Ebenezer Godomon From: K Y MUSTAFA [pengarah.ust@sabah.gov.my] Sent: Tuesday, 07 September, 1999 4:38 PM To: Moktar Yassin Ajam ; Bruno Vun; Hiew Nget Yin; Abdul Fatah Amir; Jufina @ Hasniza A. Dimis; Jetol Bin Bolongkikit; Ken Kartina Khamis; Ajak Awang; Dg. Arfah Juhan Subject: PRINCIPLE-CENTERED LEADERSHIP: SECTION 2 (SEVEN COVEY) Tuan/Puan,   Just finished reading this Section 2 and chapter 14 today.   There are some useful indicators that can easily guide us, that I feel should be share with friends.   Let the learning culture prevail.   Thanks.   K. Y. Mustafa  _____   SECTION 2 MANAGERIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT   INTRODUCTION   VERY EARLY IN MY LIFE, at age twenty, I was assigned to manage the work of scores of others and to train men and women more than twice my age in the principles and skills of effective management and leadership. It was a humbling, frightening experience. Like me, many people—once on their own—soon find themselves in some sort of "management" position. Often these responsibilities come before we are ready for them. But we learn by doing and by making mistakes, and over time we gain some degree of competence and confidence. In this section I focus on issues and challenges that face all managers—supervision, delegation, participation, expectations, and performance agreements. I also address issues relevant to organizational leadership. When we become leaders of organizations, we encounter a whole new set of problems. Some of these are chronic, others are acute. Many are as common to Fortune 500 companies as they are to families, small businesses, and volunteer groups: certain conditions of organizational effectiveness apply across the board. Although I deal mostly with the corporate issues of structure, strategy, streams, and systems, I maintain a strong individual character component in our PS model of principle-centered leadership. No leader can afford to forget that personal and organizational integrity are closely intertwined. Nor can any leader afford to lose sight of the mission and shared vision-the constitution of the corporation.   RESOLVING MANAGEMENT DILEMMAS Principle-centered leadership will also help you resolve the classic managerial and organizational dilemmas: How can we have a culture characterized by change, flexibility, and continuous improvement and still maintain a sense of stability and security? How do we get our people, the culture, aligned with the strategy so that everyone in the organization is as committed to the strategy as those who formulated it? How do we unleash the creativity, resourcefulness, talent, and energy of the vast majority of the present work force, whose jobs neither require nor reward such use? How do we clearly see that the dilemma of whether to play tough hardball to produce a bottom line or to play softball to "be nice" to people is based on a false dichotomy? How do we serve and eat the lunch of champions (feedback) and then the dinner of champions (course correction) within the context of the breakfast of champions (vision)? How do we turn a mission statement into a constitution—the supreme guiding force of the entire organization—instead of a bunch of nebulous, meaningless, cynicism-inducing platitudes? How do we create a culture where management treats employees as customers and uses them as local experts? How do we create team spirit and harmony among departments and people who have for years been attacking, criticizing, contending for scarce resources, playing political games, and working from hidden agendas? Again, as you read the chapters in this section, you will gain an understanding of the basic principles of effective organizational leadership, and you will be empowered to resolve these and other tough management questions by yourself.   TWO MASTER PRINCIPLES Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on personal, interpersonal, managerial, and organizational levels. Each level is "necessary but insufficient." We have to work at all four levels on the basis of certain principles. In this section I will focus on the master principles of management and leadership: Empowerment at the management level. If you have no or low trust, how are you going to manage people? If you think your people lack character or competence, how would you manage them? When you don't have trust, you have to control people. But if you have high trust, how do you manage people? You don't supervise them-they supervise themselves. You become a source of help. You set up a performance agreement so they understand what's expected. You overlap their needs with the needs of the organization. You have accountability, but they participate in the evaluation of their performance based on the terms of the agreement. People are empowered to judge themselves because their knowledge transcends any measurement system. If you have a low-trust culture, you have to use measurement because people will tell you what they think you want to hear. Alignment at the organizational level. What would your organization look like in a low-trust culture with a control style of management? Very hierarchal. What is the span of control? Very small, because you can only control so many people. You resort to "gofer" delegation; you prescribe and manage methods. Your information system gathers immediate information on results so you can take decisive corrective actions. You use the carrot-and-stick motivation system. Such primitive systems may enable you to survive against soft competition, but you are easy prey for tough competitors. If you have high trust, how is your organization structured? Very flat, extremely flexible. What's the span of control? Extremely large. Why? People are supervising themselves. They are doing their jobs cheerfully without being reminded because you have built an emotional bank account with them. You've got commitment, and they are empowered. Why? Because you have built the culture around a common vision on the basis of certain bedrock principles, and you are striving constantly to align strategy, style, structure, and systems with your professed mission (your constitution) and with the realities out there in the environment (streams). My challenge to you is this: When you find something out of alignment, work on it developmentally at all four levels from the inside out on the basis of the four master principles.   CHAPTER 14: ABUNDANCE MANAGERS     EXECUTIVES who are expert at handling "hot potatoes" keep cool by concentrating more on creating markets for their products and less on protecting their "turf," promoting their "thing," and getting their "piece of the pie." Two potato farmers, from Idaho made it big in business by cultivating an abundance mentality. J. R. Simplot and Nephi Crigg both built successful frozen-food companies (J. R. Simplot Company and Ore-Ida Foods) on the idea that one can create a market, not just steal shares from others. Simplot, the major spud supplier to McDonald's, and Crigg, who founded Ore-Ida and later sold it to Heinz, found that creating new wealth doesn't always mean taking it away from other players in the market. Like other legends of their time, Ray Kroc and J. Willard Marriott, Simplot and Crigg built their own markets for their products. They did it with an abundance mentality—a bone-deep belief that "there are enough natural and human resources to realize my dream" and that "my success does not necessarily mean failure for others, just as their success does not preclude my own." Over the past twenty-five years of working with organizations and with individuals, I have observed that the abundance mentality often makes the difference between excellence and mediocrity, particularly because it eliminates small thinking and adversarial relations. There is so much negative energy in organizations and in our society. People think of taking the legal approach to problem-solving, often at the first blush of a problem. Many are looking out for number one, anxious to get their "piece of the pie" and protect their "turf." Such self-centered activity springs from a belief that resources are limited. I call it the scarcity mentality. The normal distribution curve, embedded deep in the bowels of both academia and business, tends to spawn the scarcity mentality because of the perceived "zero sum" situation. If people somehow avoid being "scripted" into a scarcity mentality by their schooling, they may acquire it from an athletic or social experience. People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of "win-lose." They believe "There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me." They have a very hard time, for instance, being genuinely happy for the successes of other people—particularly if these people are from their own company, household, or neighborhood—because in some way they may feel that something is being taken from them. If you see life as a "zero sum" game, you tend to think in adversarial or competitive ways, since anyone else's "win" implies your loss. And if you were brought up on conditional love and constant comparisons, you adopt a scarcity script, thinking in dichotomies—either haves or have-nots, either "I'm okay, you're not okay" or "I'm not okay, you're okay." In my life, I've gone through many cycles of abundance and scarcity thinking. When I have an abundance mentality, I am trusting, open, giving, willing to live and let live, and able to value differences. I realize that strength lies in differences. I define unity not as sameness, but as complementary oneness, where one's weakness is compensated by the strength of another. People with an abundance mentality employ the negotiation principle of win/win and the communication principle of seeking first to understand before seeking to be understood. Their psychic satisfactions don't come from winning or beating others or from being compared with others, either positively or negatively. They are not possessive. They don't force and push natural processes by requiring other people to tell them where they stand all the time. They don't get their security from someone else's opinion. An abundance mentality springs from an internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations. People who derive their security from such sources become dependent on them. Their lives are affected by whatever happens to the sources of their security. Scarcity thinkers believe that resources are scarce. So if their associate gets a big promotion or if their friend receives some great recognition or has some major achievement, their security or identity is threatened. They might compliment the person, but inwardly they are eating their heart out. They feel as if something is being taken from them because their security lies in being compared favorably with other people, not in their integrity to natural laws and principles. The more principle-centered we become, the more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we love to share power and profit and recognition, and the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe that their success adds to—rather than detracts from—our lives.   SEVEN CHARACTERISTICS OF ABUNDANCE MANAGERS What characteristics distinguish abundance thinkers such as Simplot, Grigg, Kroc, and Marriott from scarcity thinkers? Consider the following seven. They return often to the right sources. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I suggest that the most fundamental source, and the root of all the rest, is the principle source. If our lives are centered on other sources—spouse, work, money, possession, pleasure, leader, friend, enemy, self—distortions and dependencies develop. Abundance thinkers drink deeply from sources of internal security—sources that keep them gentle, open, trusting, and genuinely happy for the successes of other people . . . that renew and recreate them . . . that nurture and nourish abundance feelings, enabling them to grow and develop and giving them comfort, insight, inspiration, guidance, protection, direction, and peace of mind. They look forward to returning to these springs. To go for any length of time—even a few hours—and not seek this refreshment would cause them genuine withdrawal pains, similar in the physical sense to going without food and water. They seek solitude and enjoy nature. People with an abundance mentality reserve time for solitude. People with a scarcity mentality are often bored when they are alone because of the merry-go-round nature of their lives. Cultivate the ability to be alone and to think deeply, to enjoy silence and solitude. Reflect, write, listen, plan, prepare, visualize, ponder, relax. Nature can teach us many valuable lessons and replenish our spiritual reserves. Serene natural settings make us more contemplative and peaceful and better prepared to return to the fast pace of our careers. They sharpen the saw regularly. Cultivate the habit of "sharpening your saw" every day by exercising mind and body. For mental exercise, I suggest cultivating the habit of reading widely and deeply. Take an executive development course now and then to add discipline and accountability. When we continue our education, our economic security is not as dependent upon our jobs, our boss's opinion, or human institutions as it is upon our ability to produce. The great unseen job market is called "unsolved problems," and there are always many vacancies for those who exercise initiative and learn how to create value for themselves by showing how they essentially represent solutions to these problems. In the book Executive Jobs Unlimited, Carl Boll basically suggests that people who fail to sharpen the saw regularly find not only that their saw becomes dull, but also that they become obsolete and increasingly dependent upon playing it safe. They become protective, politically or security minded, and start wearing the "golden handcuffs." They serve others anonymously. By returning often to nurturing sources of internal security, they restore their willingness and ability to serve others effectively. They take particular delight in anonymous service, feeling that service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living in this world. If our intent is to serve others without self-concern, we are inwardly rewarded with increased internal security and an abundance mentality. They maintain a long-term intimate relationship with another person. This is a person (or persons)-usually a spouse or close friend—who loves us and believes in us even when we don't believe in ourselves. But they are not permissive; they neither give in nor give up. Such people can make all the difference in our lives. Often people who have an abundance mentality serve this role in relationship to many other people. Whenever they sense someone is at the crossroads, they go the second mile in communicating their belief in that person. They forgive themselves and others. They don't condemn themselves for every foolish mistake or social blunder. They forgive others for their trespasses. They don't brood about yesterday or daydream about tomorrow. They live sensibly in the present, carefully plan the future, and flexibly adapt to changing circumstances. Their self-honesty is revealed by their sense of humor, their willingness to admit and then forget mistakes, and their ability to cheerfully do the things ahead that lie within their power. They are problem-solvers. They are part of the solution. They learn to separate the people from the problem being discussed. They focus on people's interests and concerns rather than fight over positions. Gradually others discover their sincerity and become part of a creative problem-solving process, and the synergistic solutions coming out of these interactions are usually far better than those originally proposed because they are not compromise solutions.   THE LAW OF THE FARM Procrastinating and cramming don't work on a farm. The cows must be milked daily. Others things must be done in season, according to natural cycles. Natural consequences follow violations, in spite of good intentions. We're subject to natural laws and governing principles—the laws of the farm and harvest. The only thing that endures over time is the law of the farm. According to natural laws and principles, I must prepare the ground, put in the seed, cultivate, weed, and water if I expect to reap a harvest. So also in a marriage, or in helping a teenager through a difficult identity crisis—there is no quick fix, no instantaneous success formula where you can just move in by getting psyched up some positive mental attitude rally with a bunch of new success formulas. The law of the harvest governs. Natural laws, principles, operate regardless. So get these agricultural principles at the center of Your life and your relationships. As you do, your mind-set will change from a scarcity to an abundance mentality. In the context of the "potato farmer," the abundance mentality ultimately means "more pounds with less peel." And in plain "John Wayne" English, that's the bottom line. _____