How We Lead » Trust

How to Identify a Future Leader

Ken — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:15:40 +0000

I think the best way to identify a potential leader is to ask people: “Who do you enjoy working with? Who do you respect in the workforce?” The names you hear in answer to those questions are the kind of people you want to identify as potential leaders and promote. I’ll never forget, in the seventh grade I was elected president of my class. I came home and told my Dad, who was a career navy officer. I said, “Dad, I won the election. I’m president of the class!” And my dad said, “Ken, that’s great! Now that you have that position—never use it. Great leaders are great because their people trust and respect them, not because they have power.” So think about it: Who do people trust and respect in your workplace? Who do people go to for advice who might not be a leader now? Those are the ones you want to identify. Those are the ones who have the potential to be leaders, because people are already attracted to them.

The Firing of Legendary Penn State Coach Joe Paterno: An Ethical Dilemma

Ken — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:01:05 +0000

The firing of Joe Paterno as coach of Penn State has dominated the news this week. A legendary coach with the most wins in the history of major college football, Joe was dismissed for not doing more to stop the alleged sexual abuse of children by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

The news came as a shock, because in many ways Joe was considered an outstanding human being. Not only had he coached at Penn State for 61 years, he’d also donated more than $3 million to the university and helped raise more than $13 million for its library.

I feel badly about the Paterno firing for two reasons. First, I’m deeply saddened about the impact of the alleged sexual abuse on the victims and their families. Second, I’m saddened for the students at Penn State, who argued that the board of trustees should have allowed Joe at least one more game or let him finish the season. From their point of view, Joe had broken no laws. When he’d learned about the sexual abuse, he’d reported it to the athletic director and to the vice president.

As I thought about it this week, the case of Joe Paterno is a classic example of why it’s so important to do the Ethics Check when making key decisions. In our book The Power of Ethical Management: Integrity Pays! You Don’t Have To Cheat To Win, Norman Vincent Peale and I describe the Ethics Check, which poses a series of questions around three areas: legality, fairness, and self-esteem. The next time you’re faced with a dilemma, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is it legal? Will you be violating either civil law or organizational policy?

In today’s society, people tend to focus on this first aspect of the Ethics Check—the legal question. They think if they can get lawyers to okay the decision, they’re doing the right thing. But just because an action is legal does not make it ethical. To assure that you’re doing the right thing, it’s a good idea to review the second two aspects of the Ethics Check.

2. Is it balanced? Is it fair to all concerned in the short term as well as the long term? Does it promote win-win relationships?

If Coach Paterno had really thought through the fairness question—if he had fully considered the trauma to the victims and their families—he might have realized that he needed to do more. He’s already made statements that he probably should have done more. The fairness question goes beyond the legal question and looks at the effect your decision will have on others.

3. How will it make you feel about yourself? Will it make you proud? Would you feel good if your decision was published in the newspapers? Would you feel good if your kids and grandkids knew about it?

Unethical behavior erodes self-esteem. That’s why you feel troubled when you make a decision that goes against your own innate sense of what’s right. As the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.” Thinking through how you’d feel if your actions were published in the newspaper or if your kids found out about them can help you decide the right thing to do. I’m sure that if Paterno knew how this incident would dominate his reputation at the end of his career, he certainly would have done more.

This simple but powerful Ethics Check can help anyone—from world leaders to boards of directors to private citizens—make decisions that stand the test of time and result in the greatest good. When you look at all three aspects of the Ethics Check, you can see that in making their tough decision, the board of trustees at Penn State did the right thing.

How can we build trust within our organization?

Ken — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 20:21:14 +0000

During tough economic times, I’m often asked how to build trust within an organization. People seem to be really down and don’t trust their leaders. I got the best advice about this from my friend Ichak Adizes, who used to be a professor at UCLA—a brilliant guy. He said, “You can’t talk about trust until you talk about respect.” There’s a nonverbal and verbal aspect of each of those. If I respect you, I face you, because I want to hear your opinion. If I don’t respect you, I turn my back on you, because I couldn’t care less what you think. But this it interesting—if I trust you, I’m willing to turn my back on you because I know you mean me no harm. If I don’t trust you, I face you because I need to watch your every move. So these two things work together. You can’t talk about building trust until you show respect. I’ve seen a lot of leaders who will go behind closed doors and start making decisions about other people’s lives. And the people outside the door don’t trust the intentions of the leaders inside; they think they’re in there to serve themselves.

One of the things we do to show respect for people in our company is to share our balance sheet with them so they know how the company is doing. We even brought in someone from Colorado to teach people how to read a balance sheet! We share this because we want everyone to always know where we stand as an organization. We have a gain-sharing program where we share a percentage of our profits with our people. We also have a “give back” program where we take a percentage of our profit and give it to our employees so they can each give money to a charity that is important to them. We want them involved—we show them respect and they trust us in return. I think it’s so powerful and so necessary to understand how those two things go together. If you don’t treat people with respect, they won’t trust you. Trust and respect go together.

See the Outcome!

Ken — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:10:16 +0000

I recently heard a wonderful speaker named David Cook, who is one of the great sports mental coaches in the country. He had a really interesting theory about goal setting that I thought was worth sharing with you. He said when you go to set up a goal, whatever it is, you should try to see that goal in your own mind being accomplished. You need to see the outcome. Then you need to feel what it will be like once you’ve accomplished that particular goal, and get that feeling in mind. And then you need to trust that you’re going to be able to get there. He said the power is in the seeing it and the feeling it, and then just trusting the thing. So if you have a goal, whether it’s a business or personal goal, try to actually see yourself accomplishing it and feel like you’re going to feel once you’ve accomplished it—the smile on your face, the applause from other people, whatever—and then just trust it and set your sights on that goal. I think that is really interesting. In golf, he has a whole bunch of people who have “SFT” on their ball, so when they’re playing golf, they try to see every shot—what kind of shot are they going to hit, where is it going to go, how high and all—then get up and feel it, and then just trust the process. He said it really is amazing how it works on all kinds of goals. I was thinking about the great athletes competing in the Olympics—the ones who win have seen themselves crossing the finish line and accomplishing their goal ahead of time. Then they make their actions consistent with what they are seeing and feeling. I think it’s a really fascinating process: See it – Feel it – Trust it. Isn’t that interesting? Try it on one of your goals today.

Bring Your Brain to Work!

Ken — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:59:00 +0000

I used to work with a fellow named Rick Tate, who talked about studying people who trained seeing-eye dogs. What they found was that they kick two kinds of dogs out of the program: The first kind were the ones who were completely obedient, who would do anything that the master said. That was really kind of surprising because you would have thought that the only ones they would kick out would be the ones who wouldn’t do anything that the master said. But they kicked out both kinds. The only dogs they kept in the program were the dogs who would do what the master said unless it didn’t make sense. They kept the dogs that could think for themselves. I think that’s what we as leaders should always try to do—get everybody to think for themselves. Sure, we have some guidelines, here’s what our policy is and all, but use your brains. You can imagine a seeing-eye dog with his master at the street corner, and the master says, “Forward,” and the dog looks up and there’s a car coming at sixty miles an hour. And the dog thinks, “This is gonna be a real bummer,” as he leads his master out into the middle of the street. So we want to empower people to use their brains – train them to do what the boss wants, or what the policies are, unless it doesn’t make sense. That’s really allowing people to bring their brains to work. So don’t get hit by a car! Use your brain today.

Trust

Ken — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:24:37 +0000

Something that’s so important in changing organizations for the better is the whole concept of trust. As I’ve said before, trust and respect go together. There are some real trust issues that people are dealing with out there. Sometimes people are not sure that the leader necessarily respects them and seeks their opinions. The leader could even be making an effort to do that, but people may be suspicious because of past leaders. It’s so important. It doesn’t do you any good to be concerned or have an issue about something and not let the person working with you, or someone else, know about it, so something can be done about it. As the CEO of WD-40 Company, Garry Ridge, says, everything is a learning opportunity if it’s an issue we can learn from. So I hope you really listen to your people, respect them, and ask their opinions. Treat everyone you work with as teammates in this tough economic time, so you can trust each other and work together toward what you’re trying to accomplish. I love the old saying that there’s no “I” in TEAM, because it’s so true.

My Interview with Richard Morris at Simple-Talk

Ken — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:59:57 +0000

http://www.simple-talk.com/content/article.aspx?article=721

Personal Branding Interview

Ken — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:25:52 +0000

I did a recent interview with Dan Schawbel for his blog, Personal Branding. Read the interview at http://personalbrandingblog.com/personal-branding-interview-ken-blanchard/ and let me know what you think.

Choose to Feel Good About Yourself

Ken — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:05:40 +0000

You know, I was thinking today about the San Diego Padres. They’re 7 and 2 now and it’s interesting to hear the analysts. At one point they were 1 and 2, and they were down by 3 runs to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the eighth inning, and somehow they rallied and won the game and made 2-2 and split with a team that’s supposed to win the championship in our league outright, and suddenly the team started to belief in itself. And they started saying, “Well, we really hang together,” and all that kind of thing. And suddenly they’ve just pulled off all these wins in a row. So what would have happened if they had lost and they had been 1 and 3? Would they have been able to hold their heads up?

So often how you feel about yourself is completely a choice. One of our problems is that how we feel about ourselves is usually related to our performance. So if we don’t have such a good day, or if we lose an account, or think we did something wrong, all that kind of thing—what we have to recognize is that performance will go up and down. People’s opinion of us will go up and down. You have to believe in yourself. You have to choose that we’re doing good things and you’re doing good things. So let’s just see what happens to the Padres – if they keep it up, or if they suddenly lose a couple of games and start staying, “Maybe we’re not as good as we thought,” and all of a sudden their attitude changes. Life is really a series of choices. Norman Vincent Peale used to say, “When you wake up in the morning, you have two choices in life: You can feel good about yourself or you can feel lousy. Why would you choose the latter one?” So today, make the choice to feel good about yourself!

Make Sure Your Employees Trust You–Or Else

Ken — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:31:22 +0000

Wanted to let you know about this recent article that was published in Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/23/trust-respect-employees-leadership-managing-blanchard.html

Leadership
Make Sure Your Employees Trust You–Or Else
Ken Blanchard and Terry Waghorn 03.23.09, 5:48 PM ET

How do you keep people trusting you at a time like this? Trust is essential in our lives, and it has been since the beginning of our country. Our dollar bills say In God We Trust. Yet today trust is all but vanishing, especially trust in our business leaders, whose greed and short-term selfishness seem to have been a major cause of our economic crisis. With negativity running amok, it is no small wonder that trust within the organizational context is slipping.

Yet that need not be the case. “Managed properly, trust can actually grow in such adverse conditions,” says Shawna O’Grady, associate professor of management at Queens School of Business, in Kingston, Ontario. “Taking this point to the extreme, consider the bonds forged between comrades-in-arms in a theater of war.”

The key to building trust in both good and bad times is to realize that none of us is as smart as all of us. There are companies that have embraced this simple truth and used it to maintain trust before, during and, we’re sure, after this economic downturn. All these companies seem to have two characteristics in common.

First, they have a higher purpose than simply making money. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Southwest Airlines, from its beginning, has expressed the conviction that it is in the freedom business. The freedom of all Americans to be with friends and relatives during good times and bad times–thus, their low price structure. Herb Kelleher, who co-founded Southwest, not only wanted to give his customers the lowest possible price, he also wanted to give them the best possible service.

As a result, Southwest is set up to empower everyone, right down to its frontline employees–to make decisions, use their brains and be customer maniacs so they can create raving fan customers.

Chick-fil-A’s purpose is to glorify God by having a positive influence on everyone who comes in contact with its stores and foods. The stores aren’t open on Sundays, even though that is often the busiest day in the fast food industry. S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, first did this for religious reasons as a devout Southern Baptist and lifelong Sunday school teacher, because Sunday is the day of rest. But it has turned out to be a good business decision. Chick-fil-A attracts many of its employees, including managers, because they know they will be able to be with their families and friends every Sunday. Has it paid off? The chain has by far the lowest turnover of restaurant managers and frontline employees in the quick-service business.

Second, companies that engender trust democratize the decision-making process by soliciting input and sharing the decision-making itself with as many people as possible. In his primetime address to Congress in February, President Barack Obama acknowledged “difficult and trying times” but sought to rally the nation with an upbeat vow that by working together “we will rebuild, we will recover.” How do you do that in business organizations?

It isn’t complicated. When leaders treat their people as their business partners and involve them in making important decisions, those people feel respected, and respect leads to trust. If you respect your people and they trust you as a leader, they will give their all to get the best results they can for your organization.

Ichak Adizes, a longtime consultant and professor at UCLA, observes how respect and trust are conveyed by both nonverbal and verbal messages. If you respect someone, you face them when you speak to them, because you are interested and want to hear their opinions. If you don’t respect them, you turn your back, because you couldn’t care less what they think. If you trust people, on the other hand, you can turn your back on them, because you feel certain they mean you no harm. If you don’t trust them, you watch their every move.

How does that work at Chick-fil-A and Southwest Airlines? In both cases, they respect their people and therefore share information with them about the performance of the company in both good times and bad. In good times, they celebrate together; in bad times, they are problem-solving partners. Does that work? You’d better believe it.

Unlike many companies today, where the top managers are locked behind closed doors, cutting costs while holding everybody’s fate in their hands, these two great businesses open their books to everyone so they can know what’s happening and go right to work cutting costs and increasing revenue.

Many leaders are afraid to share negative information with their people, because they fear appearing vulnerable and therefore weak. We have found the contrary to be true. Everyone knows leaders are not perfect. When leaders admit problems and involve their people in problem solving, respect and trust rise.

Corporate leaders may also fear Wall Street’s reaction to their trusting moves, but that’s like playing tennis with your eye on the scoreboard and not on the ball. The ball in business is results and people. If the focus is only on results, you’ll never be able to maintain or build trust in a time like this.

What are you doing? Are you betting on the brainpower of your top managers, or on the brainpower of everyone in your organization?

What’s at stake? The future of your company, based much more than you may realize on trust and respect.

Ken Blanchard is co-author of many New York Times bestsellers, including The One Minute Manager and The One Minute Entrepreneur. He serves as chairman and chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies.

Terry Waghorn is an adviser to senior executives in companies ranging from small to Fortune 500. He is co-author of Mission Possible and author of The System.