in tune

Applied leadership at JetBlue

From Lucy Garrick:

Here's an interesting example of applied leadership.
http://www.jetblue.com/about/ourcompany/promise/

This kind of response is rare from a corporation in the face of failure, and an admirable example of action learning in leadership under stressful conditions.

I would be interested in hearing any comments as to how this example enlightens that ever-recurring question:
"What does it mean to lead?"

Are you surprised at this company's response?
How does it compare to other experiences of organizaitonal failure you have had?
What does it teach you about your own leadership?
How might this example be applied your work?

Off into the sunset, Molly Ivins

Thank you Molly for showing me that Texas isms and accents are a gift, a strength for humor, luv and gettin' yer point across.

After moving from Houston to Washington D.C. and a few weeks of chattin'-up the opera subscribers, I realized they weren't gettin' the jist of everything I was saying. As I started eliminating some of the "y'alls" and shortnin' the extended vowels, I could tell communication was gettin' better. So the story I told myself was "get rid of the Texas stuff and I'll fit-in on the East Coast."

Ten years later, toward the end of our time in D.C., Ann Richards was doing some fundraising amongst the Texans there. This was around the time of the "born with a silver spoon in his mouth" phrase that grabbed national attention for her. I realized how helpful a little Texas sayin' was in gettin' people perked up and laughing. That's when I started reading Molly — hoping to recall the good 'ol phrases of my childhood and learn a few more as well.

"That dog won't hunt."
"A wall-eyed fit."
"Fixin' to do"
"Happier than a cranberry merchant at Thanksgiving."

Yeah, maybe my learnin' in Texas wasn't as top-notch as the East Coasters, and I've found the advantage to that for everyone. Now when someone uses a high-falutin' word, I proudly admit “What does that mean? We didn't have that word in Texas,” and everyone in the room gets to understand what's being said.

Adios Molly — way, way too soon to be loosing another Texas tornado. Another pioneer spirit fearlessly hell-raisin, speaking out and up to get our attention. Them's mighty big boots to fill at this time on our planet.

Read Maya Angelou's tribute to Molly in The Washington Post.

Read Molly's final column about increasing the troup levels in Iraq.

Great expectations

No one believes their life will turn out "kind of OK." We all think we are going to be great.

And from the day we decide to be surgeons, we are filled with expectation.

Expectations of the trails we will blaze, the people we will help, the difference we will make. Great expectations of who we will be and where we will go.

And then we get there.

You've got to wonder, "Why do we cling to our expectations?"

Because the expected is just what keeps us steady, standing, still. The expected is just the beginning.

The unexpected is what changes our lives.

— Grey's Anatomy, Thu, Jan 25, 2007, Eric Buchman screenwriter

The Beatles principles

No time for reflection, beeping BlackBerrys, and a grind-it-out mechanistic process. Where's the time for fun to build creative, motivated teams?

Client loyalty expert Andrew Sobel writes about a team that learned to deliver the highest-level of performance while having fun at a legendary scale — the Beatles. Four ordinary guys found a way to achieve extraordinary artistic and financial success and have a great time together while they were doing it.

Sobel has distilled 10 principles for improving creativity and innovation based on the Beatles' creativity and team work:

1. Eight Days a Week — Face Time: Invest in and build face time between team members well before they are asked to pitch to a client.

2. Getting Better — Evolving Your Songs: Evolve your “songs” and bring the same level of ideas, new perspectives, excitement, and enthusiasm to your hundredth meeting with a client that you brought to the first.

3. Nowhere Man — Practicing Humility: Cultivate humility and self-effacement in your dealings with others, especially when you’re on the heels of great success.

4. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da — Using Humor to Connect: Use humor, especially self-deprecating humor, to ease tensions, show you are human, and create an emotional connection with colleagues and clients.

5. With a Little Help from My Friends — A Role for Everyone: Help team members become brands-within-a-brand by giving them a song — an idea or proposal — that will help them to shine.

6. Here Comes the Sun — Honing Your Opening Measures: Carefully craft the first 60 seconds of all your communications — the opening measures of your songs — to command your audience to listen.

7. P.S. I Love You — Liking Your Public: Show your public — your clients, in every interaction, that you truly like them.

8. Two of Us — Sharing the Credit: Create a one-for-all, all-for-one culture by fostering a “Lennon/McCartney” equal-credit environment for teams.

9: Revolution — Having Conviction: Make sure your communications resonate with passion, belief, and sincerity — with conviction — if you want to be noticed by busy executives.

10: I Need You — Greatness from Differences: Put exceedingly diverse professionals on the same team, mix specialists with generalists, and foster friendly competition to produce the best ideas.

Andrew Sobel is a leading authority on building client relationships and is the author of business bestsellers Making Rain: The Secrets of Building Lifelong Client Loyalty and Clients for Life: How Great Professionals Develop Breakthrough Relationships. His Beatles Principles article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Strategy+Business.

A pdf of the article can be downloaded at Sobel's Web site — andrewsobel.com.

Courage of Iconoclasts

Comedian Dave Chappelle and poet Maya Angelou spend a day together at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where they discuss how poetry and comedy can bridge both genders and generations.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, says Angelou, because without courage you can't practice any other virtues consistently. You see? You can't be consistently kind or fair or humane or generous, not without courage, because if you don't have it, sooner or later you will stop and say, "Eh, the threat is too much. The difficulty is too high. The challenge is too great."

On the Sundance Channel this month.

What are your forbidden questions?

Over at The Authentic Organization blog, Michael Gilbert is compiling a list of forbidden questions — the questions no one asks. I often call it, the elephant sitting in the middle of the table.

Whether it’s to avoid conflict, preserve cultural bulwarks, protect power relations, or prevent disappointment, organizations often end up with a set of forbidden questions.

Some generic examples include:
Why are things done this way?
Who really makes these decisions?
How much is enough?
Who gets rewarded for what?
How is status conferred?
Who controls what information?

I'll add:
What is preventing me from speaking truth to power?
Why do we bother working together?
In what ways am I doing to others the very things I claim they should not do?

Post your forbidden questions at The Authentic Organization.

Free hugs campaign

Juan Mann is one man on a mission — brightening up life in Sydney by hugging strangers. His video landed on YouTube's index page and the story was picked up by ABC's Good Morning America. Music is by Sick Puppies, a Sydney band.

Read more in the Sydney Daily Herald.

Watch a follow-up story on YouTube.

To applaud or not? Why are we still asking this question?

Letting go of pretentiousness at classical music concerts has been an on-going story for over 30 years. It shouldn't be a surprise that we're still facing unexamined assumptions and habits. Or not clearly understanding the first-time buyer's experience and making the music more accessible. Culture change takes effort.

And yet we still label audience seating areas "Orchestra" when we've heard time and again the first-time buyer's confusion, "Am I really sitting with the orchestra?" Or "Second Tier" which is the third balcony in the hall.

Or "single tickets" when the first-time buyer asks, "Do I have to sit by myself?"

Or identifying composers and solosits by only their last name, as if everyone should know Plishnishkayanaka is a woman and the greatest living soprano east of the Mississippi.

Drew McManus is exploring and surveying this topic. He writes in The Partial Observer:

Among all of the contemporary forms of art, I've always felt classical music has the most potential for growth. Unfortunately, it has a nasty habit of getting in its own way by perpetuating decades old exclusive barriers.

At the same time, many classical music institutions are trying harder than ever before to consciously tear some of these barriers down. However, I find that some of these issues are so entrenched in the behavior and actions of long time classical music enthusiasts; they may not even realize they are unconsciously contributing to the problem.

Two recent events have brought this issue to the forefront in my mind.

Read Drew's article in The Partial Observer

The results are in. Check out the Applause & Pretentiousness Survey.

Read Leonard Slatkin's article "To Clap or Not to Clap?" in McManus' blog.

What business are you in?

In the October 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review comes classic advice from Theodore Levitt.

Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others that are thought of as seasoned growth industries have actually stopped growing. In every case, the reason growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management.

The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented.

People actually do not buy gasoline. They cannot see it, taste it, feel it, appreciate it, or really test it. What they buy is the right to continue driving their cars. The gas station is like a tax collector to whom people are compelled to pay a periodic toll as the price of using their cars. This makes the gas station a basically unpopular institution. It can never be made popular or pleasant, only less unpopular, less unpleasant.

Reducing its unpopularity completely means eliminating it. Nobody likes a tax collector, not even a pleasantly cheerful one. Nobody likes to interrupt a trip to buy a phantom product, not even from a handsome Adonis or a seductive Venus. Hence, companies that are working on exotic fuel substitutes that will eliminate the need for frequent refueling are heading directly into the outstretched arms of the irritated motorist.

In order to produce these customers, the entire corporation must be viewed as a customer-creating and customer-satisfying organism. Management must think of itself not as producing products but as providing customer-creating value satisfactions. It must push this idea (and everything it means and requires) into every nook and cranny of the organization. It has to do this continuously and with the kind of flair that excites and stimulates the people in it. Otherwise, the company will be merely a series of pigeonholed parts, with no consolidating sense of purpose or direction.

What business are you in?

Read more from Theodore Levitt.

Valuing storytelling

The Australian consulting firm, Anecdote, is asking "When is storytelling valued within your organization?” Here are the results.

Hero stories – seen particularly for sales, customer service
Success stories
Inspirational stories
“Lessons/Learning” stories
“Who we are” stories – an embodiment of company values in action, not just espoused values
“How we got here” stories – stories exploring a companies history and foundations
“My time here” stories – provides insight into the individuals work/life history with the organization

Read more about when storytelling is valued.

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They also asked "When has storytelling been discouraged or frowned upon in organizations?” The broad themes that emerged are:

When stories are gossip
When there is a break down in trust and relationships
Where there is no time
When there are “bad news” stories
When it sounds like corporate spin

Read more about when storytelling is discouraged.