Are you a Manager or a Leader?

Leaders exist at every level of an organisation, whereas Managers are hierarchical pinnacles. By its nature, the role of a Manager is that of control, unless that manager is a Leader. There is nothing wrong with being a Manager as long as it is where you wish to be.

So which one am I (one might ask)? In order to better portray this, I'll use a real example, that I observed yesterday while shopping for clothes. I asked one of the 2 charming shop assistants why he seemed rather low-key. He told me this short story. 

He said that the other shop assistant who is his manager (Store Manager) hired him, some weeks ago, as he was recommended by her husband. He was doing very well from the outset, so the creative Store Manager moved against convention and decided to pool the Store Sales and effectively share her commission with him, while he ramped-up his sales. It created an amazing harmonious, effective, positive, pleasant and rewarding environment for both; a great place to work he added. That lasted about 3 weeks.

Then, the morning of my visit, the pair received a call from the Store Manager's supervisor who asked them to promptly stop that practise. "You are meant to be competing"........... 

The shop assistant is totally disincentivised and is now wondering if this organisation is aligned with his value systems or whether he will just be there and just collect the salary.

Hierarchically, the Supervisor was "enforcing" the organisational edict of how people participate in their internal commission scheme. The Store Manager was incentivising her staff.

The point is that as managers we often forget the purpose of the process, in this case the commission process. Obviously it is, to incentivise the team and individuals specifically, to achieve better organisational results. We seem to fail to realise that the best results are achieved through effective and happy teams rather than through dogma. As a manager this individual was using his position to enforce company policy. As a Leader, he failed, as this achieved the opposite outcome to the intent of the policy/process.

So the answer to the question "Am I a Leader or a Manager?", seems straight forward to me. Am I an enforcer that utilises my position to control outcomes, or am I unleashing that Leader quality within each individual in my team to achieve results that eclipse my industry competitors?

In our definition, Leaders are those that create Leaders and Leadership starts with one owning the responsibility of taking a Lead in their own life! Whether you know it or not, you are a Leader! Leaders exist in all walks of life. They are mothers, CEOs, volunteers, spiritualists, care-givers, receptionists, and the list goes on. However not all these role players are Leaders.

http://www.aldogrech.com

Who's Your Boss?

not relevant but interesting

As a leader, this is a key question to keep in mind.

It is my observation and opinion over the many years that I led businesses, that there are 2 types of businesses, those that focus on the customer and those that focus on the shareholder. Now many will argue that these are not mutually exclusive, and maybe so. However. I believe that in most cases that I have observed, this is a valid statement.i believe that there is only one Organisation that is effective and meets the test of time and that is the Organisation that focuses on the customer. I also happen to believe that the Organisation that focuses primarily on its customer is better serving its shareholders.

The focus on shareholders is usually a short-term view of an Organisation. It is usually a 3 monthly cycle of achieving certain results. Where, if results are not met, the Organisation is severely punished. In order to meet these short term results, so called leaders resort to anything including getting rid of core staff (often not the ones that are obviously bringing the results, but are the hidden jewels, alas), selling core assets and diverting the Organisation away from its true vision, merely to keep investors happy. I use the word merely quite purposefully. As I believe the shareholders are best served if these decisions are not made, if they want long-term "success".

I am not saying that recalcitrant employees should not be addressed appropriately. However, getting rid of employees, merely for short-term results achievement, is tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bath water! This is a different issue and the subject of a separate article.

Shareholders are best served if the Organisation stays focused on its customers; it's vision, even as times get tough and as shareholders want blood. Of course, one needs to stay relevant and the business of a leader is in fact to continually measure the Organisational one page business plan against market ensuring its validity. However, once validated and/or trimmed, a true leader stays focused on the customer and not the short-term blood thirst of the shareholders. Shareholders operate out of fear and a true leader knows this, and is able to stay on course while managing shareholders expectations.

However, back to the original hypothesis. As a leader there is a key choice to make; the customer, or the shareholder. And this is not about politics and rhetoric. It is about conviction.

Practically, what does this mean?

The customer-centric leader understands that the Organisational best asset is the employee. They do everything to ensure that everybody is on board and on purpose. They ensure that training is provided for all to stay on purpose and eliminates those that refuse to adopt the vision and are not on purpose. These are not necessarily recalcitrant employees. However, sometimes, there are valid differences of opinion and there is no place for an employee with opposing views of objectives. This is like letting a cancer grow. An on-purpose Organisation is unstoppable, profitable and has longevity built-in; it can whitstand down-times and maximize profits in good times, better serving its loyal shareholders.

I would not call CEOs and Managers of shareholder-centric organizations leaders. They might be brilliant in delivering great short-term dividends. However, the organizations they build are not sustainable long-term, have tragic customer satisfaction levels and have limited longevity. They are the heroes of investors but create organizations with low morale high staff turn-over and as a result unsustainable. In the long-term, this is bad news for loyal investors and create cronic down-turns as they do almost anything (as shown in the GFC) to ensure short-term results. They might be Managers, CEOs, great analysers, politicians; often charismatic, but not Leaders.

Unfortunately, these individuals are the yardstick for our youth and this is a sad indictment for our civilization that has placed money as a god above all gods.

Obviously, investors are by nature transient and they pick and choose, dropping perceived hot potatoes for the new short term money making opportunity. This is sometimes good for the investors hip-pocket, but always bad for business.

Apple is a great example of my views. Its share-value has been savaged even as it enjoys, unparalleled customer satisfaction, unparalleled profits, unparalleled growth of liquid assets unparalleled equity for a company of its size and has effectively created 5 new global product categories; simply because it has not met shareholder expectations! Absurd...

As a Leader, it is your choice. Choose wisely as true deep-in-the-heart conviction, alignment and happiness is worth much more than the short-term financial reward. And be clear that choosing the customer over the shareholder is a sure guarantee of investor return, almost and oxymoron!

CxO has proven alternative methodologies to turn your Organisation into a sustainable, long term, great entity. http://www.CxOconsulting.com.au. Aldo Grech is the managing Partner and Leader of CxO.

If You Are Not Enjoying It, Stop Doing It!

Statistics about unhappy employees vary significantly from 19% to 60% plus, as do the perceived reasons why. But even at 25%, independent of the reason, this is a significant number of people who spend most of their day engaged in stuff they do not enjoy.

As an example, according to Gallup Q12 survey, "26 percent of U.S. workers 18 or older are extremely satisfied with their work, 55 percent moderately satisfied, and 19 percent are dissatisfied by their work. That 19 percent represent 24.7 million U.S. workers who are not committed to their jobs, are working below their potential and don't plan to be with the company in a year. They also miss more days of work and report having high negative stress." [Dissatisfied workers: a multi-billion dollar industry. By John Burke, Bankrate.com]. That is, 74% not completely satisfied.

"It comes as no surprise to learn from a study published this week that, although Britons are twice as rich as they were in 1987, they are no happier," according to The Telegraph!

Happiness is a simple equation!

It is my observation that apparently, we spend a large portion of our day involved in activities that do not give us pleasure and at worst give us great displeasure, and in an effort to justify this we do even more of what we do not enjoy to earn more money. Examples include overtime and taking on even more responsible roles in environments that make us very unhappy.

Of course we need that extra money to buy more of those things that "promise" to make us happy. Bigger car, bigger house, more houses, more cars, travel, more gadgets we do not need, branded fashion items that tell the world that we have made it, etc. These are just a few examples.

So the equation is simple. We spend our life in a viscous cycle, doing those things we do not enjoy to generate enough money to then do those things that have that allure of happiness, as marketed in movies, songs and those pesky product ads.

The equation is simple mathematics that patently points-out a better way. It goes like this:

Place all the excesses in your life on one side of the equation. Come-on you know what they are, I mentioned some of them above. Be absolutely merciless about this and no, you cannot hide that extra iPad mini when you already have the 2 previous generation iPads sitting in that drawer, include them! Once you have ruthlessly included everything that is not absolutely necessary in your life, (including travel), then sum the yearly costs of these and deduct them from your collective salaries of your household. Take a lower paying role that makes you happy. (See "Your passion and purpose" section below).

Yes, you might think this a naive concept, but stay with me, read on...

Statistics track perceived realities, which are not necessarily real!

There is much new understanding about family-of-origin and related psychology. Leaders like Pia Mellody and Shirley Smith have done a lot of good work in this area, that I believe are branches of Carl Jung's work that also led to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument. Jung considered individuation, the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious while still maintaining their relative autonomy, to be the central process of human development.

It is my view that statistics deal with the conscious. In statistics, people are asked for their views and on the basis of the results, conclusions are drawn. So, for example, if you ask an unhappy employee why they are unhappy, there is a high likelihood that the responses would include; not enough money, bad manager, company culture, etc... It is highly unlikely that they would respond, I am unhappy in this job and effectively most jobs in my career because I made a bad career choice, or because I am compromising myself for money. Probably you are thinking right now, what a whole lot of victim talk. Well maybe, but I beg to disagree.

Such is the brainwashing that goes-on from the early days of our lives, (effectively rail-roading a naturally perfect human being into an unhappy corporate creature), that in most cases, we unconsciously follow the beaten path and subconsciously hate most of our existence. Because it is subconscious, we are not aware of it and merely see the symptoms such as, depression, suicide, alcoholism, addiction, crime, etc. But even then, we make the person wrong, give them drugs or lock-them up and pretend all is OK. Again, this is all happening at a subconscious level and we are not aware of this pretense and our Ego (conscious self) feels OK about itself.

Your passion and purpose

But don't despair, there is a better way. Back to our simplistic and even naive equation above. For it is easy to postulate that there is a better way without recommending options/visions. Play along with me for a while, even humor me.

In my introduction, I suggested that in your equation, you should eliminate any non-essential expenses including travel, luxury cars, etc... Now here is the clincher.

It is simple but not easy!

The trick is to separate your passion from your Ego stroking. What I mean is in those things that you found so difficult to remove from that equation to bring your costs down, which are the ones that are truly your passion. How do you know? Those things that are truly your passion, give you that beautiful childlike warmth, you smile when you think of them. Your whole being lightens-up when you think about them. They are not about how others see you (Ego), they are about how you feel inside, independent whether others know about it. Once you have found that gem(s), engage yourself in them, whole-heartedly. It gets even more challenging,; you might get a sense of guilt (as if you do not deserve these little luxuries) and often, this sabotages our life and keeps us slave to our corporate-centric existence. But stick to it. Talk about it with those people who you know will support this part of you. Engage with people and associations that are aligned with your passion. Do it for more than 30 days in a row, independent of what "noise" comes-up to distract you. When you start doubting yourself, make a few calls to those that support you. Fake it till you make it.

For example, if Travel is your thing, do research as if you are going travelling. Start a Blog. Give free advise to friends. Join online travel sites that require feedback and write your thoughts.

Eventually, it will become your new normality. Before you know it, it might even become your new line of work. It might even mean you have to give-up your day job... Who knows. Have faith.

Is that what you really want for your kids, or is that your fear that you are imposing on your kids?

Reading this, parents will certainly feel a level of dismay, even anger that somebody would consider suggesting, in an article aimed at Leaders, that we should eliminate basic luxuries and consider earning less! "And how do I pay for my children's education" I hear you say in exasperation. "I have to give my kids the best education money can buy if they stand a chance in this cut-throat life we live in!" you might add. Well you might not say these exact words, but if you do or even if you feel this type of sentiment, consider the last statement in quotes. Is that what we are training our kids for? Is this really the best future we can hope for, for our kids, the next generation. Or is this extreme focus on "education" coming from our fears. Again, unfortunately this happens at a subconscious level. At a conscious level we are thinking that this is the best future we can plot for our kids, logically! We love our kids and want the best for them. Get in touch with that childlike voice inside you; the one that knows where your passion lies and ask that voice, what the real future you wish for your kids looks like. I am sure the answer will be something like, "I want my kids to have a happy, fulfilled life, full of everything they desire".

But then, immediately, fear comes-up, Ego takes over with statements like, "Grow-up, this is not real, this is just a romantic childish notion".

Childish is not the same as childlike. Childlike is our passion and purpose. Childish is the fear that requires to build that Ego that protects us in this big bad world. I just remind you that most of the Leaders we have come to admire are high-school drop-outs; Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, etc... They just followed their childlike passion! Isn't that what you want for your kids, abundant happiness and financial abundance... And that might well be a corporate career or not! Either way, as long as thet innate passion and purpose is respected and encouraged, the objective is achieved.

Now let's get honest

OK, we all want to be seen to be successful, right? Wrong! This is the crux and the answer.

The need for external promotion of "I have a Mercedes (and I am not knocking car-lovers, it is my passion too), so I am successful," is actually a camouflage for insecurity and fear. Fear is at the base of Ego. The opposite of Ego is purpose and passion. When one is in their purpose and passion and as Sir Ken Robinson calls it, our Element, one does not need to externally promote how successful one is. One just is! In our Element, we are happy, content, complete and those around us see it, feel it and benefit from it. The alternative is what society seems to have chosen; to be a slave of the tax system and those banks that continue to rob your money away.

As a Leader, whether that is a Leader of an organisation or a mum, it is your responsibility to act now to bring real lasting happiness to yourself, your organisation or your family.

Your choice.

In our definition, Leaders are those that create Leaders and Leadership starts with one owning the responsibility of taking a Lead in their own life! Whether you know it or not, you are a Leader! Leaders exist in all walks of life. They are mothers, CEOs, volunteers, spiritualists, care-givers, receptionists, and the list goes on. However not all these role players are Leaders. http://www.aldogrech.com

Believers and Chameleons

Leaders are believers. The rest are chameleons. And there is nothing necessarily wrong with any of these options as long as this is a conscious choice. By believers we do not mean religious or cultural beliefs, but organic and granular beliefs we were born with (our purpose and passion) often derailed and apparently lost in the process of turning us natural beings into normalized (domesticated) beings.

We all have innate beliefs and most of us, mostly subconsciously, discount them to blindly follow others' (civilization trains us towards this); we become chameleons, adapting to environments with the main objective being safety! Never quite exposing our authentic selves.

The few of us that live by our beliefs and values, have tapped into that leader that exists in each and every one of us.

This simple concept of personal beliefs and values, is often a great challenge for most of us preferring instead to live an inauthentic life that leads us to depression and despair. Most then medicate (often subconsciously) through things such as need for money, authority, shopaholic tendencies, alcoholism, workaholism, gambling, drugs and various other forms of obvious and often less obvious addictions.

These distractions are meant to fill that gaping hole left by our self-avoidance and self-negation, but they often do not and the only answer then is prescription drugs, which is no option at all. Well, maybe one step better than the suicide option!

Living from our authentic self is the only answer and the magic of leadership and self-fulfillment while contributing to society from our purpose and passion. The alternative is not a feasible option as most of us, in our authentic moments of clarity, are able to see but seem unable to follow-through.

So, be a leader in whatever you do; at home, at work, in your hobby, etc. And discover the leader in you that will lead you to greater peace, fulfillment and abundance.

Else, there is always prescription drugs and the despair of Ego.

Aldo Grech - CXO Consulting

Is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, a true Leader?

I have been waiting with great anticipation the emergence of the real Mr. Rudd, from behind the nice suits, the great rhetoric and well prepared 3 liners that seem to roll-off his tongue in response to any question of note levelled at him.

Today I believe we start to see his Leadership emerge. He is promising to correct a huge error on the Australian business landscape; the break-up of Telstra. Leaders operate from their essence and do the right thing rather than the most popular one (or the one that wins more votes).

Kevin Rudd is in a great position to do this. His unquestionable electoral lead protects him from a back-lash of some level that his government will undoubtedly face. Greedy organisations (that have raked-in millions if not billions of dollars) and their powerful media partners will embark on scaremongering campaigns designed to protect their income at the cost of every tax-payer.

The telecommunications industry in Australia is well behind the rest of the world with Telstra traditionally overcharging for its services and under-delivering, protected by its monopolistic position.

And yes, some of us will be impacted by seeing a short-term lowering of share values. This is the time (as we recommend in the article "Vote with your Money") that you divest from Telstra and invest in the Telco that you have chosen as your service provider. In any case, you stand to win as investor or not, once the scare-mongering and the defense mechanisms of Telstra pass, we will be left with a competitive environment where prices will be lower and service will be better; as has been the experience in other countries that have truly followed the path of de-monopolisation.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

Depression; a gift of Ego that guides us to our Purpose

For those suffering depression there is little sense of hope. The world becomes a slow process of withdrawal into doubt, inertia and often thoughts of suicide. Many resort to the only one or 2 things that gives them a sense of joy, relief and often moments of bliss; such as music, nature, creativity, reading, etc...(1)

Depression was a lesser known condition before the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution took a colorful race of human beings engaged in those things that they were naturally passionate about and normalized us and turned us into a race driven by greed, shedding our passions, for work we often do not enjoy; driving us away from our purpose.

From the day we are born, our parents, the education system, the media and everything around us normalizes us to a world where money is king and where academia is valued above all other types of vocations. The result for most of us is a suppression of the natural talent and creative self that we were born as, to become aligned with the normalized world.

Then..... depression hits and all the world can do is; feel sorry for us, medicate us and re-route us into normality.... the ability to once again fit-in (usually totally dependent on drugs)!

There are few that answer the call of depression. They are the lucky ones, the ones that often by pure coincidence end-up working on themselves in a non-traditional way, by allowing themselves a healing process through "a journey in" (to borrow a line from a yet unpublished author, friend of mine), into the discovery of who they really are... dare I say a spiritualy journey. And I am not necessarily talking about religion here; although some find solace in this, I am talking about balancing our normalized bias to everything logical and worked through mental processes, with our natural self that comes from feeling, rather than just thinking, our way to the beautiful creative person we are.... finding our true purpose!

In my opinion, mid life crises (which I have redefined as mid life creativity; see my article on this subject), is another form of depression. And like depression, it is our purpose (our natural creative self), calling us away from our ego (our normalized self). Some heed this calling and evolve back (!) to their natural self, allowing their purpose in life to be fulfilled, others plough-through (once again often with the ongoing support of medication) and live a less satisfactory life.

There are many inspirational writers and supporters of this process of a journey in, "a journey from Ego to Purpose" (to borrow a line from Tom Voccola's brilliant book, The Accidental CEO). They include; Shirley Smith, Pia Mellody, Tom Voccola, to mention a few.

If you have had enough of the ineffective medical solution to your depression, look-up these and other authors and set yourself on the most amazing journey of discovery, discovering the beauty and abundant creativity of YOU! (1)This is the gift of depression and those few moments of bliss that cut through your depression are pointing you towards your purpose and cure.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

iPhone; today's PC?

Of course there is WindowsMobile, Blackberry, Android (or Google phone) and Nokia, and having strategies for these platforms should also be on your consideration list. However, the exponential growth in sales of iPhone is not to be ignored. It is quite interesting to see Apple beating Microsoft at its own game......

You see, while the iPhone is indeed sexy, easy to use and has now achieved cult status (all important aspects for product success). There are, have been and will be equally good or better designed products that might or might not dethrone the iPhone. So why is it that we believe that the iPhone is such a key strategy for any business and why do we say that the iPhone is the new PC.

We do not believe the answer is a technical one. This is not a technical newsletter and in fact it is a newsletter for leaders and great leaders know that a key aspect to successful strategies, is picking the right horses to bet on.

In our opinion, much of the success of Microsoft is unrelated to the quality or indeed effectiveness of their software; and let's not even entertain sex appeal. Many technocrats have for the last 25 years discounted Microsoft technical prowess and in their earlier years, their future fortunes (obviously proven wrong in retrospect). What Microsoft brilliantly did (knowingly or not) are in our opinion, 2 key tactics:

1. They made many people rich
2. They created an industry around them (now known as resellers), many of which became wealthy fulfilling Microsoft's Client's needs; arguably sorting-out difficult to use software.

So, why do we believe that the iPhone is today's PC? Simple:

1. Apple's Appstore is a new channel a virtual chain of resellers, adapted to today's delivery systems and customer needs.
2. A great direct to customer channel of software sales; allowing developers to reap significant rewards.

As a leader:

1. Are you ensuring that your products are being aired to iPhone customers?
2. Are you ensuring that your employees and partners know that they stand to benefit significantly financially from their involvement with your organisation?

A few examples of iPhone successes/strategies:

1. Robert Murray, chief executive of mobile games development studio Firemint, says the iPhone and App Store also helped save the company after the downturn showed them their model wasn't working - http://www.smartcompany.com.au/leisure-and-gaming/20090703-firing-up-the-gaming-industry.html
2. With more than 60 percent of Toyota Motor’s WAP traffic coming from the iPhone, the automaker decided to take a different approach to mobile with the promotion of the newest Prius car model - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/database-crm/3636.html
3. Rental resource provider Apartments.com has launched a new iPhone and iPod touch application to complement its online services and claim some territory in the coveted iPhone demographic - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/search/3625.html
4. Pernod Ricard’s Absolut Vodka is leveraging the mobile channel for branding, customer engagement, entertainment and affinity. The liquor giant has launched an iPhone application for meant to help it connect with legal-aged drinkers and provide relevant information to this audience - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/3600.html
5. Sam Plowman, head of online banking said: "It was very apparent to us that Apple had developed an interface that would bring forward the use of browser and internet apps on mobiles. We decided we had to be ready with app when the iPhone launched here.'' - http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/gadgets/business-goes-for-iphone-apps-20090709-de79.html

And finally - According to Clevenger, 44% of businesses that have not yet embraced iPhones plan to do so this year. As one attendee observed, where the one-laptop-per-child initiative failed, one-iPhone-per-child appears destined to succeed - http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid40_gci1359509_mem1,00.html?track=NL-315&ad=710878&asrc=EM_NLN_8099263

So if you have been thinking that the iPhone is not the right channel for your products/clients, maybe, as a great leader, you should rethink your strategies! Early adopters will reap the benefits.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

Problems or Opportunities?

We invented the automobile as we gradually found horses too inconvenient; then we decided we could get there quicker if we fly......

We could have seen the horse as a problem and chosen to get angry and beat it into submission, and we knew the possible outcome of such action.

I still remember, at the turn of the millenium, the feeling of accomplishment visible in most people's demeanour, in the developed world. We had achieved amazing things and could see that with the exponential growth of wealth, technology and knowledge, we were on the verge of something grandiose. We were all speculating and talking about how we have moved from the industrial age to an intellectual age.....

Sometimes, usually at the right time, the universe throws us these opportunities disguised as problems to propel us into our next stage of human growth. How the West reacted to September 11th had signs of everything but certainly not an intellectually evolved society. We saw actions propelled by anger, greed, ego and power. Close to a thrillion dollars spent since on the "War on Terror" (a rediculous concept for a wise and intellectually evolved society), addressing anger, greed, ego and power directly, that did nothing (or possibly the opposite) to making the world a safer place.

Wisdom and intellectual soundness might have taken a totally different approach.

It is however a refreshing change to see those like President Barak Obama operating from their passion and purpose approaching the ensuing global wows in a totally different and empathetic way. Let's hope the greedy wont stop them, as this approach is exactly the opportunity the universe is giving us right now.

As a Leader, are you adopting the President's approach or are you still in the "If you are not with us you are against us" mode? The latter (propelled by greed and ego) will keep you, your family, company, community and the world in this turmoil, the former will springboard us collectively into a future far brighter than we can even imagine.

We are currently observing the universe's natural selection process at work and those choosing greed over empathy are the dinasours of our age.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

Be Different or suffer Depression

Many of us believe that if our truth does not match that of others (especially our parents, religion or culture), then we are wrong.

When we try to comply with the truth of others and usually are unsuccessful, then we hide it as we believe something is wrong with us!

When we let this accumulate over time, we start believing we are crazy and eventually move to depression or suffer a breakdown!

But remember, that every thing created by human-kind was DIFFERENT at that stage!

So be different or choose the path to depression and breakdown.

Finally, as a mentor once told me, "NEVER compare others' exterior with your interior" (you never know how close they are to depression/breakdown!)

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting