Monthly Archives: May 2012

Book Review: The Synergist

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by Les McKeown

Author and consultant Les McKeown has spent nearly four decades working with and observing business teams. During that time he came to understand that individuals take on one of three roles when working in teams. The conflict and compromise created by the interaction of the three roles creates unnecessary drag that prevents companies from soaring to new heights. The most successful teams, McKeown discovered, were aided by a fourth role, one he reveals in full in his book The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success. The Soundview Executive Book Summary of McKeown’s excellent resource is now available.

McKeown introduces readers to the three common roles into which individuals fall: visionaries, operators and processors. He follows with a description of the attributes and actions of a synergist, walking readers through the ways in which this fourth role reduces gridlock and alleviates the temptation to compromise rather than commit.

One of McKeown’s strengths as an author is his ability to anticipate questions that executives may have when reading about the role of the synergist. He dispels beliefs that synergists are born, not made and that a synergist needs to be acquired through an elaborate talent search. The truth is that the synergist is already within the confines of a reader’s organization, but it may not be in the personage of the executive him- or herself. Most important, McKeown corrects the assumption that a person becomes a synergist by removing all traces of his or her natural role in a group setting. A visionary can still be a visionary, but he or she will do so by acting as a synergist. It’s an important distinction that will allow teams to draw on members’ strengths and deliver more consistent results.

The Purpose of Memorial Day

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Memorial Day is coming up on Monday and so I thought it would be good to remember why we celebrate this national holiday. I must admit that I became aware of my own weakness in American history as I researched the day.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day and first took place on May 1st, 1865 to commemorate the Union soldiers that gave their lives during the Civil War. Nearly 10,000 people, mostly freedmen (freed slaves), gathered at the Race Course in Charleston, NC where many Union soldiers had died while being held as prisoners by the Confederate army.

Since that time this day has become a nation-wide commemoration of all who have died in the service of our country. People still decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with flags and flowers to remember their sacrifice for us.

Because this blog is usually focused on books, I thought it would be helpful to take a look at some of the children’s books that honor this day of remembrance. Perhaps those of you that have children and grandchildren can read one of these books with your kids so that they will know why Memorial Day is special.

Memorial Day by Jacqueline S Cotton introduces kids to the reason we celebrate Memorial Day, the different ways it’s celebrated, and uses pictures to introduce vocabulary around the event.

Memorial Day by Robin Nelson provides similar resources, but also includes a timeline of the development of the holiday to the present day.

The Wall by Eve Bunting follows the trip of a father and son as they look for the boy’s grandfather’s name on the Vietnam memorial.

Memorial Day by Karen Latchana Kenney provides an introduction to the holiday for first graders, including teaching respect for the symbols of America.

Let’s Get Ready for Memorial Day helps kids to prepare for this event and includes images and vocabulary they will need to understand the meaning of the day.

There are many more such books, which is good to see. I would encourage those of you who have children in your lives to take some time on Monday to help them learn about its meaning and the importance of the sacrifice of our military men and women.

Meetings: The Bane of Our Existence…Or Not

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Meetings – we can’t live with them and we can’t live without them. They are a necessary evil of business life. If this is the way you feel about meetings, then read on.

There was a great article in the Wall St Journal on June 16th titled Meet the Meeting Killers. In the article we are introduced to five meeting killers; the Jokester, the Dominator, the Naysayer, the Rambler and the Quiet Plotter. Each of these types of people has their own way of making meetings difficult, if not impossible. Thankfully, the writer rates these meeting killers as to their level of nuisance, and provides ways to circumvent their negative effects.

For those of us who run meetings there are techniques to making a meeting run more smoothly such as having a “no-device” policy or having periodic “tech breaks” for people to catch up on communications. Stand up meeting can quicken the pace and keep people on task, and some issues can be dealt with in advance if a leader knows the people and their concerns well.

But there are also other types of people who can make meetings difficult, whose intentions are not to sabotage, but who simply have a different perspective on business issues. Les Mckeown introduces three such types in his book The Synergist.

The Visionary – the bold dreamer, this person has big ideas but little interest in execution.

The Processor – the pragmatic realist, they want to put every detail through a system.

The Operator – the systems designer, this person’s main focus is to get the meeting over with so they can get back to the “real work”.

Mckeown offer a solution in the form of a fourth type of person – the Synergist. Their job is to take the strengths of the other three types of people and knit them into a dynamic, well-rounded team. Because businesses need all three of these types to be successful, the challenge is how to get them to play well together. The synergist has the skills to make this happen and the good news is that anyone can learn how to be a synergist, recognizing the vital signs of ineffective teamwork and making the right interventions at those pivotal moments.

Les McKeown will be joining us on May 31st to explain in-depth the skills and techniques of the Synergist, and how they can harness the skills of the personalities in the room to become an effective and productive team. Lead Your Team to Predictable Success is a Free webinar open to everyone. Join us and learn how to transform your meetings.

Book Review: Good Boss, Bad Boss

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by Robert I. Sutton

It’s not easy to follow-up a runaway success. Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, was faced with such a task. His 2007 best-seller The No Asshole Rule raised eyebrows for more than just its title. Sutton pulled no punches in his assessment of the toxic workplace culture created by brutal, oppressive individuals. In Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best and Learn from the Worst, Sutton provides an ideal second installment. Now available as a Soundview Executive Book Summary, Good Boss, Bad Boss moves the narrative forward. It gives readers a set of instructions to be the best managers they can be.

It’s interesting to note that Sutton was originally tempted to write a straight-ahead sequel to The No Asshole Rule, but after examining the situations in which many of the book’s stories occurred, he found that a boss was the central figure in nearly every case. Executives that read Good Boss, Bad Boss will be grateful that Sutton chose to focus on formulating a healthy management mindset. The practice of being a good boss requires diligence. Through case studies and research, Sutton reveals the necessary steps to move from a great mindset to transformational actions. As an added bonus, Sutton acknowledges that the bulk of individuals in management positions also report to someone, and he includes observations on surviving the worst flaws of a bad boss.

To download your copy of Good Boss, Bad Boss in any of Soundview’s digital formats, visit Soundview’s Web site Summary.com.

The Importance of Storytelling in Business

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 Jesus was having a discussion with a religious leader. When told that he might enter eternal life if he loved God and loved his neighbor, the man sought to justify himself by asking Jesus who his neighbor was. Jesus replied with the parable (story) of the Good Samaritan. Even though this conversation took place over 2,000 years ago, this story has become one of the best known stories of the last two centuries, even among those that have never read the New Testament. Jesus knew the power of the story.

Stories have always been a part of business communication, but in the last several years a trend has developed around the power of storytelling in business. I found over a dozen business books written in the past decade that specifically teach the importance of storytelling in organizations, whether to improve leadership, to help focus meetings, to sell more effectively, or to build strong teams. There is even a National Storytelling Network.

Robert McKee put it this way in the Harvard Business Review: “A big part of a CEO’s job is to motivate people to reach certain goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story.”

Storytelling is no longer just for CEOs, but the key truth is still the same – storytelling engages the emotions, assisting the speaker in communicating his or her point effectively. In Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences, Nancy Duarte expands this point. Information is static; stories are dynamic – they help an audience visualize what you do or what you believe.

Patrick Lencioni has perfected the art of storytelling in his series of business books, including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Three Signs of a Miserable Job, Silos, Politics and Turf Wars and Getting Naked. Lencioni uses the fable as a way to engage the minds of his readers, communicating the business truths through the characters of the fable.

In The Story Factor, Annette Simmons introduces six story goals:

  • “Who I am” stories – stories that reveal something about how you are.
  • “Why I am here” stories – to reassure the audience about your intentions.
  • “The Vision” story – to transform your vision into the audience’s vision.
  • “Teaching” stories – to communicate certain skills you want others to have.
  • “Values in action” stories – story lets you instill values in a way that keeps people thinking for themselves.
  • “I know what you are thinking” stories – in a story you can identify potential objections and disarm the audience as you build credibility.

Perhaps it’s time to develop your own storytelling skills. The resources above will help and you can read more in our Executive Edge newsletter Learn the Art of Storytelling.