Of Demons and Scapegoats

"A good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem."
- Author unknown

Today is Guy Fawkes Day, UK's most celebrated scapegoat! And today is also the 4th anniversary of the publication of An Inconvenient Renewal, an infamous manifesto written by an obscure public servant (!) calling for better people management in organizations.

In one of my last posts, I told the story of some of the events that unfolded behind the scenes in the months that followed the release of my paper. I also expressed my thoughts on the recent so-called "indiscretion" of a certain Canadian public servant on Twitter.

However, going through the comments left by the readers further to the CBC article, I started seeing another narrative emerging: one of demons and scapegoats.

The word scapegoat is a mistranslation of the word "Azazel". In mythology, Azazel is often portrayed as a demon. In some religions, the scapegoat, or Azazel, is even a symbol for Satan. "The word "scapegoat" has come to mean a person who is blamed and punished for the sins, crimes or sufferings of others, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes." (Source)

"Scapegoating is a known practice in management where a lower staff employee is blamed for the mistakes of senior executives. This is often due to lack of accountability in upper management. For example, a teacher who constantly gets blamed or accused of wrongdoing could be a scapegoat if said teacher is only guilty of doing her job so well that she makes her coworkers and supervisory administration look bad. This could result in letters being placed in permanent files, condescending remarks from co-workers and constant blame finding from administration." (Source)

The explanation for the behaviour is that "social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual." In other words, "scapegoating serves as a psychological relief for a group of people." (Source)

Then I came across this article which makes the case that mobbing is a form of sociological scapegoating which occurs in the workplace:

"Mobbing can be understood as the stressor to beat all stressors. It is an impassioned, collective campaign by co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. Initiated most often by a person in a position of power or influence, mobbing is a desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target. The urge travels through the workplace like a virus, infecting one person after another. The target comes to be viewed as absolutely abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities, outside the circle of acceptance and respectability, deserving only of contempt. As the campaign proceeds, a steadily larger range of hostile ploys and communications comes to be seen as legitimate. [...]

The worker most vulnerable to being mobbed is an average or high achiever who is personally invested in a formally secure job, but who nonetheless somehow threatens or puts to shame co-workers and/or managers. Such a worker provides no legally defensible grounds for termination, yet usually fails to pick up subtle hints and leave voluntarily. An attractive solution, from the majority point of view, is to bring or wear this worker down, one way or another, however long it takes.

As the process drags on, both sides, collective and individual, dig in their heels. It is often as if the targeted worker has grabbed a hot wire and cannot let go, despite the pain and injury it inflicts. The worker’s investment of self and sense of having been deeply wronged prevent the one resolution that would satisfy the other side.

Ironically, it is in workplaces where workers’ rights are formally protected that the complex and devious incursions on human dignity that constitute mobbing most commonly occur. Union shops are one example, as in the case of the factory worker described above. University faculties are another, on account of the special protections of tenure and academic freedom professors have. It happens in police forces, too, since management rights in this setting are tempered by the oath officers swear to uphold the law. Mobbings appear to be much more frequent in the public service as a whole, as compared to private companies."

Obviously, I couldn't help but draw a parallel with the story of the public servant and his tweet, based on the reactions of some of the readers.

So last night I was relating the Twitter case to Pádraig Ó Tuama, a well-known theologian and mediator based in Belfast. He had just attended a two-day course on the work of René Girard on scapegoating (neat coincidence, I know!). I submitted to him my hypothesis that the social media was being demonized and the public servant being punished for his inoffensive tweet was the scapegoat.

The mediator replied: "I could argue that the demon is not the social media, but rather the fear of the social media."

He paused and added: "...Or fear of the communication itself."

His comment reminded me of a line spoken by the character V as William Rockwood in a key scene of the movie V for Vendetta: "But the real genius of their plan was the fear. Fear became the ultimate tool."

What's your take? Is the current attitude in your organization towards social media more conducive to spreading fear or opening up communications?

A Personal Favourite

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine pointed me to an upcoming event at the Canada School of Public Service entitled: Ethics and Social Media in the Public Service.

This combined with the recent case of a public servant who has been disciplined for tweeting something deemed "inappropriate", has had me thinking again about values and ethics in the public service.

I have reread some of my older posts, and found this one in particular to be as current as it was three years ago when I first published it: Values and Ethics in the Public Service of Canada: Tautology or Missed Opportunity?

Not only is it a good introduction for my upcoming post, it is also one of my favourite!

Do You Believe in Santa Claus?

I just came across this article on the CBC website. Apparently, a federal public servant tweeted the following on his personal Twitter account: “Making a spreadsheet and checking it twice, gonna find out which job to slice”.

The article claims that the tweet was meant “to poke fun at the government's strategic review process” by spoofing the famous pagan Christmas song, but some didn't see the humor in it. After removing the tweet, the employee was allegedly "punished" and "transferred to a different office in the same department".

Though the tweet could have been read in the larger context of the recession and worldwide economic uncertainty that are affecting everyone right now, some interpreted the line in the more specific context of strategic review, an expenditure management system the Government of Canada introduced a few years ago. As explained on the Treasury Board Secretariat website, “as a result of these reviews, departments are streamlining operations and realigning their activities to better deliver on the priorities of Canadians through increased effectiveness and efficiencies.” Translation for the government speak illiterate: (job) cuts.

According to a comment posted by user outragean on the CBC page, the tweet was further interpreted by some in light of the employee's position in the department, namely that he was “hired as a special advisor to the ADM” and that he had been in this position for only “a few months”. Still according to user outragean, the tweeter was “working in a cavalier manner”, however being transferred to another project was not a punishment. It's not specified if the transfer was a consequence of the now infamous tweet or something that was in the works prior to the incident.

***

From the gist of the story, I can strongly relate with the public servant who posted the tweet. Actually, I feel for him.

Four years ago I published a paper entitled An Inconvenient Renewal. Shortly after the release, a director from another agency filed a complaint to the Centre for Values, Integrity and Conflict Resolution (VICR) of my department. The basic allegations were that I had "breached the Values and Ethics Code by publicly criticizing the government of Canada’s Public Service Renewal Program". Simply put, my loyalty was called into question. Following receipt of the complaint, the Centre for VICR undertook a review to determine if the allegations were valid. It started right before Christmas 2007, and the assumption that tainted the whole process was that I had been a very naughty boy!

Before the review was concluded, and despite the absence of any evidence that I had done anything wrong - much less breached the Values and Ethics Code - two senior executives from my department who were involved in the review phoned my manager and told him that I should be suspended. Fortunately, my manager knew better than blindly following the advice of people he doesn’t even report to, although they were more senior than him in the hierarchy. Consequently, my manager didn’t act on the suspension recommendation, and instead went as far as stating to the two senior executives that if I was suspended, he himself should probably be suspended as well! (Yeah, I know: you wish this guy was your manager too!)

Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to me, a handful of people were working behind the curtains to prevent my suspension. As it was explained to me years later by consultant David Eaves during an armchair discussion at the Canada School of Public Service in Vancouver, some people were shocked that I was being investigated and on the verge of being suspended for getting involved in Public Service Renewal (as the Clerk of the Privy Council had invited public servants to do), and they brought the matter to the attention of the Big Boss himself.

A few weeks later, Big Boss (Kevin Lynch, then Clerk of the Privy Council) was in Vancouver for a town hall meeting with 1200 federal public servants. I had been asked to facilitate the Q&A period with the Clerk, but just before we launched into the questions, Mr. Lynch publicly recognized the contribution I had made through An Inconvenient Renewal, thanked me, and invited all public servants to get involved as well. The whole session was filmed and copies of the recording were distributed to every Deputy Ministers and Heads of Agencies.

Just a few days later, I received a letter from the Centre for VICR which concluded that I had not breached Values and Ethics Code because I had exercised my "democratic right of freedom of expression" (as per the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom). Was the sudden change of mind pure coincidence? Probably not...

Fast forward a year later. A new senior executive is appointed to the Centre for VICR and after meeting with me apologizes on behalf of the Department for the way I had been treated during the investigation. Aware that my ass had been saved only thanks to the intervention of some outsiders like David Eaves, a couple of very senior people and the intervention of the Clerk himself, I subsequently tried to seek clarification from the Centre for VICR, more specifically: “If tomorrow I would published An Inconvenient Renewal and no person of influence would take my defense, would I get suspended?”.

I never got an answer, but when I was appointed into a job two-and-a-half years later, the same person who had recommended my suspension initiated within two days an investigation into my appointment and for the first four or five months "stick-handled" it, all the way through Christmas time. Santa Claus cut me no slack that year, even though the investigation was allegedly prompted by an anonymous and undocumented phone call to this senior executive (how convenient!). Of course, you can rest assure that the whole investigation was carried out promptly, as well as in a fair and transparent manner.... (hint of cynicism here...)

Ten months after the start of the investigation and still awaiting a final result, I was told in no uncertain terms that the investigation was meant to "teach me a lesson". Yes, in the public service some lessons are best learned the “hard way”. (This is the reason why I have been so quiet on this blog for the last two years...)

***

This brings me back to the public servant who was tweeting Christmas carols in a brief moment of inspiration that only an Excel spreadsheet can provide...

My main worry for him is that right now he too is being taught a lesson the hard way. I’m worried that some people might have made a fuss about his tweet not because of the actual content of the tweet (after all, there’s only so much you can say in 140 characters and there is just too much room for assumptions about the context, intentions, or actual meaning of the message), but rather because of underlying issues of jealousy and resentment resulting perhaps from the enviable position of the employee in the organization, his quick rise, his portfolio, personal vendetta, you name it... (if you've worked in the public service too, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

I’m also worried that there are probably a few people who see how they can better their own situation by making this snafu a bigger issue than it really is, and perhaps even propel their own career forward by making an example of that rogue employee. For instance, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how someone may want to show how effective are the new Codes of Conduct introduced by departments and agencies further to the requirement set out in the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. These Codes of Conduct greatly expand the latitude managers have to administer discipline (ranging from verbal or written reprimand to suspension or even dismissal). It would be quite easy for a decision-maker to administer a disciplinary measure that is disproportionate compared to the fault.

In fact, in “The Critical Failure of Workplace Ethics”, Gordon Lafer asks whether workplace ethics are “merely useless, or actually harmful?” and takes the position that ethics in organizations are in fact a disguise for power. He also talks about the imbalance of power relations in the workplace and how so-called questions of ethics can “seem like an attempt to mask the offensiveness of the state structure by focusing on marginal decisions and imbuing the bureaucrats of repression with the air of deep moral thinkers.”

Gonna find out who's naughty or nice!

***

One question that has been haunting me since I read the CBC article - and one I hope the decision-makers will consider in the current case - is the following: If the employee, rather than writing down his thoughts in a tweet, would have made the exact same comment to the exact same audience, but done so verbally around the water cooler, would he be punished and transferred?

The answer is obvious: no. The worst thing that would have happened would be his manager taking him aside and explaining him how the comment might be perceived by the audience in the absence of context and given the employee’s role within the department (assuming there is a connection, of course).

End of story. No harm done, no disciplinary measure taken, no job transfer, and most importantly a small but valuable lesson learned by an employee who is now that much wiser and whose energy and talent can now be channeled on things that matter.

***

To this employee, I would like to offer a practical tip. Next time, leave Santa out of the equation. Instead, tweet this: “Making a spreadsheet and wondering which jobs will be cut. What Would Jesus Do?”. At least this way if any complaint is filed, your Values and Ethics unit may conclude that you were exercising your “freedom of religion”.

I’m kidding of course. I mean, really: it’s a joke... A JOKE! Get it?

There is no substitute for wisdom

Let's start the year on the right foot with this inspiring TED talk by Barry Schwartz:

"The problem with relying on rules and incentives is that they demoralize professional activity [...] in two senses: First, they demoralize the people who are engaged in the activity [...]. Second, they demoralize the activity itself. The very practice is demoralized and the practitioners are demoralized."

I also have a related post on rules and thoughtlessness, which was also inspired by a talk by Barry Schwartz at TED.

An Inconvenient Renewal: Still Relevant?

"An Inconvenient Renewal: Are Managers Ready to Change the Way They Manage?" is three years old today!

The paper's website has received 4,492 visitors since November 5, 2007 (an imperfect measure, I acknowledge), not counting those who came across the document in some other fashion. That's about 2% of the federal public service.

But is the topic still relevant? I would like to hear your thoughts...

The Rat Pack is back!

Hello loyal readers!

I know, I know. I have been a very bad b...logger! ;-)

After a hiatus of over a year, and much hesitation, I will soon be resuming my speaking and blogging activities. I probably wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't for the fact that I was recently invited to be on a panel with my two fellow "rat packers", David Eaves and Nick Charney.

Come join us on October 8, 2010! (see poster below).

Characteristics of Contrarian Thinking

"Contrarian thinking is characterized by these elements:

• Conventional wisdom is not simply accepted as wisdom
• Current practices are always scrutinized for better ways
• The questions “why” or “why not” are frequent
• Knowing what others are doing and why is constant
• Multiple voices are encouraged to speak into issues
• Risk taking and innovation are valued
• Leveraging for maximum ministry results is the constant goal
• Thinking grey is common"

- T.J. Addington

Blog Post and Article Recommendations

1. 22 Awful Employee Engagement Mistakes
2. How To Motivate Employees - Newsflash: It’s Not a Manager’s Job
3. Head’s Up – You’re About to be Promoted or Fired
4. Want to know why professors don't teach?
5. A Bridge to Nowhere…
6. HR – Not Dead Yet
7. Unseen Bias and Discrimination Exists? - Even in HR
8. Culture? Ask A Worm
9. Five Barriers to Change
10. Dr. Russell Ackoff on Systems Thinking
11. The Ambidextrous Professional Learning Community
12. Disruptive Ideas: The open management book about organisational transformation that can start now

Summer's Top 150: Last Installment

It's the last day of summer already, and there you have it: the 150+ blog posts, articles, presentations, podcasts and videos I've come across over the last 3 months. Here's the final installment:

1. If there's a single link from this Summer's Top 150 you need to check out, this is the one: a great slide show on company culture, and very relevant to the public service.
2. Forget excellence - Be outstanding!
3. Realigning Your Role
4. Owning Your Career
5. Behavior never lies
6. Execute or die
7. Maybe (New Michael Jordan Commercial) - I just like the implication for employees :-)
8. The New Employee Retention Crisis: Retaining Low Performers
9. What are you thinking about
10. Employee Engagement: You Are Not the Boss of Me.
11. Multitasking, marijuana, managing?
12. When weak management pushes top performers out the door
13. Behaving badly
14. Facebook Friending Policy
15. 5 Ways HR Can Poise a Firm for Growth?
16. It takes two baby!

Summer's Top 150: Miscellaneous

A bit of everything today...

Henry Mintzberg, my all-time favourite management author, released his new book "Managing" this summer, and it's starting to get some attention. See here, here and here - or this video interview.

HR

1. Why new hires fail - here are the causes
2. Do not conduct Exit Interviews
3. How to Fix Succession Planning

Technology

1. Did You Know 4.0 (Fall 200
2. A No Bulls*#% Manager's Guide to Internet Use at Work
3. 9 Hidden Benefits of Blogging

Resource

1. Steve Cunningham has a neat website where he summarizes in a short video the key points of the management books he reads. Here's one I liked.
2. Self-Coaching Guides: Communication, Leadership, Motivation
3. 10 Free Leadership Video Sites

Funny!

1. Idea Killer B.I.N.G.O.
2. Idiots from Corporate II
3. The worst part of work
4. Does Facebook Flunk Your Performance Review?
5. Manager Achieves Full Mastery Of Pointless Managerial Jargon
6. Staff strip naked to improve morale
7. Employee Engagement Humor Video: Belgium versus Japanese Office
8. The Words You Wear

Summer's Top 150: Personal Development

It's not just up to our bosses and supervisors to change; we too have something to learn and improve:

1. A Tendency to Blame and an Inability to Confront
2. Stopping a victim mentality (taking responsibility for your life)
3. Two Steps to Simplify Your Workday
4. Want a Great Primer in Leadership? Work for a Bastard and Take Notes
5. 3-3 quick tips for Listening Skills
6. Respectfully Speaking, Your Respect for Others Will Serve You Well
7. Criticism - Much Ado About “Nothing”
8. Screw Your Career Path. Live Your Story
9. What Stories Are in Your Bedrock?
10. Monday LeaderTip: How to Stop Coasting
11. My 10 Favorite Leadership Lessons
12. 11 Steps To Being A Better Leader
13. 100 Ways to Be a Better Leader
14. What is your Signature difference?
15. Defining your job
16. 12 Keys to Greater Self-Awareness
17. Overcome the 3 Reasons Leaders Fail To Reflect On The Past
18. How To Be Coachable
19. Making Amends
20. So you think you can lead?
21. Intelligent, But Not Wise
22. How to Coax Feedback out of a Reluctant Manager
23. To Multitask Effectively, Focus on Value, Not Volume
24. Our Responses to Online Content Match Our Responses to Collaboration
25. The Three Sins of Teamwork at School
26. Better Meetings: Decide How To Decide
27. How to Make Knowledge Work Fun
28. Two Voices on: The Words of a Leader
29. Trumpets
30. Re-Visioning Visionary Leaders
31. What Is A Leadee?
32. 7 Signs of Creative Professional Learning Communities
33. Questions of Accountability for Professional Learning Communities
34. Professional Learning Communities Overcome Collaboration Barriers Through Unifying Goals
35. How Groups Form, Conform, Then Warp Our Decision-Making, Productivity and Creativity
36. 10 Rules That Govern Groups
37. Why Group Norms Kill Creativity
38. Overcoming the “Hoarding” Barrier in Professional Learning Communities
39. 11 Traits of Highly Creative Students
40. 20 Ways to Get Mentally Tough
41. 9 Ways to Beat Negativity
42. Feed the Positive Dog
43. Strengths and Purpose
44. 20 Great Coaching Questions that can Catalyze Breakthroughs
45. How Are You Defying "Best Practice"?

Summer's Top 150: Supervision & Performance Management

I know, I know. This "dump post" includes way too many articles. But the topic is soooo important!

1. Three Questions for Potential Managers to Ask Themselves
2. New Managers: Alone and Out of Their Depths
3. Middle Managers: The Meat in the Sandwich
4. Caring for Your People: Part of the Boss's Job
5. The Penny Challenge
6. How to Have More Productive Performance Appraisals
7. The Dreaded Performance Review
8. Straight Talk in a Slump
9. What Leaders Can Learn from a Doctor About How to Deliver Bad News
10. 7 Mistakes Bosses Make When Giving Criticism
11. Ask Three Questions to Clarify Expectations
12. Managers Who Coach Ask Questions That Enlighten
13. Managers Who Coach: Overcome Dependency
14. Develop Outstanding Employees Utilizing Effective Feedback
15. Better Mentoring
16. Adding a few points to Seth on leadership
17. How To Inaugurate Effectiveness In Your Project Team
18. If You Want Accountability, You Must Grant Authority
19. It’s Not About FINDING Talent. It’s about IDENTIFYING and TAPPING What You Already Have
20. Promotions and job fit
21. What Alienates Top Performers
22. Rewarded Employees Work Harder
23. The Art of Giving Praise
24. Leading Clever People
25. Nine Ways to Identify Natural Leaders
26. How to Identify Your Employees' Hidden Talents
27. Empowering Leaders: Hand Over Your Keys
28. Handling Quit-and-Stays
29. Problem children: Dealing with whiney, crybaby malcontents in your ranks
30. Management Interview Questions and Answers
31. What makes a good boss?
32. Stop Demotivating Me!
33. Leadership: Intentional Influence
34. Does Your Do Match Your Tell?
35. How to Handle the Pessimist on Your Team
    

Summer's Top 150: Employee Engagement

Third installment of the summer's Top 150:

1. I'm On A Mission to Ban Motivation Programs - Join the Movement
2. Happiness at work at Zappos
3. Engaging for Success: The MacLeod Review
4. High Commitment, High Performance Management
5. Labor Daze
6. Workplace Relations – Building Trust at Workplace
7. How Employee Engagement Turned Around Campbell's
8. Four Simple Ways to Make Your Employees Happier
9. The Secret Responsibilities of a Leader
10. 22 Ways Employees Benefit From Their Own Engagement
11. Who is Responsible for Employee Engagement?

Summer's Top 150: Change Management

For this second "dump post" of the week, I present you my favourite resources of the summer on change management:

1. Results, Relationships, Leadership and the Brain
2. Why we only listen to what we want to hear
3. 7 Reasons Leaders Fail
4. Bad Leader! Stifling Dissent
5. How to Speak to an Unruly Crowd
6. On Change: Inclination, Motivation, Action
7. So you want to be a Change Agent?
8. The Hazards of Leading Culture Change
9. Don't Give Up on Change
10. In Praise of Non-conformity
11. How leaders embed and transmit culture
12. It's All About Trust
13. Leading Self With Character: Courage
14. Why Should Anyone Be Led By You
15. 5 Positive Leadership Strategies
16. I'll Change If You Tell Me What You Really Want

Summer's Top 150: Management Thought

It has been nearly two months since I have posted anything on my blog, and exactly three months since I have shared any article recommendation.

I'm going to make up for the lost time by doing a 6-part blitz of the 150 best articles / blog posts / podcasts / videos that I have come across over the summer. So brace yourself!!!

1. Gary Hamel's “moonshots for management”, part 1, 2, and 3
2. Essential Reading for Management Revolutionaries
3. More Must-Reads for Management Revolutionaries
4. Management MUST Be Reinvented
5. Just Managing
6. The Elitist Undertones of Leadership
7. Leadership Is Responsibility, Not Power
8. Rethinking the MBA
9. Managers Not MBAs: Debating the Merits of Business Education
10. Searching for balance (Interview with Henry Mintzberg)
11. Long time blogger Carmine Coyote retires from blogging

A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal: What Happens When Managers Change the Way They Manage

If you have been following my work over the last couple of years, you may be wondering if I actually practice what I preach with regards to organization renewal, change management, and most importantly, people management.

Every three years, the federal public service of Canada administers a government-wide survey called the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES). The 2005 PSES was administered just a week before I joined my current organization. The last PSES was administered in November and December 2008, and the results were released a few weeks ago. I have done the analysis, and the results speak for themselves: renewal is possible, and yes, people management does make a difference!

I have just put together a document entitled "A Not-So-Inconvenient Renewal: What Happens When Managers Change the Way They Manage". It presents the dramatic progress made by my organization between 2005 and 2008, as measured by the PSES.

The document is an epilogue to “An Inconvenient Renewal: Are Public Service Managers Ready to Change the Way They Manage?”, a paper I released in 2007 in which I stressed the importance of good people management and argued that while top-down change has its merits, many of the things that would make the most significant and palpable difference don’t happen at the top of the organization, but rather at the field level in the everyday interactions between managers and their employees.

I hope the PSES results will convince you that when managers change the way they manage, the ripple effects can be felt throughout the organization. To learn more about the renewal efforts in my organization, you may browse through some of the links featured in the side-bar of my blog under the header "My Websites, Papers, and Other Initiatives".

Enjoy you reading, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any question.

Awesome Reading Recommendations

I've been away for the last two weeks, both for work and leisure. When I returned I had over 300 articles waiting for me in my RSS reader. I managed to process them all, and here are my top recommendations, arranged by themes:

On Staffing:

1. Interviewing Doesn’t Work
2. The Job Mismatch Problem - The Five Costs of the Wrong Employee In The Wrong Seat
3. Interview questions for a Team Leader

On Thinking:

1. Executive Behaviors, Your Boss Has No Clothes and Revolution from the Bottom
2. Risk, Bravado and Their Consequences
3. Change Your Thinking To Change Your Results!
4. Being Strategic: The Antidote to Fear

On Collaboration:

1. 8 Suggestions to Improve Your Team’s Problem Solving Skills
2. 12 Ways To Listen
3. The Ten Cultural Elements Of Collaboration In [Communities]
4. Collective Intelligence (video)
5. Toe Stepping Up The Corporate Ladder (a satire!)

On creativity and innovation:

1. What is the True Value of Creativity to Organizations?
2. Cultivate A Culture of Creativity
3. The How of Innovation
4. Twitter's Ten Rules For Radical Innovators
5. Prospect theory, risk and innovation

On Leadership:

1. Leadership and the Art of Apology
2. How Do You Spot an Emerging Leader?
3. Leading By Example & Mistaken Beliefs
4. Leveraging Your Strengths
5. Learning from Mistakes Takes the Right Feedback
6. Everybody Knows About Your Weaknesses – Do You?
7. Don’t Gamble On Your Performance Review
8. Three Important Questions
9. Stop Making Excuses
10. Exert Ownership in Your Workplace
11. The Circle of Care
12. 8 Steps for Acting on Inspiration
13. Culture and Engagement
14. Rejecting the Default Culture
15. Trauma Free Renewal
16. 3 Paths to Development
17. Authority, Leadership, and Truth
18. Generals Win Battles but Sergeants Win Wars
19. What Leaders Must Do Next

Miscellaneous:

1. Your Firm’s Values Have No Teeth
2. Going Beyond MBA Oaths
3. Battling it Out During Tough Times: MBAs vs. Entrepreneurs
4. Is it Time to Sell My Management Books?
5. 5 Reasons You Keep Getting Stuck

And my favourite quote of the week:

"If you perform at your personal best, doing everything possible to make a success of the immediate situation, then doing it as a ‘leader’ or a ‘follower’ has no meaning." (Miki Saxon)

Dump Post: New Format

I'm back from a short but activity-packed vacation in Tofino with my old friend Patrick Di Fruscia who I had not seen in nearly 10 years. In addition to being a great travel companion, Patrick taught me a few photography tricks and as a result, I felt like my pictures improved in a matter of just a few days. Still, I have quite a bit of work to do before I can catch up to the level of his talent.

Speaking of photography, a new picture of the Tiananmen Square protests' "Tank Man" was published last week. I have used the photo seen across the world in one of my presentation to illustrate courage, but I find this new picture even more dramatic, as "Tank Man" can be seen walking towards the tanks, while everyone else is running in the opposite direction. I wonder what happened to him. I hope someday we will find out.

Some readers have written to me asking for a brief description of what the links I recommend are about. I'm testing the new format. Here we go:

1. I've never been a big fan of the "symphony conductor as leader" analogy, but this post is actually quite good: 8 Things Leaders Can Learn from Symphony Conductors.
2. Ann Bares asks "whether we should focus on being the best places or the best high performance places to work" in Rewards Metrics: Engagement versus the Bottom Line.
3. Carmine Coyote offers a very interesting perspective on motivation in Musings About Motivation and Mike Chitty responds.
4. Lots of interesting comments to Gary Hamel's post about "deep-seated impediments". The one left by Kausar Fahim especially rings true with me.
5. MBAs have been getting a pretty bad rep lately, and this podcast entitled MBA: Most Bloody Awful explains why.
6. Want to learn how to make a good presentation? Here are some lessons learned from TED and Change This, and Six Secrets of Top Communicators.
7. Art Petty offers a common sense approach to management in general and project management
8. Chris Brogan distinguishes between audience and community.
9. Mark Gould navigates the seven Cs of knowledge.
10. David Eaves discusses Public Service and Citizen Engagement in the Information Age.
11. Three ways to impress your employees
12. In what I found to be one of the most profound presentations ever made at TED, Liz Coleman issues a call to reinvent liberal arts education and criticizes the fact that "the expert has dethroned the educated generalist to become the sole model of intellectual accomplishment". Watching her talk, I could think of quite a few implications for change management and the federal public service.
    

Your feedback is always appreciated.

A Bigger One!

I know some of you would like me to comment on each link I share in these "dump posts" or at least give a snippet for what the article is about, but that will have to wait (I just can't make the time for it right now)! In the meantime, enjoy the best of the last week:

1. Making presentations in the TED style
2. "Sir, we don't actually do what we propose. We just propose it."
3. 4 Tips for Efficient Succession Planning
4. Smart Stuff from HiringSmart
5. You Don’t Know Everything
6. Stepping Up & Intrinsic Rewards
7. The Utility of Paradigm Shifting for Professional Learning Communities
8. The Geometry of Employee Engagement
9. Change is Good: The Movie
10. Three ways to impress your boss
11. The World We Live In ORC 09
12. The times they are a-changin’
13. Hope Springs Eternal for HR & Leadership
14. The Tyranny of Consensus
15. The Importance of Clarity - pt II
16. The Cost of Everyday Interruptions
17. Would you pass a stress test?
18. Over Half of Employees Say Their Managers Are Ineffective
19. Five Steps To Better Employee Communications
20. Dealing with workplace negativity
21. Combatting Negativity, Changing Attitudes in the Workplace
22. We Are Only What We Do…
23. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 11

A Big One!

Many good articles to recommend this week:

1. The Power of Frustration
2. Supervision: Take the Time for Proper Job Instruction
3. Why I Hate the “Sandwich” Technique for Delivering Feedback
4. What Leadership List Are You On?
5. 5 Tips to Get the Feedback You Need Now
6. Lack of Communication You Say?
7. An Open and Shut Case
8. The problem with Web 2.0 in Government
9. What, Really, Is Employee Engagement?
10. Creating a Winning Culture
11. The Alphabet of Creativity
12. Do You End Meetings On Time?
13. Your Personal Brand Equation
14. Leadership Top 3 Meme in its Entirety
15. Real Leaders Ask
16. Ten Leadership Skills You Need For An Uncertain World