Next Level Blog

What Fashionable Leaders Are Wearing

If your house is like ours, there are certain movies that you watch again and again. The test of a movie like that is if you’re flipping through the channels on TV and you see a favorite movie and you start watching it all the way through from that point forward. I have to confess that Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is one of those for me. I like really stupid humor. However, one that my wife and I can both agree on is The Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. It’s a fun movie on a lot of levels not the least of which is Streep’s performance in which she sends up the real life editor of Vogue magazine, Anna Winotur. If people in real life are as scared of Wintour as people were of Streep in the movie, then she must have a lot of power.  From what I’ve read, Wintour’s power comes from her control over Vogue which, historically, has set the agenda for the multi-billion dollar fashion industry.

So, it was with the Prada movie in mind that I read an article in the New Yorker last night on a web site called Polyvore. The simplest way to describe Polyvore is that it’s an online destination for over 6 million visitors a month to cut and paste clothes they see elsewhere online into sets of items that they think look good together. As someone in the article said, it’s like the cyber version of playing with paper dolls. 

For me, the article was interesting because of the larger implications it held for leaders in the digital age.  Not to oversimplify, but it seems like the command and control leadership style exhibited by Streep/Wintour in the Prada movie is a relic of the analog age. The people behind Polyvore seem to have figured out what it takes to engage and lead people in the digital age. Here are a few of the ways I think they’re doing it:

Video Book Club: Managing Transitions

If you’re a leader, you have to deal with change on a regular basis. If you’re a leader, you need to get your own copy of William Bridges’ book, Managing Transitions. It’s a classic and an invaluable resource in helping you think through and develop a plan for productively getting your organization through change. It’s full of tips, frameworks and checklists that will help you organize your thinking, communication and action plans.

In this week’s Video Book Club, I share a couple of my favorite lessons from my dog eared, marked up copy of Managing Transitions.

If you’ve read the book, what’s your favorite or more useful take away from it?

Talent Management Lessons from the Road to the Final Four

This was a bit of a rough weekend for my brother, Steve. His beloved, number one seeded Kentucky Wildcats lost their bid for the Final Four. Since Steve was a student manager for the UK basketball team during one of their Final Four runs in the 1980’s, he maybe took this weekend’s loss a little harder than most. As the Cats game against WVU wound down on Saturday night, I sent Steve a text message saying I was sorry they were losing. He wrote this back in response, “Hate it. Maybe some of the freshmen will decide to stay now.”

That got me thinking about how the tournament has gone this year and a broader lesson about talent management. For the most part, the teams that have made it to the Final Four or who exceeded expectations earlier in the tournament have top scorers who are more experienced players. Take a look at the Final Four. The top three scorers for both Duke and Michigan State are two juniors and a senior. For WVU, it’s a senior and two sophomores. For Butler, it’s a junior and two sophomores. When you look at the stats for the two big Cinderellas of the tournament, Cornell and Northern Iowa, there are five seniors and one junior making up the top trios of those teams. In contrast, Kentucky’s top three was made up of two freshmen and a junior. 

The point I’m trying to make is that great teams need time and experience to gel. So, with that in mind, here’s a quick list of talent management lessons that can help keep your team from being “one and done.”

My Favorite 9.62% of the Rules of Thumb

Earlier this week, I was with a group of business owners in the training and performance industry. As you might imagine, it was a pretty energetic and creative group of people. Someone at the meeting shared with us a list of rules that comes from a book called Rules of Thumb. The author is Alan Webber  who is the co-founder of one of my favorite magazines, Fast Company. Knew the magazine. Didn’t know the book. Happy to have found out about it.

Webber offers 52 Rules of Thumb for life in his book. I’ve reviewed the list several times now and thought I’d share my five favorite (or 9.62%) of Webber’s 52 rules. Here they are:

Rule 1:  When the going gets tough, the tough relax.

Rule 10:  A good question beats a good answer.

Rule 18:  Knowing it ain’t the same as doing it.

Rule 32:  Content isn’t king.  Context is king.

Rule 47: Everyone’s at the center of their map of the world.

Webber wraps things up by encouraging you to come up with your own 53rd Rule of Thumb.  Here’s mine:

It’s important to understand the difference between what should be and what is.

What’s yours?

Truman Thursdays: How to Launch a Fighter Jet

It’s been almost two months since my overnight visit to the USS Harry S Truman. Since then, I’ve posted video clips on Thursdays that feature some of the leaders of the ship and offer a look at life on board an aircraft carrier. Based on the stats from You Tube, the three most popular posts in the series so far have been:

• What I Learned on an Aircraft Carrier
• Executive Officer John Meier on What He Looks for in a Leader
• Commanding Officer Joe Clarkson on Leadership

There are other great clips that you can find on the Next Level Blog by entering "Harry S Truman" in the search box.

In this next to last week of  the Truman Thursdays series, you’ll get an up and front and personal view (from around 20 feet away) of what’s involved with launching a fighter jet from the deck. I shot this clip about an hour after we arrived on board and, surrounded by safety crew members, were escorted out onto the flight deck.  Our group was positioned between the two catapults on the bow of the ship.

In this three minute video, you’ll see an EA-6B Prowler lower its wings and then move into position to be locked into the catapult. After some safety and system checks, the jet goes from 0 to 150 knots in under 3 seconds as the cat launches it from the deck. It’s a pretty amazing experience to be standing so close to that much power and energy. I hope the video will give you a sense of what it’s like.