Clever Geek Handbook
30 June 2025

The Necessary Revolution

Recommendation

The Earth faces grave sustainability problems, including global warming. In this new book, experts Peter Senge, Bryan Smith, Nina Kruschwitz, Joe Laur and Sara Schley discuss how people, organizations and nations are coming together to bring about positive change. The authors demonstrate that sustainability issues are part of an interconnected global dilemma that affects everyone. They urge united action to solve major ecological problems before solutions become impossible. They even note that businesses can save and earn money through environmentally sound products and policies. BooksInShort recommends this enlightened book’s informed focus on exactly how to improve the sustainability of life on the planet.

Take-Aways

  • The world is in peril because of severe environmental degradation.
  • The sustainability crisis represents the interconnected symptoms of an enormous problem: a global system that is dangerously out of whack.
  • The Industrial Age, which brought immeasurable benefits, is now creating immeasurably dire problems.
  • Humankind cannot continue to ignore these concerns.
  • Global warming is today’s major environmental issue.
  • The world is quickly reaching a point of no return regarding warming. If people don’t act quickly, it may be impossible to halt.
  • Organizations and nations are swiftly working to bring about positive change.
  • For example, Australia may ban its entire citrus industry to conserve water. Sweden hopes to eliminate any dependence on fossil fuels by 2020.
  • Quick fixes and short-term solutions will only exacerbate serious sustainability problems worldwide.
  • Socially and environmentally responsible practices make good business sense.

Summary

Looming Disaster

The world is in horrible, dangerous shape. The existence of life depends on “clean water, breathable air, fertile soil, pollination and a stable climate.” These essentials are under severe attack. Wetlands, grasslands and forests are vanishing. Half of the world’s major rivers are polluted or depleted. Each year, environmental degradation forces 50 million poor people to leave their villages and migrate to cities. As a result, half a billion people live in horrific slums or squatter camps. Such people live bereft of social harmony, a situation sure to result in upheaval.

“The human community has caused a lot of harm to the planet, and things need to change. Doing nothing is no longer an option.”

But the worst of the story is that the world is getting notably hotter. Global climate change, caused by the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) and other greenhouse gases, is a hugely disturbing fact, not a theory. A dangerous side effect of the Industrial Age, global climate change is the most serious looming planetary catastrophe, an insidious nightmare. As fossil fuels deposit excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the gas causes widespread, continuous heating and damage. For instance, as the oceans absorb CO2, the water’s acidity increases, destroying coral reefs critical to marine life. Rising levels of greenhouse gases and CO2 in the atmosphere eventually will “trigger ‘runaway’ effects,” causing more warming. It will take 30 to 50 years before scientists are even able to register the overall impact of current atmospheric CO2 levels.

“The time for shifting responsibility to others, or covering up deep problems with simplistic solutions that only make problems ‘go away’ for a short time, is running out.”

Once the world reaches that tipping point, global warming feedback will begin to occur. At that stage, humans may find it impossible to shape the future in any significant way. Scientists estimate that, to make a difference, humanity must enforce a 60% to 80% emissions reduction within the next two decades – that’s part of the “80/20 Challenge.” If it doesn’t happen, people may soon face global catastrophe. Not scared enough? Consider these grim facts and statistics:

  • The “Asian Brown Cloud,” an airborne sheet of industrial particles, “has been blamed” for half a million deaths of respiratory illness each year just in India.
  • The developing world dumps 70% of its industrial waste directly into “rivers, lakes, oceans or soil.”
  • The atmosphere can safely absorb about three billions tons of CO2 annually, but people emit about eight billion tons yearly by burning fossil fuels.
  • In the U.K., CO2 emissions rose from almost zero to a million tons annually by the end of the 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, U.S. emissions totaled nearly two billion tons of CO2 annually – approximately seven tons per person.
  • About 90% of used commercial electronics, including computers, PDAs, TVs and audio recorders, end up in landfills.
  • People retire 20 to 30 million vehicles a year. In developing nations, most of these trashed cars and trucks go into landfills.
  • The U.S. buries more than 90% of its plastic wastes in landfills each year.
  • The world is running out of nonrenewable resources, such as oil, copper and zinc. Coal is in strong supply, but it is a major source of air pollution (the U.S.’s biggest source).
  • One out of five people lacks access to clean drinking water.
  • Groundwater, lakes and rivers are becoming increasingly polluted.
  • During the past 50 years, agricultural overproduction has degraded more than 2.5 billion acres of topsoil, an area larger than China and India combined.
  • During this time, the globe lost more than 30% of its forests, drastically reducing how much CO2 it can absorb.
  • Overfishing may soon kill off numerous fish species, ruining many coastal economies that depend on fishing for commerce and food.

Taking Action

People around the world are fighting back. In Australia, the government and citizens prioritize water preservation. Billboards warn people to conserve water. The country is considering totally eliminating its citrus crop. Citrus production represents 3% of the nation’s GDP, but it requires immense amounts of water. In the 2007 election, the candidate who most emphasized climate change won. The Australian business community, dominated for decades by the mineral and mining industries, now strongly advocates renewable energy solutions.

“The changes needed to avert extreme and possibly uncontrollable climate change will be greater and must happen far more quickly than we imagined even a few years ago.”

Swedes are working to eliminate their nation’s dependence on imported oil. Former Prime Minister Göran Persson established a national commission to develop a strategy to eliminate all fossil fuel use in the country by 2020. This follows the work of concerned private citizens who are trying to make northern Sweden the “world’s first ‘bioregion’.” The plan is that people in the region eventually will meet all their energy needs with “sustainably produced biofuels.”

“The costs to the world of climate change in the next decade could equal or exceed the costs of World War II.”

DuPont, a venerable U.S. company, is shifting “from petroleum-based to bio-based” feedstock products. It is working to reduce waste, and to develop new products that are not linked to gas and conventional oil. Another U.S. firm, Nike, has cut its carbon footprint by more than three-quarters. It is aiming to “achieve zero waste, zero toxicity and 100% recyclability” by 2020.

Short-Term Solutions Are Not the Answer

Around the world, people are beginning to see that sustainability problems interconnect. They are part of the seriously unbalanced “global system.” Short-term solutions are counterproductive, even self-defeating. They will not fix the planet’s “deeper imbalances” and, indeed, may exacerbate them. For example, the U.S.’s attempt in recent years to use more corn-based ethanol is forcing a major increase in world food prices. Plus, as large agricultural companies cut down forests and eliminate grasslands to develop fields for more corn, greenhouse gases may even increase. These are huge prices to pay, especially when corn-based ethanol’s emissions almost equal those from standard fuels.

“Corporations are coming under heavy scrutiny from all sides regarding their environmental and social behavior...Today, there is truly nowhere to hide.”

Society now faces truly monumental challenges in three primary areas that are tightly linked: “energy and transportation, food and water, [and] material waste and toxicity.” So what will a “sustainable future” require? Three guiding principles point the way:

  1. Society must consider the generations to come – Continuing on the current path seriously discounts the future, undermining the lives of today’s children, grandchildren and all those who will come later. Humanity needs a sustainable strategy that works without harmful environmental impact or unattainably high costs.
  2. Institutions must work together – The modern world is completely interconnected. It represents a complex network of governments, businesses and other organizations that affects how people live, and the energy and products they consume. This vast network shares similar, connected sustainability problems and must develop group solutions. Unfortunately, many institutions tend to adopt short-term approaches to their individual operations and goals. As a result, a major gap exists between current piecemeal efforts and the need for all institutions to act in a concerted fashion to develop sustainability.
  3. People must generate new ideas – Albert Einstein once said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” People, governments and institutions must develop novel solutions.
“Producing environmentally friendly goods and services has become as much a brand attribute as quality and price.”

Change is possible, but not easy. People must “see the larger systems” of which all organizations and entities are a part. Then they must develop policies and approaches to ensure the health of these larger systems. Quick-fix solutions and short-term answers will not suffice. People must “collaborate across boundaries” in today’s fully linked world. All nations and organizations face sustainability issues. The cost of failing to work together could be exceedingly dire. Finally, people must look beyond immediate problems – and the reactive mindset that accompanies them – to envision a sustainable future for everyone.

The LEED Certification System

Many people mistakenly believe that vehicles emit the most greenhouse gases. This is incorrect. Residential, industrial and commercial buildings consume far more energy and discharge more greenhouse gases. Indeed, “the built environment” accounts for double the emissions that cars produce worldwide. Thus, if the industrialized world could make buildings more energy efficient, it could reduce greenhouse gases substantially. A few years ago, concerned individuals in the U.S. building community united to address this goal. They established the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system. Today, the USGBC and similar Green Building Councils in other nations work to promote green buildings and environmentally aware construction practices around the planet.

“Businesses need to wake up to the simple fact that the economy is the wholly owned subsidiary of nature, not the other way around.” [ – Interface CEO Ray Anderson, quoting U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson]

From the outset, getting people from every sector of the fragmented building industry to agree to a common set of standards for green buildings was not easy. Establishing the LEED rating system’s guidelines took from 1993 to 2000. By 2007, the LEED program listed more than 7,500 registered buildings. Currently, registration is voluntary, but it is becoming an industry norm. LEED standards address sustainable building sites, water efficiency, materials, energy conservation, pollution control and “indoor environmental quality.” Although LEED requirements are increasingly demanding, the cost of a LEED-certified building averages only 1.8% more than the price of a conventional building. Owners can offset the additional expense with savings on energy and operating costs. USGBC standards cover “retrofitting old buildings, rethinking home construction, commercial building operations” and much more.

Going Green Is Good Business

A survey of 17,000 people in 15 global markets indicated that people place a premium on green brands. More than 50% of the respondents like to buy products from companies that protect the environment. This parallels an increase in “ethical consumerism” in Britain. In the U.S., 45% of the population can be classified as “mainstream activists,” that is, individuals who factor companies’ environmental and social policies into their purchase decisions. Businesses have many good reasons to “embrace leadership in the regenerative economy,” including those that affect the bottom line. These include:

  • Cut costs – Companies that reduce energy use and waste can realize massive savings, just ask IBM, Alcoa and Wal-Mart.
  • Earn money – Companies can spend as much as $100 per ton to get rid of their waste in landfills. General Mills got tired of paying such heavy fees. Now it recycles 86% of its solid waste, earning “more from that than it spent on disposal.”
  • Compete and stand out – Soon, cooling off servers and large computers will cost more than the actual hardware. IBM’s Project Big Green, established to reduce its computers’ energy consumption, may change that. Through this initiative, IBM hopes to save its customers a substantial amount of money and, thus, increase its market share. Enterprise Rent-a-Car is adding thousands of flexifuel cars and hybrids to its fleet. About 50% of its cars, more than 334,000 vehicles, get better than 28 miles to the gallon.
  • “Shape the future of your industry” – BMW, Sony Europe, BP and Shell have used “enlightened self-interest” to shape future regulations positively for their industries.
  • “Become a preferred supplier” – Many large food retailers, such as Costco, now insist that their suppliers meet rigorous social and environmental standards.
  • “Change your image and brand” – Promoting social and environmental standards is excellent public relations. Wal-Mart is “going green” and, thus, counteracting negative publicity about its treatment of employees and its effect on small businesses.

Make a Contribution

Are you ready to change? Think about the particular sustainability issues that matter most to you. Prioritize them, consider how to act on them and discuss them within your company. Find like-minded colleagues who will support your efforts. Get them to add their contacts to your group. Organize a team and build management support. This is your initial crew for seeking new options and creating “a proposed plan for change.” Prepare a proposal including a plan of action. Secure widespread executive support for your initiative. Do not expect things to be easy, but don’t quit. Your sustainability project may be the most important piece of work you ever undertake.

About the Authors

Peter Senge lectures at MIT. Bryan Smith is a faculty member at York University’s Sustainable Enterprise Academy. Nina Kruschwitz is manager of the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook Project. Senge, Joe Laur and Sara Schley co-founderd the SoL Sustainability Consortium, which fosters economic, ecological and social sustainability.

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The Necessary Revolution

Book The Necessary Revolution

How Individuals and Organisations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World

Nicholas Brealey Publishing,
 


30 June 2025

The Retirement Plan Solution

Recommendation

Many American companies have eliminated, or are now eliminating, their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. They are substituting defined contribution (DC) plans, under which employees are primarily responsible for their own retirement savings. Since this is the new lay of the land, you need to know how to assess your DC plan. Focusing on the primary traits of one type of DC plan – U.S. 401(k) pension savings accounts – experts Don Ezra, Bob Collie and Matthew X. Smith explain the latest version-two (or “DC 2.0”) plans. BooksInShort recommends this book to human resources (HR) and benefits professionals, retirement plan sponsors and consultants, financial planners, policy makers and all those who hope to retire one day with money from a defined contribution plan. While the book concentrates primarily on U.S. retirement plans, HR professionals from other nations still will find useful retirement planning information here.

Take-Aways

  • Most people in advanced societies regard a financially secure retirement as a basic right.
  • Since people are living longer, retirement planning is increasingly important.
  • Many companies are switching from defined benefit (DB) retirement plans to defined contribution (DC) retirement plans. In the U.S., that primarily means 401(k) plans.
  • With most DC plans, employees, not businesses, contribute nearly all funding.
  • Individuals are responsible for planning and funding their own retirements, but often people withdraw their money too soon or don’t even contribute to a 401(k).
  • Your 401(k) contribution and any investment returns become your retirement income.
  • Today’s revamped DC plans (“DC 2.0”) enable people to make better financial-planning and investment decisions.
  • DC 2.0 plans are designed for retirement pensions, not for general savings.
  • Companies should help people understand how far their funds will go after retirement and how to derive the most benefit from their 401(k) accounts.
  • Although advice varies, many experts recommend retiring with 80% to 85% of your preretirement income, with 40% to 45% coming from a DC plan.

Summary

The Evolution of Retirement

People did not always expect to retire and spend their senior years at leisure. Indeed, it was not until 1889 that German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced a retirement program for his nation’s workers. One of the first such plans in history, it promised German laborers an income for life if they retired at 70. This didn’t help most Germans, since at the time the majority lived only to age 45. Today, however, many middle-class people in developed nations assume they will enjoy retirement without having to continue to work for enough money to cover their costs. Since people are living longer than ever, this scenario is becoming an increasingly expensive goal.

“The idea of an active retirement as a right has today become a generally accepted idea in the United States and in developed countries around the world.”

American retirement schemes used to be based primarily on defined benefit (DB) plans, where employers promised specific benefits and pooled pension funds for future individual payment as people retired. Now companies are replacing (or have replaced) DB plans with defined contribution (DC) plans, where firms track each worker’s money separately and make preset deposits, usually a percent of the employee’s salary that the worker matches or exceeds. DC plans cost employers less than DB plans. Both types assume that your retirement income will combine your investment returns with the deposits you and your employer put into your DC plan. Yet, “in the DC system, people do not know how much income their plans may provide.”

“Wealth management is for the wealthy, but retirement planning should be for everyone.”

Most DC setups in the U.S. are 401(k) plans, named after their enabling legislation. Corporations are reassessing and redesigning these plans. The updated versions are called “401(k), version 2.0” or “DC 2.0.” The major changes in 401(k) plans came about when companies stopped treating them as adjuncts to traditional DB plans and began to see them as replacements. This is the primary method U.S. private-sector workers ¬use to set aside money for retirement. In fact, 47.5 million people now have these plans. Unfortunately, 401(k) plans have serious drawbacks. For instance, many employees never enroll in the first place and most people make poor investment decisions. Some experts think 401(k) fees are too high but, even so, taking money out of a 401(k) plan is usually simple, so people do it routinely – thus wrecking their retirement security.

“The trend from DB to DC is virtually universal, not just an American phenomenon.”

See your 401(k) as a pension plan, not a savings plan. To encourage this mind-set, the plan’s paperwork should explain its long-term fiscal projections transparently, based on current contributions. If the probable amount is not adequate for retirement, the text should warn plan holders accordingly so they increase their contributions.

“The 401(k) plan is undergoing a complete redesign in corporations across America.”

In most DC plans, workers save 7% of their earnings, while their companies contribute 3% in a partial match. Is that 10% of earnings enough to sustain retirement? Unfortunately, calculating how much money people need to save for a comfortable retirement is difficult. Aon Consulting and Georgia State University report that a person earning $30,000 annually will need $27,000 (90% of working income) each year of retirement. Social Security would provide a portion (59%) of it. A person who earns $60,000 annually will need 78% of that to retire and will get only 46% of it from Social Security. The best baseline is that most U.S. workers should retire on 80% of preretirement income, with 40% of that coming from a DC plan. Some experts consider that too low and recommend 85% of preretirement income, 45% of which comes from a DC plan.

“McKinsey & Company reports that almost half of baby boomers expect to work past 65.”

Investment returns are vital to your retirement income. In DB plans, investment profits should account for 80 cents of each benefit dollar, with the other 20 cents coming from 401K contributions. The spread is wider in DC plans, with 90 cents from investments and 10 cents from the plan. Investment returns are unpredictable. Small annual declines can hurt your 401(k), so be prepared to exercise these options:

  • Change how much you save – If your returns are small for a while, save more later.
  • Change when you plan to retire – Such a safety valve may be necessary.
  • Lower your expectations for retirement – Your retirement security correlates directly with your 401(k) investment returns. If your returns are not good, that clearly affects the security of your retirement.
  • Invest wisely – Balance carefully. People often must assume more risk in order to realize higher returns.
“Most people have two simple motives once they retire: to continue to live in the lifestyle to which they have gradually evolved, and to leave something for their children.”

The “10/30/60 rule of thumb” illustrates the role of investment returns in retirement income. It says that for each retirement dollar in a DC plan, slightly “more than 10 cents” comes from worker contributions, a little more than 30 cents comes from accumulated investment earnings and slightly less than 60 cents comes from investment earnings during “decumulation” – the conversion of pension assets accumulated during your working life into retirement income.

Save Early and as Much as You Can

Since investment returns are uncertain, long-term investment is the best plan. Start putting money into your 401(k) plan as early as you can. The sooner you begin, the more you can afford to accept risk (if you can handle it psychologically), which provides the opportunity for higher returns. Accepting risk is harder when you begin to save and invest later in life. Obviously, what you spend as a retiree also determines how long your money will last. The usual recommendation is to spend 3.5% to 4.5% of your investment portfolio annually, figuring in inflation.

“Once we have reached age 60 or 65, the average ones among us are likely to live for a long time.”

To amass the best retirement income, save as much as possible. Enroll in your firm’s 401(k) plan. Some companies have automatic enrollment, an important element in DC 2.0 plans. Workers with low incomes may find it hard to save, and those who begin saving later in life face an uphill fight to accumulate enough to retire securely. Frequent job changes also complicate your savings. Some employees close their 401(k)s when they move to new jobs. That triggers a 10% tax penalty. Try not to borrow or withdraw from your 401(k). It is a retirement savings vehicle, not a means of funding short-term emergencies. Employers can eliminate provisions that enable early withdrawal and can establish plan rollovers as the default position for people who change jobs.

Investments

Most untrained people do not invest successfully, so leaving investment decisions up to DC plan holders is not the best tactic. Workers who handle their own investment choices don’t do as well as their companies’ hired experts. Corporate fiduciaries should educate plan holders about why planning their own investments is not wise. Companies should provide investment expertise as part of the default 401(k) option and encourage employees to choose it. Professional DC 2.0 investors generally follow the idea that opportunities to amass more money and increase your retirement savings should drive your investment choices.

DC 2.0 plans are oriented toward a “target date solution,” so exposure to risk declines as the participant gets closer to retirement. Program planners set this target based on several factors, including when the employee begins to make 401(k) contributions, the planned retirement age, the salary amount and growth potential, and so on. Fiduciaries should also be aware that reducing the fees related to DC 2.0 plans could translate into more effective usage. People often are overconfident about planning for retirement. The Employee Benefit Research Institute says only 47% of more than 1,000 workers surveyed knew how much money they would need to retire comfortably. Yet, 61% of them were certain they’d have enough. Often, people think that they don’t have to worry about retirement now and that they have plenty of time to plan later. People also tend to be irrational about financial planning and investing. For example, they buy stocks after their values increase, not before. Also, many people discount the importance of future events, so they do not save in the present. As a result, they plan poorly (or not at all) for retirement. Firms should incorporate financial literacy into their DC 2.0 default choices.

DC Plans Are Not Just for Americans

DC plans don’t exist only in the U.S. For example, Australia has a sophisticated DC national culture. The Australians achieve more than 90% employee participation, and they control leakage by not allowing borrowing from retirement accounts. The government mandates a 9% employer contribution; unions are advocating for 15%. Most employees contribute 3% of their pay and less than 2% of participants make their own investment decisions. The government matches up to 150% of voluntary contributions from low-income workers. Holland and Canada use a “collective DC” model that defines employer contributions and adjusts benefits according to amount of those contributions. Such plans do not pay lump sums and are portable when people change jobs. Often, national DC plans take one of these forms:

  • “The bank savings model” – You save minimally under a DC plan because you are accumulating money elsewhere. You withdraw all your employer-plan savings upon retirement. Many employees with DB plans also adopt this model.
  • “The fund supermarket model” – As in the U.S. and Australia, your DC plan is your primary retirement savings vehicle. This makes successful investing very important.
  • “The retirement income model” – This is the most effective model and has 100% employee participation. Everyone puts as much money into retirement accounts as possible. Investment returns are good. Money is available for full retirements. This plan relies on solid projections of achievable retirement income from all sources combined.

Post Retirement

A DC 2.0 plan should help participants accumulate retirement wealth in the form of income for life, not a huge lump-sum payment. A simple DC 2.0 plan is always better than a complex one. Employers’ other DC 2.0 goals include establishing employee goodwill and improving retention rates. Certain metrics, such as participation rate, the period of time from when employees join the firm and when they enroll, and how much workers save, let you measure the effectiveness of your plan. While companies cannot control retirees’ decumulation, they should guide retired employees as much as possible in financial planning for their DC payouts. How former employees fare during retirement will affect how current workers perceive the DC 2.0 plans and how many of them choose to participate.

“If you run out of money before you run out of life, it really matters a lot.”

Because employers are seldom involved with their firms’ retirees, many benefits managers do not worry about how DC plans handle decumulation. This should change, since payout growth occurs after the employee retires. Three factors (“dials”) play crucial roles in decumulation:

  • Spending – To know what you can comfortably spend during retirement, list all your assets and liabilities on a single sheet of paper. Deduct liabilities from assets to establish your net worth. List your annual or monthly expenditures. Note your income sources before and after taxes. Another method is to project spending to equal your after-tax income (minus any savings). Decide what kind of life you will want once you retire. Do you hope to take expensive trips and own a lavish condo, or to stay home and live modestly? Estimate how far your assets will go toward fulfilling your hopes. Identify any gaps. Adjust your current spending and retirement planning accordingly.
  • Protection during longevity – Determine if you need to retire later than you originally planned so you can save more money. Or, do you want to purchase a special investment (like an “immediate annuity”) that will provide funds over a longer time period? If this appeals to you, put off buying such an annuity as long as possible because the value of hedging against the risk of longevity increases as you age.
  • Investment – You cannot control how much return you will get from your investment. However, you can control your investment asset allocation. Think broadly in terms of liquid assets (bonds, stocks and cash), risk-free annuities and additional assets, like home equity. During decumulation, you face two types of risk: “investment risk” and “longevity risk.” Of course, the decisions you make about investments and other retirement planning choices depend on your assets. Numerous new “decumulation products” can protect you during retirement, including guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits and advanced life deferred annuities.

About the Authors

Award-winning author Don Ezra is an investment strategy director for Russell Investments, where Bob Collie is an expert on U.S. and U.K. pension plans. Matthew X. Smith has written about and helped design, implement and administer contribution plans for more than 25 years.

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The Retirement Plan Solution

Book The Retirement Plan Solution

The Reinvention of Defined Contribution (Wiley Finance)

Wiley,
 


30 June 2025

Creating Passion-Driven Teams

Recommendation

Don’t try to motivate your employees by manipulating them; be honest with them and you’ll discover that they motivate themselves. Don’t humiliate them when they make mistakes; instead, treat errors as valuable learning experiences. Don’t automatically tune staffers out when they speak; listen and you will discover a lot. Don’t hold meetings just to meet; make sure every conference has a purpose. And above all, don’t micromanage, because that drives good people out the door. This is an ample list of management “don’ts.” But what should you do to manage well? Training expert Dan Bobinski says the answer is simple: Provide the conditions that will spark passion in your people. Although his anecdotes are overly simplified and may seem contrived, BooksInShort believes Bobinski presents his points persuasively. His colorful, elementary guide will give newbie supervisors and human resource managers much pause for thought.

Take-Aways

  • Teams who are motivated by passion can accomplish great things.
  • Managers cannot manufacture fervent enthusiasm. They must create a trusting, sharing and committed environment – the perfect conditions for a passionate work spirit.
  • Managers are either selfless “Builders” or selfish “Climbers.” Only builders can develop zealous teams.
  • To build an ardent team, learn what motivates the team members.
  • Study your employees to see what makes them tick. Understand your employees’ knowledge, skills, attitudes and processes.
  • Micromanagement will kill any enjoyment team members obtain from their work.
  • Often, organizations are responsible for the evolution of micromanagers since they don’t teach people how to manage properly.
  • To prevent a culture of micromanagement, coach and mentor new managers thoroughly and perform personality tests to discover each manager’s style.
  • Teams often lack zest due to fear of criticism, rejection or failure.
  • Learn to listen actively to your staffers. This reduces conflict and boosts passion.

Summary

Setting the Stage for Teamwork

Human beings have organized themselves into teams since squads of cavemen surrounded and killed wooly mammoths. The best teams are passionate about their work – and you can’t forge or force that kind of spirit. It bubbles up from within the hearts, souls and minds of team members. However, as a manager, you can create the emotional conditions from which passion will emerge. These include trust, sharing, camaraderie, commitment, common purpose and confidence. When you promote these conditions, you set the stage so that team members can work together with enthusiasm to accomplish their goals.

“Teams can have problems when they have Climbers who think they are Builders.”

Every manager has a different style. Managers can be “charismatic, bureaucratic, Machiavellian, democratic, authoritarian [or] laissez-faire.” But basically, they fall into two categories: They are either “Builders” or “Climbers.” Builders want to develop the people around them, while climbers are out for themselves and don’t care what happens to others. Only builders can develop “passion-driven teams.” To become a builder, make these three commitments:

  1. Develop yourself personally and professionally.
  2. Never become complacent.
  3. Study the members of your team to learn what makes them tick.

The “Management Matrix”

Every job in an organization has these three components: Some sort of “raw product,” a “process” and an end product or “outcome.” In addition, everyone in the hierarchy occupies one of these three roles:

  1. “Front-line employees” – All new and experienced employees who do not hold a supervisory role. Their raw products are the materials with which they work, the process is how they perform their jobs and the product is the outcome of their labor.
  2. Managers – Line supervisors and team leaders. Their raw products are the employees, their processes are training the employees and coordinating their work, and their product is “efficient operations.”
  3. Leaders – The CEO and other top executives. Their raw products are “ideas” about the company’s “realistic capabilities” and direction, their process is the communication of these ideas and their product is an “effective organization.”
“Many managers bark out ‘grow’ commands to their teams and blame the workers if no growth occurs.”

Just as employees must understand their raw materials and production processes to create products and services, managers must understand their employees – including their knowledge, skills and attitudes – and the processes and systems they use.

To ensure that the company operates efficiently, managers must train their people and give them appropriate job assignments. They must organize and adjust their processes and systems to certify that they work well for everyone.

Why Micromanaging is Counterproductive

Scrutinizing every detail of your employees’ work is not managing; it is micromanaging, a destructive habit. Micromanagers ask for constant progress reports, are overly critical, involve themselves in every decision and tend to take over staffers’ work and do it themselves. Micromanagement has these negative outcomes:

  • High employee turnover.
  • Employees who won’t make decisions without first getting management’s approval.
  • Team members who show little initiative.
“Not only is it important to get the right people on the bus, it’s equally important to have those people sitting in the right seats.”

Organizations may inadvertently create micromanagers when they promote front-line workers without providing practical management training. Now responsible for their teams, these new managers try to stay on familiar ground. When a problem occurs, they jump in and fix it. They fear that team members will make them look bad – either by doing a poor job or, paradoxically, by doing a great one and outshining them. Their contradictory fears paralyze the team.

Preventing Micromanagement

Micromanagers will never create passion-driven teams. To derail micromanagement tendencies, teach new managers about their roles, and train them in the skills they will need:

  • Draw up detailed job descriptions – Include supervisors’ expectations.
  • Assess new managers’ skills and interests – Use personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which assesses “tendencies, preferences, strengths and weaknesses”; the DISC assessment of dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness; or the Workplace Motivator assessment, which measures styles of thinking along six dimensions.
  • Provide coaching and mentoring – Create an individual plan for each new manager. Give new managers time to develop. Becoming a truly skilled manager can take years.
  • Provide feedback – At first, hold daily conversations with new managers, but don’t do all the talking. Encourage them to tell you about how their work is going. Help them rate their job performance realistically.
“Don’t force new managers to adopt practices that aren’t comfortable for them.”

By the way, managers are not the only employees who need training. The second most common reason people leave their jobs is “lack of opportunity for growth.”

If you are a micromanager, put aside the outdated thinking that got you where you are today. You may have started as an outstanding front-line employee, but now you need a different perspective. As a manager, you are a “coordinator and trainer,” not a superworker.

“The ability to stand up and talk does not a trainer make.”

Ask for management coaching that will help you to eliminate your micromanagement tendencies. If necessary, pay for coaching yourself.

How Fear Dampens Passion

Often, teams suffer not from lack of motivation but rather from personal, internal fears:

  • “Fear of criticism” – Many people withdraw into themselves when they receive criticism, and withdrawal destroys passion. Keep your criticism of team members constructive.
  • “Fear of rejection” – People take rejection personally. Never summarily rebuff ideas and suggestions from team members. Even if the idea appears to have no merit, treat it and the person who submitted it with respect.
  • “Fear of failure” – Everyone flops from time to time. The trick is to get up, dust yourself off and try again. Show people that you continue to trust and believe in them, even after they fail. The faith you place in them will energize them to keep trying.
  • “Fear of not getting what you want” – This fear can lead to counterproductive actions or no action at all. Of course, you can’t ensure that all team members get everything they want. However, you can help them achieve their goals.
  • “Fear of losing what you have” – People fear losing both material possessions, such as a house or a car, and intangible assets, such as authority or reputation. Counter team members’ fears of loss by showing them what they will gain.

Motivating Your Team

Motivating others is impossible. People do what they do for reasons of their own, which probably have nothing to do with you. However, as a manager, you can create an environment in which team members work together to achieve common goals.

“If you seek to create a team driven by passion, then you must look within each person on your team, for it’s there that the passion resides.”

Explain the “big picture,” that is, what your organization is all about, and why its goals are important. Research shows that only 7% of employees know what their companies’ business strategies are. Make sure your organization has a mission statement that is straightforward and easy to understand. Discuss it with team members.

“What holds people back from moving forward is not a lack of motivation. It is the presence of obstacles.”

Show team members how they can help the company to accomplish its mission. Explain the connections between the company’s goals and individual work tasks. Employees will see that when their work backs up, they prevent the whole company from moving ahead.

Delegate by following this five-step procedure:

  1. Examine the big picture and then split it up into discrete tasks.
  2. Assign jobs to the workers who can do them best.
  3. When delegating a duty, explain its role in the overall effort.
  4. Make sure you and the employee agree about the end product.
  5. Check in regularly with team members.

Hold Productive Meetings

The best way to keep everyone on track is to hold regular meetings. Not all meetings are the same, however:

  • “Informational meetings” – Project updates. Keep these short and sweet.
  • “Problem-solving meetings” – Structured events that have agendas and may last one to two hours.
  • “Planning meetings” – Times for discussion and debate. The focus of these kinds of meetings is “What should we be doing and why?”
  • “Teambuilding meetings” – Often take place outside the office. They enable team members to get to know each other, regroup and refocus.

Learn to Listen Actively

All the meetings in the world are useless if people do not listen to one another. Listening is not the same as hearing, which is merely “perceiving a sound by ear.” When you listen, you work to “understand another person’s point of view.” Listening is an active skill that you can learn.

“Failure is an option.”

Take these two steps:

  1. Silence your own thinking and focus on the other person.
  2. Make sure you understand what the other person is telling you. Ask: “If I understand you correctly, you’re concerned about...?”

Often, people fail to listen because they are afraid. They worry they will hear something that tells them they’re wrong or they fear that they won’t get a chance to explain their ideas. Avoid these seven listening errors:

  1. “Filtering” – Sifting through what others say, looking for points of agreement and disagreement. When you do this, you’ll miss their point.
  2. “Second guessing” – Assuming “hidden motives” on the part of others.
  3. “Discounting” – Automatically rejecting what another person says because you don’t respect him or her.
  4. “Relating” – Assuming that others’ experiences and feelings are just like yours.
  5. “Rehearsing” – Failing to hear what others say because you are planning what you will say when they stop talking.
  6. “Forecasting” – Focusing on only one point and its implications, and ignoring everything else.
  7. “Placating” – Nodding and seeming to agree with every word, when in fact you’ve tuned out the conversation completely.

Conflict

Conflicts occur in even the most harmonious of work environments and among the most collegial of teams. Resolving conflicts involves some of the same skills as active listening: Focus on the other person. Make sure you understand what he or she is saying. “Look for trust” – pay attention to body language. “Discover the truth” by finding out “what needs to be done” or “why something cannot be done.” Maintain your faith that you’ll arrive at a good outcome. Acknowledge and celebrate team members’ achievements.

About the Author

Dan Bobinski is a training specialist, executive coach, consultant, columnist, author and keynote speaker. He is president and CEO of a leadership development and management training firm.

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Creating Passion-Driven Teams

Book Creating Passion-Driven Teams

How to Stop Micromanaging and Motivate People to Top Performance

Career Press,
 



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