ArchiveJanuary 2013

Sleep to be an Effective Leader

3 Min read

20130117-200134.jpgI’m writing in the Washington National Airport early in the morning after a routine pre-flight night of restless sleep (about 2 hours worth). I’m tired and not very interested in doing much of anything. The culture in which I work places an informal value on early mornings, long work days, and late nights. It a badge of honor to say you’ve been awake for numbers of hours. My formal leadership training taught me to believe that a leader only needs four hours of sleep to be effective, a mantra I use to motivate myself late at night. Turns out, that’s all wrong.

Nicholas Hughes’ Good piece on How I Made Sleep a Priority – and Got More Productive opened my eyes (sorry for the pun) to what I had suspected was true, sleep matters…a lot. Its especially important to manage sleep as we age and deep sleep becomes more difficult. Hughes’ article as well as the 2006 Harvard Business Review article he references left me with some points to consider for my personal and corporate sleep management:

1. Sufficient, effective sleep makes helps you be more productive.

2. Insufficient sleep is hazardous to your health. The tragedies associated with driving while sleep impaired are well known. But we tend to thing we aren’t the ones at risk. However, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities anyway. Not only may the effects of sleep deprivation be irreversible, but chronic deprivation may lead to long-term health issues:

Many people gain weight as they age, too. Interestingly, chronic sleep restriction increases levels of appetite and stress hormones; it also reduces one’s ability to metabolize glucose and increases the production of the hormone ghrelin, which makes people crave carbohydrates and sugars, so they get heavier, which in turn raises the risk of sleep apnea, creating a vicious cycle. Harvard Business Review

3. Personal sleep management is deliberate. Instead of a catch-as-catch-can sleep plan, leaders should adhere to a strict sleep plan that is compatible with your work schedule and personal preferences. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the National Sleep Foundation recommend these tips on hacking effective sleep:
– maintain a regular sleep schedule
– establish a pre-sleep routine that prepares you for deep sleep
– create an environment that is comfortable and conducive to sleep
– exercise regularly but avoid vigorous exercise within a few hours of bedtime.

4. Corporate sleep management is deliberate. HBR recommends that companies formalize the importance of sleep and make productive sleep a part of the culture. Leaders can implement (and enforce) policies that contribute to the culture:
– limit hours worked to 12 per day and 60 per week. Only exceptionally allow 16 hour days
– require one day off per week, two is better
– avoid extreme flight schedules such as red-eye flights, single day trips, or complicated connections.
– allow a day of rest after an international flight

Sleep well!

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The Commanders Role in Mission Command

2 Min read

The military is tasked with conducting highly complex operations in a life and death environment. Lessons learned since 1775 have evolved the way the military conducts mission command, an evolution that no amount of civilian theory can replicate. When reading military doctrine substitute military lexicon such as commander, mission, and warfighter with the civilian equivalent of your culture (chief executive officer, senior pastor, president; sales, spiritual growth, operations).

The commander is the central figure in mission command. To the commander comes the mission for the unit; in the commander resides the authority and responsibility to act and to lead so that the mission may be accomplished. In mission command, the commander must blend the art of command and the science of control, as he, supported by the staff, integrates all joint war fighting functions. (General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mission Command White Paper April 2012)

To be effective, from the outset of every mission the commander must:
1. Understand the problem
2. Envision the end state
3. Visualize the nature and design of the operations
4. Describe time, space, resources and purpose for the mission
5. Understand the intent of the mission
6. Clearly translate the intent to subordinates
7. Understand subordinate capabilities and trust (but verify) them to do it

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Army Leadership Definition

1 Min read

Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.

An Army leader is anyone who by virtue of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. Army leaders motivate people both inside and outside the chain of command to pursue actions, focus thinking and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization.

As defined in Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-22, Army Leadership August 2012

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The Commander’s (Leader’s) Intent

5 Min read

HesburghVisionWithout a clear understanding of what the boss wants, organizations will inevitably fail to achieve it. Without the gift of mind reading, success depends on the boss clearly communicating what he wants. This holds true regardless of the nature of the organizations, its size or purpose. Church leaders, business executives, managers, and heads of families could take a lesson from an enterprise that literally depends on communicating intent to save lives.

The military understands that the absence of a clear understanding of the commander’s intent, for any given operation, could result in the unnecessary death of people. The U.S. Army’s manual on the operations process emphasizes this by connecting the commander’s intent to everything about an operation including how the staff plans operations, the disciplined initiative of subordinate commanders when the plan changes, and the level of risk that is appropriate to achieve the ends state.

The commander’s intent is a clear and concise expression of the purpose of the operation and the desired military end state that supports mission command, provides focus to the staff, and helps subordinate and supporting commanders act to achieve the commander’s desired results without further orders, even when the operation does not unfold as planned (ARDP 5-0, Pg 1-5 )

Several principles govern the creation of intent:

  1. Commanders (substitute any leader as necessary) must have a vision (end state)
  2. Commanders must create and communicate intent by describing the components of their vision on their own. I have been in too many planning meetings where the boss asks the staff to come up with the intent; this is a responsibility that cannot be delegated.
  3. The intent must be concise and easy to remember, the shorter the better.
  4. The intent should be understood two levels below the commander. In Army terms, a brigade commander will frame intent so that a company commander understands it.
  5. Intent will provide the framework for action, shared understanding and focus until the end state is achieved

“The very essence of leadership is [that] you have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”— Theodore Hesburgh

With these principles in place, a commander can frame their intent using three components: Expanded purpose statement, list of key tasks, and statement of end state

  1. Expanded Purpose. The Army communicates purpose, or why an action is taken, in the mission statement of an operation order. The expanded purpose gives the context beyond why an action is planned by addressing the strategic implications to success and how it affects other parts of the organization.
  2. Key tasks. A brief list of activities required to achieve the desired end state. Staffs use the key task list to ensure the development of suitable and acceptable plans. When situations changes and significant opportunities present themselves, subordinates use the key tasks to focus their efforts to take initiative and achieve the end state.
  3. End state. Similar to a vision statement, the end state statement in more descriptive in describing the conditions that will exist when the organization has successfully met the commander’s intent. Write the description of end state in present tense as if everything has been actualized and the organization has achieved the best possible outcome.

    (more…)

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The Drop-in and Catch-up Synergy

2 Min read

Every office has a ritual that is as important to the health of the organization as the business meeting…the ritual of dropping in on and catching up with co-workers and bosses following a lengthy holiday. I was reminded of this today as I returned to work following a week off for Christmas and the New Year celebrations. My goals were to finalize my calendar for the coming weeks and clear my desk of the administrative tasks before meetings began again. What happened was a stream of unscheduled visitors leading with the question, “How was your Christmas?” Virtually none of my goals for the day were accomplished.

Because my personality is to focus on my goals the interruptions were not welcome. Mid-morning I realized that leaders don’t manage with processes and goals, they manage with people. The post-holiday ritual is necessary to reestablish the bonds and thinking that create synergistic teams.

Synergy — the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously. Mark Twain

The take away, schedule at least a half-day following a holiday for social protocols. Perhaps a deliberate social event (such as a team breakfast) would fulfill the social cues that human nature demands in a more efficient manner while enabling the team of reestablish the synergy required for an organizational to excel.

Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people. Stephen Covey

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