Three Things to Improve Your Executive Presence

“You need more executive presence…”  I have found this comment highly prevalent in performance reviews for technical staff who have transitioned into management and haven’t figured out how to present themselves to the more senior staff. These people are referred to as missing “gravitas” or “executive presence” when dealing with other executives or clients. Here are three things you can do that will improve how others perceive you.

1. When you’re talking, look people in the eyes. So often I see staff looking down at their notes, looking at their own slides, or simply looking off into space. If you’re in a meeting and you’re talking, you’re talking to the people in the meeting. You can’t look them all in the eyes at once, so you pick someone and look at them directly. You switch to others if you’re talking for long enough that it would be odd to just look at one person.

Pro tip: if you’re looking at someone, and they’re engaged in what you’re saying - engage them more with something like “do you agree, Tom?"

2. Avoid distractions - computers, phones, doodling - all of these send a signal that you’re checked out. You may not be, but it doesn’t stop people in the meeting from assuming you are and thinking less of you for it. Put you phone away, close your laptop, and engage in the topic. Listen to what people are saying.

Pro tip: I pretend that I’m always about to be called upon to add to the conversation, so I’m always thinking “what would I say in response to that?” I’m always prepared to add my perspective.

3. Restate and clarify something that is being said. This tactic is tricky, because if you do it constantly you’ll come across as uselessly saying the same thing as others. At least once or twice in any reasonable sized meeting it can be very valuable to restate the goal, the problem, the decision, or the next steps. If you’re listening and you hear something that would help the overall meeting go better if everyone agreed, you can slow down the meeting a bit.

Pro tip: Try using the words “so let me say that again - the problem we’re trying to solve today is …. does everyone agree?” 

Bonus: Know when to stop talking. You may love this topic and know it in depth. You can talk for days on it. Talking too much can give the wrong impression. If others see you going far into the details that aren’t relevant to the goal at hand, you can give the impression you’re not an executive. If you have value to add, add it and stop. If the conversation leverages that information, great. If not, don’t keep explaining it because you think folks don’t get it. It might not matter. 

Embrace Your Culture (Why Good Initiatives Fail Redux)

Today I was listening to HBR Ideacast and the interview with David Krantz, CEO of YP. In the interview David is incredibly thoughtful in describing how he manages his organization. He focuses on communication to his team and using skip-level meetings with his staff. I recommend listening as it highlights much of my thoughts in Why Good Initiatives Fail.

I encourage you to listen to the Krantz interview. Listen for the communication tactics he describes and how important they are to him in his job. He talks about a number of tools that he uses; he also discusses the importance of having a clear mission and a narrow set of priorities. David Krantz clearly understands how to be an effective executive. 

A former colleague Dan Murphy commented that “leadership approach needs to align closely with the organizational culture” in order to be effective. I agree. Choosing a leadership approach is more difficult when you’re trying to change the culture in your organization.

I’ve stepped into leadership positions in a number of different organizations - each with their own culture. In one case, a small start-up. In another, a recently acquired company. In a third, a larger organization with 30 years of strong organizational history. In each, I’ve taken the time to understand the organization and the culture as I decide what tactics will be most effective in leading my organization.

How does one define the culture of an organization? The best way I’ve heard company culture described is: the standards and norms that are imposed and expected of the people within the organization.  Once could say it is the values of the company, or the mission. In the end, I see it as the actions consistently taken throughout the organization. 

These standards and norms can change over time. For example, I was in a company that was acquired by a larger company. The company culture was set by the owners of the company - it was small and influenced heavily by these two leaders. As the original owners transitioned out of the organization, the culture began to reflect the standards and norms of the new leadership coming from the acquiring company. Over the course of three years, the culture had shifted to reflect much more of the parent company than of the original owners.

In a comparable fashion, I became responsible for a larger software development organization that was having trouble finding an identity and culture inside a non-technical organization. I worked to reinforce habits that I believed would create an identity of a world-class software development organization. We prioritized implementing best practices, setting and meeting goals, and celebrated value delivered to clients. We emphasized the value of the team by celebrating team achievements over individual successes.

As a technical leader, your role is bridging the gap between the culture of the non-technical organization around you and your own software development organization. Spend as much time understanding the culture of the rest of the organization. Translate the value of the technical organization into the standards and norms of other departments (such as sales, account management or research).  

Your Team Hates Your Meetings

As a leader in any organizations, you have meetings. You’re probably responsible for your fair share of those meetings. Your job relies on communication as a leader, and you are out there pushing to communicate using all the means at your disposal (please tell me you’re not just relying on e-mail). If your organization falls into the fat part of the bell curve, your team hates your meetings.

Let’s start with the meeting request. Before you schedule a meeting, are you clear about what you want to accomplish with the meeting and do you communicate it to everyone you invite? Without a clear goal, your team is attending your meeting because of your authority not because they care about the objective of the meeting. They’ll come unprepared and maybe late, because something else they’re doing is more important than a nebulous subject like “Tech project update”.

Once the meeting time comes, do you actually start on time? For those folks who have shown up when you invited them, are you respecting their time by starting - or are you waiting for everyone to show up and penalizing the prompt people by wasting the first ten minutes? I’ve been in organizations that have meetings start a full 30 minutes after the scheduled time when the most senior people finally show up.

During the meeting, are you clear about the topics that need to be covered over the time you scheduled? You scheduled an hour and started a little late to wait for everyone, so if you haven’t outlined what you want to cover in the remaining 50 minutes the meeting time wanders through the general subject. Are you accomplishing what you need to accomplish, and will you be done in time for folks to get to the next meeting on their schedule? 

My friend Sam reminded me that so many of our meetings these days are with remote participants. Are you forgetting about the remote participants that are dialing in to your meeting? Are you making sure they don’t feel like second class attendees by including a dial-in, dialing in on-time and checking in with folks on the phone to be sure they can hear and are following the meeting? It’s more and more possible these days to use video conferencing to create a sense of presence in the room for these remote folks, work ahead of time to be sure you have the equipment ready to project their video and show folks in the room with a wide-angle camera.

As you try and accomplish something during the meeting, are you clear about what the various participants’ roles are? Is everyone in the room decision maker, or are some folks coming with recommendations? I’ve been in meetings where it seemed like everyone believed they were decision makers. I’ve also participated in meetings where there didn’t appear to be a decision maker in sight. In both circumstances, no decisions were made.

When the meeting finally ends, are you ending the meeting with confidence? Or are you ending it when you lose steam and people simply start leaving? I’ve seen meetings go on well past the end-time with no clear end in sight, and people just start leaving because they are very late for the next obligation. Are you ending the meeting by fixing responsibilities and decisions in order to be clear who is doing what by when? 

Are you communicating key decisions to those who couldn’t make the meeting? One of your staff was home taking care of his sick child - do you send out the key decisions and action items to everyone who was invited? Are the folks who couldn’t make the meeting for a valid reason now left out in the cold because they have no way to know what happened?

Take a moment and consider one or two key things you can do to improve your meetings. It’s one of the three things that will set you apart. You’ll be shocked how much improved meetings can improve employee engagement and productivity. Stop wasting time and sucking the energy from your organization through ineffective meetings. 

Why Good Initiatives Fail

Almost everyone has experienced an initiative started by someone high up in an organization, with good intentions to make the place better, fail miserably to make a dent in the problem at-hand. I’ve seen this outcome more than I can count. Good ideas. Good tactics. Failing to make an impact. Failing to make any kind of change. Why?

As an organization gets bigger, it becomes significantly harder to act with a single agenda. There are writings that talk about the magic number of 150 people. An organization of this size (give or take) is impossible to influence through sheer force of will of a single person. One leader cannot reach this volume of people and share a single message in a consistent way. Larger organizations begin to rely on intermediate managers to convey the message of the organization. 

I experienced this first hand when I moved from running a division of approximately sixty people to a division of over one-hundred. My team grew from there, and the tactics I was used to no longer were effective. It is even harder when the organization grows around you - as in the boiling frog metaphor. I see leaders fail to realize that the organization has changed, and their tactics need to change to get the results they desire. Some leaders are crippled with the experience that they were successful in the smaller organization using tactics that no longer are effective.

I recall a leader that observed the organization going off track in decision making. She chose to start an initiative that could save the day - using a tool called RACI. RACI brings clarity to who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed on projects. This tool is fantastic to help drive clarity in organizations on what different roles exist to get work done for the organization. This leader didn’t have the intermediate managers in place to fully implement RACI and change the organization, and it ultimately fell by the wayside as a good idea not implemented.

My eyes were opened in my larger organization only through establishing feedback mechanisms from my staff. The most effective was “skip level” meetings, where I talked directly with staff at least one level down in the organization (thus “skipping levels”). I began to hold these meetings quarterly and I learned what parts of my organization were getting the right messages, and what parts seemed confused or off mission. Without meetings such as these, I had to assume the leaders I relied on were communicating effectively and that turned out to be an unreasonable assumption.

As a leader, the first real question is whether your organization can adequately change. Regardless of what the new initiative is, you may need to tackle communication before assuming you can tackle what you see as the highest priority to delivering results. Does your organization have the communication tools necessary to propagate a new message? Do you have the feedback loop to know that the communication is happening? If not, what success will the organization have taking a new idea from the outside and applying it effectively? 

Resolve to Set a Goal

This time of year there are lots of articles about making new year’s resolutions. It’s a good catalyst to think of the new year as an opportunity to resolve to make a change. I propose you take the opportunity to set a goal for the next three months. And make a resolution to do that for yourself every quarter.

Quarterly goal setting can help you stay on track with progress that might otherwise feel overwhelming. Setting an annual goal may just be too much to wrap your head around. And setting goals for the week or the month are too small.

If you feel out of touch with your network, set a goal to talk to a certain number of people in your network over the next three months. Maybe set monthly or weekly interim goals. Measure and hold yourself accountable.

If you haven’t learned a new skill lately, set a goal for you to learn something new. Perhaps a programming language. Not just learn it, but put it in practice. Set a goal to publish a simple project with basic functionality on GitHub in that language.

Perhaps you don’t feel like you’re on the upward trajectory you want at work. Set a goal to volunteer for a new responsibility. Set a goal to ask for feedback from three people on how you can improve. You could even ask them specifically how you could improve to be perceived in the way you want to be at work.

Resolve to do quarterly goal setting with yourself and set achievable goals that will help you get where you want to be. Write them down and measure your progress against them. Revise them as your situation changes, and at least every three months to keep them fresh. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish this year. 

Caring Honesty Beats "Radical Candor"

My friend John shared with me this article that describes “Radical Candor” - an idea by Kim Scott about feedback. I appreciate the spirit of the article (for some reason found in the third paragraph) that “The single most important thing a boss can do…is focus on guidance.” I find myself disagreeing with the label she’s chosen to use, “radical candor”, as it sounds like she was looking for a title for a book or workshop series. I do agree, as a leader you need to give constant guidance to your staff.

You can call it what you like. The folks at Manager Tools feel strongly about calling it “feedback”. This term isn’t used, according to the article, because “feedback is screechy.” I found that line in the article particularly simple minded. People can be screechy. People can seem insincere because of the words they use or how they say them. It seems like focusing on the word “feedback” is missing the point about delivering good insights to your staff.

I empathize with the negative reaction that folk have to the word “feedback”. I found that I was in an environment in one of my last jobs where “feedback” was given a bad name by some bad manager behavior. I experienced managers who used the annual review cycle to give “feedback” that was mostly criticism that was too little and too late. So I began to use the word “observations”. I’m not overly attached to it now that I’m not in that job anymore. It was just how I needed to adapt to provide feedback to my staff.

The heart of the “radical candor” idea appears to be a two-by-two matrix that she plots “care personally” against “challenge directly”. The upshot is that the best guidance is given when you care the most and are challenging the person directly. I agree here that empathy (caring directly) is key to providing good feedback. I don’t agree that you need to “challenge directly”. Boy that sounds like you’re caring about someone while you get into the octagon with them. 

For my money, I think the second axis is really just honesty. Think about when you get caring, honest feedback from someone. It’s really helpful. You don’t need to be challenged. Maybe you do. There are lots of people with behavior styles that don’t want to be challenged. They would still value honesty.

It gets worse when the article creates an attention grabbing insight "I would argue that criticizing your employees when they screw up is not just your job, it's actually your moral obligation.” Seriously, we need to give guidance. Make observations. Help folks improve. This article not only focuses solely on the negative feedback, it’s happy to say “let’s criticism them.” If you just criticize them all the time (no matter how much your staff thinks you care deeply about them), they’ll leave. No question. Oh, and the article concludes if you can’t care "the second best thing is to be an asshole.” Seriously, you’ll be someone who understands feedback and has nobody to give it to because they hate you and they’ll all go work somewhere else.

In the end, you need to make observations of behavior you see in your staff. Both behavior you want to see more from your staff, and those you don’t. If your staff is largely doing well, there are lots of things you want to see over and over. Give them “caring honesty.” Do it often. You can keep your staff and keep them improving.

Slow down, pay attention and be curious

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I went running on Sunday and I discovered something new that I had never noticed before. Along the path I run every week, there is a box on a post painted with the words “read every day.” I had assumed before this box held newspapers, although I had never seen a newspaper box so far away from a main road. Today I stopped and took a closer look and realized this little box was a little library. 

I had actually been talking to my family about these little libraries over Thanksgiving. It was a new concept to me. I had been running by one every week for over a year. I usually see more when I’m running compared to riding a bike or driving a car.  Even in this case, I needed to slow down, pay attention and be curious.

In our everyday work lives, we feel the pressure to do more. Sometimes we respond by trying to do more things concurrently. We go fast and skim over the details. We half-listen to conference calls while checking e-mail and shopping online. It takes deliberate effort to slow down and pay attention when there are so many things vying for our time.

An effective leader realizes that those things we decide to participate in deserve our full attention, not just a sliver. She modulates her pace depending on the situation. Sure, there are urgent tasks for which moving fast is the right answer. However, not everything benefits from rushing. I can be one to rush through things that benefit from more time and attention. 

I recall a large-scale rewrite project where I was the executive sponsor, and I didn’t follow this advice. I trusted the people who were running this project so my oversight was fast and shallow. I knew our rewrite was going to be tricky, and it was important to the business that we succeed. I didn’t modulate my pace at all during the first four months of the project. I didn’t slow down and start asking hard questions until it was too late. We had invested too much time in the wrong direction and had to pull the plug on the project. ["Rewriting an existing system" is a big topic, and probably worth one or more additional posts.]

I practice this mantra when I’m on conference calls and I’m being briefed on something. It’s easy to be quiet and not ask questions. One tactic I used just last week is active listening, to recap what was said for clarity. For example, “So what I heard you just say is…” In order to do this, I have to slow down and pay attention. And very often I find that when I recap I’m saying something that isn’t quite right and it sparks my curiosity. You can get through almost any call by being quiet. So slow down, pay attention and ask questions. You contribute more, and get more back, when you do.

Motivation

Sometimes you hear that as a leader, your job is to motivate people. I believe that’s the wrong way to look at the challenge. People are constantly motivated. We are in constant motion. These words, motivation and motion, are similar. We always have motivation to do something, whether it’s work hard or call in sick.

We do things all the time. For all different reasons. Sometimes we do work for money. Or the challenge. Or the recognition. Or the other employees. The people on your team are constantly doing things. It may feel like sometimes they do what you want, and sometimes they don’t. Your team always has a motivation, the question is whether you understand it.

In one of my first senior roles leading people - leading other leaders - I failed miserably at finding someone’s motivation. I managed a director of application development. When he quit, he said clearly “you can’t make me stay.” I had pushed him with directives to do things he didn’t want to do. I didn’t understand his motivation. He had enough one day, and he quit feeling that I didn’t understand him.

I’ve come to a place in my leadership where I work to understand a person’s motivation. I work to map my own goals onto the motivation that is within each person. There are times when the two don’t match. I find it’s no good to force someone to do something - over time it will only get you so far. And then that person will leave. 

You can rely on a person when you understand the motivation behind their actions. You can inspire someone when their motivations mesh with your goals to achieve superior results.  

Working Remotely

Working with staff that are in a different physical location is hard. Remote can mean you and another coworker are in a different floor, office or city. Staying connected isn’t complicated, and it isn’t easy. As a leader, you will need to work with others that are remote and doing it effectively will make a big difference in your results.

My friend Sam shared with me a story that is simple and brilliant. He says a developer he was managing this last year told him he “...was the best manager he’d ever had. I asked him why. He said it was because I sent him a birthday card with a gift card for dinner.” First thing, Sam shows us not only that the best managers are seeking feedback. Isn’t it awesome that he asked why, and didn’t just get a big head that he was something special? And then he shows us that it isn’t that complicated to make a connection with someone that works remotely.

Sam’s observation is “I feel remote workers crave connection.” And the big insight from him is "It isn’t really that hard to get to know someone.” It takes the intention to connect. Take action to follow-up on your intention.

I distinctly recall an experience working with my colleague Cher who worked in a different office. I found that I wasn’t effectively building a relationship with her based on the frequency of conversations we had (once or twice a week). Her peers were in my same office, and it was easier for me to walk over to their desks than reach out to her.

I decided I needed to change my behavior. I prioritized picking up the phone every morning and saying “good morning” to her in order to remove the barrier that she might not want to bother me. I even told her explicitly “I’m doing this new thing, so I can do a better job staying in touch with you.” It resulted in a better and more effective working relationship.

My experience working on remote projects has armed me with some easy tips:

• Let people know how to reach you (e-mail, phone, text, Skype, IM)
• Learn how other people like to be reached (e-mail, phone, text, Skype, IM)
• Proactively communicate what you have going on
• Reach out to people via their preferred means and ask if they need help from you
• Over communicate expectations (when you’ll get something done, when you won’t, when you're running late for a call, etc.)
• For those people who are remote and enjoy people connections (see more below) reach out and say hello even if you don’t have an explicit reason

How do you know who enjoys people connections? Pay attention to some simple signs. In their e-mail, they will start with a salutation (“Hello Dan!”), they will ask how you are, they will sign-off with many ways for you to contact them. In meetings, they make small talk before leaping into the subject at-hand. In individual conversations, they they ask how you are, ask about your family, your weekend, etc. These people enjoy people connections and will love that you called to just say “hello”. 

Check Your Ego

The best technical leaders are confident without letting their ego get in the way of actually leading. When you’re good at something, you don’t need to beat people up with that fact. As a leader, it can be hard to slow down and teach others. The best leaders check their ego to be sure they are acting in support of the team first, and not focusing on themselves.

I was reminded of how this can come across when my friend Nicole shared a news release by Vox Media. They just made the news themselves by banning micro aggressions as a part of their code of conduct. It is somewhat humorous take on this sort of behavior (can you ban someone from being subconsciously condescending). I see it as a reflection of unchecked ego; that anyone feels they must over explain or dominate a meeting. The most helpful line in the code of conduct is “…listen at least as much as you speak.”

Jim Collins talks about this as level 5 leadership in his book Good to Great. I know not everyone is a fan of Collins’ books (I’m looking at you Shelby). I personally find this insight useful as it helps debunk the myth of egocentric celebrity. I see lots of attention focused on newsworthy (read controversial) leaders. The insights from Collins’ book are that many of the most effective leaders work hard to stay out of the limelight. They put the organization ahead of their own ego.

I learned the lesson of “proportional contribution” from Steve McConnell as he facilitated a discussion at one of his software executive summits. I was in a small group discussion on a topic we were all passionate about, and we were each used to being the “expert” on these types of topics in our organization. Steve instructed us to be aware of how often we were contributing to the discussion, and to expect that we would each contribute only about one-fifth of the comments because there were five of us in the group. It was a great way to realize that some participants in the group might have a tendency to talk half the time, and that would not support everyone contributing to the discussion.

Check your own behavior as it relates to your ego. Become an observer of your actions. Pay attention. Are you subconsciously serving your own ego? Are you telling more than asking? Are you talking more than listening? Are you lifting others up, or knocking them down? Ask yourself if your contribution helps the organization, or helps your own ego.