Hitki Blog

When moving from insight to vision, the danger is that the original compelling insight will suffer, becoming less compelling and less an instrument for attracting commitment. Because of this danger, leaders must pay careful attention to the process of crafting a vision, and must carefully consider the choices they make about this process and about [...]

Visions also invite, and perhaps challenge, followers to consider both who they are now and who they aspire to become. A noble vision forces us to ask provocative questions about ourselves; about who we have been, who we are, and who we want to become. The best of these visions—those that draw the highest levels [...]

Common sense suggests that self-referent visions are likely to appear when organizations really do care only for themselves, or when people in leadership positions lack either imagination or a compelling insight, or when the products and services that an organization provides truly do not make a significant contribution to any group of people (who really [...]

A story that beautifully illustrates the difference between self-referent and noble visions comes from Hewlett-Packard, which charged Barbara Waugh, a change manager, with the task of making its industrial research laboratory the best in the world. Waugh felt that somehow the vision of being the best in the world was not enough. She told the [...]

Visions that do describe a contribution to a group of people are motivated more by concern for that group rather than by personal achievement, and are most often created by leaders in social service and educational institutions. For example, Jim Wold’s vision is about student performance, a hot topic and educational buzzword today, but not [...]

Visions can be placed on a continuum from those that are self-referent at one end to those that are noble at the other. Self-referent visions are about what the organization and its people wish to become. Noble visions are about the contribution the organization’s leaders wish to make to some group of people. The continuum [...]

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. — CARL JUNG
The value of a compelling insight to anyone other than the person who receives it is only apparent when that person begins to act and attracts the commitment of others. Then leadership can begin, and [...]

Insight occurs when the data of the conscious mind meets the content of the unconscious. It is a phenomenon of the human creative urge. Although it cannot be manufactured, and its arrival is unpredictable, there are five activities any leader or prospective leader can engage in to stimulate insight: asking a vital question, gathering information, [...]

Deepak Chopra offers a prescription for developing the kind of insight that produces a powerful vision. He said:
If I was a leader I would look and listen using the instruments of the flesh. I would be an unbiased observer. I would feel, I would think and analyze with my mind, and I would be [...]

Insights such as those of Fushek and Schachter-Shalomi are the product of intuition—a nonrational (but not irrational) way of knowing. Because intuition is nonrational it is difficult to describe in the rational language of formal definitions; one must intuit any understanding of intuition. Webster’s Dictionary defines intuition as the immediate knowing or learning of something [...]

Not all insights spring from experience of the outer world, as did Fushek’s and Dryden’s; some stem from deep self-reflection. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is a preeminent rabbi and teacher. He is professor emeritus at Temple University, and is well known for his work to ecumenize Western religion. Nearing the age of sixty, Reb Zalman felt [...]

Not every leader’s insight is as sudden as Dale Fushek’s. Some arise out of study and reflection. In 1875, when Mark Twain was busy writing Tom Sawyer and the first useful electric light was just an idea in Thomas Edison’s mind, John Fairfield Dryden and a few partners began what would come to be known [...]

Some insights seem to arrive suddenly and intact like a blinding flash of lightning. Others seem to grow and mature more slowly like the dawning of day. The experience of Monsignor Dale Fushek provides an illustration of how an insight might arrive suddenly and of the impact such an insight can have on a leader. [...]

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. — ALBERT E INSTEIN
The genius of leadership lies in the capacity to look beyond the immediate circumstances and imagine the possibilities. Leaders [...]

A leader’s ability to win intellectual commitment depends on her facility at convincing others to support a purpose because that purpose is intellectually appealing—it is a good idea. Intellectually committed people act upon the purpose because they are logically convinced of its value. The use of the term intellectual to describe this form of commitment [...]

There is debate among leaders and leadership thinkers about whether it is possible to construct a list of ideal leadership traits, skills, or competencies, or whether the ability of any one person to lead depends upon the situation in which leadership is needed. The answer to this dilemma ought to reside in science; yet so [...]

Along with understanding the nature of commitment, and with mastering the competencies for winning intellectual, emotional, and spiritual commitment, a leader needs to ask and answer the question: What level of commitment is needed to effect the change that I am seeking? The answer is dependent upon the level of change involved. The lowest level [...]

The ten leadership competencies form the heart of this book; each is described in a separate chapter, beginning with Insight. Here are brief descriptions of each competency.
Winning Intellectual Commitment
Insight —seeing what is, in a new way. Insight is a perception about a complex set of circumstances that is deeper and clearer than whatever [...]

Those who expect to lead masterfully must be as versatile as was Michelangelo; they must be masters of three distinct art forms. Michelangelo fashioned the Pieta and the statue of David from blocks of raw marble, painted the vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and was a primary contributor to the construction [...]

There is yet a fourth form of commitment—the most profound form— spiritual commitment. As Commitment and Change shows, this form of commitment yields the greatest amount of human energy, given the same number of followers. It was described eloquently in a keynote speech to the Mobius Leadership Forum at Harvard Business School by Deepak Chopra, [...]

David Hollister has thought intently about both intellectual and emotional commitment. He was a high school teacher in the 1960s, who later served nineteen years in the Michigan house of representatives, where he was consistently recognized as a top legislator. In 1993 he ran a successful campaign for mayor of Lansing, and then was elected [...]

A leader’s call for emotional commitment is an appeal to gut feelings that compel people to act. Where intellectual commitment is about convincing people, winning emotional commitment is about moving them.
Daniel Goleman is a psychologist whose work is about emotional intelligence, which refers to one’s ability to know and manage one’s emotions, motivate oneself, [...]

A leader calls for intellectual commitment by asking followers to support a purpose because they are logically convinced of its value. In order to convince them, the leader constructs what cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner calls a ‘‘story.’’ He wrote:
I view leadership as a process that occurs within the minds of individuals who live in [...]

The shallowest form of commitment is political. It involves committing to ideas or actions when we have little or no drive to follow through because our motives have less to do with the object of our commitment, and more to do with what we might gain or avoid by offering the commitment itself. Political commitment [...]

A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back—but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.
— MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN
leader sounds a call to summon others. The call is a plea for commitment to a purpose that is [...]

As you may recall from You are an Accidental Manager , Andy, an excellent engineer, was promoted to a managerial position when his boss left the company. Andy was promoted because he had all of the necessary technical skills, he was well liked by his other team members, and he was next in line for [...]

This last chapter of The Accidental Manager looks at the impact that organizations have on creating unsuccessful managers and what they need to do to create successful ones. Then we return to the case of Andy Mercado, the story that opened the book, to see what happened to Andy when he went to work for [...]

When team members are relaxed and having fun, the chances of creating a motivated environment are much better. Managers can bring fun to the workplace in several ways:
Set aside a fun room or cubicle. Many companies have a room where staff can go when they are feeling stressed out or need to get a [...]

Up to this point we have reviewed two of the three components for creating a motivational environment: the organization, and the organization and its managers. The organization’s role in the motivation picture is to satisfy the fundamental needs of its employees; the role of the manager and the organization working together is to demonstrate that [...]

The organization and its managers have certain joint responsibilities in motivating individuals. They have to:

Provide for excellent supervision.
Give rewards to those individuals and teams that deserve them.
Build social relationships among the staff.
Treat staff fairly.

Supervision. One of the biggest factors that adds or takes away from how motivated a team member [...]

There are three components—the organization, the organization and its managers, and the managers—that, when they work harmoniously, create a motivating work environment . Motivating, as we will see, is very easy to understand but hard to implement. It is hard because it takes a commitment and partnership from both the organization and the managers to [...]