Complacency and micromanagement seem to be two diametrically opposed ideas. Yet complacency leads to micromanagement. And micromanagement causes team complacency. They feed off of one another and yet they are mortal enemies.

We've been working with several clients lately on developing their next generation of leaders. Without fail, every client grouping of senior managers talks of the weak or under-developed personnel management, delegation, strategic thinking, and personal accountability skills in their direct-report managers. The really interesting thing is: Almost all of these senior managers are individuals who themselves had these same weak skills just a few short years ago. Huh. I wonder how they gained them ...

Refocusing and starting over is hard. It takes a lot of soul-searching and - if done honestly - it forces us look at ourselves, our skills, our attitudes, and our behaviors objectively. But for those who do truly want to be better, and more productive going forward, we need to do something different.

How good is your company at doing what you say you do? How good are your employees at being the experts in their fields? In tough times and bad, how good are you at Keeping It Real?

I learned this week that a client started a program in which every manager is part of a team to help less-experienced staff learn basic project management techniques. The overall intent is to not only enhance the project management skills of the less-experienced participants, but to also identify and implement efficiency enhancement opportunities throughout the organization. This will enable more employees to take lead positions on future projects, to develop their individual skills, and to obviously support the company. Terrific right? Well in theory it sounds great. However, in application it's not so great. Why? Management's not showing up.

I had a difficult experience this past week: I had to practice what I preach. I had to listen to someone share her criticisms, suggestions, and proposed new procedures for an organization I have been heavily involved with for the past five years. And here's the tough part, I had to force myself not to interrupt her. Every time Susan said something I disagreed with I had to struggle to control my knee-jerk reaction and say "But you don't understand...", "But we've tried that before", "But..."  I had to listen critically.

We recently started a six-month leadership training program with a new client. The participants are accepted into the program only after they have been nominated by someone at or above their position in the company, and they have successfully passed the program's interview process. The interesting part of this process has been that several participants have indicated they were surprised they were nominated, but they are grateful to whomever nominated them. That's nice. But I believe it's a rather odd approach to nurturing talent.