To Boldly Go...

One of the best compliments I ever received was from an employee who compared my management style to that of Captain Picard’s.

I wouldn’t call myself a Trekker, but I’ve seen all episodes of Star Trek’s Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager multiple times, and my favorite Christmas gift last year was the newest Star Trek movie. And I love it when I can communicate in Star Trek shorthand:

• An episode as metaphor (“I, Borg” for the value of individuality over conformity)
• A character as personality descriptor (Spock vs. McCoy)
• A catchphrase as life truism (“Engage!” “Energize!”)

So when my employee paid me that compliment, I was thrilled. I’m being compared to the incomparable Jean-Luc Picard, was my first thought. My second was, isn’t it great to have an employee who’s bilingual (i.e. can speak Star Trek).

What is Picard’s management style? He’s a leader, not just a manager. He listens to everyone but makes his own decisions. He’s a successful delegator who delegates authority not just tasks. He gathers the best team around him, believes in them, and trusts them to do their thing – but sees the Big Picture and sometimes has to step in to preserve the integrity of that vision. He believes in diversity in the workplace. He respects his team and shows it.

How do I know this? Because I’ve seen Picard in action time and again, and because All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek and All the Other Things I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek the Next Generation remind me.

I’ve been rereading both books recently and recommend them for their wit and inspiration. The subject may seem frivolous to those who don’t recognize the value of Star Trek, but these books are full of life-enhancing and life-affirming insights. Like Star Trek itself.

Don’t say it’s just television. As author Dave Marinaccio explains, “Television is a conduit. It’s neither better nor worse than other forms of communication. What’s being conveyed is what’s truly important. The source of ideas is not as important as the substance of the ideas being expressed.”

I may not often succeed at being a Picardian leader but I’m not ashamed to say I aspire to it. It’s a worthy aspiration, after all. Star Trek is the epitome of the modern morality tale. It inspires, enlightens, and even educates – all while entertaining. Even those episodes designed solely for fun are more than the sum of their parts because each main cast is a group of hardworking, decent characters who respect one another, treat one another well, and, while fallible, operate for the general good. There’s also a lot of laughter on Star Trek. And my favorite thing of all is that it envisions a positive future, not an apocalyptic one. Who wouldn’t want to work there? Who wouldn’t want to build such an enterprise?

Make it so.

It’s All in the Blend

I’ve been an online learning guy for nearly 10 years and I’ve seen several organizations develop online learning strategies. Often, they focus on the latest toy – whether that’s the laptop computer, the internet, PDAs, or the latest 4-G phone. The good news is that excitement for the newest technology often ignites excitement for how it can be used to promote organizational learning. The bad news is that these technologies are seldom used effectively because they become the focus of new programs instead of being used as part of the blend.

Blended learning is a popular term these days. It usually refers to the blending of online learning with more traditional face-to-face experiences, but can easily expand to include personal communication devices – or whatever the next great toy might be.

So what’s the smoothest blend?

Well, to a great extent that depends on your organization, but there are some basic guidelines:

• Basic knowledge, such as product information, industry standards, software tutorials, or organizational procedures, can usually be effectively taught in a self-paced, online environment.
  
• Soft skills, such as leadership, personnel management or salesmanship, are often best presented in a face-to-face environment where the importance of personal behaviors and motivation can be stressed and demonstrated.
  
• Constantly changing or evolving information, or complex step-by-step information that must be readily at hand, can be effectively delivered using the new generation of phones, or network-enabled PDAs.

The best solution will effectively blend these options into a complete program that continually reevaluates the organization’s needs and environment and sweetens the blend accordingly. Variety is the spice of life – in training this means it’s all in the blend.

What would your drawing look like?

Over the years, during Organizational Development sessions, I’ve had employees draw a picture of their organizational culture. Some of the pictures make other participants in the session want to work for that organization and others, well not so much. What would your drawing look like?

Culture is “the shared attitudes, values, beliefs, and customs of members of a social unit or organization” (Walter, 1985). Asking employees to draw their organizational culture brings to light the aspects of this definition. The organization comes alive and others discover the shared attitudes, values, beliefs and customs. Not only does a drawing bring the culture to life, but so do words. What are your employees saying about your organization? Word of mouth is the most powerful communication vehicle and during the changing economic times, we’ve all heard from those colleagues, family and friends who are disenchanted with their current culture.

Do you have a hard time attracting and retaining a talented workforce? If you do, maybe you need to investigate your organizational culture.

Average

I went to a concert last week and the opening act was amazing. They caught my attention because they were talented but also because they were so unique. I stood there listening and enjoying but thinking to myself, where did they come up with this? How did they discover this ability and how did it all come together? I am always so impressed when I encounter something that surprises me. I think being average is just easier. It is easier to do what we already know. It is easier to do it the way we have always done it because there are 4,000 other things that have to be done that we don’t have time for. Being unique takes effort, and it takes time.

We are doing annual reviews here at EPI and when reviewing myself and thinking about successes in the last year and areas for improvement, I asked myself the following questions:

1. How do I stand out?
2. What do I do that is unique from anyone else?
3. Does it provide value to the team?
4. How can I do it better?

We are all unique in one way or another, but are we utilizing this uniqueness to add value to our organization? What if you decided you wanted to approach your work, your business, your leadership, your professional culture in a new way? How would you go about being unique? How would you stand above the rest?

Michelangelo’s David

Michelangelo is now synonymous with “masterpiece,” but in the late 15th century he was just another upstart on the Italian Renaissance scene. That is, until his work began speaking for itself.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Michelangelo’s sculptures were enlivened by his knowledge of anatomy. Not only did he study anatomy, he used live models and, in a stunning show of courage, he asked for – and received – special permission from the Church of Rome to actually dissect dead bodies.

What does this have to do with learning and development?

At a recent team meeting we discussed outstanding project proposals and entered into a rather freewheeling discussion on how to build them. How much information is too much for the prospective client vs. how much is enough for the proposal crafter?

This is what led me to Michelangelo.

In any form of presentation or training – written, online, or face-to-face – there has to be enough depth of information to sculpt the final product, whether that product is a proposal or a leadership program or simply an engaged employee.

Michelangelo spent hours bent over putrid corpses, studying the intricacies and interaction of muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones. And that began to inform his sculpting. His larger-than-life David stands there with the original six-pack abdomen, coiled and ready to fight Goliath. From a huge block of smooth marble Michelangelo took three years to fashion what looks like a living, breathing human being.

All of Michelangelo’s sculptures seem to be in the middle of or on the verge of actually moving. An astonishing feat when you consider they’re made of inanimate material. An impossible feat if he hadn’t had all that background information on which to build.

We can’t take three years to prepare a proposal or even sculpt a leadership program. And, fortunately, we don’t need no stinking corpses to develop an excellent product. But we do need to do the work – all the work – to get there.