John Baldoni's Blog

When it comes to this topic, many of us say, “Yeah, whenever,” and plunge back into whatever we are doing.

The topic is not death or taxes. It is retirement, a goal that many aspire to but many more dread, often for financial or health reasons. However, retirement is a reality. Teresa Amabile, professor emerita at Harvard Business School, has been studying it for the past decade or so. The result is Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You. Along with four other colleagues*, Professor Amabile explores the psychological aspects of retirement, a less well-explored topic.

 As she told me in a recent interview, “I wanted to find out what the experience of retiring was really like psychologically and what happens with relationships in our lives when we retire and what happens with our life structure, the way we live our days and our weeks and our months and our years. That’s got to change drastically. How do people manage those challenges?”

 4-step plan

Essential to planning for retirement are four things to consider

 Alignment, as Amabile says, is a “line between their self that is their most important identities, priorities, current needs, their most important values as they are right now in their life, not as they were at the peak of their career, maybe 20 years earlier, but as they are now alignment between that and their current life structure.”

 The second A is awareness: “You need to really have some insight into yourself and insight into your life structure and its dynamics and how it’s affecting you,” says Amabile. Self-awareness is essential to making the right choices for yourself and as a couple.

 Agency is the third A. It is the ability to determine for yourself how you will live. If you have worked your entire life, what else will you do? What hobbies can you explore – or re-explore? Do you want to be active in your community? How will you and your spouse fulfill your desires and expectations?

 Four is adaptability, which is the ability to roll with the punches. Few things ever go as planned, and so in retirement, you need to make plans for how you will flex when things go unexpectedly, either due to finances, health or community issues.

 Cutting “the cord”

Disengagement from work is different for different people. There is no “magic bullet.” As Amabile says, “The detaching from work can be very tricky, especially for high level leaders in organizations. Because of that strong identification, there’s a loss of professional identity that people fear. There’s also the loss of professional relationships where we may have worked with people for decades. They may have become close friends of ours, people with whom we shared a lot, people with whom we spent a lot of our time, a lot of our waking hours and the relationships with subordinates are valued if only because they give us this daily sense of respect.”

 Re-inventing your purpose

In his book Independence Day: What I Learned about Retirement from Some Who Have Done and Some Who Never Will, Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times writes that some folks thrive in retirement while others do not. The challenge—health and finances permitting—is to live your purpose, renew your life spark, and find something that motivates you. For some, it is continuing to work. For others, it is volunteerism. For all of us, it is to feel connected to family, friends and community.

Amabile and her colleagues call this search for purpose “identity bridging.” She explained, “One important thing that we saw people doing is what we call identity bridging. And that is finding some piece of that pre-retirement identity that was very important to you and figuring out a way to bridge that identity or part of it into your retirement life.” The need to remain relevant – to maintain your sense of self – capabilities and awareness – as you move to another chapter of your life.

The obvious target audience for this book is people who are retired or on the verge of retirement. But, as Amabile told me, “Many younger colleagues of mine have said it’s been very useful for them in thinking about helping their parents, and very young people early in [their] careers do need to be thinking about these retirement issues. It’s way more than saving with that 401k.”

Yes, retirement is the “r-word.” Prepare for it, and you will turn that “r-word” into  “re-engagement” – engaging in what gives you contentment and joy.

*Co-authors of Retiring, along with Professor Amabile, are Lotte Bailyn, Marcy Crary, Douglas T. Hall, and Kathy E. Kram.

Note: To watch the full interview with Professor Teresa Amabile, click here.

First posted on SmartBrief.com 1.08.2025

One of the hardest things for senior leaders to solicit is bad news from the ranks. Mike Ullman, one-time CEO of JCPenney, made it a point at that company to listen to “the most independent, disrespectful people I could think of.”

As Ullman explained in a talk at the Greenwich Leadership Forum about this experience, he said, “You’re on your best behavior the first day. ‘Yes, sir, no, sir.’ Whatever. The second day, you start telling me what’s really going on.” That kind of input, as Ullman realized, was the frank talk senior management needed to hear. 

No whitewashing. Just the truth as employees saw it. What makes this anecdote telling is that Ullman—who passed away recently and whose obituary appeared in the Wall Street Journal—was looking for trouble, or as he put it, “independent, disrespectful people.”

Getting more hands on deck

At first glance, with all senior leaders facing problems, they want to avoid hearing about them and search for them. Yet the best CEOs I know are those who do precisely that. When Alan Mulally was CEO of Ford Motor Company, he held weekly business review meetings with all senior leaders. Such meetings aimed to identify where things were going well and where they weren’t. And if things were problematic, he would ask fellow team members for ideas and solicit their help for one another. Doing this ensured that everyone had a shared stake in the outcome.

It’s easier said than done. Leaders need to make it safe for employees to speak up, especially when things are not going according to plan. If employees feel their voices will be heard and there will be no repercussions from speaking out, they will be motivated to tell the truth. If they fear for their jobs, they will remain silent, and problems will worsen and often increase.

Getting out of the bubble

Sometimes aides shield their boss from unwelcome news. Lt. General H.R. McMaster recounts this exact situation in his new book, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House. In April 2017, as McMaster was being interviewed to become National Security advisor, he said, “Lyndon Johnson’s advisors told him what he wanted to hear instead of what he needed to know to make wise decisions. As a result, the United States went to war in Vietnam without a sound strategy.” 

McMaster added, “Many Johnson administration advisors knew better, but they went along because they were afraid of losing influence with the president.” (McMaster based this anecdote on the themes of his book, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.)

No excuses

Just because aides are not forthcoming does not excuse the person in charge from seeking out the real story. Relying too much and too often on the same inner circle is a recipe for groupthink, which leads to myopic decision-making.

One key aspect of leaders who make it safe for their employees is their sense of humility. As Howard Schultz, the founding CEO of Starbucks, told the Wall Street Journal, Ullman was “steeped in humility” and served as a mentor to Schultz. 

“Treat failure as a learning opportunity and encourage your team to do the same,” says Alan Mulally. When a leader includes themselves in the learning, then it makes it easier to learn from mistakes and find ways to improve. Doing so makes it possible in as Mulally says, to “create a culture of accountability and responsibility.”

It is never easy to get people to open up, but when managers make the effort—by being honest, humble and caring themselves—the truth will come out. 

Note: Biographical details about Mike Ullman come from his Wall Street Journal obituary written by James R. Haggerty.

First posted on Forbes.com 11.26.2024

If you were to walk down the street and ask passers-by what value they get from their tax dollars, you would likely be met with unkind words or blank stares.

Yet, each of us benefits from government services, and the need for those services only escalates when you consider the issues facing the country, from tightened public school funding to crumbling infrastructure, inadequately sourced health care, and climate change.

The means to address such problems lies at the heart of a new book by William Eggers and Donald Kettl, Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems. The book demonstrates how corporations can effectively collaborate with the government to solve pressing challenges.

Eggers and Kettl bring a unique perspective to this issue because both have been actively involved in effective corporate partnerships and public governance matters. Eggers is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Government Insights. Kettl is a professor emeritus, former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Both authors are fellows at the National Academy of Public Administration.

Need for partnership

Eggers told me in an interview he and Kettl wrote the book because “the walls need to come down both between government agencies and between government and the private sector. It is those silos… that create a lot of problems and a lot of friction in the system and prevent us from actually dealing with the issue.”

“The traditional thinking that the private sector only exists to make profits and government agencies is just for, is trying to dis solve public problems is no longer true between,” says Eggers, “because the old wall between profit and purpose is really collapsing. And you’re seeing more and more businesses committed to addressing societal problems and really attracting talent also through social impact. And so what it means is that governments can have an important partner now in solving these problems.”

Kettl says, “what’s going on is, is below the headlines and it’s the kind of thing that most people really don’t focus on.” Take the streets we walk on. People are “walking down the street on something where the private sector has, in all likelihood created that public value as contractors, they’ll lay the concrete to begin with.”

Kettl believes that accountability begins with measuring outcomes. “Does the service system that we’ve created solve the problems that people have and the way that the people want to solve them in a way that creates the least hassle for them along the way?” A survey by the Pew Charitable Trust, says Eggers, showed that “more people favored keeping the programs and in some cases even increasing them than cutting them. So we, we hate government in general. We, but on the other hand, we’d love the government that we’re getting.”

According to Kettl, what the government is doing “is to act as a kind of orchestra conductor among the, the public and the private sectors [as well as] the nonprofit world, federal, state and local… to be able to get things done.” Consider it as a horizontal system, not command and control. One example of this kind of “orchestral collaboration” occurred in Houston. The city “has put together a coalition for the homeless with more than a hundred different organizations that are involved so, so larger than any major symphony orchestra. And in the processes of the last five years reduced homelessness by 63%.”

Ten Action Steps

To build strong partnerships, Eggers and Kettl offer ten action steps (as summarized in a media release).

1. Knock down barriers because siloed thinking hinders success.
2. Seek mutual advantage because shared governance builds on the mutual pursuit of shared strategies.
3. Nurture private partners because effective accountability requires instilling a public spirit into private operations.
4. Build trustworthy networks because improving trust in government depends on excellence in cross-sector collaboration.
5. Grow catalytic government because government often doesn’t so much manage or deliver solutions as it shapes and integrates them.
6. Focus on outcomes because internal procedures can’t dominate the search for multisector success.
7. Make data the language because data creates not only information but the shared grammar for acting on it.
8. Redefine accountability because we need new systems to replace traditional top-down authority.
9. Cultivate cross-boundary leaders because all partners in the governance process have a responsibility to lead—jointly.
10. Make the exceptional routine because the new era of public management requires scaling bridgebuilder know-how across.

These steps provide both insight and guidance into how to make government more responsive, corporations more engaged, and citizens more served. Not easy, but we need to start somewhere.

Note: To see the full LinkedIn Live interview with Bill Eggers and Don Kettl click here.

First posted on Forbes.com 6.28.2023

Sometimes it’s not what you say or do when you lead; it’s what you don’t say and don’t do.

Sean McVay, head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, acquainted himself with this lesson this past season after winning the Super Bowl last year. In an interview with Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic, McVay said:

“I have an ability to bring people with me in this positive energy and this aura. But I also believe that it can be equally destructive, even if I am not saying anything. The frustration, the body language, guys feel –that leads to them being tighter and not going and playing the way they are capable of.”

McVay’s admission is a humbling one. As a go-go coach still in his mid-thirties, McVay is more a firebrand than a velvet glove. But, as his statement reveals, McVay is paying attention to how he comes across to others. When players come to expect praise or even an admonition and do not receive it, then they grow wary. 

According to McVay, the Rams’ defense did fine this year; the offense – McVay’s specialty – fell apart. Their demise was more than the loss of veteran star quarterback Matthew Stafford. McVay, known for being a control freak, held himself apart from the team, and its performance suffered.

Communicate clearly

So often, nuance is lost in leadership. What matters are consistency and direction. In short, be true to your leadership modality. Authenticity matters.

Set clear expectations. This statement is so obvious it is too often forgotten. It is essential to let the team know what is expected of them. Team objectives are often stated, but expectations for behavior are not communicated. Make it clear how people are supposed to work together and collaborate – as part of their jobs!

Body language speaks volumes. Employees, to quote Maya Angelou, remember how you make them feel. You let people know you are displeased if you look annoyed or irritated. Crossed arms radiate defiance. Rolling of the eyes means, “you can’t be serious.” An excellent way to check on body language is to ask a trusted colleague to watch how you speak and listen.\

Keep true to form. I once heard a story of a manager who posted a smiley face on his door when he was in a good mood and a frowny face when he was in a bad mood. It was not subtle, but it communicated clearly what the boss was feeling on any given day. 

Changing it up

McVay noted that some of the team’s spirit returned when quarterback Baker Mayfield took over. New to the team and without any practice before his first appearance, Mayfield led them to victory. McVay said the fun in coaching returned after the team was out of contention. The pressure was off.

Keep in mind that leaders can and do change stripes. For example, avuncular-style leaders can become more demanding in times of crisis. And conversely, strict disciplinarian leaders loosen up in similar situations. The changeup in style is designed to keep the team focused. What is important is to communicate so that people know what you are doing and why. 

First posted on Forbes.com 0406.2023

“He met with every player, wanting to find out how the franchise could do a better job of supporting them, and he ended up doing far more listening than talking. The feedback from players convinced him that changes were needed.”

The “he” in this paragraph, penned by Detroit Free Press writers Evan Petzold and Jeff Seidel, is Scott Harris, the president of baseball operations for the Detroit Tigers. Harris, though still in his late 30s, came to the Tigers with an impressive pedigree; he served in an executive capacity with the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants. In the nearly year and a half that Harris has held this position with the Tigers, he has been a cross between a sponge and an executive. A sponge is soaking up information. An executive in making decisions.

And decisions need to be made. Owner Chris Illitch hired Harris to make some changes. And they were necessary. The Tigers have not won a World Series since 1984 and have not been in a Series in over a decade. In the 2020s, they have had a win percentage under .500.

Listen first

“It’s pretty cool what he did,” Tiger catcher Jake Rogers told the Free Press. “He did a lot more than we expected. He really listened, which is pretty cool from an owner. To have meetings with Scott Harris and listen to him and be like, ‘Hey, look, this is what the guys are saying.’ And he didn’t have to do any of it. It’s changes to literally everything.”

That one statement sums up what leaders who seek to make changes need to do before they make any significant change: listen. And listen some more. And such lessons extend far beyond the baseball diamond. Part of listening means following the way of the gemba, the Japanese term referring to “where the work is.” Harris, based in Detroit, visited all the Tiger facilities, from spring training in Lakeland, Florida, to the minor league parks. 

Among the wish list for the players were upgrades to the clubhouse, including new showers and a modernized weight room that includes cardio-strengthening. A new cafeteria was added to the spring training facilities. Harris presented this wish list to owner Illitch who approved them. While these upgrades incurred cost, they may have more than paid for themselves in terms of player goodwill.

“Little Things” matter

The lesson for managers everywhere is to pay attention to the little things. Making small changes that employees request are small in scope but can be enormous in terms of outcome. It is not the prerequisite that matters; it is the fact that a manager listens. And, like Scott Harris, willing to take these concerns to the owner who signs the check.

New facilities do not build championship teams. Players do. In that regard, Harris and his scouting team have drafted, promoted, and signed talented players to set a foundation for future success. Nothing is guaranteed in baseball – as in life – but when leaders at the top listen and act, then good things can occur.

First posted on SmartBrief 4.102024

“The more air we can put in there, the better.”

Comedian Tom Smothersmade this statement to TV critic David Bianculli in a 1997 interview for Fresh Air. “I believe that timing [is] the most important – silence is probably the most important part of music. And silence or tension is one of the most important things in comedy.”

The late Tom Smothers, along with brother Dick, were comedians whose gentle irreverence – and later outright comedic irreverence on their 1960s television show — changed the face of television comedy.

Pace Yourself

Tom’s discussion of “air” – as in a metaphorical space to breathe — gets to the heart of effective communications, so it is helpful to dissect. Let’s take each of the elements one by one.

Space. Let the message resonate. Think of a five-year-old coming home from the zoo bursting with excitement, telling you all about the lions, elephants, and ice cream treats. Their words tumble forth in a stream of consciousness. It is a word cloud rather than a story.

By contrast, listen to a masterful speech, Martin Luther King’s oration at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington. After beginning his prepared remarks, King, reading the audience, launches into his “I Have a Dream” oratory. He utters sentences with the resonance of the pastor. He was coupled with the artful pause to give each line its due, letting the audience absorb it.

Timing. A classic moment in radio comedy was a live sketch Jack Benny performed. In the skit, the robber says, “Your money or your life?” Pause, and the audience giggles. The robber interrupts, “Your money or your life?” To which Benny, whose persona was that of a tightwad, replies, “I am thinking it over.” The audience roars.

Tension. Pauses in music, the highs and lows, create a harmonic tension that adds the elements of either drama or lightness in the measures that make the melody worth listening to. Think of the rising tension in Mahler’s Second Symphony, “The Resurrection,” which rises in crescendo, reaching a climax where the entire orchestra is engaged and released.

The same effect occurs at the end of the “Day in the Life” by the Beatles, where the symphonic sound rises only to be punctuated at the climax by the famous E major chord that caps the moment and releases the tension as the sound dissipates slowly.

Tension in communication comes when the speaker speaks slowly and deliberately, altering the tone and volume of his voice as a musician does. And with an artful use of pauses, the speaker drives home the message so the listeners hear and absorb it.

Putting it all together

Freddie Ravel, a Grammy-nominated pianist, composer and keynote speaker, puts all these elements in a text and video commentary he posted on LinkedIn. “In our day-to-day conversations, few people ever consider the power of the S P A C E between the words they say. As in great music where there is a melody and lyric that moves the listener, there too is the use of S P A C E, RHYTHM, and PACING that can make or break whether or not the message is successfully received by your clients, colleagues, or the public in general.”

Ensuring the message is “successfully received” requires practice, so here’s an exercise. Read your presentation (or something you have written) aloud as slowly as possible. Enunciate each word. Pause after every sentence. Vary your pitch. Record yourself and listen to the playback. It will help you determine where the variances in pitch and pauses work best. Remember, this is not actual presentation, it is an exercise designed to help you learn to give the words the air and the space they need to drive home your message.

Note:  For more insight into the Smothers Brothers, see David Bianculli’s book, Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”

 First posted on Forbes.com 00.00.2024

“A great story is what results when humanizing wisdom and grace, and technical and aesthetic craft operating at their highest frequencies, kiss each other.”

So writes Gareth Higgins, an author and advocate, a peace activist who grew up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, a period of sectarian conflict between Protestants and Catholics. One of the tools that Higgins uses is storytelling, which he uses to illustrate the concept of “belief.”

“I grew up in a society that saw them, what you could call the worst manifestation of what happens when you unconsciously accept a story of us versus them,” Gareth told me in a recent interview. “And that is the worst manifestations. You end up killing each other. And if you start from the premise that your story is correct and you don’t question your story, you might very well be likely to cause suffering to others and certainly to yourself, unless the story you believe is that the evolution of humanity is one that’s pointing toward more connection and not more separation toward more shared and individual responsibility and not more selfishness and scapegoating toward what I call community creativity and the common good.”

Existential beliefs

When you believe in something so wholeheartedly, it gives meaning to your existence, but when those beliefs conflict with what others think, there can be discord. The challenge for storytellers is to use its methods to reveal inner truths that lie underneath beliefs and, when brought to light, can create new understandings.

“And the truth is, someone always needs to go first,” says Gareth. “There always needs to be someone who has enough grounding and stability within themselves to be the first to say, I’m going to listen to you. I’m going to put aside my prejudices. I’m going to put aside my insistence in getting it my way. Now, if there’s actual physical danger or real risk in the room, we need to take steps to protect people.”

Padraig Ó Tuama, a poet, theologian and peace activist in Northern Ireland, writes, “We need stories of belonging that move us towards each other, not from each other; ways of being human that open up the possibilities of being alive together; ways of navigating our differences that deepen our curiosity, that deepen our friendship, that deepen our capacity to disagree, that deepen the argument of being alive.”

Finding commonality

When you strip away the externals, you get to the core of what people seek: equality, justice, love. What holds them apart are beliefs nurtured by generations of difference, people defining themselves by what they are not rather than what they are. Doing this opens up the possibility of creating a community.

Joining us in the interview with Gareth was Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, and himself, a well-published author on food, business, and leadership. “There’s a lot of anger and a lot of frustration and fear,” says Ari. “If we work together collaboratively, we can untangle all of that and create a positive outcome that would be acknowledging in Gareth’s context the truth of the difficult story of the past, but also holding a positive belief about what we can collaboratively, peacefully create together.”

The true power of storytelling lies with its capacity to provoke us to re-examine our beliefs, gain insights into the beliefs of others and then begin the process of affirming our willingness to learn and understand. Such practices are never easy, but they are necessary if we are to find ways to bridge differences as a means of creating conditions at home and at work that are nurturing, productive and safe.

Note: Click here to watch or listen to the full interview with Gareth Higgins and Ari Weinzweig. 

First posted Forbes.com 2.27.2024

If you have to decide in the heat of the moment, take a deep breath and pause for a few seconds.

That time-honored advice is easy to say, but when you are in the heat of the moment – and chaos reigns – it may be hard to remember. This situation may have happened between the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys at the end of the football game. 

The Lions had marched down the field and scored a touchdown. Trailing by a point, they opted for a two-point conversion rather than a one-point kick. And they prevailed on a gadget play that saw quarterback Jared Goff hit Taylor Decker with a nifty pass in the end zone. 

There is only one problem. The head referee said that Decker, a lineman, had not reported to him before the play; therefore, he was an ineligible receiver, which means the conversion was invalid. [Linemen who may touch the ball when play begins must give a heads-up to the referee so he can let the other team know in advance. Silly perhaps, but them’s the rules.]

Head coach Dan Campbell, a former tight end – big, burly and imposing – was furious. He decided to go for two points again, and a Cowboy player, Micah Parsons, jumped off-sides, which gave the Lion another try. The Lions tried a third time. And failed. 

Campbell, who wrestled with his composure after the game, kept his post-game remarks short and curt. He defended his play calling and the actions of his player, Decker, who said he had reported to the referee. The referee did not hear him and confused Decker with another lineman.

The bigger picture

Asa Lions fan more familiar with the Lions’ futility than success, I understand Campbell’s decision. One of the reasons that Campbell is the right coach for the Lions in their three-year long makeover effort is his passion as well as his ability to instill that passion in his players.

However, as an observer of leadership decision-making, Campbell was right in going for two the first time but not a second or third time when the odds were against him. Kicking the extra point would have sent the game into overtime. 

No team likes to play in overtime, where anything can happen, especially if your team fails to win the toss and the other team scores a touchdown before letting your team go on offense. [If the opponent scores a field goal, the other team that lost the coin toss can go on offense

That final play and the referee’s decision will be debated for years. Like many underdog teams, Lions fans feel that the NFL favors teams with more extensive fan bases and winning traditions. There is no proof, but recall that “fan” is short for “fanatic.” [And the Lions have been wronged before. In 2015, against the same Cowboys, the referees negated a pass interference call that stymied Lion’s momentum and perhaps their chances of winning the game.] 

Take stock of the moment.

Regardless of the moment’s mood, leaders owe it to their teams to make the best decision. Campbell is certain he did. In his post-game comments, Campbell affirmed his decision to go for it—no second thoughts. “I told the offense that we were going down — 1:41 left — that we would go down and score and that we were going to go for two and finish this game out. I told them that.”

In his favor, the Lions had already clinched the division title and home-field advantage for the first game, so a loss in this game is not a season-ender. The rest of us who make decisions when the heat is on may recall this game and think twice. 

The point is not to second-guess yourself. It is to make sure you have your wits about you to make a deliberate choice. Spur-of-the-moment decisions in the heat of conflict may not always play out as intended. 

Note: The NFL may wish to tighten up the lineman reporting rule in the future. My colleague Todd Cherches, a consultant, professor, and author of Visual Leadership, emailed me, saying, “There needs to be a better system for ensuring that a referee hears a player ‘Reporting’ that they are eligible. Perhaps something more ‘visual’ – like a hand gesture by the player (hand-tap-of-heart?), followed by a sign by the referee indicating, “I heard you” (perhaps a simple thumbs-up?).” 

Good advice, Todd. Your call NFL Rules Committee.

First posted on Forbes.com 1.01.2024

We are living in a toxic stew of misinformation, disinformation, and hyperpartisanship that is ripping the fabric of our society apart. Some folks are despairing. One person is not. He is William Ury, who, for the past 40 years, has been working with people seeking to negotiate the most challenging crises from South Africa and the Middle East, as well as in corporate board rooms and union bargaining sessions.

His first book, Getting to Yes, published in 1981, has become an international best-seller, racking up over 15 million copies sold. (Several copies were given to Martin McGuinness, a former leader in the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland, where Ury has done work.) Ury’s newest book is POSSIBLE: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict. Ury spoke to me in a recent interview about the new book, and he began by calling himself a “possibilist.”

Seeking transformation in conflict

“You believe in human possibility, you believe in growth, you believe in grace.” says Ury. “And what it means is when you see an obstacle, you look for where are the possibilities. You look for where is the potential, even the small potential to begin to change that situation bit by bit.” As Ury explains, ”All of us have for curiosity, for creativity, for collaboration, and apply it to these thorny, sticky, troubling trick conflicts that we face. Because I believe if we can transform our conflicts, we can transform our lives, we can transform our world.”

Ury told me he is an “anthropologist by training” and “a negotiator, mediator by profession.” Through his work, he has realized that “conflict is something natural. It’s part of life and it can be perfectly healthy.” Eliminating conflict per se is not the goal. “It’s about whether can we transform conflict. Can we change the form from destructive fighting? Vicious fighting into constructive, creative, open Negotiation where we lean into, we embrace conflict and we see what we can do.”

Three-step model

In his book Possible, Ury presents a three-step model for negotiating: Balcony, Bridge and Third Side.

Balcony is finding a way to step away from yourself. “As the old saying goes, when you’re angry, you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret,” says Ury. “And so what I find successful negotiators doing is they take a step back from the situation. It’s almost like you imagine that you’re negotiating on a stage and you go to a mental and emotional balcony overlooking that stage, a place of calm, a place of perspective, a place where you can see the larger picture.” That becomes a “foundation.” The bottom line, says Ury, is that “Negotiation is an inside job. It works from the inside out. So, we need to start with going to the balcony.”

Bridge is the process of adopting another perspective. “We get into conflict, we take positions and we got to dig into our positions and we kind of push, and the more we push, the other side pushes back. So we end up at a kind of standoff.”

There is another way, says Ury. “What I find successful negotiators do is the opposite of pushing, which is they attract instead of making it harder for the other side, which is where we sometimes go in conflict; our job is to make it easier for them, easier for them to make the decision we want them to make.”

By shifting to what the other person or party’s concerns, we “begin the conversation where their thinking is, what their concerns are, what their fears are, and proceed to build them a bridge over the giant chasm that separates us, that chasm of unmet needs, dissatisfaction, baggage from the past, all that stuff. We need to build them an attractive golden bridge moving in the direction we want them to move.”B

The Third Side is a type of leadership that looks at stakeholders not directly involved in the negotiation process. “We’ve got common interests, we’ve got a common goal, we’ve got a family here, we’ve got a community. It’s that third side that can help us go to the balcony, help us calm down, help us build that bridge, can bring us together, play all those roles. So it’s basically in these very difficult situations that we face, we need to go to the balcony. We need to build that bridge, but we also often need to engage that third side.”

Room for optimism

As measured by polling data, public opinion shows that “more Americans still believe it’s possible to disagree in a healthy way,” says Ury. “More Americans still believe that it’s our responsibility to reach out to people with whom we have different points of view… That’s where our hope is. It is in mobilizing the third side, which is this power, this latent power that exists in every situation, which can be used to help turn an impossible situation.”

Another aspect of William Ury became apparent before he came on screen for our video interview. I could see him, but he could not see me. He was smiling and continued smiling for the entire length of our interview. His demeanor is open and generous; it is no wonder people trust him for his insights. He projects wisdom, and all the while, he is smiling.

First posted on Forbes.com 3.27.2024

What goes through an executive’s head when they need to make an important decision and communicate it to a live audience?

What should the executive say? How shall he present his ideas? What tone should she strike? Should the executive raise past disagreements? Or should they open the door for future and more positive relations?

These are the questions that we see Aleksander Čeferin wrestle with as he considers his speech to fellow members of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the media in the wake of the breakup of the nascent Super League. Ceferin allowed a camera crew to document his thinking process as he prepared for this speech in Montreux, Switzerland, in April 2021. The scene is part of the 4-part documentary series Super League: The War for Football, airing on Apple TV+.

The backstory

The series is a fascinating inside look at the business of football and the powers that control the sport. The series gives voice not only to the owners of the football clubs but also to the fans who are passionate about the sport. Ceferin, a lawyer by training from Slovenia, is the pivotal figure in the series. Opposite him is Andrea Angelli, head of Juventus FC and part of a legendary family of automotive industrialists. Angelli, a one-time friend of Ceferin, is a key figure, along with the owners of two Spanish clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona, trying to create this “super league.” The issue is, of course, money. The big clubs want more and more because their clubs generate the most income. The smaller clubs want to remain solvent. Adding to Ceferin’s issue is his perceived betrayal by his one-time friend, Andrea Angelli.

So what Ceferin will say in his speech is essential. Will he take a hardline, or will he open the door to the clubs that sought to break away? His reasoning is statesman-like. He needs the support of the major clubs to fund the efforts of UEFA, an association of some 55 countries and hundreds of professional clubs at every level. At the same time, he must provide leadership to the lesser-earning clubs whose solvency – as well as the future of the sport itself – depends on competent and professional leadership.

What to say and why

The lesson for senior leaders is that what you say matters. You may be roiling inside over a slight – real or imagined. You represent not merely yourself or your feelings but the present and future of the organization. To align your priorities with your feelings, here are some suggestions.

Know your mission. Any presentation is fundamental to knowing what you want to say and why you are saying it. Important presentations must complement the work that the organization does.

Know your values. What we stand for is integral to such presentations. Highlight what your organization believes in as a throughline for your narrative.

Act with grace. When tempers are frayed, leaders argue their point, but they take the high road. When speaking after tough negotiations, address your rivals as colleagues. With the three breakaway clubs, he took a hard line. 

You are making the right choices in what you say matters. Ceferin took a firm stance toward the breakaway clubs and, in doing so, maintained the unity UEFA needs to succeed. That said, the concept of the Super League is not dead; it will remain an issue for years to come.

The same applies to leaders. Major decisions determine the future of the enterprise. More findings about important issues will continue to arise, and how an executive handles them will measure their leadership.

First posted on Forbes.com 3.01. 2023