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One of the big responsibilities of an executive coach is to help the client step back to a broader perspective and observe how what he's doing connects or disconnects with the results he's trying to get.  It's helping the client move, as Harvard's Ron Heifetz would say, off the dance floor and onto the balcony. I don't know for sure, but based on recent reporting, I'd have to guess that no one is providing that kind of support to Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. As the Financial Times  thoroughly summarized this week, Goldman finds itself the subject of an unexpected shift from headquarters of the masters of the universe to object of universal scorn and anger over the $17 billion bonus pool it has set aside one year after taking billions of dollars in Federal assistance. Not content to fly under the radar screen (which wasn't really possible in the first place), Goldman CEO Blankfein recently gave a long interview to the Sunday Times of London in which he said, among other interesting things, that he's just a simple banker, "doing God's work."

Talk about pouring gasoline on a fire. If I was coaching Lloyd Blankfein, there are three basic questions I'd want to ask him to help him reframe his perspective and better align his actions with the results required in this new situation. Ideally, we would have talked through these questions about a year ago. It may too late for them to do any good now, but here they are:

What's Changed? The point of this question would be to encourage him to pull the lens back and assess what's changed in the past year and a half and how those changes have put Goldman in uncharted terrain.  Clearly, Blankfein and everyone at Goldman are at the high end of the scale in terms of IQ points.  They are smart people and could, at the drop of a hat, give a graduate level seminar about what's changed in the global financial markets. In a coaching conversation on what's changed, I'd want Blankfein to go beyond the IQ points and look at and reflect on what's changed in what the Germans call the zeitgeist (i.e. the spirit of the time). I'd also want him to look at what's changed around the impact of his words and actions. The combination of an unsettled and anxious zeitgeist with the internet's capacity to exponentially magnify the impact of one's comments can lead to explosive situations for leaders as visible as Blankfein.

What's Important in the Long Run? The FT and Sunday Times articles both make it clear that the driving principle at Goldman over the years has been to maximize the capacity to make money in the most productive way possible. The company has done that successfully over a long time by managing their risk better than any other firm. What seems to have been overlooked in the risk management process at Goldman is reputational risk. The principle of maximizing the money appears to have caused Blankfein and the leadership at Goldman to overlook the long term risk to the firm's reputation and its capacity to be profitable and productive over the long run. Going for the short term payouts may well lead to a killing the goose that lays the golden eggs situation.

You may have noticed that both of these questions are open ended questions that start with the word what.  That's a pretty standard technique of coaches. We like to use "what questions" because they open up thinking and help our clients think outside the box. Sometimes I joke that the only bad "what question" is...

What in the Hell Were You Thinking? Sure, it's a little rude, but it seems appropriate in this case. My guess is that if he thought about it, Blankfein would realize that he's been thinking within the terms of the old environment rather than the new world that he and his firm are in. As I said earlier, it may be too late for any of these three questions to do much good. Still, there may be a chance. Sooner or later, leaders screw something up. Some of those screw ups are more public than others and Blankfein has had more than his share of public ones lately. After making a big mistake, it actually can be productive to step back and ask,"What in the hell was I thinking?"  If you can identify the thought process that led to the mistake(s), you have a reasonable chance of making adjustments in your thinking that will serve you and your organization better in the future. In spite of all the bad press they've received and bad decisions they've made lately, Goldman Sachs plays an important role in the global economy. For their sake and ours, I hope Lloyd Blankfein and his leadership team take some time soon to step back and sort through some perspective checking questions.

For the past four years, the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership has conducted an annual public opinion poll to determine the sector leaders in which Americans have the most and least confidence and the factors behind those confidence levels. The 2009 results have just been released and there are some pretty interesting conclusions.

First, the sectors where the confidence level in leaders are up in a statistically significant way over last year are the military, the executive branch and business. Those that showed a significant decline are medical, nonprofits and charity, state government, the news media and Wall Street. Based on an index where 100 indicates a moderate amount of confidence the only three sectors that scored higher than that level were the military, medical and nonprofits and charity. Of those three, the military is the only sector to score well above 100 on the confidence index with a score of almost 120.

According to the study, there are six key factors that have the greatest impact on Americans' confidence in their leaders. These factors are:

• Trust in what the leaders say
• Competence to do the job
• Working for the greater good of society
• Share my values
• Get good results
• In touch with people's needs and concerns

Given what's happened over the past year, it's not surprising that the military and the nonprofit sector leaders were in the top three.  Likewise, when you consider the past year and look at the six most important factors, it's easy to understand why the two lowest ranked sectors were the news media (balloon boy, anyone?) and Wall Street (how about those bonuses?)

Reading between the lines of the study, I see one other factor that's not explicitly mentioned but I think comes into play. That factor is the perceived clarity and importance of the sector's purpose and mission. If you download and read the study, it's striking how much higher the leadership of the military and the nonprofit sectors are rated in all six key factors than are the leadership of other highlighted sectors. I asked myself "What do these two sectors have in common?" and clarity and importance of purpose was the answer.

To stand a chance of being effective, leaders must generate confidence in the people that depend on them.  How do you think you stack up on each of the six key factors? How are you doing on clearly defining and communicating why what your organization does matters? If you were going to pick one factor in which you could improve, what would it be? What are three things you could do in the next year to move the needle in a positive direction?

Something appeared in my inbox this week that sparked an opportunity to follow up on a post from last week - Feedback:  Why You Need It and What To Do With It. As an alumnus and faculty member of the Georgetown University Leadership Coaching Certificate Program, I'm a member of a Yahoo list serve in which all of us in the community share resources and get advice from each other. It's a wonderful ongoing conversation from which I learn a lot.

Yesterday, one of our members put out a question about how to deal with an executive coaching client who has received some clear developmental feedback from colleagues that doesn't square with his self-image. As my colleague described it, his client spent his energy in the feedback session comparing all of the constructive comments to his own standards and arguing that everyone offering the feedback should be more like him.

By definition, executive coaches coach executives. Most executives have become executives because they're smart and focused and driven to succeed. Sometimes, their track record of success reinforces a self-perception that they're right all or most of the time and that everyone else should get with their approach and program.

Needless to say, it can be really difficult for executives who fit this profile to accept feedback that suggests they're less than perfect. Here is what I think I've learned over the past 10 years about coaching an executive who argues with the clear consensus point of view in their feedback and spends all of their energy arguing about how people should be acting or thinking: It's important to understand the difference between what "should" be and what is. The fact of the matter is that if, when given the chance to provide anonymous feedback, 10 to 20 people have a consensus point of view on what you need to change to be a better leader, that's what is. Their perception is your reality. If you get tough feedback and you want to keep your team engaged and on board, you're going to have to change your behaviors to change their perception.

So what do you do if you're in that situation?  Here are four simple steps that, if you're serious about dealing with what is, almost always work:

1. Acknowledge and thank people for the feedback.  Give them a couple of headlines on what you heard that you appreciated and a couple of headlines on things you want to change.
2. Ask colleagues for their best ideas for anyone who is trying to change whatever it is you're trying to change.  Write down their ideas in a list.
3. Pick one or two action steps from the list that you want to incorporate into your regular routine.   The simpler, the better.  Tell people what you're trying to do. (e.g. "I'm trying to not interrupt people so much.") 
4. On an ongoing basis, ask them how you're doing.  If you keep it on your radar screen, you'll change for the better.  By following up with them, they'll recognize that you're actually changing.

There are a lot of leaders and coaches who read this blog.  What's your best advice for leaders who need to get past what should be and start dealing with what is? 

President Obama appointed Rajiv Shah to head the US Agency for International Development. The appointment comes after a 10 month vacancy at the top of the Agency and a 40 percent reduction in its full time staff over the past 20 years. Since the effective deployment of foreign aid is a critical component of the United States' diplomatic and security strategies, it's important that Shah get off to a fast and successful start in his job.

In spite of his relatively young age of 36, Shah has a background that seems perfectly suited to the role.  He'll be moving to USAID from the US Department of Agriculture where he has played a number of roles including overseeing USDA's participation in the global food security initiative. Prior to USDA, Shah worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as the director of agricultural development and manager of the Foundation's $1.5 billion vaccine fund. Shah has an MD from Penn, a masters in health economics from Wharton, an undergraduate degree from Michigan and spent time at the London School of Economics.   It's pretty hard to argue with those credentials.

Still, Shah is stepping into one of the tougher challenges a leader can face which is leading the turnaround of a highly visible and critical organization. Especially in a political environment, it's important to get off to a fast and successful start in this situation. What you do in the first weeks and months on the job largely determines the path for success or failure over the longer run. With that in mind, here a are a few tips for Dr. Shah or any leader getting started on a turnaround:

Identify the key players:  Use the access that comes with your new role to sound out experts inside and outside the organization on who the key players are in areas like internal leadership, funding, boundary setting, partnering and priority setting.  Get on the calendars of those key players quickly to set up a...

Listening tour:  Meet with the key players to get their points of view on some common questions.  By asking a set of common questions of the key players you can sift through their responses more easily to determine where the opportunities and pressure points are. Some good questions to ask would include:

• What are the top three most critical priorities right now?
• What would success look like in 180 days, 1 year, 3 years?
• What does this organization do right that we should keep doing?
• What's the most important thing we should start doing?
• What is it critical that we stop doing?

Introduce yourself quickly and widely: Use all the communications channels available - retail and wholesale - to introduce yourself quickly to the organization and its stakeholders.  Use those early introductions to talk about what your early impressions are of what the organization needs to do and to set the tone of how you want to work within the organization.

Set some early goals that lead to quick wins:  While you probably won't have the three year picture fully formed in your first days on the job, you should have a general sense of the direction you're trying to set.  Communicate that general direction broadly and repeatedly so people understand the priorities.  Find some opportunities for quick win demonstration projects that can be celebrated and highlighted as examples of the new way of doing business.

Recruit a strong core team: The demands on your time as a leader in this situation will be overwhelming.  You can't do everything on your own. You'll need a strong team of talented people who get the vision and have the experience to act on it.  In the early days, your core team will likely be a mix of people you bring with you who know your style and people you recruit from within who have the talent but have just been waiting for a leader who can leverage their talent. You may not be able to find everyone you need immediately inside the organization. If you've identified a critical need that you can't fill quickly, consider hiring a contractor or consultant who do the job over the short term.

So, that's a starting point list for Dr. Shah or any other leader charged with leading a turnaround. It's certainly not comprehensive. Based on your experience or observation what would you add to the list?

First, let me apologize for implanting Subway's Five (five dollar), Five Dollar Foot Long ear worm in your head for the rest of the day. I hope that you'll agree with me that it was worth it to learn five lessons about winning support for change from the top leaders in your organization.

The lessons were inspired by a story in the current issue of Business Week on Miami Subway franchise owner Stuart Frankel. He owns a couple of Subways close to Jackson Memorial Hospital and five years ago was tinkering with ways to boost his sales on Saturdays and Sundays. From that, the original five dollar foot long was born. Since then, the sandwich has generated $3.8 billion in sales for Subway and put the company on pace to surpass McDonald's in worldwide store locations.

So, you'd think it would have been easy for Frankel to win everyone over to such a great idea, right?  Not so fast, my friends. Even though he was raking in the dough (bad pun intended), Frankel had to work hard to convince the top brass at Subway that the five dollar foot long was the way to go. In reading between the lines of the Business Week article, I've come up with five (what else?) lessons for anyone who is trying to convince senior leadership to take a good idea and run with it. 

Here they are:

1. Run some small experiments off the radar screen: Remember, the five dollar foot long idea started in two little stores as a way to boost sales on the weekend. Frankel, the store owner, was trying things out with no particular intention of going huge. What problem are you trying to solve that could use a fresh approach?  What small experiments could you try to see what else might work?
2. Collect compelling data:  As the Business Week story reports, Frankel was surprised that the five dollar promotion turned out to be more than a simple loss leader to get customers in the stores.  Even though his food costs rose as a percentage of sales, his overall volume increased and employee productivity rose because the stores were busier.  He made money on every five dollar sandwich.  Those numbers were the beginning of a story that he started sharing with others in the company.  What data could you gather to begin to prove your case for change?
3. Recruit some early champions:  When you've got a good idea, it's important to share it with some well placed allies who can champion the idea and spread it.  In Frankel's case, he brought in a development agent who oversees 225 stores in South Florida and another franchisee who owns 50 stores in the area to take a look at what he was doing.  Both of those guys ran their own small experiments.  When they almost ran out of bread in their stores, they knew they were on to something.  Who are the champions that you need to recruit to try their own experiments with your big idea?
4. Show them, don't just tell them:  In spite of the big success Frankel and others were having, the top brass at Subway just couldn't get their minds around the five dollar foot long idea when they heard about it.  The Subway franchise marketing board initially rejected the idea of investing in a five dollar marketing campaign.  So Frankel and his allies kept bringing store owners and marketing officers to Florida to see the lines of customers stretching out the door and down the sidewalk.  Word spread among other store owners and the five dollar foot long promotion started showing up in markets around the country.  When it comes to your own idea, what can you do to visually demonstrate its effectiveness to more and more influencers?
5. Stick(y) with it:  Four years after Frankel first ran his five dollar deal, Subway put marketing dollars into the promotion and that jingle that you can't get out of your head. There are two lessons about stickiness here.  The first is to get an idea across, you have to be committed to it and stick with it.  Not everyone is going to immediately get it and erupt in cheers and huzzahs.  The second is if you can come up with a sticky, memorable way to describe the idea, it's much more likely to go viral. (Type "five dollar foot long" into the search box on You Tube to see what I mean.)

So, two questions for you in conclusion.  Question #1:  What else has worked for you in convincing senior leadership to pick up on a good idea?  Question #2:  What are you having for lunch today? (You're singing that song in your head right now aren't you?)

One of the things that I've come to count on over the past couple of years is that my blogging friend, Dan McCarthy of the Great Leadership blog will write consistently grounded and practical posts on how to be a better leader. His latest post, 10 Ways to Get the Most from a 360 Degree Leadership Assessment,  is the most recent example of the contributions he consistently makes. If you care about leadership, you need to subscribe to his blog.

As an executive coach, I read through a few hundred 360 degree assessments a year in my company's Next Level Leadership™ group coaching program. From that experience and the experience of being the subject of six or seven 360's in the 15 years that I was a manager and executive myself, I know that Dan's advice is spot on. I also know from talking with my clients and HR professionals that have been around the block a few times that it's often the case that not much happens when someone gets a 360. From the standpoint of your leadership development and your credibility in the organization, you're almost better off to not get any feedback at all if you're not going to communicate and act on what you learned from the feedback. It can be hard to admit to your colleagues that you're not perfect, but guess what, they already know you're not perfect. All of us have something we can improve on. By asking for feedback, telling people what you learn and then visibly acting on it, you get better and your organization gets better.

 So, with that in mind, I want to pick up on three particular points that Dan made and add a little bit of my own coaching perspective and advice to the mix:

Don't try to figure it out yourself:  Dan makes a great point that most people are way too close to their own experience to be objective about the data they get in a 360. At the risk of sounding self-serving, when you get a 360, make sure you sit down with a coach who has read through a lot of reports over the years.  Much in the same way that a weather forecaster with 30 years of experience can tell you when a front is forming, an experienced coach can tell you what's going on with your 360 data because they've seen so many patterns and connections in the data over the years. You need to walk through the data with someone who is experienced in seeing and pointing out the patterns.

Pay attention to and celebrate your strengths: Another great point, Dan!  Most of us who have been in the coaching business for awhile see the same thing again and again with high achievers. They'll blow through all of the positive stuff in the report and immediately go to what they need to fix. Here's the problem with that. Most of the time what needs to be fixed is related in some way to the strengths. One of the great truths in coaching is that a strength when over or under used can be a weakness. I think of strengths as being like a dial on a guitar amplifier (wanna' be rock star that I am). As an example, if the dial on the strength of confidence is set just right then the leader shows up appropriately poised and ready to make a contribution. If you turn that confidence dial too far to the left, it can look like meekness or disengagement. If you turn it too far to the right, confidence can look like arrogance. Quite often the development opportunity for a leader is to recalibrate a strength in one direction or another with a particular audience or in certain situations. It's a lot easier to make progress in that kind of situation if you take the time to actually process and understand your strengths.

Make a plan and take action:  In my company, we call it an Executive Success Plan™ or ESP. What are the one or two things you want to work on that would make the biggest difference to you and the organization in the next 6 to 12 months? Not 8 or 9 things, but the one or two behaviors that you can focus on day to day in what I call the school of real life. After all, your calendar is full of stuff every week you're going to do anyway. If you're going to do that stuff anyway, why not approach it with the additional intention of using that experience to try out some new tactics and behaviors that will make you a better leader? You'll find that there will be a big ripple effect from working one or two opportunities really well.  As Dan suggests, then tell a manageable number (8 to 10 is good) of people what you're going to work on and ask them for their one or two best ideas on what anyone who is working on that behavior could do to be better. Take notes on what they say and look for the patterns. For instance, if you decide to work on being a better listener and you hear five or six times from your colleagues that they think good listeners don't interrupt people then your real opportunity is probably that you need to stop interrupting people. So, tell them that you're working on not interrupting people and ask for their help in helping you notice when you do. Pretty soon, you'll be a much better listener.

What's been the best or worst experience you've ever had with a round of 360 feedback?  What difference did it make in your life and career? What's your biggest fear around getting and using feedback? If you'll share your thoughts and questions, I'll do my best to address them in the comments over the next few days.

In its almost always interesting series, Sunday's New York Times ran a Corner Office interview with the president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust. I've often thought that because of the range of different stakeholder groups involved that running an academic institution is one of the toughest leadership jobs there is. It was interesting to read what Faust had to say about what she's learned about leading in this type of environment. Most of the points she made apply to leaders in all arenas  whether it's academia, the private sector or government.

Here are some of the takeaways (in bold face quotes) I had from the Faust interview along with some of my thoughts about how they apply to the world beyond the Charles River.

"...people impute all kinds of things to leaders" - Is that ever true.  As an example, I was with a group of sales leaders in a well known company last week and was trying to help them understand how they're perceived by others.  They were all at the district manager level so I asked them this question, "How many of you have ever been in a conversation that goes like this, 'Man, the general managers and vice presidents  just don't get it.  They are so far removed from what we're dealing with, blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda.'"  Most people looked a little sheepish because most of them had been in conversations like that.  My next question was, "Do you think it's at all likely that the people who work at levels below yours are having similar conversations about how much the district managers don't get it?"  Yep, that's not just a possibility, it's almost a certainty.  The point is that followers make up stories about their leaders and those stories are usually not particularly helpful. 

The point that Faust makes about people imputing things to leaders is key. When I coach leaders who are taking on highly visible roles, I encourage them to assume that they're starting out at a reputational deficit.  That almost always has nothing to do with them personally. It has everything to do with the role that they're assuming and the stories that people have made up about that role over the years. A lot of the time when you take on a big leadership role you're guilty until proven innocent.  You can counteract that by being proactive. Fortunately, Faust had some good ideas on how to do that.

"... understand(ing) the context in which you are leading" - In her interview, Faust noted that "universities have enormously distributed authority," and that that operating context means she has to spend a ton of time and energy staying connected with different stakeholder groups.  There are a couple of learning points here.  The first is that she's spending time thinking about what's unique about the context she's working in and is trying to adapt her leadership approach to the context rather than the other way around. The other learning point for me is that in an age of rapidly distributed information and ever decreasing cycle times on decision making Faust's notion of distributed authority is a concept that non-academic leaders are dealing with more and more. That puts a premium on staying connected.

"Leadership by walking around - that's a digital space now, it's virtual space" - The old idea of MBWA - management by walking around - in a literal sense is dead. How can you walk around and connect with people when they're not physically there? Leaders have got to use the tools available to monitor the pulse and communicate their message and brand. I've been talking for awhile now about the difference between retail (one to one) and wholesale (one to many) leadership. If, as a leader, you aren't constantly working on and refining your wholesale communication strategy, you are way behind the curve.  If you want an idea of the stakes involved, go back and look at this post from a couple of weeks ago on the exponential growth of social media.

"As a scholar, you don't want to repeat yourself... As a university president, you have to say the same thing over and over." - The same is true for an executive, a community organizer, a candidate or anyone else trying to mobilize a group around a particular set of objectives. Just about the time you find yourself sick of repeating the message one more time is when you're likely starting to break through.  There are at least two things to keep in mind on this front, however. First, is it's about having a focused dialogue (or maybe a better term these days would be multi-logue) rather than a disconnected monologue.  Second, focus and follow through is key. Today's leaders are in an enormous competition for the time and attention of their followers. The only way you're going to get the engagement is if you have something compelling to talk about and stay committed to a long term conversation.

So, this was a little more "think piecey" than I thought it might be at the start.  What do you agree or disagree with in these points?  If you've had a chance to look at the Faust interview, what other takeaways and applications did you have?

The next time you're feeling challenged about how to reach a goal, think of the sailors from the USS Carl Vinson. As reported in the Washington Post,  30 sailors from the Vinson set a goal to make last Sunday's Marine Corps Marathon their first 26.2 mile race.  More and more people are running marathons these days, but not very many have their training space limited to the confines of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. The sailors from the Vinson were inspired by the example set by their former commanding officer, Walter Carter, a recently promoted rear admiral who shared his enthusiasm for running with his crew.  Carter has left the Vinson for his next assignment but came back to DC to run the race with his men. Through his own commitment to fitness and his and camaraderie with his team, Rear Admiral Carter is the embodiment of what a positive leadership footprint looks like.

I'm honored to report that I got a first hand account of how the race turned out for the sailors from the Carl Vinson when I was one of the opening speakers last Sunday for the Navy's annual Flag Officer and Executive Training Symposium at a federal training center in the suburbs of DC.  (This is a week long annual event for the newly promoted admirals and their civilian colleagues in the federal Senior Executive Service. )

The speaker that followed me on Sunday was the head of the Navy's Fitness program. She was there to brief the participants and their spouses on the range of support available to help these leaders stay fit in their very demanding roles. As she wrapped up her remarks, she read from the Post story and asked if Rear Admiral Carter was in the room. He was indeed and reported that all 30 of his sailors had successfully completed the race and that he had finished it in 3 hours and 36 minutes himself.  Bear in mind that this briefing came about six hours following the marathon.  Let it be noted that the admiral did not have the bearing or tone of someone who had just run 26.2 miles in under four hours.  He pretty much looked fresh as a daisy!

There were a number of  things I took away from the Sunday session that I think are worth offering as food for thought for leaders. Let me share three of them here.

Takeaway 1:  There aren't many people who are in more demanding jobs than rear admirals and senior executives in the US Navy. By definition, these are busy people. And yet, the Navy has found that there is a high return on investment in taking these leaders off line for a week to support them in adjusting to their new roles. The Navy is apparently unique among the services in its inclusion of spouses in a program of this nature. They want the life partners of their top leaders to know and understand their spouses' roles.  They also want to let them know how much the Navy appreciates their leaders and their families.    That strikes me as an approach worth emulating for any organization interested in fully supporting its top leadership.

Takeaway 2:  I was really impressed that the third item of a week long agenda was an overview on fitness.  To be fully effective, leaders need to have a fighting chance of showing up at their best. The Navy understands that fitness is the foundation for that and has a team of personal trainers that work with their leaders on exercise planning, nutrition, stress management and a range of other health and wellness opportunities. They take a research based approach to fitness and have found that incorporating simple activities like walking (10,000 paces on the pedometer a day is the goal) has a greater long term positive impact than focused exercise programs (those are still important, by the way).

Takeaway 3:  Leaders set the tone and example. Thirty sailors from the Carl Vinson had the experience of a lifetime in the Marine Corps Marathon because their leader led by example.

Like I said earlier, it was an honor to be a witness to these lessons.The people of the Navy do amazing work. It's easy to see how their commitment to the total development of their leaders makes the difference.

The tough economic environment of the past year and a half has made organizational leadership an even more challenging job than usual. A recent article in HR Executive Online by Lin Grensing-Pophal reports on a somewhat surprising aspect of that leadership challenge.

Drawing on a recent study conducted by Watson-Wyatt and World at Work, Pophal notes that employee engagement levels during the recession have dropped by nine percent since last year. That's not so surprising given everything that's gone on in the past year. The news that leaders should pay extra attention to, however, is that the engagement of top performers is down by a whopping 25 percent.

The combination of economic uncertainty and the need to do more with less can take a toll on everyone. Of course, on both a short and long term basis, leaders need to pay particular attention to the high performers who can deliver results. Pophal offer some good suggestion in her article about how to do that including developmental assignments and flexible work arrangements.

She also mentions connection to the bigger picture as a key way to provide the intrinsic motivation that keeps the best engaged. As I've written here before, Bill Bridges' four P's communications model is one of the best frameworks I know of for making that connection. Like most good leadership tools, it's simple and easy to remember:

• Purpose: why are we here and what difference does that make?
• Picture: what will things look like when we're fully successful?
• Plan: how will we get to that picture of success?
• Part to Play: this is how what you do fits into the plan that creates the picture that fulfills the purpose.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to speak with leaders from GE Energy, the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security, Booz Allen Hamilton and the U.S. Senate. One of the things that all of those leaders have in common is that they're working for organizations that make a difference. I actually think that most of us work for organizations that make a difference. Leaders often overlook the opportunity to connect people with the larger purpose of what their organizations do. If you're a leader who wants to keep your best people engaged, I encourage you to give that some thought. What can you say about how what they're doing makes a difference?

When faced with an intractable or complex problem, it's easy for leaders to get bogged down in the minutiae when trying to come up with a solution.  Another trap is to go binary - it's either this or it's that - too soon in the decision making process.  Rather than opening up options and possibilities, we sometimes try to solve complex problems by settling for the least painful of the most obvious options.

It's at times like this, that's it's helpful to have someone in the room who can step back, get up on the balcony and ask some questions that seem obvious in retrospect but maybe weren't asked because everyone else was too close to the situation at hand.

There was a great example of this in a recent Newsweek article by Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas on Vice President Joe Biden.  Here's an extended excerpt that paints the picture:

"Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, 'Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?' Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. 'And how much will we spend on Pakistan?' Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. 'Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?' The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region."

There are several things I find instructive in this story.  First, Biden is making his point based on facts that may have been lost in the discussion.  Second, he links those facts to a bigger picture.  Third, he uses those facts and that bigger picture to cause his colleagues to pull up and challenge their assumptions.

What obvious questions do you need to ask to help your team challenge their assumptions?  Are you even the best person to ask those questions or is that role better played by designating someone on your team to play the role of devil's advocate?  What are the pros and cons of either approach?