Did You Know?

from Able Leader, December 2004

by Steve Kaye

Here are some surprising facts from current publications.

Top management spends less than three hours a month discussing strategic issues or making strategic decisions. Most leadership meetings are not even called for the purpose of making a decision. The agendas for these meetings are unfocused and undisciplined.

FROM: "Stop Wasting Valuable Time" by Michael C. Mankins, Harvard Business Review, Sept. 2004.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: Most executives use discussion in their meetings, which is the least effective process for achieving results. As a result, they host a party instead of hold a meeting.

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Most organizations are losing 20-80% of potential performance because their leaders have not mastered performance coaching.

FROM: "Crucial Conversations" by Kerry Patterson, et al., McGraw-Hill,
2002.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: Effective communication skills provide the foundation for performance coaching.

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Deloitte & Touche calculated that every percentage point in employee turnover costs the company an estimated $13 million.

FROM: "Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide" by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Princeton University Press, 2003.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: People don't quit companies; they leave bad systems and bad bosses. Bad systems reflect poor planning; bad bosses lack leadership skills. What does turnover cost your company?

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You must be a learning organization in order to survive in the current knowledge economy. All work and no learning leads to failure.
From: Slack: "Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency" by Tom DeMarco, Random House, 2001

P.S. from Steve Kaye: Surveys consistently show that employees quit jobs when the company does not provide training. The author also states that total efficiency, aggressive schedules, and internal competition reduce the productivity of knowledge workers.

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Unproductive busyness is a major behavioral problem. Only 10% of managers get the job done. The rest are either frenzied (40%), procrastinators (30%), or detached (20%).

FROM: "A Bias for Action: How Effective Managers Harness Their Willpower to Achieve Results" by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal, Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: Many managers use bad, unproductive meetings to escape from critically important, difficult tasks that are the core of their job description.

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Decisions fail half the time. And two out of three decisions use failure-prone practices. These start a chain of blunders that lead to traps that guarantee failure. As a result, organizations spend huge amounts of money and resources without realizing any benefits.

FROM: "Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps That Lead to Decision Debacles" by Paul C. Nutt, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: Effective meetings apply constructive decision-making practices that produce good decisions.

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Of all leadership styles, the commanding approach is the least effective.

FROM: "Primal Leadership" by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: More effective leadership styles require high levels of emotional intelligence, which is the foundation for the Human Side of Communication.

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Employees offer ideas only when they respect their managers.

From: "Ideas Are Free: How the Idea Revolution Is Liberating People and Transforming Organizations" by Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004.

P.S. from Steve Kaye: Respect and trust are earned by effective, ethical communication.

Key Point: Maybe it's no surprise that success comes from common sense.

Much success,

Steve Kaye
714-528-1300