LeadWorkPlay

Stuart Brown, M.D. is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, clinical researcher and the founder of the National Institute for Play.  He has spent his career conducting more than six thousand “play histories” of human beings across the spectrum – from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners.

(As any overworked parent can attest to, no surprise that murderers don’t get enough personal play time!)

Seriously, Brown’s research has landed him on PBS, the cover of The New York Times Magazine, and the pages of O: The Oprah Magazine.  The man knows his stuff.  And his mission is to shift our perspective of play as only a guilty pleasure that distracts from our real work and responsibilities.

As a result, most of us have a “play deficit” that is seriously holding us back. In my coming posts, I’ll tell you more about what Brown has to say in his book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. Including diagnosing your play personality type and what that means for bringing more play into your work and life.

But in the meantime, take a look at Stuart’s TED talk on why play is vital – including how play that uses the hands is critical to problem solving skills. (And don’t miss the husky and the polar bear!)

http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

Sir Ken Robinson, a leading thinker in the field of education, poses the following question: How do we educate our children for a world that we increasingly cannot plan for? Take a moment and really think about that question.   How DO you deal with a world you can neither anticipate nor control?  What worked in the past can no longer be counted on.  The old rules may no longer apply.  And key factors are no longer fixed, but variable and shift faster than expected.

Sir Ken makes an eloquent case that, in a world driven by technology and constant change, creativity is now as important as literacy. His dry British humor delivers his message in a hilariously funny way at times (if you’re a fan of dry, British wit, which I happen to be). Check out his short video: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Sir Ken’s ISN’T kidding when he says that schools kill creativity.  And that as a society, we must rethink our definition of intelligence. This includes how that drives our primary and secondary education strategy – because education is meant to take us into a future that we cannot hope to grasp.

This creativity imperative isn’t just driving change at the grade and high school levels.  The value of higher education in America (college/university-based learning) is also in serious question. Not only for our teenage sons and daughters in search of bachelor’s degree, but for adults with established careers who: a) need to stay current and cutting edge in their field; or b) need to reinvent themselves after losing a job.

In the old model, an education is a “product” with standardized content that we “purchased” at specific times in our life – and once paid for, degree in hand, you’re done.   If Sir Ken is right, then it is time to change our paradigm.  Education must become a service that teaches the skills of creativity, analytical thinking, and continuous learning throughout one’s working life-time.

Give yourself a quick break right now from your (probably non-creative) work day and watch his video.  It will make you laugh and make you think totally differently about the value of your own creativity.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

In my last newsletter I introduced the topic of creativity and play:

If you need a little more help in justifying some time away from work, here you go: play is serious business. Medical researchers, education experts and leading business thinkers are increasingly making the bottom line case for the power of play. Because play is the play-ground for creativity. And bottom line, our ability as a species — to adapt to constant change and to innovate new products, services and markets — is literally impossible without it.

In a new survey of 1,500 chief executives, IBM’s Institute for Business Value discovered a surprising and significant shift in the No. 1 ability CEOs now look for in hiring talent. Not operational effectiveness. Not intelligence, influence or work ethic — but creativity.

BusinessWeek. “What Chief Executives Really Want.” May 19, 2010. (http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/109596/what-chief-executives-really-want?mod=career-leadership)

Creativity and innovation are vital to our future – as individuals (at work/in our careers) and as a global economic power. Yet in our 24/7, technology-saturated world we are LOSING the fundamental abilities required to innovate – focus and play.

In my next several postings, I’ll make the case for increasing play in your life and tell you what the experts have to say. If you are serious about a successful career…or if you ever find yourself living a life of all work and no play… believe me this is something you’ll want to know more about.

Many years ago I was privileged to work inside The Coca-Cola Company under the leadership of Roberto Goizueta. After a long and dedicated career with the company, Robert died at age 65 of cancer. The day he died was the first board meeting he missed since he became chairman of the soft drink giant 16 years earlier.

During Roberto’s tenure at the helm of Coke, he was credited for turning a cranky, old, conservative company into a global marketing and branding juggernaut. Case in point: from the time he became CEO in 1981 until he died in 1997, total return on Coke stock exceeded 7,000%. No, that is not a typo – if you had invested $1,000 in Coke stock in 1981, by 1997 your money would have grown to $70,000. You can read more about Roberto’s amazing life and career at http://www.cnn.com/US/9710/18/goizueta.obit.9am/

Roberto’s motto was return on investment and stock price (like most CEO’s today). Yet he was mourned as deeply by employees as any beloved political leader who died an untimely death. The outpouring of grief from the top to the bottom of the employee ranks filled a massive wall in the atrium of company headquarters, as we all left messages of condolence to his wife and family.

During the 1980’s, business re-engineering (including “right-sizing” aka layoffs) became a popular and prevalent corporate strategy. Roberto however famously said that he never could find the logic in attempting to grow a company by cutting its people. To him, the only way to grow a company was to grow its talent.

Current day CEO Jim Goodnight of SAS (the world’s largest privately held software company), distills Roberto’s growth strategy down to a simple premise:

“My chief assets drive out the gate every day. My job is to make sure they come back.”

From where I sit, way too many companies are now dangerously smug in their belief that they have the cat-bird’s seat. The horrible economy of the past 18 months has translated into the misguided conclusion that employees are under the corporate thumb. Corporate math seems to add up something like this: a bad economy = no jobs = we can treat you any way we want = you will stay and work even harder than before = we will increase our revenue and profits.

Forget for a moment about the “soft” implications (the impact on individuals, families, communities, etc.). That is seriously flawed math. The result is (sooner or later) a bad business model that will spiral profits down, not up. That downward spiral will come from two things: a) having laid off workers during the bad times: and b) having created a work environment that your best workers will leave in the good times – if not before. The costs to the company are both deep and serious:

• Yes, money walks out the door, literally – in hiring costs, training cost, and productivity costs. I’ve seen the estimates range from as low as 25% of the average worker’s salary to 1-2x the salary and benefits of one exempt employee
• Loss of corporate knowledge and experience – the unique history and experience and relationships that employee took with him/her (within the company and more importantly, with customers and the community/marketplace)
• Increased customer dissatisfaction – even if you hire as good or a better replacement, at a minimum you create disruptions to customer service while the new hire gets up to speed and tries to recreate the credibility, trust and loyalty your key customers felt with your previous employee.
• Increased sales and marketing costs – to keep the now unhappy old customers or to find new ones to replace the ones lost. It takes 5-11 times more investment to develop new business than to expand existing business.
• Decreased retention of key talent AND increased cost and difficulty in hiring new talent:
  • The pool of new talent is increasingly shrinking – the number of baby boomers who are/will be retiring is starting to outnumber the number of replacement talent (new hires) available. And you are not the only company out there wanting to hire them.
  • Good talent takes other good talent with them – in this brave new world of social media (Linked In, Facebook, etc.) with ever increasing ease does your talent stay in touch with other talent. At one of my clients – a very large, high tech firm – a young high-potential talent jumped ship to a competitor. He stayed “friends” with many of his colleagues on Facebook. Six months later, three of his buddies had joined him.
  • Your brand as an employer in the talent marketplace – it is so obvious that technology connects employees and customers 24/7. And yet so many companies still seem to think they fly under the radar like some kind of stealth bomber.

The fundamental question for any company to ask themselves is really this: Is your corporate talent strategy to find and retain top talent who can grow your business, now and in the future? Or to hire people who just need a job?
In the growing talent war for the best and brightest, who do you think will win?

Take the dismal job numbers at a high level and you might assume that most workers are staying scared and staying put – no matter how bad their job is or how toxic their work environment may be.  So you think you’re stuck where you are? Maybe not.

Head hunters are calling again (from what I’m hearing on the front lines in my work with leaders and high-potential talent).  And check out the information below from The Wall Street Journal on May 25th:

“As the job market begins to loosen up, human-resource managers might increasingly be surprised by an announcement from employees they haven’t heard in a while: “I quit.”

“In February, the number of employees voluntarily quitting surpassed the number being fired or discharged for the first time since October 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

“The number of employees quitting could continue to grow in the coming months. In a poll conducted by human-resources consultant Right Management at the end of 2009, 60% of workers said they intended to leave their jobs when the market got better.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/109636/more-workers-start-to-quit?mod=career-worklife_balance

I went for my annual physical a couple of months ago. Generally that is a non-remarkable event. I’ve been blessed with good health and do my best to exercise, eat right, get enough rest and reduce stress. So it feels really weird today to sit on the other side of two rites of mid-life passage: a breast cancer scare (luckily additional mammograms proved that false); and a bone scan showing that I’m in the early stages of osteoporosis. I mean come on, I’m barely pushing 46! When I watch Sally Field talking about bone loss and Boniva on TV, I don’t think that she’s actually talking to ME.

One of my clients also had a breast cancer scare recently (luckily a false alarm for her too). Other’s are sick and tired of the bullsh*t they have to deal with everyday at their jobs: highly political and toxic workplaces; long hours without promotions or pay increases; the now chronic threat of being laid off; and the constant changes in organization structure and “strategy” (really knee-jerk and fear-based reactions to a soft economy) that leave people and their jobs in a non-productive and draining state of never-ending chaos.

Not surprisingly, coaching sessions of late have taken on a bit of a common theme: I am not going to live forever after all. So is this job really worth what it’s costing me? And what are my options?

I’ve actually come to appreciate over the past two months my body’s reminders that time is flying by. It is so easy for us to forget (especially us High Potentials and High Achievers) that we actually don’t have forever left on our time clock. We get sucked into our busy-crazy lives and the “real” world of our corporate jobs. And we forget that how that simple fact of our own mortality can actually help us break free to create more of the work/life we really want.

The implications are tremendous for organizations who need — more than ever — top-notch talent to survive and thrive. Whatever the broader economic news might say for now, the opportunity for leaders and professionals to grow their careers and even get their life back has never been better. All you need is to take back control of your own destiny.

Lead Work Play is a blog for leaders – in the best and broadest sense.  Here I talk to and about 2 kinds of leaders – positional and situational.  Positional leaders are those with titles and formal positions in a company, such as the Vice President of this or the General Manager of that.  Where these kinds of leaders sit in an organization means that they often have a big impact on the lives of many people.  I love coaching these kinds of folks because (despite the justly-outraged press on a small population of greedy and immoral senior executives) I have found that most leaders are ethical people who want make a difference in the world and be of service to their people.

Situational leaders don’t hold a title.  They lead from where they are.  Most corporations today have become highly-matrixed organizations, where professionals must impact and influence many constituents, most of whom do not report to them.  (By the way, if you are a parent or the head of a household, you are very much in this category.  As the leader of your home and your family, you may lack the corner office, but all the joys and cares of leadership fall very much on your shoulders.)

Across all the realms of your life today – work, home, community, church – you probably hold multiple leadership roles at the same time, some positional and others situational.  All the more reason that this blog is FOR YOU.  So that you can lead successfully with your best self, and still get to lead your best life.

Welcome to Lead Work Play!

For those of you who are here for the first time, nice to meet you. For those of you who were subscribers to my previous 2 blogs (Green to Great & Making Whitespace) thanks for being loyal readers – I hope you will find here the best of both previous blogs, all in one place.

Lead Work Play will integrate the two areas around which I am deeply passionate:  leadership — growing leaders from green (high potentials) to great (high achievers); and life — grounding leaders in practices like mindfulness and work-life balance as strategies for professional and personal success.  In this new blog, I will reflect a bit more on my own, imperfect life, as well as continue to feed you with insights, resources and best practices in the areas of high potential leadership, career and the new world of work I see evolving.

I will also be writing much more about the explosion of research on the brain and how investing in greater mental capacity (with practices like mindfulness, white space and work/life balance) is now critical to our success and failure in this new “normal.”  More to come – stay tuned!

Below is an excerpt from my most recent article, published in December 2009 in the NeuroLeadership Journal, and co-written with my friend and colleague Dr. Angela Love.  We wrote this article because in our global economy, the future belongs to those with the information, technology and brainpower to create and capitalize on what’s NEXT.  However, our brainpower is fast becoming an endangered species, and we are deeply in need of a fundamental shift in how we sustain and grow this precious resource.  From the article:

“In terms of brainpower, two factors are waging guerilla warfare on the ability of individuals and companies to compete in the global economy. The first is a drain on the pool of available leadership talent.   Global demographic trends are already generating a talent deficit that will continue decades to come.    For professionals in the age category between 35 and 49 — the traditional pool from whom emerging and future leaders are sourced — forecasts are for minimal to negative growth.  By 2015, demographic shifts are expected to result in a 15% reduction in ready talent.

The second is that talent is being drained – physically, emotionally, and spiritually, in ways that decrease their mental performance at work.  Knowledge and creative workers daily face chronic high-stress; increasing complexity; information and communication overload; rapidly evolving technologies; and a hyper-competitive, 24/7 work world.  One management study found that even the smartest and most senior leaders are struggling to keep up to the point that they often don’t know what decisions to make or actions to take.  Consequently too many of us are trying to achieve more with much less, primarily by defaulting to multitasking and technology (from apps and productivity software to smart phones and laptops).   But these tools and techniques only take leaders and workers so far; what is really required is a fundamental re-thinking of how leaders value and use this mental capacity.”

To learn more about how mindfulness can be the breakthrough, inner “technology” you need, email me at julie@juliemaloney.com for your free, electronic copy of Mindfulness as Capacity: At the Threshold of Leadership’s Next Wave?