CoreSkills for Leaders

One of the leadership paradoxes I’ve been encountering lately is the problem of I v. we.  Should an executive refer to himself individually as I, or as the product of his team, ”we?”  It’s a paradox because it seems that those leaders who refer to their achievements as “I completed…” or “I delivered…” are frequently told they should give more credit to their team, and view their achievements as group efforts.  Those who use the word “we” more often seem to be told they should take more personal accountability for their results by referring to ”I.” 

So what is the right answer?  What should leaders do?  My coaching to executives is to use a collective pronoun when discussing accomplishments, successes, and “wins.”  Ensure others get credit for accomplishments, which the leader facilitated or encouraged.  The converse is also true - use “I” when taking responsibility for a problem or discussing whether goals were achieved or not.  When you talk about your successes, you are at risk for “hogging the limelight” if you talk about what you did as an individual.  On the other hand, if you use “we” when discussing the failure to achieve objectives, you are at risk for “throwing others under the bus.” 

Of course, the worst choice for a leader is to use the term “they.”  As in “they sidetracked me” or “they didn’t do what I asked.”  This approach explicitly places the blame on someone else, which is one of the biggest derailers I have encountered in leadership. Whether you are a Vice President, or the CEO, those you report to expect you to take ownership for missteps. While you may save your own skin in the short-run by blaming others, you eventually will be held accountable for the failings regardless of who you blame. And it’s my experience that the leaders who try to offload responsibility fail faster than those who accept responsibility.

As a leader, take responsibility for your objectives and metrics. Give credit for achieving those objectives to the people who make it possible for you to win.

Bill Berman, PhD

Thesis: The team member’s view

Over the past few years, I’ve done over hundreds of development plans for senior leaders - individuals who manage strategic businesss units, business functions, and divisions. And in about 40%, I’ve been told by their peers and subordinates that they are very good at understanding the broad strategic issues, but would benefit from a better understanding of the details of the business.  In another 40% of the people, they are described as having a great understanding of the details, and really know their business, but don’t seem to have a broader strategic perspective of the industry or the larger business. About 5% don’t seem to have either, and only about 15% seem to be able to move between the broad strategic view and the operational details of the business.

Antithesis: The manager’s view

What makes that really interesting is that the executive managers of these business leaders rarely describe the person as “too far into the weeds.” In the vast majority of cases, the manager is much less concerned with whether the person really gets the broad strategy, unless they’ve totally nailed the business results and are being considered for promotion. For the vast majority, the executive manager wants to know that their business managers have a deep, thorough and detailed understanding of the business.

In one particular case, the general manager of a $250 million business unit was described by peers and subordinates alike as being a great manager, but too caught up in the details, becoming involved in tactical issues that they wanted accountability for.  When I presented this to the GM and her executive manager, he interrupted and declared, “Not a chance! This is my most profitable business. I don’t want her taking her eye off the ball for one minute!”

Synthesis: What is really needed

A manager has to balance the strategy and the tactical involvement, and be able to move seamlessly between the two. He may need to know the details of a particular project, depending on how critical it is to the business, and certainly must be able to understand it, see the consequences, and consider the alternatives. She is too far into the weeds if she is telling her team how to do their jobs, or allows no decision-making authority other than her own.  Managers like this are not able to move from the tactical to the strategic and back again, because they either do not have the capability or the bandwidth to do both.  As a result, they dictate actions, choices and details that enact the mission rather than articulating the mission and the objective, and allowing the team to execute. 

The opposite can be found as well. Managers who don’t know the details are not able to differentiate good from poor execution, and are unable to evaluate and develop people, or achieve real business results. These are the managers who don’t know what they don’t know.  One manager I worked with supported his with confidence, but wasn’t aware when there were problems or issues that required his attention.

Truly effective managers need a deep understanding of how a problem is solved and what the result is, and should be free to ask as many questions as they need to achieve this. They should also be ready to drill far into the details if the person is unable to meet expectations.  They also need to view the clear mission and broad strategic viewpoint, and communicate that clearly and persuasively to their team at a level of understanding that allows the team to execute with confidence that they are acting within the framework of the strategy. This approach is called Auftragstaktik, or Mission Tactics.

Suggestions

How does an effective leader drill into the details, and maintain a strategic view at the same time?

1. Make sure you communicate your mission and strategy clearly, directly, and simply.
2. Ensure your questioning about tactics and details focuses on the what, not the how (unless the person doesn’t know how)
3. Tailor your level of detail focus to the importance of the project, and the capability of the team member
4. If you are pressure testing an idea, tell your team that - without context, they are much likely to see it as critical and intrusive.

Bill Berman, Ph.D.

Principal, Berman & Associates

Partner, PrimeGenesis, LLC

Director, APT, Inc.

New leaders often think about how they present to others, and many are using coaches to improve their leadership style.  So what is the style that people are looking for? What is most effective for new leaders as they step into larger roles?

Self awareness?  Not so much.

The concepts of self-awareness and interpersonal sensitivity in successful leaders has come up several times in recent days.  One colleague raised the issue as we were working on a leadership competency model for a client. It also came up during feedback from a leadership development program, and was a part of a new book on leadership.  I’m getting the impression that pundits and HR executives see interpersonal sensitivity as a critical leadership capability.
 
I beg to differ.  The most successful CEOs I know (and I don’t know a lot but I do know some) are not particularly interpersonally sensitive.  They are interpersonally aware, to be sure.  Many can read people, understand their goals and motives, and quickly capture their interest and enthusiasm. They have to be effective judges of people, selecting the best performers from a bench filled with good performers.  And they have to build inspiration and motivation in individuals, teams and organizations.  But interpersonal sensitivity?  Self-awareness?  Not so much.  Many of them are demanding, confrontational, assertive to the point of aggressivenesss, persistent beyond what I would feel comfortable pushing, and willing to use fear as well as respect to accomplish their objectives.

To be an effective leader, you have to be a powerful salesman of the vision and the goal, driving for a vision that no one else believes as much as they do.  Leaders require that people trust and respect them, but in the way you trust your neurosurgeon right before he operates.  This is not the type of trust you have of your therapist, but a trust borne of power and confidence.  Leaders have to be able to challenge people, push them beyond their comfort zone, break through organizational resistance, and manage a group of thoroughbred senior managers to ensure they are all running in the same direction on the same track. 

A study last year in the Wall Street Journal found that the most effective CEOs set high standards, attend to detail, and are persistent, efficient and analytic. Their flexibility, enthusiasm and listening skills did not predict success. That’s my point. It isn’t a problem to be sensitive, thoughtful or empathic, it just isn’t essential.

How do you use this?

1) Sharpen your people assessment skills.  Most people think they are good judges of people.  But stop and look back, find out if you really have picked a lot of good people, or if you have only remembered the good ones.

2) If you are interpersonally sensitive, use it to analyze, motivate and drive people, not to empathize with where they are now - encourage their potential, and use your sensitivity to see how far they can go.

3) Use your power and authority consciously - make sure you understand the message you are giving and make it stick.  Unintentional communication is one of the biggest derailers of leaders, new and old.

Bill Berman, Ph.D.
Managing Director, Berman & Associates
Partner, PrimeGenesis, LLC

Coaching v. Upgrading Talent

One of the essential paradoxes of leadership is that a leader is expected to both be able to coach and develop their people, and at the same time to make tough decisions about talent, and upgrade when needed. How do you know when to support and develop, and when to cut your losses and find someone else? The answer is easy if the person doesn?t have core skills: technical ability, basic interpersonal skills, or integrity, trust and respect. But barring those, how does a leader know how to proceed? How much energy and time should you devote to a direct report? When should you mentor someone, when should you offer them developmental opportunities? The answer is both extraordinarily complex, and remarkably simple. Essentially, to coach or mentor or develop someone, you have to believe the person has potential.

Potential

Senior managers are responsible for the determination of potential. For a new leader, quickly evaluating the workability, capability and potential of one?s team is critical to success: Can I work with this person? Can I count on this person to deliver what we need to accomplish this year? And can I count on this person to help take our organization where it needs to go in the next two to three years? The first is related to your ability to deal with their degree of diversity, and their willingness to accept you as their leader, which I will talk about another time. If you underestimate their capability, you will struggle to achieve your quick wins because they can?t do the work you need them to do today. But how do you know if they are the right people for the future? If you underestimate their potential, you may hit your early wins but are unlikely to reach your one-year targets, and are way off track for hitting three-year objectives.

When is it potential?

What do people look for when they look for potential? The best leaders look for precursors to the skills the person needs two levels above where he or she is now. These precursors to leadership show up in the following questions:

• Does he think about issues outside his remit?
• Can an operations manager integrate data from the marketing group and recommend a solution that meets customer needs?
• Is she willing to support another manager in a cross-functional team that is struggling with an important cross-business issue?
• Do they consider long-term people issues when executing a business strategy?
• Does he take 100% accountability for dealing with problems and finding solutions?
• Does she take well-considered risks that will help the business?
• Can he delegate responsibility and still take ownership of the result?

When is it something else?

We are all vulnerable to making mistakes in people judgments ? we are, after all, human. But the indications that someone does not have potential that we can take as signs of potential, include:

• Does she agree with me all the time?
• Will he avoid taking a stand until he knows which way you are leaning?
• Do you ever detect him taking personal credit for work instead of crediting his team?
• Do you find her giving explanations or rationalizations for problems rather than finding solutions?
• Does he “stick to his knitting” even if he does an above-expectations job, after you have encouraged him to broaden his perspective?

For some people, there is no greater stress than the burden of a great potential. It is important for a leader to be able to identify those people who not only do a great job in their current role, but have the kernels of capability for two roles forward. Those are the people to whom you should devote your energy, and who you should help develop as the next leaders of the team.

Habits are amazing things.  Some habits are incredibly hard to stop (like smoking, overeating), and others are incredibly easy to stop.  Take, for example, my blogging.  As soon as work became intense, I put off writing entries for this.  And several people commented on it.  So I’ve redoubled my commitment, I’m getting back on the horse, and apologize to those who missed my missives. 

Let’s talk about Meetings. Why not? To paraphrase the great Samuel Clemens, “Everyone talks about meetings, but no one does anything about them.”  Meetings are the stuff of life for managers and executives, and more often than not, they are seen as of medium to low value (see Death by Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni ).  We all have said, and have heard others say the equivalent of “that’s another two hours of my life I will never get back.” 

There are endless problems with meetings, but there are two critical issues. 

• First, managers and executives have to stop thinking of meetings as something they do while waiting to do their job.  Meetings ARE your job.  Your role has changed fundamentally from one where you produce your own results to one where you have to work with others to produce their result.  People with a high Need for Achievement  have a hard time doing this, while people with a high need for Power have an easier time doing this. But all managers have to shift to understanding that their job is to discuss and resolve issues with others.
• Second, meeting owners have to be very clear before the meeting starts what the desired purpose and outcome of the meeting are.  Most meetings are unsatisfying because expectations for what was to happen did not fit with how the meeting was conducted.  I have sat through meetings that involved nine sequential 45-minute presentations of material that could have been covered in a pre-read.  I calculated that the cost of this information dissemination was approximately $30,000.  I have also sat in meetings where everyone was supposed to have been fully briefed ahead of time, only to arrive in the meeting and spend 30 minutes reviewing the materials ahead of time.

If you understand that meetings are your job, and not simply your burden, you will begin to put more time and energy into preparing for and planning those meetings, and will make sure that you get the most you can from the people in the meeting.  And the participants will know what to expect, and know how to be prepared.

So what are some guidelines for effective meeting management?

1. Clarify the goal(s) of the meeting ahead of time.  Make sure people know what they are expected to accomplish and what they need to be prepared for.  If you want a brainstorming session, make that explicit. If you want to leave with clarity on an issue, make that the first issue and take it all the way to conclusion.  
2. Structure the meeting properly.  Meetings have three basic components: Listening (or information sharing), Interaction (or debate), and Decision-making (LID).  The vast majority of meetings allocate 70% to listening, and 30% to interaction, and nothing to deciding.  This is guaranteed to create boring, unproductive meetings.  The optimal proportions are more like 30% listening, 50% interaction, and 20% decision-making.  Think back about meetings you were involved in – you will be able to remember the ones where discussion and decisions were central, and have no recall for the ones that were listening and questions.
3. Have an agenda and stick to it.  If people come to the meeting expecting to present on compensation issues and you don’t get to it, they will be less likely to prepare in advance. If you circulate a pre-read, make it clear how the pre-read relates to the content of the meeting.
4. Manage the time.  Start on time, even if all of your people aren’t present.  More important, however, is to end it 5 minutes early.  If you aim to end early, you will probably end on time.  And in order to start on time, you have to stop on time.
5. Do things that are non-traditional.  I heard Dr. Steve Rogelberg / last week present on innovative methods to use in meetings. He described a number of interesting methods that will steer a meeting to a more effective result. His major point – do things that are innovative, and change them often (or else they become mundane).

   I will write more on meetings another time, but at this point the critical elements are to ensure you provide the structure needed for effective meetings, take advantage of the talent you have in the room, and change the traditional approaches.

    

OK, this is only the 24,000th blog written about Barack Obama’s speech yesterday. And I’m sure there are politicos and historians who will wax much more eloquent than me (for example, see the New York Times editorial, and John Baldoni’s insightful comments). But since this blog is about leadership, I can’t pass up the opportunity to analyze his speech from the standpoint of leadership.

Many people I’ve talked with have said, “It was a good speech, but not his best.” People consistently refer to his “race” speech and his “yes we can” speech as being the top of his game. Yet, from a leadership perspective, I think Obama did exactly what he needed to do for the country at this time. Why? Not because I’m a democrat (which I am), but because he approached this with the appropriate balance of leadership qualities.

First, he never talked about I, or You. He used “I” twice, once to say “I am humbled” and once to say “I want to thank.” Other than that, he only talked about we. He made it clear that this is a joint effort, and he cannot accomplish his goals or our goals without our contribution. He also appealed to the rank-and-file, not just the leadership, letting everyone know that every person mattered, and the efforts of everyone down to the simplest contributor is essential to success.

Second, he followed Jim Collin’s recommendation to confront the brutal facts, but approach the future with unflagging optimism. Within 2 minutes, Obama was speaking of the problems we are facing, and made it clear that all is not roses. He also identified, as others have before him, that the biggest obstacle is psychological, not physical. His message about the corrosiveness of the lack of confidence of the American people echoed FDR’s statement that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” As soon as he identified the threats, however, he demonstrated complete optimism that we, as a country, have the resilience and the capability to become a world leader and a moral leader again. And he appealed to our core values: duty, responsibility, character.

Third, he made it clear that only hard work, effort, and dogged determination will get us out of the dangers we are in. He never referred to talent, or expertise, or innate characteristics, but rather to the day-to-day struggles, focus and dedication needed to overcome our challenges.

Third, in one speech Obama relied on the core skills of leaders to present an effective, motivating and enduring speech:

1. He communicated with clarity and vision for the future;
2. He focused on hard work, effort and praised the achievements of the doers and the workers;
3. He demonstrated optimism, resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity;
4. He approached problem solving with an open mind, and willingness to consider all alternatives;
5. He created clear boundaries - between himself and Bush, between past and future, between principle and pragmatism;
6. He showed creativity and innovation in his approach to the challenges we face.

Of course, everything rests on the execution of his plans, but in his first official act, Obama communicated a message of involvement, honesty, faith and trust.  That was exactly what the American people needed to hear.

Bill Berman, Ph.D.

Managing Principal, Berman & Associates

Partner, PrimeGenesis

Director, APT, Inc.

One of the comments I received after my last post was that I was waxing too philosophical.  Guilty as charged, and I was unabashedly so. But I don’t want this blog to drift into spongy platitudes, so I’m going to shift gears and address a problem virtually every manager has dealt with at one time or another.  If you have a toxic team member, you should do everything in your power to get rid of them as quickly as possible.  Terminate, move or transfer him or her.  Anything else is potentially self-destructive.

There - I told the end of the story first.  If you don’t have time to read the rest, you’ve gotten the point.  But let me back up and provide some context. 

What is a toxic team member?   I consider a toxic team member as anyone on your management team who is not aligned with the burning imperative of the group, who is unwilling to act according to the values or strategies of the team, or who undermines your position or role in the organization.  Toxic team members do not have to be psychopaths or out of control.  They can be snide, overly sarcastic, negative or pessimistic, or passive-aggressive.  They can be disloyal. Or they can simply be uninvolved, not participating in team meetings or not following through on actions or commitments. Do NOT confuse toxic team members with people who disagree, have their own points of view, or think differently from you.  Those individuals are enormously valuable.  Toxic team members are people who create obstacles to success through active or passive behavior.  A couple of examples:

• The team-avoider who refuses or is unable to attend team meetings more than twice;
• The eternal pessimist who consistently focuses on what resources he/she doesn’t have, and does not identify solutions to problems;
• The Eddie Haskel type who agrees and cooperates in public, and then derails initiatives by refusing to commit resources or effort in private;
• The Competent Jerk who delivers business results, but is verbally abusive or dismissive of everyone else, including you.

How do they impact you and your team?  Toxic team members can have a variety of negative effects. They always undermine your authority, and make you less effective as a leader both within your team and across the organization.  They can get you sidetracked on irrelevant or insignificant issues, or on them.  Toxic team members can create a lack of clarity through their sarcasm and cynicism.  They can cause other people in your organization to question your people judgment and your decision-making, one of the most important qualities in effective leaders.   

How do you remove them?  This can be as easy as providing feedback, setting expectations, and terminating the person when those expectations aren’t met.  Move quickly if you can - the longer you wait, the more chaos and disruption you will experience.  And as Sun Tzu advised, quick and decisive action on one individual can convey a critical lesson to the rest of the team.  But it can be more difficult.  Make sure that they know what your expectations are, and what your concerns are.  Find out if they are unhappy in their role, and would prefer a different position in the company.  Document their problematic behavior in writing as well as verbally.  Involve your manager, and your HR partner.

What about the untouchables?  There are people in every organization who are invulnerable.  They may be friends of the CEO, provide a unique service, or have a critical relationship that the company is dependent on.  In these cases, your moves have to be more subtle.  Marginalizing the individual or putting them in a role that is valuable but takes them out of a team leadership position can be reasonable options.  Being passive-aggressive can sometimes be useful. Direct confrontation is rarely effective, but may be useful if their special status is tenuous. 

In the end, your goal is to ensure that your team is working with you to achieve results, and your peers see you as strong and effective.  One of the greatest threats to this is the toxic team member.  Action in this case is essential, and inaction can be destructive to everyone involved.

Bill Berman, Ph.D.

Managing Principal, Berman & Associates

Partner, PrimeGenesis

Director, APT, Inc.

At the end of the year, I’d like to shift gears and not talk directly about leadership.  I’d like to talk about decisions and decision-making.

I’ve had several conversations recently with people who have made significant choices in their lives.  Not easy decisions; we all make easy choices all the time.  Which TV to buy, whether to eat at Joe’s Pizza or Sushi Buni, how late to sleep.  These are simple choices, reversible choices, ones that are out of your mind as soon as they are concluded.  The people I spoke to were talking about the few really tough choices they have made at various points – to pick one career and walk away from another, to take a job or not; to get married, or get divorced; to move to a new town, or a new country.  These were life-changing choices that put you on a path that has implications for years if not decades, choices that are very difficult to change or reverse.

Each person had made a major life choice, and knew that, had they made a different choice, their life certainly would have proceeded differently. In some cases it might have turned out better, at least by some criteria.  And some of those choices were made for less than perfect reasons.  One friend told me he decided in his senior year of college not to pursue medical school, not because of a rational analysis of the options, but because he didn’t want to spend that long in school.  Had he been more thorough in his analysis, he would have learned that the course he chose (graduate school) took almost twice as long as medical school.  Another friend chose to marry someone with a chronic illness, which resulted in several years of pain and loss that was, at times, agonizing for everyone close to them. 

What made these conversations interesting was that none of the people I talked to had any regrets about these choices.  They might wonder about the implications of the choice itself, and muse over what might have been different.  But what they all told me, each independently, was that the unfolding of their lives subsequently was so unique and invaluable that if they really could not consider the other path as a real option any more.  If they thought seriously about the other choice, they would have to consider losing all of the things that make this path important:  children, friends, experiences, events.  They knew, without really having to force the thought, that choices are much more significant at the time you are making them than they are looking back.  What is truly important is what happens after the choice.

I think good leaders know this intuitively.  When confronted with a really difficult choice, they approach it with the best information and the clearest mind they can. They consider options and weigh the pros and cons.  But in the end, they know that what they do with the choice they make is probably more important than the choice itself.  The senior managers I have worked with take on the choice, own the choice, and push it forward with all their energy and passion. This is not to say that one cannot make bad choices. All of them (and all of us!) have made some doozies.  What I am saying is that really effective leaders follow up a difficult choice with focus and intensity, and a clear understanding that the future will become something of value if they make it so.

So on that note, I’ll end my musings there.  May your choices in 2009 be wise, and your passion for those choices be boundless.  Happy New Years to all, and talk to you on the other side of the year. 

Bill Berman, Ph.D.

Managing Principal, Berman & Associates

Partner, PrimeGenesis

Director, APT, Inc.

Rick’s Experience

One of my clients named Rick was brought into a finance organization that for all intents and purposes was broken.  The company had grown rapidly through both acquisition and organic growth, and his predecessor had paid attention primarily to internal workings and processes.  As a result, no one in the broader organization was satisfied with the contribution of finance, and the responses to their needs and expectations were fragmented, function-centric and always urgent.  Rick had experience in a global organization, and chose to spend the first months of his job literally flying around the globe, personally meeting with regional business unit managers and global teams, understanding their needs and addressing urgent problems while creating a structure, building a strategy and creating a plan.  He relied on brute force and lack of sleep to get it all done.After six months, his manager told him that he had done a phenomenal job of winning back his customers, and had built enormous good will and confidence in his ability to solve the problems that neglect in finance had caused.  He and the rest of the executive team couldn’t be more pleased with his achievements, Rick was told.  Now, however, his manager wanted Rick to focus some of his energy on his internal team, which the manager had learned was feeling lost at sea and unattended to. 

Sphere of Influence

Managers (both new and existing) have the challenge of dividing their focus of attention in two directions.  The first, “Up and Out,” involves attending to the needs of their peers, managers and customers.  Emphasis on Up and Out builds a customer-focused approach in which understanding and meeting the expectations of the internal and external customer takes precedence.  The second, “In and Down” involves organizing, structuring and building a team that can respond to the needs of the company and customer.  In the In and Down world, creating the focus, building the structure, and emphasizing the systems and processes creates the foundation for delivering the results. 

Both sides of a manager’s sphere of influence are essential.  You can’t meet the customer needs if you don’t know what they are.  And you can’t meet the customer needs if you don’t have the support of your team.  But the vast majority of managers are drawn toward one side or the other.  Like Rick’s situation, some business scenarios require more attention to the external world, and some require more attention to the internal world.  At the same time, some managers are more likely to focus on the external issues, while others are more likely to focus on their own team. The most effective manager divides his or her attention and builds both aspects of his or her sphere of influence.  There is rarely a time when you divide your focus 50/50.  Most of the time, you need to and should pay more attention to one than the other, just as new managers tend to focus their attention on problem areas before success areas. 

What should I do?

Identify your biggest challenge.  Do you and your team know enough about your customers and stakeholders?  How allied or alienated are you with them? If there is damage to repair, you may need to focus a large amount of attention on the external customers or stakeholders. On the other hand, if your relationship and understanding is good, you want to focus more attention on building the structure and strategy of your team.

Take your pulse.  Are you focusing all your attention on your team or your organization? If so, make a shift and get out to see customers. Or make time to meet with your peers and internal stakeholders. 

Change it up.  Make sure that you do not spend your time doing what is safe, familiar, or easy for you. 

Get feedback.  If in doubt, ask your manager, your peers and your team.  If you have done your job, they’ll give you good advice and will help you clarify where you need to focus.

Bill Berman

Managing Principal, Berman & Associates

Partner, PrimeGenesis

Director, APT, Inc.

Managing anger is a challenge for many people, and it usually gets worse when you are under stress, as many of us are these days.  Mark’s view that you try to understand the thoughts associated with your anger, and replace them with more constructive thoughts is an effective method of managing anger. 

Psychological research has found that a major cause of anger is when someone becomes a barrier between you and your goals or expectations. When this is the case, it is essential to examine your expectations, and adjust them to fit with the reality of the situation.  For example, if you find yourself getting angry at subordinates who miss deadlines or underperform, take a close look at your expectations for them.  Are your expectations realistic?  Were you clear about what you needed or wanted?  Are you providing the context for them to succeed? If your answer to any of these questions is or could be “no,” you need to take a step back and revisit your expectations.

People who manage their anger best operate on the assumption that they are responsible for the results of their business. When a manager really takes responsibility for results, then there is no reason to get mad at others - the burden rests with you. This is much easier said than done, but if you talk to managers who never seem to get angry, you’ll find they find these obstacles as problems for them to solve, not obstacles for them to circumvent.

Bill Berman, Ph.D.
Managing Partner, Berman & Associates
www.doctorberman.net
Partner, PrimeGenesis
www.primenesis.com