Randy Hain is an Adjunct Faculty Member in the Executive Education Programs offered at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business

I wrote the last version of this white paper well over two years ago. Much has changed in the world of social networking with the explosive growth of Twitter and Facebook and it is clear that how we build personal and business connections is ever evolving.

Without a doubt, the best tool for connecting business people is still LinkedIn. It focuses on connecting business professionals and doesn’t bore you with the minutiae of Twitter or the more social, casual focus of Facebook although both are gaining popularity among recruiters to find candidates.

Despite the rising popularity of these new tools, LinkedIn has also enjoyed rapid growth as a recent search of their website revealed that LinkedIn has more than 175 million members as of August 2012 in over 200 countries, and is adding new ones at the rate two new members per second.

Consider these statistics:
All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented on LinkedIn. In fact, all of them are represented by director-level and above employees

More than 1.4 million members self-identify as senior executives

Most members tend to be between 30 and 55 years old

More than 2 million companies use LinkedIn.

For the purpose of this white paper, I make two basic assumptions: you are familiar with the Web site and you are interested in expanding your network for personal or professional reasons. With these assumptions in mind, let’s explore different ways to approach LinkedIn, changes to LinkedIn since the first version of this article, paradigm shifts among users of the site, and best and worst practices.

“I have a profile, now what do I do?”

This is the question I hear most often. Whether you are a job seeker, a sales professional, a recruiter or simply interested in making new connections, you will see your best results by approaching LinkedIn with this mindset:

1. Have a “pay it forward” attitude.

2. Focus on finding people you don’t know.

This seems obvious, but it can be easy to fall into the habit of “collecting” contacts you already know. I find the real value of LinkedIn is connecting with people of different backgrounds outside of your current network who can help you with your objective.

3. Reach out to those people you don’t know.

A majority of people on LinkedIn are open to networking, so don’t be afraid to introduce yourself. Networking is likely why they joined in the first place.

4. View LinkedIn as an enormous spider web.

Your direct connections and their connections and their connection’s connections are all part of your network. So, get as many direct connections as possible to ensure that you can run searches within a very large population.

5. Be transparent in your profile and complete it fully.

Give clear descriptions of the jobs you have had and always include a bio under the Summary section. Also, I advocate sharing personal interests, charitable causes, hobbies, affinity groups, faith, etc. We will review why this is important later.

6. Recognize that the Internet does not allow you to hide.

In the age of Google, it is practically impossible to hide work and personal information. Utilize LinkedIn to showcase the information you want to share. Therefore with the typically high placement of LinkedIn profiles in Google searches, you are likely to have this seen first by others.

7. Don’t let LinkedIn serve as a substitute for human interaction.

Any people oriented business thrives on relationships and face-to-face meetings. Utilize this tool to make the connection and build a bridge, but always follow up with a phone call and a meeting.

These approaches to working with and maximizing what LinkedIn offers have served me well. And it continues to evolve as my needs change and the technology becomes more sophisticated over time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Randy Hain is an Adjunct Faculty Member in the Executive Education Programs offered at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business. He is the Managing Partner and Shareholder of Bell Oaks, a nationally recognized executive search firm. Randy has an established track record of leading successful searches and building teams in diverse industries and functional specializations ranging from individual contributors to C-level leadership. He has earned a reputation as a values-based leader who invests heavily in his colleagues, candidates and clients. Randy’s deep sense of community is reflected in his work and that of the partners of Bell Oaks. Randy is a prolific writer with his third book, Something More: The Professional’s Pursuit of a Meaningful Life (foreword by NY Times best-selling author Chester Elton) being released March 1, 2013. The book is available through Amazon and at bookstores around the world. Randy may be reached at rhain@belloaks.com or through his personal website, www.randyhain.com.

Robert (Rob) Williams, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the Robinson College of Business.

It makes sense in terms of our psychology  to suppress all conflict in order to avoid the major and destructive conflicts. Because we still have parts of evolutionary brain functions operating, we tend to be better equipped to move away from threat and danger than we are to see opportunity or improvement and move toward it. The question for most organizational leaders is how to have the right amount of conflict to spark creativity and not let the fire burn too hot or spread too widely. Research into group dynamics and what I have observed in working with executive teams in organizations suggests that:

• There is more suppressed conflict within groups—including high functioning executive teams—than anyone will admit.
• Leaders spend significant amounts of time “dampening” conflict, usually by working with individuals rather than the group as a whole. Group members spend equal amounts of time “dampening” conflict with the leader by publicly agreeing and privately opposing.
• Leaders and members of high performing teams think they “don’t have the time or energy” to have conflict so they have to keep it suppressed. This becomes the classic “spend time now or spend time later” dilemma in organizational development. Suppressed conflict, left unattended, will sap performance.
• Conflict that is suppressed spreads faster and more widely than conflict that is openly discussed among the principals to the conflict.
• Suppressed conflict has a cost and rarely any benefit such as prompting creativity and innovation.

One international foundation, known for their good works for children and families, viewed internal conflict as, according to one widely circulated HR memo, “disruptive to the collaborative and team spirit we expect of all employees” and “disloyal to the founder of this foundation and his vision.” Unfortunately, the written policy became a cultural norm where employees would use this policy as a justification to squash the conflict. According to an anonymous survey I conducted, even raising questions about the policy was viewed as a violation. A foundation that prided itself on bringing about change through its ideas soon became outdated with ideas different from those of its grantees.

The Importance of Mid-Range Conflict
So what is the right amount of conflict to fuel creativity? If the conflict continuum discussed above were given some point values—with extremes of major conflict a “10” and extremes of minor conflict a “1”—then the creativity begins to emerge at about a 3 or 4 and begins to disappear at about a 7 or 8, with conflict from 5-6 the most desirable for fueling creativity.

This “mid-range” conflict has enough importance, enough personal investment in different opinions and views, enough emotion, and enough challenges to current or acceptable ways of doing things that it “drives” people out of safe and familiar ways of thinking and doing. Mid-range conflict carries enough negative consequences to serve as a counter balance to the risks associated with breaking organizational norms, appearing stupid, offending others, public humiliation, and challenging power.

Keith James, Patrick Lencioni, Robert Sutton and several other organizational psychologists and management experts have written about the importance of mid-range conflict in fostering creativity within high performing groups. For example, mid-range conflict is important in setting organizational goals and holding each other accountable; gathering and communicating a wide range of conflicting data sources; and ensuring that all perspectives are heard (a key to motivation and implementation).

Major conflict, in almost all cases, impedes creativity and innovation. Given the highly personal, emotional and intractable nature of major conflict, arguments move away from changes needed in the organization to personal attacks. These attacks ultimately reduce trust, dampen candid dialogue, and limit creativity.

Some organizations have been successful in maintaining a mid-range level of conflict. Here’s what they learned:

• It’s not solely a leadership responsibility. Instead, every member of the organization has some responsibility to speak up, even disagree, both with peers and superiors. After several incidences of administering incorrect dosages of drugs and even the amputation of the wrong limb, one hospital needed to create “Please Ask” training sessions to break the culture of doctors being perceived as always being right and nurses not having the right to object.

• You need “devil’s advocates”. A position created in 1587 by the Catholic Church, a devil’s advocate would argue against the canonization of a candidate for sainthood. Organizations and the leaders seeking more creativity and innovation need more people questioning standard practices and norms. Rather than allowing the natural “devil’s advocates” to emerge—and then be scapegoated for their negative views—organizations desiring mid-range conflict appoint them, and then make sure there is “absolution” for them, especially when the idea they argued most strongly against becomes a new practice.

• Develop norms and ethics around conflict. During a lean period of my consulting work I ended up working with a “manufactured housing association” and the mobile home salespeople who made up their board.  They clearly wanted to improve their association, their board governance and even their own professional development. When I confessed my stereotypes of mobile home salespeople. The association president said, “When you do something that everyone thinks is good for the community—schools, churches, civic clubs—you don’t have to do things right. When you do something that society looks down on, you better do it right.” In the military, any subordinate can say to a superior: “Permission to speak freely?” If granted, the subordinate is free to question an order without being viewed as breaking the chain of command.

• Practice relative analysis. In another organization, the practice of “relative analysis” in which critics focused on relative strengths and weakness that exist for all ideas became known as “Moonlight and Mackerel” sessions in honor of early 19th century Virginia politician John Randolph who described a political rival as “like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks.” More graphically, an executive leadership team encouraged conflict to spark creativity but had a collection of rubber novelty replicas of distasteful digestive by-products in the conference room that people could throw on the table when they thought someone was making the conflict too personal or becoming too emotional.

Getting better at managing conflict, especially in the mid-range, will prompt the people around you to be more creative and your organization will be more innovative. Respecting conflict, just as we respect fire, will let you access the benefits while still recognizing the danger. But even leaders successful at managing conflict in the mid-range report that they remain uncomfortable in the presence of conflict. “I always want to find conflict a little distasteful, even with its importance to building effective teams,” said one CEO. “Enjoying conflict just for the sport of arguing and winning and losing is destructive.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert (Rob) Williams, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. Before joining GSU, Dr. Williams served as Associate Director at the UGA Fanning Institute where he initiated several international leadership development programs in healthcare, higher education, environment and philanthropy. He consults regularly on leadership, group dynamics, change management and organizational psychology and has been a partner with Triangle Associates in Chapel Hill, N.C for 20 years. A former Associate Director of Duke University’s Pew Center for the Health Professions, Dr. Williams is a Social Psychologist holding a Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development from The Fielding Institute.

Your Second Key Career Move: Show You Can Make a Healthy Business Better

Stephen A. Miles is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Miles Group.

While turnarounds can provide dramatic stories about an executive’s capabilities, readiness for the C-suite requires a demonstrated ability to further improve something that is already healthy. After all, few companies are in a constant state of turnaround. The “burning platform” that can help leaders engage followers is less available to leaders in a healthy company. Issues with complacency abound – if nothing is broken, there is nothing to fix. And, unlike a turnaround where it might seem any move makes progress, incremental improvements to a healthy system are harder to identify. Psychologically, there may be a fear of making a move that upsets the current successful equilibrium. To be effective improving a thriving business, leaders have to develop different capabilities. In short, they have to find ways to innovate and improve without rocking the boat? If an executive wants to be trusted with a C-suite position they have to be able to point to proof they can manage a steady ship. Improving a healthy business helps executives develop and demonstrate a number of important capabilities:

• It positions you as a true general manager with final P&L responsibility.
• It provides exposure to the CEO and board.
• It requires you to develop the ability to negotiate with the C-suite as you look to balance the interests of your business unit with those of the leaders of other business units.
• It requires you to think broadly about the business and its industry in terms of positioning, go to market strategies, the competition, and future sources of revenue.
• It demands that you learn to use functional experts (legal, human resources) both in your business and from corporate.

Your Third Key Career Move: Spend Time in a Staff Role

Nathan Bennett, Ph.D., is Professor of Management in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

We hold that a career move many executives dismiss may actually be one of the most instrumental in efforts to prepare for an opportunity to be part of the C-suite: Serving a rotation in a corporate staff role. Too often, executives assume that being offered a staff role is like being offered a ticket watch from the sidelines. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What does a staff rotation do for someone’s career development? The most obvious benefit is the exposure – both to the board and top management team members and for you, to everything going on at the company. As Ted Mathas shared, based on his time in such a role, you have tremendous access to everything that comes across the desk of the executive you work for. You attend the majority of senior level meetings and have a front row seat to understanding how the business is run, how the members of the top management team interact, and the interpersonal relationships among them. That’s a powerful learning experience, but the position provides even more. First, many executives – particularly those who are rapidly promoted – are in that position because they are being noticed and rewarded for their ability to drive results. The emphasis on the word “drive” is intentional. Rapidly promoted individuals are, more often than not, very directive in style and narrow in their exposure to the company. For such an executive, the staff role is a tremendous place from which to develop tools to address these gaps – soft management skills and an understanding of the “big picture”. Specifically, the staff role teaches how to lead with force of personal influence rather than from force of position. This skill allows an executive to manage rather than direct an outcome.

Next, a corporate staff role teaches executives how the headquarters office works. In doing so, the value that can be created at the HQ level becomes clear. When people miss this rotation and become the CEO they often discount the HQ functional staff and create an unproductive rift between HQ and the field and distract everyone from a focus on the business. If a new CEO discounts the value of corporate functions they typically do not recruit the best into these roles and the failure to add value becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They also don’t ever learn how to use the corporate staff as true trusted advisors to them on the business—that is a lost opportunity and decreases their overall effectiveness as a leader. Knowing how to be effective in an HQ environment makes you even better when you return to the field.

The Next Move

These experiences – finding something to fix, making a healthy business better, and serving in a staff role – are instrumental in providing the experiences, development opportunities, and exposure necessary for an executive to present a strong case as to their readiness to join the C-suite. While the moves do not need to come in a particular order, we advocate finding something to fix be an early career focus. These opportunities do have some risk; this risk is much easier to take early in a career because should something go wrong, there is time to recover. The first two opportunities allow executives to develop and demonstrate their abilities as a “field general.” By this we mean the leader is closely embedded with the people doing the work; the mission is more clearly defined; the time horizon under which results are required is shorter term; and the leader more likely has their hands on the financial and operational levers that direct the enterprise. The last opportunity provides the chance to exercise abilities as a “Pentagon general.” Here, much of the leader’s attention is focused further in to the future; a greater emphasis is necessary on engaging field generals, through participation and inspiration, to execute towards longer term, more abstract goals. The ability to influence without direct authority is tested regularly in these sorts of roles.

In all, our observation is that success in each of these three specific types of experiences provides a strong body of work with which to consider for an executive. Individuals who have demonstrated the ability to effectively execute each of these roles become lower risk choices in succession planning because of what they have seen, experienced, learned, and demonstrated. For boards, the implications of our research are useful as candidates in succession planning are evaluated. For executives themselves, these recommendations can help in personal career planning. Individuals who have as a career goal a place in the C-suite are advised to seek and then excel in these three roles. By doing so, they will create a strong narrative as to why they are ready to lead. This narrative is critical: as is true of the other experiences on a resume, the enthusiasm with which an executive’s candidacy is perceived is directly proportional to the degree to which a candidate crafts and communicates a compelling narrative about the preparation received in these positions.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nathan Bennett, Ph.D., is Professor of Management in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business. He specializes in leadership and strategy execution, managing innovation and change processes, top management team dynamics, and contextual influences on individual behavior in organizations. Nate has published in numerous widely-read resources for managers including the Harvard Business Review and Wall Street Journal. He is co-author of the 2006 Stanford University Press title “Riding Shotgun: The Role of the COO” and the 2010 book “Your Career Game: How Game Theory Can Help You Achieve Your Professional Goals.” Professor Bennett received both his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Master’s degree in Applied Research from Tulane University, and a Ph.D. in Management from Georgia Tech.

Stephen A. Miles is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Miles Group. Previously, he was a Vice Chairman of Heidrick & Struggles where he ran the Leadership Advisory Services within the Leadership Consulting Practice and oversaw the firm’s worldwide executive assessment/succession planning activities. With more than 15 years of experience in assessment, top-level succession planning, organizational effectiveness and strategy consulting, Stephen specializes in CEO succession and has partnered with numerous Boards of global Fortune 500 companies to ensure that a successful leadership selection and transition occurs. Stephen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s of Business Administration both from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada; and a Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Victoria.

Nathan Bennett, Ph.D., is Professor of Management in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

What sort of preparation does it take to convince others you are ready to lead in a company? There is no shortage of recommendations for individuals who are interested in preparing themselves to be CEO. A quick perusal of bestselling titles reveals an emphasis on how to “think and to act like a CEO;” critical personality traits leaders must demonstrate are noted, the importance of “executive presence” is touted, and so on. The predominant focus on who you are – or more aptly who you appear to be – quickly becomes apparent.

There is little doubt that we hold stereotypes about the way leaders should look and act. It is easy to poke fun at many of them: “executive-style hair” is a recurring theme in the Dilbert cartoon strip, for example. And it is easy to find examples of individuals who are successful in spite of displaying characteristics quite the opposite of our preconceptions. In the end, these stereotypes about appearances and personality are not particularly useful predictors of ability. Our view is that much better conclusions about leader potential can be reached through a focus on the developmental experiences an executive has had. Too little attention has been paid to understanding the kinds of experiences that best build the mettle it takes to be an effective leader. We have come to believe that success in three specific roles is a strong predictor of an executive’s leadership capability.

Stephen A. Miles is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Miles Group.

We recently completed a research project designed to understand what it was that successful executives had done to prepare themselves for leadership positions. We framed our research by viewing careers as made up of a series of moves in a complex, multi-player game. During the project, we interviewed dozens of executives who were remarkable for the career progress they demonstrated. From our interviews, we have identified the three moves that are critical to the development of an executive capable of leading at the highest levels in a company. Effective execution of these three moves demonstrates your readiness to make the fourth – to the C-suite. Below we discuss each of the moves and illustrate their connection to the case one could make that the experience has prepared them for the top job.

Your First Key Career Move: Find Something Important to Fix

It can be difficult to distinguish yourself early in your career, particularly in a large company. One way to make a mark is to find something that undeniably is broken and to fix it. These positions aren’t usually hard to get because the competition for them is typically low. Should you fail, many will understand the difficulty of what you took on and consequently be quite forgiving. The risk in these turnaround opportunities is usually less than one might suspect. As an example, consider Ted Mathas, President and CEO of New York Life. Early in his career he was offered a job “no one else wanted,” running NYLIFE Securities and Eagle Strategies. These businesses were small and effectively self-contained as businesses far removed from the core activities of New York Life. The fact that the business was a bit off the radar – and had been struggling – meant that Mathas had a great opportunity to try ideas, to experiment, and to learn. He hired his own team, he developed a strategy, and he turned the operation around. Because he was successful, his role was visible at the highest levels of the company.

Similarly, Alex Vanselow was hired away from Andersen by one of its clients, BHP, for a finance role. Now the company’s CFO, he reflected on his first position at the company. BHP gave him three choices for a first assignment and he intentionally picked the worst. He describes the opportunity as challenging for a number of reasons. Professionally, the group had not had a finance manager for a year and a half. Further, the group leader was vocally opposed to the creation of a finance manager position and was dismissive of Vanselow during the brief interview process. It was going to be a challenge personally,too, because the location was not particularly desirable. Rather than bringing his wife to see things for herself, he made a video to play for her. As he noted, you can’t feel the heat on a video. His logic was that he would have a difficult time quickly making a visible contribution at a location where things were working well. He quickly succeeded at winning over his new boss, and it wasn’t long before his efforts earned him the next in a series of promotions.

What is it about these opportunities to fix something that make it such a valuable experience? There are several ways that leading a turnaround develops executive capability:

• It requires the executive to deeply understand the way an operation works, as well as the most critical levers to pull to recover performance.
• Speed is nearly always of the essence; learning to make good, quick decisions is a result.
• The context places a premium on the ability to develop, articulate, and build commitment to a strategy so that the team is motivated to follow.
• Personnel decisions matter a great deal; it forces executives to be honest about who is an asset and who is a liability and to then manage accordingly.
• The lack of slack means incredible discipline around operational efficiencies must be honed.
• The executive has to be comfortable working without a lot of support and to be entrepreneurial in the way resources are acquired.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nathan Bennett, Ph.D., is Professor of Management in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business. He specializes in leadership and strategy execution, managing innovation and change processes, top management team dynamics, and contextual influences on individual behavior in organizations. Nate has published in numerous widely-read resources for managers including the Harvard Business Review and Wall Street Journal. He is co-author of the 2006 Stanford University Press title “Riding Shotgun: The Role of the COO” and the 2010 book “Your Career Game: How Game Theory Can Help You Achieve Your Professional Goals.” Professor Bennett received both his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Master’s degree in Applied Research from Tulane University, and a Ph.D. in Management from Georgia Tech.

Stephen A. Miles is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Miles Group. Previously, he was a Vice Chairman of Heidrick & Struggles where he ran the Leadership Advisory Services within the Leadership Consulting Practice and oversaw the firm’s worldwide executive assessment/succession planning activities. With more than 15 years of experience in assessment, top-level succession planning, organizational effectiveness and strategy consulting, Stephen specializes in CEO succession and has partnered with numerous Boards of global Fortune 500 companies to ensure that a successful leadership selection and transition occurs. Stephen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s of Business Administration both from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada; and a Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Victoria.