Leadership is a Performing Art

Last Friday I spent the afternoon with colleagues, peers from other organizations, and a group of talented improv geniuses from Second City. The session was quite both intellectually stimulating and a whole lot of fun, and I spent much of the weekend reflecting upon what I had learned.

Perhaps the biggest single lesson that I got out of the session was one that I sometimes seem to forget: leadership is a performing art. The best leaders,  the leaders who challenge us to go faster and higher and further than we ever thought possible, understand how to inspire and motivate us. They connect on a personal level even when addressing a group. They use storytelling and vivid, memorable imagery to share their vision. They get us excited to be part of the change, the journey, the new frontier.

Like any other performance art, leadership is not easy. But like any other performance art, you can learn how to do it, and practice definitely makes one better. It's a lesson to keep in mind.

What Gets Measured?

“What gets measured gets done.”

This saying is ingrained in business culture. It is the cornerstone of management by objectives. It is derided by skeptics who retort that what gets measured gets managed. It is used so often that it has become a cliché. And yet, like so many other clichés, there is a lot of truth in this saying.

Measurement is important. Measurement is especially important in times of transformation. Businesses – like the individuals they employee – simply cannot afford not to know whether they are moving forward or not. And so we get to the critical question: what gets measured gets done, but what gets measured?

There is, of course, no single answer to this question. What is important to one department may be of little consequence to another. There is, however, a yardstick by which you can measure prospective metrics: is it an indicator or a result?

To use an analogy from baseball, it’s the difference between measuring batting averages, home runs, wins and a World Series championship. The first two are indicators; the last two are results. The former track the behaviours and performance that enable the team to achieve the desired results.

Whether you are thinking about organizational performance or your own personal achievements, you will have to identify the metrics that truly measure results. Sometimes it will be easy; other times it will be complicated. As difficult as it may be, however, it is important to make sure you measure the things that truly count. After all, only the most statistically-obsessed fans remember Manuel Lee’s batting average in 1992 but almost every Toronto Blue Jays fan can remember who won the World Series that year.

Transformation from the Trenches

There are a number of clichés in the business world, but the one that irritates me the most is the concept that:

Business = War

I have never been to war, thank goodness, but I think we all know the analogy is an exaggeration.  Business is business. It can be tough and it can be nasty, but it usually isn't fatal. And yet, I slipped right into the business is war cliché yesterday when the firm I work for went through a round of restructuring-related terminations yesterday.

My team experienced its losses early in the morning, which was bad enough. I suppose you could even say we even felt a little shell-shocked. As the day progressed, word of cuts in other departments slowly made their way through the staff grapevine. I felt like someone waiting on the home front as the casualty lists percolated in.