SodaPDF-compressed-Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

by dlavieri

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  Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

  required negotiating across party lines. And then, while she was still in her 30s, and before the formation of Spartan, Sherry managed a $6 billion budget

  as acting administrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal

  Transit Administration.

  Today, Sherry’s work requires her to forge coalitions among people who

  may have different objectives, interests, and areas of expertise. When I asked her to share her favorite strategies for building an effective committee or task force, Sherry offered four tips for “herding cats”:

  1) Start strong. The first meeting of a new group sets the tone for

  the future. It’s vital that the initial meeting, and the invitation

  process, be smoothly organized. Be sure to structure the discus-

  sion and prepare the written materials so that every member

  leaves with a clear idea of the group’s mission.

  2) Allocate tasks. Make sure every member of the work group is

  given something specific to do, even if it’s minimal. Sherry says

  that when people don’t have even a small assignment, they are

  more likely to sit back and criticize.

  3) Track action items. Whether an elected secretary prepares for-

  mal minutes or participants take turns e-mailing timely informal

  notes, it’s important to keep track of action items and group deci-

  sions. Sherry makes sure that all assignments are put in writing

  to keep members accountable and on the same page.

  4) Explain decisions. Regardless of whether you have direct author-

  ity, Sherry advises that in a collaborative group, you, as leader,

  should listen to everybody’s views. Then, once you decide upon a

  course of action, explain the reasoning behind your decision. She

  says it’s particularly important to describe how you took contrary

  opinions into account. When team members understand and

  respect the process, they will feel valued. Furthermore, Sherry

  says, they’ll be more likely to go along with your decision this

  time, and to participate positively in the next debate.

  Use the “Herding Cats Triangle” to plan

  your strategy

  As Sherry knows, leading a collaborative effort requires a mix of strong organizational skills and softer skills, such as recognizing what each person needs

  to lead without Authority, know How to Herd cats

  189

  and wants. In talking with clients, I often use a little model I call the “Herding Cats Triangle” to help work out a leadership strategy for a team or committee. The model, which consists of three questions, is loosely inspired by the

  “Strategic Triangle” described by Mark Moore in his book Creating Public

  Value. If leading your group does feel like herding cats, keep things moving

  ahead by regularly running through these three questions:

  1) What’s the mission? It’s important for all participants to under-

  stand why the group exists. That doesn’t mean that goals can’t

  evolve with time, but the members must always have a shared,

  clear view of their collective purpose and responsibilities. If the

  committee or team is part of a larger organization, be sure your

  activities are consistent with the bigger vision. And, as you look

  at a specific project or challenge, define the likely deliverables and

  structure them so they support the organizational mission.

  2) Who are the stakeholders and what do they need? As a start-

  ing point, learn as much as possible about all group members,

  including what they want from their membership and what

  interest sectors they represent. The more you know about the

  needs and interests of participants, the easier it will be for you

  to foster cooperation and compromise. Beyond the imme-

  diate participants, think about the interests of other possible

  stakeholders, because they have the potential to offer support

  or limit your progress. Regularly consider whether additional

  groups and individuals might be interested in or impacted by

  the group’s activities.

  3) Are the right meeting logistics in place? Running productive

  meetings is a key part of your job as leader. To start, make sure

  that you have the necessary capacity for tasks such as distribut-

  ing the agenda and minutes, and keeping track of assignments.

  Chapter 31 describes more techniques for structuring meetings

  to keep your group moving forward.

  To lead a relatively unstructured group, you must be highly organized. At

  the same time, you should recognize that, to some degree, participation in the effort is voluntary. That requires you to pay attention to every participant and be sensitive to the way each person is likely to be motivated.

  44

  How Bigger goals

  can take You further

  when I first met Gayle Williams-Byers in the early 90s, I was impressed

  by her determination. At the time, she had begun a coveted intern-

  ship in the White House. She was supposed to be writing a paper about her

  learning experience as an intern, for 12 hours of academic credit from Case

  Western Reserve University, where she was a junior.

  Gayle’s problem was that the only assignment her White House bosses

  had given her was to make photocopies. She needed those credit hours, but she didn’t feel she’d be able to claim them because she wasn’t learning anything.

  Gayle found her way to my Washington office through an acquaintance.

  She requested a few minutes of my time, then pretty much announced that

  she’d be transferring her internship to my team at Consolidated Natural Gas

  Company. She said that she’d do anything, that she’d make it worth my

  while to take her on, but that she needed a challenge and she absolutely had

  to learn something.

  Today, both of Gayle’s parents have PhDs, but when she was growing

  up, no one in her family had attended college. And as one of her family’s first 190

  How Bigger goals can take You further

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  college students, Gayle was anxious to learn as much as possible. She regarded the semester in Washington as the opportunity of a lifetime, important not

  just to her, but also to her extended family. She wanted a full experience, even if it meant walking away from the White House and inventing something new.

  Gayle returned to my office after graduation and kept working for the

  company while completing a joint JD/MPA program. Then, during her last

  years in D.C., she was counsel to a Senate committee. In her early 20s, Gayle encountered many challenges, from racism to breast cancer, but I never

  doubted her ultimate success. I knew she wouldn’t quit hustling to develop

  her potential because her future meant so much to her supporters.

  During a 2011 Kwanzaa celebration, a community group in the Cleveland

  suburb of South Euclid gave Gayle a Kujichagulia Award to honor her self-

  determination. That was just one of the celebrations that followed her election, at age 37, as South Euclid’s first African American municipal court judge.

  I agree with Gayle’s neighbors that she is a model of self-determination,

  and I’m so proud of her. She has always kept pushing toward her goals, even

  when life seems to have stacked the odds against her. A low point came during her election campaign, when she was going door-to-door, talkin
g about her

  plan to bring change to the South Euclid Municipal Court system.

  At the first house on a long street, an angry man refused to listen to her

  pitch. He jabbed her with his finger saying, “We don’t want to hear it. We’ve already made up our minds. You got no chance, kid.” Gayle was tired. She

  looked down the row of about 30 houses and thought, “I don’t think I can do

  this again.”

  Her candidacy was a long shot and Gayle almost gave up. I asked her why

  she didn’t. She said, “That’s what self-determination is. You dig real y deep when you don’t want to, and you decide to take one more step toward your goal.”

  Gayle shares her parents’ belief that, no matter how humble your begin-

  ning, you can become just about anything you want. She says, “If you can

  imagine it, you can do it.” The most important thing to know is that “it’s

  easier to keep going when you have a goal that’s bigger than yourself.”

  For her judicial race, Gayle developed a comprehensive plan for a more

  transparent, service-focused court. And when she felt discouraged, she tried

  to stay focused on what the change could mean for her community. I’ve often

  seen the same thing with my clients. Having a vision about something impor-

  tant to a community makes you feel powerful and energetic, whereas personal

  ambition alone might just make you anxious. Here are six suggestions from

  Judge Gayle on building an outsized career:

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  Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

  1) Define big goals. Look for ways that you can contribute to or

  create change for a broader group, not just for you. Identify a

  mission—for your team, family, or community—that will get

  your juices flowing. If you feel like you’re too busy to worry

  about a larger mission, ask yourself why your job matters so

  much. Are you working this hard for your family? Or perhaps

  because you believe in what you’re doing? You are more likely

  to persevere once you realize that more than your own ego is

  already at stake.

  2) Control what you can control and work to accept the rest.

  When Gayle had cancer during law school, she faced difficulties

  that she couldn’t change. But she focused her energy on studying

  hard and on taking care of herself. She says she couldn’t control

  the fact of having cancer, but her “gift from cancer” was that she

  learned to control how she spent her time.

  3) Find mentors and role models. Gayle deeply respects her par-

  ents and continues to learn from them. And, as I know well, she

  has never been shy about recruiting other mentors. She says that

  it is easier to keep going in the tough times if you’ve built your-

  self a cheering squad. And with practice, you get better at asking

  for help.

  4) Act like you have self-discipline. Do you sometimes think

  about how much you could accomplish if only you were more

  disciplined? Gayle suggests that you identify the steps you would

  take toward your goal if you did in fact have that necessary self-

  discipline. For example, to start turning in your weekly report by

  the noon Friday deadline, would you draft it before leaving work

  on Thursday? Once you have a vivid picture of what you’d do if

  only you were more disciplined, start acting like that. Work on

  your report on Thursday afternoons. And each time you decide

  to “act like that” you’ll exercise your self-discipline “muscle” and

  build your self-control.

  5) Laugh at yourself. There’s a danger that self-determination can

  morph into arrogance or self-righteousness. A good way to avoid

  that trap is to keep your sense of humor, particularly when it comes

  to your own failures and mistakes. Gayle says she looks pretty sil y

  when she walks around her community in her sweats at 5:30 in

  How Bigger goals can take You further

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  the morning, hand delivering “door-knockers” to inform citizens

  about how to access the resources of their court system.

  6) Build your confidence. A powerful career aimed at big goals

  requires a good deal of self-confidence. One way to become surer

  of yourself is to define and achieve a series of small goals. Each

  time you reach one little target, you’ll feel a bit stronger and you’ll

  gradually become ready to aim for larger targets. Meanwhile, try

  to keep acting as if you were confident.

  When you contemplate your long-term goals, it can seem presumptuous

  to feel passionate about making the world a better place. You might think,

  “How can I make that kind of difference, with my puny skills and resources?”

  To get past that kind of thinking, imagine what your goals could be if you

  were a smarter, braver, more confident person. What would you aim for, if you were an extraordinary person like Judge Gayle? Well—here’s the secret: You

  are an extraordinary person, just like Judge Gayle. What you need to do is to imagine those big goals, then get started, even if you move forward just one

  sugar grain at a time.

  45

  You might Hesitate,

  but keep going

  this chapter explores an issue that seems to impact a disproportionate

  number of women: Why do so many talented professionals hesitate to

  reach for major career opportunities when the time seems right? I’ve heard

  executives worry about how often their female star performers seem reluctant

  to go after a higher job. And I’ve heard clients struggle with that tendency in their own behavior. Some never feel quite ready to step up, even when they see less-qualified men successfully moving into leadership.

  In recent years public conversations have asked why, in at least some

  fields, so many talented women appear reluctant to go after the plumb jobs.

  Particularly in areas like law and technology, why aren’t women moving to the top of the hierarchy at the same pace as their male colleagues?

  The discussion about this phenomenon doesn’t seem to be an us-against-

  them, women-versus-men thing. I’ve heard insightful men express concern

  that too few women are reaching their full professional potential. For exam-

  ple, two male professors recently asked me why their outstanding female

  business students seem to have lower job aspirations than their less-qualified male classmates. And I’ve heard some of the most accomplished American

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  You might Hesitate, but keep going

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  journalists—men and women—talk about how leading print and digital

  newsrooms are still dominated by a male culture, despite the fact that university journalism programs often have more women than men students.

  Part of the problem may be lodged in the workplace culture resulting from

  the experiences of early women to enter many professions. When I joined the

  first big wave of women moving from law schools to Washington law firms, it

  was wonderful and exciting. But at times being a “first woman” was frighten-

  ing. Even where there was no hazing or explicit double standard, it could be

  exhausting and bewildering to join all-male teams.

  Many “old girls” who fought for professional acceptance decades ago, and

  who went on to success after success, say they still feel scarred. And t
hese

  highly accomplished women still experience surprising flashes of uncertainty

  when they know it’s time to seize an opportunity. In some cases it feels like exhaustion; it gets tiring to keep pushing when it feels like the odds are against you.

  Notice your hesitation and adjust your

  timid behavior

  Do you experience an unreasonable reluctance to step up when, intel ectual y, you know it’s time to reach for the opportunity you’ve worked so hard to get?

  Your hesitant behavior may not be an isolated response that holds you back only when it’s time for your big career move. If you look closely, you may see that it’s part of a broader behavior pattern—a pattern that you can elect to change.

  If you practice managing your hesitancy in small moments, you’ll learn to

  deal with it more effectively in the face of bigger challenges and opportunities.

  Here are little ways your uncertainty may show up, and strategies you can

  use to get past it:

  → Self-deprecating speech. Some people undercut their other-

  wise professional presence, and their own feeling of confidence,

  by repeatedly using overly modest phrases such as “I’m probably

  wrong, but . . .” when a simple statement would be stronger. If that

  sounds like you, pause before saying, “I think perhaps it might be a

  good idea to try X.” Instead, practice saying, “Let’s do X.”

  → Excessive risk aversion. When they first had access to law, engi-

  neering, and finance degrees, female students were sometimes

  mocked or intimidated. This exacerbated academic and job

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  Think Like an Entrepreneur, Act Like a CEO

  pressures, causing some women to grow less sure of themselves

  and, eventual y, become overly fearful of career risks. Regardless

  of the underlying cause, and whether you’re male or female, do

  you think that your outsized concern about the potential for fail-

  ure might somehow be holding you back at work? If you know

  that you’re more risk averse than your average col eague, you can

  choose to manage the way you approach opportunities. Imagine

  how you would act if you didn’t feel so tentative. Now, look for

  occasions to practice acting more like that.

  → Apologizing. Feeling unwelcome at work may have been why