Wisdom of the flying pig – Interview with Jack Hayhow

By Rajesh Setty on Mon 14 Jul 2008, 5:54 PM - 7 Comments

Last week I had an opportunity to talk to Jack Hayhow, founder of Opus Training. I also had an opportunity to read his wonderful little book called “The Wisdom of the Flying Pig” and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jack was not only kind enough to answer a few of my questions for the benefit of the readers of Life Beyond Code but also offer an eBook version of “The Wisdom of Flying Pig” for FREE. Details to access the book are at the end of this blog post

Now, here is the Q&A with Jack Hayhow:

RS: The title of your book mentions managers AND leaders. What, in your opinion, is the main difference between managers and leaders?

JH: That’s an important question and one that a lot of people have asked. There is some overlap between management and leadership, but in my view the roles and responsibilities of managers and leaders are fundamentally different. Managers look first to the individual in the present moment while leaders look first to the group and toward the future.

Managers help their companies grow one person at a time by helping each individual turn his or her talent into performance. The great manager’s focus is always locked on to what is happening with each individual direct report in real time.

On the other hand, every leader on the planet woke up today thinking about tomorrow. The gift of great leaders is that they rally the collective passion of the organization toward a better future.

RS: How can people evaluate themselves as a manager?

JH: The important thing to remember is managers don’t get paid for what they do, they get paid for what their people do. So, if you want to figure out how you’re doing as a manager, ask yourself these three questions:

1) Are your people more productive working for you than they would be working for someone else?

2) Are your people growing more working for you than they would be working for someone else?

3) Do your people stay with the company longer working for you than they would have stayed working for someone else?

RS: What’s the litmus test for leaders?

JH: There have been thousands of books written about that question, but I think it’s productive to think about what leaders are responsible for producing. At the end of the day, it seems to me there are four deliverables of great leadership:

1) Amazingly engaged employees

2) Evangelical customers

3) Consistently solid financials

4) Growth (Revenue, Profit, Capability)

Without these results, it’s hard to be described as a great leader.

RS: What’s the most important thing a manager can do to be successful?

JH: There are a handful of critical activities, so it’s tough to pick just one. But you asked for one, so maybe we can compromise – I’d mention two:

1) Make sure your people have the talent they need to do the job you’ve asked them to do.

Great achievement starts with great ability. The idea that anybody can do anything is just flat wrong. If you want your people to perform at a high level, you have to identify each person’s talent and then match that talent with the task.

2) Make sure your people are doing work they find satisfying and meaningful.

Without quoting all the research (and there is a ton of it), just know that intrinsic motivation trumps any external device, process or practice ever invented by man. When the work itself is meaningful and satisfying, people are inspired to amazing achievement and the manager’s need to motivate mostly disappears.

RS: What characteristics must a leader have to be successful?

JH: Leaders can be successful in a number of different ways. But there are some indispensable characteristics. The two that jump most immediately to mind are honesty and optimism.

Honesty requires that you tell the truth, of course. But it goes much deeper. You must always do what you say you will do. Your actions must be absolutely consistent with your words. If you don’t walk the talk, you can’t be believed and you will fail as a leader.

Optimism is central to leadership because people need hope. They need to believe the future will be better than the past. To be a leader, you must have followers – people who will commit their hearts and minds and sweat to attaining your vision. Can you imagine that anyone would commit so much to a person who is pessimistic about the future?

Now, here are the instructions to access the eBook version of “The Wisdom of the Flying Pig”

1) Go to: www.OpusTraining.com

2) Click on “Books and eBooks”

3) Click “Add to Cart”

4) Enter Discount Code: L8B1C

Have a great week ahead!

Related Articles:

Posted in the Main Page category.

If you enjoyed this article, Get Life Beyond Code delivered by email or subscribe using your Feed Reader and

RSS

« Previous Post

pierrot on July 14th, 2008

Responsibility is to menage people. And of course – to be a good leader, you must be a good man inside,don`t you?
Rajesh congratulations for the interview! For fist time probably, i read somebody to talk about “the others”, not for “him”…

Bennet Simonton on July 15th, 2008

The question is not helpful in learning about managing people.

Don’t get confused by catchy answers like “a manager does things right, a leader does the right thing.” They sell books but they have no substance. The words have different meanings.

Managing applies to the effective use of a resource such as money management or supply chain management or what-have-you. People are a resource and they must be managed like any other resource, but obviously the tools are different for each resource.

Leadership applies to people and denotes the sending of value standard messages to people which they then follow/use. Thus we say that they have been “led” in the direction of those value standards. Leadership is therefore one side of the coin called values, the other side being followership.

Leadership is not a process any manager can change. It happens inexorably every minute of every day because of the way people are. The only choice available to a manager is the standard (good, bad, mediocre or in between) which employees will follow.

For instance, the top-down command and control technique is a specific method by which to manage people . Since top-down by its nature demeans and disrespects people, it “leads” them to demean and disrespect their work, their customers, each other and their bosses resulting in very poor performance.

If you want to lead employees to very high performance, treat them with great respect and not like robots, thus “leading” them to treat their work, their customers, each other and their bosses with great respect. The way to treat them respectfully is to listen to whatever they want to say when they want to say it and to respond in a very respectful manner. Responding respectfully means resolving their complaints and suggestions and answering their questions to their satisfaction as well as yours, but most importantly theirs.

So employees follow the leadership of their bosses, whether or not the bosses realize it. The bosses leadership is reflected in the support that the bosses supply to their employees. Remember, it is management’s responsibility to support their employees with training, tools, parts, discipline, direction, material, procedures, rules, technical advice, documentation, information, planning, etc. The quality of this support constitutes the boss’ “leadership”.

I managed people for over 30 years and was able to escape the top-down approach after my first 12 years. What I escaped to proved more effective than anyone could dream.

Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
http://www.bensimonton.com

admin on July 15th, 2008

Pierrot, Ben:

Thanks for visiting and sharing your perspective.

Best,
Raj

Tanmay Vora on July 15th, 2008

Great Interview – thanks to you and Jack for sharing the e-book which is a treasure trove of wisdom and some great insights.

admin on July 16th, 2008

Thank you Tanmay. How have you been?

I enjoyed the book and I am glad to hear that you liked it too.

Best,
Raj

Tanmay Vora on July 18th, 2008

Hi Raj, I am doing excellent, thanks!

Talking about books, I recently read “High Performance Entrepreneurship” by Subroto Bagchi – wonderful book with some great learnings on entrepreneurship/management/leadership. Moreover, details on how those learnings were applied in evolution of Mindtree was a bonus!

I know this book reference is a slight diversion from the topic of blog post – but good books are our best friends, and I am reminded of this everytime I read a good book/ebook.

Thanks again.

Tanmay