Truth

Religion: The art of finding truth
Science: The art of proving truths
Leadership: The religion of relationships
Management: The science of relationships
Truth: All are related

Lost

The problem with following a path so to not get lost is that when you reach your destination you are lost because you are now off the path.

Leaders can make any location a destination. By not following a path, they will never be lost.

Bliss

When you see a rock grow
When you hear smoke rise
When you feel a reflection
When you smell moonlight
When you savor partnership
When you grok another

Are self directed work teams blasé or still in vogue?

Let me frame the question...

I am a product manager in social marketing services. I am in a position to advise brands on approaches to social.

Organizationally there is an edge between marketing and customer service that presents itself in a barrier between the nature of communications between these two groups and the brand's customers.

When customers engage socially about a product, they expect to hear one voice from the brand.

The solution to me appears to be a cross functional team that can engage with customers socially without any internal barriers.

Would it be blasé to suggest this team should be self directed? I think the leadership of a designated individual would unnaturally shape communications in favor of one of the elements of the team. However, with a self directed team, communications would have a chance to be shaped by the most relevant element to the situation.

Is there another style of teamwork that seems appropriate to this scenario? Has the concept of self directed teams been repudiated?

I am also posting this on LinkedIn. I will give you credit, but let me know if you don't want your response cross posted.

Leadership by Objective?

John Beiter asks for advice on LinkedIn: I have a client that is struggling to create specific objectives to measure leadership.

My advice:

If you mean objectives as in "Bill must do X by Y date" and then the measurement is success or failure, I would not approach it this way. To me this sounds like management by objectives and I would not apply management measures to leadership. I would have the client think in terms of which qualities they expect in a leader. Have them come up with 4. Then have them come up with 4 behaviors that express each quality. You can measure behaviors. Have the client assign a scale and they are off to the races. Keep in mind that at different levels of the organization, more and different leadership qualities are expected. As the second iteration, have higher levels of management scored on additional qualities. You can see how I add qualities to the puzzle starting with first & second line supervisors here.

An Oportunity to Offer Sage Advice

Kyle Blades asks for advice on LinkedIn: The Kiss of Death: Young and Different. Please chime in.

My advice:

Read MICROCOSMOGRAPHIA ACADEMICA by Conford. You fall into the classification of "young man in a hurry." My solution to your problem would be to start with small engagements: prove you can solve small problems, and deliver beyond expectations. While working on the starting task, look for opportunities to pitch a grander change. But, also do your homework in the mean time. Don't bring an idea, bring a 5-paragraph OPORD and a team. Have a thorough dissection of the situation and assets. Create a vision considering the commander's intent two levels up. Create alliances with willing participants. Etc...

Sorry for the military jargon. OPORD = Operations Order which coresponds to a business plan. Kyle was a marine.

Are We Being Drawn Farther Apart?

My reply to a blog post on Linked 2 Leadership: Human Connection: The Achilles Heel of Technology

I find the opposite to be true.

Reply #1: You only have so much time. Would you rather use that time managing or leading? A key element of my consulting practice is to encourage the use of technology to reduce the amount of time spent managing in order to increase the amount of time available for leadership. Conversations are key to leadership. Managing conversation threads and contact lists takes time. I would rather spend that time conversing. I encourage the use of these tools to facilitate your ability to lead.

Reply #2: There have long been forms of communications used to maintain emotional closeness between people who are physically separate. Rather then look at this as though we are being drawn farther apart, look at this as a means to draw us together.