Three Star Leadership Blog: Recent Comments

Comment on Sense making and Serendipity among the Business Blogs

Wally Bock — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:29:54 GMT

Thanks for finding the research and sharing it with the rest of us, Bret.

Comment on Sense making and Serendipity among the Business Blogs

Wally Bock — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:28:30 GMT

Fair enough, counselor. Let me amend my comment slightly. I think that when you've got knowledgeable bloggers and commenters, you expand both knowledge and insight. Of course, if you are like some gurus and don't respond to comments, then no conversation happens. And if the only comments are "Great job!" not much learning does either.

Comment on Undercover Boss: A Repellant Piece of Trash

Wally Bock — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:23:42 GMT

Yeah, the cameras are hard to miss.In real life, bosses who do management by wandering around do a lot of it. They don't take cameras with them, either.

Comment on Strengths, Weaknesses, Your Team, and You

Wally Bock — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:20:29 GMT

Thanks, Jackie. The best use I've seen of the StrengthsFinder is to give team members a common language for understand what each does well.

Comment on Strengths, Weaknesses, Your Team, and You

Wally Bock — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:18:45 GMT

Good point. I've found that most people on most jobs need to do three or four core tasks reasonably well. Beyond that, there's lots of things that individuals bring and that they can contribute to the team.

Comment on Sense making and Serendipity among the Business Blogs

Bret Simmons — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:08:35 GMT

Thanks once again for referencing my work, Wally. Really appreciate it, especially coming from you.

The strengths stuff never passed the smell test with me. I saw Kaplan speak at an American Psychological Association national meeting a few years back (the room was packed) and I was glad to hear someone take issue with the strengths stuff.

The research I cite in my blog I just stumbled upon. If you look at the title of the article, it would be hard to discern it had strength based counsel in there. I had to look at the actual questions the researchers asked respondents to know they were tapping something akin to a strength based approach to leadership in one of their measures.

I was glad to find some peer reviewed evidence to support my thinking.

Thanks! Bret

Comment on Sense making and Serendipity among the Business Blogs

Michael Wade — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:56:52 GMT

Wally,

Good post. After seeing situations in which the intelligence of individuals drops when they operate in a group, I've never entirely agreed with the "No one of us is as smart as all of us" notion. Sometimes the group is as dumb as a post.

Comment on Strengths, Weaknesses, Your Team, and You

Kurt — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:33:21 GMT

Wally - well stated! I agree that for any given job, team members should be accountable to attain a certain level of competency. Aside from this core level, leaders should then allow them to utilize their innate abilities in a way that collectively makes the team stronger.

Comment on Undercover Boss: A Repellant Piece of Trash

Bill Churchill — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:06:32 GMT

I also find the camera thing amusing. Do you really want people working for you who aren’t at least just a little curious about why the “new guy” is being followed around by the paparazzi? If you’ve hired people who don’t notice anything different in their environment with regard to the camera thing, maybe—just maybe, you have stumbled on to the thing that’s really wrong with your business—the boss doesn’t know how to hire curious people. D’ya think?

I saw some of the first, (and last that I’ll ever watch), episode of “Undercover Boss” last night. It showed how one of the big cheeses at White Castle Hamburgers was going to get to know the front line troops. All the employees played along, and everyone seemed sacchariney happy. Maybe Tony’s Robbins’ employees are always that chipper—but White Castle Employees? I don’t think so.

Tsar Peter the Great had it right. He too went around masquerading as a “common man” in order to get a feel for how things were going in the “common” world. The biggest difference however, is that he left the “yes men” at the Kremlin palace, and donned peasant robes and mannerisms. He went out to study specific people, (shipwrights and the military), for a specific purpose that involved the sussing out of his power base and resources. He did not go out on a self aggrandizement tour aimed at proving to himself, and his “yes men” that he was a great “Enlightened Boss.”

I thought our society was over the Great White Hunter and White Man’s Burden. Evidently not.

Comment on Strengths, Weaknesses, Your Team, and You

Jackie Cameron — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:04:19 GMT

I love the concept of working with strengths and collaborating with others whose strengths are your "weakness". Although I have undergone Strengthsfinder testing I am not sure that is is necessary . What is important is that bosses are capable of recognising the individual strengths of their team members and work with that knowledge. Crucially they also need to be willing to do this and I believe that this will be a measure of their "strength" as a boss especially when they are clear on their own areas of weakness.

Great discussion.
Thanks Wally!