How do you spot a future business leader in their twenties or thirties? Renowned consultant Ram Charan says their DNA has two strands of a helix: People acumen (the ability to harness people's energy) and business acumen (knowing how a business makes money). "These strands are largely in place in individuals by their twenties. After that, we can test for people and business acumen and expand these capabilities, but we can't implant them in mature people who lack them entirely," he writes in Executive Excellence.

Leadership is predicated on the ability to mobilize others to accomplish a vision, goal, or task. Leaders can't do everything. They must set expectations, and orchestrate others to achieve their goals. You know you have a leader with people acumen when you find evidence that the person selects the right people and motivates them, gets them working as a team, and diagnoses and fixes problems in collaboration with others.

"Real leaders enthusiastically select people who are better than they are to lift the organization. They motivate people and develop them as conditions change, retaining those who advance the business and deselect with dignity those who don't," he advises.

Every successful leader also understands how the business makes money. The leader can sift through conflicting factors and incomplete or distorted information so that in the end the company makes money. "Leaders intuitively understand the connections between customers, profits, money they borrow, and money they take in. They have a knack for making the right tradeoffs and decisions to keep the cash flowing," he says.

See: http://www.eep.com/

When potential donors check a non-profit web site, they say they most want to know:

• the organization's mission, goals, objectives, and work; and
• how it uses donations and contributions.

But in his Alertbox, web design expert Jakob Nielsen says his research found that only 43 per cent of the sites answered the first question on their home page and only 4 per cent answered the second question on that page. "Although organizations typically provided these answers somewhere within the site, users often had problems finding this crucial information," he reports.

In choosing between two charities, his tests found people actually referred to five categories of information. An organization's mission, goals, objectives, and work was by far the most important -- 3.6 times as important as the runner-up issue, which was the organization's presence in the user's own community.

Interestingly, information about how organizations used donations was far down the list when actual donor behaviour was watched, compared to its second-place ranking among things people claimed that they look for.

Donors want to contribute to causes that share their ideals and values. Potential donors use the web to assess how the non-profit specifically proposes to help. Too often the sites he studied failed to answer this question clearly, and lost out on donations as a result. "Non-profits would collect much more from their web sites if only they'd clearly state what they are about and how they use donations," he stresses.

See: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/nonprofit-donations.html

Research has shown that in assessing other people, we tend to assume that warmth and competence are inversely related. If there's a surplus of one trait, we infer a deficit of the other, Harvard University social psychologist Amy Cuddy notes in Harvard Business Review.

"Oh, she's so sweet," we think. "She probably would be inept as a member of the board." Or: "He's such a great computer technician, he would probably be lousy dealing with customers."

Cuddy warns against taking shortcuts when facing personnel decisions. Be aware of how you form impressions. Separate the two dimensions of warmth and competence, to guard against making unwarranted assumptions.

See: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/02/breakthrough-ideas-for-2009/ar/1

Consultant Drew McLellan has been drawn into the world of text messaging, thanks to his teenage daughter. And it had given him a lesson that he thinks every marketer needs to know.

Even in the abbreviated text-messaging format, he has learned it is easy to be long winded. It seems that for every sentence he texts, her retention and response gets shorter. The briefer he is, the more attention she pays and the more importance she assigns to his message.

When he really wants her full attention, he limits himself to one sentence.

Similarly, he feels the more copy you use in ads and other marketing messages, the less important they will seem. "When it really matters… say less," he advises in The Marketing Minute newsletter.

See: http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/

• Our organizations today are under performing because we are not taking sufficient time to sit quietly and just ponder, argues best selling business author Patrick Lencioni. Tell people around you that you need to ponder more, and they must protect you from needless distractions. (Source: The Table Group Newsletter)
• Create an e-mail folder for every one of your direct reports. Save all of your incoming and outgoing e-mail to them in those folders, to document your management relationship with them. (Source: RainmakerThinking.com)
• Networking expert Keith Ferrazzi says don't assume at a cocktail party that the person alone in the corner doesn't like people and doesn't want to engage. He came to the event, but is afraid. Reach out, and find out what he is passionate about. (Source: Fast Company Experts blog)
• When you are enthusiastically talking up your company or product, customer service consultant Jeff Mowatt says it doesn't hurt to add, "I'm probably overselling this… what do you think?" It displays humility, humour, and a customer perspective. (Source: Influence With Ease newsletter)
• Management Guru Tom Peters urges you to swallow your pride and ask as many questions as you can when dealing with others -- the dumber the better. Evaluate others in part on their ability to understand things clearly by asking dumb questions. (Source: Tom Peters! )

Links:

See: The Table Group Newsletter
See: RainmakerThinking.com
See: Fast Company Experts blog
See: Influence with Ease
See: Tom Peters!

6. Q&A with 8020Info: Giving Great Workshops        Top

Question: What makes a planning workshop a hit with participants?

8020Info President & CEO Rob Wood replies:

The answer depends to some degree on the type of workshop you're conducting, but here is some useful feedback provided by 23 non-profit leaders following a strategic planning workshop sponsored by the United Way earlier this year. Each participant was asked to share the one thing they liked most about the session, and the points mentioned most often were:

• Knowledgeable and engaging facilitation
• Concise presentation and quick pace
• Excellent variety of tools, models, ideas and different strategies presented
• Complexities were broken down, simplified, and easy to follow
• Getting confirmation that "we're on the right path"
• Good interaction and exchange of concerns with other participants

One participant commented that, when there's a lot of content, handouts are better than electronic presentation. Several appreciated that the session finished on time.

Suggestions for improvement were also solicited, bringing feedback on physical aspects (more heat in the room, better acoustics and better timing of refreshments), having time to digest content, organizing follow-up sessions, and providing reference material to find web links, related texts and articles to support next steps.

The feedback shows that workshop audiences have high expectations and can be demanding, but they're also most appreciative when you come through for them.

At 8020Info, we often receive questions about ways to build "community" -- special purpose networks, communities of practice, and brand communities. This is interesting and challenging work, and we recommend Getting Brand Communities Right, a recent article by Susan Fournier and Lara Lee in the April 2009 edition of Harvard Business Review.

Along with many other useful pointers, this piece offers insights on structure (hubs, networked webs, and pools of shared interest) as well as a framework of community behaviours with catchy headings like Sewing Circle, Barn Raising, Tour Group, Performance Space, and Tribe. They also detail the different roles played in sustaining a community -- catalyst, historian, mentor, talent scout, ambassador, and a dozen more. Take a look if you're planning to expand or build a community:

http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/04/getting-brand-communities-right/ar/1

8020Info helps teams develop, communicate and implement more effective strategies. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and welcome enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at watercooler@8020info.com.

"Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything."

   -- John Kenneth Galbraith