The Star Factor, Discover What Your Top Performers Do Differently – and Inspire a New Level of Greatness in All, by William Seidman and Richard Grbavac, Amacom 2013
Have you ever worked in an organization where EVERY employee, EVERY manager was a rock star? The closest I’ve come to it was a Massachusetts company led by a turnaround guy who believed in rock star teams, an executive who himself was impressive, a guy who imported his own special high level team to redirect all key operating areas – engineering, production, supply chain, and especially finance. Without this cadre of trusted performers, he knew the turnaround would fail.
But what about ordinary business operations? What would happen to your material costs and time to market if all key positions were held by rock stars? And how do we recognize the hidden star performers? Authors Seidman and Grbavac tell us exactly what makes star performers outstanding – their attitudes, values and energy; their attention to detail, approach to problem-solving, and work processes.
Seidman and Grbavac use their Affirmative Leadership Methodology, a four-phase process, to begin the transformation:
1. Phase 1 – Discover
2. Phase 2 – Prepare
3. Phase 3 – Launch
4. Phase 4 – Guided Practice
Once we’ve identified the qualities and potential stars, the authors describe steps to help bring them along, including ways to become a mentor, coach or facilitator. Chapter 6, "Own Your Own Learning," offers a unique and refreshing look at how to turn passive-learning - content pushed at learners in the classroom, on computers and seminars - into personal, relevant, life-changing learning - "...most people block learning when it is force-fed... become passive learners and need to be taught how to be proactive, self-directed learners. This takes time and practice." The authors state that becoming an active learner as well as an enlightened leader comes from making the same new ideas and new neurological connections through frequent, repeated, short, and very practical opportunities.
Finally, stars need a group to play with, a high performing and supportive team that shares goals and values. Here the authors prescribe ways to keep momentum going and maintain the good changes. A beautiful story from Vietnam illustrates:
Food was scarce in Vietnam after the war; many villagers suffered from malnutrition and even starvation. World food organizations tried and failed to solve the problem, until three social scientists, Richard Pascale and Gerry and Monique Sternin, went to Vietnam to study the situation.
In each village they visited, anyone had access to the same resources, and most people were starving. Yet a few families had healthy, well-nourished children. This, they discovered, was because some women had such a strong sense of purpose that they were willing to do whatever it took to feed their families, including ignoring traditional attitudes about eating. For example, the traditional view was that the shrimp and herbs in the rice paddies were “dirty” foods, so most people didn’t eat them. The women whose children were healthy cooked them anyway, so their children got both more food and more protein than the others. Similarly, while most mothers made their children stick to the tradition of eating only at mealtimes, these children let their children snack.
When the researchers figured out what these women were doing, they encouraged them to share their knowledge with others, which dramatically reduced malnutrition in a matter of month. The researchers called the women who managed to feed their families positive deviants… stars.
Not only were these women innovators, they had a consuming drive to feed their families. The authors show examples of other winners whose work demonstrates similar drive. What they do with this concept, however, beyond recognition and story-telling, is introduce a process to raise an organization to rock star levels through inspired leadership, and positive communications.
The Mill Girl Verdict: Although this is a consulting book, the approach to reinforcing positive cultures is refreshing, and even in the most troubled operations, worth reviewing. Would it have worked for Enron, where toxic leadership killed the company?