Sunday, February 22, 2009

40 'dumb' questions

I follow the ‘projectshrink’ Bas de Baar, from the Netherlands, on Twitter. Bas writes stuff on project management. As you know, John Coxon & Associates has a workshop, ready for your team, titled Practical Project Management for Non Profits. (Give John a call on +61 3 5561 2228 to organise). Anyway back to Bas. He pointed me to a squidoo lens titled Not So Dumb Project Management Questions, hosted by Hal Macomber.

Even if you don’t have any interest in project management you gotta read this list of so-called dumb questions. They are not really that dumb – what is so dumb is that many people fail to ask them in the first instance. While written in the context of project management, every one of these questions applies to every other aspect of organisational management. I will even bet there are few in this list that you have failed to ask from time to time and wish afterwards that you, or someone, had done so. How dumb did you feel after not asking?
Let the Journey Continue
John Coxon

John Coxon & Associates
Taking You from Frontline Manager to CEO
Email john@johncoxon.com.au
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Succession Planning

Marshall Goldsmith, Harvard Business School, renown executive coach and author, writes in the January 09 issue of the Harvard Business Review, on succession planning and why it is many 'nominated' successors fail to gain the promotion into the top job.

Goldsmith points to the inability of potential successors to build relationships with stakeholder groups prior to promotion. Many executive managers are tapped on the shoulder by an existing CEO and assured they will transition into the top job - only to find that when the time comes, the board appoints someone else.

Appointing someone into the top job is as much about confidence in their abilities as it is in their prior experience. On the surface it appears logical to suggest an insider should recieve the promotion. Afterall they know the ropes, they know how things are done. All of that may be true. Do they have the confidence of the board?

Being known as an excellent employee is not sufficient. Being 2IC often means you operate in the shadow of the current CEO or Director. It is not safe to assume that person is promoting your talents to the board - afterall not all CEO's feel that sure of their own abilities. The CEO might want you to succeed him or or her, on the other hand they may be trying to keep you on board, avoiding conflict between potential successors or simply trying to be friends with everyone. You have to do the work.

Goldsmith suggests six stakeholder groups a potential CEO should be working with - in advance of a potential promotion. These include, the current CEO, peers, direct reports, customers, analysts (substitute funding bodies) and the board. Most potential CEO's focus only on building relationships with the current CEO.

This is not about currying favours or building up markers for future leverage. Relationship building is a long-term exercise. It takes time and patience. Building relationships requires diplomacy and a desire to give back as much as you get - often more - with the certainty of not knowing whether all this work will be any help in the future.

What is know for sure is this. If you aspire to the CEO's role in your current organisation and you fail to build long-term, sustainable relationships with all stakeholder groups then you increase the chance of failing to achieve the top job.

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

John Coxon & Associates
Taking You from Frontline Manager to CEO
Email john@johncoxon.com.au
Skype: john_coxon
Blog: http://healthsector.blogspot.com
Blog: http://nfp-management.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/johncoxon
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Monday, February 2, 2009

Are you warming your management seat?

While facilitating a recent workshop on Managers as Coaches I made a statement, where I suggested that those in front line management roles without ambition to be involved in executive management were simply warming a seat and preventing those with real ambition from gaining appropriate experience.

As I expected my comment generated a lot of discussion both during and following the workshop. Excellent, objective achieved. As Socrates has been quoted, I cannot teach you anything, I can only cause you to think. If, as a result of my workshops I cause people to think then I believe it is an outcome worth achieving.

Let's look at this in more depth. Over the next decade every current CEO or EO or Director, aged over 50 years, in both Australia and New Zealand will retire. These people form the bulk of leadership roles in the not for profit sector. I calculate this to represent a turnover of around 30,000 leaders.

Who will replace our current leadership group? Those warming a front line manager seat or those young, ambitious 30-somethings chomping at the bit? If you are currently in a front line management role or middle management role, do you have the ambition to lead an organisation? If not, someone younger, more energetic and more ambitious than you will do so. Maybe they will want you to remain warming your seat or maybe they will not. I will leave you to think about that!

Let The Journey Continue
John Coxon

John Coxon & Associates
Taking You from Frontline Manager to CEO
www.johncoxon.com.au
Email john@johncoxon.com.au
Skype: john_coxon
Blog: http://healthsector.blogspot.com
Blog: http://nfp-management.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/johncoxon
Follow john_coxon on Twitter
Join John Coxon on Facebook