At a time in my career when I literally asked a higher power to "send me a teacher", Geery Howe arrived. Geery draws on an extensive knowledge base of reading and study of the business community as he motivates individuals to action. Additionally, Geery's experiences in his dynamic consulting practice are the reality checks that make his From Vision to Action series of publications come alive and applicable to all of us that seek personal and professional excellence.
The desire to move the individual, company, or organization from merely seeing the potential to charting the steps to implementation are Geery's talents. His "Turning Challenges Into Achievements," is one of the guidebooks that can get you to the path of learning and transformation. Check out the others in the series to keep you there!"
Barbara Lykins, Director Community Resources
Iowa Farm Bureau Federation
Des Moines, Iowa
Introduction
THE 12TH PLAYER
In our small town of West Branch, Iowa, the locals meet at two places in the fall: the post office during the day, and the high school football field on Friday nights. As summer winds down, and a refreshing coolness creeps into the evening air, we gather at the little "Rose Bowl," an amphitheater created by local farmers at the turn of the century. Here, with steep banks on three sides, people park their pickup trucks and cars at the summit to sit and watch the game.
The scramble for the best parking places begins as soon as the elementary school is dismissed on Friday afternoon. The serious fans have pickup trucks with coolers and sofas in the back. I’ve seen one with a rack that a tarp can be pulled up and over in case of rain. Some even have small heaters in the back, in case it gets cold during the late October and November play-off games.
The pageantry begins when we all stand up for the flags that are marched to the center of the field. Holding our caps over our hearts, we listen to our national anthem played by the high-school marching band. Then the cheerleaders pump up the crowd with dancing and cheers.
I especially enjoy watching the arrival of the varsity football team. First, the bus drops the team off about a block from the field. They then line up in full gear. Holding hands, they walk in silence, their cleats generating a rhythmic sound on the concrete road. In front of this phalanx of players are the team captains, and then the coaches. Like the arrival of a Roman Legion before battle, they move as one toward the field.
As the team gathers at the northwest corner of the little Rose Bowl, the crowd becomes quiet. The players form into a huge huddle, chanting and jumping up and down. Next, the high school marching band strikes up the school's fight song, and then the team breaks and floods down the hill, running at full speed onto the field. The crowd in the bleachers and around the field starts clapping, shouting, and cheering "Go Bears!" And at that moment, in a small town on a fall Friday night, life has begun! This annual ritual, with decades of legend behind it, generates tremendous enthusiasm and hope for a new season.
We come for the game. We come to see our neighbors. We come to support our youth. We come to connect with each other. This is a world where a handshake is both a greeting and a commitment. This is a world where people draw you in close to visit, and they always look into your eyes -- unless, of course, the ball is about to be snapped. This is a world where you get placed by where you live, such as the "old Fawcett place on Sixth Street," and to whom you are related: "Your wife and her folk are from the Oskaloosa area, right?"
For those of us who either live in small towns or have come from them, we understand that these are communities where people like to meet face-to-face and visit regularly. Connections such as these build a foundation of caring, trust, and clarity. The same holds true for our corporate communities. When turning challenges into achievements, we must make relationship building of the utmost importance. Our face-to-face opportunities can transform problem-solving, allowing team synergy to surface.
I remember one time when a totally frustrated and overwhelmed senior manager called me because he just could not seem to get consistent execution in his service territory. After a couple of consultations by phone, I traveled out to see him. Together we visited with each of the members of his senior team for one hour.
I started these meetings by asking the same opening question: "What are your top three priorities for the next 90 days?" Then each person, as well as the senior manager, wrote them down on a piece of paper.
Next, they shared what they had written with each other. Following this exchange, I asked each member of the senior team to explain to me why these were their top three priorities. As I had suspected from my phone consultations, there were significant gaps in the understanding of what actually was a priority in the organization.
After the fourth meeting of this nature, the local senior manager turned to me and said, "I guess I dropped the ball on this one."
My response was quite frank: "Yes; you have under-communicated and over-managed these people."
The following morning, I gathered together the whole senior team and asked another important question: "What is most important in this company?" By now, everyone knew the drill and started writing down their answers on paper. Then, as before, we passed them around the table. Many, but not all, of the answers revolved around not upsetting the corporate offices. My single observation upon reading their answers was: "What happened to the customer?"
A year later, in a follow-up phone consultation, the senior manager remarked that if all the answers around the table are "I" focused, rather than "we" focused, then people are missing some key information. Today, I am pleased to report that the "we" answers are growing, and so is the quality of customer service.
One early August, not so long ago, I had an opportunity to visit once again with an old and dear mentor of mine, the northwest Iowa farmer who taught me: "What you feed, grows." Sitting quietly together during our first visit, we had talked about the weather and the crops, his aching knee and troublesome back, his children and his grandchildren, the farm and current farm prices, and, of course, more about the weather.
During our second visit together, we reminisced about my first visit to their farm, and then about some of the visits from all different sorts of people who had stopped by to see him during the last 30 years. Here is one of the stories he shared with me:
One dark and rainy evening, a school bus full of geology students and their teacher, a person who had visited some 10 years before, pulled into the farm wanting to know if they could sleep in the hayloft of the barn. The old farmer smiled and told me that his response was: "No, but you all can come in and sleep in the house." So, the entire busload of tired, rain-soaked kids, bearing all their gear, piled into his farmhouse for a much needed good night's rest.
For breakfast the following morning, the old farmer and his wife fed them milk, toast, and three dozen eggs. He remembered having to even make a second trip to the chicken coop to get more eggs. As he shared this story with me, his face just crinkled with laughter. After our visit, I kept thinking about how important these times were in his life, as were similar experiences in my own.
These days, many organizations are focused on expanding and building corporate knowledge through extensive programs, seminars, and workshops. They are busy learning all sorts of ideas. But when I think back to my northwest Iowa friend and his stories, I wonder whether or not people are building enough corporate memories. Do you realize that these days will be the "good old days" in five to seven years?
Over the course of the last year, I have been asking leaders, "Are you creating opportunities for shared experiences?" because these same experiences -- both formal and informal -- will transform the follower's capacity to bond with others, thereby creat ing the willingness to accept strategic challenges.
When I was growing up, my dad, who was a landscape architect and site engineer, would clear off the kitchen table after dinner and roll out the blueprints for his current projects. I would sit next to him on a chair and look in fascination at the large rolls of blue-lined paper. In truth, I could not read them per se; they were too technical for my young eyes. Still, I could create a picture in my mind's eye of what a project actually looked like, because my dad would create the project with items on the kitchen table. Those blueprints became alive with salt-and-pepper shakers, knives, forks, spoons, bottles, and cans. Anything in the kitchen became fair game for creating the big picture.
Leaders, too, when seeking to turn challenges into achievements, need to create the big picture, namely, the context for change, and then place the vision within the context of this big picture. By focusing on both the vision and the principles, we create the capacity for dramatic transformation.
-In this particular booklet, Turning Challenges Into Achievements, we will focus on successful ways to move past personal and organizational comfort zones, how to remove obstacles to change, and how to learn from common leadership mistakes.
Next, we will examine how to build a strategic dialogue that will transform awareness and understanding into commitment and responsibility, resulting in the execution of improved, effective strategies.
Finally, we will delve into key principles related to authentic leadership, including how to commit to core values and service, as well as how to generate personal excellence, the inner fire for transforming challenges into achievements.
Every Friday night in the fall, my wife and I walk over to the football field at around 6:45 p.m. We typically sit in the bleachers and in about the same spot. I carry the cushions; she brings a water bottle. Throughout the evening, we visit off and on with friends, while we enjoy the game and the local marching band.
One evening last fall, as we were walking home, I realized how personal work really is, how people truly care about what they do, and how my goal is to expand a person's commitment to the challenges at hand. As leaders, we can help make this happen by building better relationships and by creating a better working environment.
In our small town on Friday nights, we all know that we are the "12th Player" on the field, the one who supports and encourages others to reach for their full potential. And those on the field know that we are with them and behind them every step of the way.
For those of you in corporate communities, now is the time to face your challenges and turn them into achievements.
I invite you to join me as we continue to transform vision into action.
Geery Howe
West Branch, Iowa
August 2005
[TOP OF PAGE]
|
