Finding and Supporting Your Open Leaders

Finding and Supporting Open Leaders
Charlene Li
Altimeter Group
May 14, 2010
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#openleader

Open Leadership
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Having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control,
while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals
How to give up control, and be in command

Why did you follow that person?
Think of your favorite leader
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Believes that most people want to do their best want to be responsible, trustworthy, and honest.
Pessimists believe that most people cannot be trusted because they are looking for an advantage.
Two characteristics of optimistic leaders.
Curiosity – driven by a deep quest to learn constantly and see social technologies as a way to do this.
E.g. Dell and Starbucks
Humility – able to admit when you need help or have made a mistake.
E.g. Kodak
The Optimistic Leader
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Believes that more heads are better than one.
“It is very arrogant to think you can make better decisions than the thousands of people below you.”
- Cris Conde, SunGard CEO
Recognizes and rewards collaboration.
As opposed to individual accomplishments.
Cisco shifted from command-and-control individualistic approaches to collaboration over seven years.
Accelerated in last two years thanks to social and collaboration technologies.
The Collaborative Leader
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Find and develop your open leaders
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Collaborative
Independent
Pessimist
Optimist

Convincing the curmudgeon
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It’s a fad and waste of time.
What’s the ROI?
It’s too risky.
Who can best work with a Worried Skeptic?

Examples of Realist Optimists
Lionel MenchacaDell
Lovisa Williams
US Dept. of State
Ed TerpeningWells Fargo

Realist Optimists  Cautious Tester and Worried Skeptics
Help them understand the value of being open.
Keep Transparent Evangelists nearby to learn how to work with Pessimists.
Transparent Evangelists take on outward facing functions and responsibilities to open up the organization.
Supporting your archetypes
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Best Buy’s First Social Media Experts
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Steve Bendt & Gary Koelling

They harnessed Best Buy’s biggest asset
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The Blue Shirts

BlueShirtNation.com supported Best Buy’s front line employees

Steve & Gary had an executive sponsor
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Barry Judge CMO of Best Buy

They kept telling him one thing…
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“Barry, you gotta get a blog!”

Barry’s first post
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“I was so relieved when it was over—it was just two sentences to get started.”

The Premier Black Fiasco
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6.8 million emails sent instead of 1,000 test

Barry’s response
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“…we screwed up the execution which makes me feel sick about the customer trust that we have impacted.”

Openness became a strategy
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Open market testing of new logo

+2,200 Best Buy employees provide support on Twitter
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Being authentic
Mastering transparency
Developing and encouraging open leadership
Skills and behaviors of open leaders
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I seek out and listen to different points of view.
I make myself available to people at all levels of the organization.
I use social technologies effectively to communicate.
I actively manage how I am authentic.
Being authentic
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I take the time to explain how decisions are being made.
I reach out to customers frequently via social technologies, wherever they may be.
I encourage people to share information.
I update people regularly using social technologies.
I publicly admit when I am wrong.
Mastering transparency
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I identify and actively nurture potential open leaders at all levels of the organization.
I train and encourage people to use open leadership skills.
I encourage the use of social technologies throughout the organization.
I create a support network for open leaders.
I ask "What did I/we learn" when things fail.
Develop and encourage open leadership
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Prepare for new workflows
Social technologies will disrupt traditional organization structures

Social media triage
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Take reasonable action to fix issue and let customer know action taken
Negative
Positive
Yes
Yes
No
Assess the message
Evaluate the purpose
Do you want to respond?
Does customer need/deserve more info?
Unhappy Customer?
No Response
Yes
Are the facts correct?
Gently correct the facts
Yes
No
No
No
Can you add value?
DedicatedComplainer?
Are the facts correct?
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Respond in kind & share
Thank the person
Comedian Want-to-Be?
Explain what is being done to correct the issue.
Is the problem being fixed?
Yes
No
Yes
Let post stand and monitor.

Respect that your customers and employees have power
Share constantly to build trust.
Nurture curiosity and humility.
Hold openness accountable.
Forgive failure.
The New Rules of Open Leadership
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Conduct the open leadership assessment and determine your archetype.
Do a 360 degree evaluation to keep yourself honest.
Create a plan to support all archetypes in your org.
Conduct a skills and behavior inventory.
What skills and behaviors do you have to support open leadership?
For the ones you are missing, how will you develop or compensate for them?
Action Plan
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Thank you
Charlene Li
charlene@altimetergroup.com
charleneli.com/blog
Twitter: charleneli
For slides, send an email to slides@altimetergroup.com
For more information & to buy the book
visit open-leadership.com

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Finding and Supporting Your Open Leaders

by Charlene Li on May 15, 2010

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