Five Ways a Military Approach Can Help Every Non-Military Manager

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2013/01/07/five-ways-a-military-approach-can-help-every-non-military-manager/

This article is by John Esposito, a member of the board of the consultancy McKinney Rogers, formerly president and chief executive of Bacardi U.S.A., president and CEO of Moet Hennessy USA, and president and CEO of Shieffelin & Somerset.
D-Day: The Normandy Invasion

D-day: The leadership vision, organizational preparation, tactical planning, and broader strategy required were staggering.

When I was the U.S. chief executive at Moët Hennessy, I spearheaded the merger of three Moët Hennessy U.S. companies into one new one. The deal could easily have gone sour without full recognition of the countless challenges organizations face during a monumental merger of this kind. To avoid the potential pitfalls, our organization adopted a military ethos. This meant constantly evaluating tactics against strategy, and actively avoiding mission creep. I found that the military-inspired approach we took was a key factor in aligning Moët Hennessey USA as a global organization. Later, as President and CEO of Bacardi North America, I found that the military ethos remained a part of my thinking and managerial approach.

I have been a civilian my entire life, but ex-military business execution professionals have shown me the value that a military approach and the principles of commando training can bring to any organization. My advice to management anywhere is to be open to what your teams can learn from the military and apply the following five lessons.
Why Republicans Should Welcome Chuck Hagel To The Pentagon's Top Job Loren Thompson Loren Thompson Contributor
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf: Negotiator and Military Man Jim Camp Jim Camp Contributor

1. Insist on clear communication and alignment. Clear communication and alignment are hallmarks of the military. Don’t underestimate the importance of language in reinforcing or shifting an organization’s mindset. Words like “mission,” “vision,” and “tactics” empower people to think differently about what they’re doing. When you use terms like “interdependency” you force a conversation between people that can drastically improve outcomes.

2. Create high-performing teams. Military experience emphasizes organizing and defining your team’s goals and missions, your team’s members’ roles and responsibilities, and your action plans. This empowers people to become part of a high-performing team in an organizational setting. Everyone talks about leadership, but the successful business must be able to recruit people who want to be part of a team and are willing to be good followers. There is no substitute for putting the best people with the right skills in the right roles.  Like a commando team, they allow you to do more with fewer resources.

3. Get comfortable in dynamic environments.In today’s dynamic and uncertain business environment, the most successful firms are those that can act quickly and decisively in response to change. Strong self-efficacy, high achievement, autonomy, and the ability to take decisive action in the face of uncertainty and dynamic environments are critical capabilities. Preparing individuals to evalu

ate a dynamic environment and act in the face of uncertainty is a particular strength of the military, and it should be a priority for executive training programs. It all begins with having a clear vision and a specific mission that enables people to act in alignment with the company’s objectives.

4. Hire your replacement. In a combat setting, casualties of war require that junior officers assume the roles of their superiors at a moment’s notice. Because of that, the military trains people to function at least two levels above their rank. Imagine how much more effective employees are when they know how to do their boss’s job and understand the big-picture vision as well as their own immediate responsibilities.

5. Ask for help. Recognize that there’s no need to go it alone.  Even for a CEO it’s okay to ask for help. You owe it to yourself and your organization to assemble the best team possible. Don’t be distracted by the desire to get all the credit. From a commando perspective, you may have an efficient team and still need to bring in resources from another division, or outsource a function, to get the job done.

Hiring veterans can be a part of the solution, too. Today military presence at corporations is at a low, when we need it most.  According to researchers at Boston University and Harvard University, 59% of companies in 1980 were led by boardroom generals from the military. By 2009 that had dropped to 8%. Take it from a civilian CEO who has experienced the benefits of a military ethos first hand, and accelerate your organization’s performance by applying military knowhow to drive your organizational success.

Inertia, Inc. Holds Charity Fundraiser For Toys For Tots - toys for tots,inertia,inertia inc

Inertia, Inc. Holds Charity Fundraiser For Toys For Tots - toys for tots,inertia,inertia inc

Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress

We've made it through the holidays, and now everyone is busy creating and keeping their New Year's resolutions.  This post at HBR.org gives us relevant advice on reducing stress.  Whether in the middle of job searching or completing an endless to-do list, we hope these tips help you feel better about getting it all done.

1. Have self-compassion.

Self-compassion is, in essence, cutting yourself some slack. It's being willing to look at your mistakes or failures with kindness and understanding — without harsh criticism or defensiveness.  Studies show that people who are self-compassionate are happier, more optimistic, and less anxious and depressed. That's probably not surprising. But here's the kicker: they are moresuccessful, too.  So remember that to err is human, and give yourself a break.

2. Remember the "Big Picture."

Anything you need or want to do can be thought of in more than one way. For instance, "exercising" can be described in Big Picture terms, like "getting healthier" — the why of exercising — or it can be described in more concrete terms, like "running two miles" — the how of exercising. Thinking Big Picture about the work you do can be very energizing in the face of stress and challenge, because you are linking one particular, often small action to a greater meaning or purpose.

3. Rely on routines.

 Every time you make a decision — whether it's about hiring a new employee, about when to schedule a meeting with your supervisor, or about choosing rye or whole wheat for your egg salad sandwich — you create a state of mental tension that is, in fact, stressful. (This is why shopping is so exhausting — it's not the horrible concrete floors, it's all that deciding.)

The solution is to reduce the number of decisions you need to make by using routines. If there's something you need to do every day, do it at the same time every day. Have a routine for preparing for your day in the morning, and packing up to go home at night. Simple routines can dramatically reduce your experience of stress.

4. Take five (or ten) minutes to do something you find interesting.

If there were something you could add to your car's engine, so that after driving it a hundred miles, you'd end up with more gas in the tank than you started with, wouldn't you use it? Even if nothing like that exists for your car just yet, there is something you can do for yourself that will have the same effect... doing something interesting. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as it interests you. Recent research shows that interest doesn't just keep you going despite fatigue, it actually replenishes your energy. And then that replenished energy flows into whatever you do next.

Keep these two very important points in mind: First, interesting is not the same thing as pleasant, fun, or relaxing (though they are certainly not mutually exclusive.)

Second, interesting does not have to mean effortless. The same studies that showed that interest replenished energy showed that it did so even when the interesting task was difficult and required effort. So you actually don't have to "take it easy" to refill your tank.

5. Add where and when to your to-do list.

Do you have a to-do list?  And do you find that a day or a week (or sometimes longer) will frequently pass by without a single item getting checked off? Stressful, isn't it? What you need is a way to get the things done that you set out to do in a timely manner. What you need is if-then planning (or what psychologists call "implementation intentions").

This particular form of planning is a really powerful way to help you achieve any goal. Nearly 200 studies, on everything from diet and exercise to negotiation and time management, have shown that deciding in advance when and where you will complete a task (e.g., "If it is 4pm, then I will return any phone calls I should return today") can double or triple your chances of actually doing it.

So take the tasks on your to-do list, and add a specific when and where to each. For example, "Remember to call Bob" becomes "If it is Tuesday after lunch, then I'll call Bob."

6. Use if-thens for positive self-talk.

Another way to combat stress using if-then plans is to direct them at the experience of stress itself, rather than at its causes. Recent studies show that if-then plans can help us to control our emotional responses to situations in which we feel fear, sadness, fatigue, self-doubt, or even disgust. Simply decide what kind of response you would like to have instead of feeling stress, and make a plan that links your desired response to the situations that tend to raise your blood pressure. For instance, "If I see lots of emails in my Inbox, then I will stay calm and relaxed," or, "If a deadline is approaching, then I will keep a cool head."

7. See your work in terms of progress, not perfection

We all approach the goals we pursue with one of two mindsets: what I call the Be-Good mindset, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and that you already know what you're doing, and the Get-Better mindset, where the focus is on developing your ability and learning new skills. You can think of it as the difference between wanting to show that you are smart versus wanting to get smarter.

When you have a Be-Good mindset, you expect to be able to do everything perfectly right out of the gate, and you constantly (often unconsciously) compare yourself to other people, to see how you "size up." You quickly start to doubt your ability when things don't go smoothly, and this creates a lot of stress and anxiety. Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to ultimately fail.

A Get-Better mindset, on the other hand, leads instead to self-comparison and a concern with making progress — how well are you doing today, compared with how you did yesterday, last month, or last year? When you think about what you are doing in terms of learning and improving, accepting that you may make some mistakes along the way, you experience far less stress, and you stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur.

8. Think about the progress that you've already made.

"Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work." This is what Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer refer to as the Progress Principle — the idea is that it's the "small wins" that keep us going, particularly in the face of stressors.

Psychologically, it's often not whether we've reached our goal, but the rate at which we are closing the gap between where we are now and where we want to end up that determines how we feel. It can be enormously helpful to take a moment and reflect on what you've accomplished so far before turning your attention to the challenges that remain ahead.

9. Know whether optimism or defensive pessimism works for you.

For many of us, it's hard to stay positive when we've got assignments up to our eyeballs. For others, it isn't just hard — it feels wrong. And as it turns out, they are perfectly correct — optimism doesn't work for them.

It is stressful enough to try to juggle as many projects and goals as we do, but we add a layer of stress without realizing it when we try to reach them using strategies that don't feel right — that don't mesh with our own motivational style. So what's your motivational style, and is "staying positive" right for you?

Some people think of their jobs as opportunities for achievement and accomplishment — they have what psychologists call a promotion focus. In the language of economics, promotion focus is all about maximizing gains and avoiding missed opportunities. For others, doing a job well is about security, about not losing the positions they've worked so hard for. This prevention focus places the emphasis on avoiding danger, fulfilling responsibilities, and doing what feel you ought to do. In economic terms, it's about minimizing losses, trying to hang on to what you've got.

Understanding promotion and prevention motivation helps us understand why people can work so differently to reach the same goal. Promotion motivation feels like eagerness — the desire to really go for it — and this eagerness is sustained and enhanced by optimism. Believing that everything is going to work out great is essential for promotion-focused performance. Prevention motivation, on the other hand, feels like vigilance — the need to keep danger at bay — and it is sustained not by optimism, but by a kind of defensive pessimism. In other words, the prevention-minded actually work best when they think about what might go wrong, and what they can do to keep that from happening.

Inertia, Inc.'s photostream

Inertia, Inc.'s photostream on Flickr.

The Power of People Skills

John C. Maxwell, a leadership expert and executive coach, recognizes the value of people skills below.  We couldn't agree more! 

"By far the greatest obstacle to success that I see in others is a poor understanding of people. A while back the Wall Street Journal published an article on the reasons that executives fail. At the top of the list was a person’s inability to effectively relate to others.

One day I was talking to someone who was complaining about not winning a business contract that he had bid on. “It wasn’t fair,” he told me. “All the people involved knew each other, and we didn’t have a chance. It’s all politics.” But then what he went on to describe wasn’t politics. It was relationships.

Authors Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb indicate that people who fail on the job commonly cite “office politics” as the reason for their failures, but the reality is that what they call politics is often nothing more than regular interaction with other people.

If you haven’t learned how to get along with people, you will always be fighting a battle to succeed. On the other hand, making people skills a strength will take you farther than any other skill you develop. People like to do business with people they like. Or to put it the way President Theodore Roosevelt did: “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”

You can view the originial blog post by John here.  For more on the author and his leadership advice, visit http://johnmaxwellonleadership.com/.

Attitude

Attitude:

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

--Charles R. Swindoll

7 Habits of Extraordinary People!

Dumb Little Man suggests seven straightforward ingredients for life success.  For more in depth explanation, visit the original article here.

1. The Habit of Awareness
Don’t close your eyes to problems you have, but be aware of them and act accordingly.

2. The Habit of Self-Investment
Invest time in yourself by reading books, fictional or not, searching the internet for specific information about time-management, personal growth, productivity and other important areas of your life.

3. The Habit of Early Rising
Not only does it give you many more hours in your week, but it also opens your mind and gives you room to think, feel and be.

4. The Habit of Exercising
Not only does it give you many more hours in your week, but it also opens your mind and gives you room to think, feel and be.

5. The Habit of Self-Love
Practice self-care on a daily basis by journaling, eating well, unplugging, playing and resting.

6. The Habit of Gratefulness
Create a Top 10 list of things you’re grateful for and update it constantly to never get out of touch with the abundance that surrounds you.

7. The Habit of Relationships
There’s so much to be learned in this world and what better way to do that than from those who share your attitude of self-empowerment?

Six Thought Provoking Quotes from Albert Einstein

Review the original article here. 


1.  “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

2.  “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”

3.  “The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions…Our inner balance, and even our very existence, depends on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives.”

4.  “Life is all about choices. How many people are trapped in their everyday habits: part numb, part frightened, part indifferent? To have a better life we must keep choosing how we’re living.”

5.  “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

6.  "There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle; one is as though everything is a miracle."

Friday Quote!

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

- Leo Tolstoy

Tips on Managing Oneself!!

Peter F Drucker - Managing Oneself - a synopsis from mutex07

Invaluable career and personal development advice!  Click through the slideshow for a good overview, and this link takes you to the original article.  Focusing on my strengths has made a huge difference in my performance and attitude.  Since I've realized that looking at my natural strong points is the way to go, my enthusiasm is at an all time high!

Friday Quote:

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction

between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure;

his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He

hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision

of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves

others to determine whether he is working or playing. To

himself, he always appears to be doing both.

—Lawrence Pearsall Jacks

Big Failure, Big Success: 12 People To Keep You Going!

Short and simple inspiration from Danielle LaPorte.  This keeps things in perspective for us!

: Oprah was fired from one of her early anchor gigs, after being labelled “unfit for TV.”

: Tim Ferriss had 26 publishing rejections for The 4-Hour Workweek – which spent months on The New York Times Bestseller list.

: Twilight author Stephenie Meyer had 9 rejections from literary agents, and then…a $750,000 three-book deal.

: Lady Gaga was dropped by Island Def Jam Records after only three months.

: Project Runway winner Christian Siriano was rejected by the Fashion Institute of Technology. After winning Project Runway, his fashion line brought in $1.2 million in the first two years.

: Abraham Lincoln had less than five years of formal education.

: Marilyn Monroe was booted from 20th Century-Fox, after producers declared her “unattractive.”

: Beethoven was almost completely deaf when he composed “The Ode To Joy.” He removed the legs from his piano and placed it on the floor, letting the vibrations resonate through his body.

: Emily Dickinson had just a handful of poems published during her lifetime–out of over 1,800 completed works.

: Louisa May Alcott was encouraged by her family to find work as a household servant. She wrote Little Women, instead.

: Verdi was rejected from a prestigious music conservatory in Milan, because he “wasn’t talented enough.” He wrote 28 operas, including La Traviata, Aida, and Othello.

: Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

11 Books Every Young Leader Must Read

A recent article from Harvard Business Review suggests eleven books for those interested in improving their leadership skills.   Enjoy the list!

Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor's Handbook. Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 A.D., Marcus Aurelius is considered one of history's "philosopher kings," and his Meditations were perhaps his most lasting legacy. Never meant to be published, Marcus' writings on Stoicism, life, and leadership were the personal notes he used to make sense of the world. They remain a wonderful insight into the mind of a man who ruled history's most revered empire at the age of 40 and provide remarkably practical advice for everyday life. This is the translation I've found most accessible.

 

Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived life in the Nazi concentration camps. Man's Search for Meaning is really two books — one dedicated to recounting his frightening ordeal in the camps (interpreted through his eyes as a psychiatrist) and the other a treatise on his theory, logotherapy. His story alone is worth the read — a reminder of the depths and heights of human nature — and the central contention of logotherapy — that life is primarily about the search for meaning — has inspired leaders for generations.

 

Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full. Tom Wolfe founded the New Journalism school and was one of America's most brilliant writers of nonfiction (books and essays like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) before he became one of her most notable novelists. Often better known for his portrait of 1980s New York, The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full is his novel about race, status, business, and a number of other topics in modern Atlanta. It was Wolfe's attempt, as Michael Lewis noted, at "stuffing of the whole of contemporary America into a single, great, sprawling comic work of art." It's sure to inspire reflection in burgeoning leaders.

 

Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker. One of the first books I read upon graduating college, Liar's Poker is acclaimed author Michael Lewis' first book — a captivating story about his short-lived postcollegiate career as a bond salesman in the 1980s. Lewis has become perhaps the most notable chronicler of modern business, and Liar's Poker is both a fascinating history of Wall Street (and the broader financial world) in the 1980s and a cautionary tale to ambitious young business leaders about the temptations, challenges, and disappointments (not to mention colorful characters) they may face in their careers.

 

Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't. What does it take to make a great company, and what traits will young businesspeople need to lead them? Jim Collins introduced new rigor to the evaluation of business leadership in his instant classic Good to Great, with a research team reviewing "6,000 articles and generating 2,000 pages of interview transcripts." The result is a systematic treatise on making a company great, with particularly interesting findings around what Collins calls "Level 5 Leadership"that have changed the face of modern business.

 

Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Persuasion is at the heart of business, where leaders must reach clients, customers, suppliers, and employees. Cialdini's classic on the core principals of persuasion is a sterling example of the cross application of psychological principles to business life. Based on his personal experiences and interviews — with everyone from expert car salesmen to real estate salespeople — Cialdini's book is riveting and, yes, persuasive. It serves as a great introduction to other works by modern writers like Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Levitt, who translate theories from the social and physical sciences into everyday life.

 

Richard Tedlow, Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built. Richard Tedlow taught one of my favorite business school classes, The Coming of Managerial Capitalism, and this book is something like a distillation of a few of the high points of that class. Giants of Enterprise chronicles the lives of some of the businesspeople — Carnegie, Ford, Eastman, Walton — who shaped the world we live in today. It's a brief introduction to the figures and companies who built modern business for the young business leader seeking to shape the future.

 

Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Financial capital is at the heart of capitalism. Any young person aspiring to business leadership should understand the financial world we live in. Ferguson is one of our era's preeminent popular historians, and The Ascent of Money traces the evolution of money and financial markets from the ancient world to the modern era. It's an essential primer on the history and current state of finance.

 

Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail.Clay Christensen was recently ranked the world's greatest business thinker by Thinkers50, and his breakout book was a thoughtful tome on innovation and "disruption" called The Innovator's Dilemma. All of Christensen's books are essential reads, but this is perhaps the most foundational for any young leader wondering how to drive business innovation and fight competitors constantly threatening to disrupt his or her business model with new technology.

 

Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey's book represents the best in self-help. His advice — about prioritization, empathy, self-renewal, and other topics — is both insightful and practical.Seven Habits can be useful to the personal and professional development of anyone charting a career in business.

 

Bill George, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. A hallmark of next-generation business leaders is a focus on authenticity. Bill George has pioneered an approach to authentic leadership development articulated well in his second book, True North. George (who, full disclosure, I've coauthored with before) conducted more than 100 interviews with senior leaders in crafting the book, and offers advice for young leaders on knowing themselves and translating that knowledge into a personal set of principles for leadership.