Time For A Timely Topic

The media attention given to Annika Sorenstam, a recent article in BusinessWeek called "The New Gender Gap" and a book called, "The First Sex," have all brought to mind an age-old concept: the differences between men and women.

While there are differences, I want to eradicate a mythology about business management: that men and women have to be managed differently. For that matter, we can throw out the other prejudices as well regarding African-Americans, Hispanics, accountants, administrative assistants, top executives, young people, older people and any other grouping where people get managed a certain way because they fall into a specific grouping.

Here are a few premises:

• People run businesses.
• People are unique individuals. Stereotypes about groups do NOT apply to every one in the group.
• To be an effective manager, you need to focus on the individual's characteristics, not the group they fall into.

Here are some of the ludicrous stereotypes I've heard over the years:

• Women do not see the big picture. They are better at executing tactics.
• Men are competitive and incapable of nourishing another person's growth.
• African-Americans only get top executive positions for diversity reasons, not because of their talent.
• Men work in silos, women work in teams.
• Men look at every situation as a competition, women look at them as opportunities for collaboration.
• Women are better communicators while men are better at making the tough decisions.
• Women are better as managers because of their natural tendency to nurture others.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Every one of these statements is ludicrous because they label individuals regardless of their true talents and styles and personalities. Currently, I'm working with groups in nine different organizations. Some have two men at the top, some have two women, some have a man reporting to a woman and some have a woman reporting to a man. Over the past eight years, I've provided presentations to more than 12,000 people, including some senior citizen groups, some high school groups, some not-for-profit groups and mostly corporate groups. I've provided over 700 executive coaching sessions to men, women, Caucasians, African-Americans, Hispanics, people in their late twenties and early thirties, people in their fifties, and employees from every department and function in a business. All of these people were director level or above.

In the midst of all this real-life research, I have never once seen a stereotype that applied to every person in a given group. Managing by stereotype is a massive mistake. You cannot and do not know a person because of their label.

Do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of assuming a person will respond a certain way or has certain strengths just because they have a particular label. Instead look for their strengths, understand their desires and personalities and values, and provide them with opportunities that leverage these characteristics.

In other words, treat all people with respect, which includes respecting them enough to get to know them before you start sticking all kinds of labels on them about what they are or are not capable of doing.

New White Paper – Accelerate Your Strengths

On June 16th I gave a half-day seminar on “Accelerate Your Strengths: practical ideas to boost business momentum” for GE Capital. It was such an interesting project that I wrote a white paper for the group after the seminar based on what we talked about. In turn, that white paper was forwarded on to 7,000 GE employees. Consequently, I thought you might like to read the paper, except this version has all the references to GE taken out. Here is the link for the

Accelerate Your Strengths white paper: http://thecoughlincompany.com/accellerate_your_strengths.html

New Book, Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America's All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach

This book focuses on business lessons that can be learned from soccer. The foundation of the book is how Terry Michler used the powerful simplicity of Dutch soccer to win more games than any other U.S. coach in history.

On July 11th, the finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa between Holland and Spain was watched by more than 700 million people. While I was cheering for Holland at the beginning of the game, a major decision by their coach led me to learning a valuable lesson all over again.

Dutch soccer, which is highlighted in my book, is all based on extraordinary technical skill, efficiency, and precise attacking soccer. This is how a country with only 16 million people competes so extraordinarily well with the world's super powers in soccer including number-one ranked Brazil, whom they beat in the quarterfinals. However, in the World Cup finals Holland abandoned what made them great and instead focused on playing brutal, violent soccer. They wanted to intimidate Spain, and in the end they lost the game and the respect of so many people who love Dutch soccer. What happened and why did they do it?

They felt they couldn't compete with Spain if they allowed them to get into their normal passing game. So they consciously decided to physically attack the Spanish players with violent tackles all over the field. One Dutch player even shoved his metal cleats into the chest of a Spanish player. They received numerous yellow cards, a red card, and ridicule from the world-wide soccer press after the game.

What's the lesson to learn here for every business? Stay true to who you are. When the prize is close don't abandon what got you to be one of the best organizations in your industry. Too many companies in the past ten years have decided that what made them very, very good wasn't going to be enough to make them number one in their industry, and so they got away from their strengths. Big mistake.

I believe Holland will return to their traditional style of play, focus on precise, skillful, attacking soccer, and get away from their violent style of play. I think they learned a huge lesson. And hopefully every business that got away from its core strength in the pursuit of being bigger and more successful financially than anyone else in the industry will also return to its core and get back to winning again.

You can learn more about Find a Way to Win at http://thecoughlincompany.com/book_store.html

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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