Tag: Stephen H Dawson

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Inclusion

“All musicians are potential band leaders.” Thelonious Monk

Dr. Stephen H Dawson

I was being recruited in 1994 by a big-name record label out of Nashville to serve as bandleader for an up-and-coming country music guy. The deal terms proposed to me were pretty good, but I did not feel good about the deal in my gut. I passed on the work for one reason: they had not heard me play a note. They knew of my education and experience credentials but did not know too much about me as a person.

I recommended last week a short film for you to watch. I hope you watched it. We were going to talk about how your viewing experience of this short film went for you during our time together this week. The part about the whole person we covered last week is key to both this week and all things going forward. We will discuss the concept of inclusion as we meet now to go through how you felt during your viewing experience of the short film.

INCLUSION

I, for lack of a better way to say it, was in the band of this up-and-coming country music guy in 1994 without accepting the offer. My customer was going to be out in a sea of lights. They would be nameless and faceless to me. I would be paid bi-weekly if two things occurred. First, the new material we were going to record into an album sold where the record company was happy with album sales. Second, concert tickets supporting music material the guy had going on before me and supporting the pending record album sold. I would be replaced in an instant if both of these conditions were not happening consistently. I was okay with this criteria combination, as it is the nature of the work. Not everyone sees it this way. The album Centerfield is the third solo studio album by John Fogerty. Fogerty played all the instruments on this album himself. I guess John did not want to have the collective risk of some people problems anymore at that point in his career.

The identified people problem suffering your ability to have strategic planning work accomplished was compacted into a few minutes during the Most film. The older main character realized the problem, considered it, and acted on it. He had to act, one way or the other. He acted under duress imposed on him from the circumstances, not any person or persons. All options presented to him hurt him. It hurt me to watch the film. It is probable resolving your people problem is going to cause you some hurt, one way or the other.

The definition of inclusion is simple: included. Included, in the form of being…in. The degree of in is another topic. The fairness of being in or out is another topic. All I am saying to you now is a person who is included in your organization is in your organization, period.

A recent discussion with David Daniels had Dave sharing more of his wisdom with me. “Inclusion as part of the D & I equation revolves around people feeling like their voice is heard while leadership supports this concept because they believe it produces better solutions, thus better results, both financially and with higher commitment levels of employees i.e. the ability to attract the best of the best in their industry.” I agreed with Dave. I see people providing their input as many rivers coming together in a pool to feed a tree. The tree, in this example, is the work the people need to accomplish. It is tough to remain distinct when mixed, but this condition is similar to a cake. Add the ingredients, mix them, bake them, and there are no more ingredients. There is cake. Altering ingredient amounts and types means a different tasting cake. A structural approach to strategic planning for the who part and when they get involved part helps to accomplish a preferred result.

Individual voices as water coming together.

HOW MUCH IN?

Remember I wrote a few paragraphs back my customer would be out in a sea of lights? Well, those people were to be a part of my organization. I needed them to be happy by spending their money for me to keep my band leader job. I was not sure I could deliver the collective satisfaction the folks in that sea of light were after, as the big-name record company out of Nashville had not heard me play a note. There had to be a stronger connection to know if we would make it to success by a probability calculation.

The customer.

Your strategy work is not getting accomplished as you prefer. We pushed off the option it is not a time or skills problem causing the work delay. It would be best if you now changed who you include doing your strategy work. This change does not mean they need to leave your organization; only stop doing this work. If you realize they do not have the skills to do the work, then you have a separate set of staffing actions to accomplish. Additionally, you have to take a hard look at if they should have done the work based on the time allotted to them to do the work combined with the workspace resources where they perform their work. Again, as I said a few weeks back, you have to call it for what it is.

Thelonious Monk made a strong point without saying it. One must first be in the band before one can lead the band. Franklin Roosevelt made the same point: “You are either with us or against us.” Today, we are faced with how to best recover from the 2020 global pandemic. It is clear the definition of work for many roles has changed forever. So, who is in your band, so to speak, for your organization going forward?

Richard Florida and Adam Ozimek addressed some of the challenges with remote work going forward. “Before the pandemic, a number of communities developed strategic initiatives to attract newcomers—some aimed at high-tech workers but others open to anyone who commits to moving. Many include the lure of cash incentives, akin to the moving expenses paid by companies to new hires.” This criterion is no longer valid for many industries and companies. “To lure and support the growing ranks of remote workers, communities will need to build out more complete ecosystems for them to live, work and gather.” Meaning, the ability to do remote work effectively as a whole person has changed the workforce forever by establishing suburban life a primary regardless of distance from the office to home locations.

Nataly Kelly wrote about the complexities of having inclusiveness in a global organization. “While it might not be immediately obvious why an employee in Tokyo should learn about the history of slavery in the United States, if we want our global teams to work together, they need to understand one another’s realities.” Going deeper, the concept of data is still not managed well at the executive level. Data, in the form of understanding the facts for how we as humanity got to where we stand today.

Thomas Davenport and Randy Bean found in their survey executives are excited about implementing artificial intelligence in their organizations, but they do not have reliable data leadership skills and leaders based on “nascent and evolving” leadership roles. “The executives are usually pretty bullish about technology but quite bearish regarding whether their organizations are becoming more data-driven.” The survey shows the role of data officer at the executive level is not agreed on by a high majority of executives.

The pattern playing out is clear. The leadership’s proverbial music is not making the audience (the organization) happy enough for them to want to keep listening. The organization cannot understand how data, being facts, interrelates because the leadership does not have a strong enough grasp on the data lifecycle concept themselves. Bad data, either incorrect or insufficient, feeds into both inaccurate and ineffective data analysis. This combination destroys efforts such as the planning of strategy.

REFRAIN TO CHORUS

My work as a bandleader was to play acoustic guitar, sing harmony, arrange much of the music after songwriters derived a melody, set the performance tempo, and develop musicianship in the band members. It is not easy to hide during a live performance of music. Strumming the guitar only goes so far, as we say in the guitar business. One must play the guitar, in my case, with the other musicians to have a band. Add in the singing aspect, and the sound is either is or is not pleasant to the paying customer. Your role now as a leader is to use a refrain to help get your people either to or back to productivity.

Which one do you want?

You could swap guitars, swap guitar amplifiers, move the musicians to a different location on the stage, or any number of changes to help improve the sound of a band. Say you needed to pick out a chair for you to sit down in for whatever reason. You could pick from many different seating options to meet your need. If you need strategic planning work accomplished, you will need to keep making changes to find the mix that results in productive work output. You are looking for, as an analogy, both applause and continued funding from your audience for your strategic planning work. There is a time constraint to almost everything. The older main character in the Most film was under an explicit time constraint. Staying focused on the scope of the strategy you are trying to plan is a viable means to knowing if you are either spending too much time getting the work accomplished or if you are indeed not getting work accomplished.

I used the words of James Taylor to help me walk out most of my musical journey. “I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.” The older main character in the Most film made the same choice as Taylor: sharing love or pain with others. Both this older main character and Taylor are leaders in their respective lots of life. Leading is not easy, but I never said it was easy.

Take time this week and consider the topic of who you need and want to include in your organization. Think about the associated time constraints, the money constraints, and the pains of having people come and go either moving around or out of your organization. The world population reached 7.8 billion people as of March 2020. There is no shortage of people for anything. Clearly, you cannot pick everyone in the world because you do not have enough money to pay everyone in the world. Besides, you would get so big along the way you would be identified as violating antitrust. Selecting irrevocable choices…this is the harsh reality of accomplishing strategic planning. Perhaps playing some music you like to hear during your consideration time will help you go through this thinking easier.

So, I ask you: where do you want to go? I hope your answer is to develop the plans necessary to accomplish the strategy you know you need to achieve to arrive at your desired destination. If this is the case, then let’s get to work. If not, then I wish you the best of everything.

I hope we will see each other here next week. Email me if you need to talk before then.

Dr. Stephen H. Dawson, DSL

Executive Strategy Consultant

Stephen Dawson is an executive consultant of technology and business strategy, serving significant international organizations by providing leadership consulting, strategic planning, and executive communications. He has more than thirty years of service and consulting experience in delivering successful international business development and program management outcomes in the US and SE Asia. His weekly column, “Where Do You Want To Go?,” appears on Thursdays.

Thank you for visiting our Blog!

 

Jim Weber, Managing Partner – ITB Partners

Jim Weber – Managing Partner,  ITB Partners

I hope you enjoyed our point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

 

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Reading – Stephen H. Dawson, DSL

“A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.” Abraham Lincoln

Dr. Stephen H Dawson

I do not know why the Steven Spielberg film skipped over the assassination event of Abraham Lincoln. I am not a huge fan of Daniel Day-Lewis’s work, nor do I have anything against him. I believe Day-Lewis portrayed Lincoln with excellence. Lincoln shared in this film he studied the work of Euclid in his Elements writings. I think, but I do not know, that both Spielberg and Day-Lewis were attempting to make the point that understanding their work required the audience to do some supporting reading on their own to grasp the magnitude of the story presented in the film. This postulate of mine brings me to the topic for our time together this week. Specifically, making good on my commitment to you to discuss how diversity, inclusion, and what Chesterton talked about with the human species will help you get out of the circumstances hindering your strategic planning work.

I shared last week about the need to look should one want to see. I looked over some of Euclid’s Elements recently, remembering how they helped structure my thoughts years ago when I first studied mathematics. Mathematics helped me learn how to read. I needed the means to get through spelling, grammar, and punctuation learning obstacles to accomplish writing assignments of the materials I read. I was able to approach the skill of outlining what I read more effectively, as I had a formula for how to accomplish the outlining. It led me to help me read more effectively. The simplicity of logic apart from rhetoric found in mathematics helped me understand better how to form my messages to convince readers my points were valid, doing so with either reduced or no conflict. I enjoy conversing, but I enjoy writing more than public speaking. Both have proven to me I need to plan what I communicate by being sure of what I have read in my life.

I also shared last week realizing strategy work is not progressing as desired means either your people do not have the time to do the work, or they do not have the skills to do the work. This condition, at its root, is an organizational design problem. No credible leader will ever find they are in this position. A successful leader knows their people, their abilities, their conditions, and operates their organization accordingly. Spielberg’s success in his film work tells me he is a successful leader in film work. I view Lincoln as a successful leader of a nation. I am convinced without reservation that reading is a critical success factor for staying out of the mess I identified as the cause of strategy work not progressing as desired.

WHAT READING?

Reading can occur in many different forms, such as letters, numbers, symbols, colors, or hand and arm signals. Effective reading involves not only considering a text in the original language but also translations of the text. Euclid’s Elements is the second most published book in history. Consider reading this text in another language to see how it reads to you. Consider also the value of a translation that is not literal but paraphrased.

Take the daily newspaper and look at any topic from different writers. The reporting on the same topic will often vary widely. Take some time and read how the Wall Street Journal article and the Financial Times article regarding the McKinsey leader’s recent dismissal differ. Think about bias and diversity as you read these articles. How did each writer look to help their reader understand what has happened with McKinsey’s performance as of late? Does either of these articles help you want to change your staffing choices? My point is you will see quickly how learning can continue on any topic and how miscommunications can occur from what seemed to be a clear and understood text.

HOW MUCH READING?

Kate Northrup wrote about the viability of planning when the future is unclear. She gets into the topic of strategy. She implied reading is required to accomplish her recommendations. I am of the position that reading should be perpetual. There is no shortage today of material to read. There is a distinct decline in the credibility, meaningfulness, and associated value in most of the material available to read today.

I did an Internet search for images of reading. All of the images I found involved only people looking at physical books. Looking at a computer screen is called viewing. So, there is a belief growing in our society that reading can only occur in books. I disagree with this claim. The definition I provided of reading did not include reading expressions on a person’s face. I can view an expression, but I do not know for certain there is a message attached to an expression. Hence, it is best to keep reading to letters, numbers, symbols, and colors that can be referenced later when you need to come back to them. I equate reading a book with viewing letters, numbers, symbols, and colors on a computer screen. The answer to how much reading you need to do is this: whenever you have enough proof to know you have the facts to do what you need to do.

I have shopped exclusively at Men’s Wearhouse for suits, shirts, and ties since 1999. They impress me with their overall experience. The people both in the stores and on their telephones who have helped me over the years sometimes have my skin color and gender; other times they do not. I care about getting the suits, shirts, and ties that I need and want more than I care about a particular skin color or gender helping me. Their industry has suffered from the cutback on social outings and workplace gatherings last year. They went into bankruptcy in 2020 and are emerging through restructuring. They have an idea to help increase their sales by doing measurements of a customer’s body dimensions by scanning, matching these measurements with inventory, and deciding how to serve their customers best. It is an impressive undertaking. Imagine how much reading they had to accomplish to come up with this system. Then, imagine how much they have invested in this system. They, as a company, are at the point of either growing much more or dying. I cannot imagine their debtors would have approved their restructuring plan to include this new system without sufficient credible belief the plan will return a suitable profit. The Men’s Wearhouse story is an example of how much reading is necessary to run your organization effectively.

AM I SURE?

I believe, based on the espoused morality of my worldview found in my ethics, there is never a valid reason to be either rude or disrespectful. Seattle Mariners chief executive Kevin Mather resigned recently due to disparaging remarks he made about player English skills. His career-ending event could also mean Mather is finished as a leader. I have two good friends, both in their thirties, who are illiterate. One is a carpenter, the other a welder. They struggle to have enough income. They are both happy, each with a small family. They both want to learn to read. You are looking to now restructure your organization with those who have the skills you need to do the work you need to accomplish. Do you want to have a literate person who you have to terminate or an illiterate person who does a great job for you? I am of the position you need literate members in your organization, and you do not need problems. How can you differentiate when a literate person will make an unpreferred choice such as Mather did, or that an illiterate person can make preferred choices?

I do not have the skills to operate heavy equipment. Do you want me to come near your house operating either a bulldozer or an excavator until I gain such skills? Do you want me to sit atop the running equipment and read the owner’s manual as I figure out how to use the heavy equipment near your house?

Heavy Equipment

WIND UP

Your acting on your realization you need to alter your organization members who have neither the time nor the skill to do their assigned work is too late to accomplish this repair with discretion. You must take corrective action in public light to achieve the necessary changes. The terms diversity and inclusion, terms I have yet to define to you, are what you look to address to alter your organization effectively. The only way and I mean the o-n-l-y way, to go through this process effectively is first to understand the topic of evil. I also need to define the term evil to you from my understanding of it. Succeeding in making these people change is not about removing or adding more of skin color or gender. Do you want anyone who does evil as a part of your organization? Do you care about their skin color or gender if they have the skills you need to do the work you need to be accomplished? Do you have the means to measure the skills your people claim to possess? Are you, in the espoused morality of your worldview found in your ethics, able to prove you both need and want your people to have the skills they need to do the work you need to accomplish more than you desire for skin color or gender headcounts in your organization?

Deriving Definitions

Next week, we will begin to tear apart the fabric comprising the terms diversity, inclusion, and evil as an exercise in research. This week, I encourage you to spend time contemplating how much you care about skin color and gender in comparison to relevant skills you need your people to have to do the work you need to be accomplished.

So, I ask you: where do you want to go? I hope your answer is to develop the plans necessary to accomplish the strategy you know you need to achieve to arrive at your desired destination. If this is the case, then let’s get to work. If not, then I wish you the best of everything.

I hope we will see each other here next week. Email me if you need to talk before then.

Dr. Stephen H. Dawson, DSL

Executive Strategy Consultant

Stephen Dawson, DSL

Stephen Dawson is an executive consultant of technology and business strategy, serving significant international organizations by providing leadership consulting, strategic planning, and executive communications. He has more than thirty years of service and consulting experience in delivering successful international business development and program management outcomes in the US and SE Asia. His weekly column, “Where Do You Want To Go?,” appears on Thursdays.

Dr. Dawson has served in the technology, banking, and hospitality industries. He is a noted strategic planning visionary. His pursuit of music has been matched with his efforts to lead by service to followers. He holds the clear understanding a leader without followers is a person taking a long walk alone.

Stephen has lived his life in the eastern United States, visiting most of the United States and several countries. He is a graduate of the Regent University School of Business & Leadership. Contact him at service@shdawson.com.

Thank you for visiting our blog.

 

Jim Weber, Managing Partner – ITB Partners

Jim Weber – Managing Partner,  ITB Partners

I hope you enjoyed our point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.

 

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Scared – A New Post on Strategic Planning from Stephen H. Dawson, DSL

“Fear is nothing more than an acronym: False-Evidence-Appearing-Real.” Unknown

A friend of mine passed a week ago. He worked himself to death, literally. He worked 80 to 90 hour weeks intermittently for the past 15 years. He was quite good at what he did, but he overdid it to the point of costing him his life. His passing helped me remember to not work so hard but to work smarter each day so I can work less overall.

I shared last week about the concept of spending time to gain the required perspective to go about the necessary work you have at hand. I thought more over the past few days about the fear I saw in 2020 held by many folks both near and far and how it often played out into anger by acting as a defense mechanism. I put down fear decades ago by learning from the wisdom held by one of my first mentors. “Fear is nothing more than an acronym: False-Evidence-Appearing-Real.” Fear occurs during a state of confusion about facts. Fear is not scared, nor is it anxiety. Anxiety can cause confusion, but scared alone is not anxiety. Scared is known by the paralysis it causes in someone who is scared. Anxiety is a slow wear on the whole person. Meaning, scared is a present tense term.

Anxiety

I saw an episode in a situation comedy television show years ago that grips me to this day. Frankly, it scared me stiff. It scared me because I saw how accomplishing all of the work conceivable to be wise does not assure success. My friend who died recently was one of my mentors. He helped guide me through my graduate and postgraduate years. He was a wise man. A coach is not a mentor. Suffice it to say, one has to succeed in receiving mentoring first to succeed in receiving coaching. I prefer mentoring over coaching, for many reasons. We can cover the differences between coaching and mentoring in a future column.

I received comments regarding the column last week that matched the next healthy step in the strategic planning work. The step we are at now is knowing the defined strategy that needs to be planned. There is an intentional circular effort in strategy where an idea is formed and research occurs to support developing the idea. The strategy is then refined, perhaps redefined, then planned, then perhaps refined and redefined again, to its final planning, and then executed by way of strategy process realization. This circular effort is not unique to strategy. There is a research condition known as analysis paralysis. Essentially, too much analysis is occurring to the point the research is stalled by figurative paralysis. There is much work occurring to accomplish the strategy effort, perhaps with good intentions. However, the collective work effort is not advancing by realizing clear and healthy organizational growth. Things are stuck. This research condition is not unique to strategy. The best action to resolve analysis paralysis is to stop the research work. Take inventory of where the work stands, determine the clear facts held, and assess if the work is worth continuing at the time with the people assigned to the work.

We realized earlier we were going to an unknown destination, deciding we did not like that address. We took some time and breathed, gaining the necessary focus to begin the planning work. You wonder if the idea outlining your proposed strategy has merit. What exactly is the strategy we are to plan out for others to follow? You now do not know the defined strategy that needs to be planned. You cannot proceed to the intentional circular effort in strategy. We have come to the realization you are now scared, as you are unsure of your idea forming your strategy. Hence, fear pushes this person to be scared. How do I know you are scared? I know because you do not have the research to support planning your strategy. If you did, then you would not be reading this column.

I view there are three options available to resolve this matter.

QUITTING

The act of quitting can be called regrouping. I call this equivalence a falsehood. Quitting is quitting, and regrouping is regrouping. If one does not want to develop a strategy, then say it. The decision to quit is not about some type of size or power. It is about being unwilling to look at the problem and resolve it productively. Move on, do something else. If shame or embarrassment go with quitting, then that is part of the package. Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own said it well. “It’s supposed to be hard…The hard is what makes it great.”

DENYING

The thought of not having a strategy to fulfill a goal is an excellent means to have followers walk away from their leader. These followers do not know what work they should be accomplishing, how they will benefit from whatever work they do, guess what they should do next, believe their leader has a plan, and wonder why their leader cannot communicate the unknown plan being executed. They deny the reality their leader is not leading by believing they are executing a plan they have not been given to follow. This condition is where the credibility loss for the leader occurs and ends their time in leadership.

Denying

FACING

If bravery is doing what is necessary when afraid, then strategy work is an act of bravery. I have not known a successful leader either first-hand or by distance who has not been afraid at some point in their leadership work. Afraid is not fear. Afraid is a healthy response to danger. A crucial success factor for the strategist I defined as successful was their not letting fear be a part of their work. False-Evidence-Appearing-Real. Those leaders worked to gain facts by eliminating opinions not supported by facts. If a tree is known by its fruit, then a tree is a good example of work productivity. Be the proverbial tree you were meant to be by putting down roots and taking the time to do the work needed to grow your harvest.

It is probable a person or organization new to strategic planning needs help with their work. I encourage you not to be either fearful or afraid of this need. I recommend you gain the help of a qualified strategist. Review their credentials, interview the credentials they provide to confirm their work, and select a strategist to help you.

What to buy, what to sell, what to change, are the easy parts of a strategy. They are easy because the accomplished research used to define your strategy reveals what to buy, sell, and change. The hard part of the strategy is knowing you know, for certain, what strategy first to form and then to execute. I say it is hard because of False-Evidence-Appearing-Real getting in the way of going about the strategy work. Looking back, you will be amazed at how simple your strategy is once it is defined. It is a matter of setting aside fear with each action you take.

I intentionally did not state the obvious point that many people are involved in any strategy formation shy of a person who lives alone. I set aside those living in solitude for the final point I bring to you for consideration this week. It is probable your analysis paralysis means you have someone, perhaps several people, working on your strategy effort who do not hold the required qualifications to do the collective work you need to accomplish. Does this scare you? It should. It means you are not willing to stay paralyzed. Scared is known by the paralysis it causes in someone who is scared. Meaning, scared is a present tense term. We will talk next week about making people changes to your strategy work. Forget the realities of male versus female, older versus young, and skin color. Look at people from the perspective of the skills they hold to help accomplish their part of your strategy effort. Try to work through the thoughts of what it will take for you as their leader to separate the unproductive people assigned to your strategy work from the work you need to accomplish. There is no need to be fearful.

So, I ask you: where do you want to go? I hope your answer is to develop the plans necessary to accomplish the strategy you know you need to achieve to arrive at your desired destination. If this is the case, then let’s get to work. If not, then I wish you the best of everything.

I hope we will see each other here next week. Email me if you need to talk before then.

Dr. Stephen H. Dawson, DSL

Executive Strategy Consultant

Dr. Stephen H Dawson

Stephen Dawson is an executive consultant of technology and business strategy, serving significant international organizations by providing leadership consulting, strategic planning, and executive communications. He has more than thirty years of service and consulting experience in delivering successful international business development and program management outcomes in the US and SE Asia. His weekly column, “Where Do You Want To Go?,” appears on Thursdays.

Dr. Dawson has served in the technology, banking, and hospitality industries. He is a noted strategic planning visionary. His pursuit of music has been matched with his efforts to lead by service to followers. He holds the clear understanding a leader without followers is a person taking a long walk alone.

Stephen has lived his life in the eastern United States, visiting most of the United States and several countries. He is a graduate of the Regent University School of Business & Leadership. Contact him at service@shdawson.com.

Thank you for visiting our blog.

 

Jim Weber, Managing Partner – ITB Partners

Jim Weber – Managing Partner,  ITB Partners

I hope you enjoyed our point of view and would like to receive regular posts directly to your email inbox.  Toward this end, put your contact information on my mailing list.

Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read.  Your input is very important to me so; please leave a comment.