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CET 171 SP 2011 Class - UC Berkeley

Delegation is about hanging onto what you want to let go of – responsibility

And letting go of what you want to hang onto - control (Tim McConalogue 2008)

Leadership PerspectiveStephen A. Pieraldi

March 15, 2011

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Topics for Dialog

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But first... Philosophy!

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Strong Leaders Earn and Keep Respect

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt; kind-hearted, but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder: then your soldiers must be likened to spoilt children; they are useless for any practical purpose.-Sun Tzu

Q: Why is the war metaphor so associated with business management vs. the peace movement?

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Power is the Great Motivator

The four stages:1 – Dependent on others2 – Primarily interested in autonomy3 – Manipulation of others4 – Loss of ego and selfless service

“Contrary to popular opinion, the best managers are the ones who like power and use it.”(David C. McClelland and David H. Burnham, 2003)

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Mapping the Four Stages to Growth

The four stages:1 – Dependent on others - Startup2 – Primarily interested in autonomy – Growing the team3 – Manipulation of others – Ramp and scale4 – Loss of ego and selfless service – Growth or exit

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1 – Dependent on Others – ALL INAs we start something new, depend on others to validate our vision and ourselves

It’s normal to build up some ego to support the rough early going of a business and team building exercise

Others are required, in almost all cases, to execute our vision

Others contribute to the dynamics and vitality of our original vision and our effort

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2 – Primarily Interested in Autonomy - Planning

As the growth of our vision matures we retract / step back

We want our team to take ownership

We feel the need to focus and find autonomy in the chaos

Our focus is shifting to less interesting things and things we are outside our core competency

We are never really satisfied with how the vision is changing

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3 – Manipulation of Others - ExecutionWe want control back!

The pressures of “business” are keeping you from getting work done

More people and less direct control has you working through others to complete your vision. You want results

If they would only get this or that done… I could let go!

Micro Management activates

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4 – Loss of Ego and Selfless Service - Success

“We are not just our behavior, we are the person managing our behavior.” (The One Minute Manager)

Leading by exampleAllow others and yourself to failHigh expectations with high rewardsYour vision is the key, but not having shared ownership is the door Delegation with accountability

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Managing by the Numbers!

Growth requires people. Understanding people allows you to grow.

“Our company started looking like a company and we started to feel the need to put processes in place — something we just weren’t inclined to do because it all felt too ‘managed’.”Managing by the Numbers, 301 Great Management Ideas, Sara Noble)

“Companies have set changes that pattern to how many are employed in the effort.” (Wayne McVicker 1997)

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Power Starts the Engine –Letting go Keeps it Running

The five points of power:1 – Position Power2 – Task Power3 – Personal Power4 – Relationship Power5 – Knowledge Power

Q: A few personal examples from the class?

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Putting it all Together

John Adair (1973)

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Common Business Elements

We all share growth issues

Human

Capital

Financial

Capital

----------------------------------- Common problems for all size companies ---------------------------------------------$0X

EngineeringSales

Marketing

Channels / Distribution

Fulfillment

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Common Inflection Points

Find Value /

Revenue

Seed A B C D Exit

Entrepreneur

Founder CEO

Fund Manage Scale Ramp

Investment Round

InvestorExpectation

s

Professional CEO

All In Build Team Lead Us Define Us

OperatingExpectation

sTime Experimentation Accountable Repeatable

Inflection Points

ROLES

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Yet Many of us Fail

(Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By Scott Shane)

“Failure” here measures closure. But using a sample of the closed firms, an economist at the SBA a few years ago asked those founders whose businesses closed whether they perceived their start-up effort to be “successful” or “unsuccessful.”

Approximately 70 percent of those founders whose businesses closed viewed their start-up efforts as unsuccessful.

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The CEO Dream…

Those who did:Steve Jobs (Apple)

Bill Gates (Microsoft)

Larry Ellison (Oracle)

Michael Dell (Dell)

Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

Charles Coffin (GE)

Those who did not:Steve Jobs (Next)

Larry Page (Google)

Evan Williams (Twitter)

People you never hear of Jerry Yang (Yahoo)

(JIM COLLINS is the author of Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last)

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Hands on Behavior

You’re the creatorYou’re focused on short term resultsYou’re shorthandedIt’s ideal to be close to the action and customerYour skills fit the job you created

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The Time to Transition

You’re no longer creating or “over creating”You’re focused on long term resultsYour role is staffing for scaleThere needs to be an abstraction of front line information for long term planningYour skills no longer fit the job you created

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Directive Behavior

Set goals and objectivesPlans and organizes work in advanceIdentifies job prioritiesClarifies the leaders’ and employees’ roles Establishes time linesDetermines methods of evaluation and evaluates workShows or instructs the employee how to do a specific task

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Activating Behavior

Ken Blanchard Company 2001

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You’re Long in the Tooth…

Signs of micromanagement

What follows are some signs that you might be a micromanager – or have one on your hands. In general, micromanagers:

•Resist delegating;•Immerse themselves in overseeing the projects of others;•Start by correcting tiny details instead of looking at the big picture;•Take back delegated work before it is finished if they find a mistake in it; and•Discourage others from making decisions without consulting them.

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Putting it all to Work

1. Startup – All about you

2. Grow a team – All about them

3. Ramp & scale– All about us

4. Growth & exit – Everyone wins

Studies of VC’s investment criteria describe the quality of management team as key determinant of venture financing. We contend, however, that some VC’s may be willing to fund ventures headed by poor administrators with the expectation to replace them in the future. We conjecture that VC’s with higher risk tolerance, greater involvement in venture governance, and proclivity for trust-based collaboration with co-investors will be prone to take on financing of robust ventures headed by weak leaders. A survey and interviews with 50 U.S. VC’s supported these hypotheses.(“Are Some Venture Capitalists More Likely Than Others to Replace” Founder-CEOs? Dmitry Khanin, J. Robert

Baum, Ofir Turel, Raj V Mahto)

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Startup (iForem)

• You are all in and have do all the work • You’re working from funding to funding

and there are never enough resources • Issues that you are not educated or

expert in are now your daily tasks• Your personality vision and

commitment drive the company• Frustrations are second to panic

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Grow a Team (IES)

• You are taking on new responsibilities requiring your focus away from the vision and much needed work

• You need to multiply your ratio of effect to get things done but are stuck trying to transfer knowledge and assign skills to staff

• The dynamic tension is both good and bad hourly

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Ramp & Scale (Neoforma)

• People and systems are needed to channel production

• The vision is changing and shaping• Culture is developing and demanding process

and systems• Funding/customers is a constant demand• Goals and objectives are moving to MBO’s and

the creative spark is now absorbed into mundane process taking longer than you want

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Growth and Exit (various companies)

• It’s time to let the business grow with seasoned domain experts (sales Cxx staff)

• You need a succession plan• Your vision is complete to a % of your desire but

you have to accept its state and success as is• Process and accountability are the order of your

day now• You may want to leave to pursue new ventures• What next?

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Pass the Baton!

• Prepare for the next step of your company every day• Have preset options laid out so you can evaluate and

execute. When you’re in the heat of things you won’t have time to plan

• Be a good citizen to your stakeholders • Exit gracefully one way or another – Pass the baton

in your mind, then actions, finally reality. In short, take the power you started with and convert it

to letting go. When you let go and participate in the process you will have more power than you ever imagined before.

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Q&A

• ! Do you think is applies to other models outside of “startups”?

• Audience questions?

• If there is time at the end, or people stay longer there is a small game to play! +1

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ReferencesWayne McVicker (2005). Starting Something: An Entrepreneur’s tale of Control, Confrontation & Corporate Culture: Ravel Media, LLCMcConalogue (2008). Hanging on and Letting Go: BlackHall publishing Ltd.Samuel B. Griffith, B.H. Liddell Hart (1971). The Art of War: Oxford University PressEdward De Bono, (1996). Textbook of Wisdom: Penguin Books Online (1990). http://igniteyourbiz.com/blog/management-by-the-numbers-161-500-employees/Bass, Bernard M., Bruce J. Avolio, Dong I. Jung, and Yair Berso. "Predicting Unit Performance by Assessing Transformational and Transactional Leadership." Journal of Applied Psychology 88 (2003): 207–218.Andy Aboagye Isaac. (2010). Organizational Behavior p. 321-322. Prentice Hall, 9th edition.Fiedler, F.E. & Gibson, F.W. (2001). Determinants of Effective Utilization of Leader Abilities. au.af.mil.Fiedler, F.E. (1986). The contribution of cognitive resources to leadership performance. In L. Berkowitz (ed), Advances in experimental social psychology. NY: Academic PressFiedler, F.E. and Garcia, J.E. (1987). New approaches to leadership: Cognitive resources and organizational performance. NY: Wiley.Blank, Warren, John R. Weitzel, and Stephen G. Green. "A Test of the Situational Leadership Theory." Personnel Psychology 43 (1990): 579–597.Fiedler, Fred E. A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1967.Graeff, Claude L. "The Situational Leadership Theory: A Critical View." Academy of Management Review 8 (1983): 285–291.Graen, George, and William Schiemann. "Leader-Member Agreement: A Vertical Dyad Linkage Approach." Journal of Applied Psychology 63 (1978): 206–212.Greenberg, Jerald, and Robert A. Baron. Behavior in Organizations: Understanding and Managing the Human Side of Work. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000.House, Robert J. "A Path-Goal Theory of Leader Effectiveness." Administrative Science Quarterly 16 (1971): 321–339.

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Further ReadingKirkpatrick, Shelley A., and Edwin A. Locke. "Leadership: Do Traits Matter?" Academy of Management Executive 5 (1991): 48–60.Kinicki, Angelo, and Robert Kreitner. Organizational Behavior. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2006.Luthans, Fred. Organizational Behavior. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2005.Podsakoff, Philip M., et al. "Do Substitutes for Leadership Really Substitute for Leadership? An Empirical Examination of Kerr and Jermier's Situational Leadership Model." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 54 (1993): 1–44.Steers, Richard M., Lyman W. Porter, and Gregory A. Bigley. Motivation and Leadership at Work. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.Stogdill, Ralph M. "Personal Factors Associated with Leadership: A Survey of the Literature." Journal of Psychology 25 (1948): 335–71.Stogdill, Ralph M., and Bernard M. Bass. Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research. New York, NY: Free Press, 1974.Vroom, Victor H., and Phillip W. Yetton. Leadership and Decision Making. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973.Wren, Daniel A. The Evolution of Management Thought. New York, NY: Wiley, 1994.Yukl, Gary. Leadership in Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994.