Credibility LO14707 -Comments

JOE_PODOLSKY@HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com
Tue, 19 Aug 97 14:37:26 -0700

Replying to LO14692 --

Here are more good comments ... Joe

______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________
Subject: Re: Joe's Jottings #75 - Credibility
Author: LANE MICHEL at HP-PaloAlto,om15
Date: 8/15/97 2:31 PM


In their book, "Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People
Demand It", James Kouzes and Barry Posner do a very nice job of laying
out the path to credibility almost as if they put it in a prism and
rotated it to see each of the facets of the road to credibility as a
leader. This affirms your points applied to IT and goes further.

Discovering your self as a base for credibility. Setting an
environment to grow credibility with your employees (or clients).
Developing "capacity" to build mutual credibility. Focus on a purpose
and gaining depth of passion and expertise.

And they share what constitutes "credible behavior", this based on five
studies. The conclusion: "credibility makes a difference. People can
differentiate between behaviors of individuals who are credible and
those who are not ... the six disciplines of credibility --
discovering, appreciating, affirming, developing, serving, and
sustaining -- reliable measure actions that build the foundation of
leadership..." And I would add SUCCESS.

Lane Michel (HP-Palo Alto)
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Hi Joe,

Read the article, liked the jotting + comments, here's some thinks....

> 2) Go beyond the minimum - delight them (as often as you like).
> (Never do it because you think they expect it, or because you
> want them to see you do it. Do it because you CAN.)

Dave's rules for delight:
(a) If you've not got the basics right, forget the delight factors.
(b) Delight = Expectation + 1
- It's surprising how little it takes to delight.
(c) It's got to be unexpected. Make it spontaneous.
(d) A successful delight is likely to become a demand.
- Can you do it as a standard next time?

> 4) Never, ever, define your customer.
> (The act of definition sets YOUR limitations, not theirs.)

Brilliant! Love this one to bits. Thanks, PC Pete. I guess the trick, then,

is in getting the customer to define themselves?

I'd also add:

* Get together with the other infrastructure folks (quality, personnel,
etc.) to develop joint products, skills, etc.
- This needs the infrastructure depts to trust one another...

* Read 'Getting Together' by Fisher and Brown.

Dave Straker (HP-UK)

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Re: Lexy's behavior cues - I can think of no faster way to devolve our
species than to model our behavior after that of our children.

Bo Davis (HP-Sonoma County)
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(These are the comments Lexy made that Bo is referring to:)

But this age thing is pretty interesting. Not only do we need to keep
up with our skills to maintain credibility, but we have to keep up on
what is acceptable behavior across generations. And, it's probably in
our ball park to keep up on what is acceptable, since the future is in
the hands of our kids and younger co-workers and they are delightfully
brash and cocky and not likely to change. Now, I'm not going to go
grunge or pierce my nose, but I do watch my behavior. No longer do I
try to hug everyone (way too California anyway) because it might be
construed as harassment. I find myself swallowing some of the "caring"
comments, and I find myself being a bit paranoid occasionally. Can I
keep up? Do I want to? Of course, I do.

-- 

JOE_PODOLSKY@HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com

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