What do Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Charles Schwab, Avon’s chief executive, Andrea Jung, and the late publishing giant Katharine Graham have in common?  According to a recent Forbes article, each described themselves as introverts.

 

A surprise perhaps, but it’s estimated that 40% of executives are introverts, and most admit that at some point in their leadership journey they’ve had to work to overcome being disregarded or misunderstood because of their quiet temperament.

  

The qualifications for leadership are not easily understood or so readily apparent.  But fortunately M Squared can help.  Since 1988, M Squared Consulting has been providing critical business solutions to our clients by delivering seasoned, targeted consulting expertise tailored to our clients’ unique needs.

 

According to Forbes, there are five key characteristics that help introverted leaders build on their quiet strength and succeed:

 

1. They think first, talk later. Introverted leaders think before they speak. Even in casual conversations, they consider others’ comments carefully, and they stop and reflect before responding. One executive tells me that he sits back and listens to his leadership team’s ideas and proposals, often using silence to allow even more thoughts to bubble up. Learning by listening, not talking, is a trait that introverts consistently demonstrate. They also use their calm, quiet demeanors to be heard amid all the organizational noise and chatter. (One thoughtful, reasoned comment in a meeting can move a group forward by leaps and bounds.) In fact, the most powerful person in the room is often the most quiet. Additionally, an introvert’s tendency to be more measured with words is a major asset in the current economy, when no leader can afford to make costly gaffes.

 

2. They focus on depth. Introverted leaders seek depth over breadth. They like to dig deep, delving into issues and ideas before moving on to new ones. They are drawn to meaningful conversations, not superficial chitchat, and they know how to ask great questions and really listen to the answers. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Deborah Dunsire, M.D., president and chief executive of Millennium, a Cambridge, Mass., biopharmaceutical company, said, “In addition to conducting organizational surveys and holding town hall meetings, I schedule walk around time, just stopping by offices. … I would just say, ‘Hey, what is keeping you up nights? What are you working on? What’s most exciting to you right now? Where do you see we can improve?’” Dr. Dunsire maintains that by pursuing this kind of in-depth questioning–something that introverted leaders do exceptionally well–executives can learn what’s actually happening in the far reaches of their organizations and engage and retain their top talent.

 

3. They exude calm. Introverted leaders are low-key. In times of crisis, they project a reassuring, calm confidence–think President Obama–and they speak softly and slowly regardless of the heat of the conversation or circumstances. Whenever they get ready for a meeting, a speech or a special event, their secret to success can be summed up in one word: preparation. They often plan and write out their meeting questions well in advance, and for important talks and speeches, they rehearse out loud. They also act “as if”: One executive tells me that he pretends to be James Bond before major industry conferences. It makes him feel more cool and confident. They psych themselves up internally, too, by quieting negative thoughts and framing the upcoming experience more positively. Prior to networking events, Bob Goodyear, an Atlanta-based information technology leader, tells himself, “I can do anything for 30 minutes.”

 

4. They let their fingers do the talking. Introverted leaders usually prefer writing to talking. This comfort with the written word often helps them better articulate their positions and document their actions. It also helps them leverage online social networking tools such as Twitter, creating new opportunities to be out there with employees, customers and other stakeholders. For instance, using Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation, an internal social network for employees at the electronics superstore, senior management and sales associates can connect continuously to discussing workers’ feedback and ideas. I know one chief financial officer who writes a daily internal blog and in a recent posting described how he made “a good presentation great” by practicing. In so sharing his experience, he not only showed openness and honesty but also provided coaching to thousands of employees.

 

5. They embrace solitude. Introverted leaders are energized by spending time alone. They suffer from people exhaustion and need to retreat to recharge their batteries frequently. These regular timeouts actually fuel their thinking, creativity and decision-making and, when the pressure is on, help them be responsive, not reactive. When introverts honor that inner pull, they can do their best work. In managing interruptions, they also manage people’s expectations. When asked to respond to requests or ideas, Martin Schmidler, a vice president at a national food service organization, often tells his team that he needs time to absorb what’s being asked or presented. He’s clear on how and when he’ll get back to people, and he consistently follows through on his commitments. This clarity and consistency helps him build trust with his team.

 

It’s clear that having the right executive and the right consultants in place is critical.  M Squared consultants come with the qualifications, judgment, and expertise to meet your specific criteria and deliver results. They bring fresh perspectives and best practices to your business need. From the very first day through completion, M Squared makes an impact.

A 2008 HBR article on Strategy offered that “most executives cannot articulate the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement.  If they can’t, neither can anyone else.”  It’s a challenging statement, certainly, and a powerful reminder that employees will become frustrated and resources wasted when no clear strategy exists for a company or its lines of business.  Many companies look to M Squared Consulting when faced with this dilemma.  With guiding expertise, clients can develop a well-understood statement of strategy that aligns employee behaviors with business goals.

 

In a related editorial on talent strategy, Dr. John Sullivan, a well-known thought leader in HR, offers that an agile talent management strategy can be the perfect model for today’s economy. 

An excerpt:

“As the general business environment has become more turbulent, and technology combined with consumer demand has driven significant shortening of most product lifecycles, the complexities of delivering really strategic impact through talent management have ballooned. While competency management systems, career path planning, and multi-year development cycles may have made sense decades ago, that simply is not the case today.

Organizational agility is something the majority of human resource functions are not designed to enable or support. In fact, most traditional HR systems, including those in talent acquisition, hinder agility by imposing rigid control structures with process cycles that take months and even years to execute.

You can’t hit a moving target that changes location unpredictably every six months using processes that take 18 months to execute!

Examples of Agile Talent Management

A key characteristic of organizational agility is the ability to rapidly shift idle resources. Like most airlines, Southwest Airlines was affected significantly by the most recent downturn in the U.S. economy. While competitors were busy slashing payrolls, Southwest instead cut back on hiring and temporally redeployed idle recruiters (more than 80 of them) into other areas of the business where work needed to get done, in line with the recruiter’s abilities. The shift enabled Southwest to maintain access to the talent it would need when hiring demand ticked up and simultaneously enabled the organization to catch up on project work elsewhere that added value in the current economic state.

While using idle recruiters to accomplish work elsewhere in the organization was a new trend this downturn, it by no means is a stellar example of organizational agility.

Enterprise-wide efforts that are emerging include:

• Temporary redeployment of top performers into development roles where the primary mandate is knowledge-sharing and collaborative solution development to emerging issues (Numerous companies)
• Creation of flexible talent pools that grant temporary project-based access to top talent by managers without budget or need for permanent hires (Coors)
• Business unit/team prioritization schemas that enable simultaneous investment/cost-containment efforts across the enterprise (HP)
• Counter-cyclical process execution, i.e. taking advantage of economic cycles by executing growth-mode processes during downturns and vice versa (Slide-College Hiring)
• Redefinition of labor needs to allow for extensive use of contingent and alternative labor types that aid real time increases/decreases in labor cost (Google)

The unifying theme in these examples is that firms need a strategy that allows them to respond rapidly with a customized solution, whenever something in the business environment changes.”

So, what both HBR and Dr. Sullivan are reinforcing is that the value of a clear, agile strategy cannot be underestimated.  It will energize and empower employees, and raise the long-term financial performance of your organization.  Contact M Squared Consulting to learn more.

Every business goes through ups and downs, and in this economy the challenges are more daunting than ever.  But this isn’t the first recession and it won’t be the last. Successful companies, even in tough times, keep their eye on the prize and know that down markets are actually a great time to retrench and take risks.  M Squared Consulting can guide you through choppy waters, with experienced consultants that help clients evaluate opportunities and implement new ideas.

 

So, with a nod toward much future success, we offer some classic CEO quotes that matter now more than ever, along with a takeaway that can help your business today in today’s economy.

 

“You have to pretend you’re 100 percent sure. You have to take action; you can’t hesitate or hedge your bets. Anything less will condemn your efforts to failure.”

Andrew Grove, former CEO, Intel

(Takeaway: Come up with an idea, a strategy, a plan, and act!  Now.)

  

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

(Takeaway: Failure and loss, especially getting fired, can really invigorate you and your career.)

 

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.”

Larry Ellison, CEO, Oracle

(Takeaway: Behind most great and successful products or businesses are entrepreneurs who were turned down a hundred times.)

 

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates, Chairman and former CEO, Microsoft

(Takeaway: Spend time understanding and analyzing your mistakes and failures. Any customer that turned you down - if you can get them to talk - is a tremendous resource for boosting your business.)

 

“… be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms … these models tend to look impressive. … Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”

Warren Buffett, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

(Takeaway: Buffett was talking about investing, but his advice is insightful. If you’re a reasonably intelligent and experienced business person, trust your gut more than research.)

 

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

(Takeaway: While cash conservation is critical for many businesses, big companies that think cost-cutting and a nice bottom line will get them out of this cycle in good shape are in for a surprise.)

 

“Watch, listen, and learn. You can’t know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.”

Donald Trump, CEO, Trump Organization

(Takeaway: Do some networking with smart people you haven’t seen in a while, read some books, take a class, do something to expand your knowledge and your horizons. You’ll be amazed at what ideas pop into your head.)

 

“The pending merger with XM will offer unprecedented choice for consumers and create tremendous value for stockholders.”

Mel Karmazin, CEO, Sirius XM

(Takeaway: Don’t listen to BS. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.)

 

“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

Andrew Grove, former CEO, Intel

(Takeaway: This is yet another reason why being down is a good place to be - you only have one place to go. Up. Those on top, on the other hand, have the reverse problem.)

 

So, in short, whatever the business climate, there is always opportunity for innovation and success.  Contact M Squared Consulting today and get on fast track to market leadership.

A recent article highlighted four key developments that are being watched by demographers and employers alike, particularly as the economy starts to improve.   These dynamics will likely shape the growth of the flexible workforce in the next 10 years.  M Squared Consulting is tracking these trends and helping clients attain market leadership through the intelligent use of the high-end flexible workforce.

The shifts include:

1. Womenomics The book Womenomics talks about the fact that women are demanding more flexibility in their work. The authors argue that women have more power than ever to demand control over their schedules because companies that have proportionately more woman managers are also more profitable. Women want to work but gone are the days of 60-hour work weeks in the office, scrambling to find childcare and skipping the leisure time. The book offers many examples of how woman are leading this economy, and to stay competitive and profitable companies will need to offer women the flexibility they require.

    

2. Big Company AdoptionROWE stands for “results-only work environment” and is Best Buy’s workshifting program that says employees can work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. An article in BusinessWeek does a great job of highlighting other results from ROWE-type initiatives.IBM has about 40% of their workforce with no official corporate office, and Sun Microsystems Inc. estimates that they saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by letting employees work from anywhere. The biggest driver for these large organizations is usually the facilities cost when they don’t have to dedicate corporate space to each individual employee. But after implementing flexible working arrangements, companies soon also realize the benefit of higher employee job satisfaction.

   ROWE programs not only reduce costs but make for a more productive organization.

    

    

3. Gen Y Whatever you choose to call the newest generation (Gen Y, Millenials, Screenagers, etc.), they all grew up with the Internet. They’re more comfortable with technology and less accepting of corporate norms like 9-5 or suit and ties. Gen Y has been struggling at the hands of this economy but with the coming turnaround companies will have to employ flexible working arrangements in order to acquire and motivate this growing segment of the workforce.

    

4. Social Media The power and growth of social media over the last couple of years is astounding. The fact that so many of us are going to the Web to communicate and do business makes executives question traditional ways of doing business. We trust Wikipedia for information and use social media sites like Twitter to communicate as part of our jobs. This trend is only increasing and clearly demonstrates the acceptance of social media as a business communication tool.

    

As the workplace changes, savvy companies will continue to look to M Squared Consulting – and to the experts in its premier consulting network – for the strategies, programs, and human resources that will help them engage employees productively for years to come.