The language of pressure

What is happening to you when you get under pressure? Did you ever realize that you were changing under pressure? Changing in the way you talk, walk, act and even look? Take a closer look at yourself while standing in front of a mirror and ask yourself:

What do I see?

I am not a psychologist and less a specialist in human behaviour but what strikes me is how people react to pressure and above all to stress.

The past weeks have been pretty stressfull for me and my peers and I realized that some reacted in a very interesting way to pressure and I'm just talking about visible and audible changes, not that much in terms of general behaviour or action:

• some look like they are always either angry or in disagreement
• some always look the other way
• some look as if they would faint if just asked a question
• some look defiant
• some speak louder
• some speak quicker
• some just forget how to speak

And even manners get out of hand. Often not even a simple "Hallo" is pronounced, less the usually education based question of "How are you?". Maybe because everybody assumes, that the answer is obvious. I even experienced aggression; not physical, but a verbal explosion expression of - i may call it - despair.

So ask yourself:

How do I deal with pressure and do I show visible signs of it?

The best way of getting realizing what is going on is by asking people around you, how you do react to pressure. Though! - but let's be honest, I think we all know how we react, we all feel inside when we start loosing grip.

Pressure in most companies is omnipresent and a good manager gotta deal with it. Showing visible signs of stress can not only affect your immediate efficiency and results but and most of all your personal image and hence your career. Dealing with it is important and being aware of it the first step.

The ultimate challenge of a good manager is to make himself obsolete

What makes a good manager? I often crossed this question while thinking about my own career, watching peers or advising my own employees on their career path. Talking about this subject with others I encountered different views on it, often and logically influenced by culture, experience and probably most important the company.

Let me discuss two very different scenarios of managerial behavior:

1. The Hen

Right away this style may apply to both men and women, the linked image shall in no way be discriminative. The hen manager is will always gather his/her employees under his/her wings and make sure that nothing leaves the team. No problem is discussed outside of the group and in general towards the outside there simply are no problems. Likewise any kind of attack on one of the members of the flock is absorbed by the leader and s/he will furiously defend the team members and put the mistake on others. Inside the group problems are not really raised and less solved but often covered by a seemingly homogenous overall happiness by all group members. In general these groups seem to be well organized, team members are enforced and/or empowered. The team leader is much appreciated and as there are no problems the group can live untouched for quite a while.

The problems often start when you take the hen away and expose the team members to the outer world. Suddenly there is a very nervous reaction of the group trying to adjust to the new situation and the exposure often results in panic. The same panic results in a very harsh and insulting way of communication among the team members as the broiling conflicts suddenly burst.

2. The absent manager

Then there are managers who seem to be absent all the time. No team structure, no processes are established and the group tries to adjust to the outer world in general by using an evasive strategy. To everything they say "yes" or "we'll do" even if right from the start they know it won't happen. Why? Because they don't have the right to say "no" as this right belongs to a manager who is not using it being simply unpresent. In general for team members this situation is very stressful as they tend to run from one item to the other without ever feeling to have accomplished anything. It often results in frustration. Towards the manager there are no hard feelings however, often there are no feelings at all.

If you take the manager away in general the group gets a moment of relief, suddenly takes responsibility and gets organized in a natural way, trying to get things done as good as possible. Soon after if the vacuum is not filled the structure may well fall apart as the team members don't have the managerial scope and tend to continue to run in all directions at once.

You may agree that both styles are very problematic. From the outside the group is in general perceived quite positively but the reality is the opposite. Lots of internal problems and lack of efficiency, stress and frustration all over and often a feeling of abandon reigns.

So what makes a good manager? As I discussed before a good manager applies different styles of management, according to the maturity of his team and the teams cycle of existence. It may be quite useful to be a hen for a while. Above all at the beginning to give the team a change to get organized and structure before exposing them. But the most important thing is to be hen to the outside but not the inside. Problems must be addressed and solved. Every team member must be part of the whole, with voice and opinion but also results and responsibility. Structure your team, leading them from instruction to delegation, empowering them to become more and more independent.

The better you choose your team members and organize work and responsibilities within the group, the more you will create a structure that is evolving by itself. Your managerial input will be less on structural topics or processes but more on human relations and personal development. You suddenly realize that the team works as well as if you weren't there.

Does this mean that a good manager makes himself obsolete? I would agree to a certain point and would even say that a good team should be capable of continuing to exist and perform even without being managed, at least for a certain time. But as all human structure it wouldn't last long. Fact is that most managers that achieved to run such teams are not doing nothing, but their work evolved into empowering their teams, guiding more than directing them and making sure that the team will be renewed continuously and team members can evolve into other teams. So with time you're managerial style becomes more invisible, subtle adjustments on a clear path showed. At that time you're presence as manager will become "warmer", meaning less process and more personal. These are the times when you as a manger can start to look beyond your scope and get a vision for the future.

How often do you congratulate your team?

When was the last time you entered one of your team members office just to say "Well done!"? In these times of high expectations and growing pressure for results we often forget to most simple thing in life - to give positive feedback.

As a manager two of the most important things I regularly do are:

1. Check in on everybody every morning to say hello
2. To congratulate good performance

I am a very challenging boss, asking a lot of my teams and therefore it is even more important to give positive feedback whenever possible. It's clear that there should be a reason to it, but if there is, don't fail to do it, because it can be very demotivating for people only getting negative feedback.

Now ask yourself: "When was the last time my boss congratulated me for my results?"

If it has been a while, don't you feel bad about it? Doesn't it drive you to even better performance when somebody is acknowledging the effort you make? I think we all agree that it does.

So go out and let your teams know when they do good work!

Maybe you're asking yourself now what about saying hello every morning, that's just regular courtesy, isn't it?

Well apparently not - I have experienced myself that for the past 15 years none of my superiors came in every day to say hello. So why do it? In my opinion there are three major effects:

1. It shows your team members that you have arrived and are there
2. It also shows them that you acknowledge their presence and it gives yourself a good feel about the working hours of your team.
3. As simple as it may seem - it shows them that you are human and before even thinking about business just care to say hello

It's simple and very effective!

Setting up high performance teams

For many years I´ve had the opportunity to work with talented people and highly competent teams. Doing so was not just a lucky circumstance, but a planned and reflected process to foster high value through merging skilled individuals in a high performing team. I often realize that managers spend an enormous amount of time on tasks and results of their teams, but do not spend enough time on their team members. Although it may seem obvious: choosing, training and developing individuals is much more important, than to overview the actual assignments.

The make it even more obvious here are my basic rules for successful team management:

1. Surround yourself with the best people
2. Train them
3. Look ahead and imagine how your team can evolve in time and prepare them for it
4. Promote them

1. Surround yourself with the best people

"A chain is as strong, as its weakest link"

 or

"A team is more than just the sum of its individuals"

 - you've heard it all, but do you really work by it? Look at your teams and ask yourself if everybody is at the top of his art. A team is a very complex structure and you have to understand each and every individual as well as the links between them to make the team work.

In times of major reorganization - how many times did you make the organizational layout already thinking about the people in your organization to occupy the slots? How often did you build a team in view of a specific objective, getting the best individuals in your organization to build the right team? Often our starting point are the actual team members and as "human" as it may sound, it's the worst starting point, because by definition it will be an underperforming team and hence not interesting for you as a manager and probably neither for the team members.

Just get the best team members, choose them wisely and set up a team that fits to the task - that's your major challenge as a manager. If you have to change an existing team, don't be afraid to let underperforming people go. As cruel as it may sound neither your organization nor the individual is gaining something by accepting mediocrity.

Now it's not the topic of this blog but just let me tell you one thing - if you choose the best guys for your team, pay them what they are worth!

2. Train them

Through the crisis of 2009 most companies had some tough decisions to make. Let's look at two major choices and think about which one you would choose to cut costs:

1. Reduce the number of employees, but continue to train the existing ones
2. Keep all employees but cut on training (and all other expenses like travelling etc.)

What is the right choice?

Under the premises that both decisions would have the same impact on cutting costs I would always go for the first. Not training your teams will cost you more over time than what you could have saved on training expenses and even with a lower staff coverage, well trained and motivated teams will always be better performing than untrained (even higher staffed) teams.

Training can be done on and off the job and like so many things the right balance is crucial. On the job training is often not really perceived by the employee, unless you assign him specific "training" projects, which you debrief with him/her under the angle of training/development. Off the job training is important as it gives the employee time to reflect and free himself from daily work. It can also be a great opportunity to build networks, share experiences and why not watch out for future talents.

3. Look ahead and imagine how your team can evolve in time and prepare them for it

Once you have the best team and they work on their assignment start to think about the next moves. Above all in bigger teams there is constant change and even if it looks like there isn't, the risk is always there of somebody getting pregnant, being picked by competitors, moving away etc. By thinking about the next moves you can enhance your reactivity to change and reduce the risk of vacancies or unprepared people.

By preparing team members for a possible next steps you enhance their commitment and motivation as they see by leading examples, that it is possible to evolve in the organization and therefore work harder to achieve it.

Assign specific tasks to your team member that go beyond their regular scope to check if they got what it takes for their next step. There again it can be very motivational for them to see that you encourage their evolution and for you it is the best way to get a grip of their capabilities to go further. I specifically made very good experiences by assigning team leadership tasks to team members that had no management function and hence got the chance to lead a team before getting into a management position. It quickly shows if they are capable of organizing, assigning or delegating work and overview the team and the progress of the project, without losing the overall sight of the given objective.

4. Promote them

Now you got your high performing team and it works just perfectly, so what do you do next? Often I see that managers, by stressing the need of continuity, tend to slow down team change, once a team is set up and working well. Why? Maybe because it makes the job as a manager easier, but it's risky and in view of the future the worst thing to do.

If you have talents, then promote them and do it quickly. It's not a question of age or experience on the job, but above all of getting the assigned job done, showing to be ready for the next step and the will to move forward. That's what should decide about the timing of the next step. Make your organization dynamic and it will pay you back by being quicker, more dicisive and always a step ahead in thinking.

And even if the team member should leave the team for the next step, let them go, just make sure you get again the best one to fill the spot and as you are always on the lookout in other teams for your next team member there will be a continuous flow of people also at your disposal.

Is leadership a talent or can it be learned?

Lately I'm came across this questions a number of times. It seems that many managers, recuiters and companies are haunted these days by bad leadership. Apparently there are too many un- or misleading managers at work, people that have been promoted until they reached their incompetency. I will try to give a short insight in my views of leadership, based on my own working experience as a leader, experiences I've made with my leaders and some thoughts to bring it all together.

To be frank right ahead: there is no unique answer to the question. If leadership could be learned we wouldn't have a problem and would not even think about the topic, just train people correctly. On the other hand if leadership would only be a question of talent, the world economy would have been doomed years ago. Yes you are guessing right, I'm giving you the one answer you don't want to hear: It's a bit of both.

There are four basic pillars on which a true leader stands:

1. Knowledge
2. Experience
3. Talent
4. His guts

There is no way you can be successfull without knowing your subject. You need to have a good insight in things and a good leader is always a good analyst too and I'm not talking only numbers here, but also seeing und understanding people, decripting networks, breaking down overall complexety and viewing trends, just to give a few examples.

Even if knowledge by definition can be learned, it will only get potentialized by experience. If you would have to choose a guide to climb Mount Everest would you just choose a technically well trained guide or the experienced one who climbed the Everest already? Experience is even often unvaluable and most companies and recruites underestimate widely this component in the recruiting process and often prefer titles and degrees over realtime experience.

I truly believe that even if you're an expert of your business with many years of experience you will only be a leader if you have the specific talent of leadership. Watch kids in kindergarden und you'll see there is always one that stands out, the kid everybody follows, naturally because s/he has "something". Didn't you experience that in workgroups someone is taking the lead, not because s/he is particularly good at the subjet, but only because it felt natural to do so and everybody agrees, often there is not even discussion about it. This natural leadership is a talent and you're born with it. Like you're a gifted tennis player or virtuose violonist. You can learn to play tennis as much as you want, train and play for years, but you only have a chance to get to the top if you have the talent.

And finally the true leader has guts and uses them wisely. Didn't you ever come to the point where all analysis wouldn't help and you couldn't count on your experience? Or even worse when all analysis and advice would point you one way and you just "believe" it should be the other way? A true leader knows how the deal with his guts, when to use it and when not.

So in the end I do believe that leadership is a natural born talent that needs to be developped and expanded over years through knowledge and experience. A true leader is someone who over years grew his naturally given legitimacy to lead by becoming an expert in his field and combining his knowledge with realtime experience. Trusting his natural instincts he has a strong "belly opinion" and will use it wisely, above all in situations where information and knowledge is contradictory.

A good example may be Alexander the Great who at the age of 18 lead several successfull military campaigns and even if he was appointed General of the army by birth right, his personality made him a true leader, becoming more powerful by experience through ten years of battle, creating one of the wastest empires of the ancient history. Once he died and the leader was gone, civil wars broke out and the empire fell apart.

When the body says NO!

Did you ever experience a moment of complete exhaustion, where your body is just not able to go on anymore? Fortunately I never experienced it, but being leader of teams and part of a company where not only the products are fast moving and consuming I (sadly enough) had several occasions to witness that state of exhaustion in my employees, peers or bosses, causing severe health problems.

Some of the problems led to forced breaks, stays at the hospital and health sequels that will be present for life. Whatever may be the reason that causes the problem, the most important thing is to take it seriously. It's your health and there is no way to get around health problems than to deal with it. Health can't be negotiated, refueled or bought, it's a life time stack that you have to take care of to be able to live a long and prosperous life.

Whatever work you do and how important it may seem it's never as important as your health and only being healthy you're valuable to your company, family, friends and above to YOURSELF.

Please take care!

When being yourself becomes dangerous

We had a vivid discussion the other day about the following question:

"Was it right to dismiss John Galliano from the house of Dior, after his verbal escapades?"

There were two fervent opinions groups with obviously contrary views. The ones who defended John Galliano, thinking of him as just another citizen with the right to make mistakes, the others defending the house of Dior thinking of the dismissal as the only right answer to the public offense their Artistic Director committed.

Now as for me I think that maybe the fact of being Swiss naturally moves me into a center position, but me make myself clear : John Galliano is a human being like we all are and is entitled to make mistakes and pay the price for it as everybody else. Could you imagine being sacked from your job after committing the same mistake? I doubt it! But not because the mistake is commendable but because nobody gives a damn about you. The problem with John Galliano is that he is a public figure and being a public figure he is not only constantly exposed to public but also to their judgment.

In this case not the Artistic Director of Dior has been sacked but John Galliano as a person. The best proof for this is, that the following fashion show has not been cancelled, proving that Dior was not at all ashamed of the artistic work done by Galliano. They just had to react to the fact that the public figure Galliano, in his role as spokesperson of Dior was no longer in line with the values and the image of the House of Dior.

What is sad, is that in the end Galliano fired himself, it was due to come. I would assume that both parties are ok with the fact that it happened because they knew that a change was necessary someday. Dior stands clear of all that happened and reacted quickly and John, well he'll rise from the ashes and everybody in Paris that condemned him now will cheer at him when he comes back in a few months, stronger and crazier than he has ever been before.

The only sad thing is that I would have loved to see a great goodbye runway Galliano for Dior - now that won't happen, will it? So let's look forward to the first post-Galliano Dior-Show and the return of the master himself.

Beware of Nicoleon

So it's done! After weeks of meeting, discussing, argueing and disagreement the Undecided Nations (UN) declared war on Gaddafi - well not really, just gave themselves the right to attack Libya at will.

And as China and Russia stay out of the line, the US is not really into getting a second Iraq, Angie is more busy finding new uncopy-pasted ministers and showing that she is not a leader - again - there is the time for Nicoleon to rise.

Since childhood he had been training for this moment. With small airplanes and tin soldiers (unfortunately he is not allowed to use them) he orchestrated the big invasion. La Grande Nation is back and a boys dream is coming true. France is leading the world forces against the tyrant and Nicoleon is proud.

But beware: as his vision is as great as he stands stall he soon may get aware that there are Waterloos to come and that exile (or next elections) is nearer than he could imagine. Until then he plays, living his childhood dream, being Nicoleon, a big hmmm sorry rather small statesman.

Now then let's get started...

Dear World

Ok and right upfront - I have never done this...not the writing, I did this - but blogging? No I've never done that before, did I? Wikipedia shortly tells us that blogging is "a blend of the term web log" and "Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video."

Well that sounds like what I usually do in my mind - just without the writing and sharing part. But I wouldn't be here writing this, if I wouldn't want to share some of my thoughts. Over the years I've seen and heard many things, made my own opinions, changed them ever so often. And yet I always hail dearly my own opinion as being THE one (even if I change them), being MY one.

I still don't know what I'll be writing about, but again that's not the point, I just wanna try it, find out what happens. In general I do not think about what I write, but have to read it later to see the result.

So now that I got started, I hope you'll enjoy it ;)

Travel safe