The Spy Factory

NOVA, the sensational public tv series ran a special on The Spy Factory, detailing how the National Security Agency had enough information to hinder or prevent the 9-11 terrorist attack and yet did not take the steps necessary. In the program, James Bamford, author of 'The Shadow Factory' details how with almost unthinkable technological capability, the NSA had been tracking the 9-11 terrorists many months before the attack, yet due to human characteristics, failed to take what action was possible. Incredibly, although Osama Bin-Laden's satellite phone had been tapped, the details available on the 9-11 attack were not adequately relayed to the US authorities who could act in our own protection.

My point is not to criticize any agency charged with public security. Rather the lesson for us is a clear indication that having cutting edge technology, even knowing how to use it to its maximum, STILL leaves every organization's leadership with the glaring need to understand and effectively influence human behavior.

Personal and Organizational development are the professional arenas where human behavior in the workplace is studied and techniques are developed for leaders to understand and accept their role in influencing that behavior.

I believe the key organizational leadership role is to have the insight, interest, skills, tools and capabilities to positively affect human behavior toward a worthwhile Mission, using a defined set of values as a behavioral guide. However human characteristics like resentment, entitlement, jealousy, power, authority, anger, empathy are all issues that can be well hidden, but which can have profound effects on organizational effectiveness. So it was with the NSA and individual an departmental values may have led to withholding information that may have saved thousands of American lives. Hardly ever do our decisions as organizational leaders hold a life or death result for our followers, but the meaning here can certainly be applicable to all organizations.

In my practice, I do not advocate that leaders need to practice a kind of "C" grade psychology.
Most of us are not qualified, but organizations cannot assume that technology is all that needs good management, because the appropriate behavior will follow. I maintain that the key organizational resource is not people, but more specifically human behavior. The great American thinker, Williams James said, "What we do, matters."

In the NSA, apparently what they did not do also mattered. A great deal.

Total Quality

In a conversation with a Social Media expert, I learned that those people involved in the Total Quality movement, the drive to make improvements in almost everything, work closely with computers and numerical metrics. His view of Social Media usage included measuring the results of Social Media marketing. I agreed about measuring results and those people I've known working in the quality movement tend to be more technically oriented.
I would submit that any movement to define and improve quality must include the element of human beliefs, actions, interactions and relationships. However, the technological counter might be "You can't measure beliefs".
I once worked on a project to help a company improve the interactions between their front line customer service staff and their customers. One organizational leader said, "We want our CSRs to be nice, but you can't train people to nice and you can't measure nice."
But, of course you can define what "nice" means to your organization, and when "nice" is defined in terms of behavior - how interactions and relationships should be conducted between your staff and your customers - you can then train to those behavior requirements. In fact, we created an entire process for being "nice" and called it the Six steps to excellence in customer service.
Leaders must come to realize that a key leadership responsibility is to purposefully affect the beliefs of the people in their organization and which in turn, influences behaviors. "Nice" can certainly be defined in terms of how we behave, and it can be taught.

Total Quality includes more than adding and subtracting easily quantifiable numbers. Total Quality includes investigating and improving high-value human actions, interactions and relationships.

The power of why?

For anyone who has leadership responsibilities or who will or wants to have leadership responsibilities, I strongly recommend viewing this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

It may be the most professionally advantageous 18 minutes you'll allocate to your own development this year.
Part of our leadership and organizational evaluation process includes asking Why, Why Why...because it
eventually leads us both to your beliefs.

And beliefs drive behaviors; yours, your teammates and your customers.

What the "Secret" should have been.

The popular video "The Secret" is a modern adaptation of the idea that if you are clear about what you want, if you believe what you want is on its way and if you are open to the "universe" bringing it to your doorstep, whatever it is you want will show up.
If you want to explore a bit deeper into this idea, to find out how the "Secret" should have been presented, read 'The Power of Intention" by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

In the "Secret" we learn that intention, the human drive to receive or own what it is WE ourselves want, is the path to having almost anything. Dr. Dyer takes a very different approach, describing intention as a force that is universal, not a human drive at all, but rather much like a force or will that brings everything into its own creation, existence and recycling. Dyer says that if we know how to align ourselves with intention(not if we have the drive to be, get or do what we intend), then indeed our lives will manifest what was intended for us.
The difference between the two concepts of intention is significant.
One is mystical, and packaged to be attractive in a marketing sense. Dyer's concept, and apparently the concept of many other world recognized deep thinkers has little to do with what WE determine our path is(our ego), and more to do with a power of creation that has a purpose for everyone and everything.
If you are interested in what a connection to "intention" can produce in your life, I'd suggest leaving "The Secret" and picking up Dr. Dyer's book.
It certainly was my intent to do so.