The success of any business, small or large, is heavily dependent on innovation. But so many people make the mistake of equating innovation with a product or device that changes the world. Heads up: You don’t have to create the next Facebook in order to innovate successfully and grow.

The president of SAP North America, Robert Courteau, and I recently sat down to talk about exactly that – innovation in today’s global age.  By the end of our talk, it was very clear that the most innovative companies have a solid foundation of talent at their core.

The foundation of any business is its people. With all the competition around, we need to retain our best talent by keeping our people engaged and challenged — or they’ll be gone, just like that, either because we’ll have to lay them off because things aren’t getting done, or because they’ll find somewhere better to work. Read more →

0 comments // In Leadership

I spent several hours with former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt recently, and he told me some great stories. When he led the house he held a daily meeting on the hill with a broad set of 60 leaders. Sometimes it was an hour, sometimes much longer, but the stated purpose wasn't to argue and win, it was to LISTEN.  He knew that if he started the meeting with an agenda to convince folks all they'd get out of the session was more contentious debate. Instead he asked everyone to listen to each other. He encouraged and coached high degrees of candor, and what he found is that the increased listening and empathy pushed people to collaborate, and to give where they would normally take.

Consider this when you run meetings, or are looking to defuse conflict. Don't immediately push toward a particular solution - spend time listening first, and see where it takes you.

1 comment // In Leadership

Keith's Never Eat Alone co-author has a great blog on his interview with Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't. Check it out!

0 comments // In Leadership

Today's post is an RMA Master's Mission. I hope you enjoy it.-KF

In order to get power, people must act as if they have power, whether they feel it or not. Authority is 20 percent given, 80 percent taken. “People often don’t ask for what they want and are afraid of standing out too much because they worry that others may resent or dislike their behavior, seeing them as self-promoting,” writes author Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer. “You need to get over the idea that you need to be liked by everybody and that likeability is important in creating a path to power, and you need to be willing to put yourself forward. If you don’t, who will?”

Pfeffer cites the best-selling author of The Four-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss, who has made an art out of being memorable. Ferriss basks in the outrageous, using provocative language to make counter-intuitive claims, always looking for an opportunity to raise his visibility. A new best-selling book, invites to keynote the most prestigious conferences, and an army of blog followers speak to the impressive results.

That's why Pfeffer counsels prospective power brokers to speak up, make demands, and learn to stand out. Write for the company blog or magazine; organize a social or philanthropic event, advocate for some kind of workplace change. Your Mission: get noticed!

What have you done or plan to do to stand out from the crowd?

Mission Adapted from: Dr. Jeffrey Pfeffer's Power: Why Some People Have It - And Others Don't

9 comments // In Leadership

I look forward all year to our trip to serve orphanages somewhere in the world.  It has not only become a reflective and spiritual reminder of what's important, but it proves to be a transformational experience. It grounds me and frankly makes me a better leader: More empathetic, authentic, and generous -- key leadership qualities I want to constantly continue to develop and inhabit.

You may enjoy my blogs from last year in Guatemala, and from a brief trip to China, here. I have also made the commitment to bring executives and their families and teams we work with at Ferrazzi Greenlight on future trips.  We are arranging one for Guatemala in the spring in partnership with www.culturalembrace.com, who has arranged all my trips to date.

Having been a voracious "tourist" of leadership off-sites and retreats around the world, I have found no other more powerful accelerator of a team (or family's) relationships (and effectiveness, collaboration, and success) than shared service.  A strong personal commitment to each other is the #1 predictor of high-performance teams.

But these last nights in Cambodia were an important turning point in the evolution and mission of what we have been calling Big Task Service. Big Task (www.BigTask.org) is the foundation that promotes our non-profit work toward a more collaborative and relational world.

At the CDO orphanage in Cambodia I met Ganesh.  In the picture above he is the little boy in the black shirt.  And here he is again, thanking my friends Lisa and Mehmet for their contribution to the orphanage.

Why did he stand out?  Hard to put a finger on it.  His gregarious nature; his impressive attempts at English, perhaps.  Then when I asked the director of the orphanage about him, I was told he was the best student.  The real leader of the group. Even though he's not the oldest, he's the one who makes sure the younger kids are taken care of.

Then I went to ACODO Orphanage and met Ty Pech.  He had a swollen eye from having taken a spill the day before (he'll be fine :)). Again, I was struck by this boy and subsequently learned similar things about him from the orphanage director.

Ty, being silly on the floor

Recalling last year in Guatemala I can say that the same happened at each stop:  A few boys and girls really stood out.

Several years ago, I also met a young man from Nigeria who had been influenced by a copy of Never Eat Alone left by a traveler in his village. Long story short, this young man, with the help of a patron family, found his way from the worst poverty to one of the most prestigeous schools in America and is now at Goldman Sachs.  He has started a foundation to pave the way for other Nigerian kids.

I couldn't help but think back to my own childhood.  My father wanted to assure his son got a good education, but it also helped that a few other important individuals "threw in" on the question of whether I'd ever amount to anything.  I recall the headmaster of my school saying to my father, when my dad told him we'd never be able to afford the tuition, "Mr. Ferrazzi, we're certain that someday Keith will be able to pay us back." And I have.

Anyway, this is the thinking that has lead me to an additional focus of our Big Task Foundation.  As we travel doing Big Task Service Projects, we will be identifying young men and women around the world who just need a small break.  And we will be giving them this break.

It is my dream someday to bring these young people together.  To watch them grow into leaders of their villages and countries, and ultimately, to become global contributors to our mission of an increasingly collaborative and relational world. A world where people help each other as their first impulse.

If you are interested in joining our efforts, come with us to Guatemala (email ksprings at ferrazzigreenlight dot com for info) or contribute online to the Big Task Foundation. I'll personally make sure the money is put into a sustainable project at one of these orphanages, or directly toward one of these exceptional children.  So little means so much to them.  Even $20 will feed them for a month!  Another $20 educates them.... Such a small investment in their future but also a step toward your own personal transformation.  Join us.

1 comment // In Leadership, Philanthropy

I recommend you check out Scott Eblin’s new book, The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success. It offers great advice to rising leaders on how to be successful.

Here is a quick excerpt:

Through my work with both seasoned and rising leaders, I’ve concluded that executive success depends on a process of picking up and letting go.  There are sets of behaviors that executives need to pick up and let go of when they take on bigger jobs and the new expectations that go with them.   Over the years, I’ve developed and tested a model of leadership that breaks these pick up and let go behaviors into three types of leadership presence – personal, team and organizational.  The model looks like this:

For the go-to person leader, picking up is the easier part of the process.  The go-to folks are bright people.  They learn quickly.  Picking up new skills is usually a cognitive challenge.  What’s more challenging is the letting go.  That’s an emotional hurdle because now you’re facing letting go of some of the very behaviors that made you successful on your way up.

Go to http://bit.ly/thenextlevelbook to learn more about the book.

What did you have to learn (and possibly give up) to become successful.

2 comments // In Leadership, Uncategorized

A friend of mine, Stan Slap, has a book that just came out, Bury My Heart At Conference Room B: The Unbeatable Impact of Truly Committed Managers. Stan’s consulting company specializes in creating ferociously dedicated managers. Here is a quick excerpt from the book:

“It’s impossible for your company to get what it wants most if managers have to make a choice between their own values and company priorities. You will never really work for your company until your company really works for you."

How has your manager contributed to your success?

4 comments // In Leadership

Today's guest post is from two young authors whose insights on leadership are equally applicable for everyone from students to CEOs.

Eight Thoughts on Elegant Leadership
By Evan Forster and David Thomas

The fallacy that leaders must be perfect is one of the biggest misconceptions we encounter as educational consultants who have helped hundreds build outstanding candidacies to top colleges and graduate schools. Leadership development is a major component of our new book, The MBA Reality Check.  We came up with these eight insights about how to harness the leader in you.

1.    Leaders think big -- and small. They have grand, visionary, ridiculous ideas. But they also return phone calls and show up on time.

2.    Small acts of leadership create the potential for more leadership. Simply having an idea is an act of leadership, and it’s okay if you don’t know where to go from there. For example, you want to create a “green” break room at the office.  Go ahead and organize a meeting about the idea, even if you don’t know the first step for researching the options or winning budget approval. That simple move is an act of leadership because the meeting creates an opportunity for others in the office to participate, come up with next steps, and even volunteer to share the work with you.

3.    Management and leadership are not the same. Management is about a process, while leadership is about people. You manage deadlines, milestones, spreadsheets, work flows. You lead people, groups, attitudes, and relationships. Some excellent traits for good management—such as hyper-precision, detail-orientation, and staying the course—can be harmful to good leadership. It is important to distinguish between the two.

4.    Know your leadership style. Think of a typical group of friends who, when they go out as a group, tend to fill different roles: the organizer, the partier, the know-it-all, the charmer, the mediator. Which one are you? Knowing which role you tend to take in a group will help you understand and maximize the strengths and weaknesses that accompany that role.

5.    Leaders aren’t afraid to make fools of themselves. For example, if you absolutely can’t remember someone’s name, just be honest and ask that person again. And if you lack a certain skill set or don’t have all of the information, it’s okay to say the following words: “I don’t know.” Saying “I don’t know” is powerful, because it’s confident, it’s honest, and it puts people at ease.

6.    Real leaders don’t cry. They don’t have time for it. They don’t blame other people. They take responsibility. If you haven’t ever really screwed up or failed, you aren’t really a great candidate—for anything. Insightful, confident people often learn more concrete lessons from failure than from success, so don’t deny yourself “teachable moments” by being afraid to act or pretending that your failures never happened.

7.    Leaders do not make excuses; they keep appointments and make deadlines. Leaders understand that everyone’s time matters. Leaders are not more important than teammates. This means if you make an agreement to be somewhere, you don’t cancel at the last minute.

8.    Leaders think in terms of legacy—not their own, but their projects’. This means creating new leaders from the very beginning. Great ideas shouldn’t die when their founder leaves (or gets hit by a bus). I once heard that there are two kinds of mentors: those who are afraid their student will surpass them, and those who hope they do. Leadership is not about you, it’s about the impact you are out to achieve. If you keep that in mind, the idea of getting “surpassed” will bring you relief, not fear.

For more information on MBA admissions and The MBA Reality Check: Make the School You Want, Want You, visit www.theMBARealityCheck.com.

6 comments // In Leadership

Hi from Keith. Today's post is from Ariana Gumbs, one of our new RMA employees - she's a community associate for the site. Since she's a recent Barnard graduate, I thought she'd be a good person to pull some lessons from MBA Reality Check.

Three Tips to Live as a Leader
By Ariana Gumbs, Community Associate

“Leadership is about making a difference.” - Forester and Thomas

Living life as a leader is something that seems to come naturally to some while others need to constantly work at it.  I’m part of the latter group.  I recently read The MBA Reality Check: Make the School You Want, Want You by Evan Forster and David Thomas.  Although the goal of the book, which I really liked, is to show you how to turn yourself into a desirable business school candidate, I found that there was a lot of information on living as a leader and what a true leader is.

Here are some tips from the book that are useful to live as a leader and to accomplish your goals.

1.    Ego Versus Mission

Is accomplishing your goal about getting the mission done - or is it really about your ego?  Accomplishing your goal needs to be about making a current circumstance better, because if you do nothing, the problem persists.  Your motivation should not be to make yourself look better!

2.    Doing It All By Yourself Is Not Leadership

Asking for help, creating allies and a team to accomplish your mission shows true leadership and assures the future success of the mission even after you have moved on.  If the mission fails after you leave, it's not proof of how amazing and special your skills were.  It's proof that you did not create lasting transformation by giving birth to other leaders to take over.  Again, the mission should be bigger than you (and your ego) and so should its success.

3.    One-offs Do Not Show Leadership

When choosing a mission where you will have a leadership role, don't pick a one-day, one-off (soup kitchen, Habitat for Humanity).  Although going to a soup kitchen for a day is a great thing to do, it does not show leadership.  Choose a mission that demonstrates organizational skills and leadership as well as a commitment to something greater than you.  Now if you started a group at your job that organized/recruited your co-workers to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity one weekend a month that would not be a one-off - it would be fully integrated into your life. You'd be an instant leader!

What are the ways, large and small, that you demonstrate leadership in your life today?

5 comments // In Leadership