5 accountability pitfalls that kill companies

Steve Tobak 7/23/2012 www.cbsnews.com

President Obama's "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" speech hasn't just created a firestorm of political debate. It's got a lot of business people shaking their heads, as well. And that includes me.

While I understand what the president was trying to get at, the fundamental problem with his logic is that it flies in the face of one of the most important management concepts: accountability. When people are held accountable -- to themselves and their stakeholders -- things get done. Good things.

Actually, the speech does a pretty good job of explaining how accountability works, if you just reverse the cause and effect. You see, when people take risks and hold themselves accountable for the outcome, as our founding fathers did, that's what built "this unbelievable American system," to use the president's words.
Granted, that system does now exist, but only through the continuous replication of the concept of personal initiative and accountability. It's not the other way around. The founding fathers were entrepreneurs and innovators in every sense of the way we think of those words today. Had they not been, we wouldn't have this great system.

President Obama was certainly right about one thing. There are a lot of smart and hardworking people out there. And one of the best ways I know of to differentiate and ensure successful outcomes in business is to create solid accountability mechanisms.

Here are the top five "accountability" pitfalls that business leaders and executives typically fall into, in my experience. Some of them don't even appear to be accountability-related on the surface, which is why they're so insidious. If you want a high-performance management team, make sure you avoid them:
Unclear responsibility. This is probably the most common pitfall. Show me an organization and I'll show you managers with misaligned goals and vague responsibility. Two people shouldn't have the same functional responsibility or own the same goal. If you do that, you're asking for things to fall in the crack. That doesn't preclude "matrix" management; the trick is to ensure goals and responsibilities are properly aligned. It can be done.

No follow up. This is practically an epidemic in organizations. Executives are great at coming up with goals, strategies, even metrics. Unfortunately, they're also notoriously bad at following up. I don't care how driven and entrepreneurial executives are; without follow up, nothing good happens. Companies must have a relatively objective and, sorry to say this, strict process for both setting and scoring management performance metrics.

Compensation plans that reward poor performance. Closely related to the "no follow up" problem, most companies have terrible executive compensation plans. Maybe 1 in 10 actually rewards the right behavior and has enough teeth to foster accountability. The problem? The bar for making gobs of money is set too low, and there's not enough difference between success and failure, plain and simple.

Management behavior. When it comes to management behavior, most executives and boards just look the other way. That lack of accountability plays a key role in business failures because dysfunctional leadership results in bad strategic decision-making and poor employee performance and execution. Granted, coming up with metrics for this sort of thing is challenging, but I think "360s" are pretty effective.

Flawed corporate strategy. This is rarely seen as an accountability problem, but it is. When company executives push a flawed strategy, two things inevitably happen. First, smart people in the organization call them on it -- publicly or privately -- word gets around, and management credibility suffers, big-time. Second, folks will start covering their behinds, pointing fingers, acting passive aggressively -- all sorts of dysfunctional behavior that wreaks havoc with organizational performance.

Not surprisingly, I find that executive management teams at consistently successful companies make accountability a priority and, therefore, avoid these pitfalls. It take a real commitment of precious management time and resources. But not only is the payoff worth it, it's a necessity in our hypercompetitive business world.

What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day

By Kevin Purdy  August 22, 2012 www.fastcompany.com

 

 

How much does the first hour of every day matter? As it turns out, a lot. It can be the hour you see everything clearly, get one real thing done, and focus on the human side of work rather than your task list.                                       

Remember when you used to have a period at the beginning of every day to think about your schedule, catch up with friends, maybe knock out a few tasks? It was called home room, and it went away after high school. But many successful people schedule themselves a kind of grown-up home room every day. You should too.

The first hour of the workday goes a bit differently for Craig Newmark of Craigslist, David Karp of Tumblr, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, career writer (and Fast Company blogger) Brian Tracy, and others, and they’ll tell you it makes a big difference. Here are the first items on their daily to-do list.

Don’t Check Your Email for the First Hour. Seriously. Stop That.

Tumblr founder David Karp will “try hard” not to check his email until 9:30 or 10 a.m., according to an Inc. profile of him. “Reading e-mails at home never feels good or productive,” Karp said. “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.”
Not all of us can roll into the office whenever our Vespa happens to get us there, but most of us with jobs that don’t require constant on-call awareness can trade e-mail for organization and single-focus work. It’s an idea that serves as the title of Julie Morgenstern’s work management book Never Check Email In The Morning, and it’s a fine strategy for leaving the office with the feeling that, even on the most over-booked days, you got at least one real thing done.
If you need to make sure the most important messages from select people come through instantly, AwayFind can monitor your inbox and get your attention when something notable arrives. Otherwise, it’s a gradual but rewarding process of training interruptors and coworkers not to expect instantaneous morning response to anything they send in your off-hours.

Gain Awareness, Be Grateful

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.
Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”
Robbins offers the “Hour of Power” segment of his Ultimate Edge series as a free audio stream (here’s the direct MP3 download). Blogger Mike McGrath also wrote a concise summary of the Hour of Power). You can be sure that at least some of the more driven people you’ve met in your career are working on Robbins’ plan.

Do the Big, Shoulder-Sagging Stuff First

Brian Tracy’s classic time-management book Eat That Frog gets its title from a Mark Twain saying that, if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ve got it behind you for the rest of the day, and nothing else looks so bad. Gina Trapani explained it well in a video for her Work Smart series). Combine that with the concept of getting one thing done before you wade into email, and you’ve got a day-to-day system in place. Here’s how to force yourself to stick to it:

Choose Your Frog

"Choose your frog, and write it down on a piece of paper that you'll see when you arrive back at your desk in the morning, Tripani advises."If you can, gather together the material you'll need to get it done and have that out, too."
One benefit to tackling that terrible, weighty thing you don’t want to do first thing in the morning is that you get some space from the other people involved in that thing--the people who often make the thing more complicated and frustrating. Without their literal or figurative eyes over your shoulder, the terrible thing often feels less complex, and you can get more done.

Ask Yourself If You’re Doing What You Want to Do

Feeling unfulfilled at work shouldn’t be something you realize months too late, or even years. Consider making an earnest attempt every morning at what the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a graduating class at Stanford to do:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Customer Service” (or Your Own Equivalent)

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark answered the first hour question succinctly: “Customer service.” He went on to explain (or expand) that he also worked on current projects, services for military families and veterans, and protecting voting rights. But customer service is what Newmark does every single day at Craigslist, responding to user complaints and smiting scammers and spammers. He almost certainly has bigger fish he could pitch in on every day, but Newmark says customers service “anchors me to reality.”
Your own version of customer service might be keeping in touch with contacts from year-ago projects, checking in with coworkers you don’t regularly interact with, asking questions of mentors, and just generally handling the human side of work that quickly gets lost between task list items. But do your customer service on the regular, and you’ll have a more reliable roster of helpers when the time comes.



Timeless Success Recipes From Stephen Covey

by Lisa Nirell July 20, 2012 www.fastcompany.com

 
"Here, have an oatmeal cookie."
That is the disarming way in which my first interview with Stephen Covey began in 2004. In light of Dr. Covey's passing this week, his lessons are more alive than they have ever been. I'm certain that my experiences with Covey were consistent with many others. This is my attempt to summarize those life lessons.
I wish that I could say my first live interview with Covey went smoothly. Although FranklinCovey's press team invited me to their Long Beach, Calif., conference, they asserted that Covey's full schedule would not allow time for me to interview him. My expectations were very low. Suddenly, after the Day 1 main session, the reporter from the Los Angeles Times contacted Deb Lund, the director of PR, and cancelled his interview. She offered me his interview time slot.
I paused three seconds for dignity, then said yes. Here's the rub: I had seven minutes' notice to prepare for the interview.
As a rookie journalist and freelancer for The San Diego Transcript, I was panicking over my lack of preparation. I felt that I just didn't have enough time to make a strong first impression.
My hike to the second story of the conference center felt somewhat like the Bataan death march. I kept a stiff upper lip, looked him straight in the eyes, and spoke the truth. "Stephen, I apologize for not being prepared for this interview." He deftly offered me an oatmeal cookie, sat back in his chair, and proceeded to ask me about my life, my family, and my passions.
Needless to say, the interview is one of my most memorable. Our 15-minute interview spilled into 40. We covered a wide range of topics. Five years later, he graciously agreed to endorse my book and granted me another interview.
Many will remember Covey for his prolific contributions to the burgeoning self-help movement. Others will applaud him for his global impact through his nonprofit endeavors and his prolific speaking and writing abilities. I applaud him for something else.
Covey had an uncanny abililty to push his ego aside and make others feel included and valued. His book, The 8th Habit, outlines his belief that we must find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. Even though we only met three times, he inspired me year after year to weave that philosophy into my daily business activities.
These are the timeless Covey gifts that Stephen gave me:

1. Encourage critical thinking during meetings. I ask for evidence behind every opportunity or problem. I seldom allow hearsay or gossip to drive my own strategic choices or my clients'. When I stray from this philosophy and make irrational, knee-jerk choices, I lose clients and create unnecessary tension. Covey says in The 8th Habit, "between stimulus and response there is a space where we choose our response."
2. I constantly strive for deeper meaning and purpose. While some of my contemporaries become enamored with the latest marketing automation, performance management, or social media platforms, I strive to stay grounded in my life's true purpose. Generating more leads or driving higher EBITDA are not examples of a noble purpose. Automated performance management and stack ranking programs have proven to be a hornet's nest, because they often stray from a company's purpose and assume that some people will always be worthy of termination. Are these ideas holding your company back from reaching its true potential?
3. I strive to eliminate the hourly worker mindset forever. Covey opened my eyes to the foolishness of our Industrial Age thinking. In The 8th Habit, he described the four Industrial Age maladies:
   --"The belief that you must control people;
   --Our view of accounting (People are an expense; machines are assets);
   --The carrot-and-stick motivational philosophy; and
   --Centralized budgeting ... a reactive approach that produces 'kiss-up' cultures bent on 'spending it so we won't lose it next year.'"
4. I schedule time for self-reflection every day. This may mean a five-minute check in with a colleague or my husband, but it gets done. During my CMO peer meetings, I encourage each member to provide a "check in": What's different from our last meeting? What worked in your performance? What didn't work? What are you celebrating? Self-knowledge must take front and center position to text messaging, email, and tweeting. The majority of senior executives I meet confess that reflection is often rejected in favor of addressing the crisis du jour (the urgent versus the important). Picasso once said that "without great solitude no serious work is possible." Perhaps he and Covey conspired at some point to help us strike more balance in our lives.

Covey made this world a better place. I will savor that "oatmeal cookie" moment for the rest of my life.

The truth about liars

Here's a riddle: What are the three times in life it is acceptable to lie? When you are an actor in a play, when you are bluffing in poker and when you are giving objections to a sales person.

Overcoming objections is especially difficult because prospects think it is perfectly okay to play it fast and loose with the truth. Let's look at the liars, half-truth-tellers, "concealers," and the delusional hopeful, whose greatest sin is that they lie to themselves first and then repeat it to us.
I don't have science behind me and I am not a poker expert that can read tells. I do, however, tend to think there are some indicators when the conversation is not completely truthful and those hints are worth watching for.

Over claims. Promises are too big for the person's position in the company or role in the project. Beware the overzealous prospect. They make claims that they can approve the deal because they are afraid you'll move past them and leave them out of the discussions.
Wait-and-see. When someone is delaying the timeline in a buying process he or she defined, it's not a great indicator of honesty. I have found that in these circumstances the person is often checking pricing with the incumbent vendor or negotiating with my biggest competitor while keeping me on the hook.
Too-good-to-be-true. "Price is not a major factor in this decision." "We're not considering any other providers." "We're going to bypass the normal testing phases and put this into full production." I've heard all of these and later in the process not one of them turned out to be true. Was the person lying? Let's say no. But I think she had convinced herself of something that in the end she should have known was not going to be true.
If, then. As in, "...if you just lower your price 11 percent, then we will make the decision right away..." only to find out this was a gambit in a list of demands. This liar is seductive because he preys upon our sense of urgency, and causes us to act as his agent in negotiations within our own firm. The "if, then" liars proceed to blame other forces within their firm, for further delays and heretofore unmentioned requirements, as a means to repeat the "if then" game to win even more concessions.

When I see these types of red-flags, I push. I think a mixture of self-confidence, raw curiosity, and authenticity can get you closer to truth, regardless if the person will tell you the truth or not. The biggest push is raw curiosity -- ask the questions that are uncomfortable. It always surprises me how often we don't ask the questions we know we should because we are afraid of the answer. As if by not asking the question, the answer doesn't exist.

Some of those tough questions can include:

• Why are you considering making a change at this time?
• What is the exact threshold of performance improvement that has to be achieved for us to win this business?
• Who has the greatest amount to lose in your company if you agree to do business with us?

Since you are delaying the decision for 30 days, what specifically will change during that period to enable you to make a better decision in 30 days?

If you made the decision today and went with our firm, what is the biggest thing that could go wrong? Who would be the first to point it out?

This is not the climatic scene of this week's episode of "Law and Order" ("ripped from today's headlines!"), but rather a hunt for information that will help you overcome the real objections. And that's the truth.

Gaining commitment

Tom Searcy July 5th, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Prospects have a hard time with the C word: Commitment. Sure they have signed on the dotted line. But fear, uncertainty and doubt enter the picture. One of the biggest fears prospects usually have is a quite simple question: "How do we get started?"

They're now poised at the end of a cliff and a deep chasm. They can see the other side and implementation of your solution. But between now and then is a huge chasm they cannot cross in their imagination. This, of course, makes them very afraid.

Building a bridge for them will eliminate that gigantic fear and show them your competence, your ability to anticipate and strategize, and your willingness to share a little of the load of transition.

What the prospects want to know is, "What happens between now and then?" And you have to be prepared to answer completely and with confidence.

"Trust us. It'll be done," won't eliminate any fear.

Let's look at how we develop your transition map.

- Start with the question: What will we do today or tomorrow to move this forward? And you take it from there.

- Name and define clearly each step you will take between now and full implementation. Think of everything. Nothing is too trivial to be included: Actions to be taken, people to be involved from both companies, training that will be needed, person(s) from your company responsible for each step, timelines for each step, and individuals to contact in case the prospect has questions.

- Set a regular communication schedule with the prospects to keep them fully informed.

- Establish milestones with key performance indicators where you and the prospects can discuss how everything is going. Define your results threshold for rollout upfront. At each step, what results do you need and what results do your prospects need to make, so that you can move seamlessly through the steps?

- Establish the 30 percent completion point, the 50 percent completion point, and so on.

- Establish an ROI schedule.

This transition map is essential when you're hunting a big deal. Since this is such a large deal and since prospects are fearful, sometimes they will say, "Let's try a little and see how that works." Don't fall into that trap.

I was with a company recently in the far Northwest. They would sell an initial implementation -- fairly complex engineering sales -- and they'd sell almost any volume they could get.

The volume that would allow them to work out the kinks, really engineer the product, and work through the implementation was 10,000 units. But the salespeople were allowed to go out and sell 5,000 units.

Well, you want to know what the first 5,000 units look like? A mess.

During the first 5,000 they're just getting their supply chain management right. They're working through the orientation of parts in the inline manufacturing process. The first 5,000 units is where all the hard, bumpy work gets done. And if the prospects really wanted to know what the future would look like working with that company, the best vantage point would result from viewing it during the implementation of the second 5,000 units.

If you let yourself get caught in the "try it and see how it goes" trap, you won't have made the big sale you want to make, and your prospects will be disappointed with the results. Chances are you'll lose the deal entirely.

Selling 5,000 when you know the only way for prospects to really understand your value proposition is at 10,000 will not get you your big sale. If the prospect isn't interested in buying your entire deal, you need to find other prospects that will. Don't sell yourself short and settle for anything less than commitment.

A cure for toxic salesperson syndrome

 Tom Searcy July 18, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Does your company have a salesperson that is too valuable to let go but too painful to keep?  Toxic sales people are easy to spot in the workplace. Co-workers call them tyrants, jerks, and worse. Most are emotional bullies who treat employees coldly, even cruelly. They are quick to assign blame and even quicker to hog credit for themselves.

But what is the impact of such bosses on company performance? Heavy, according to researchers who polled several thousand managers and employees from a diverse range of U.S. companies. Here's how employees respond to toxic co-workers:

• 80 percent lost work time worrying about the offending employees' rudeness
• 78 percent said their commitment to the organization declined
• 66 percent said their performance declined
• 63 percent lost time avoiding the offender
• 48 percent decreased their work effort

Add to that the legal penalties levied against companies in connection with workplace bullying or the hidden cost of long-term disability if a bully makes his or her targets psychologically incapable of working again. And if word gets around that a company tolerates this sort behavior, the employer may have trouble hiring or retaining good employees.

Despite their adverse impact, toxic managers can be rehabilitated, says workplace psychologist Dr. Bruce Heller, author of the book "The Prodigal Executive." That is good news for any company with the kind of salespeople you can't live with -- and without.

"Toxic sales people can be saved because these are individuals who are extremely successful," Heller says. "Many of these executives could be compared to an elite athlete. They are highly skilled, talented, and energetic. They have passion for what they do and love the companies they're working for. They feel a sense pride in their work, have an insatiable curiosity, and want to learn more."

Unfortunately, many of them have never had coaching or leadership development. They were put into a sales leadership role because they were good at selling and often are eager for a mentor. As a result, many are ripe to learn some of these skills.

Heller has repeatedly found that toxic salespeople can change their personality, even if they have been that way for a long time. "Personality is malleable if there is a reward for doing so," he says, citing the example of one president of a Fortune 500 subsidiary named Peter. "His level of intuition and ability to analyze problems were superb. He was also one of the best negotiators I have ever seen. Peter picked up subtle nuances and would instantaneously have the perfect retort ready."

But the executive never listened to staffers. He felt that because he was the smartest person in the room, listening to others was a waste of time because he already knew what was best. Not surprisingly, there was a mass exodus of top talent from the company.

"I coached Peter to listen using small steps," Heller says. "First, I just had him practice not talking for awhile while his subordinates spoke. Next we had him practice nodding while others spoke. Then, while going through the motions, something amazing happened. He actually heard what they were saying. 'I sure learned a lot more listening than when I was talking.' "
Remember the old joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb? Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

6 Leadership Styles, And When You Should Use Them

www.fastcompany.com 05-29-2012

Taking a team from ordinary to extraordinary means understanding and embracing the difference between management and leadership. According to writer and consultant Peter Drucker, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

Manager and leader are two completely different roles, although we often use the terms interchangeably. Managers are facilitators of their team members’ success. They ensure that their people have everything they need to be productive and successful; that they’re well trained, happy and have minimal roadblocks in their path; that they’re being groomed for the next level; that they are recognized for great performance and coached through their challenges.

Conversely, a leader can be anyone on the team who has a particular talent, who is creatively thinking out of the box and has a great idea, who has experience in a certain aspect of the business or project that can prove useful to the manager and the team. A leader leads based on strengths, not titles.
The best managers consistently allow different leaders to emerge and inspire their teammates (and themselves!) to the next level.

When you’re dealing with ongoing challenges and changes, and you’re in uncharted territory with no means of knowing what comes next, no one can be expected to have all the answers or rule the team with an iron fist based solely on the title on their business card. It just doesn’t work for day-to-day operations. Sometimes a project is a long series of obstacles and opportunities coming at you at high speed, and you need every ounce of your collective hearts and minds and skill sets to get through it.
This is why the military style of top-down leadership is never effective in the fast-paced world of adventure racing or, for that matter, our daily lives (which is really one big, long adventure, hopefully!). I truly believe in Tom Peters’s observation that the best leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders. When we share leadership, we’re all a heck of a lot smarter, more nimble and more capable in the long run, especially when that long run is fraught with unknown and unforeseen challenges.

Change leadership styles
Not only do the greatest teammates allow different leaders to consistently emerge based on their strengths, but also they realize that leadership can and should be situational, depending on the needs of the team. Sometimes a teammate needs a warm hug. Sometimes the team needs a visionary, a new style of coaching, someone to lead the way or even, on occasion, a kick in the bike shorts. For that reason, great leaders choose their leadership style like a golfer chooses his or her club, with a calculated analysis of the matter at hand, the end goal and the best tool for the job.
My favorite study on the subject of kinetic leadership is Daniel Goleman’s Leadership That Gets Results, a landmark 2000 Harvard Business Review study. Goleman and his team completed a three-year study with over 3,000 middle-level managers. Their goal was to uncover specific leadership behaviors and determine their effect on the corporate climate and each leadership style’s effect on bottom-line profitability.
The research discovered that a manager’s leadership style was responsible for 30% of the company’s bottom-line profitability! That’s far too much to ignore. Imagine how much money and effort a company spends on new processes, efficiencies, and cost-cutting methods in an effort to add even one percent to bottom-line profitability, and compare that to simply inspiring managers to be more kinetic with their leadership styles. It’s a no-brainer.

Here are the six leadership styles Goleman uncovered among the managers he studied, as well as a brief analysis of the effects of each style on the corporate climate:

1. The pacesetting leader expects and models excellence and self-direction. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Do as I do, now.” The pacesetting style works best when the team is already motivated and skilled, and the leader needs quick results. Used extensively, however, this style can overwhelm team members and squelch innovation.
   
2. The authoritative leader mobilizes the team toward a common vision and focuses on end goals, leaving the means up to each individual. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Come with me.” The authoritative style works best when the team needs a new vision because circumstances have changed, or when explicit guidance is not required. Authoritative leaders inspire an entrepreneurial spirit and vibrant enthusiasm for the mission. It is not the best fit when the leader is working with a team of experts who know more than him or her.
   
3. The affiliative leader works to create emotional bonds that bring a feeling of bonding and belonging to the organization. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “People come first.” The affiliative style works best in times of stress, when teammates need to heal from a trauma, or when the team needs to rebuild trust. This style should not be used exclusively, because a sole reliance on praise and nurturing can foster mediocre performance and a lack of direction.
   
4. The coaching leader develops people for the future. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Try this.” The coaching style works best when the leader wants to help teammates build lasting personal strengths that make them more successful overall. It is least effective when teammates are defiant and unwilling to change or learn, or if the leader lacks proficiency.
   
5. The coercive leader demands immediate compliance. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Do what I tell you.” The coercive style is most effective in times of crisis, such as in a company turnaround or a takeover attempt, or during an actual emergency like a tornado or a fire. This style can also help control a problem teammate when everything else has failed. However, it should be avoided in almost every other case because it can alienate people and stifle flexibility and inventiveness.
   
6. The democratic leader builds consensus through participation. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “What do you think?” The democratic style is most effective when the leader needs the team to buy into or have ownership of a decision, plan, or goal, or if he or she is uncertain and needs fresh ideas from qualified teammates. It is not the best choice in an emergency situation, when time is of the essence for another reason or when teammates are not informed enough to offer sufficient guidance to the leader.

Bottom line? If you take two cups of authoritative leadership, one cup of democratic, coaching, and affiliative leadership, and a dash of pacesetting and coercive leadership “to taste,” and you lead based on need in a way that elevates and inspires your team, you’ve got an excellent recipe for long-term leadership success with every team in your life.



Robyn Benincasa is a two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, two-time Guinness World Record distance kayaker, a full-time firefighter, and author of the new book, HOW WINNING WORKS: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth, from which this article is excerpted. (Harlequin Nonfiction, June 2012)