Leadership Archives

How a Board Can Boost Your Business (Post 1 of 4)

While CEOs of publicly held companies ultimately are responsible to a board of directors, those of us running private companies do not share this mandate. A recent article in the April issue of Harvard Business Review, “What CEOs Really Think of Their Boards” by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Melanie Kusin and Elise Walton, reinforced the importance of soliciting a board’s perspective even for privately held companies such as Intertech.

The authors asked dozens of well-regarded CEOs the following questions: “What keeps boards from being as effective as they could be? Are they really the cartooned millstone around the CEO’s neck, or do they help shape the enterprise in positive ways? What can boards do to become a greater strategic asset?”

The answers are distilled into five recommendations:

Boards should be careful not to rein in boldness too tightly.
They should do their homework on the company and the industry at large.
They should recognize that character and credentials, not celebrity, are what’s needed for a high-functioning board.
Directors should overcome any conflict aversion and bring energetic, constructive debate to the boardroom—contrary to conventional wisdom, CEOs don’t want rubber-stamp approval of their plans.
Directors should work to make the inherently fraught succession process less awkward, taking care not to overlook talent in the internal pipeline.

Ok, current and future board members, you have your marching orders!

But what should a CEO keep in mind when working with a board? And how can private companies benefit from the wisdom of an experienced board? In my next few posts I’ll explore this topic and share best practices from my past decade of work with Intertech’s stellar board of advisors.

Happy Father’s Day

Tom with his mom and dad

A couple of years ago, I wrote “Lessons from My Father” for Octane, The Entrepreneur’s Organization Magazine. While some of you may have seen this before, below is a copy…

Lessons from My Father

For many, Father’s Day is a holiday of the worst possible definition: a phony event designed to sell cards and neck ties.

For me, though, this Father’s Day has special poignancy: It’s the first time I’ll be celebrating as a dad myself, and the first time that I won’t be able to tell my own dad how much he means to me.

My father, Theodore, died last year in a farming accident. It was a terrible shock, to say the least, and it put my life in perspective. In the months since, I find myself remembering all the things he taught me; lessons that I want to teach Theodore, my young son.

In 2001, a local newspaper published an article about how my company, Intertech, was named one of the 500 fastest growing firms in the nation. In the article, I credited some of my success to simple lessons that my dad taught me. Now I realize that my dad taught me so much more, and those lessons have been critical to my company’s ongoing success.

“Tell the truth and you’ll only have one story to remember” was one of his favorite sayings. After being in business for 20 years, I have repeatedly experienced the merit of my dad’s wisdom. Recently, an important client of ours hired a CIO who turned out to be a dishonest bully. He hoped posturing, changing his story and saying whatever would resonate with me would make me complicit with his deceit. It didn’t. The company fired him, but Intertech is still engaged.

This particular experience taught me that while it’s easy to encourage others to tell the truth, it’s harder to create an environment where truth–telling feels safe. To create an atmosphere of honesty, I’ve learned to support people when they fail. I also encourage my managers to tell those people who make mistakes that they’re OK. I’ll never forget how grateful I was when my dad did that for me.

“If you do nothing, you won’t make any mistakes” were his first words after I accidently sheared the axle on his truck when I was a teenager. After reminding me that only those who do nothing are perfect, he said, “Now let’s go take a look at the truck.” No shaming reprimand; just a straightforward focus on solutions. When mistakes happen in my business, I acknowledge it, learn from it and move on to the next step. At the end of the day, the mistakes are what make us great.

“If someone does something you don’t agree with, tell him directly” was another belief my dad modeled. He wasn’t confrontational, but he did speak his mind if he disagreed or had something corrective to say. When I asked him if this was hard to do, he would just shrug his shoulders and say, “I’m not trying to win a popularity contest.” I was able to apply this lesson when a valued business partner of mine messed up. We talked through the issue and he realized that, while I recognized his mistake, I was more concerned about the future of our company and his role in helping us move forward. I’m happy to say that he’s still with us today.

While popularity wasn’t his goal, my dad was beloved by many. At his funeral, many people recalled stories of how he turned their lives around or did good work. It made me realize that sharing sincere praise is precious. This is something I have institutionalized within my company with a program that encourages employees to nominate each other for demonstrating our company values. Sometimes as leaders we get so busy that we don’t give people the acknowledgement they need to excel. At the end of the day, awareness begets success.

My dad was a modest farmer, but he left a rich legacy of integrity, authenticity and kindness. His wisdom has helped me grow as a business owner and father. I only hope I can be at least half as effective in passing that legacy on to his namesake.

Effective Public Engagement – Look for Convergence, Create Awareness

This is the last post in my series on Fighting a Government Threat. My 8^th lesson, Don’t assume that your counterpart thinks the way you do or is influenced by the same consideration, is underscored in the Harvard Business Review case study on this topic. Author Michael Hartman notes, “Especially when dealing with government entities, it’s important to carefully evaluate what factors are likely to affect their decision making. Will an article in the newspaper sway the governor? Or is he more apt to be persuaded by constituents, such as the company’s employees?”

While you most likely will think about an issue differently, it still is possible to (lesson #9) find points of convergence and show empathy for the goals of the Governor or legislators with whom you have a disagreement.

In the recent B2B tax proposal, the Governor’s good intentions and desire to generate more money to fund them offered little in the way of a solid, viable plan. I was careful to explain that I share the Governor’s love of our state and the many benefits it offers. I hoped that by noting our shared commitment to the state, he would be more open to hearing my thoughts on why I disagreed with his B2B proposal.

Finally, lesson #10: Build a positive relationship with the news media over time. I have spent the better part of the past two decades building relationships with the local business news community. Working with a publicist has helped, but at the end of the day I have agreed to participate in almost every request for an interview that has come my way.

Building relationships with the press takes time, but this credibility pays huge dividends when you want to speak out on an important issue. If reporters and editors already know you are a credible businessperson from past interactions, they are more likely to seek you out for quotes and consider your OpEd submissions for publication.

Happy Mother’s Day – A 75 Year Study on the Impact of Moms

Tom with his mom and dad

Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12.

Whether your a son or a mom to a son, there’s a fascinating piece in this month’s issue of The Atlantic that describes some surprising results from one of the longest running longitudinal studies of human development.

The project, which began in 1938, has followed 268 Harvard undergraduate men for 75 years, “measuring an astonishing range of psychological, anthropological, and personal traits—from personality type to IQ to drinking habits to family relationships—in an effort to determine what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing.”

Turns out that our relationships with our mothers matter – a lot! Specifically:

“Men who had ‘warm’ childhood relationships with their mothers earned an average of $87,000 more a year than men whose mothers were uncaring.”
“Men who had poor childhood relationships with their mothers were much more likely to develop dementia when old.”
“Late in their professional lives, the men’s boyhood relationships with their mothers—but not with their fathers—were associated with success at work.”

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom and my wife!

Creativity Article Generates Feedback from HBR Readers… What Do You Think?

I noticed this month’s Harvard Business Review (March 2012) devoted two pages to reader comments on the article “Creativity as an Exercise in Self-Discovery.” Since I spent quite a few posts responding to that article, I thought you might be interested in how other people responded to it as well. I’m also hoping some of you will get inspired to share your own ideas about this topic too!

Is the world really divided into “creatives” and “noncreatives?” Maybe not, but many people still deem themselves unimaginative. The authors (Tom Kelley and David Kelley), both leaders at the design and innovation consulting firm IDEO, have discovered that “teaching” creativity is really a matter of helping people find the courage to tap into the “creative confidence” they already possess. (HBR, March 2013, p. 16).

Reader responses:

“The authors’ finding that they help people unblock creativity instead of “causing” it parallels my own research on how to get people to take personal responsibility for social problems. From picking up a candy wrapper on the sidewalk to organizing a political movement, the first step is to stop blocking people’s natural inclinations. When people take on a social problem, we tend to question their motives, for example. We accuse them of being self-righteous or holier-than-thou. It would be interesting to look at how we block the creativity of others in this way.” –Earl Babble, Campbell Professor Emeritus in Behavioral Sciences, Chapman University

“As they explained, the article’s examples are cases less of creativity than of pragmatism. Trial and error produces a better product over time, for example. We do not create so much as we discover for ourselves those things that previously existed. The ability of an individual to discover the same form of something in a different context is about the best we can hope for.” –Shawn Williamson, doctoral student, Claremont Graduate University

“It’s all about how long you can hold your breath. If you work right up against the deadline, the pressure can start to work for you and get the creative energy going.” – Graham Robertson, president, Beloved Brands

“Society’s perception of ‘creative people’ as only publicly imaginative or artistic individuals kills the self-confidence of engineers like me—logic-oriented people who try to be creative at work. Anyone can come up with original, elegant solutions if he or she (1) is knowledgeable about the situation at hand, (2) is comfortable enough to let the brain be flexible, (3) has the passion to spend time solving problems using his or her own solutions, not the common ones. We should talk about creativity in more pragmatic ways, not always referring to games, the arts, and spatial activities.” –Farnaz Motamediyan, researcher, Volvo Construction Equipment

“Can it be that innovation, in this context, is just a series of applications executed in a commonsensical way that works? Take two pieces of bread with a slice of ham on top instead of in the middle—it’s still a ham sandwich. Is that innovative?” –Arindom Borah, freelance consultant, water supply and treatment industry

“Imagine a world where everyone trusted his own creative confidence enough to allow old and unnecessary systems to fall away, knowing we could readily create a better way.” –Becky Blades, founder, Staristry

“Is it true that children who like solving puzzles become creative and innovative adults? I have observed this in my children. They always find something out of the ordinary to do.” –Charles Kaluwasha, consultant, ROI Travel Network

“My ability to come up with creative solutions has been developed through hands-on experience, and I would rather sit at a table with a group of 15 people speaking at once, trying to gain a single sentence of substance, than to sit in silence.” – Rosemary Braun, business development manager, Cisco Systems

Hope those letters spurred a few thoughts of your own. If so, please don’t be shy about sharing them here!

My next series of posts will look at the issue of “issues.” Specifically, how people in business can constructively engage in the public forum on issues of importance to their organizations.