The notion that raw intelligence alone might not only be insufficient to predict success, but also an insufficient indicator of a person’s overall ability, effectiveness, and influence has actually been around for a long time. It has been suspected, faintly perceived, and cautiously hinted at for millennia. But people would listen to pithy quotes on the topic, nod their heads in recognition, and then, when push came to shove, make selection and promotion decisions on the basis of traditional intelligence assessments.

For the past quarter of a century, though, the tide has been slowly but genuinely turning on this subject. While there remain somewhat conflicting definitions of what precisely is meant by the movement, it is becoming widely – and actionably – acknowledged that raw intelligence alone is not capable of serving the purposes to which we put it. We need to view a person’s capabilities along a broader array of human characteristics, or to accommodate ourselves to a more comprehensive definition of human intelligence.

It is not necessary to enter into the fray regarding how to depict these evolving ideas – or even to fully agree with them. It is enough to acknowledge the veracity of the very real concerns that gave rise to them, and to explore the literature and see how it promises to help us resolve those.

As it happens, it can do quite a lot for managers at every level, as long as you keep your feet on the ground while trying it on for size. For one thing, this way of thinking about human capabilities, interactions, collaboration, and influence can help managers understand much more clearly what composes corporate culture and how to work with it. This, in turn, helps managers to better perform a fundamental responsibility: establishing an organizational environment that facilitates and enhances – at the same time that it directs and disciplines – the doing of productive work.

As it happens, it is really only recently that observers have been turning from what this concept means to how it can appropriately be used at work. And as they’ve done so, it is only to be expected that some of them, swept away by their enthusiasm, have made of it yet another specially distinguishing and rare quality of the super-leader – a secret understanding from within which such a personage can do wondrous magic among the dim and uncomprehending material of which the workforce is supposedly composed. In fact, this sort of imagery has been taken beyond even that, describing the emotionally intelligent leader as someone who is specially armed to work undetected within the DNA, or the bloodstream, of an organization, weaving healing reinforcement here, organic change there, and robust cultural growth yonder.

In his book “Emotional Capitalists: the New Leaders,” author and consultant Martyn Newman also spends a good bit of time talking about leaders and how the concept of emotional intelligence can help them be more effective. However, he focuses less on grandiose concepts of what it makes the leader become, and more on how it can help the leader learn to understand and use it to do his or her job more effectively for all concerned.

In particular, Newman goes beyond mere proselytizing to examining the building blocks of emotional intelligence in practice, and how to incorporate these into your own approach to management. His aim is to help the manager use them to develop genuine, meaningful, and sustainable credibility – capital – within the organization. Like any capital, emotional capital is to be carefully developed and grown, and wisely distributed and re-invested, to make the investor a more influential and effective manager – an emotional capitalist.

This is an excellent addition to your management library, and will help you come to a personal appreciation of how to incorporate this important view of organizational and managerial behavior into your own work. Pick it up – you will enjoy and benefit from it.

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Today’s tip: The September Leadership Development Carnival is up at Great Leadership, and Dan McCarthy has put together an especially insightful and informative group of contributors this month – he has offered particularly helpful summaries and explanations of each author, as well. I spent a good bit of time this weekend discovering terrific new sources which are now firmly ensconced in my daily reading, and if you will take just a moment to click over to the Carnival, I’m sure you will happily do the same.

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Technorati Tags: intelligence, success, ability, effectiveness, influence, decision, tradition, assessment, manager, interaction, collaboration, corporate, culture, responsibility, organization, environment, workforce, leader, Martyn Newman, emotional intelligence, management, credibility, capital, emotional capital, emotional capitalist, Dan McCarthy

Some years ago, at an early peak in the frenzy stirred up by the modern leadership movement’s gurus, doctorates in fields generally related to leadership began to appear in universities across the United States. Most of these were designed to create PhDs in something called “leadership studies;” the intent, presumably, to develop the field into a professional avenue of scholarly study.

Given the true state of our understanding of leadership at the time – what it is, where it comes from, how it works – that was at once a problematic and perhaps an overdue ambition. On the one hand, who was qualified to teach it? On the other, it certainly does warrant clear-eyed, methodical study – to the extent to which that is even possible.

One of the problems, though, is that many of the programs were inspired, guided, or even headed by some of the more effusive proponents of grandiose individual leadership around. Aside from the foam-speckled bias this applied to the putative “scholarship” these assembly lines mass produced, there existed a parallel, unspoken presumption that these programs developed experts in not merely the study of leadership, but also in the practice of it.

And it was only a matter of time before this became the overt purpose of these doctorates. Now, you can go to a number of programs around the country and emerge as not only a leader, but a doctor of leadership. In a fit of unintended irony, the appearance of these appears to be timed to solve the leadership crises precipitated by those who followed the same prescriptions – and who were misled by the same fundamental conceptual errors – being taught to their newly capped and gowned successors.

What do you suppose these programs will look like? Will doctoral candidates attend lectures not just describing, but purporting to teach how to be, visionary leaders, or how to become charismatic? Will they take turns getting up in front of class to demonstrate it? Will they “learn” empathy, innovation, passion? How will they demonstrate mastery of these, thus earning their diplomas? Indeed, is it possible to reconcile the acquisition of a doctorate of leadership with the much heralded leadership trait of profound humility?

Some of the programs presumably include “learn by doing” modules. How will those look? Who will provide these students the opportunity to do this in their own organizations? Who will evaluate their performance, based on which criteria and against what standards? Will the graduates be hired a few months later over the organizations’ own employees who have actually been doing for a living what the former did for learning?

How will newly minted doctors of leadership present themselves to the world upon graduation? How will they be regarded by potential employers as they proffer the evidence of credentials specifically calculated to establish the fact of their superior learning, understanding, and ability over their presumptuous inquisitors? How will they fit in with their colleagues (decidedly not their peers), or with the corporate culture?

You have to know that these will come to be called clown colleges, because only merriment can ensue. Their appearance is merely the most obviously disturbing implication of the gravely ill-considered approach to leadership so widely accepted today.

We will return to some of the even more dangerously mundane ones next week. We will then take a look at what, after all, we are to make of all of this. Please be sure to join us.

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Today’s tips: Speaking of real people and titles, please see these pieces: by Steve Roesler on how roles can distort the people, and by Michael Wade on how people can distort their roles.

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Technorati Tags: leadership, guru, doctorate, United States, PhD, leadership studies, professional, scholar, ambition, scholarship, expert, leader, visionary, charisma, empathy, innovation, passion, trait, humility, organization, performance, employee, employer, credential, colleague, culture, clown college, Steve Roesler, Michael Wade

Your greatest problem as a manager is not the weight of responsibility you bear. That is, of course, a very real burden. But the reason it is not your biggest concern is precisely that there is nothing you can do about it.

Except make it easier to discharge. You do that by frankly addressing the issue that is, in fact, a manager’s greatest problem: time. Unlike responsibility, you can’t be given more time in a day than is already there. But you can leverage it. And you do that by delegating authority.

When owners give you responsibility, it is all yours, all the time. It is indivisible and fixed in place – you can’t pass it along.

When they give you authority, though, you can. Moreover, you do that without losing it, yourself.

After all, authority derives its force from its source. Your own authority is given you, ultimately, by owners. When you use it, everyone knows where it came from, and there is no question about its validity.

The same applies when you delegate it. Its authenticity, when it is used by the juniors to whom you have given it, is defined and understood in terms of its origin in you, representing as you do the legitimate source from which it emanates.

And that source is inextinguishable. You reduce it not one bit by allocating it intelligently. You can award large measures of it to competent staff members for application to important projects. Or, you can assign carefully calibrated amounts to others to measure and develop their abilities.

You can even give employees the authority to make decisions. But that authority only traces its ancestry back to ownership – it doesn’t displace it.

We will look at what that means for delegating decisions, tomorrow. Please do stop in.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of ownership, Carl Icahn is a great supporter of the idea that boards of public companies should do a better job of representing their interests, and that owners should be given more means for ensuring that they do. Please see what he has to say about Jack Welch‘s (who, while at GE, combined the CEO and Chairman positions in his own person) defense of boards, and about a potential remedy for shareholders.

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Technorati Tags: manager, responsibility, authority, owner, delegate, staff, project, employee, decision, ownership, Carl Icahn, Jack Welch, GE, CEO, Chairman, shareholder

The concept of the democratic workplace has gained a good bit of ground in recent times. A particularly interesting aspect of it is the idea that employees should be given “ownership” of the decisions they implement. One version of this theme goes so far as to insist that the more important the decision, the larger should be the group that makes it.

The problem, though, is that in politics the core tenet of democracy is that the right to rule resides in the true owners, or sovereigns, in society – the citizens. The parallel for the citizen in the workplace is not the employee, but the owner – the shareholder.

Thus the rights attendant on ownership belong to the latter, and can only be delegated to, not arrogated by, the former. They certainly cannot, in a fit of false enlightenment, be simply awarded to employees by managers, themselves only agents lent – not actors naturally possessed of – this right.

I attempted to make these points in a recent post entitled “The decision-maker.” But Chris Young, consultant and author of the Maximize Possibility Blog, made the strong objection that employees are inescapably more involved, focused, and effective precisely when they are given appropriate decision-making authority, and held suitably accountable for its use.

It has also been suggested to me that my apparent unwillingness to delegate decision-making is in conflict with the general position this site is dedicated to promulgating: that organizational leadership should arise from among and be expressed through employees; that it should be cultivated and managed by management, not coopted by it.

These are good points, which warrant a careful response. Moreover, they do indeed touch on the principle purpose of these pages. I will attempt, then, over the next few days, to address them together, and to demonstrate how they ought to be – must be – reconciled.

We will talk about delegating decision-making, the roles in this of authority and responsibility, and, of course, managing leadership. Please do be sure to stop in!

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Today’s tips: As we cover these topics in the next few days, one thing we may note is the degree to which managers claim to believe in a principle – and to which they sincerely think they do – in contrast to the extent to which this is belied by their decisions and actions when push comes to shove. With this – as well as these general topics – in mind, please how Miki Saxon, at Leadership Turn, connects the dots between beliefs and behaviors.

And speaking of expressing leadership, please see these four crucial bits of advice from Steve Roesler, of All Things Workplace, about how to influence upward. I’m inclined to pick #3 as the most vital, but it’s a tough call – what about you?

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Note: The February Leadership Development Carnival is up at Dan McCarthy‘s outstanding site, Great Leadership. As always, Dan has provided great material from some of the best contributors around. Please be sure to visit – and be prepared to add a lot of great sites to your regular reading lists!

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If you look at the contents section on the sidebar of the main page of this site, you will see a listing of the article series that have been published here. You can click through to view summaries of the pieces, and then read the full series or selections that are of most interest to you. Enjoy!

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Technorati Tags: workplace, decision, politics, democracy, sovereign, society, citizen, employee, owner, shareholder, ownership, delegate, enlightenment, manager, Chris Young, consultant, decision-making, leadership, management, authority, responsibility, managing leadership, principle, Miki Saxon, Leadership Turn, Steve Roesler, All Things Workplace, influence, Dan McCarthy

A potpourri of ideas for the holidays:

Gifts for your ego. Did you know that you should buy your partner perfume that you like – not that you think he or she will like, or that some random fellow shopper in the store likes. Please see this illuminating essay from The Economist for the secrets behind what perfumes mean to us – and what services they perform for us.

Gifts for your colleagues. Please be sure to visit this must-see list of perfect office gifts assembled by Molly DiBianca, at The Delaware Employment Law Blog. You’ll probably wind up buying most of them for yourself – enjoy!

Gifts for your employees. Here’s one that will truly spread good cheer well into the New Year. Please see Michael Wade‘s list of management gifts for employees. Did you know that when you give gifts such as these, you will find yourself happily among the recipients?

Gifts from the government. This one isn’t so cheery, but it’s the right time of year, given current circumstances, to be made aware of what may be coming down the chimney at us. Please be sure to see this WSJ piece, by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., about why bad times don’t produce good policy.

Gifts for gorillas. Well, not for gorillas, as it happens, but for orangutans – from other orangutans. You will want to view this fascinating piece from BBC News about another primate that engages in carefully calculated reciprocal gift-giving.

Gifts for geeks. Not anymore. Everyone is buying e-book readers these days – just about as many women, it turns out, as men. Amazon’s Kindle is the best-known, but others are entering the market. Please see this NY Times piece about who they are and how they’re doing. As an American living overseas and without access to English-language bookstores, I’ve been reading e-books for years using MS Reader and Mobipocket on my HP iPAC – there’s a version of Mobipocket for my Nokia E71, as well. Books can be purchased via download, and read in snippets of time that become available anywhere during travel or waiting periods, and they are conveniently at hand anyway, since you always have your PDA or phone with you, right? I have about 100 books in my PDA, and that’s without scratching the carrying capacity. You should give it a try – why not this holiday season?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you! Have a great weekend – see you on Monday.

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Technorati Tags: holiday, Economist, perfume, office, gift, Molly DiBianca, The Delaware Employment Law Blog, New Year, Michael Wade, WSJ, Holman W. Jenkins, BBC News, e-book, Kindle, NY Times, American, PDA, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, management, employee, MS Reader, Adobe Reader, Mobipocket

Loss-making subsidiaries. Anyone who can effectively work the phrase “torpid portentiousness” into an essay is worth a read. Please see this Mark Steyn piece, from National Review Online, comparing GM to the relative titan, Bed, Bath and Beyond – and more. Many thanks to Michael Wade for the tip.

Dull diligence. Would you have thought that economists might concern themselves with the presumption of a relationship between good manners and tailoring, and integrity and intelligence? Please see this concise article from The Economist describing the codependence that sometimes exists between the honest consumer – both individual and institutional – and the con artist, the surprisingly big fish caught in this most recently discovered net, and what we might want to do about it.

Whistling past the graveyard. One thing you might not want to dare do about malfeasance you witness is blow the whistle on it. Please see John Phillips for a chilling report on the disturbing things that can happen to you – and the disturbing places where they can happen.

Keeping obnoxious options open. And for all the risky whistle blowing, what do we get? Please stop over to see what Miki Saxon uncovered about a special provision in the Siemens settlement with the US government – and the unhappy reason for it.

The antidote to all that. For all the depressing events we see going on around us, and the poor examples driving them, it’s never quite as bad as it seems. After all, we turned out alright, didn’t we? For all our good reasons for concern, we have equally encouraging ones for hope. Please stop over to see Michael Wade’s U.S. News and World Report article about some of his. When you do, you will undoubtedly recall some of yours. And when you do that, consider how you might pass them along.

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Technorati Tags: Mark Steyn, National Review Online, GM, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Michael Wade, economist, integrity, intelligence, consumer, con artist, malfeasance, John Phillips, Miki Saxon, Siemens, settlement, US, government, U.S. News and World Report

Two weeks ago, we discussed the question of management fads, their causes and effects (academics, consultants, management). Author and consultant Ravi Tangri pointed out in a comment that some of the management ideas commonly viewed as fads are actually productive concepts that do much good when properly conceived and applied.

That this is true only adds to the problem. Many of them are nevertheless transformed into fads – not by their inherent worth – but due to their presentation by providers and treatment by management teams.

Many such concepts become fads – passing rapidly into and then out of favor – due to the discovery over time that they, in fact, lack practical value at work. But others that do have such actual usefulness also degenerate into fads due to some of the factors discussed over the past two weeks – poor comprehension, presentation, and application by both providers and consumers.

That some of those in this latter category quietly survive among those who properly understand and employ them only adds a certain misery to the wider issue of the frenzied marketing-oriented character of much management “thinking.”

Speaking of sensible management thinking, Peter Drucker once ascribed this problem to companies that find themselves with excess, expensive management:

Typically such a business goes in for the latest management fads. When “human relations” are in season, it hires psychologists, social workers, and personnel experts and puts everybody through “leadership training.” Two years later everybody talks “operations research” and attends management-science seminars.”

The solution, according to Drucker, is to scale back the ranks of management. We seem to be suffering from excess, expensive management, today. Is it their ranks that are being scaled back as a result?

And, ultimately, who is responsible for this – the development of ill-conceived management fads, the faddish treatment of good ones, and the misdirection of the bill for the consequences of their use or misuse? Is it even the managers themselves, or those charged with supervising them – their boards of directors?

Of course, if the latter is stacked with the former, then we just have another form of excess and expensive management, with no one to trim them back. As we have seen with the government handling of the current crisis, not even the naturally restorative forces of the market will be allowed to do that. So, in the absence of accountability, the fads – fatal and futile – will continue.

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Today’s tips: Of course, everyone with a contending view on this matter insists they are right. But someone has to be wrong; some are even wrong all the time. Please be sure to see Beth Robinson’s insightful look at the problem of kaleidoscoping perspectives.

Then, you will want to read Michael Wade’s explanation of how failing to enter that kaleidoscope can increase the odds that a project will go wrong.

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Technorati Tags: management, fad, consultant, leadership, training, operations, research, Drucker, manager, government, market, accountability, Beth Robinson, Michael Wade, Ravi Tangri

We discussed, last week, the contributions of academics and consultants to the unfortunate waves of management fads that have made a repeated mockery of so many over recent decades. But physicist, consultant, speaker, and author Ravi Tangri makes the important point in a comment here that the market for these unfortunate services is due at least as much to demand as to supply.

Markets, as we all know, are where supply and demand meet. Their meeting, though, generally isn’t a coincidental collision; markets are typically driven by demand, which then creates supply, rather than the reverse.

So, the ever roiling management fad industry, in the context of this fundamental idea, would be attributable to a perverse demand for substandard concepts of (perhaps mercifully) substandard shelf-lives delivered at substandard levels of competence. Does that sound right to you? If so, why might it be the case?

Who is the customer in your firm for management ideas produced by academics or consultants? Who is the end user of programs such as those listed last week? What need, precisely, is being filled? Where is the purchase decision made, the assessment leading to that decision? Is there oversight of such matters, a real-time approval process, or a subsequent review? Where are these conducted, and how meaningful are their processes and influence?

Analyses like these are typically conducted of the market by the marketer. But if your firm is a customer in this market, frequently falling victim to the sort of churning we have pointed to, might it not be a good idea to conduct such an analysis of yourself?

You might be surprised what you learn from investigating your own outfit’s behavior as a consumer. You may make important discoveries about how fundamental executive functions are performed in your organization. Most particularly, you will uncover the mechanisms of accountability.

Benjamin Graham used to dismiss suggestions that securities were always priced accurately by describing the machinery for setting them as an often emotional, commonly irrational, and certainly unpredictable “Mr. Market.” His intent was to assure you that the purchasing or sale terms offered you by the market were not necessarily coherent, and far from inevitably stacked against the investor.

Does Mr. Market make your purchasing and implementation decisions regarding management consulting proposals? How is he feeling, today? How about you? How about those who meet him in the marketplace of management ideas?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of succumbing to management fads, maybe we should go back to basics. Please take a look at this effective piece from Stepcase Lifehack on how to take notes in the digital era.

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Technorati Tags: management, market, demand, supply, competence, academic, consultant, decision, influence, customer, consumer, executive, organization, accountability, Benjamin Graham, Mr. Market, marketplace, Stepcase Lifehack

Yesterday we looked at a perhaps unexpected source of what some of its own members claim is not merely empty – but even harmful – management theory. But that is hardly the most active producer of such problematic thinking. The consulting industry is a far more prolific generator of some of the more inane ideas that have swept the field in recent decades.

And actually, there are two elements to the inanity. One is that utterly fatuous ideas are promoted with the greatest gravity by firms and people of the most prized reputations; and the other is that reasonably good ideas attract massive numbers of consultants desperate to join in on a hit parade, with an unfortunate effect on the reputation of the new model.

Let’s just look at some of the fads – you can decide for yourself which are of merit and which not:

• Business process reengineering
• Just-in-time logistics
• Total Quality Management
• Six Sigma
• Balanced scorecard
• Empowerment
• Knowledge management
• Management by objectives
• Management by walking around
• Activity-based costing
• Benchmarking
• The learning organization

There are obviously many others – if I missed one that has caught your eye for some reason, let us know what it is.

The interesting thing about movements like these is their faddish quality. You would think that a field as burdened with real work of often grave consequences would approach developments in how do or improve business operations with appropriate deliberation and seriousness. But that doesn’t seem to be what happens.

Some of these ideas catch fire. They capture public imagination and their authors become stars overnight. When this occurs, sensing profit, other consultants claim expertise in the area. There are certainly vastly more potential clients desperate to be seen by directors and shareholders as applying cutting-edge thinking than can be handled by the originators of that thinking, so the new entrants easily attract business.

Unfortunately, however sharp and experienced they may otherwise be, many of them are necessarily not as well-versed with the new concepts and the best circumstances and means of their application as the authors. Others, frankly, simply don’t grasp the concepts fully, or even at all, and just adopt the jargon. Some of these distort or redefine the fad to fit their standard method of work.

The result is that a lot of these management models lose definition, or their poor presentation and application undermine what may actually be a deserving idea. Consequently, interest wanes. And what could have been a decent contribution leaves a vacuum, soon to be filled by another due for the same fate. In other words, for whatever reason, it has become a fad, and has set the stage for the next.

But some really are effective ideas. Or, they may contain useful elements, or simply point to promising avenues of investigation.

What happens to those?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of business trends, here’s one that routinely survives the fad wars: networking. Although it, like everything, is influenced by them. Please see this WSJ column by Joann Lublin on how to stand out in troubled times.

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Technorati Tags: management, consulting, industry, consultant, process reengineering, Just-in-time, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, Balanced scorecard, Activity-based costing, Benchmarking, learning, organization, work, business, consultant, expertise, director, shareholder, networking, WSJ, Joann Lublin

It has long been remarked that there is an oddly converse correlation between economic cycles and enrollment in MBA programs. When business is down, the business schools start filling up with managers seeking to pad their credentials. And so as we enter the current global crisis we can probably expect a boom in MBAs within a year or two – just in time to hop the next economic train through town.

But will they be driving the coming boom, as so many imagine, or setting up the following bust?

Increasingly, academics themselves are joining the ranks of those critical of the MBA degree. The most famous of them is Henry Mintzberg, a business professor himself, and author of “Managers not MBAs” (see review here). Mintzberg is concerned not only that such programs educate people in the wrong things, but that they promote the harmful impression of producing trained managers ready for positions of authority and responsibility, into which they should be placed over the heads of people who have put in the work learning the job.

The late Professor Sumantra Ghosal, of the London Business School, shared these concerns, and was specific about their scope. He chided management academics for allowing “physics envy” to develop into a caricature of science that produced pretentious theories that were actually, in his view, quite simply void of real knowledge.

In particular, he criticized certain concepts – still widely popular – developed by certain Harvard professors, that he argued were based on models of essentially negatively mechanical managerial behaviors. He feared that these models were not only false, but that they had the effect of producing the very negatively mechanical behaviors, and the consequences attendant on them, that they posited. As evidence, he ruefully noted the large numbers of executive graduates of such management-school educations that played prominent roles in the major business scandals of a decade ago.

Yet another academic, Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, of Stanford, suggests that these two don’t know the half of it. He largely agrees with the source, nature, and shape of the problem, but is concerned that it might be behind a more systemically widespread undermining of managerial energy and integrity than we know. He has pointed to evidence of this in the form of an apparently positive correlation between MBAs in senior management and certain types of regulatory violations.

Undoubtedly, there are other sides to this story. Who knows, for example, how many MBAs from similar programs are in companies that are succeeding by dint of sheer hard work, intelligently planned and ethically executed? But then, who knows whether or to what extent such behavior originates in the degree or in the degree-holder?

So, when you hire a manager, perhaps you should ask more than just about educational background: Ask the candidate’s own views about the role of management in business and society, and of the part he or she expects to play in the real world, in your organization, among your staff.

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Today’s tip: For a current working student’s explanation of what he expects is going to be the value for him of an MBA, please see this introduction to an upcoming series on the topic in Business Week.

For a strong discussion of the broader question of whether business is more or less prone to ethical problems than society in general, you will want to see these essays, published on their jointly-authored blog, by Judge Richard Posner and Professor Gary Becker.

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Did you know that as a subscriber to this blog (by either RSS reader or email), you are entitled to a FREE download (.pdf format, 344KB) of the first chapter from Jim’s critically-acclaimed book, Managing Leadership? Download your free chapter now! (Even if you haven’t subscribed, yet – download it anyway! – (and then subscribe!))

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Technorati Tags: MBA, business, manager, academic, Henry Mintzberg, professor, authority, responsibility, work, Sumantra Ghosal, London Business School, management, physics, science, knowledge, Harvard, professor, education, scandal, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford, integrity, education, society, organization, Business Week, Gary Becker, Richard Posner