It hasn’t been through any editing yet. It’s 12 chapters in total. It’s approaching 90,000 words. (again) There are two sections. The first section has the following draft chapter titles: Chapter 1 - The Possibility of Purpose at Work Chapter 2 - What is Work? Chapter 3 - The Pursuit of Workplace Disengagement Chapter 4 - We Built This City (of Consumerism) Chapter 5 - Power Plays in the Organization Chapter 6 - Money, Budgets, Greed and Maximizing Shareholder Value The second section has the following draft chapter titles: Chapter 7 - The Purpose of an Organization Chapter 8 - Job. Career. Purpose. Chapter 9 - Develop. Define. Decide. Chapter 10 - Organizational Communitas Chapter 11 - Management Muscles Chapter 12 - Now. Near. Nexus. Any thoughts on an appropriate title at this point, despite not having any further information to go on? Or, how about commenting on the draft title I came up with: WORKING CLASS: The Leaders Path to Profit with Purpose Thanks in advance for your feedback. Dan's Related Posts:Download Chapter 1 for Free - Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged…Flat Army: Chapter 5 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 6 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 1 OverviewFlat Army: Chapter 11 Overview

Do employees at your company speak up and regularly engage in dialog that helps to shape strong results? And when they do, does the dialog go beyond merely ratifying what you as the leader have shared?

We may not always be near one another, but I think about you often. We may not always agree, but I always respect your opinion. We may not always want the same things, but I love your creativity. We may not always be equal, but I look up to you in awe. We may not always enjoy one another, but cooler heads usually prevail. We may not always be responsive, but guilt has its way of ensuring the line reconnects. We may not always adjust for speed bumps, but dreams don’t come to fruition smoothly. We may not always say please or thank you, but my reverence for you is boundless. We may not always plan ahead, but trust tends to bide us some time. We may not always hug it out, but in my heart I know we both deeply care. We may not always light a fire, but sparks seemingly fly no matter the scenario. We may not always reciprocate, but no one is keeping score. We may not always laugh, but appreciation doesn’t always need to be heard. We may not always love, but hate is never an option. We may not always … but as you know, always, we just may.     Dan's Related Posts:The Simple Act of TrustingIn 2015, Will I …100 Years Ago Today, In Flanders FieldsWho Am I? Who I Am.Instead of Inbox Zero, How About Outbox Zero

With Baby Boomers retiring en masse, and the emergence of China and India, U.S. businesses have a global leadership emergency on their hands.

In 2015, Will I … Publish the next book? Grow as a father to ‘let some things go‘? Become less intense? (finally) Run >10km in one go again? Cycle >5000km? Celebrate 20 years of marriage (on July 1) in style? Overachieve on the expectations of TELUS Transformation Office? Receive >50,000 views at Forbes? Write >50 ‘thought leadership’ pieces for various outlets? Stop using the term ‘thought leadership‘? Visit three major cities I’ve never been to before? Spend more than three weeks in Ontario? (on purpose) Decide (with Denise) a proper 10-year plan? Be asked to speak at >20 events? "Live well, love always and laugh out loud every day" (© Brian Reid)   Dan's Related Posts:In 2014, I Will …Leadership Lessons From Late Night King David LettermanWho Am I? Who I Am.What I Learned About The Stigma Of My StigmaMy Next Book Has A Title And A Publish Date

How words lose their luster boggles the mind. At least it boggles my mind. Conation is one of those words and it just so happens to be my Word of 2015. Back in the 18th century, German academics began classifying the ‘self’ — to be specific, the ‘mind’ — into what is known as the tripartite classification of mental activities. Ok maybe now we know why some words lose their luster. In the 19th century, American and British psychologists took the classification and began utilizing it in their own research, as well as with their patient work. They improved the original work and further honed the tripartite. The three bits to the classification include cognition, affection, and conation. (Editor’s Note: even as I type conation, swirly red lines can be found underneath the word be it on a Mac or a PC, so even the ‘machine’ has no idea what it means.) Cognition, as you know, deals with the "what". It’s when we interpret, process and understand the gazillion number of data points and information strands that enter our mind each day. Affection is more about the "how". Think of it as whether you like someone (or something) or perhaps you don’t. Affection is whether you are attached to an idea, issue, person … or you’re not. (E.g. I possess a love affection for Denise) But conation … the alleged ugly stepchild to the tripartite (it a candidate for Word of the Year in 2016) is arguably a word Simon Sinek might enjoy. It’s about the "why". Conation comes from the Latin ‘conatus‘ or ‘conationem‘ and is defined as "any natural tendency, impulse, or directed effort." These days Oxford Dictionary defines conation as: "the mental faculty of purpose, desire, or will to perform an action; volition." At its core, conation is rather brilliant. It has the capability of taking the knowledge, data and ideas you interpret and process (cognition) and blend it with your emotions, likes and dislikes (affection) into behaviour, purpose and action. In my mind, conation is the missing link in today’s organization as we seek a better balance with power, profit and purpose. Conation is an aspect of human behavior that motivates leaders to independently seek out and create a better society. The societal data is everywhere. (what and cognition) I believe the will of the human spirit to do ‘good’ remains pervasive. (how and affection) What’s missing? If our organizations — and leadership in general — is to shift away from a fixation on profit and power while improving society, employee engagement and our communities, perhaps it’s conation that’s now required. (why and action) Some argue that conation "has been a neglected dimension of behavior in neuropsychological assessment" and that it just may be "the missing link between cognitive ability and prediction of performance capabilities in everyday life." I believe it’s one of the missing elements of leadership, and thus the true definition of purpose in the organization. It is through this dogged action — volition, perhaps — where we might once and for all improve work, life and society together. Conation is my word of the year for 2015. It’s time for us all to become conative. Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. Bernard Williams   Dan's Related Posts:A New Hero of Mine, Alfredo MoserCan Humanism Replace Capitalism?The Collateral Damage of Selfish LeadershipWhen Power Overthrows Common SenseThe Strength Of A Leader Comes From The Tree Trunk

One of the biggest challenges to emerge from the 2012 "Building Trust in Business" research is the current perception of the lack of leadership transparency, predictability and consistency. This challenge stands in direct conflict with building trust.

The old saw, "everything old is new again", certainly applies to the field of collaboration. While technology has moved ahead by leaps and bounds, the important everyday practices that form the foundation of healthy and effective group practice remain much the same.

I’m from Canada and although I’ve never played hockey, there is a colloquial expression in my country known as a "puck hog". No, it’s doesn’t have anything to do with pig farming and it’s also not some new form of Canadian doughnut, but it illustrates the collateral damage of a selfish leader rather well. A puck hog is a player on a hockey team who holds onto the puck for far too long looking to score from anywhere on the ice or is so delusional about his abilities that he believes he can win the game without ever passing the puck to teammates. The same phrase is used in basketball, but replace puck with ball to get "ball hog". Do you know any puck or ball hog leaders in business or government or your place of work? You know, those individuals who only look out for themselves without really caring about employees or society in general? These are the types of individuals who like to dominate, sometimes for the sport of domination itself. Here’s some irony to think about it. What if those puck and ball hogs acted the way they did in our organizations because that’s all they have ever been conditioned to behave like? What if they don’t know how to pass? What if they had no idea there was a greater purpose than simply winning? What if they thought the purpose of an organization was to dominate without thinking twice about the societal consequences from their actions? Perhaps we should unassumingly blame the followers. Otherwise known as employees —individuals being led by a leader — it just may be those people making up roughly 90 percent of an organization’s population that cause this selfish sort of leadership puck hog behaviour. For example, researchers found what can only be described as an alarming trend with the employee base when they discovered employees would rather be led by someone who scores high on the "dominance" scale versus the "prestige" scale. Put another way, employees are attracted to leaders who care more about (and exert) power as opposed to purpose. Thankfully, if the organization is philanthropic in nature or in a non-competitive environment, the "prestige" leader is preferred, but when it comes to winning, (i.e. competitive situations) the merciless, power-hungry leader is the more partial choice of employees. Our organizations remain anemically disengaged (or not engaged) — according to firms such as Gallup, AON Hewitt and BlessingWhite — yet it seems employees would rather have their leadership team be made up of the "dominant" style, leaders who make Pol Pot and Ivan the Terrible seem friendly. This isn’t simply ironical, it’s just wrong. Nobody really likes a puck hog at work, do they? Of course not all leaders are selfish either. It’s not as though every leader aspires to dominate like the Serengeti Lion of the Vumbi Pride does in Africa. Thankfully there are other leadership styles. For example, Daniel Goleman indicated in 2000 there are six different leadership styles a leader might use, but as he writes, "only four of the six consistently have a positive effect on climate and results." As you might deduce from their descriptors, the coercive and authoritative styles are not as beneficial or positive as the affiliative, democratic, pacesetting or coaching styles he outlined. Not to be outdone, researchers Gary Williams and Robert Miller proved more than a decade ago in Harvard Business Review that there are in fact five different types of leadership styles. They found leaders to be classified as charismatics, followers, skeptics, controllers or thinkers indicating, however, that "each style can be highly effective in certain environments." The onset of defining leadership styles for the masses might have come from Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard when they created the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership model in the late 1960’s. Their four-tier model - selling, telling, participating and delegating - can still be found in corporate training seminars across the globe, but it is often proven by academics to be a flawed if not inconsistent model. A few years ago, I was being somewhat cheeky and put together my own leadership style model, dubbing it the "Leadership Tonic Scale" where the levels of moronic, ironic, platonic, iconic and harmonic can be found. But it’s the selfish leader - those choosing to lead with a perilous fixation on power, pay and/or profit - that might be causing much of the disengagement and dissatisfaction in today’s organization. It just may be this type of leadership style that has caused US middle class net worth to drop to mid-1960’s levels when (shockingly) adjusted to 2013 dollars. This is not a good thing. It’s precisely why I’m on a personal mission to make 2015 (and beyond) the point at which we reintroduce purpose into the organization … and leadership in general. Far too many employees are being duped into thinking the puck hog (and thus the selfish leader) is the manner in which leadership is supposed to manifest. Leaders ultimately have two actions to take. First, a refined definition that outlines a new ‘purpose of the organization’ is required. Second, leaders also need to redefine what it means to be both an employee and a leader in this new ‘purposeful organization’. I suppose that’s three actions, but work with me. Many employees have been conditioned to believe the purpose of an organization is to fuel the needs of senior leaders in the leaders’ quest for "dominance". That dominance often comes in the form of maximizing shareholder value (particularly in for-profit, publicly traded organizations, explained eloquently in Forbes by Steve Denning) and in the form of increased power and control, be it within for-profit or public sector organizations. (Think bureaucracy, shutdowns and partisan policymaking.) This is ball hogging at its finest. In its simplest form, we need to dial back the "dominance" and increase the level of "prestige" in leadership . We need to balance ‘purpose with power’ while introducing an elegant dose of ‘management with meaning’. Arguably, we needn’t look any further for an example of purpose in the organization - and in their leadership style - than Etsy. Founded in 2005 by Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik, Etsy is a very successful online marketplace for artisans and others to sell unique goods to citizens of the world. This past Christmas, I used Etsy to purchase a Bicycle Wheel Clock for my sister and brother-in-law from a wonderful artist in Oregon. There are over 40 million Etsy members and over 1 million active Etsy shops in 200 countries. In 2013, their sellers grossed more than $1.35 billion in sales and although the numbers aren’t in yet, 2014 revenues have no doubt exceeded 2013. What makes Etsy so special, however, (aside from being a registered B Corp) comes from their self-described mission: Etsy’s mission is to reimagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world. We are building a human, authentic and community-centric global and local marketplace. We are committed to using the power of business to create a better world through our platform, our members, our employees and the communities we serve. As we grow, commitment to our mission remains at the core of our identity. It is woven into the decisions we make for the long-term health of our ecosystem, from the sourcing of our office supplies to our employee benefits to the items sold in our marketplace. One might argue that all senior leaders in today’s organizations need to "reimagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world." One might argue that the definition of leadership — shifting from dominance to prestige and from puck hogging to puck sharing — is how we might indeed redefine a new "purpose of the organization". As leaders and organizations remain selfish, the collateral damage affects employees, customers, partners and society in general. Etsy and its leadership team knew from the very inception date of their company a decade ago in 2005 that the organization they were building would be true and purposeful to all stakeholders, not simply profit seekers. They didn’t become an organization (or a founding leadership team) that put profit or power before purpose. On the contrary, profit and power became balanced with purpose. The collateral damage at Etsy is non-existent, and millions of stakeholders have benefitted. (And my sister and brother-in-law have a fabulous new Christmas gift clock.) In his book Management, Challenges for the 21st Century, published in 1999, Peter Drucker issued a warning signal for leaders looking to build a more innovative and purpose-driven organization. Drucker wrote: "We will have to redefine the purpose of the employing organization and of its management as both, satisfying the legal owners, such as shareholders, and satisfying the owners of the human capital that gives the organization its wealth-producing power, that is, satisfying the knowledge workers. For increasingly the ability of organizations — and not only of businesses — to survive will come to depend on their ‘comparative advantage’ in making the knowledge worker productive. And the ability to attract and hold the best of the knowledge workers is the first and most fundamental precondition." (Peter Drucker. Management for the 21st Century. HarperCollins. 1999.) At the risk of attempting to outdo several literary and leadership giants like Drucker — and as a soft introduction to my next book, releasing soon — I define the new purpose of an organization as follows: "The purpose of an organization is to delight its customers through engaged and empowered employees, acting ethically within society to deliver just profitability that benefits all stakeholders including the community, workers and owners." I’d like to see more Etsy-like organizations in 2015 and beyond. I’d like to see more organizations utilize this new "purpose of the organization" definition from above to balance dominance with prestige, purpose with power and management with meaning. I believe it’s time we create a new organizational purpose and an improved definition of what it means to be both an employee and a leader for the stakeholders we serve. After all, it was Peter Drucker who once wrote, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."  Note: Originally published on Forbes. __________ Dan Pontefract’s next book, DUAL PURPOSE: Redefining the Meaning of Work, will publish November 10, 2015. (pre-order here) He is also the author of FLAT ARMY: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization and Chief Envisioner at TELUS Transformation Office. Dan's Related Posts:My Hopes for the Drucker Forum #gpdf14Waxing Lyrical On Leadership, Engagement, Purpose & InnovationThe Platonic Leader: Stage 3 of 5 in the Leadership Tonic ScaleCorporate Culture in a Venn DiagramConation: The Word of 2015

If I had my way, any face-to-face leadership development program on the planet would first start with the facilitator showing a picture of General Sherman. No, not General William Tecumseh Sherman - military strategist and General of the Union Army during the United States Civil War in 1861 through 1865 - rather the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) tree located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, California. General Sherman (the tree) is a perfect metaphor for the three key levels of leadership I believe need to be considered for today’s leaders who occupy the management ranks. We’ll return to this metaphor in a minute. But first, let’s look at a few data points. The Conference Board and Development Dimensions International (DDI) recently released their Global Leadership Forecast 2014/2015 and as usual, there are a several nuggets that suggest we’ve still got a long way to go as it relates to improved leadership in our organizations. Of the more than 13,000 business leaders who were surveyed across the globe, only 27 percent indicated they felt "very prepared" to tackle what they collectively believed to be the number one issue today: human capital challenges. Interestingly, when those business leaders were asked how they intend to improve the human capital challenges that were in their midst, four of the top ten strategies focused on leadership including: Improve leadership development programs; Enhance the effectiveness of senior management teams; Improve the effectiveness of frontline supervisors and managers; and Improve succession planning. As the folks from The Conference Board and DDI wrote, "CEOs know their organizations cannot retain highly engaged, high-performing employees without effective leaders who can manage, coach, develop, and inspire their multigenerational, globally dispersed, and tech-savvy teams." But the research gets even better. When the business leaders were asked to "identify the leadership attributes and behaviors most critical to success as a leader," there were five that become most prominent across all global regions. Those five attributes and behaviors were: Retaining and developing talent; Managing complexity; Leading change; Leading with integrity; Having an entrepreneurial mind-set. To summarize the research, only a quarter of all leaders feel they’re capable of tackling the most pressing issue in today’s organizations … people. Not only is that alarming, those same leaders agree there is a significant amount of leadership development to be had if their number one concern is ever to be addressed. It’s not as though some innate dose of magic is going to suddenly appear turning ineffective leaders into superstars. As Warren Bennis once wrote, "The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born." Now, let’s return to the metaphor of General Sherman, and for that matter any tree. What if a leadership model - and specifically the leadership behaviors and attributes that make up an engaged, effective and transparent leader - were to use the makeup of a tree as the basis for leadership itself? What if the three main components of a tree were to be used to help address the concerns that leaders surfaced in The Conference Board and DDI research? The three key parts to any tree are: The roots Trunk Branches & foliage I truly believe the aforementioned three parts of a tree can help us demarcate and define leadership attributes that address both the employee engagement crisis that dogs organizations AND the issues as outlined by The Conference Board and DDI from above. The roots are the ‘becoming’ attributes, the trunk can be thought of as the ‘being’ attributes, and the branches and foliage are the ‘going beyond’ attributes. The alignment to leadership attributes and behaviors looks like this: The roots (becoming attributes) Trunk (being attributes) Branches & foliage (going beyond attributes) Let’s first dig a little deeper into the ground and investigate the roots of the tree, the ‘becoming’ attributes. The roots ensure stability, growth and harmony in the forest. The roots act as the nutrient system for the trunk as well as for the branches and foliage. From a leadership perspective, without the roots there is no chance for growth, innovation, productivity or improved results. Without the roots there would be no tree. The becoming attributes are behaviors that set the tone for leaders to behave like an engaged and connected leader, in touch with the employees, organization, customers and community. Think of A.G. Lafley, CEO and President at Proctor & Gamble. He has instilled a leadership behavior ethos at P&G that ensures the roots feed the rest of the ecosystem. For example, in his book, The Game Changer: How Every Leader Can Drive Everyday Innovation, he writes, "the willingness of all people at P&G is to be psychologically open and to seriously consider new ideas, whatever the source, thus building a truly open, truly global innovation network that can link up—and be first in line—with the most interesting thinkers and the best products to "reapply with pride." Far too many leaders (and the accompanying leadership attributes and behaviors) immediately jump to the executing stage or the ‘do more with less’ mantra. It’s this sort of short-termism thinking - time and time again - that prevents the leaves from ever blossoming on a tree. The ‘becoming’ attributes should be implemented in your organization before leaders can even begin thinking about tackling the key issues identified in The Conference Board and DDI research. They are non-negotiable yet harmonious attributes that ensure a top-down, command-and-control leadership style isn’t utilized as the default way in which to lead. (Which is often the case in today’s hierarchically driven organizations) The five behaviors and attributes I believe that make up the roots of the tree (the becoming attributes) are as follows: Trusting Involving Empathizing Developing Communicating Each of the five attributes that make up the roots of the tree can be further defined as follows: Trusting: Whether a bouquet or a brickbat, whether a high or a low, whether a peak or a valley, whether a success or a mistake, the leader must create an environment that ensures all members of the team (direct or indirect) feel safe not just to do their jobs, but also to break free of them. The members must feel as though they can trust their leader to discuss any part of any process or scenario. The leader must portray herself such that anyone can approach her to ask a question no matter the time and no matter the problem. The act of trusting is table stakes for any leader. Involving: If a situation arises where leaders need to involve employees in a decision or a discussion or a deliberation, and the default behavior of the employee is to avoid eye contact, pretend they’re not paying attention, lie about their level of busyness or flat out ignore the request, what does that say about the state of leadership within the organization? To involve is to be inclusive and invite others into a part (or all of) the process leading up to and including action. In the organization, involving is calculated social inclusion. Jack Welch his "breakfast with Jack" opportunities and they were legendary across General Electric as it provided both the employees and Jack an opportunity to learn from one another. That is the attribute of involving perfectly defined. Empathizing: If as a leader you have the capacity to put yourself in the shoes of others and understand what those individuals are going through in any given situation, you are exhibiting empathy. Sadly, this one of the five becoming attributes is often the most overlooked, misunderstood and little used. If more leaders were to empathize with their team members, the workplace would be a much happier place. In 2007, the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) published a report analyzing data from 6,371 managers in thirty-eight countries. CCL finds that "empathy is positively related to job performance. Managers who show more empathy toward direct reports are viewed as better performers in their job by their bosses." Developing: In a study conducted by IBM in 2010 with 700 global chief human resource officers (CHROs), researchers find the single most critical issue facing organizations in the future is their ability to develop future leaders. At its core, the developing connected leadership attribute is about recognizing the talent that exists within your team. What are the strengths in your individuals and your team? It is also the ability to assess the talent delta gap in individuals and the team, to ensure you are proactively plugging the capability holes. How you as a leader are successfully adjudicating your talent level and taking the necessary steps to develop your people is a critical piece. To be a developing leader, one must be thinking continuously about opportunities for improving the team in whatever shape or form. Communicating: To be a communicating leader, we should remind ourselves of Gene Kranz the flight commander at NASA for decades until his eventual retirement in 1994. He was smart enough to listen, to display compassion and to emote while being brash enough to persuade, to be clear and to clarify. Too many leadership books predicate the behavior of communicating on being open, transparent, clear and consistent. While these traits are critically important when being communicative, a leader must also be persuasive, emotional, direct and a true listener. Throughout those decades at NASA, Kranz utilized a style that was both blunt and compassionate. He serves as an excellent example of a leader who fully understood the attribute of communicating. The becoming attributes drive relationship building and understanding between a leader and her team, regardless of its size. The becoming attributes provide the nutrients and foundation that help one to grow and to reach new heights, like General Sherman. Without these, stunted growth is assured and a mediocre, if not futile, leadership model manifests. Becoming attributes are the installation of humanity into a leader and a collaborative spirit across the organization. Let’s hope facilitators in leadership development programs start showing a picture of General Sherman on the morning of Day One, acting as a metaphor for improved leadership attributes and behavior. Let’s also hope the C-Suite begins recognizing leadership can be thought of as a tree. If a leader is ‘becoming’, ‘being’ and ‘going beyond’ I’ve no doubt the numbers surfaced by The Conference Board and Development Dimensions International will steadily increase. Note: Originally posted to Forbes. Dan's Related Posts:The Fifteen Habits of a Connected LeaderThe Strength Of A Leader Comes From The Tree TrunkConnected Leader Attributes Graphic from Flat ArmyThe Real Beauty In Leadership Happens By Going Above And Beyondthe FLAT ARMY cheat sheet