A Leadership Behavior to Becoming a 21st Century Strategic Hustler?: Intelligent Behavior – Part 4

Article 18 in my "Leaders Are Born to Be Made!" series continues to share my leadership and management insights to drive strategic execution-personally and professionally. Each article discusses the "world-class leadership behavior and/or management best practice" associated with the featured letter of the A.G.I.L.E. L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. with a G.R.I.P. framework. The featured letter of this article continues with the "I" in A.G.I.L.E.; which introduces the “The Six I’s” of Intelligent Behavior.   This is the final part of a 4-Part series about these behaviors. As an IT governance and cyber security executive, consultant, and instructor, Intelligent Behavior is critical to implementing and sustaining governance frameworks–i.e. COBIT 5, Balanced Scorecard, Enterprise Architecture, Value-IT, Risk-IT, Security/Cybersecurity, ITIL, Assurance-IT, etc.—to achieve a digital vision in areas including but not limited to:

• Customer Journey – deliver superior customer engagement in sales, marketing, and support
• Business Operations – drive operational efficiency, maximize employee productivity, and optimize business decisions
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance – maximize meeting compliance requirements and manage global risk

In Part-1 & 2 & 3, of this 4-Part series the origin of the components of Intelligent behavior were discussed, so it will not be repeated. Also, the following paragraph defines the components that have yet to be discussed in this series.  

The 6 Is of Intelligent Behavior

• Innovation. See Part-1 of this 4-Part Series on Intelligent Behavior.
• Insight. See Part-2 of this 4-Part Series on Intelligent Behavior.
• Initiative. See Part-2 of this 4-Part Series on Intelligent Behavior.
• Influence. See Part-3 of this 4-Part Series on Intelligent Behavior.
• Interpersonal skills. See Part-3 of this 4-Part Series on Intelligent Behavior.
• Integrity is more than an adherence to moral principles honesty. It’s having the courage to face the demands of reality. It is more than your words, actions; it’s about achieving results.

The focus of this 4-part series embraces the things mentally strong people do shown in the graphic below. Again, I extend my heartfelt appreciate to my LinkedIn connection in Kenya for allowing me to use it. It embraces the core of this series on Intelligent Behavior. My challenge to you is to see how many of these behaviors you relate to as you read this article.

Source Proficient Communications Limited, Nairobi, Kenya

I have served in leadership roles on multi-million-dollar business and organization transformations. Below are the results of four programs—two banks, one renewal energy refinery, and an international sales organization. The “six Is” of Intelligent behavior when applied contribute to implementing solutions that provide competitive advantage(s):

• Bank Transformation #1 Result: Strategy and Architecture enabled any bank customer to enter any branch and speak to any one financial representative about any of the bank’s multiple products. (Competitive advantage)
• Bank Transformation #2 Result: Strategy and Architecture did not support having a single point of contact to learn about the bank’s products. Thus, the customer had to speak to multiple personnel regarding multiple products. (No Competitive advantage)
• Renewal Energy Refinery: The Strategy and Architecture allow decisions to be made to build two data centers from-the-ground up using cloud services resulting in a $2.3 million savings (Competitive Advantage)
• Governance Transformation: Improve internal audit for an international sales organization via self-service and reuse Data Analytics and Visualization. (Competitive advantage)

This final article, the longest of this 4-Part series, moves the discussion to the sixth “I” of Intelligent behavior—Integrity.

Integrity —The Sixth I of Intelligent Behavior

The number one characteristic that people want leaders to demonstrate is integrity—people who walk their talk and lead a life of character. Integrity is more than simple honesty. It’s more than being ethical. A person with integrity has the rare ability to pull everything together to make it all happen, no matter how challenging the circumstances. My life’s journey has allowed me to cross the paths of thousands of leaders from all levels of society in various parts of the world who were men and women of integrity. These were honest, ethical people of “integrity.” Some were, and some were not making it in some way. Sounds confusing? Let’s swim a little deeper and discuss those who “were not.” While we would say they were people of good character, the reality is their personhood was still preventing their talents and brains from achieving all that was in their potential. Honestly stated, they could not get past the “po in potential.” Some aspects of who they were as people, they never seen as important to develop were keeping them from reaching heights that all the other investments, they had made, should have afforded them. While they met the criteria for having “integrity,” they also left behind a trail of falling short in some key areas of performance that left them, their stakeholders and the people who depended on them, wanting more. According to clinical psychologist and best-selling author Dr. Henry Cloud they were unable to successfully:

• Gain the complete trust of the people they were leading and capture their full hearts and following
• See all the realities that were right in front of them. They had blind spots regarding themselves, others, or even the markets, customers, projects, opportunities, or other external realities that kept them from reaching their goals
• Work in a way that produced the outcomes that they should have produced, given their abilities and resources
• Deal with problem people, negative situations, obstacles, failures, setbacks, and losses
• Create growth in their organizations, their people, themselves, their profits, or their industry
• Transcend their own interests and give themselves to larger purposes, thus becoming part of a larger mission

These kinds of issues are attributed to a person’s interrelationships between character, integrity, and reality (Cloud, 2006). Growing up in an inner-city red zone has been a blessing. Why? It gave me the street smarts for character growth, allowing me to avoid or quickly recover from the following pitfalls:

1. Hitting a performance altitude that is much lower than my aptitude
2. Hitting an obstacle or situation that derailed me
3. Reaching great success only to self-destruct and lose it all

I have crystalized Dr. Cloud’s six essential qualities to determine your success in business into these six integrity character traits:

1. Earn trust
2. Tell the truth based on the facts, eliminating fiction
3. Finish strong
4. Positively embrace negativity
5. Focus on growing
6. Aim to exceed expectations

Snippets of each will be discussed below. However, over 30 pages in my book provide personal journeys and experiences of each. 

Integrity Character Trait #1: Earn trust

Earning trust is accomplished through the 5 C’s—connect, communicate, cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate. Let’s look at the formal definitions of each.

–  Connect is to join, link, or fasten together; unite or bind.

–  Communicate is the activity of conveying information and confirming understanding.

–  Cooperate is to work or act together toward a common end or purpose.

–  Coordinate is to bring the different elements of (a complex activity or organization) into a relationship that will ensure efficiency or harmony.

–  Collaborate is working together to achieve a goal. It is a repeatable process where two or more people or organizations come together to realize shared goals by sharing knowledge, learning, and building consensus.

Let’s see how critical to success these are to strategic transformations. According the Harvard Business Review and industry pundits less than 10 to 13% of organizations execute their strategy. According to Forbes magazine 84% of digital transformations fail. According to the Working Council of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), a transformation program whose goal is performance improvement is a high-risk endeavor with a failure rate estimated to be in the range of 65 percent to 85 percent. These underline the fact that strategic transformation gains aren’t more dramatic because:

• A clear statement of organization strategy does not drive the various business transformation efforts. The strategy should define the role of process improvement in the business, the kinds of process improvement that represents the competitive advantage, and the organization-wide, customer-driven measures of process improvement.
• The organization has not been designed in a way that supports optimum transformation. The impact of the noble efforts in training, tools, systems, and procedures is limited by the organization structure, and relationships among departments.
• The organization is not managed with transformation as the driver. Transformation has not been built into tactical goals, performance tracking, feedback, problem solving, or resource allocation. Transformation typically has a focus on technology instead of people and process. The tremendous threats and opportunities within the white space, or interfaces, on the organization chart are ignored.

In my humble opinion, these are attributed to the lack of trust needed to connect, communicate, cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate. Said another way, if people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you they will do business with you. After all that is the aim of the 5C’s.   

There are 3-parts to any transformation: Change, Adoption, and Leadership. Change is where shift in organization, people, process, technology, and/or information--happens. Adoption is winning the hearts and minds of the those impacted by the change to inspire their desire to participate and support the change. Leadership must create a culture that allows the change and adoption to harmoniously exist.

Having a heart implies being nice. I am sure you can think of many situations where being nice did not produced the desired results. Let me help you deliberate. Why do “nice couples” get divorced? Why do “loving parents” have kids that take detours from the norm and join countercultures? Why can’t some really nice leaders capture the hearts of their people? Influencing human behavior, sometimes requires being nice with an edge. We must be connected, and that’s a whole different dimension of character. I won’t elaborate in this article but will share it embraces empathetic trust, street hustler or mutual trust, leadership and grace, and the willingness to be vulnerable.  

Integrity Character Trait #2: Tell the truth based on the facts, eliminating fiction

As we saw earlier, whenever the discussion of integrity comes up, the default position is to talk about honesty and ethics. If someone is an outright liar or cheat, then there is nowhere to go with him or her. During my employment with GE Housewares and Audio Business Division, GE CEO Jack Welch had a rule: if someone is an outright liar or cheat, that type of person was fired—no questions asked. If everyone had that basic honesty, we would not have had the scandals that rocked Wall Street in the huge meltdown of companies like Enron. Telling the truth is the first part of having an orientation toward truth. We all desire to be with honest people.

In fact, another essential characteristic of people with integrity is the ability and willingness to tell the truth based on the facts not fiction. People of good character are people who can be trusted to tell the truth and to give a representation of reality to others as best as they understand it. That is the foundation of all life, from business to government to family to commerce to friendship. Without it, we don’t have much. Many entrepreneurs, like myself, who have worked in third-world countries find that communication, coordination, and collaboration is very challenging because it is very difficult to connect and build trust when people entrusted to tell the truth and give an accurate account of reality do not. The corruption and lack of integrity at the basic levels are so rampant; almost no one can invest and do business there.

Everything I’ve ever read every person whom I’ve ever talked to, all the events and things I’ve ever seen around integrity lead me to believe that people of integrity keep their eye on the prize. My youth league football coach, would always tell me, “Keep your eye on the prize.” Knowing what the prize had helped me to determine the reality of fact, and what was fiction. How many times have you read a story where the boss makes drastic moves to increase the sales of the company, only to find out that the product being sold does not fulfill a need? The target market simply does not like the product. You recall my earlier discussion on developing laser like focus? It has taught me that people who do well have a reason, and those that don’t have a reason, too.

This integrity character trait requires: seeking reality, giving the last 10 percent, having a reputation of being able to handle the truth.

 Integrity Character Trait #3: Finish Strong

An effective leader has the ability and willingness to finish strong producing the results which leads to reaching goals, profits, or the mission. This starts with knowing your strengths and weaknesses. It is my experience that people do well when they do what they do well and stay away from what they do poorly. Is that not common sense? Yes, but when did common sense have much to do with people’s personal or business practices? And more to the point, what does this have to do with character? It’s really that simple.

Doing well embraces finishing strong.  My journey, has resulted in the following suggestions to finish strong. Again, I won’t elaborate on each but the detail for each appears in the text.

1. You need to start something before you finish it.

2. See that you start with a worthwhile idea.

3. See that there are some rewards for you.

4. Convert your task into actionable chunks.

5. Make sure that follow-through is not too complex.

6. Focus on productive action.

7. Celebrate small victories.

8. Stay away from distractions.

9. Make knowledge your friend and not your shield.

10. Be in touch with your inner self.

11. Let go and let God.

12. Seek advice when required.

13. Stay on course long enough and you will succeed.

To stumble, bumble, and fumble is natural to the learning process. Said another way, failure and loss are necessary for growth and success. Having had my share of failed ventures, I can attest that to understand them, process them, and grieve them takes depth of character. To quote Dr. Henry Cloud, “It takes a well of emotional resources that can fuel the soul and spirit while one is doing that kind of work. The empty person, needing the next manic ‘fix’ of excitement and optimism, cannot wait. S/he must jump in. The mature one carries the optimism inside and knows there will be another day, but only after, s/he has fully lived this one. That way, this day won’t have to be lived again.” (Cloud, 2006)

To summarize the integrity character trait, finishing strong requires you to be selective, realistic, organized, accountable, and determined. Let’s look at another character trait of integrity.

Integrity Character Trait #4: Positively Embrace Negativity

Intelligent risk taking requires failing fast, learning quickly, and never giving up. This is my hallmark to positively embrace negativity. Dealing with the ebb and flow of life teaches this integrity character trait. During the early stages of my career while employed as CAD/M (Computer-aided Design and Manufacturing) project leader for Sikorsky Aircraft of United Technologies, I was exposed to the P.R.O.G.R.E.S.S. problem solving methodology. An in-depth discussion is beyond the scope of this article. However, it is an awesome approach to intelligent risk taking. P.R.O.G.R.E.S.S. involves:

1.      Picking issues and/or problem identification.

2.      Researching current situation(s).

3.      Obtain the root cause.

4.      Generate alternative solutions to resolve the issue or problem.

5.      Run a pilot.

6.      Examine the results.

7.      Set up for the transfer from pilot to larger scale.

8.      Seek continuous improvement.

Ok, I gonna get spiritual with you right now: “Trouble don’t last always,” (Lamentations 3:18-23), “Joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). The trials and tribulations of life make you stronger. They build your life muscle. An effective leader with integrity positively embraces negativity with a mindset that believes things are going to get better. This is part of growing and maturing—personally and professionally. Let’s look at this integrity quality.

Integrity Character Trait #5: Focus on Growing

To quote Brian Tracy, self-development author of over seventy books that have been translated into dozens of languages, “The Future Belongs to Competent. Get Good, Get Better, Be The Best!” I have been called an “Example of a life-long leader and learner…” Great leaders are great learners who grow to become great teachers. My desire to excel, discipline to learn, and determination to perform are the staples of the past, present, and future successes in my life.  As a start football player in little-league, high-school, and college, I developed an attitude to play every down as if it was my last down. Hence my viewpoint Strategic hustlers? have this drive inside. It is as natural to them as breathing. Everything they put in their hearts and minds is infused with this drive, to make it better and to make it grow. Their relationships grow, their businesses and careers grow, and their personhood grows. The groups and departments they belong to also grow. They can’t help it. It is a drive. They have the “Midas Touch.” For those of you who may not be familiar with this phrase here is a lesson in Greek mythology. The Midas touch, or the gift of profiting from whatever one undertakes, is named for a legendary king of Phrygia. Midas was granted the power to transmute whatever he touched into gold. Strategic hustlers? have this “Midas Touch” because most of the things they touch turn into gold!

In the end the focus on growing allows them to become more than they were yesterday and pass that on. Let’s look at the final integrity character trait.

Integrity Character Trait #6: Aim to Exceed Expectations

In an earlier article, we talked about the trilogy of success:

1.      Deliver results that exceed expectations

2.      Reinvent yourself

3.      Assimilate into the social culture of the organization

The focus on this character trait is on being a servant leader. Experience has taught me people who are really grounded in who they are don’t suffer from trying to be the center of the universe. They do not believe that everything and everyone exists to serve them and their purposes. In its worst form, this is the ultimate sickness, akin to what psychologists refer to as narcissism. It is marked by such traits as grandiosity, omnipotence, extreme selfishness, exploitiveness, lack of empathy, an overestimation of one’s talents or importance, feelings of entitlement, and egocentricity. People feel they are “special.” You know the traits and have seen them. Descriptions of them make it into the vernacular of our culture, such as T-shirts that say, “It’s all about me.”

But aside from such jokes that more normal people make about themselves when they see themselves as a little self-centered, most of the time we do not like the trait at all and don’t want to be identified with it in any manner. We see it as immature at best and arrogant, selfish, or prideful at worst. Being self-centered is not admirable because it craves the very admiration that is not earned. In the article on “Adaptable Behavior,” the discussion on negative communication team traps can be directly tied to self-centeredness. How? This siloed thinking takes away from the systems thinking that is required to being authentic and being perceived as a team player.

Psychologists say the opposite of this kind of self-centered behavior can be described in many ways. I like to think of it as a servant leader quality of “keeping it real.” It is the person who has gotten beyond, above, or transcended ordinary human selfishness, self-centeredness, and lives in a very different reality from thinking life revolve around them. Helping raise godchildren, nieces, nephews, and siblings, watching them grow and their unique personalities form, I’ve witnessed the self-centered attitudes change as they realize there are things much bigger than them, and that their existence is not just about them and their interests, but ultimately about the things larger than they are. Without formally realizing their transformation to becoming a servant leader, they have learned their life is about fitting into those things, joining them, serving them, obeying them, and finding their role in the big picture. Ultimately, they become part of them and find meanings much larger than a life that is just about them. Life is about blending in with things that transcend us. This, my friend, is getting out of one’s own way and “keeping it real!” Oh, by the way, recall the point made earlier about “assimilating into the social culture of the organization.” It’s the same soup but a different bowl. Said another way, we all must learn how to “get in where you fit in.”

This completes the series on “Intelligent Behavior.” Hopefully, you enjoyed the snippets about the Six Is of Intelligent Behavior—Innovation, Insight, Initiative, Influence, Interpersonal skills, and Integrity.  The next behavior we will discuss will be Learning Behavior.

Until then………. Happy Holidays!!!!!

ALL THE BEST, CONTINUED SUCCESS

Dr. Frank Lee Harper, Jr., Ph.D., PMP, CGEIT, LSSBB - “Strategic hustler? 

Excerpts from:

Harper, Frank, L. (2014). A.G.I.L.E. L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. with a G.R.I.P.: A 21st Journey from Street Hustler to Strategic Hustler?; available on Amazon, Amazon.India, Createspace

Harper, Frank, L. (2018). A.G.I.L.E. L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. with a G.R.I.P. – Second Edition: A World-Class Leadership Framework to Becoming a Strategic Hustler?;