Discussion of "Tell to Win"

My apologies for the delay in posting this discussion. It has been a busy couple of months.

Also, unless there is sufficient interest in continuing this blog, I recommend we wind it down as it seems to have served its purpose over the course of a few years and several books.

Peter Guber is convinced that applying the principles of storytelling can greatly enhance the effectiveness of anyone seeking to influence others. In “Telling to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story,” Guber outlines, through several examples, key elements of any effort to influence others to act. According to Guber, PowerPoint presentations full of dry statistics and bullet points hardly ever reach their audience with the intended effect. The reason for this is that the presenters fail to connect emotionally with their audience.

For a story to transport audiences emotionally, Guber posits that four elements are required: (1) sympathetic recognizable characters (a hero, which can come in all shapes and sizes), (2) drama that convinces audiences the teller has heart, (3) a call to action that hits home with a resounding “I got it” or “aha” moment, and (4) a me-to-we factor that shines a light on an interest or problem that both the teller and the audience share and creates empathy.

He further notes that the structure of an effective story should include (1) a beginning that shines a light on your challenge or problem, (2) a middle structured around the struggle to meet that challenge, and (3) an ending resolution that ignites the listener to your call to action.

He counsels presenters to keep in mind that audiences pick up on the speaker’s intention, authenticity, and energy. To this he adds that no mater how authentic and empathetic the presenter may appear, if one ignores the interests of the audience, one should not expect to move them. He recommends that one assess the receptivity of one’s audience, where possible, before deciding to tell the story. By listening attentively to the audience, one can sometimes pick up on the need to adjust one’s story.

Guber also observes that some of the most effective story tellers are those who establish and sustain a never ending story through a constant proliferation of tellers who will preserve the original elements of the story even as they give the story their own personal thrust. An example of such a never ending story is where a restaurant owner tells new customers about the story of the restaurant. If the restaurant is otherwise good, those who have been to it and heard the story will most likely tell friends about it in the context of their experience and proliferate the story.

What are the possible applications to libraries? Instances such as the following come to mind: (1) preparing an annual report of library activities, (2) making the case for special needs of libraries in times of budget cuts where institutions compete for reduced funding allocations, and (3) developing an endless story built on excellent customer service one user at a time. Can you think of any other applications of Gubers’ recommendations or particular instances of effective story telling in a library context?

We will next discuss "Tell to Win"

Thanks to Maria Elena Ovalle for facilitating our discussion of Outliers. We will next discuss Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story by Peter Guber. ISBN: 978-0307587954 (Crown Business, 2011).

The book discusses the effectiveness of reaching people’s hearts through story telling and contrasts this approach with data dumping.

I will facilitate this discussion April 18-30. Take some time to read the book and join the discussion. If you would like to serve as facilitator for a future book discussion, please e-mail me at jhcampos@southtexascollege.edu. Thank you

Discussion of "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

An “outlier” is defined as “something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body, or “a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample,” in simple terms, an outlier is something or someone that is extraordinary, or outside of what is considered the norm. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell examines the factors that determine the success or failure of highly intelligent and motivated individuals. Why are Bill Gates and the Beatles rich and famous, yet others of similar intelligence and ambition do not reach the same high levels of success? Mr. Gladwell examines how family, culture, friendships and the time in history successful individuals were born all contribute to high achievement and accomplishment.

Mr. Gladwell argues that Bill Gates was born at the right time, into the right family, and had exceptional opportunities in his youth to develop the skills necessary to co-found Microsoft and guide the company to becoming the leader in the software world. Gates’ parents were both successful; his father was a successful attorney and his mother came from a wealthy family. Bill Gates was a precocious child, not challenged enough in public schools. When he was in the seventh grade, his parents enrolled him at Lakeside, an exclusive private school in Seattle. During his second year at Lakeside, the school started a computer club. The Lakeside Mother’s Club held fund raisers every year for school projects. In 1968, the club provided funds to install a time-sharing computer terminal at the school with a direct link to a mainframe computer in Seattle. Computer time was expensive and the club money ran out quickly. As luck would have it, one of the Lakeside parents started a computer software company and offered to allow students to test software in exchange for free programming time. Eventually the company went bankrupt, so Gates and the other computer geeks at Lakeside began hanging out at the University of Washington’s Computer Center. Eventually, they discovered Information Sciences Inc., which allowed them programming time in exchange for working on software programs. Bill Gates had the remarkable opportunity to learn programming in his youth during the late 60s and early 70s. How many other individuals in the entire world had the same opportunities?

In addition to family, timing and connections, throughout the book, Mr. Gladwell refers to the “Rule of 10,000,” based on a study by Andres Ericsson, that showed evidence that true greatness requires a minimum of 10,000 hours of practicing or performing a specific task. Gladwell claims that true success, fame and greatness requires that individual devote enormous amounts of time practicing and perfecting skills. Gladwell refers to many successful individuals, including famous violinists, Olympic medalists, scientists, musicians and others who are “outliers” in their field due to spending huge amounts of time perfecting their skills.

In Outliers, Mr. Gladwell writes that "success is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky." Did this book change your way of defining "success?"


Discussion Questions
1. Mr. Gladwell feels that our current understanding of success is “really crude” and that we need to come up with a better understanding of what defines success and how successful individuals become "outliers." Do you agree with the explanations he offers in this book?

2. What is Mr. Gladwell’s explanation for the success Asians have in mathematics? Do you feel that school systems in this country could learn from the Asian cultures and adopt some of the ideas presented to improve student achievement in mathematics?

3. Do you have any personal experiences that prove or disprove some of Mr. Gladwell’s theories for what makes individuals successful?

4. Gladwell feels that there is no such thing as a “self-made” individual. Do you agree? Do you know any individuals that are truly “self-made?” What made them successful?

5. Did you have any “aha!” moments as you read this book? How could you use what you learned in either leading your staff to success, or for self-improvement?

Next will be "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

Our next book for discussion will be: Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, ISBN-13: 978-0316017923
Pub. Date: November 2008
Publisher: Little Brown & Company

Maria Elena Ovalle of Region One Educational Service Center will facilitate our discussion, which is scheduled for January17-28, 2011. Read the book over the upcoming holiday season and join our discussion on this blog.

If you would like to serve as facilitator for a future book discussion, please e-mail me at jhcampos@southtexascollege.edu. Thank you.

Discussion of "The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle"

The following is a summary of The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader and the issues discussed at the TLA District 4 in-person book discussion in Corpus Christi on October 21, 2010.

In The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader, management consultant James Hunter discusses the servant leader approach to leadership and management. Hunter restates the principle previously elaborated most notably by Robert Greenleaf which posits that true leadership derives from a sense of stewardship and responsibility marked by willing the good of those one leads. Hunter goes on to state that servant leadership can and should be more than just a high minded ideal, but is a practice that like any other habit must be cultivated. Highlights of Hunters exposition follow:

Good leadership is critical in creating an environment where people want to work. A Gallup poll showed that 2/3 of people who quit or resign from a job do so because of incompetent or ineffective management.

Good leadership is within any manager’s reach, but it requires more than head knowledge. It often requires a change in one’s attitude toward leadership, people, and relationships. It also requires the work and discipline involved in cultivating character.

Over 1/3 of the companies in Fortune’s 100 Most Admired Companies List are involved in some form of servant leadership or identify servant leadership as a core operating principle.

Hunter defines leadership as the skills of influencing people to enthusiastically work toward goals identified as being for the common good, with character that inspires confidence.

Management and leadership are not the same. Management relates to technical abilities and skills required to accomplish a task. Leadership is more about inspiring people to do a job well. It does not require that one be the boss. In effective organizations everyone in the organization takes on leadership responsibility for the success of the team.

Servant leadership begins by reflecting on the following: When we signed up to be the leader we assumed an awesome responsibility. Human beings have been entrusted to our care and much is at stake. Employees will generally spend half of their waking hours in the environment created by their manager. How the manager behaves influences people’s lives even outside of working hours.

The ultimate test of the effectiveness of a leader is “Are your people better off when they left than when they arrived? … Are your employees more employable, better people, and have they grown as a result of your influence and leadership?” The leader always leaves a mark. The question is what type of mark one leaves behind.

Servant leadership does not imply that the leader abdicates aspects of leadership responsibility like defining mission, values, standards, and accountability. Employees need to know what the standard is and receive feedback. People look to the leader to provide direction in these areas. But once this direction is established, the leader must become responsive to those being led by identifying and meeting their legitimate needs so they can become effective a meeting the stated mission.

Power and authority differ in that power will compel a desired behavior, but damages relationships in the process, whereas authority is about the character of the leader and the leader’s ability to inspire a desired behavior. Legitimate leadership must be built upon authority. And legitimate authority (influence) must be earned as it does not come from a job title.

Leadership is not about manipulating, persuading, or pressuring people for personal benefit. Leadership is influencing people for mutual benefit. It is the willingness to extend oneself and meet the needs of another human being regardless of the return that may or may not come one’s way as a result.

Building authority requires serving, sacrificing, and seeking the greatest good of those being led. It requires loving others where the word is defined as “The acts of extending yourself for others by identifying and meeting their legitimate needs and seeking their greatest good.” Sacrifice involves overcoming the two-year old with the “me first” attitude in us.

Building authority requires loving, which is characterized by being patient, kind, humble, respectful, selfless, forgiving, honest, and committed. Kindness and honesty translate into people skills and accountability. These are areas where managers often lose their balance. Empathetic listening is an important aspect of kindness on the job and an important step in becoming a servant leader. Trustworthiness is also a key element of good leadership. Once the troops buy into the leader, they’ll buy into whatever mission statement the leader’s got, but mission statements mean little where trust is lacking.

Leadership requires that we choose to do the right thing until it becomes a habit. When we serve and sacrifice for those entrusted to us we build authority (influence). Most employees will respond to such leadership but some never will, or even worse, will try to sabotage the leader. A functional question is how do we want to be treated by our leader? Be the leader you want your leader to be.

Borrowing from Allen Wheelis’ How People Change, Hunter posits that change and growth requires three stages: suffering (friction) moving us from our comfort zone, insight into what is damaging in one’s behavior, and willingness to take actions aligned with new intention, which results in incremental change born of new habits.

Hunter also proposes a process for continuous leadership improvement consisting of (1) setting the standard or foundation, (2) identifying gaps or feedback, and (3) eliminating gaps and measuring results or friction.

There are two types of behavioral motivation on the job: (1) satisfiers or maintenance factors, which are those things such as wages, benefits, and working conditions, that employees must receive before expending even a minimum effort on the job; and (2) motivators, such as recognition, praise, appreciation, opportunity for growth, challenge, meaningful work, and job satisfaction, which stimulate people to put out more energy, effort, and enthusiasm in doing their jobs.

The most successful organizations understand and work to meet deeper needs that human beings share, namely:
A need for great leadership
A need for meaning and purpose
A need to be appreciated, recognized, and respected
A need to be part of something excellent (special)
A need to be part of a caring community



Discussion Questions included the following:

1. Hunter argues that the technical skills that make it possible for people to rise to leadership positions do not serve them well in becoming effective leaders. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

On this point, most of the participants agreed based on personal experience.


2. Hunter argues that good leaders are made rather than born and that most people (barring those with serious mental or emotional deficiencies) can develop the skills of good leadership. How can we develop good leaders in our libraries?

Here some members felt that there are those who have exceptional leadership abilities though in general the skills can be taught.

3. Hunter and servant leadership proponents such as Robert Greenleaf put forth the following as the litmus test of effective leadership: Do those you serve grow as persons as a result of your influence and leadership? Is this a good test of leadership? Why or why not?

This point garnered much discussion. There was some concern that requiring that others grow as persons under one's leadership is a tall order, especially where the person's duties are limited to repetitive technical procedures. There was also some concern about becoming too personally involved with one's subordinates and the emotional vulnerability that might result. It was agreed that one needs to distinguish between being concerned for the overall welfare of one's subordinates and becoming emotionally involved with them in unhealthy ways.

4. Hunter states that the greatest leader is the greatest servant. What does this mean and does this make sense?


Most agreed that this makes sense in that a good leader who is service oriented and not self-centered is more likely to garner credibility from subordinates and hence be more effective.

5. Hunter argues that once compensation is perceived to be fair and the need is satisfied, its value as a motivator greatly diminishes. Daniel Pink makes the same argument in Drive. Does this ring true for libraries? If so, how can we use this principle to improve our libraries?

Most agreed with this observation, but quick to observe that pay can be relative and when a better paying opportunity becomes available it is likely to recieve consideration. The point was also made that librarians in general are motivated by service more than just money or they would likely be in another line of work.

Next will be The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle

Many thanks to Alice Nixon for facilitating our discussion of Crucial Confrontations. Next we will discuss:

The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader
Author: James C. Hunter
Pub. Date: June 2004
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
ISBN-13: 9781400053346

I will facilitate our discussion, which will be in-person during the District 4 fall meeting on October 21 at about 7:30 p.m. at the Omni Marina Hotel in Corpus Christi. I will also post highlights after the meeting to enable discussion on the blog.

CRUCIAL CONFRONTATIONS

The tag line on the cover of this book is "Never walk away from another conflict again!" I don't know if this book will completely equip you to engage in successful confrontations but it is a good start. The authors break confrontations into discrete parts and explain what is happening in each part. They also provide models for each section. Patterson, et al., posit that you need to work on yourself first. This includes mastering your own stories . Then you "confront with safety" by finding out if there are gaps in the other person's motivation or ability to perform the task. Then you mutually agree on a plan of action. Throughout this process you are to stay focused on the problem at hand, and at the same time, flexible if something more urgent comes up.

Since I have done a fair amount of studying on customer service in libraries (including a little patron confrontation), I found that not a lot of what the authors put forth was new to me. I realize that the models are useful to many people. I also thought it very interesting how they broke down the components of a confrontation. What gave me the most to think about was mastering your own stories. I know that I anticipate what an outcome will be with very little knowledge. I often let that anticipation color the entire encounter and the encounter ends without a good resolution.

Patterson, et al., also point out the importance of good communication that is precise. I think that this is probably the one thing that gets in the way of smooth employee relationships and good public service. What do you think?