| ashu |
Posted
on 22-Oct-00 09:32 PM
Namaste everyone,
What follows is from Business Week Online.
We may not all lead lives of excellence all the time, but we all can certainly aspire
to leading such lives -- at one day at a time.
Enjoy this for what this worth.
oohi
ashu
Business Week Online
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OCTOBER 19, 2000
THE INNER WORK OF LEADERS
A lesson on leadership drawn from former NBC TV President Neil Braun's reflections on personal experience
In The Inner Work of Leaders: Leadership as a Habit of Mind, authors
Barbara Mackoff and Gary Wenet profile more than 50 leaders and identify
five key habits that shape how they manage and work. The following
excerpt examines the habit of reflection and how one leader learns from his
personal experiences:
For [former] NBC Television President Neil Braun, the sudden death of
Showtime's forty-three-year-old president Tony Cox was the catalyst for
fulfilling a promise he had made when his daughter was born: to keep a
journal of his reflections. "I wanted to make sure I had communicated
to her all the things that are important to me, the different ways I
have learned to think, and the life lessons I have learned," says Braun.
"I call it my 'Just in Case' book, and I carry it with me all the time."
Among the journal's entries are his reflections about a lesson taught
by his exemplar, Frank Biondi, and an entry about what he learned from
being teacher for a day at Peter Stuyvesant High School in New York.
Both reflections display Braun's capacity to observe himself and then
apply the lessons of his experiences.
Braun recalled his first performance review with Frank Biondi, then
president of Viacom. When Braun asked him for a review, Biondi said, "Why
do you need one? You are doing a great job." But Braun insisted,
asking, "What do you wish I had done better, quicker, differently?" Biondi's
two-part response provided Braun with what he called "the definition of
a perfect boss," one he applied within minutes of the meeting's end.
Here's what Biondi told Braun: "I decided long ago to evaluate people
on two simple things. The first is trust, meaning integrity and
judgment. I know you have integrity because I checked your references, and
judgment you earned over the years. The second is effectiveness. And
whatever I ask you to take on, you always get done. So, if I trust you, and
you get things done, nothing else matters."
Returning to his office, Braun reflected on his moment of meaning with
Biondi. Braun remembers, "It was a real epiphany for me, because I
realized that I didn't manage that way." He immediately called in one of
his managers and told him about this lesson, saying, "I realize that I
have been managing you by trying to remake you into me. But you are
different from me, and good at things I'm not good at. So from now on, let's
be partners and keep each other in the loop."
Braun explains how this event of knowing developed into a reflective
habit of mind that reminds him to appreciate diverse viewpoints: "When I
hire someone, I tell them, 'I have checked out your integrity, and I
want to be able to trust you. I will see your judgment as you solve
problems. But if you do it differently than I would, it's an advantage to
the organization."'
For Braun, the encounter with Biondi helped him apply a lesson about a
kind of diversity that is not defined by color and gender. "It is about
diversity of thought and experience," says Braun. "I love to learn new
ways to think from people around me." And the diverse ideas of students
at Peter Stuyvesant High School offered Braun another opportunity to
apply the research of reflection.
When television journalist Jane Pauley asked Braun to volunteer to be a
teacher for a day at Stuyvesant, he elected to teach a values and
ethics class. Using the Socratic method he remembered from law school, he
challenged students about whether it was possible to find a balance
between success and happiness. The class was a hit, with students staying
long after the bell, and Braun rode back to NBC wondering if he should
quit his job.
As he recalls, "I was thinking, 'I have to become a teacher!' It was
the most empowering day I ever had. I was so impressed with the level of
insight, mutual respect, and intellectual honesty; there was so much
tolerance for all of their different ideas." When he returned to the
office, Braun continued to reflect: "I don't want to leave my job--because
I love it--but what I really want to do is to bring the feeling I had
in the classroom back to my job."
Upon reflection, Braun understood that the key to applying his
experience was honesty. "The hardest things about having this title is getting
people to tell you the truth," explains Braun, who put his high school
lesson to work in several concrete ways. First, he told his Stuyvesant
story at the next "town meeting" with the whole division.
Braun told the employees, "I'm going to do everything I can to convince
you that behind closed doors is an appropriate time for you to tell me
what you think. I'm too insulated from what goes on here, and I really
value those of you who come in and tell me what you think can be done
better." He promised, "I will never penalize you for telling me what you
think."
Then he changed the conversation at a monthly breakfast meeting with
several dozen folks from the network division. Instead of fielding the
group's politically careful questions, he invited them to tell the truth,
saying, "Come on, I know what you really want to ask me about is job
security. So let's talk about job security."
Braun transformed his reflections into his actions as a leader. As he
puts it, "I try to cut to the unspoken, the stuff I know they are afraid
to put on the table. I find that shining the light on it and putting it
in perspective helps them understand a bigger context and helps prepare
them for what is coming next."
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