I recently gave a speech in which I quoted several people, and afterwards someone came up and asked me what my FAVORITE leadership quote was. I regretted not having it memorized. I did not because it’s actually not a quote, but a longish-for-a-quotation passage from Stephen Vincent Benet’s wonderful free-verse poem, John Brown’s Body, a Pulitzer Prize winning book (before the honor became un-burnished) worth every second of its reading.

It is in part my favorite because it is both beautiful in its spareness, and so heavy with the mortality and human frailty that each of us lives with today.

If you take a flat map
And move wooden blocks upon it strategically,
The thing looks well, the blocks behave as they should.
The science of war is moving live men like blocks.
And getting the blocks into place at a fixed moment.
But it takes time to mold your men into blocks
And flat maps turn into country where creeks and gullies
Hamper your wooden squares. They stick in the brush,
They are tired and rest, they straggle after ripe blackberries,
And you cannot lift them up in your hand and move them.
It is all so clear in the maps, so clear in the mind,
But the orders are slow, the men in the blocks are slow
To move, when they start they take too long on the way -
The General loses his stars, and the block-men die
In unstrategic defiance of martial law
Because still used to just being men, not block parts.

It is also my favorite because when I first read it, 20 years ago, I finished the passage, leaned back, and said to myself, “It’s all about people.” And that was the first moment I knew I would do what I’m doing right now.

by Ron Willingham. Subtitle: a revolutionary redefinition of leadership. Willingham owns a sales and customer service training company, and I’ve seen his training packages in a couple client sites. As you might imagine, I read LOTS of books like this, and unfortunately for Mr. Willingham, I am probably way too discerning. This book was terrible. It certainly wasn’t revolutionary. Don’t buy it, even if it gets 4 and a half stars on Amazon.

[Full disclosure: I was predisposed to not like this book, but read it anyway in a spirit of being fair and open to my own narrow-mindedness. The reason I was predisposed was that Mr Willingham’s coaching model was not impressive. At one point in his COACHING model, he says that you should then “COACH”, without saying what that means. It was weird. Many who were using it at a client came to me and said, “I’m supposed to use this tool, but I can’t figure it out. Can you help?” There are lots of bad coaching models out there, and so I don’t mean to pick on him. And, I really like some of his customer service stuff.]

When I start working with a group of managers, one of the questions I ask is what self-development efforts they’ve undertaken recently. Overwhelmingly - 90+% of the time, the answer boils down to, “Not much”. Sometimes they mention a book that came out 10 years ago. I admit to always having a drop in energy when I hear it, even though I know it’s coming. I think, “gee, if they won’t do it for themselves, why would they do it for me?”

So, in the spirit of making it easier, If i read a book, I’ll post about it. I’ll include fiction, because I read a lot of fiction, too. I’ve read 11 books so far this month, I think - couple more to go this week. If you want to know how I have time, I have three answers:

(a) I “have” no more “time” than you do. It’s just more important to me, I guess. It’s okay to not read. If you don’t want to, or don’t like it, that’s fine. But it’s not okay to not read and then complain about what you don’t know. The person who can read and doesn’t is no different than the person who can’t.
(b) LESS TV.
(c) Airplanes without power adapters for my laptop, and just-not-quite-long-enough-layovers to get mail.

So, here’s my first installment.

The Notebook. Fiction, by Nicholas Sparks. My favorite book. I’ve read it 20 times, and will read it again soon, but won’t blog again on it. Love is the most wonderful force in the universe, and not a bad touchstone for managers, either.

Work is work. It’s wonderful, and fulfilling, and so much fun it seems like I oughta pay for the privilege. But life is not work. Life is… love.

This podcast is the first in a series of recurring casts - it could easily amount to ten over the next couple of years - about employee retention. The best managers we know do a great job of retention. As a matter of fact, because it goes to the future potential of the organization, retention is one of Mark’s favorite delineators of management talent. Strategy gets done more effectively in places where retention is good.

In this cast, we’re going to talk about bare bones basics. This is the stuff that any manager can do… really, that any manager wanting to think of themselves as a professional MUST do. If you’re not taking these simple steps, you need to start, so you can build a base to some of the more powerful techniques we’ll share in future casts.

One of the common themes of my work with executives is that many of them tell me how busy they are. The italics and quotes are intentional. I’m trying to give you a sense of the stress and importance that are being conveyed. This has been going on for at least 10 years. [It may be that they were telling me that long before then, but that’s when I started noticing it.] Now it’s a common refrain from managers as well.

No doubt you’ve experienced these moments:

How are you, Terry? “Swamped. You?”

Hey Jack. How’s it going? “Man, I’m buried. Good to see you though.”

Hi Adrian, how’s it going? “Busy, busy, busy!”

[Somebody did tell me once that since I’m a consultant, and 6’3”, and USED TO wear black a lot until a friend clued me in, this behavior might be a defense mechanism for potential layoff recommendations I might make to some GM or CEO. Scary funny. Stupid.]

When several managers at one location mention this malaise (and it happens a lot), I spend a few days sampling how busy the building looks and feels at 6 pm.

What do you think I find, almost without fail?

Ghost town.

Rarely a soul to be found.

Dead.

Is that a computer fan I hear whirring?

How can all these people be so “busy” if they’re all going home by 5:30? It’s not possible!

Busy is all nighters. Three in a week.

Busy is your cube smelling like take out Chinese dinner the next morning.

Busy is your kids saying they miss seeing you before they go to school.

Busy is missing seeing your kids before school because you left before the HOV lane closed to cars with one occupant.

Busy is finding your toothbrush on the ledge above the sink of the bathroom at the office.

Busy is buying shirts at the Brooks Brothers at the airport because you didn’t have time to pack.

Busy is taking a change of clothes to work, not “just in case”. Because if you’re busy, you KNOW.

Otherwise, you’re not that busy.

Really.

I came across an article recently that struck me. When I read it, I thought it was insightful, and it highlighted a scotoma present in about half the professional working population.

“The young woman of today is the victim of a double cross. On the one hand, her college training or her work experience taught her to make a living, not to make a cake. So to one half of her being, success has come to mean just what it does to a man – success in a job.

“But with the other half of herself, she wants to fulfill another set of aims and ambitions – marriage, children and a home. These, too symbolize success.

“Whether she realizes it or not she is about to come up against this dilemma, the double standard of success for women. Should she try to achieve success at both places – at home and at work, too?

“On balance, the cards are stacked against her.”

Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

But this excerpt is from an article that was published in 1953.

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

It’s my experience that the business world is still fairly much a man’s world. There is more to say on this topic. But if you’re male, don’t wait - start paying more attention to this now.

The hand shake is the most important professional greetings in the world today. There are many cultures in the world, and there are places to bow, and places to hug, and places where cheek-kissing is perfectly appropriate. The handshake, though is the preferred greeting for most of our audience.

If you’re going to do business in the world, or if you’re a manager at a multi-national corporation, you need to know how to shake hands. This cast will teach you in excruciating (grin) detail.

The Ten Steps to a Great Handshake

• Make Eye Contact
• Smile
• Move Forward
• Left Foot Forward
• Elbow IN!
• Web to Web
• Push Them Back
• Grip the Bat
• 1-2 Pumps Only
• Let Go

Some No-Nos

• No double handed grips
• No shoulder clasp
• Do NOT move your hand side to side in any way
• No pulling

I am sure it makes me seem terribly nerdy to break a handshake down this way… but it works, and we know lots of folks want to know, but don’t know where to go. This is one case where if you go to the world wide web, you’ll be reminded of why we started Manager Tools. What passes for training or guidance is almost always irreproducible.

For this week’s show, we conclude our conversation on Skip Levels. Have you scheduled YOUR first Skip Level yet?

This week’s show (part 1 of 2 parts) is about a rarely used but powerful Manager Tool, The Skip Level.

If you’ve ever wondered what was going at senior levels, and thought that if “they” would keep you informed, things would be a whole lot better, the Skip Level is YOUR way of reducing those problems in your part of your organization. The fact is, it’s hard to communicate even directly to your team. Many of us learned that when we “discover” our teams through One on Ones.

Skip Levels help managers communicate more directly and deeply into their organization. It can never take the place direct communications among teams and individuals, but it is a powerful adjunct to those efforts.

We lay it all out for you: their purpose, the basics of setting one or more up, what the agenda should be, what to cover and how, and, what the most important item on the agenda always is.

Other managers not welcome - that’s the Skip Level.