“To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Rock Concert or Business Conference?

The scene resembled a large rock concert. There was a massive stage, huge projection screens, a booming sound system, laser lights and special effects that would make Broadway jealous. To say there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation for the presenter would be a major understatement. His name was announced, the music boomed and onto stage strode the classic image of a powerful, confident executive. Navy suit with pin stripes, tall, slender, salt-and-peppered hair, power tie and polished shoes. The audience’s applause roared. He walked to the podium, the music faded, applause stopped and the stadium settled to perfect silence in anticipation…

Narcissism Defined

“How’s everybody doing today?!” The keynote speaker began, with excitement in his voice. “Wow, what a year it’s been!  Since last year’s conference, a lot has changed. For example, I reorganized our division and product lines into….” he continued into details of how he, apparently personally, completed some organizational and product line restructuring. Then he continued, “in addition I introduced 12 new products, including some of the hottest new items on the market, such as…” he described a number of top selling products. “And what about services? Well, I introduced the following new service lines…”. Then, he launched into series a corporate acquisitions, “I purchased….”, “I merged…”, I… I… I…

BUZZ KILL.

Within the first 5 minutes of his presentation, all the excitement turned into disbelief at the narcissism displayed by this executive. Really?! Did they really just send that massive of an ego-maniac onto the stage?! This guy specifically said he did all these things – not once did I hear him mention the contributions of another individual or his team.

If you were a member of his organization, how would you have felt? I am sure his team put in a lot of hard work and many late nights. Without these contributions, many of “his” successes would never have come to fruition. If I worked for him, I think my resume would have hit the job boards the next day.

MORALE KILL.

His Narcissism, Our Lesson

Confronted with his narcissism, the executive would likely brush it off as an oversight on his part. He would likely reassure anyone inquiring, “of course I meant the team did all this” and follow up with a commitment to be more clear in the future. But how many stadium-sized opportunities does one get? These platforms are rare. The damage was done.

I hope your narcissism does not compare. Still, if we’re not careful, our own oversight can turn into narcissism. At the very least, oversight can easily kill the morale of our own teams. So how can leaders avoid narcissism and keep their team’s morale alive? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Thank someone every day: If not one, then two, three or twenty. Always be sure you reflect your gratitude.

2. Thank publicly: Most people appreciate public recognition. Given the opportunity, share your platform.

3. Document Credit: When creating communications, especially those for distribution, credit those that contributed.

4. Accountable, not Responsible: Toxic leaders tend to confuse accountability for responsibility. Remember, just because you’re accountable does not mean you are responsible for the success.

5. Serve First: Remember your role as a leader is to serve the team first, not for the team to serve you.

Question: What other ways do you or your leaders avoid narcissism and maintain humility?

Note: This post is the sixth and last in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

You know you’re in for a good presentation when the speaker starts off with a disclaimer that it is not his “intention to offend anyone, but if he does, too bad.” Ben Carson’s amazing story of success from meager beginnings to professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins is truly amazing. In fact, Carson received the prestigious presidential Medal of Freedom and there is even a movie about his life. Perhaps most inspiring of all, is that his legacy will not be one of fame and fortune, but one of serving others. His scholarship program now seeks to ensure that all 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders realize they can achieve just as much notoriety for academic success, as for a wicked jump shot. Highlights from Ben Carson’s presentation at the 2010 Chick-Fil-A Leadercast follow:

Ben Carson’s Background Comments

• “One of the nice things about medicine is that people turn their lives over to you and you can turn it back to them much better.”
• On Political Correctness: “It is not my intention to offend anyone this evening and if anyone is offended, too bad… I do not believe in political correctness.”
  • “Many people came to this country to escape others telling them what they should say or think and here we are reintroducing this through the backdoor.”
• He was glad his mother never developed the victims mentality, even though she only had a 3rd grade education
• Ben Carson was the worst student in the 5^th grade
  • Brother was doing poorly too
  • Mother prayed and felt God tell her to turn off the TV and have the boys read two books and give a book report of each, weekly
  • In 1.5 years, Carson went from bottom of class, to the top of the class
  • He reflected that he had the same brain, just a very different opinion of himself

On the State of Our Country & Education

• He believes the U.S. is headed for a fall, but we can turn it around
• Likened U.S. to Rome and other great civilizations… they all became enamored with themselves, lots of sports as priorities, materialism, lost their morals and these mighty civilizations fell
• The question, he felt, was can we (the United States) become the first pinnacle nation to foresee us about to fall and take corrective action?
  • Yes, there’s something different about us
• Look at our founding fathers. They were men of great faith
  • Many people today are trying to dilute faith or throw it out.
  • The whole world was about to come under tyrannical rule in World War II, were it not for the intervention of the U.S.
• As he speaks with colleagues in the medical profession from other countries, they reflect that it seems we are moving toward their medical system structure
  • This seems to disappoint them, because they looked to us to be the innovators, so we if we are settling into their programs rather than innovating something new, it leaves less hope for the future.
• “No knowledge is irrelevant, because you never know what opportunity will come.”
• “Success is…using the talent God gave you to elevate others.”
• “It’s okay to live by Godly principles.”
• “Not only can we still be a pinnacle nation, but we can be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

On Peer Criticism

• P.E.E.R.S. in Peer Criticism stands for:
  • People
  • Encouraging
  • Errors
  • Rudeness and
  • Stupidity

For More from Ben Carson:

• The Carson Scholars Fund
• Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (Movie)

Note: This post is the fifth in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

John Maxwell has an amazing ability to connect with you – whether you are one member of an audience of 65,000+ (as we were this day) or one-on-one. This is appropriate, given that his latest book is entitled, “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.” This was the main topic of his presentation – Connecting with Others. The best leaders serve their organizations in many ways, but one critical attribute is through their ability to connect. Highlights of Maxwell’s comments on serving and connecting follow:

• “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.”
• Definition of “Connecting: the ability to identify with and relate to people in such a way that it increases our ability to influence them.”
• “Some of my best thinking is done by others.”

It’s Not About Us

• “Connecting is all about others… It’s not about us”
  • “If you help other people get what they want, they’ll help you get what you want.” – Zig Ziglar
  • “You put other people first”

It’s Not Lonely At The Top

• Some people say “it’s lonely at the top” but that’s not true.
• “If you’re up at the top all alone, nobody’s following you.” It’s not lonely at the top.
• What real leaders do, is they get off of “the top”. They go to where the people are.

• Then they bring the people (followers) to the top, with them.

Selfless

• When someone thinks of themselves first, they’re immature. They’re selfish.
  • That’s okay when you’re a small child.
  • However, it’s not okay when you’re 35, 45, 55, and you haven’t figured out that it’s not about you yet!
  • “When you become a leader, you give up your right to think about yourself first. Leadership is always about others first.”

Connecting Requires Intentionality

• “Connectors understand if they’re going to connect, they’re going to have to give it a lot of energy.”
  • “It requires intentionality, it requires energy to connect.”
  • Who is that person you need to expend energy to connect with.
  • Find Common Ground
  • “What makes connectors effective is they are constantly looking for common ground.”
  • Make time. Walk slowly through the crowd. Let people connect with you.
  • “Anybody that’s kept at a distance won’t hurt you, but they won’t help you either.”

More From John C. Maxwell

Website: http://www.johnmaxwell.com/
Latest Book: Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
Free Download:

• Give it Time PDF

The Power of Motivation MP3

Note: This post is the fifth in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

At the 2010 Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, Jim Collins interviewed Ed Bastian, president of Delta Airlines and Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS Institute. Both executives referenced servant leadership principles as key attributes in the success of their companies. As Collins framed it, this also presented an excellent dichotomy, with Delta the large, publicly held airline that went nearly bankrupt and SAS, the smaller, privately held company in the software industry. I found the session particularly interesting as well, given the very different personalities and leadership traits you find in these two individuals, as you will see from many of their comments:

Jim Goodnight

Disclaimer: Jim Goodnight and his efforts at SAS Institute have been the source of much Servant Leadership material for many proponents. As a result, I confess there is a potential for bias in my comments.

• One ways SAS supports its employees is by providing ‘additional income that is not taxed to employees’, such as free coffee, snacks, etc…
  • “It’s much better to keep the money and give it to your employees than send it to Washington – that just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

• “We only have a 35 hour week… have had that since 1976”

• They also have flexible start times, so some people start 7, 8, 9, etc.
• “We’re a knowledge company. Everything we do comes out of the heads of people who work there. “
• Jim Collins asked, how can you maintain a 35 hour work week when your competition in Silicon Valley are famous for 80 or 100 hour work weeks?
  • “The reason they’re working 80 or a 100 hours a week is because everything they did after 5 PM is pretty much mush. So when they come back in the morning, they spend a lot of time fixing that mush.”
  • “So, I feel it’s better to go home and be with your family than stay at the office making a lot of mistakes”
  • SAS Institute made a commitment to no layoffs.
    • “As a private company I don’t have to worry if my profits go up every year. “ He told everyone there would be no layoffs last year, but he told them they weren’t getting raises either. Still they seemed very happy with that.
    • “These are the kinds of times where it’s really important to understand your customer’s problems.”
    • Jim Collins had a great comment in his question build up here: “Some people think business can teach the social sector a lot. I hold a different view and think we can learn a lot from the social sector.”

What social sector issues do you feel passionate about / want to solve?

• “We’ve got to find ways to keep kids in schools longer.”
• “If business wants America to stay strong, we really need to step up and push government to do a better job in education.”
  • So many kids grow up with technology (cell phones, game systems, computers, etc.) and when they get to school they have to leave that at home…as a result they’re bored. I think that’s one reason so many drop out of school.

Any other advice / comments?

• He didn’t like cubicles during his experience working a year on the Apollo project, so we (SAS) only have offices. As a result, there are long hallways and we needed to buy art to fill those hallways.
• I find “the art tends to motivate people.”
• High School Basketball coach was an important mentor to Goodnight:
  • “If we won, it was always our win” the coach recognized it as a team success.
  • “If we lost, he (the basketball coach) said ‘I didn’t have you prepared, it was my fault’.”
  • “That selflessness is something I always tried to pursue.”

Ed Bastian

• Delta literally came within a few days of shutting the doors for good
• “Number one thing we did to comeback was to reconnect with the people of Delta Airlines”
• The Delta airlines founder had a quote: “’If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of the customers’. And we’d forgotten about that.”
  • They had to reignite the spirit of Delta airlines to the employees
• When the company sat on the brink of closure, they approached the employees.  However, they didn’t use Powerpoint presentations, but just spoke with them. They told the employees the facts and said they (leadership) had made mistakes.
• At one point, well into their recovery, there was a takeover attempt by US Air that failed. That was a key moment in the turnaround for him and the leadership. They recognized the people said, “you’re not taking our airline away from us.”
• One of his key pieces of advice to organizations facing tremendous adversity is: “There are more things inside our control than outside…develop a mindset of agility and decide if you’re going to play offense or defense.”
• Other Advice for Leaders in the audience included:
  • “It’s our responsibility, as a corporate citizen of the community, to give back to the community.”
  • “Don’t focus on your career track so much as your own job…and you’ll progress much faster.”
  • As one of his mentors put it, “If you’re going to succeed in life, surround yourself with successful people.”
  • Hire someone smarter than you
  • Hire people that look different than you
  • “Be a perpetual optimist”

Jim Collins closed the panel discussion with a question to the audience:

• Think about who has mentored or coached you.
• Then consider, how do we pay that mentor back?

Mentor the next generation, of course.

More From Jim Goodnight

Website: http://www.sas.com/presscenter/bios/jgoodnight.html

More From Ed Bastian

Website: http://www.delta.com/about_delta/corporate_information/corporate_biographies/bastian/

Benefits to Attending Leadership Conferences

I’m about to attend the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, presented by John C. Maxwell and Giant Impact. The event is only one day, but the great lineup of speakers and topics has me anxiously awaiting it. As I reflected on this, a thought occurred to me: most of these great speakers have published plenty of material and lessons, so why do I find it important to attend leadership conferences at all?  I came up with the following short list. Perhaps it will help you convince your boss the next time this event, or a similar opportunity comes around.

1. Education: The obvious. As a leader in the organization, you must continuously develop your leadership skills. Conferences are among the best ways to do this.

2. Networking: Whether you’re an extrovert or not, be sure to reach out to co-participants. Those in attendance are like-minded, particularly if the conference focuses on a particular theme, like Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership conference and you may find them excellent references for bouncing new ideas.

3. Focus: You could spend weeks, even months reading books in small snippets, but you can’t always focus consistently and key topics are often lost in translation. In contrast, by attending all day events and longer conferences, you are able to absorb the information continuously. From my experience, this results in greater retention of the information.

4. Setting an Example: As a leader in your organization, you need to set the example by honing your skills and leadership capabilities. As your team and peers see you make the commitment to be out of the office for these experiences, you lead by example and set expectations for them to follow.

So the next time you contemplate whether you can afford the time away from the office, consider these benefits and more, then commit yourself to, as the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast says, “Be The One”. If you seek suggestions for leadership events, definitely check out the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast and Greenleaf’s Annual conference.

Question: Why do you attend leadership development events?

From Servers to Servant Leadership - Data Center Leadership

The slides complimented the presentation and were not written to stand alone as an independent communication. However, if you have questions about the content or seek a speaker on the topic of Servant Leadership for your next meeting or conference, please contact me.

Hasso Plattner file photo from SAP Sapphire 2007 / CC BY-NC 2.0

Speakers & SAP Executives (Positive)
While commitments back at the office prevented me from catching all of the keynote speakers and SAP executives presenting, I was able to get to most of the top keynotes.

Opening Keynote: Abbe Mulders & Steven Levitt (Neutral)
Major themes for this conference included clarity, transparency, Sustainability and, of course, advances in technology. A promising start for SAP Executive leadership and speaker expectations. The conference kicked off with Ms. Abbe Mulders, ASUG Vice Chairperson, Dow Corning Corporation CIO and Mr. Steven Levitt author of FREAKONOMICS. Abbe provided a good welcome and spoke of the power of ASUG, (the American SAP User Group). Again, a plus for recognizing the power of users, collaboration and support. Levitt provided a very revealing life history that included the fact that his father was not stellar in medical studies and practice, but chose the very uncommon field of intestinal gas. It worked for him – he became recognized as an expert in his field, even including a GQ article dubbing him “The King of Farts”. Following in his footsteps, in a manner, the younger Levitt found himself terrible at Math – a bad sign for economists. However, he focused on very unique circumstances in which very few “self-respecting” economists practiced. It worked for him as well. This emphasis on “anything’s possible” when you focus on the right area, was also a positive for leadership.

The only real negative from the opening Keynote was Levitt’s surprising factor that drunk walkers are 8 times more likely to die than drunk drivers. Shocking as this may be, he avoided addressing the risks to others in equivalent detail. One would think drunk drivers are far more likely to kill others than drunk walkers. A setback for transparency by speakers at the conference.

Léo Apotheker (Positive)
Well rehearsed and spoken, Apotheker presented the importance of clarity and transparency SAP provides its clients to their customers. Also surprisingly strong was this Co-CEO of SAP’s message on sustainability. Apotheker claimed the SAP sustainability roadmap is the first in their industry and set a goal for the organization to make every business process sustainable. Strong points for good leadership. Apotheker’s style tended toward a traditional corporate leader – befitting his role.

Ian Kimbell (Positive)
Mr. Kimbell, SAP’s self-proclaimed “Demo Boy” was first introduced at the conference while demonstrating solutions for Mr. Apotheker’s keynote. Probably the most polished of all presenters, Kimbell seemed more comfortable on stage than most people are simply in their own skin. Kimbell’s demonstrations, humor and general ease on stage was so good, in fact, that some people have questioned the reality behind his demonstrations and the effort required to achieve similar goals – was the demonstration too simplified? Still, Kimbell is to be applauded, especially for his later performance, balancing the ever-dynamic Hasso Plattner. Kimbell presented strong leadership through thorough preparation and charisma. A traditional leadership style, perhaps leaning a bit toward the hero-worship model, but positive nonetheless.

Hasso Plattner (Positive)
Co-Founder of SAP, he’s been called the company’s “Rock Star”. In a conference that touted transparency, there were none more transparent than Hasso Plattner. His presentation was very technical for the crowd, but still remarkably clear given his to-and-fro speaking points. With comments like, “SAP may not want to tell you this” or speaking to examples that were still in proof-of-concept phase, Plattner suggested the most down-to-earth mentality of those on stage that day. If you wanted the reality of a situation, you knew Plattner was your person. Whether he could be considered a servant-leader would take much more research, but Plattner’s ability to operate at a remarkably senior level while balancing in-depth technical details was very promising. One thing’s certain, he did not over-rehearse his presentation.

Vendors (Negative)
Vendors with positive leadership were too difficult to identify from brief interactions on the conference floor. Poor leadership, on the other hand, was all too easy to spot. A wide variety of vendors were represented. From behemoths like IBM and Accenture, to companies most have never heard of. One vendor surprised me by asking if he could scan my badge without even speaking to me (a practice which would only add my name and contact information to his undoubtedly growing spammer’s list). Also standing out on the floor were the obvious ploys to attract attention through any means possible. I remained disappointed by the number of “Booth Beauties” (other terms are more common). I still find it hard to believe that companies with quality products should have any need for these tactics and therefore, made it a point to avoid these stands. Milder marketing ploys, were also prevalent, such as the expensive sport cars, power equipment and sizable freebies. While there were undoubtedly plenty of well-led organizations on the floor, unfortunately, the negative still stood out. This resulted in a set-back for overall conference leadership impressions. (Note: I am pleased to say that the vendors I work with were all professionally represented at the conference).

Bloggers (Positive)
Contributing to the discussions and education was a great group of bloggers. Twitter was a popular means of sharing thoughts and feedbcak on the presenters, while other bloggers shared their proposed articles to come, following the conference. Watching these groundswells in action at any conference is always exciting. Within minutes of a presenter’s notable commitment, the quote and feedback on that quote, was already online for the world to see and being discussed. Yes, social technology has truly brought the power to the people. Throughout the conference, though disagreements arose, it remained constructive on Twitter and blogs – another positive for the good guys and strong leadership from the Blogging community.

Now the conference is over, we’ve returned to offices piled full with issues to be addressed and fires to put out, and what have we learned? Besides the excellent lessons on SAP technology, strategy and opportunities, what have attendees experienced from a leadership perspective? They saw a positive side to SAP’s executives, a negative side from many vendors, and a positive leadership example from the blogging community. Net result? Kudos to SAP for not only presenting their technologies, strategy and people in a positive light, but for also a providing a net-positive leadership experience.

* Observations are from the conference only, I did not take into account their character or broader leadership methodologies.