I’ll get to that question in a minute, but first let me share a personal story.  I continue to be surprised by some of the misconceptions that people have about flying.  This past weekend I was in a conversation with a man who had a friend that was a pilot of a small plane.  This man’s friend took off on a trip cross country and not too far along he had an instrument failure.  The plane did not crash, but the man who told me about it obviously felt some dire anxiety for his friend and his “close call”.  I mentioned to the man that I was a pilot and that about half of all pilots do not have an instrument rating.  Even those who do don’t always choose to file an instrument flight plan, especially if they don’t plan to fly through clouds or in bad weather.

The majority of flying in small planes takes place under what are called visual flight rules:  the pilot is responsible to stay clear of clouds and to see and avoid other traffic–any other planes, helicopters, gliders or balloons that share the skies.  In fact, a competent, well-trained pilot of small planes should be able to fly their plane safely without ever having to look at the instruments.

If that’s the case, why do planes have instruments?  In a word: options.  Instruments (or other measurement systems) give us more options, and usually they offer greater accuracy.

Let’s continue our lesson from flying planes.  When a pilot receives flight training in flying by instruments, one of the first things an instructor will do is demonstrate how easy it is to trick or disorient a pilot once you remove visual cues.  Every pilot must face the humbling lesson that they are not the exception to the rule: disorientation can happen pretty easily, and if you fly in clouds or fog or at night in the mountains in a fairly short amount of time you will lose your way and get yourself in a position you don’t want to be in.  Flying by the seat of your pants, or gut instinct may sound macho or reasonable, but it’s not going to keep you alive in bad weather or when visual references are gone.

When you’re responsible for running an organization (or even a division or large team), the same rules apply.  Through years of experience you may have developed pretty good instincts or a seat-of-the-pants intuitive feel for making decisions and exercising leadership.  But what happens when the external environment suddenly changes, or a new generation with different expectations joins the workforce (and your organization), or a game-changing technology threatens your market space?  The old familiar references are gone or obscured, and if you don’t have instruments, measures or a backup system…a happy outcome is NOT very likely.

Let’s deal with another misconception here.  Any non-pilot who has looked in on a cockpit has probably been overwhelmed by the amount of instruments, dials, levers and buttons they see there.  An airliner is the extreme case, but even a small plane cockpit is daunting or mysterious to the non-pilot.  The truth is, even inexperienced pilots get overwhelmed or transfixed by the instruments in the cockpit until they develop some discipline.  There are a few primary instruments that you must use, and the rest give you additional information or other options if you need them.  The most basic–and essential, or useful–flight instruments are a compass, a clock, and your engine gauges.  A compass tells you direction and warns of drift; it is an underrated instrument.  A clock allows you to keep from running out of fuel (more predictably than fuel gauges!), make time/distance/fuel calculations, and time turns (which is important if you get into bad weather).  Engine gauges indicate engine health and performance; they give you warnings of when your plane is about to become a glider (an extremely useful piece of information).

Think about your business.  What metric/measurement helps you stay oriented the right direction?  Which metric/measurement gives the most useful information about performance, telling you you’re making good progress or warning you that you’re running out of gas?  How do you measure and keep time in your business?  Every good manager knows their three critical numbers and the other numbers that give more accuracy and specialized information.

Leaders also have a backup system for when the game suddenly changes.  Being clear on your own vision and values is the essential first step.  A well-considered strategic plan is the next step.  If these are clear, your judgment and decision making in stressful situations will be much better.  Backup systems anticipate contingencies or emergencies:  scenario planning, disaster recovery plans, succession planning, risk management plans and systems, leadership development and employee training are some of the best examples of ways to be prepared when the ground shifts underneath you and taking the right action is critical.

Flying an airplane and running a business or leading a team are not overly complex, though we can certainly make the task more complicated than it needs to be.  With the right orientation, measures and backup systems in place, these can be enjoyable and fulfilling endeavors.

But I think it’s important to look at the fuller context of this speech which I’ll show with some select quotations and my own comments as they relate to personal development.  Roosevelt addressed an educated French audience and his topic was about the kind of citizenship that makes a republic strong.

“In the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues.”

Roosevelt knew he was addressing an audience of privileged listeners, and he warns them against an aloof attitude or being out of touch with the concerns of common people.  This is a danger for our “talking head” pundits on tv, but even more so for our CEO’s and leaders of organizations.

“A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities – all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness.”

Next comes the famous quote about the man in the arena:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Beyond this inspirational passage is another part of the speech that never gets quoted, yet I believe it holds the key to the kind of character that Roosevelt praises.  For me, it is the center of gravity of the speech, and it speaks to the personal development and mastery that are necessary for good leadership.  It really paints a picture of what it takes to develop top talent.

“There is need of a sound body, and even more of a sound mind. But above mind and above body stands character – the sum of those qualities which we mean when we speak of a man’s force and courage, of his good faith and sense of honor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided that we keep in mind that physical development is a means and not an end. I believe, of course, in giving to all the people a good education. But the education must contain much besides book-learning in order to be really good. We must ever remember that no keenness and subtleness of intellect, no polish, no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack of the great solid qualities. Self restraint, self mastery, common sense, the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution – these are the qualities which mark a masterful people. Without them no people can control itself, or save itself from being controlled from the outside.”

Roosevelt goes on to emphasize the need of a strong moral sense, the inner compass that must guide the true leader:

“Courage, intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if they are merely used for that man’s own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for the community if the community worships these qualities and treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly.”

Finally, to keep all of this grounded and practical, Roosevelt reminds us that:

“The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and indeed undesirable to realize.  Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined by the success with which it can in practice be realized.”

What do you think about the qualities Roosevelt praises and how practical it is to develop top talent?

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The full text of the speech is at http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html

If you want more of the back-story to this quote, you can find it here

This speech, along with his earlier one on “The Strenuous Life”, are some of Roosevelt’s most memorable words.  (Full text of the Strenuous Life speech can be found here).

January’s resolutions are long gone–time to get moving on what you’re really committed to.  I’m still hearing from people who are writing their own version of what the year ahead looks like using my free workbook “The Year Ahead 2010″.  You can get a copy for yourself and start  moving yourself, then watch out–the world will move too.

I was also intrigued by an article last month in the Wall Street Journal about marathoners and the impact on personal fitness.  If you have run a marathon, my congratulations to you.  If you’re a serial marathoner like the optometrist I met on the plane last month between Boise and Denver, you’ve got my respect.  For those who have run a marathon (and those who never will) and who struggle now to stay fit, read on.

How do you stay fit?  Through practice and regularity.  You continue exercising, eating healthy, and finding enjoyable and emotionally satisfying ways to keep doing both.  For one-time marathoners, they train for the event, alter their lifestyle in the short-term to run the marathon, but after the peak event, they return to their previous routine and habits.

I have found the best way for me to stay fit and keep exercising and eating healthy is to use variety and a nudge of motivation/accountability.  I track my exercise routine in a small spiral-bound memo pad.  I time my exercise and try to improve on my previous performance, even by a few seconds, or a few repetitions, or a few pounds of weight.  I practice a martial art in which I help teach others to practice techniques,  which lets me see how well I have really learned the art.   I also measure progress there as well by testing for belts/ranks.  In eating, I keep track of how much energy I have and what foods affect me in a good way or a bad way.  Of course I weigh myself and check body fat percentage.  These different actions don’t take up a lot of time nor do I center my life around them.  I simply see them as necessary for keeping my body and physical health in good condition.  I also consider physical conditioning to be a key necessity to staying mentally sharp and on top of my game.

Top talent keeps working hard and practicing while measuring progress toward a worthy goal.  If fitness is one of your personal battles, I encourage you to get yourself back on the path to improved health and well-being.

I have seven axioms in my personal philosophy of choice, and these guide me when I get confused or bewildered or just need perspective.  What about you?  Do you have a personal philosophy of life and are you willing to share any of it with us?

I always have a choice, and I’m going to make sure I make better choices today from greater awareness and wisdom.

Why do we dislike them so much?  Common reasons:

• The process feels awkward.
• It doesn’t yield meaningful information.
• Bosses don’t do it well.
• Employees experience great anxiety.
• It seems so subjective or unfair

How can we do a better job?

1. Focus on performance.  Seems obvious, right?  The major problem is that most jobs do not have clear performance expectations that are shared and understood by both management and employees.  We get vague generalities, “areas of responsibility”, or a listing of common tasks, but clear and measurable performance standards are often missing.  You cannot have a meaningful performance review unless there are clear performance standards for a job.  Managers who ignore this are responsible for a majority of the recurring headaches they face in managing people.
2. Create the right context.  This is not the time for counseling, grievances, or unfocused conversations.  The goal is to help the employee be successful and the company/organization to meet or exceed it’s objectives.  Appraisals are time for an honest assessment, for feedback so that people know for sure if they are getting the job done or not.
3. Use a simple format.  I like the one first suggested by Peter Drucker.  Start with a statement of the major contributions expected from the present position, then ask four questions:
   1. What has this person done well?
   2. What, therefore, are they likely to be able to do well?
   3. What does this person have to learn or to acquire to be able to the get the full benefit from their strength?
   4. If I had a son or daughter, would I be willing to have him or her work under this person?  (i)  If yes, why?  (ii) If no, why?

The truth is, most employees are frustrated by the lack of real information that comes out in a performance appraisal and the apparent subjectivity of the judgments made about them.  What they want to know is, “Am I doing a good job?  Where can I improve?”  Good managers that help them answer these questions in a fair and objective way garner a lot of respect.

Turn down the external noise (it helps to visualize actually turning down the volume).  Now look on your own situation as if you were a visitor from another planet trying to learn about humans.  Answer this question after some reflection:  “What is this person (remember, the visitor is looking at YOU)… what is this person actually able to control?  Where does this person exert the greatest influence?”

I know, these are strange questions.  We don’t think much about these things.  But if we did, I think we would notice that each person is able to control only what actions they take and the thoughts they think about.  There’s a lot of power in that, much more than we realize.  We’re usually so busy looking outside ourselves for answers, for cues about how to act that we forget where the center of our own power lies.

Our main source of power lies in what we think about and what we choose to do about it.  The people who most take this to heart look a lot like entrepreneurs.  We say they have initiative.  They strike out and take chances.  They do things that others often admire.  Entrepreneurs, instead of looking for a job, look for areas to be of service to other people (and make a profit in the process too).

“What then is to be done?  To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens.” Epictetus, Discourses

I found a pretty extended elaboration of this on Tim Ferriss’ blog that speaks philosophically to entrepreneurs.

When it comes to developing top talent, look for entrepreneurialism first.  I look for an attitude that is willing to tackle things, that will look for what’s possible, not the opposite.   What’s important to you?

Leadership and change always begin with personal responsibility and truth-telling.  If you want to develop top talent, start by leveling with people.  Tell them the truth and enlist their help in being part of the solution.  Now is the time for responsibility and assertive (yet humble) leadership.

From the employee side, there is a natural concern about fairness and favoritism; will Talent Management (TM) be administered fairly and give everyone an equal chance to succeed?  Will it be a cover for leaders who are championing/grooming/promoting their own favorites?

Also, most TM efforts or programs have some kind of measurement included with them.  Some of those include personal profiles or talent assessments.  Some people have a natural fear about how those will be viewed or used by management.  Other measurements are more tied to performance management or productivity or contribution to the company.  Some employees don’t like the additional scrutiny that comes with measurement–period.

Honestly, a lot of “talent management” efforts are really HR-sponsored drives that are modest in their goals/design and don’t have real staying power.  Employees have a legitimate right to question if TM is a “flavor of the year” hobby that will be eventually abandoned in 12-24 months.  That often seems to be what happens unless management is fully committed to it and is willing to make it a robust, long-lasting change in how the organization thinks about and practices talent management.

Of course, I encourage leaders who are committed to developing top talent to exercise some empathy and think first about how their efforts are going to be received by employees.  It can avoid a lot of pain and waste later on.

MPG Instrument

I recently bought a new car and it has a sensitive gauge that tells you how many miles-per-gallon you are getting at the present time.  I’m already paying more attention to this gauge and it has helped me in changing my driving habits for the better (to be more fuel-efficient).

Apply this to people in an organization–even a small one–and it becomes obvious that equipping people with a new tool is much more likely to yield change than talking about change, management lectures or internal communication initiatiaves.  These other activities are useful too, but I’ve seen too many leaders and companies rely on them and end up with very little meaningful change.

Like any new tool, you have to learn to use it properly.  When I took training to be a pilot, I initially spent too much time looking at the instruments-I assumed that’s how you fly the plane.  My instructor had to emphasize to get my head up and look outside the airplane.  The great majority of pilots of small planes fly visually by looking out the window 90% of the time.  Only instrument-rated pilots and airline captains fly solely by reference to the instruments, which is a much more mentally taxing activity that requires extra training, practice and licensing.  So here’s my caveat: when you get an instrument for measuring real-time performance, beware the tendency to stare at it and miss the other information and contextual clues about what is going on around you.  If you can learn to do that (and it is possible), you will be much better positioned to build a high-performing organization and drive results and accountability further down to the individuals that actually do the work.