In This Issue:

• Develop future leaders
• Profile
• Woman Talk
• Managing Diversity
• Management Tip of the Month
• Book Nook
• Ethics Dilemma

LEADING EDGE SEMINARS

Click here for information on our 2007 seminar series, including "Leading in Turbulent Times" and "Driving Results With Diversity."

PROFILE:
C. Mary Okoye

Each month we will profile someone in the business, non-profit or government sector who has shown superior leadership or management skills. If you know someone who should be profiled, please send the person's name, title, organization and contact information to edgeline.

NAME: C. Mary Okoye
TITLE: Director of Intergovernmental Relations
COMPANY: City of Tucson, Tucson, AZ

Mary Okoye is active in the city’s Children’s Museum, Voices for Education, and the YWCA Women and Money Conference Planning Committee. She received the YWCA Woman on the Move Award and was honored by Inside Tucson Business as one of the 40 under 40. She enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, the arts and spending time with family and friends.

What is most exciting about your current role?

As Director of Intergovernmental Relations for Tucson, I am on the front line of issues that impact most citizens such as economic development, public safety and welfare, and quality of life. The job is fast paced: initiatives, legislation, and proposals appear quickly and must be dealt with in real time. It is rewarding to see a completed road system, or a revitalized downtown resulting from public and private
partnerships.

What is your biggest challenge?

In recent years, anti-government sentiment created a huge challenge in work with the Arizona State Legislature, Congress, and the citizens we serve in that climate. I hope that soon we can find common ground and appreciate the democratic process in a way that benefits everyone.

Briefly describe an experience that taught you a lot about leadership or management.

In 2006 the City of Tucson secured over a half billion dollars in funding from the state legislature to redevelop its downtown. As I led
this process, I learned the importance of persistence, optimism, encouragement and communication. The experience also underscored the principle that nothing is impossible if everyone works together. We were successful because the elected officials, the private sector, community organizations, and city staff rallied and worked hard to achieve a common goal.

Describe someone who is a hero to you, or mentor or role model.

Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House in the US Congress is someone I admire. She is firm, yet fair. She has the ability to focus and work toward a goal. I like her current message of getting things done in a bipartisan manner.

What personal strengths have led to your own success?

Persistence, love of knowledge, and appreciation of all peoples.

What are three tips you would offer to aspiring managers and leaders?

1. Don't bury your head in the sand. Face problems head on.
2. Communicate with everyone.
3. Be receptive to information from many sources.

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C. Mary Okoye

Born: Philadelphia, PA in 1956

Education: J.D. University of Arizona College of Law and Georgetown Law Center; bachelor’s in history, Barry University.

Also worked as: Tucson City Court Magistrate and as Pima County Public Fiduciary.

Favorite book: Proverbs, Bible.

Management Tip

Are you looking to keep your best employees happy? Try giving more praise.The groundbreaking 1999 book, “First, Break All the Rules,” showed empirically you are more likely to retain your best workers if they feel they are receiving regular and frequent praise – at least once a week. It costs nothing and it is easy to do. Just remember: Be specific. “That was a great speech. I especially liked your ending because it helped people focus on the positive.” Praise behaviors you want to see repeated. Praise behaviors that help your team or the company achieve their most important goals. And be natural and authentic; don’t come off as a phony.

- Larry Olmstead

 

Develop future leaders

with in-house programs

By Larry Olmstead

You have assembled a strong management team. But you worry: Are your junior managers being groomed to rise in the organization? And how do you keep the most talented among them from being snatched away by competitors?

One option is to send your high-potentials away to intensive, expensive executive training. But consider instead creating in-house leadership development programs. An increasing number of companies are moving to this model. The most effective internal development programs share these characteristics:

The goals are clear. Are you trying to groom successors? Identify high-potentials? Create a consistent level of managerial skills across the organization? Whatever goal you choose, it should tie closely to the organization’s strategic goals. The clearer you are about your principal goal, the easier it will be to design and implement curriculum.

The organization has a formal or informal competency model. Competencies are the knowledge, skills and traits needed to excel in a given job or role. Ideally, your organization has leadership competencies in place, or at least has achieved informal agreement on the qualities sought in top managers. Design your curriculum around those competencies; otherwise, participants may learn a lot, but not necessarily about the things that help the organization move forward.

Management training and development has a champion/sponsor. Ideally, that would be the chief executive …

… And a convener/enabler/facilitator. In most organizations, that is someone within the human resources function, who becomes the chief partner in this endeavor. You may consider hiring an outside consultant to help shape and launch the program.

Participants meet at least monthly. Curriculum can include best-practice sharing, internal and external speakers, conversations with customers, field trips to other businesses and into the community, readings of books on management – anything that broadens their leadership horizons.

Senior managers “own” the training. They are involved in selection of participants. They help design the curriculum. They are called on to coach participants and lead sessions. Why? They are the arbiters of success in the organization. There is no point training and developing people who will not be recognized and promoted by these managers.

Selection of participants is strategic and rigorous. This is the key to success of your program. The best grooming in the world won’t help the company if you are training the wrong people in the first place. Internal leadership programs live or die based on their credibility within the organization, and on the willingness of existing leaders to share coaching tips, time and experiences. Those existing leaders will not want to work with low-performers. Think very hard about your selection criteria, and err towards exclusion of people who fall short.

Diversity is a factor in selection and curriculum. These programs offer the opportunity to shape future leadership. Your company has a better chance of success if your leadership is diverse.

The curriculum includes “action learning.” Your participants – generally frontline and mid-level managers across departments – comprise a perfect group to create innovative projects and take on strategic initiatives. Such work is developmental, plus it provides the “ROI” that justifies the training.

WOMAN TALK: When leaders need to relax

By Dinah Eng

 

Relaxation is Maureen Schumacher’s business.

Schumacher, the director of LeSpa at Sofitel in Los Angeles, runs one of the newest spas in Hollywood, catering to stressed-out executives, weary travelers and those in need of a little special pampering.

When it comes to handling stress in the workplace, she offers several tips.

“Deep breathing is always a good thing to do,” Schumacher says. “Breathe in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Breathing through the nose slows down the intake of air, and allows you to take a longer breath for a calming effect.”

Taking time to do neck stretches and shoulder shrugs during the day will help relieve an area of the body where most of us tend to hold stress.

“I like to have one thing in my office that makes me smile, or laugh,” Schumacher says. “It helps me to re-focus and shift gears. It reminds me of what’s important in life. Laughing also releases endorphins in the system, which help you to relax.”

Schumacher says women have a tendency to internalize stress, and use emotional outlets like having a good cry for release. Men, on the other hand, tend to work out their stress in the gym, focusing on a physical outlet for their frustrations.

“Women have a tendency to get sick more because we take on more of the burdens of life,” she says. “Saying no is something a lot of women struggle with. I think women put a lot of personal pressure on ourselves. We strive more for perfection than excellence.

“Good is never good enough. It has to be perfect, and that becomes truer the higher up you go on the corporate ladder because one mistake may cost you your job. In my work, I want to make sure everything’s taken care of and done right. But just reminding myself that I’m human, and that I can’t handle everything all the time, is part of how I relax.”

When it comes to creating a relaxing atmosphere in the office, she urges busy executives to address the body’s senses in their environment.

“Make sure there’s appropriate lighting,” Schumacher says. “Use a desk lamp instead of fluorescent lighting if you can. Have music or a fountain that provides soothing background noise. Colors like green, blue and purple in the office help to reduce stress levels as well.”

Circulating a light scent, like citrus or lavender, can send a signal to your brain to relax. Having leather accessories and a wooden desk can help warm up the atmosphere of an office, as opposed to having a lot of metal or glass accents.

“The more we rely on technology, the more we’re losing personal contact with people,” Schumacher says. “We do more conference calls than face-to-face meetings.

“One of the reasons people are drawn to spas is that it’s one place where we make you turn off your cell phone. People are drawn because of the desire for human contact, which is lacking in our world, and something we all need.”

MANAGING DIVERSITY: Helping employees with disabilities to thrive

By Jacqui Love Marshall

People with disabilities are gaining in number, visibility and impact in the U.S. workforce, especially among younger (16-34) workers. “More companies realize there is a vast pipeline of capable people with disabilities, the cost of accommodation is usually nominal and college programs and talent pools are providing greater access to mainstream experience and comprehensive education,” says Deborah Dagit, executive director, Diversity and Work Environment at Merck & Company. “There is an ‘enlightened self-interest’ among best-practice companies in hiring people with disabilities.”

Changes are still necessary. “In the U.S., people with disabilities are acculturated to believe that they are perceived more positively if they don’t ask for help or accommodation, lest they be seen as a burden," Dagit said. "Discomfort often causes new hires with disabilities to not identify themselves when they join a company, even when the company encourages self-identification and support.”

Dagit is herself a person with disabilities – she’s four feet tall, has a hearing impairment and mobility challenges as a result of brittle-bone disease. She speaks candidly about her own workplace experience over the years: “I’ve been frustrated with always having to raise the challenges of my disabilities with co-workers and managers. I’d like to see others take the initiative to explore what more could be done to make my work experience better, especially at social events.” Company parties and receptions involve trying to hear and converse with people who tower over her, standing for long periods and food tables she cannot reach

So, what can individuals do to support colleagues with disabilities?

- Attend diversity training to build confidence talking to people with disabilities and develop disability etiquette skills (dealing with guide dogs, wheelchairs, sign language, etc.)

- Minimize isolating a disabled person through avoidance. Include the person in the group (invite to lunch, ask his/her opinion informally, etc.). Regular interactions establish mutual trust and greater comfort in naturally awkward moments.

And, if you interview, hire or manage a person with a disability?

- Attend interviewing and diversity training to develop greater confidence interacting with people with disabilities and managing disability-relevant situations.

- After hiring a person with a disability, don’t try to imagine how you would cope with an aspect of the person’s disability. If you are curious or concerned, ask!

- Reassure the employee that it’s OK to ask for accommodations on an evolving basis. Check in regularly to discern if there are emerging challenges.

- Help the person feel fully included and engaged via informal communications - for example, hallway chats and drop-in office visits.

- Recognize there are unique challenges associated with the disability, even when the person seems to be handling them fine.

BOOK NOOK

Transforming your organization? Finding change a challenge? This book offers both tasks and processes for engaging resistance, telling the (sometimes painful) truth, and becoming competently creative in envisioning the common good. A practical jargon-less read for leaders in both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

- Rebecca Kuiken

ETHICS DILEMMA: When romance enters the workplace

Jerry Ceppos will answer questions about ethical issues every month. Along with two others, he received the first Ethics in Journalism Award of the Society of Professional Journalists. Write Jerry at jceppos@aol.com. Tell him if you don't want your name used.

Q. Some of my employees tell me that they’ve seen two of their colleagues socializing outside of the office in a way that suggests they’re dating. I smell trouble. What should I do?

A. Take a deep breath. Do you need to do anything at all? Is this idle gossip, or is there a business-related issue here? There could be if:
- One of the socializing parties reports to the other.
- Your organization has a policy against employees’ dating one another.
- Their social relationship is somehow affecting business results.

If you decide to intervene, consult with your human resources department, if possible. Realize that you have ethical obligations galore—to your company, to other employees and to the dating duo. Those obligations are easier to fulfill if your company has a written policy on employee dating. It should spell out whether supervisors can date subordinates, whether people in the same department can date, how problems can be resolved, and consequences for violating the policy.

If you have such a policy, you’re in luck. If the employees’ alleged actions run counter to policy, sit with them separately, ask if they are dating and remind them of the policy and the reasons for it. Listen to their response. If there is a business-related issue, tell them the offending actions must be avoided in the future and file notes about the conversation in case the subject comes up again.

If you don’t have such a policy, you’re in an infinitely more difficult situation—but you're also in the majority. (Most companies don’t have a policy, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.) Talk to your human-resources people about the best way to address the matter. You may have to let it go until and unless solid evidence emerges of a work-related problem. In the meantime, management can decide whether to develop and post rules governing dating.

 

Leading Edge Associates is a consulting firm engaged in management training, organizational change, succession planning, executive coaching, diversity and media.