http://vimeo.com/111869634

I shared the presentation above during the BIF10 Summit in Providence, RI.  My recommendation was that we slow down, be more intentional; talk to people, see what your customer knows. This advice serves as the cornerstone of the strategy with which we lead complex military operations  — including the multi-national team we lead whose charge was to rebuild the Afghan Air Force.

http://advancedvectors.com/videos/if-its-to-be-it-has-to-be-me-bif10/

The Leader’s Greatest Harvest

by Matthew Fritz

Tree - AdvancedVectors.com“Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.”
– Marcus Aurelius

Seeds are curious things – small, innocuous . . . overlooked. Incredibly, they are filled with an amazing power for growth. A growth for greatness. So, too, is your capability for seeding leadership potential!

I learned from a close-friend that a single shaft of wheat, left undamaged and allowed to grow unchecked, could spontaneously multiply into a crop large enough to feed the entire world population for an entire year – within only eight years. Likewise, with only a single apple seed, you could grow a tree and a single apple tree produces enough seed to plant an entire orchard.

True leadership, the type that succeeds in continually pushing the bounds of individual and organizational potential, is about promoting an environment where individual teammates are encouraged and empowered to grow for the good of the team and the mission. When we make it a priority to plant the seeds for collective success, we create conditions for those around us to flourish and thrive – both personally and professionally.

I recommend the following three keys to success at seeding leadership potential:

Meet me halfway: The most successful leaders learned long ago that real success is achieved through working with people, rather than against them. Seek out opportunities to cut-the-distance between you and your teammates by including them in decision-making processes. Through the inclusion of their voice, you show them that their ideas and inputs actually matter. Seek to plant the seeds of inclusion and your teammates will help cultivate long lasting relationships.

Do more, speak less: When you were growing up, you learned more from paying attention to your surroundings, and how people acted, than from what you were told. Example breeds repetition. Rather than simply talking with your teammates about their potential, take an active role in helping them to realize their potential. Dig deep in your team’s time and resources to encourage nurturing and growth – sponsor their attendance at a professional development event. Encourage teammates to expand their horizons and take a class or join a club you recommend which feed into their strength and help them develop their potential. What is your favorite leadership book? Do you think a certain teammate would benefit from reading that particular title? My point is that your demonstrated willingness to invest in their growth is what makes the difference – more than the specific action. Plant the seeds of commitment that will contribute to communicating that you truly care about nurturing their growth.

Give with no strings attached: Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsyvania, wrote in his book, “Give or Take,” that conventional wisdom portrays highly successful people as those who possess a combination of hard work, talent, and luck. He goes on to share the latest research reveals true success stems from being more interested in giving than receiving. Specifically, his research confirms leaders who consistently give more than they take, are ultimately the leaders who most frequently elevate performance, increase satisfaction and enhance engagement. Sow the seeds of selflessness that encourage your teammates to cultivate the same in others around them – like wheat in the field or apples in the orchard.

Nurture your fields of inclusion, commitment and selflessness and towards stronger mission accomplishment anchored with deep-roots of team potential. With simple actions, you can share self-multiplying power within your team. A single thought (acted upon), a single word (spoken), a selfless deed (done). Each of these actions are seeds with the potential to motivate those around you to stretch farther, reach higher, and grow stronger than they previously thought possible. Seeding leadership potential within your team reaps a bountiful harvest of returns that lasts beyond a single season.

In 1977, Frank Outlaw, the President of Bi-Lo Stores, shared his thoughts on this topic in a Texas newspaper feature entitled “What They’re Saying:”

 “Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

   With this in mind, I challenge you to ask yourself the following questions about your leadership: “What type of seeds am I planting as a leader?”  I am very interested in hearing how you are seeding leadership potential within your Team, your family and your community. Are you happy with your harvest, or are you facing a famine?

The Art of Applying STEM: Why STEAM Matters

By Matthew Fritz & Deborah Mills-Scofield

Intentionality of design is an important component of any successful project. It means understanding the customers’ needs to ensure the final product meets, or exceeds, those needs in the customers’ own context and constraints. Wouldn’t it be great if these were baked-in at the beginning? If we intentionally designed products, services, and processes not only to be useful, but preferred? We are great at designing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, STEM, into products, but not as great with design from the actual users’ perspective. Design Thinking is not new, but through “STEAM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Design and Math), its gaining recognition and validation in more aspects of our lives – in the things we use and how we use them – next iPhone, Golden Gate Bridge, pacemaker, insulin pump, etc.

Read More on: GeneralLeadership.com

Effective advising, just as an effective implementation of STEAM in any environment, requires empathy and understanding commensurate with technical credibility. The result? Together, the NATO team was building a system that was Afghan-appropriate, effective and sustainable. In the end, that is what ultimately mattered.

See the full article on GeneralLeadership.com

The Great Turkey Rebellion: A Tale of Strategy and Complex Change

By Matthew Fritz

Turkey - AdvancedVectors.com

The turkeys gathered by the light of the moon to conspire against the farmer, who was preparing to satisfy the needs of holiday dinner-parties throughout the town.  They spent the evening drawing up battle plans, sharpening beaks and claws, and discussing the benefit of rotten eggs launched from catapults as distracting fire.

As the dawn approached, the hens gave the toms a peck on the cheek and sent the Army through the coop-gates with foreboding crows of courage.  As the young chicks spirited away to the safe, dark recesses of the pens to wait out the battle, a growling whisper split the dim morning air, “What happens after the farmer is gone?”

The fowl troops halted their formation when the fox, who had watched the preparation with amusement, gave them their answer from the shadows behind the barn door.  “The farmer would have dispatched you quickly with the skill of many years experience,” the fox growled, “but consider who stands to replace him?”  The great turkey army disbanded and slogged back to their pens to re-plan their engagement as the answer became clear in their minds—dispatching the farmer failed to address the true, strategic problem at hand: there will still be a demand for turkey!

Confrontation From A Fruit Fly’s Perspective

By Matthew Fritz

G Tridens“Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.”
Groucho Marx

There are over 5,000 species of fruit fly in the tephritidae family, each with unique properties. So many species, in fact, biologists have made it a favorite pastime to analyze the tiny creature in the quest for advancements ranging from ecology to neurobiology. The variations span the gamut of evolutionary differences, each having come into being via environmental necessity. One recent discovery is the G. Tridens species, its wings bearing a striking resemblance to ants, complete with legs and large eyes. Scientists theorize the markings are meant to confuse and intimidate predators, making them go away. While this isn’t nature’s only example of “shock and awe,” it is worth noting due to the amazing detail of the image seemingly silkscreened across the glass-like wings.

Chances are you know a few G. Tridens in your life: people who have developed unique skills to confuse and intimidate Teammates, into a fight-or-flight mentality (with hopeful-focus on the latter). This is a learned behavior, borne of consequences and observed through modeling. Regardless of the inception, the resulting reaction helps the “human fly” to avoid confrontation and buzz-off to safer environments of their own choosing.

Swat this behavior on your team through direct engagement, or expect the trait to multiply like fruit-flies on a banana. Three simple actions can be the difference in dealing with this pest in your environment:

1) Prepare for Engagement, Expect Positive Outcomes: Not every confrontation involves a fight. Mentally prepare by seeing the world through your Teammate’s eyes—seek to find the values they are guided by and the outcome they fear or desire. In The Art of Woo,” G. Richard Shell & Mario Moussa point out that “True victory…is when you don’t have to fight and you can still win.” Understanding the “why?” behind behavior can be critical to preparing for the “how?”

2) Confront in Private, Don’t Pluck Wings: Nothing sets a confrontation back faster than public humiliation. Choose a private and neutral environment that allows seeing each other on more even terms away from prying eyes. Vince Lombardi recounted an event with the Green Bay Packers that changed his leadership style…forever. After observing a bad pass, Coach Lombardi provided an exceptionally profanity-laced commentary in the locker room to Bart Starr, his quarterback. Starr shared that he was expected to lead the Team, but that was undermined when the head coach belittled him in front of the Team. Five later titles together over eight seasons are a testament to the learning moment that Coach Lombardi took away from that moment. He never criticized in public again.

3) Be Constructive, Set the Tone: Remember the reason for the moment, and recall your preparation. Be prepared, however, for surprises. German Field Marshal von Moltke once lamented that “No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy.” In this case, it’s not an enemy in front of you: it’s a Teammate. Expect some squirming, so make it a point that your intent is for them to fly again another day—but only in a positive direction which benefits the Team.G. Tridens 2 - AdvancedVectors.com

Nobody enjoys conflict. If they do, expect a pathological reason behind it. Leaders find it necessary to confront poor behavior when it happens, if only to prevent poor modeling from becoming a repeatable trend within the Team. Take a lesson from the tiny fruit-fly and apply it to your interaction within your Team. Camouflage and deception cannot be allowed to become effective blockers to good communication. Shoo these traits away through engagement, preparation and constructive collaboration and watch your team evolve to a higher species!

Thank You For Your Service

From the Blog - Mills-Scofield LLC - Innovanomics, strategic alignment for innovation

See on Scoop.itLiving Leadership

This is one of most honored posts I’ve ever ever hosted.  Lt. Col. Matthew Fritz is Director, Commander’s Action Group of NATO’s Air Training Command in Afghanistan.  Training a newly formed Afghan Air Force is the epitome in complex continual change management.  Matt has become a very dear friend, thanks to Angela Maiers, and fellow blogger at Switch & Shift.  I can’t put into words my respect, admiration and thankfulness for Matt, his leadership, elegance, eloquence, professionalism and humility.  I literally wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for men and women like Matt who fight for, preserve and train others to protect our precious freedom.  Please read every word – and hold Matt, his work, our military and their ever sacrificing families in your prayers for safety and strength.
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Thank You For Your Service!
by Matthew T. Fritz

Monday started like so many Mondays here in Kabul…wakeup, head through Kabul ice/snow to the Dining Facility to grab breakfast to go, and then trudge over to the office to see what staffing challenges waited in the new day.  The routine pleasantries occurred along the way, “Good morning, sir!” and “Nice weather, eh?”  The morning prayers of the local population could be heard echoing through the loudspeakers outside the large 25-foot concrete T-walls topped with barbed wire that surround our compound, a Forward Operating Base within an Afghan Air Force base.  My feet crunched through the snow propelling my frozen fingers to key-in the cipher code, which opened the cold metal front door of the headquarters building.

 

Matthew Fritz‘s insight:

Honored to share this post with my good friend, Deb, and her amazing audience!  Thanks, @dscofield for letting me be a part of your team!

See on mills-scofield.com

Emotional Intelligence

Sourced from TheMilitaryLeader.com

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is the hottest leadership catch phrase, but what does it actually mean? At its core, emotional intelligence, or EQ, is a set of characteristics or traits possessed by effective and influential leaders. Emotionally intelligent leaders have a heightened awareness of their strengths and weaknesses and can adjust their leadership approach after reading group dynamics. A recent article defined EQ as consisting of four domains: self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management. This article expands this framework by describing attributes within the context of Army Leadership.

Emotional intelligence is not an end state but rather an assessment of leadership progression, providing a road map for improvement and growth. No two positions are the same, therefore leaders most continue to grow, adapt, and develop their skills to bring out the best in a team. […]

Neuroscience Confirms We Buy on Emotion & Justify with Logic & yet We Sell to Mr. Rational & Ignore Mr. Intuitive

Sourced from Business2Community.com

Neuroscience Confirms We Buy on Emotion & Justify with Logic & yet We Sell to Mr. Rational & Ignore Mr. Intuitive

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman[i] says that 95% of our purchase decision making takes place subconsciously (aka System 1).[ii] Despite widespread agreement amongst neuroscientists that our conscious rational mind plays a minor role in decision making, why do our sales messages to buyers focus almost exclusively on facts and figures? Doesn’t all of this data flood customers with too much information, and result in paralysis for analysis? Why do we largely ignore the emotional subconscious, the real star of decision making? If we really want to reduce the number of sales opportunities lost to no decision, shouldn’t we also be directing our sales message to Mr. Intuitive, and not just Mr. Rational?

Thus, a salesperson can share a story with a customer, and due to the transportation effect of story, it feels real. It’s the next best thing to experiencing it live. It’s as if Mr. Intuitive is able to take the salesperson’s product out for a virtual test drive, and discover for themselves the unique value of your product . Contrast this approach to a salesperson delivering a factual data dump to Mr. Rational in the form of an 85-slide power point presentation.

[…]

Hiring Veterans Is Easy. Keeping Them Is Hard

Sourced from WSJ.com

Hiring Veterans Is Easy. Keeping Them Is Hard

After a collective push to hire more than a million U.S. military veterans in recent years, business is wrestling with a new challenge: holding on to them.

Hiring initiatives by Verizon Communications Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Union Pacific Corp. and hundreds of other companies have helped cut unemployment among younger veterans—in the double digits six years ago—to close to the 4.7% national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But many veterans stumble in the transition to civilian careers, landing in jobs…

[…]

Are You Missing Half of the Change Equation?

Are You Missing Half of the Change Equation?

All types of organizations give change top priority, but studies consistently show between 50-70% of change efforts fail.

It doesn’t bode well for organizational ambitions if such efforts are — at best — just as likely to fail as they are to succeed.

How can leaders and organizations improve the odds of success? We found that many organizations have mastered the operational or structural side of change, but give little effort to the people side of the equation. […]