Developing Strategic Relationships

Extraordinary Leader by authors John Zenger and Joseph Folkman was adopted as the leadership model to assist our company’s leaders develop their full leadership potential. Within the book, the authors discuss the behaviors of leadership breaking down each into tangible and relatable items affording leaders to assess their maturity within each behavior.

In late 2010 as I pondered about my career path, I pulled out the book and reflected on the behaviors and jotted down a few that would be essential components in the next position.
 
Surprised I was at first, to find the behavior that fell at the top of the list was “develops strategic relationships.” Upon reflection, this should not have been a surprise as I have openly shared my StrengthsFinder results, with the number one strength being “relator”.

In the role we play as Technology Architects, developing strategic relationships is critical. Relationship are essential to the strategic process because they are the enabler to get a spot at the table where ideation is occurring. At that juncture, the role is amplified and we become trusted partners within the process and we are able to do what we do best: translate vision to capability.

Zenger and Folkman provide the following behaviors to demonstrate the activities necessary to develop strategic relationships:

• Know how work relates to the organization’s business strategy (line-of-sight connection).
• Balance the short-term and long-term needs of the organization.
• Demonstrate forward thinking about tomorrow’s issues.
• Clarify vision, mission, values, and long-term goals for others.
• Explain to others how changes in one part of the organization affect other organizational systems.
• Continually communicate the highest-priority strategic initiatives to keep the leadership team focused on the right things.
• Ensure that all systems in the organization are aligned toward achieving the overall strategic goals.
• Lead organizational efforts that exploit the most highly leveraged business opportunities.

Extraordinary Leader © 2010 Zenger Folkman.  All rights reserved.

Assisting our businesses take their vision and translate it into technological capability through a technology roadmap and related architecture is critical to sustain business, but even more important to maintain our competitive advantage. And, at the end of the day is an expectation of our customers to be anywhere they are at the time they want us. Thus, building strategic relationships is fundamental to our success.

Below are ideas captured from various leaders on how to improve effectiveness in the building relationships while demonstrating the core competencies of Develops Strategic Relationships.

• Develop an elevator speech.
• Develop and communicate strategic goals and report on a regular basis in every meeting with your peers.
• Ask, listen and understand where people are before communicating to them.
• Leverage the Wells Fargo Vision and Values.
• Have the written strategy defining all critical communications to reinforce the vision/ strategy.
• Communicate clear messages and do it over and over and over again.
• Ensure messages are not so “in the clouds” that they are not relatable.
• Take a Strategic Communications course.
• Ask for feedback from all audience levels.

As you make developing strategic relationships a focus, share your successes with management or offer up at team members for shared learning.

Thank you for letting me share!
~Stacy

What do you do best? Do you do it everyday?

"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"

- Benjamin Franklin

The StrengthsFinder website (http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx) begins by asking a simple question: Do you do what you do best every day? It then continues with a sad reality, “chances are, you don’t.”

From cradle to cubicle, most people spend more time focusing on what they can’t do right, versus what they do right. And, often times, what comes naturally to people (whether it be designing great architectures or giving great speeches or motivating the masses) is what people like to do.

I don’t know about you, but StrengthsFinder resonates with me. Personally, I am tired of living in a world that revolves around fixing weaknesses versus harnessing strengths. 

Ask Yourself: Do You Do What You Do Best Every Day?

Gallup says, “Society’s relentless focus on people’s shortcomings had turned into a global obsession.  What’s more, we have discovered that people have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.”

Peter Drucker, business guru extraordinaire, knew the secret of focusing on strengths.  He said, "Most people think they know what they are good at.  They are usually wrong...And yet, a person can perform only from strength."

Tying StrengthsFinder to our own team member engagement surveys, is critical. Over the past decade, Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement (and how positive and productive people are at work), and only one third “strongly agree” with the statement of “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday.”

Talent x Investment = Strength (StrengthsFinder, pg. 20)

And for those team members that do not get to focus on what they do best – their strengths – the costs are staggering.  In a recent poll of more than 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagree” or “disagreed” with this “what I do best” statement, not a single person was emotionally engaged on the job.” (StrengthsFinder 2.0, pg 1-2)

They go on to say having someone at work who regularly focuses on strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged and more than three times as likely to report having a excellent quality of life in general. Interesting enough, they also report that having a manager ignore you is even more detrimental than one who focuses on your weaknesses.

Who is focusing on your strengths?  Are You?

Now, to my team, some of you, reading this, are reading to jump in and take the assessment. Others are rolling their eyes and saying, “why, oh why?” Please, humor me. Take a leap of faith. Take the StrengthsFinder assessment and, upon completion, send me a copy of your five theme report so we can harness those Strengths. I think our collective themes will be a very interesting story to celebrate.

The rest reading, buy the book either hardcopy or kindle/reader and take the survey and take a chance on doing what you do do best everyday.

Thanks for letting me share,

~Stacy

StrengthsFinder. 2.0. Gallup Press 2007. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.

What We Can Learn From The Porcupine. A Fable.

My Mom sent me an email the other day which included a story about the porcupine. I read it, then deleted it and went on my day. Later, it kept surfacing in my thoughts. It went something like this:

It was the harshest winter ever known to man. Many of the forest animals died because of the extreme cold and lashing winds. 

The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together so that they would be covered and protected from the extreme temperatures. But upon huddle, the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.

One by one, they began to focus on the quills and soon forgot the heat they were sharing. Finally, one porcupine said, “I would rather be cold than be pricked!” And she moved away from the group. Others nodded fervently and they too decided to distance themselves one from the other.

The first porcupine who left the group, relieved that she no longer was being poked, started to grow very cold and fell into a deep sleep and then died alone and frozen.   Others seeing this, panicked as they watched their friends who had separated die one-by-one. They realized they had a choice, either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.  Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.

Through this they learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companion while enjoying the heat that came from the others. And, they survived.  

Now, my mom gave me a moral to the story that I can’t repeat to this kind audience. Instead, I would argue the true moral is that the best relationship is not the one that brings  together ‘perfect’ people, but the best is when each individual can admire the other person's good qualities and live with the imperfections. After all, we are all just human and even the best of us prone to mistakes.

In the spirit of true thankfulness, I would encourage anyone who is holding a grudge to let it go. Forgive and move forward. If you have wronged someone, be accountable for your actions, say you are sorry and move on. Release the weight of the luggage you carry, keeping only the lesson as a memory, so that your head and heart will be lighter on your journey.  
Thank you for letting me share,
~stacy