This month for Mentor Monday, we reviewed the 2010 best-selling business book by Robert Sutton, “Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best… and Learn from the Worst.” Sutton’s book is based on the more than 100,000 responses he received when he asked employees what they want from their boss.

Listen to this Mentor Monday call  and save yourself a lifetime of learning. Whether you are an emerging leader or a seasoned executive, you’ll benefit with at least one takeaway.

Listen to this entire podcast in only 30 minutes.

Want to read our book review?

Click on the graphic or link,
Sage Leaders – How to be a Better Boss

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Expect the Best,
Sylva Leduc
Leadership Strategist for Emerging Leaders
Managing Partner, Sage Leaders Inc.

P.S., On the call I mentioned Sutton’s survey. It’s been completed by more than 100,000 people!  Take the survey and evaluate your boss. And if you manage people complete it on yourself. http://goodbadboss.com/

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Imagine this:  You’ve been asked to give a presentation.

Congratulations!  This is your chance to shine.

If you’re like most people, you probably don’t like being in the spotlight and presenting.

You may even have read somewhere that public speaking is the #1 fear of most people and it’s rated even higher than dying.

If just the thought of public speaking makes you cringe, I have good news. You can deliver confident and powerful presentations!  All it takes is preparation, practice, and a winning mindset.  How do I know?  Because the first time I ever had to present in front of a large group, I literally thought I was going to faint. Through preparation, practice and intentionally placing myself in front of opportunities to  present, I grew to enjoy speaking in front of large groups. And now, it’s one of my favorite ways to connect with people.

If you are an emerging leader being groomed for career advancement, then don’t be surprised if you are asked to make presentations more frequently.

I’d like to give you some simple tips you that can use to conquer your worries. With these tips & tactics, you’ll be ready in no time, feeling confident, and fully prepared to share your knowledge.

First, there are a few things for you to think about:

1. If you were asked to present, it’s because you can do it—you wouldn’t have been asked otherwise.
2. Most people don‘t really like presenting.  Some of the best, most well-known speakers and actors have confessed to this.  So, when you look at your audience, know that you’re in good company because they are probably admiring your courage and want you to be successful.
3. The words that come out of your mouth contribute to only about 10% of what is communicated.  That leaves 90% to non-verbals.  If your body language, expression and gestures communicate confidence, you will come across as confident.

But just how do you create this confidence?

Here’s the secret: being prepared; practicing; and having identified beforehand, instant solutions for de-stressing.

One of our favorite mottos is, “If you think you can, you can.”

Here is how you’re going to prepare, stand confidently in place, and knock their socks off!

Confidence Builder #1:  Know Your Content

Identify your key messages—bullet them in order so they tell a clear story.

Jot down cues for your key messages (e.g. on index card, flashcards, paper, etc.).

Have them ready as back up (but remember to refrain from reading them word-for-word while presenting).

Enhance your messages with supporting tools, and interesting visuals—it will be a perk for your audience, and it takes the spotlight off you.

Be sure to tap into your resources—know a graphic design expert?  Ask for their advice. Oh, and be sure to read the book, “Presentation Zen” so that you make your presentation interesting and not put you audience to sleep with a boring Power Point presentation.

Confidence Builder #2:  Practice, Practice, Practice!

Practice delivery of your presentation.  Do this in the mirror.  You might feel funny talking to yourself, but it works.

Or, use a Flip Video, record your presentation and review yourself.

Watch your body language.

Find your “confident look.”

Stand, straight, be sure to use smooth hand gestures, and limit unnecessary movement (e.g. rocking back and forth from one foot to the other).

Practice until the words flow like water.

When you’re ready, practice in front of a friend or two.

Ask them each for 3 things you did well and 1 thing you could improve.

Confidence Builder #3:  Create your “winning scene”

Visualize yourself delivering your presentation.

Then see your audience’s reaction.

What does that “winning scene” look like for you?

Visualize it over and over until you can see it so clearly that you know what color of socks your boss is wearing!

Confidence Builder #4:  Do it!

Identify ways to calm your nerves before you even begin: take deep breaths, or find whatever works for you (e.g. picture everyone smiling and nodding in agreement).

Squelch any negative thoughts or concerns by envision your “winning scene.”

Think positively.  Remember:  “If you think you can, you can.”

As you speak, maintain eye contact with as many people as you can—this conveys confidence and executive presence.  While we don’t want you to stare at anyone for longer than three seconds, we also don’t want your eyes darting around the audience.  You’ll look shifty!

Here’s a quick tip: If it helps, determine a shape in your mind and make eye contact around the room as though you were creating that shape with your line of vision.

Be sure to keep your pace nice and s…l…o…w.

Many of us tend to speedtalk when presenting. I know that I’ve been guilty of this when I didn’t pay attention. What might sound slow to us sounds just right to the listener.

When you are well prepared you will make your points confidently, answer questions clearly, and start to look forward to your next opportunity to be on stage!

Cheers,
Sylva Leduc, MEd, MPEC
The Leadership Strategist
Executive Coach

ps  Any great stories to share about a presentation you made or a one where you were in the audience? What about horror stories of the worst presentation you ever had to sit through?

I found a great article from the Harvard Business School: Whom Would You Hire?

Are you a likeable leader?

Cheers,
Sylva Leduc
Sage Leaders

Has this ever happened in your company?

Someone is promoted to a leadership position. The person successfully competed against other qualified candidates, some of whom you know are just as experienced and smart. You ask yourself, “Why him?” … or, “Why her?”

Soon, through the rumor mill, you hear that it was a question of “Executive Presence.” As often happens in judging one candidate over another, the decision came down to degrees of executive presence.

So you start doing a little research on the subject. Karl Albrecht, a prolific writer and the author of  more than a dozen books, names executive presence as one of the five pillars of social intelligence:

Presence: Often referred to as “bearing,” presence incorporates a range of verbal and nonverbal patterns (one’s appearance, posture, vocal quality, subtle movements)—a whole collection of signals that others process into an evaluative impression of a person.
Karl Albrecht, author of Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success (Pfeiffer, 2009)

Searching for Executive Presence

An Internet search on executive presence reveals definitions and advice on everything from dressing for success and patterns of speech to more fundamental issues of emotional and social intelligence.

The concept of presence raises serious questions for anyone with ambitions of career advancement. If, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests in his book Blink, decisions are made intuitively, what do we need to know about “executive presence”?

As it turns out, everyone’s definition of the term seems to differ. But planning your career and determining your leadership development needs shouldn’t be left to guesswork.

I don’t know about you, but if executive presence makes a difference in getting the promotion or not getting it, I want to be sure I do everything I can to get more of it. So what is “it?”

Some conclude that executive presence has little to do with polish, poise, sophistication or even use of body language and gestures. In many cases, executives with presence are just as likely to lack these qualities.

In this day and age, executive presence comes in all shapes and sizes, including some you wouldn’t normally recognize. Who would have thought, 30 years ago, that Bill Gates would command it?

Would Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old founder of Facebook, have stood out as a high-potential CEO? But as one of the youngest men ever to be named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, he certainly has presence—albeit a “Gen Y” version of it.

If you want to be promoted to the VP level, or even to the C-suites, you must learn how to acquire or improve your level of executive presence. And if you’re already in senior management, you must recognize your current potential and help nurture executive presence in the people you want to groom for succession.

But this may be as elusive as charisma. Everyone knows when someone’s got charisma, but it’s not exactly something you can pick up in business school.

I do think you can improve your executive presence by working on your strengths. I see this all the time with clients, the executives and emerging leaders we coach. In highly competitive organizations, where the high-potential candidates are all pretty smart and savvy, there are ways to manage others’ perceptions to your advantage.

It may be hard to improve your presence, but that’s certainly one thing an executive coach can help you do.

In our work with executives we coach several aspects of executive presence. Speech and mannerisms are only the tip of the iceberg. The rest is developing social intelligence.

Later this year I am presenting at a conference where I have been asked to speak about one of my favorite topics.  Can you guess what that topic is? If executive presence came immediately to mind, you’re right!

As I prepare the materials, I’ll also include more information here, so be sure to bookmark this page. And, I’ll also be offering a special conference call in April.  If you are interested in attending this free call, then be sure to register for Mentor Monday.

Cheers,
Sylva Leduc

What do you think about this concept of executive presence? Can it be faked or manufactured or coached? Please leave a comment.

This was another great call with many thought provoking questions asked by the people who joined us this month. Thanks to everyone for our discussion of Executive Onboarding and the Top Ten ways you can help new leaders be successful.

This podcast is app. 55 minutes in length

If you like this type of learning then register for Mentor Monday (click on link) and you’ll receive advance invitations to all our free calls.

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Additional Resources

During the call Sylva Leduc mentioned a recently published article and two book summaries for you to download and read at any time. Below the article/summaries are several onboarding & leadership books which you may also find beneficial.

Strategies for Successful Onboarding: Derailment or Success?
Article in Leading Age Magazine, January/February 2011

The First 90 Days: Building A Wining Team When You Come Onboard
(Book Summary of The First 90 Days)

The 20 Bad Habits Leaders Should Stop Doing Now
(Book Summary of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There)

Onboarding Books Recommended by Sage Leaders & Sylva Leduc

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, by Michael Watkins

Your Next Move, by Michael Watkins

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan, by George Bradt

Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employee Up To Speed in Half the Time, by George Bradt

You’re In Charge — Now What? The 8-Point Plan, by Thomas Neff and James Citrin

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith

Developing the Leader Within You, by John C. Maxwell

January is off to a great start with many people joining us for this month’s Mentor Monday call to discuss goal setting. Have you set your own goals for 2011?

Length of this podcast: 31 minutes

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During the call Sylva mentioned the book by Jinny Ditzler, called Your Best Year Yet. You can find the book at Amazon. .

You can also download our short, one page summary of the Best Year Yet questions. BYY-10 Questions

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Are you registered for Mentor Monday? If you are, then you’ll receive an automatic reminder to join us on the fourth Monday of each month. If you are not registered,  then register here

Happy New Year!
Sylva Leduc
Executive Coach
Sage Leaders Inc.

Zappos, the highly successful online retailer, is celebrating its 10th year anniversary. In June, Sylva Leduc and Robert Rican went on a private tour of the Zappos headquarters in Henderson, Nevada.  Listen in as Sylva talks about their tour of this amazing company.

This podcast is 35 minutes long.

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Zappos is built on 10 core values:

1. Deliver WOW through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

At Sage Leaders, we focus on employee retention and leadership development. One way to increase employee retention is to make sure you have the right employees in the first place.   At Zappos, they pay people to quit.  That’s right!  At the end of the first four weeks of training, they will pay a new employee $2,000 to quit. That strategy has been remarkably successful in weeding out the people who do not fit the culture.  As a result, their employee retention rates are very high.

During the live call for Mentor Monday, someone asked what Zappos does with all of their returns. We asked the same question during the tour!  We are pleased to let you know that they have a sister site called www.6pm.com which offers significantly discounted items.

Take the Zappos Tour Yourself

Next time you are in Las Vegas, be sure to set aside some time to go on a Zappos tour. Their corporate headquarters is in Henderson, less than 30 minutes away from the Las Vegas Strip.  Register for a tour at  Zappos Insights.

Can’t wait til then? Want to know more now?  Watch this video:

In November 2009, Zappos was acquired by Amazon.  Read the Inc Magazine article in which Tony Hsieh discussed why he sold the company to Amazon and how he plans to ensure the Zappos culture remains intact. We’ll be watching over the next few years to see how Zappos and Amazon evolve.

What are your thoughts about creating a culture where people come first?

Cheers,
Sylva

PS: Did you enjoy this podcast? You are invited to join us for our live Mentor Monday calls,
click here to learn more.

Even though it’s the last day of December, that doesn’t mean the holiday gifts have to stop. We received a generous offer from one of our strategic partners, i-OPT that we want to pass along.

Together we are giving away a free career assessment to everyone we know. Of course, that includes you! Register to complete the assessment by filling in the form on our Sage Leaders website. Look for the box in the top right corner (next to the light bulb). Everyone who registers will also be invited to our leadership webinars for 2010. The first webinar in January is on Goal Setting & Goal Getting.

Throughout the year, we’ll discuss the issues most relevant for leaders and their leadership development. Registered members receive private invitations to attend those events.

Do you really know what contributes to your company’s high performance — or are you making assumptions based on faulty logic?

It turns out that most of the data regarding why one company succeeds and another fails is rife with errors in thinking and researcher bias.

For all of the business bestsellers that proclaim to share the secret formula of successful companies and heroic CEOs, the drivers of performance in business are as elusive as ever — especially at a time when global competition and technology are evolving at unprecedented rates.

But this doesn’t stop consultants and business school professors from writing “authoritative” books that claim to have the formula for driving company success. If you haven’t already guessed, high performance cannot be attained by simply applying the best practices of General Electric, Toyota, Starbucks or Google to your own enterprise. Nor can you hire rock-star CEOs to guarantee high performance in your organization.

I’m sorry to report it’s not that easy, but I have a hunch you already know that. What you may not be aware of are the common biases and flawed thinking that affect the way individuals make decisions under uncertainty. When it comes to evaluating company performance, it’s easy to fall into a variety of universal traps.

For the last 20 years, managers have bought into popular business books such as In Search of Excellence, Built to Last and Good to Great.

Writing in The Halo Effect…and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers (Free Press, 2007), Phil Rosenzweig claims many books that focus on company success are based on flimsy research and delusional thinking:

“For all their claims of scientific research, for all their lengthy descriptions of apparently solid and careful research, they operate mainly at the level of storytelling. They offer tales of inspiration that we find comforting and satisfying, but they’re based on shaky thinking.”

We must peel away the layers of jumbled thinking to thoroughly investigate the elements that lead to high performance. Recognizing these lapses in logic is the only way to pull back the curtains to see what’s really going on.

With full awareness, we can identify the elements that truly drive company performance, provided we recognize the fundamental uncertainties at the heart of all businesses. Delusions can be replaced with more discerning ways to understand performance based on a respect for probabilities.

Delusion #1: The Halo Effect
Psychologist Edward Thorndike researched the ways superiors rated subordinates during World War I. If a soldier was given a high rating for one trait, his superior officer usually provided high ratings for all other traits. And if a soldier was rated sub-par on a trait, he usually garnered low ratings for all other traits.

Thorndike called this the “Halo Effect”: our tendency to make inferences about specific traits on the basis of a general impression. It’s difficult for most people to measure discrete traits; we tend to blend them together. The Halo Effect tricks the mind into creating and maintaining a coherent, consistent picture.

For example, after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s overall approval rating rose sharply. The percentage of Americans who approved of his handling of the economy also rose. There’s no reason to believe the latter suddenly improved in the weeks after Sept. 11, but it was hard for Americans to separate these issues.
Our minds become uncomfortable when we approve of one area of performance, but not another. We create consistency by conferring a halo across the board to avoid cognitive dissonance.

When companies are profitable and sales are growing, we routinely attribute positive evaluations to other performance particulars. Numbers don’t lie; we trust them. So, when we make inferences about company culture, customer outreach and core strategies based on financials, we succumb to the Halo Effect.

It’s hard to know in objective terms exactly what constitutes good communications, optimal group cohesion or appropriate role clarity, so we make attributions based on other data we believe to be reliable.

Good People Equal Good Results?
It’s widely believed that companies that manage people well will outperform those that don’t. This was the conclusion of the landmark book Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results With Ordinary People, by Charles A. O’Reilly III and Jeffrey Pfeffer (Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

A company that attracts people, provides them with an environment where they can be productive and creative, and motivates them to work for the common good ought to do well. But how much of the research is influenced by the Halo Effect?

We bestow halos on CEOs all the time, but they’re always based on company performance. In all of the books written about good leadership, descriptions are always accompanied by company performance based on financial data.

Why is it so hard to understand why some companies succeed and others fail? Because our thinking is shaped by the Halo Effect. Even when we try to gather data in large-scale samples like Fortune Magazine surveys or Great Places to Work studies, we often multiply the Halo Effect.

This is less of a conscious distortion and more of a natural human tendency to make judgments about abstract, ambiguous concepts based on seemingly objective criteria. Our desire to find answers and create a coherent story is too compelling to withstand.

Awareness of such tendencies may help us guard against the Halo Effect. Of course, solid research also helps. While the Halo Effect is not the only delusion that distorts our thinking about business, it’s the most basic one. This flaw permeates most surveys and interviews, weakens the quality of data, and diminishes our ability to think clearly about important factors that lead to key decisions.

Delusion #2: Correlation and Causality

To identify high performance, you must gather data using independent variables.
But even when rigorous research standards are applied, there’s still a tendency to apply faulty reasoning. We continually infer causality from correlation. It’s logical to assume that having satisfied employees leads to high performance.

A more reliable statistic may be employee turnover. A low turnover rate may correlate with the numbers of employees who report job satisfaction.

The challenge is to untangle the direction of causality. Does lower employee turnover lead to higher company performance? Or does higher company performance lead to lower employee turnover? Pinpointing the distinction is critical to determining how much you should invest in achieving greater levels of satisfaction versus other objectives.

Delusion #3: Single Explanation

Most studies look at a single explanation for performance and cast the others aside. The problem is that other factors—a strong company culture, customer focus or great leadership—are correlated.
This is why it’s so difficult to identify what drives performance. Even if you avoid the Halo Effect, you must still consider alternative explanations. So many factors contribute to performance that it’s hard to accurately differentiate between the various considerations.

Delusion #4: Connecting the Winning Dots

If you pick a bunch of successful companies and attempt to search for what they have in common, you’ll never isolate the reasons for their success. That’s because we have no way to compare them with less successful companies.

Delusion#5: Rigorous Research

If you have poor-quality data, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve gathered or how sophisticated your research methods may be.

Delusion#6: Lasting Success

Almost all high-performing companies regress over time. The promise of a blueprint for lasting success is attractive, but unrealistic.

Delusion #7: Absolute Performance

Company performance is relative, not absolute. A company can improve, yet fall farther behind its rivals, at the same time.

Delusion #8: The Wrong End of the Stick

It may be true that successful companies often pursue a highly focused strategy. This doesn’t mean highly focused strategies often lead to success.

Delusion #9: Organizational Physics

Company performance doesn’t obey immutable laws of nature and cannot be predicted with the accuracy of science, despite our desire for certainty and order.

We’d like to believe there are governing laws that, when applied, would make the business world less chaotic and more precise.

We cannot put companies under a microscope or run exact experiments. The best studies of business—the ones that carefully follow strict research methods, avoid the Halo Effect, control for variables and avoid confusing correlation with causality—can never achieve the precision of physics.

The Power of Stories

When you examine blockbuster business books, you find that each successive study made a bolder set of claims: more data, more experts, more analysis (i.e., In Search of Excellence, Built to Last, What Really Works and Good to Great).

None admitted the Halo Effect’s central problem. By relying on articles from the popular press, business-school case studies and retrospective interviews, their data were compromised.

But these books — and many like them — are immensely popular and effective because they have the power to motivate. Good to Great has sold more than 3 million copies since its release in 2001.

Such books provide riveting stories and often follow a rags-to-riches theme. They inspire and comfort, helping people make sense of a complex and often chaotic world.

The Search for the Formula
There will always be business books that profess to explain the most important elements separating best companies from the rest. Managers are eager to learn shortcuts and new insights they can apply in daily life. But it’s crucial to read business books with a critical eye, free from delusions and in tune with reality.

Here are seven lessons to learn about data, according to Rosenzweig:

1. If independent variables aren’t measured independently, we may find ourselves standing hip-deep in Halos.
2. If the data are full of Halos, it doesn’t matter how much we’ve gathered or how sophisticated our analysis appears to be.
3. Success rarely lasts as long as we’d like. For the most part, long-term success is a delusion based on selection after the fact.
4. Company performance is relative, not absolute. A company may improve while falling farther behind its competitors.
5. It may be true that many successful companies bet on long shots, but betting on long shots does not often lead to success.
6. Anyone who claims to have found laws of business physics understands little about business, little about physics or both.
7. Searching for the secrets of success reveals little about the world of business, but speaks volumes about the searchers’ aspirations and desire for certainty.

What Sage Leaders Know
Once we’ve swept away common delusions, what remains?

Here are five lessons sage managers/leaders need to learn:

1. Any good strategy involves a certain amount of risk.
2. Execution, too, is uncertain. There are just too many variables. What works in one company with one workforce may yield different results elsewhere.
3. Chance often plays a greater role than we ever imagine, and most managers don’t like to admit this.
4. The link between inputs and outcomes is tenuous. Bad outcomes don’t always mean managers made mistakes. Good outcomes don’t always mean they acted brilliantly.
5. In the end, the best managers act with persistence and tenacity, dismissing the role of chance as irrelevant.

There are no absolute success formulas. Our chances of success improve when we adopt sensible goals to pursue.

Sylva