4 Things Ethics Is Not

A company’s ethics will determine its reputation.

Good business ethics are essential for the long-term success of an organization. Implementing an ethical program will foster a successful company culture and increase profitability.

A company's ethics will have an influence on all levels of business.

It will influence all who interact with the company including customers, employees, suppliers, competitors, etc.

All of these groups will have an effect on the way a company's ethics are developed.

It is a two way street, the influence goes both ways, which makes understanding ethics a very important part of doing business today.

Ethics is very important, as news can now spread faster and farther and quicker than ever before.

Simply stated - Ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves. Whether as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on.

I will cover Ethics more in future blogs but for now, I think it is helpful to identify 4 Things Ethics Is NOT:

-Ethics is not the same as feelings. Feelings provide important information for our ethical choices. Some people have highly developed habits that make them feel bad when they do something wrong. But many people feel good even though they are doing something wrong. And often, our feelings will tell us it is uncomfortable to do the right thing if it is hard.

-Ethics is not following the law. A good system of law does incorporate many ethical standards, but law can deviate from what is ethical. Law can become ethically corrupt, as some totalitarian regimes have made it. Law can also be a function of power alone and designed to serve the interests of narrow groups. It may have a difficult time enforcing standards in some important areas and may be slow to address new problems. 

-Ethics is not following culturally accepted norms. Some cultures are quite ethical, but others become corrupt or blind to certain ethical concerns. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is not a satisfactory ethical standard.

-Ethics is not science. Social and natural science can provide important data to help us make better ethical choices, but science alone does not tell us what we ought to do. Science may provide an explanation for what humans are like, but ethics provides reasons for how humans ought to act.

The challenge is that there are two fundamental problems in identifying the ethical standards we are to follow:

- On what do we base our ethical standards? 

- And how do those standards get applied to specific situations we face?

Ethics is NOT an easy topic. But it IS a topic that needs to be addressed by our businesses and business leaders. I will dive more into this subject in future blogs.

For more information about Business Ethics, or to see how The Cobalt Group can help you do an ethics assessment, or help you with any other business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2019 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

5 Benefits of Clearly Defined Coaching Goals

If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know when you get there?

In the coaching side of my practice I sometimes run across clients that have been previously told to ‘improve their performance’, but not what part(s) of their performance actually need improvement. When coaching a client/employee it is important for both the coach and the client/employee to have specific goals and timelines.

Goals have to be established in order to give direction and purpose to the coaching session whether it is a client or an employee. Ambiguous goals are usually never achieved and may cause frustration, at a minimum.

Defining Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time  driven (SMART) goals will plot a marker in the horizon. It’ll act as your beacon. Without that beacon you are navigating blindly.

Having no clearly defined goal causes frustration for both you and your client/employee because there never seems to be any improvement or progress. It creates a constant cycle of failing to meet some objective – a cycle that will keep repeating without a clearly defined goal.

Setting a clearly defined goal gives you and your client/employee direction and purpose. Imagine being handed a bunch of tools and materials and told to build something without a clear vision or goal of what is to be built. 

The same holds true for developmental goals. It is not good enough to tell your employee they must improve in sales or build widgets faster. These types of goals create more confusion because they do not know where to start because they don't know where they're specifically going.

Here are 5 benefits to establishing clearly defined goals upfront for your client/employee:

• Both you and your client/employee have a better chance of starting in the right direction together

• Coaching time is more efficient once goals are discussed upfront

• You are able to plan ahead of the session and prepare targeted questions

• Coaching session are direct and avoid meandering

• You, as the coach, will come across more clear, instilling confidence in your client/employee

Going back to the building analogy, you may end up building a stool when what was really needed was as birdhouse. Clearly defined goals are the cornerstone of effective and successful coaching. 

By establishing clearly defined goals you help to set your client/employee up for success.

For more information about coaching and mentoring, or to see how The Cobalt Group can help you with this or any other business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2019 The Cobalt Group LLC. All rights reserved.

Indecision is a Terrible Thing. Or is it? I Can’t Decide.

Following up my post on the 3 Ds of great leadership, I wanted to delve a bit more into the first of the the 3 Ds – Decide.

One of the things I have seen in my corporate career that has baffled and frustrated me far too often is when leadership can’t or won’t make a decision. I know you’ve seen it too. 

I rarely saw this in my Navy career. 

But in the corporate world, that was one of the first things I noticed – leaders afraid to make a decision. So, knowing that I came from a more regimented culture, I asked around to find out why.

I was told many things: 

People’s jobs are on the line. 

Or, politically, that person does not want to make the decision to go in a certain direction. 

They are afraid to disagree with someone. 

They are afraid of the potential dangers of a certain decision. And the list goes on. 

I was astonished. I thought that making a decision was, in part, the job of a leader. 

I can tell you that in the Navy there was never situation like ‘Oh, I don’t know, Admiral, I just don’t know enough about the target area to decide on the best way to attack it’. 

That would have gone over like a submarine with screen doors.

Leaders are supposed to make decisions. That's why they were put in a leadership role.

They make decisions on how to grow their business, what their business strategies are, whom to hire, whom to fire, whom to promote, which companies to partner with, which opportunities to pursue, etc. 

But as I said, far too often I have seen decision paralysis seemingly be the norm, and I’ve seen it at all levels of the food chain. This is one of the areas, as an executive/leadership coach, that I work with my clients about.

If you’re a leader of anything, you have to make decisions. 

Sometimes those decisions may be that there is not enough information to make a final decision. 

Then make the decision to gather the required information and set a time to get back together and factor that new information into a – Decision.

Here’s a simplified way to go about doing this. 

Define the issue that needs a decision. 

List your options. 

Discuss those options and take the inputs from your team. Make them part of the process. 

You probably didn’t get to the position of leadership because you were stupid, so use your intelligence and that of the team that surrounds you. 

Now weigh the possible outcomes. All decisions will have consequences good and/or bad. 

Once you have done all of this, make the decision you feel is best. 

Then go with it.

Not every decision will be right. You will make incorrect decisions and your people will too. 

But as leaders, you have to get away from the Zero Defect mentality that seems so pervasive. 

You know, one mistake and you’re gone! I've seen that happen all too many times. And good people were sacrificed at the altar of perfection.

I’ve learned more from the mistakes I’ve made than the first-try successes. 

Let your people learn from them too. I am not talking about gross or willful negligence, but we can all learn from honest mistakes.

So make a decision and monitor your progress. If the information you have changes, then adjust course where/when necessary.

Don’t let indecision paralyze you or your business. 

There is an axiom that was true in the military and it is just as true in the corporate world….

Lead, follow or get out of the way. But make a decision!

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with leadership development, or any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2014 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

The 3 Ds of Great Leadership

Leadership is such a rich and vast topic. There are countless books and experts out there that will tell you what good leadership is. 

It is hard to put a single quote or sound byte that encompasses good leadership.

I want to take you beyond good leadership and talk about great leadership.

I've seen poor leaders, good leaders, and great leaders. I've learned from them all. 

But the great ones shared a common set of traits. They understood that great leadership, in part, can be boiled down to 3 Ds. 

Decide. Delegate. Disappear. 

I learned this concept many years ago as a young junior officer in the Navy. It set the framework for my approach to leadership since. 

Although this is a very rich topic, I will do my best to keep it within the constraints I established for the length of my blogs, even though I feel that it warrants much more space. 

So here we go...

Decide. Your job as a leaders is to make a decision and move forward with it. 

If you have to get something delivered to the corner of 4^th and Main, look to the people in your organization that know the streets. Take their inputs on which roads are the best to travel. 

Some may be one way streets and others may have construction happening. The point here is that getting the input from those that actually know the lay of the land is important. 

When people are given a voice in the decision making process they will take more ownership of the outcome. And when they feel like they have more of a stake in the outcome, they are more motivated to see it succeed. 

So after you have taken all their inputs, make the decision on what the path will be. It may be that you chose your own route, their suggested route, or a blend of the two.

And now YOU, the leader, will own that decision. If the delivery is successful, you give praise to your people. 

If it fails, YOU take ownership. 

After all, YOU made the final decision on the route chosen.

Next, you...

Delegate. Once a decision has been made, delegate the responsibilities to those that are actually going to accomplish the tasks. 

In our scenario, that means letting the people that are going to make that delivery do their jobs. Define the parameters under which they are to operate, then trust them to work within those confines. 

If you trusted them enough to take their input when deciding how to best reach your destination, trust them to do their jobs the right way. 

They want to know that you have confidence in them. They want to know you trust them to do what you asked them to do.

And then you…..

Disappear. This doesn't mean go back to your office and close the door. It merely means that you now let them do what you have asked them to do. 

If you have clearly defined the parameters within which they should operate, and have delegated the responsibilities to them, stay out of their way. 

Don’t micro-manage them. 

Now, what that means to one person may be different than it does to another. 

What this is to me is simply…don’t be a helicopter leader that is always hovering above them. Stay engaged, offer assistance and support, get status updates, but don’t be in the way. 

Your people are your experts. 

Trust them to do their jobs and trust them to come to you when they need you. 

Train them to do that. You will have a much better and more successful organization if you do.

This frees you up to do what you are there to do, LEAD!

As I said at the beginning, this is a topic that deserves much more time and space than I allot for my blogs. It could actually fill books, I am sure. 

So as you look to improve your leadership abilities, and thereby set the example for those you are leading, remember the 3 Ds and live them.

Decide. Delegate. Disappear.

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with leadership development, or any other any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2013 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Leadership vs Management

Maybe it’s time to take a look at the titles we give people in their jobs. 

Too often I see the word ‘Manager’ as part of someone’s title in the corporate world. I cannot speak for the other services but in the Navy I do not recall seeing the word ‘Manager’ as part of anyone’s title.

So why does it matter? I believe it is misleading to call a person a manager when their job is to lead other people. 

There is a difference between leadership and management.

To me, my simple definition of leadership is the ability to get a diverse group of people to work together to achieve a common goal. 

This can apply to any aspect of your life but for this discussion I am speaking of the business world.

On the other hand, my simple definition of management is the organization and coordination of the activities in order to achieve defined goals and objectives.

We lead people and we manage processes. 

I am to lead the people that work for me. My job is to get them to work together to achieve whatever our goals are. 

The processes activities that go into achieving those goals are managed. 

The problem I see is that too many people placed in positions of leadership are called ‘Managers’ and not a title that is indicative of what they are really there to do – lead people. 

Compound that with the lack of leadership training that is offered by the vast majority of companies out there and the result is, way more often than not, that we have someone in a role of responsibility that tries to manage the people they are supposed to lead.

Since I am unlikely to create the swell needed to effect the titles we use as for our people, perhaps I can challenge you to invest in something more important for your people and your businesses – leadership training and mentoring. 

I’ve seen too many people promoted to a ‘management’ role and very seldom, in my corporate experience, given the tools (leadership training and mentoring) to lead their people. 

And without those tools, the people you entrust to lead a part of your organization are potentially being set up for failure. It’s not that they are not smart or good at their job, but without being taught any differently most will try to manage what they should be leading.

The organizations I saw as most effective were the ones where an investment was made to train its leaders properly and, as result, those people knew the difference between leadership and management.

For more information about how The Cobalt Group can help you with any business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact us.

We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a discussion.

Copyright © 2013 The Cobalt Group, LLC. All rights reserved.