crazy in meetings
because I can't see that person's facial expressions. The design
of the table makes it impossible for me to engage in an activity
that is critical to successful leadership: observation.

In the landmark business tome "In Search of Excellence", Tom
Peters and Robert Waterman addressed this when they wrote about
"management by walking around." Their point was that the best
managers don't lead by staying holed up in their offices. They
walk around. They see what's happening. They take the temperature
of their organizations by observing their people at work. 

This is what legendary basketball coach John Wooden did to help
his players improve their shooting percentages. "I observed [as
they practiced], I watched them," he said. "And when I found
their spot, I went out there and drew a circle and said, ‘This
is where you shoot from; this is where you make your shots.' "

Wooden wasn't "leading" as he did this. He wasn't casting a
vision or implementing a strategy. He was simply watching. But
what he observed enabled him to help his players achieve their
full potential, which is what leadership is all about. 

When it comes to bringing out the best in others, observation
goes hand in hand with another key leadership function:
listening. To illustrate this, I'm going to draw from the
experience of Captain Michael Abrashoff, former commander of the
highly acclaimed USS "Benfold". In his excellent book, "It's Your
Ship", Abrashoff tells how listening "aggressively" helped him
transform the worst ship in the Pacific fleet into the top ship
in the entire Navy. 

"It didn't take me long," he writes, "to realize that my young
crew was smart, talented, and full of good ideas that frequently
came to nothing because no one in charge had ever listened to
them. … I decided that my job was to listen aggressively and to
pick up every good idea the crew had for improving the ship's
operation. 

"Some traditionalists might consider this heresy, but it actually
is just common sense," Abrashoff continues. "After all, the
people who do the nuts-and-bolts work on the ship constantly see
things that the officers don't. It seemed to me only prudent for
the captain to work hard at seeing the ship through the crew's
eyes."

I love that last statement. Great leaders are unique because they
have the ability to see farther and broader and bigger than their
people. At the same time, however, they also have the ability to
see through the eyes of their people. I've often said that the
best leaders have two sets of eyes—they have leaders' eyes and
they have followers' eyes. And you develop followers' eyes by
doing exactly what I've been writing about—observing and
listening aggressively. 

You may have never seen or heard the words listen and aggressive
used together. I hadn't before I read Abrashoff's book. I've
heard of aggressive talkers and aggressive doers, but never
aggressive listeners. And yet, it's a fitting way to describe the
kind of listening that enhances productivity and builds a culture
of empowerment. 

When you listen aggressively, you're actively engaged in the
conversation. You're not just hearing words; you're reading all
the signs I wish I could see when I'm sitting at our odd-shaped 
onference table—body language, facial expressions, etc. As a
result, you absorb far more than you would if you were distracted
or in a hurry. You also send a strong message that you value the
person with whom you're communicating. 

Buckminster Fuller, the 20th century inventor, mathematician and
futurist, once noted that, "By doing nothing more than observing
and acting upon the obvious, a person can change the world." Your
goal might not be to change the entire world, but you can make a
positive impact in your area of influence by closely observing
and aggressively listening to your people.

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Leadership@Large
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QUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY—PART TWO

In the last issue of "Leadership Wired", we had an item about Harry
Stonecipher, most recently president and CEO of Boeing, who lost
his job due to an extramarital affair. An ironic twist to this
situation was that one of Stonecipher's top priorities in his
position was "restoration of corporate ethics" at the aerospace
giant.

Now we turn our attention to another high-profile leader who
allegedly didn't practice what he preached: Tom Coughlin, the
former vice chairman of Wal-Mart's board of directors who
previously held the No. 2 spot in the company. According to the
"Arkansas Democrat-Gazette", Wal-Mart asked for Coughlin's
resignation from the board in late March because of an "internal
investigation that concluded he misspent as much as $500,000 in
company money." Because of that probe, Coughlin is now the focus
of a federal criminal investigation.

Coughlin, who joined Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart in 1978 and
rose through the ranks under Sam Walton's tutelage, was a highly
visible executive who had a strong relationship with the
company's employees. In a 2003 interview with "The Benton County
Daily Record", the local newspaper in Bentonville, Coughlin was
forceful in discussing action that should be taken against
employees who break company rules.

"A lack of trust will cause great companies to go to their
knees," he said. "We have high standards we set for people on
integrity, and we expect that they live up to them. When they
don't, they don't stay with the company."

Through his lawyers, Coughlin maintains he did nothing wrong.
While that's ultimately up to the courts to decide, one thing is
certain. Whether you hold a high position with the world's
largest company or your influence extends to only a handful of
people, your actions must match your words if you want to lead
effectively.
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JUNGLE SCHOOL

Vivek Paul learned one of his most significant leadership lessons
at an elephant camp in the jungles of Bangalore. 

Paul, the vice chairman of the Indian conglomerate Wipro and
former head of General Electric's global computer tomography
business, shared his discovery at a recent leadership conference
sponsored by the Wharton School of the University of
Pennyslvania. 

"When you visit such a camp, you see these gigantic elephants
tethered with a small stake," Paul told conference participants.
"I asked the trainer: ‘Why do they stay tethered when they could
so easily pull up the stake?' He told me: ‘Well, the elephant is
tethered as a small calf; when it tries to pull up the stake, it
learns it can't do it … and it never tries again.'

"That's an amazing parable about how we always tend to
underestimate ourselves," Paul continued. "The lesson for me is:
Don't let self limitations hold you back."

According to an article published by "Knowledge@Wharton", the
Wharton School's online research and business analysis journal,
Paul learned another important lesson while working at GE under
former CEO Jack Welch. 

"Welch loved international trips," Paul told his audience at the
Wharton conference. "Whenever he came back from one, he told
people he would get out of the elevator at the office and say to
himself: ‘This is my first day at GE as CEO. The previous guy was
a real dud. So how can I do better than he did?' He understood
that as a leader you always have to be reinventing yourself; you
have to have some tool that helps you abandon past behavior and
look with fresh eyes at your task."

To read more of Paul's comments about leadership, see:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1155&specialId=31

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Interview
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ONE-ON-ONE LEADERSHIP

What does a former Marine security guard, one-time Associated
Press sportswriter and veteran marathon runner have to say about
leadership? Plenty, if the person with that well-rounded resume
happens to be Richard Biggs, an Atlanta-based speaker and author.

Biggs, 59, also worked in sales for many years before starting
his own company (see www.biggspeaks.com). He has written several
books, including his latest, "Burn Brightly without Burning Out".
He uses what he learned in the military, covering sports events,
running marathons and as a sales manager to teach communication,
teamwork, work/life balance, mentoring, leadership succession and
other relevant topics to large and small organizations across the
country. We recently spoke with him about some of these issues.

Leadership Wired: Let's start off by talking about what you
discovered about leadership during your years in the Marines and
your stint as an AP sportswriter.

Richard Biggs: One thing about the Marine Corps is that they
teach leadership to everybody. Obviously, there's a chain of
command from the generals all the way down to the privates. But
in combat, you can lose your top leaders in a heartbeat, so you
have to be ready to step up to leadership at a moment's notice.
People say, "What's that have to do with the business world?
People aren't dying in the business world." That's true, but you
lose people all the time. You lose them to competitors, to
illness and to retirement. So I think it's very important that
everybody be exposed to leadership in an organization. One of
the best ways I've found to do that is through mentoring, which I
define as one-on-one leadership. It's nothing more than an
experienced person sharing with a less experienced person. So
often, when you ask company leaders if they have a mentor
program, they say yes, but really, when you get underneath the
surface, all it is is two people meeting. There's no structure,
no content, no action, no accountability. That's one thing that
the Marine Corps was very good at—that one-on-one leadership.

As far as journalism, when I came back to work at the Associated
Press, I was very fortunate to have an editor named Lamar
Matthews. The entire year I worked there, he would critique my
work the day after my evening shift. I learned a lot about
leadership from the guy because here's the way he would do it.
He had a three-part formula. He would always start off telling
me what I did right. Early on, there wasn't a whole lot for him
to talk about—I was making a lot of mistakes. But he'd find
something. Then he'd proceed to part two of his critique, and
that was suggestions for improvement. Now as the boss, they
weren't suggestions—they were commandments. But he did it in
such a way that I wanted to take his advice. Then he would always
end his letters by giving me hope and encouragement: "Now son,
if you just keep on doing what I say, you're going to become one
of the all-time great sportswriters." And because of how he led,
I believed him. So often with feedback from leaders, they just
rip your heart out. But he sandwiched the good on both sides by
telling me what I did right and giving me encouragement, and then
he put the bad stuff in the middle. He would always finish on a
positive note. 

LW: Most people couldn't dream of completing one marathon; you
have finished seven. And you run 15-20 miles every week. What
has this sport/hobby taught you about leadership that could
benefit leaders who might not be so athletically inclined?

Biggs: What it has taught me more than anything is self-
discipline. I define self-discipline as the ability to change bad
habits into good habits. If a leader isn't disciplined, what kind
of example does this set for the followers? On the other hand,
if a leader is disciplined, they're modeling by example. I've
kept a running log for nearly 30 years now. It's a disciplinary
tool, because I don't want to look at an empty log at the end of
the week. And except for a couple of bouts with the flu, a layoff
due to some torn ligaments in my foot from playing basketball and
a three-year stretch in the early seventies when I got kind of
lazy (I was working 70 hours a week in sales back then), I've
run every week since I started getting ready for Marine boot
camp in 1964. That good habit of disciplining myself has carried
over to all the other facets of my life. 

LW: Since you've written a book called "Burn Brightly without 
Burning Out", I'm guessing you have some personal experience in
this area. Why does burnout occur, and what are some steps
leaders can take to avoid it?

Biggs: I burned out in 1982 so badly that after a 13-year career
in sales, I quit and didn't work for five months. It ended up
being the greatest turning point in my life, because after that
five months, I started my own business, which is now 23 years
old, and I met a lady two months after I started my business who
became my wife two years later. So what looked like a terrible
time in my life ended up being by far the biggest turning point.
I've found that people burn out generally for two reasons. No. 1,
they let one area of their life become their life. The most
common is workaholism. That was me. I worked 60-, 70-, sometimes
80-hour weeks, Monday through Saturday. I probably would have
worked on Sunday but in those days, we weren't open on Sunday.
My value system changed from the way I was taught, and all I was
doing was chasing money and winning awards. But after 13 years of
that, I was just worn out. So that's the first way—they let one
area of their life take over. 

Then, after I got more in balance in 1982, I started trying to
live a perfectly balanced life every day. I had seven areas of my
life—what I call dominant interests—that I tried to touch. When
you're trying to do that on a daily basis, it's fairly impossible.
There are days when work just takes over. There are days when
family takes over—you have a tragedy or a death or an illness and
that becomes your focus. There is no such thing as perfect
balance every day. But I was trying to do that, so by the late
1980s, I almost burned out again. I was trying to be all things
to all people and my circuits were overloaded. So I eliminated a
lot of the things that I could eliminate right then. I started
cutting back on my running and I started getting out of groups
that I didn't have the time for. Over about a six-month period,
I was able to phase out of that, and I avoided burnout that way.

That's generally what happens with burnout—either people have one
area that just takes over, or they start trying to be perfectly
balanced and then they get too committed. Just because you have
five or six areas of your life that you think are important
doesn't mean you spend equal time in each of them. For example,
I spend about three hours exercising out of a week, and I spend
one hour a week mentoring a little boy in the school system. I've
had him since the first grade, he's now a sixth grader. It's only
one hour of community service, but it's had a big impact on
Scottie's life. 

LW: So what are some steps that people can take to avoid burnout?

Biggs: You have to look at personal management and time
management. Personal management is the areas where you spend your
time—those dominant interests I referred to. I think you should
have somewhere between three and seven. If you have less than
three, you're not in balance—you're like a workaholic. If you
have more than seven, you're going to be completely stressed out.
So be very careful about the number of areas where you say you're
going to spend your time. And then become a good time manager.
Realize that you may spend more time at work than you spend
exercising. You may spend more time with your family than you
spend doing something in the community or at your church. It
doesn't have to be equal time; you just have to manage it. And
one of the ways you can manage time better is to make sure that
you don't have interests in your life that you don't need.

LW: In order to achieve balance in life, a person must be able to
make good choices. The same skill is necessary for effective
leadership. What are some steps leaders can take to ensure that
they are making good decisions?

Biggs: In "Burn Brightly without Burning Out", I had a five-part
model for making wise decisions. First, give careful
consideration to all the facts and options. That's what I call
the logical part of a decision. Also, that's a time when if
you're not familiar with something—if you see something that's
too good to be true or whatever—a lot of times, you can seek out
the advice of more experienced people and they will say, "I've
been down that road before and it's not what it looks like." Two,
pay attention to your heart, intuition and gut feeling. That's
more of the emotional side. The emotion is the heart and the
logic is the head, and you need both of those when you're making
a decision. Three, once you make a decision, don't second-guess
yourself. You simply make too many important decisions in life
to waste valuable time lamenting past choices. You make them,
sometimes they don't turn out, you learn from them and you move
on. Live in the present, be looking to the future, and don't let
the past just completely paralyze you. Four, act with the
knowledge that you'll probably make more good choices than bad
ones in a lifetime. If you learn from your mistakes, I guarantee
you that's true. You get smarter as you get older. So celebrate
your good decisions, learn from your mistakes and over time,
you'll make better decisions. 

And finally, anticipate success but don't be afraid to fail. So
many people are miserable in their jobs. And yet when you say,
"Why don't you start your own thing?" they're too afraid to take
risks. But if they get downsized or let go from their company,
that's just as risky. There are three questions you can always
ask yourself about this: What will happen if I don't act? What
are the possibilities if I do act? And if for some reason I don't
succeed, what's the worst thing that could happen and can I deal
with the consequences? If you decide to leave a company and go
out on your own, what's the worst thing that can happen? You
don't make it. So you go back to work for somebody else. That's
not the end of the world. At least you tried.

LW: Negativity in the workplace is a cancer that can hamper
morale and hurt productivity. Are leaders responsible for
rooting out this cancer? If so, how?

Biggs: One of John Maxwell's favorite quotes is that everything
rises and falls on leadership. Sure, a leader's responsibility
is to root out negativity in the workplace, but it's also his or
her responsibility to set the example with a positive influence.
If you're a negative leader, it's going to filter down all the
way to the very bottom. In so many organizations now, it's so
hard to get rid of a bad employee because we live in such a
litigating society. A lot of employers are afraid to fire
somebody that really ought to be let go. So what I teach people
at my seminars is this: Leadership should be very careful to
choose the right people in the first place. 

Here's what I've found. Companies spend all this money to try to
get the good people, the right people. They check out their
education and their previous work experience. They can run credit
and background checks and they can give them personality profiles
and all this kind of stuff. But when I was a sales manager, there
were four things I concentrated on. If you can find these four
things in people, you're going to have a really good employee.
No. 1, do they have a good value system? In other words, can you
trust them? No. 2, are they lifelong learners? When I was a
sales manager, I didn't want any salesman that was a know-it-all.
I wanted salespeople that were continually growing and learning.
No. 3, I wanted somebody with good work habits. Are they going to
show up on time, are they going to be reliable, are they going to
get the job done? And No. 4, and this gets back to the negativity
issue, I want people with positive attitudes. It doesn't mean
that you have to be positive every single minute of every single
day—if you get some bad news about your mom dying or your dad
being sick, you're not going to be real positive; you're going
to have a bad day. But overall, when they show up for work, do
they have a positive outlook on life? Because negative thinkers
have a way of bringing everybody else down to their level. I've
seen it over and over again. 

LW: Any final thoughts about leadership before we close?

Biggs: One of the things I quote from Peter Drucker is, "There's
no success without a successor." I think if leaders today would
measure their success in terms of how many people they groom,
like when Lamar Matthews was grooming me all those years ago at
the Associated Press, if they would be more servant-leadership
oriented, and measure their success by other leaders that they
groom, we would have a lot better business world out there.
 
-- Interview by Lois Flowers, INJOY consulting editor

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Quick Quotes
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GOOD QUESTION

"The smart ones ask when they don't know. And sometimes, when
they do."
— Malcolm Forbes

"I had six honest serving men—they taught me all I knew: Their
names were Where and What and When—and Why and How and Who."
— Rudyard Kipling

"A prudent question is one-half of wisdom."
— Francis Bacon

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Leadership Wired is written by Dr. John C. Maxwell and is
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