What I find interesting is who they selected and what is innovative about the company.  Here are a couple of examples.

Occupy Movement #7.  Why innovative?  "Transparent.  Tech savvy.  Design savvy.  Local and global.  Nimble.  Values-driven."

Southern New Hampshire University #12.  Why innovative?  The university wanted to "create the business model that blows up our current business model."  They are now the largest online-degree provider in New England.  What makes their online-degree programs different than other online providers?  Treating their students as customers and respecting their opinions.  One example is their software system that tracks a "slew of factors that predict success" for students. 

Greenbox #17, a children's clothier based in Shanghai.  Why innovative?  Greenbox turned down Disney's offer to manufacture a line of Disney-branded apparel.  Why?  The company didn't want their brand name subsumed by Disney's.  Instead, Greenbox persuaded Disney to collaborate with them by having the labels on the clothing read "Disney By Greenbox."

Do the quizzes, games and brainteasers that can help you rate the "Fab Four" compared to Fast Company.  Enjoy!

At the end of my last blog, I asked two questions:

• How do leaders release their anchors when they are liabilities?
• How do leaders enter into deep change?

We recognize when to release our anchor (ego) when change is looming in the forefront, but we resist it, we lose energy and hope, we stay in our comfort zone, and we stay focused on our own needs.  An example is when a leader gravitates toward routine tasks and is not aware of all the "critical things that were going on around" him or her.  The leader is not leading the organization, but rather is living in one's zone of comfort.  Robert Quinn calls this the "Normal State" which is to be externally directed, internally closed, self-focused, and comfort centered.  

When leaders lead from the "Normal State," the more difficult it becomes to enter into deep change, because it means LETTING GO OF CONTROL!  Quinn says, "We avoid this and continue in our efforts to preserve our current organizational equilibrium and our current ego.  We espouse a desire to create new results while in fact our primary desire is to stay in our zone of comfort."  Hmm.  My sense is Congress is in the "Normal State" as political leaders.  

So, how do leaders move out of the "Normal State?"  Quinn's answer is to enter the "Fundamental State of Leadership" where leaders become internally driven, externally open, other-focused, and purpose-centered (see diagram).  What does that mean?  Leaders:

• clarify what results they want to create,
• commit to move forward without knowledge or control,
• insist on getting accurate feedback on how they lead, and
• care more deeply about what they are trying to accomplish vs. preserving one's ego.

Two questions to ponder:

• When does your ego drive what you do vs. the results you want to achieve?
• When do you resist change because it feels more comfortable to stay where you are?

Let's encourage each other to pay attention to our anchors and when we need to let them go!

Ships have anchors to hold it in place.  Is the anchor useful?  Absolutely.  Without the anchor, the ship drifts aimlessly.  But what happens when the anchored ship is caught in a sudden storm?  If the ship's crew doesn't let the anchor go, the ship will be swamped by waves.  The crew cuts their ties to the anchor to ride out the storm in the sea.  "They needed to be free from what was normally a useful source of stability.  Their lives depended on it."  So, the anchor can be an ASSET and a LIABILITY.  A paradox!

Individuals and organizations have their respective anchors that serve both as an asset and a liability.  As individuals, our systems of beliefs or "ego" are our anchors.  For organizations, anchors are imbedded in their culture or "ego."  These anchors are sources of stability in how best to cope in our world.

Quinn says that "individuals and organizations are often confronted by storms" like ships out in sea.  What are those storms?  For individuals, it may be coping with job loss or changes.  For organizations, it be coping with financial difficulties, or customers no longer knocking on the door.  Quinn says these storms are signals of danger, a call for "transformation" or a deep change.  Often we resist rather than accept the need for deep change.  We live in denial.  We refuse to give up control.  We strive to "stay in our zone of comfort and control."  We hold onto our anchors which now become liabilities. And, so we begin a slow death.  

To accept the need for deep change is a transformation process where we enter a period where ambiguity and the unknown will reign.  For leaders, they are entering a stage where they're leading people without really knowing where they are going.

How do leaders release their anchors?  How do leaders enter into deep change?  I'll share that process in my next blog later in February. 

If you are a member of GenFlux then you see your business future as pure chaos, but will thrive in it.  The contention is a new business climate is rapidly evolving, one of fluidity, chaos, unstable and filled with ambiguity.  There are people in our world that thrive in such a business climate and businesses better be prepared for this new type of world.

If we thought that businesses should focus on managing uncertainity and change, well your wrong.  The "true challenge," according to Dev Patnaik, cofounder and CEO of strategy firm Jump Associates is, "in an increasingly turbulent and interconnected world, ambiguity is rising to unprecedented levels.  That's something our current systems can't handle."

Patnaik goes on to say that "most big organizations are good at solving clear but complicated problems.  They're absolutely horrible at solving ambiguous problems - when you don't know what you don't know.  Faced with ambiguity, their gears grind to a halt." 

The article features several members of GenFlux and how they thrive in this new business climate.  Their ages range from their 20's to 60's. 

Do you think we are rapidly moving to a business climate that is characterized by GenFlux?  Is chaos and ambiguity the new climate we are moving to? 

Their research led them to the question, "Just what is the role of luck?"  To what degree did luck play in the success of the 10Xers?  How do you measure luck?  And, what about bad luck?

Collins and Hansen found "230 significant luck events" in their research.  What they found was that the 10X cases "weren't generally 'luckier' than the comparison cases." 

What is told in the Sunday N.Y. Times story "What's luck got to do with it?" is their study of how luck played out in several busineess, one of which is Microsoft and Bill Gates.  They contend Bill Gates was really lucky.  However, Gates' choices he made at certain times in his life led him to success.  Choices that anyone else could have made, but didn't.  

Collins and Hansen conclude that getting a "high ROL required a new mental muscle.  There are smart decisions and wise decisions.  And one form of wisdom is the ability to judge when to let luck disrupt our plans."  

Great article and insight about the role of luck.  So, did luck play a part in your business success?  

What makes this school in Los Altos more interesting are the parents who send their children to learning environment - employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple and Yahoo!  

What will you see in this school?  "Blackboards with colorful chalk, bookshelves with encyclopedias, wooden desks filled with workbooks and No. 2 pencils."  That's what school looked like for me in the 50's.  So, what is the learning like?  How do students learn?  And, is "technology a distraction when we need literacy, numeracy and critical thinking?"

Read the article from The Sunday New York Times, October 23.  Your thoughts?

Many times I've been told by supervisors and managers that "I don't have time to coach direct reports, or to be accessible to them because my time is committed to meetings, projects and other assignments."  As a result, employee performance suffers and then managers are faced with performance and behavior problems. 

What a mess this creates because a company's culture won't allow managers and supervisors to do what is most important - be a good coach and being accessible to direct reports.

Now comes a major study from inside Google called "Project Oxygen" that was designed to build better bosses.  Here are a few highlights of what they found:

• Technical expertise ranked dead last among Google's "Eight Good Behaviors" to be a better manager.
• Be a good coach was ranked first - provide feedback and have regular one-on-one time with employees. That also means being accessible to staff, instead of giving time to projects.
• Managers had a much greater impact on employees' performance and how they felt about their job than any other factor.  

Contemplative leadership integrates the awareness that a leader develops from living in unified relationships with SELF, OTHERS, NATURE and GOD (or higher being) with the actions required of a leader.  Developing these four relationships transforms the source and focus of a leader's influence and vision.  They guide a leader's ethical behavior, create trust, and provide the deeper meaning and purpose for achieving a group or organization's mission.  Contemplative leaders seek to realize human potential and improve the human condition.  (From The Merton Institute for Contemmplative Living) 

Questions:

• How does the description of contemplative leadership compare to your experience of leadership?
• Is contemplative leadership a relevant approach for leaders and organizations today?

I welcome your comments!

In a recent The Washington Times, it was reported that from 1990 to 2009, “the percentage of sexual harassment claims filed by men has doubled from 8 percent to 16 percent of all claims, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).”  Wow, that’s quite a jump.  But what’s also interesting is while the overall number of sexual harassment complaints has declined with the EEOC, male claims have increased.  And, most claims involve men harassing men.  So, what’s going on men?

• More men are coming forward and complaining about it.

• It may be unwelcome romantic advances by female supervisors.

• Men are picked on because they are gay or perceived as being gay.

• Men are considered not masculine enough, i.e., viewed as effeminate, for the work setting.

When I conduct sexual harassment training and bring up male-male sexual harassment, most people shake their heads in disbelief.  However, it is a reality and needs to be addressed in an employer’s training program.  Why?  Because the law makes no distinction between gender in harassment cases.   

His premise – “keep a constant flow of legal immigrants into our country is the key to keeping us ahead of China.”  Friedman argues “the most important economic competition is no longer between countries or companies.  It is between you and your own imagination.”  What isn’t a commodity is our imagination, the ability to spark new ideas.  And these high school kids have ideas, which they presented at a banquet that Friedman attended.  Friedman was so inspired by the youth that maybe the future will be O.K. “if we can just get a few things right – immigration, education standards, bandwidth, and fiscal policy.”

What is your thought on Friedman’s opinion that the most important economic competition is between you and your own imagination?