Welcome
Welcome to the latest issue of Bringing Work to Life. In the last two
issues we explored:
·
Bringing meaning to our work lives, the benefits to each of us and to
our organizations, in “May You Live All the Days of Your Life (http://www.elsdon.com/august_2004.htm)
and
·
Seven key aspects of the organizational and business drivers for
workforce development in “Opening the Door for Workforce Development” (http://www.elsdon.com/july_2004.htm).
This month we explore one aspect of personal leadership growth in
“Facing Our Greatest Fears.”
Facing Our Greatest Fears: Public Speaking
Picture a seven year old standing in front of his
new school assembly. Alone, mortified and deeply ashamed. Muffled
titters in the background. An angry headmistress striding forward to
eject him from the auditorium. The headmistresses’ eyes are bulging,
her face is red with rage. What mortal sin had the boy committed that
day? Perhaps he fought with another child, or did he destroy some
piece of valuable school property? No, much worse. He had been
commanded to read in front of the assembled school. Overcome by fear of
public speaking and unable to do this, he instead proceeded to wet his
trousers and could not read the passage. He was hauled out and made to
clean up while a loud argument ensued between the headmistress and the
boy’s classroom teacher.
That boy was me. For the next 20 years of my life
I was terrified of speaking in public. It turned out that it didn’t
matter much in the academic research world I entered initially.
However, it mattered a great deal in the corporate world. And so it
came to pass that I found myself in a class with 25 other engineers,
most of whom to my surprise, shared this speaking phobia. Together we
took faltering steps to confront our fear of public speaking.
Surprisingly, to each of us, under the supportive tutelage of Dr.
Jeremiah Goldstein, we succeeded in facing down our fear. Further
faltering steps continued over the years for me, leading to a gradual
transformation. A transformation not only in capability, but also in my
recognition of public speaking as a learned skill, just as legitimate as
any technical skill. Today, while not Socrates reincarnated, I derive
much pleasure from speaking with small and large groups. I receive many
requests to present to groups both in person and in a virtual setting
and sometimes to coach others on communication and presentation skills.
The memory of this childhood incident surfaced
recently when several clients at senior levels in organizations talked
with me about their fears of speaking in public. They were concerned
that public speaking was an expected capability for them, while
recognizing that many of their peers in the corporate world struggled
with this skill. As we talked I was struck by the courage of these
clients in confronting their fear and saddened by how much personal
anxiety this created.
What does it take to speak effectively in public?
Here are some core components:
My colleague Cynthia Bassham, pointed out that we
can incorporate learning from the world of acting as we think about
public speaking. Patsy Rodenburg in her book Speaking Shakespeare
describes three circles of concentration and focus. The first circle is
inner focused containing language in and for ourselves. The third
circle is one of talking to the world in a general sweep – it can be
aggressive and over hearty. The second circle is one of connecting,
listening and speaking to individuals. In the second circle we speak to
connect. It is here that we build relationship and mutual learning with
our audience.
Recognize that there are elements of a speaking
engagement that are outside your control. I remember once being present
at the end of a daylong seminar for about 400 people given by a
world-renowned expert on communication. I happened to overhear his
comments to a colleague. “Today’s audience was lively and engaged,
while yesterday’s was listless and disinterested.” The same content,
the same location and a completely different response. So accept that
this can happen even with the most accomplished and prepared speakers.
Give of yourself and enjoy the experience. When you follow the
principles we have explored here you are giving a special gift of
yourself and your knowledge. Your audience will respond
enthusiastically and value your gift to them.
Please contact Ron Elsdon if you would like to know how Elsdon
Organizational Renewal can help you build effective presentation skills.
Earning and Wealth Trends
The plight of those marginalized in our society,
existing on minimum wage jobs, was highlighted by Barbara Ehrenreich in
her book Nickel and Dimed (this link contains a video of Ms. Ehrenreich
reviewing her experience living and creating her book:
http://www.inequality.org/conferencematerials.html). David
Shipler, working more as a social scientist, recently addressed a
similar subject in his book The Working Poor.
The challenge that these searing accounts of
poverty in the U.S. today present to all of us is reinforced when we
look at income and wealth trends. (Unless otherwise indicated the
information shown in the following figures is from
www.inequality.org). The poorest people in the U.S.
gained economically in the period from the end of the second world war
to the end of the 1970s as shown in the following figure.
However, a fundamental shift occurred beginning in
the early1980s with a massive redistribution of income from the poorest
to the wealthiest:
We might ask how does the situation in the U.S.
compare with other developed countries? As we can see from the
following chart, which compares the income of the wealthiest 10% (90th
percentile) with the income for the poorest 10% (10th
percentile), income inequality is much greater in the U.S. than in other
developed nations.
But perhaps our overall Gross National Income (GNI)
per capita dwarfs these other nations? In fact that is not the case.
The GNI per capita for Norway and Switzerland exceeds that of the U.S.
and it is close to that of the U.S. for other countries such as Sweden,
Denmark and Japan. If we were to consider GNI on a risk return basis
for individuals, as we might examine stocks, then the risks of incurring
significant financial distress are much higher in the U.S. with fewer
safety nets to address catastrophic events. On a risk/return basis
compensation can look significantly less attractive in the U.S.
Another measure of income inequality is know as the
Gini coefficient, which varies from a value 0 for complete equality
(income is evenly distributed), to a value of 1 for complete inequality
(one family owns the entire country’s wealth). The following chart
again shows the trend of gradually increasing equality in family income
in the U.S from the late 1940s through the late 1970s. This changes
abruptly in the early 1980s. Since then we have seen a dramatic
increase in income inequality. Indeed the Gini coefficient in the U.S.
today is more closely aligned with third world countries than with
developed nations.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
A number of factors contribute to this trend,
taxation policy for example being one. Another is the choice within
organizations about the distribution of their resources to their
workforce. The following chart shows a gross disparity in the increase
in CEO compensation relative to worker pay and inflation since
1990. Contrast this with the few examples of courageous leadership,
such as Whole Foods, where the compensation of corporate officers is
limited to 14 times the average annual compensation of full time
employees. Not surprisingly Whole Foods financial performance in terms
of revenue and profit growth exceeds that of much larger organizations
in the same sector focused only on enriching their founders or
executives.
And what have these income trends meant for wealth
distribution? The following chart shows the wealthiest 5% in the U.S.
owning almost 60% of the nation’s wealth and the poorest 18% having zero
or negative net worth.
In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt “The test
of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who
have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too
little.” Unfortunately today we are failing this test of progress. We
are challenged to advocate for those who have little, and through
courageous and inspiring personal leadership redress those gross
inequities that shackle individuals, organizations, communities and
society.
If you would like to participate in a study of
the influence of compensation distribution on organizational performance
please contact Ron Elsdon (renewal@elsdon.com).
Quote
Some questions to ask of
ourselves as leaders, from Max DePree, Leadership Jazz
Upcoming Elsdon Organizational Renewal (EOR) Events
·
Staying Career Fit. Annual
Career Workshop, French-American Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco.
(Bubble
Lounge Networking, http://www.faccsf.com/bubblelounge0804.html)
o
September 16, 2004, Bubble Lounge, San Francisco, CA
·
Building Affiliation: Workforce
Leadership in Action. HR Southwest Concurrent Session.
(HR
Southwest,
http://www.hrsouthwest.com)
o
October 7, 2004, Fort Worth Convention Center, TX
·
Becoming Career Fit in Turbulent
Times. Project Management Institute - SF Bay Area Chapter Meeting
Presentation
(Project
Management Institute SFBAC - San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, http://www.pmi-sfbac.org/index.phtml?menu=other_page&menu2=51)
o
October 21, 2004, Courtyard Marriott, San Francisco, CA
·
Global Issues Forum.
International Career Development Conference (ICDC) Panel Discussion
(International
Career Development Conference - Career Assistance.
http:///www.careerccc.com)
o
October 27, 2004, Sacramento Convention Center, CA
·
Opening the Organizational Door
for Career Development. International Career Development Conference (ICDC)
Concurrent Session
(International
Career Development Conference - Career Assistance.
http:///www.careerccc.com)
o
October 29, 2004, Sacramento Convention Center, CA
·
Building Employee Commitment in
a Growing Economy. 56th Annual California Groundwater Association
Convention and Trade Show Concurrent Session
(California
Groundwater Association Events, http://www.groundh2o.org/events/events.html)
o
November 6, 2004, Silver Legacy Resort and Casino, Reno, NV
About EOR: Our Value Contribution
We enhance your workforce, leadership and organization by:
·
Using proprietary approaches to understand workforce and leadership
challenges
·
Creating tailored action plans and solutions to strengthen workforce and
leadership practices
·
Building individual capabilities and contributions
We enable you to focus on external results and building value, confident
that your organization and leadership are operating at peak
effectiveness.
Our Mission
To support your organization by enhancing performance, productivity
and effectiveness through revitalized workforce relationships and
leadership practices.
Our Approach and Values
We tailor our engagements
to the needs of each organization with a process designed to surface
critical issues, identify root causes, build effective solutions,
monitor progress and implement.
With a scope that ranges
from system and organizational interventions to work with individuals,
our focus is on the heart of the relationship among the individual, the
organization and the community. We believe that organizational and
community prosperity are built on enabling each person to fulfill his or
her potential.
Our Services
We work with individuals and groups in your organization to drive
performance and development for both the short and long term. As result
people will choose to work in your organization and will prosper there.
We bring solutions when you need to:
·
Reverse declining revenues and performance
·
Revitalize your workforce
·
Stem the loss of key talent
·
Redirect your organization to new areas
·
Stop losing customers or market share
·
Penetrate new markets
·
Combat aggressive competitors
·
Handle major change
·
Break down communication barriers
·
Energize your leadership team
·
Successfully build on an acquisition or merger
Our proprietary services include:
·
State-of-the-art tools to take the pulse of your organization and then
move to action
o
Web enabled systems
o
Experts to gather and analyze information, moving your organization to
action
·
Individual leadership coaching to give you world class leadership
capabilities
o
Leaders who know themselves and their aspirations, build their
capabilities and become catalysts developing others
·
Workshops to build interpersonal skills in your organization so that:
o
Communication is timely, concise, accurate and personal
o
People listen to each other
o
Negotiations are quick and effective
o
Differences create rather than destroy value
o
Teams move forward, get results and quickly commercialize new products
and services
o
People understand and link their motivations to your organizational
needs
o
Your teams understand what it takes to create a committed, energized
workforce
o
People use their time well
·
Systems that make it easy to drive performance and build capabilities
by:
o
Linking objectives throughout the organization
o
Strengthening key competencies
o
Making sure you have the bench strength where and when you need it
o
Giving people tools to take charge of their own careers, development and
have a major long term influence on your organization
·
Proprietary simulation and modeling techniques that let you explore how
to maximize the value of your workforce
o
Move from guessing what might happen to looking in depth at the
financial impact of different approaches
