Better Speakers, Better Leaders, Better Communicators

I've just completed a term as president of my local Toastmasters club, Gateway to Speaking Excellence. During my year in office, the theme of the club was the same as the title of this blog post. When asked to describe Toastmasters, I say something like this:  “Toastmasters is a safe-to-succeed, safe-to-fail environment in which we practice becoming better speakers, better leaders, and better communicators every single day.”

Wondering about the cheesy name?

Insubordination and followership

Browsing Bloomberg the other day I found Rosabeth Moss Kanter's review of Obama's firing of General McChrystal from a management and leadership perspective.  It was a reprint from a Harvard Business Review blog.  HBR has a couple of other posts around the firing that might be interesting, including this one and this one.

Two energy giants

With all of the emotional charge swirling around BP as of late, I thought it might be interesting to look at a couple of other players in the energy markets.

BP is sitting at just under $30 a share and market capitalization just under $93B, about half of where it was pre-Gulf-oil-spill crisis.  The dividend has been canceled for the first three quarters of 2010, and it's being reported in Bloomberg and elsewhere that a cash injection could be coming in the next few days to stave off takeover bids.

The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

Malcolm Gladwell, a writer at The New Yorker magazine, has become better known for his books than his articles in recent years.  He has written a string of bestsellers in the new millenium:  The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw.  Gladwell fittingly started with The Tipping Point, a view into understanding change.

Are You Done?

A teacher, one of four teachers in an elementary school, is frustrated at work. This teacher, let's call her Carol, is one of four 4^th grade teachers, and is also the newest. She is finishing her first year in this school, and one of the other teachers (her name can be Sally) has been assigned as her mentor.

The three teachers keep their doors open, plan class activities together, and sit together at lunch.

Sally's approach to mentoring revealed itself early in the year. She introduced Carol to the others, and casually said that Carol could reach out with any questions. Sally and the other two teachers continued to plan joint class activities, and talk with one another. When Carol would join their group, she realized that the majority of their time was spent gossiping about other teachers – and Carol wondered if they talked about her when she wasn't there as well.

Carol's approach to teaching is a little different from the others. She closes her door, spends less time outside with her class, and uses teaching techniques that are slightly different from the other 4^th grade teachers – but in line with her pedagogy and prior teaching experience.

Near the end of the school year Carol confronted the other teachers about excluding her from planning the last event, something of a send-off for the students. The three other teachers had planned an event for their classes outside, and excluded Carol yet again. Words were exchanged.

The Selfishness of Good Deeds

Interesting article posted yesterday on FoxNews.com from Nancy Colasurdo called "The Selfishness of Good Deeds."  Very quick read - maybe 2 minutes?

Nancy writes, "What in the heck is so wrong with feeling good that you’re helping someone? When did anything that makes the “self” feel better become so frowned upon?"

She's touching on something we explore from time to time in discussing the value proposition - that give vs. get:  what you get is often not monetary.  Keith Ferrazzi touches on this as well in his writings, that there are several currencies with which we are able to exchange.

Span of Control

Recently we tackled an organizational design project. This particular project, like most, included determining the appropriate organizational shape.

Organizational shape is exactly what it sounds like – if you're looking at an org chart. People talk about flat organizations, tall organizations, etc. A flat organization is one that has a lot of direct reports for every manager, and a tall one has fewer. If you're staring at an org chart, you can see the difference in the “shape” of the chart, a rough triangle with the head of the organization at the top.

The number of direct reports a manager has is that manager's span of control.