The Engaging Leader: Winning with Today's Free Agent Workforce

223 Pages·2003·0.4 MB·English

by  Ed Gubman

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© 2003 by Ed Gubman
Published by Dearborn Trade Publishing, a Kaplan Professional Company
All rights reserved. The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not
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Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gubman, Edward L.
The engaging leader : winning with today’s free agent workforce /
Ed Gubman.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-7931-6514-8 (6X9 hardback)
1. Supervision of employees. 2. Employee motivation. 3. Employee
retention. 4. Leadership. I. Title.
HF5549.12 .G83 2003
658.3′02—dc21
2002155111
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C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
1. Engaging Leadership 1
The Thrill of Victory 1
Engaging for Success 3
What Engaging Leaders Do 4
Drivers and Builders 5
Engaging Leaders Are Versatile 10
Engaging Impacts 15
2. The Urgency of Engagement 29
Market-Driven Employment Relationships 29
The Coming Talent Shortage 30
What Talent Wants 35
Engaging Leadership Is the Solution 39
Mixing Sports and Business 41
The Rest of This Book 45
3. Talent:Get What You Need 49
Build on Your Strengths 49
Like-Minded People 51
Select for Fit 54
Fit versus Talent 61
Talent versus Genius 63
Change Your Talent or Change to Your Talent? 65
Talent + Toughness + Teamwork = Victory 69
4. Talent:Develop and Diversify 77
The Return of the Individual 77
Build a Dynasty 79
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iv CO N T E N T S
The Development Mandate 83
Close Your Gaps 86
Different Strokes 88
More Diversity Means More Talent 90
On-the-Field, Off-the-Field 94
Lives in the Balance 97
5. Goals:Winning Is the Only Thing 105
Engaging What’s Real 105
Focus: Aim High and Keep It Simple 106
BHAGs: The Value of Big Goals 109
Enemies of Big Goals 113
Risk: Do It Big, Do It All, Do It Fast 119
Risk Requires Anticipation, Innovation, and Sacrifice 121
Risk Energizes Employees 123
Risk Takers Need Support 128
Making Risk Pay Off 130
6. Chemistry:Trust First 135
Chemistry = Trust + Structure 135
AShort Course in Trust 136
Trust among Peers 142
Big Egos Destroy Trust 145
No More Command, Control, and Constant Criticism 147
Superb Communications 149
All You Need Is Love 151
No Appreciation, No Talent 155
7. Chemistry:Structure 161
The Structure of Engagement 161
Accountability—Don’t Get Too Comfortable 164
Execute with Excellence 167
Roles: Shining Stars 172
What Does Money Have to Do with It? 176
It’s Money That Matters 178
Winning over Whining 181
CO N T E N T S v
Conclusion 185
Appendixes 189
Notes 193
Index 203
vi E N G AG I N G L E A D E R S W I N
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Books are labors of love—you have to love writing to do the
labor. Creating this book was a particular pleasure for me because
it combined two of my passions—leadership and sports. I often
look at leaders in business and sports through the same motiva-
tional lens.
I took this view a lot in my 17 years with Hewitt Associates. For
the first 15 years there, I was building and leading a team—first a
small one—then a global one, as a practice leader. Now I work in-
dependently, still consulting with executives about their teams. I
can always find a good quote from Casey Stengel or a Zen inspira-
tion from Phil Jackson to explain a situation or rally people’s spirits.
During my last few years at Hewitt, we helped assist the people
who worked with Fortuneto select its list of the 100 best companies
to work for in America. Working with this information, as well as
personally with several of these companies, it became obvious to
me that a particular kind of leadership, what I call “engaging lead-
ership,” lifted some companies to best employer status and left
others as also-rans. I also realized that winning and losing with em-
ployees involved the same kinds of leader behaviors I saw in suc-
cessful sports teams. Increasingly, great employees are like great
athletes—they have choices about where and how hard to work,
and their skills are in high demand. It doesn’t matter what the un-
employment rate is, there’s always a shortage of talent to help your
business win. This book describes engaging leadership.
Many people contributed to this book—especially the business
executives with whom I’ve worked and watched lead. I’m also very
appreciative of the great coaches who I’ve observed as a fan and the
vii
viii AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S
sportswriters who’ve depicted them. Two individuals deserve all-
star mention. John Bausch, a prized colleague from my Hewitt days
and a good friend, gave an early manuscript a close reading and
suggested the framework that I ultimately used. John is a talented
management consultant and business communicator, as well as a
former sportswriter, so he was the perfect person to critique this
work. My editors Jean Iversen, Don Hull, and their teammates at
Dearborn Trade have been enthusiastic supporters of this project.
What a great team to have on the field with me!
Above all, thanks and love to my wife Rachel and my two sons,
Mike and Charlie, who are the inspiration for everything I do. (See,
I wasn’t just wasting my time watching all those games on TV.)
I N T R O D U C T I O N
A DISENGAGED DISASTER
During the summer of 1999, I was reading about the collapse of
the Colorado Rockies baseball team under manager Jim Leyland.
Leyland came to Colorado as a high-priced savior, but he and the
team never meshed. Things got so bad that he announced his resig-
nation before the first season was over. This came as a mystery to
the sports world, because Leyland was commonly referred to as a
“baseball genius.”
A genius in baseball is someone who gets more wins from his
players than the payroll suggests. Leyland did this with a series of
underpaid, overachieving Pittsburgh Pirates teams in the early
1990s. Claiming poverty like most small market teams—funny how
St. Louis spends like a big market team and the Chicago teams pre-
tend they’re in small markets—the Pirates traded away their play-
ers when they became stars and could demand more money.
Eventually, Leyland got tired of seeing Barry Bonds, Bobby
Bonilla, and other talents leave, so he followed them out the door.
ix