One of my favorite bloggers, and a former Sun Microsystems colleague, is Nancy Householder Hauge. She writes several blogs as you’ll see in her profile. The one I follow is Consulting Adult. Back on February 22nd of 2012 she wrote a post with the premise that hiring only brilliant people is not good enough. You can read the whole post here.

She knows from what she speaks. She consults with many millennials and has seen this bias first hand. Not only does she make the point that this bias slows down the whole hiring process, sometimes to the point of not hiring, but it also presumes brilliance is enough to guarantee success. We all know that is not true. There are a few other qualities needed to be successful – among them,- courage, determination, flexibility, perspicacity (I love that word), management talent, and leadership skills (not just of direct reports, but of customers, partners, and peers, probably most importantly).

But beyond intellect and skills are values. If you don’t assemble a team of people who share common values, the enterprise will come apart at the seams eventually. Common values are what enable a team in crisis to survive and thrive. It allows them to be honest with each other, even when it hurts. It means they are naturally aligned.

So you have to do both. Hire for values and for appropriate skills. A great intellect is a bonus. We share a simple tool for our EOS clients to use to assess both values and skills. It’s called the People Analyzer. You can download it here. You can read two of my earlier blog posts, here and here, which explains how it is used.

Graphic credit: Intersection Consulting

Here is a list of the business books I have read in the past year or so, in no particular order. You might enjoy some of them.  To help you decide which you might like I have added a link to the blog post I wrote about them.

1. Steve Jobs – by Walter Isaacson
2. Wired To Care – by Dev Patnaik
3. Read This Before Our Next Meeting – by Al Pittampalli
4. Fierce Conversations – by Susan Scott
5. Anything You Want – by Derek Sivers
6. The Price of Everything – by Eduardo Porter
7. Delivering Happiness – by Tony Hsieh
8. Leaders should Behave Like Trusted Advisors – by David Maister
9. Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard – by Dan and Chip Heath
10. Start With Why – by Simon Sinek
11. The Mesh: Why The Future of Business is Sharing – by Lisa Gansky
12. Management Techniques From the Navy – by Captain Mike Abrashoff
13. Getting Naked - by Patrick Lencioni
14. Linchpin – by Seth Godin
15. Decide! The One Common Denominator of All Great Leaders – by Gino Wickman

 Photo credit: heyjohngreen

Another guest post by my fellow implementer, Rene Boer, from Chicago, from one of his recent newsletters.

Are You in the Right Seat?

When you’re in the Right Seat you “get it, want it and have the capacity to do it”. You know it and just as importantly, everyone on your team knows it. There’s confidence in your ability to deliver the goods, to get results.  And, when everyone on the leadership team is in the Right Seat, there’s a foundation in place to build a great business.

But, what if you’re in the Wrong Seat? You may not really “want it”. You may not have the capacity to do it because you lack the ability and/or time.  If you’re the owner you may have taken the seat because you felt compelled to do it.  “After all” you tell yourself, “I’m one of the owners, I’m expected to lead, to hold people accountable, to run a tight ship.” But, in your heart of hearts, you’re miserable because your real purpose or passion isn’t being maximized. Your hip-pocket skill may be sales, service, finance, or product development. But, you’ve put yourself (or let yourself be put) into the wrong seat. And, everyone knows it.

When there’s a “Wrong Seat” on the leadership team, others in the organization pay the price. They have an unhappy boss who just isn’t fully engaged.  As goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the organization.

Does your organization have the right structure – the necessary seats and the right people in those seats to take you where you want to go in the next 6 to 12 months?  If not, what steps are you taking now to resolve the issue? Are you in the Right Seat?

One phrase my EOS clients here me say over and over – is “Be Open & Honest“. I implore them to do so.

Patrick Lencioni teaches this best in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of Leadership Team. I wrote about that book in a post in February of 2011, titled Leadership Team Health. The heart of what is in that book is contained in Lencioni’s Dysfunction Pyramid, shown here. The message is clear. Trust is the basis of success. Without trust there can be no Conflict. Without conflict there can be no Commitment. Without commitment there can be no Accountability. Without accountability there can be no Results. Or at least not the results you want. Best case, you are killing yourselves to get a modicum of results and it’s not sustainable.

We teach Patrick’s philosophy that open and honest conflict is a sign of healthy levels of trust in a leadership team. Everything starts with trust. If you don’t trust each other, no one speaks up. If you don’t speak up, you have boring, non-productive meetings. No one really agrees or commits to anything. You get a corporate “nod” when you ask if everyone is behind the decision you just announced. Nothing good can follow from there.

As a member of a leadership team, you must speak up for the greater good. If you are not comfortable doing so, learn how. There is always a difference in the saying and the doing of something. Here is an article in the Amex Open Forum about How to Disagree at Meetings.

Graphic credit: Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions

I have a few family businesses as EOS clients. Family dynamics can complicate the issues that a business faces. Each stage of a family business brings its own unique challenges to running the business. Whether the original founder (controlling owner) is faced with succession issues. Or a sibling partnership is sorting out roles and responsibilities. Or a cousins consortium is grappling with the question of who should be in, or own a part of, the business.

Taguiri and Davis provided us the Three-Circle system for considering the interdependence of all the moving parts in a family business. A hat tip to Hank O’Donnell for first explaining the Three Circles to me.

There are the seven zones of intersection found in The Three Circles. Two articles on the www.successtosuccession.com blog were my sources. The graphic is taken from an article titled The family business and the the three-circle system. The description of the zones is taken from an article titled Three circles to draw out the issues. I modified the descriptions a bit.

1. Family member, shareholder, working in the company, typically the CEO/Owner, majority shareholder
2. Family member, non-shareholder, working in the company
3. Share holder, non-family member, working in the company
4. Family member, shareholder, outside the company
5. Family member, non-shareholder, not working in the company
6. Employee, non-shareholder, non-family member
7. Financial partner

Disclaimer: I am not a family business expert.

I am an EOS expert and EOS can help all family businesses with dealing with their issues.

For those of you who haven’t had the time to read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, all is not lost.

Isaacson has written an 8 page article summarizing what Steve Jobs left for us, entitled: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs.

It is published in the April edition of Harvard Business Review magazine. You can get download the article here.

Graphic: from Amazon.com

If weekly meetings are run badly, they most certainly are a waste of time.

Life is too short.

EOS leaders run their companies with a meeting pulse.  A two day annual planning session. A one day quarterly planning and review session. And a weekly 90 minute Leadership Team meeting. The weekly leadership team meetings have 5 characteristics:

1. They take place on the same day each week.
2. They take place at the same time each week.
3. They have the same agenda.
4. They start on time.
5. They end on time.

Additionally, great meetings solve problems, not regurgitate information that can be found in reports outside of the meeting. That is the magic. Is this how it works in your company?

A fellow EOS Implementer, Jim Coyle, came across this article which supports our point of view. It’s title is “Bad Meeting Survey and Tips for Better Meetings“.  It would appear as if we paid for it, but I swear we didn’t .

Its a short article – you can read it here.

Photo Credit: Rochelle, just rochelle

This guest post originally was written by and appeared in the monthly newsletter of my fellow Certified EOS Implementer, Rene Boer, who is based in greater Chicago. I am republishing it here with his permission. A Purpose, Cause or Passion is what is at the heart of any company’s soul. Have you figured out what your company’s purpose is?

On a recent return trip from Alabama where I had spent a week cycling, the instrument panel of my Subaru Outback Wagon suddenly began flashing and if the “Sub”could have talked it would have shouted “Warning! Warning! Warning! Will Robinson”. The window wipers slowed down, the power steering failed and my cycling buddy Chris started hypothesizing about the probable cause … Battery? Alternator? Cyber Attack? Chris quickly located the nearest service center with his smart phone and we pulled off the freeway into Montgomery, AL. It being Saturday morning we weren’t too hopeful that we would find a place that could diagnose the problem, make the repair and send us on our way without too much delay.

You can appreciate the emotions of anxiety, hope, apprehension and fear when you’re vulnerable and pretty much at the mercy of whomever it is that could help you with your problem. That’s how I felt when we pulled into the Cloverdale Service Center in Montgomery, AL. John, the owner, was busy with a customer but told us that he’d be with us in a minute. A minute later he was looking under the hood and quickly found the problem … broken fan belt, caused by seized bearings in a tension pulley. He assured us that if he could get the parts, he could fix it quickly.

I followed him back into the garage while he made a couple of calls. The Parts and Service department at the local Subaru dealership was closed (I’ve never been able to understand this) and so John called a couple of friends who quickly located the belt and the bearings needed to make the repair. I was greatly relieved and thanked John profusely. I then said “John, you seem to really get a kick out of helping people.” John smiled and replied “God put me on this earth to fulfill a purpose. I’ve been fortunate to find my purpose … I love what I do and I’m pretty good at doing it too!” He added, “I know too many people who’ve been given a gift but just won’t accept it, even though it’s right in front of them.” Wow! “Be great at doing something that you love to do” … nice to see it in action.

After making the repairs, John checked the alternator and battery, proclaimed them fit for duty and we were underway. Thank you John! Chris and I made it home to our wives safe and sound. And the Subaru is still on the planet and not lost in space.

A Visionary often is the person who conceived the company, who had the original great idea and who continues to have ideas about how to expand the business and make it all he ever conceived it would be. Visionaries often focus on the big picture, culture, client relationships. An Integrator is the person who thrives on creating order out of chaos. She is the person who is naturally suited to setting priorities, solving conflicts, removing obstacles, getting the company from point A to point B. Its not that the Visionary couldn’t do what the Integrator does; he would just get bored and be working far harder than necessary.

One of my EOS clients finds themselves in a very common situation in this regard. The founder is by type a Visionary and by fiscal constraint finds herself not able to hire an Integrator. Does this sound familiar? What to do?

The company has to live with this situation until they can afford to change it. So the leadership team in that company has created both seats on their Accountability Chart – Visionary and Integrator. The founder is in both seats. The advantage is that is that they very carefully defined the roles and responsibilities for each seat so that when the company can afford to hire a true Integrator it will be clear to the founder what her role as the Visionary will be from that point forward. It will also be a very useful recruiting tool, spelling out very clearly what the expectations are for the person who will be hired to fill the Integrator seat.

Maybe more founders would be stay on in their companies if they were actually doing the things that they are great at and love doing to do and not those tasks which they can do but don’t like doing? Strong Visionaries should hire strong Integrators.

Would this be helpful in your company?

Graphic: EOS Worldwide

If you are not a subscriber to the EOS Worldwide Blog, you missed Gino Wickman’s latest YouTube video defining a company’s soul.

If you can’t see the above video, click through and find it here. It’s a great 2 1/2 minutes for any CEO, owner, entrepreneur. Very valuable stuff.