Set­ting Goals

Set­ting goals is con­sid­ered an impor­tant part of B.E.S.T. slave train­ing. A Mas­ter sets behav­ioral and other types of goals as part of the slave’s training.

It may be help­ful for a Mas­ter to be aware of what are con­sid­ered the ele­ments of goal set­ting. Below are dis­cussed two the­o­ries of these elements.

1) The five com­monly accepted char­ac­ter­is­tics of effec­tive goal set­ting are spe­cific, chal­leng­ing, mea­sur­able, time-bound and pri­or­i­tized. Spe­cific and chal­leng­ing goals serve to cue and focus the slave on exactly what is to be accom­plished and arouse peak per­for­mance. Mea­sur­able (quan­ti­ta­tive) goals are use­ful for feed­back about goal progress. Time lines enhance mea­sur­a­bil­ity and increase performance.

2) Singer-Harris, a retail orga­ni­za­tion, devel­oped the acronym SMART for an effec­tive approach for set­ting goals:

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Attain­able — It goes with­out say­ing the goals must be attain­able in order for the per­son to be moti­vated to reach them

R = Real­is­tic — The goals must have value

T = Time-bound Aware­ness of the ele­ments in effec­tive goal set­ting are use­ful in your train­ing program.

Inter­per­sonal forms of power and how they effect the con­trol of a slave.

Inter­per­sonal forms of power are the way a Mas­ter obtains com­pli­ance to his rules, moti­vates his slave to achieves his goals and obtains her obe­di­ence. These are the pow­ers she gives him to rule her. Not only are strong inter­per­sonal forms of power nec­es­sary to prop­erly train a slave, they are essen­tial in her long-term management.

Inter­per­sonal forms of power: (the ways one per­son has power over another)

Reward power — abil­ity to con­trol the reward a slave wants. This pro­vides rein­force­ments for cor­rect behav­ior or changes in behav­ior or atti­tude. The slave com­plies in order to obtain rewards con­trolled by the Master,

Coer­cive Power — abil­ity to cause a slave to have an unpleas­ant expe­ri­ence. It is also defined as the power to give or with­hold pun­ish­ment. It is also asso­ci­ated with using force to com­pel com­pli­ance. The slave com­plies in order to avoid pun­ish­ments con­trolled by the Master.

Legit­i­mate power — is based on posi­tion or mutual agree­ment. The slave agrees to accept her Mas­ter and grants him author­ity. Often this is for­mal­ized in a con­tract. The slave com­plies because the Mas­ter has the right to make the request or issue the order and she has the oblig­a­tion to com­ply. Legit­i­mate power is very impor­tant is a Master/slave relationship.

Rev­er­ent Power — an elu­sive power that is based on inter­per­sonal attrac­tion. It is the per­cep­tion of being a ref­er­ence point or role model. The slave iden­ti­fies with her Mas­ter and the Mas­ter is indi­vid­u­al­is­tic and respected by his slave. Rev­er­ent power infers a per­sonal con­nec­tion between Master/slave. The slave com­plies because she admires or iden­ti­fies her Mas­ter and wants to gain the her Master’s approval.

Expert Power — spe­cial­ized knowl­edge or skills the slave desires and/or needs. The slave com­plies because she believes that her Mas­ter has the knowl­edge nec­es­sary to cor­rectly do something.

Three con­di­tions must exist for expert power to be effec­tive: 1) trust, 2) knowl­edge that is rel­e­vant and use­ful, 3) per­cep­tion as an expert by the slave.

If used alone each of the three fol­low­ing types of power leads to com­pli­ance. (Reward, coer­cive and legit­i­mate) Rev­er­ent power is the most effec­tive. Expert power has the strongest rela­tion­ship with per­for­mance and satisfaction.

The Master/slave rela­tion­ship relies heav­ily on rev­er­ent, expert and legit­i­mate Pow­ers. If the Mas­ter has a strong rev­er­ent power and she believes he has the knowl­edge and abil­ity to train her (expert power), the more legit­i­mate power she is will­ing to grant her Mas­ter. The Master’s abil­ity to prop­erly train her depends on hav­ing legit­i­mate power. Sources of Power: Reward power is Reward based Coer­cive Power is fear based Legit­i­mate Power is posi­tion based Expert Power is knowl­edge based Rev­er­ent Power is per­son­al­ity based.

REWARD POWER: In slave train­ing, reward­ing a slave for good behav­ior is a pow­er­ful tool because it shows her that she is pleas­ing you. Pleas­ing her Mas­ter is very impor­tant to a slave and any reward by a Mas­ter to a slave for good behav­ior is well received by her. The reward should be given to a slave while she is demon­strat­ing proper behav­ior. In gen­eral, the 4:1 rules should apply, that is apply four times as much pos­i­tive rein­force­ment (reward power) as pun­ish­ment (coer­cive power).

For­mal Eval­u­a­tion of A slave’s performance

For­mal eval­u­a­tions are use­ful to estab­lish a way of eval­u­at­ing a slave’s progress and per­for­mance. By doing so, you are estab­lish­ing stan­dards and goals to guide and improve your slave’s performance.

The objec­tives of the slave per­for­mance eval­u­a­tions are to:

1) assess actual per­for­mance against the duties, respon­si­bil­i­ties, and stan­dards you set, includ­ing the achieve­ment of goals

2) rec­og­nize the slave’s spe­cial tal­ents, capa­bil­i­ties, and achievements

3) pro­mote the effec­tive­ness of all slaves through artic­u­la­tion of the types of con­tri­bu­tions they might make to the social unit (Mas­ter and his slaves) that will lead to greater ser­vice, obe­di­ence, unit growth and cohesion

4) encour­age com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the Mas­ter and slave and assist in the slaves growth

5) pro­vide a writ­ten record of the slave’s per­for­mance to sup­port future train­ing deci­sions (e.g., per­for­mance increases and adjust­ing assign­ments, or dis­ci­pli­nary action) A for­mal review of the slave’s per­for­mance should be com­pleted on a quar­terly or semi-annual basis.

This eval­u­a­tion can be based upon 1) pri­or­i­ties and 2) ser­vice stan­dards that you as Mas­ter have developed.

A dis­cus­sion of both follows:

1. Pri­or­i­ties (goals and objectives)

Guid­ance for Devel­op­ing Pri­or­ity Stan­dards This ele­ment is intended to mea­sure each slave’s suc­cess in meet­ing pre-determined and pre-defined goals and objec­tives. These spe­cific stan­dards devel­oped under this ele­ment should be results dri­ven (what will be accom­plished) and should reflect the slave’s account­abil­ity for achiev­ing mea­sur­able results. To the max­i­mum extent pos­si­ble, those results should be linked to your slave’s con­tract, rules of sub­mis­sion, goals, pro­to­cols and other guide­lines. The pri­or­i­ties por­tion of the eval­u­a­tion focuses more on where you are going as opposed to where you are at the present time.

Some areas to con­sider in the eval­u­a­tion of pri­or­i­ties are:

1) Knowl­edge of Goals, Objec­tives and Rules — Pos­sesses the knowl­edge nec­es­sary to accom­plish all goal require­ments. Under­stands the facts and infor­ma­tion related to the com­ple­tion of assignments.

2) Accom­plish­ment of Objec­tives — Con­tributes to achiev­ing Master’s goals, meets dead­lines, adapts to changes, and uses resources effi­ciently. Uses good judg­ment when estab­lish­ing priorities.

3) Ini­tia­tive and Cre­ativ­ity — Self-motivated, devel­ops new meth­ods and procedures.

4) Inter­per­sonal Rela­tion­ships — Moti­vates and devel­ops oth­ers, builds team­work, com­mu­ni­cates with other slaves, sub­or­di­nates and oth­ers. Coop­er­ates with oth­ers and projects a good image of slav­ery and her Master.

5) Depend­abil­ity and Reli­a­bil­ity — Fol­lows through to meet sched­ules, makes sound deci­sions and pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions. Trust­wor­thi­ness. 6) Con­tri­bu­tion — Con­tri­bu­tions made on the part of the slave to her slav­ery, the lifestyle, and the community.

2. Ser­vice

This ele­ment is intended to address how the slave per­forms her respon­si­bil­i­ties related to pro­vid­ing ser­vice to her Mas­ter or to any per­son he instructs her to ser­vice. Per­for­mance stan­dards for this ele­ment could, for exam­ple, address coop­er­a­tion with other slaves and oth­ers, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, adaptability/flexibility, ini­tia­tive, and work­ing around bar­ri­ers. When devel­op­ing ser­vice stan­dards, a Mas­ter should be aware of what ser­vice means.

Ser­vice has a two part mean­ing; behav­ior and state of mind. Both are defined as follows:

A) Behav­ior:

1) Com­plet­ing assigned work or duties for her Mas­ter (fol­low­ing orders)

2) Fol­low­ing estab­lished rules and pro­to­cols 3) Being an assis­tant to, help­ing or ben­e­fit to her Mas­ter (Act­ing on behalf of or in con­junc­tion with her Mas­ter, which involves her using her own judg­ment and intel­li­gence for the plea­sure and bet­ter­ment of her Master)

B) State of Mind:

1) Being ready to help and be use­ful to her Mas­ter (being flex­i­ble an avail­able). This is the will­ing­ness to accept spon­ta­neous orders.

2) The active devo­tion to her Mas­ter (two parts)

a) Wor­ship­ing her Mas­ter Ser­vice to her Mas­ter by her wor­ship of him is a way she shows her devo­tion and her slav­ery. By wor­ship­ing her Mas­ter she expresses her sub­mis­sion, devo­tion and the desire for his dominance.

b) Com­mit­ment to her slav­ery (two parts)

i) A will­ing­ness to give her time, energy and effort to pleas­ing her Mas­ter and learn­ing the skills nec­es­sary for slavery.

ii) A loy­alty to her Mas­ter and honor of his dom­i­nance over her.

The fol­low­ing is a guide which can be used in eval­u­at­ing a slave’s over­all ser­vice performance:

1) Knowl­edge of Duties — How well does the slave know her duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties? In order to suc­cess­fully com­plete the duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties of this posi­tion, what level of tech­ni­cal knowl­edge does the slave demonstrate?

2) Quan­tity of Ser­vice — Is the slave’s per­for­mance of duties ade­quate? How does her per­for­mance com­pare with your stan­dards and with others?

3) Qual­ity of Ser­vice — Does the slave make fre­quent mis­takes? Does her per­for­mance require con­stant super­vi­sion in order to ensure accu­racy? Does she take pride in her ser­vice and strive for excellence?

4) Ini­tia­tive — Does she vol­un­teer for new assign­ments and respon­si­bil­i­ties? Does the she require a great deal of super­vi­sory guid­ance regard­ing initiative?

5) Dependability/Responsibility — Does the slave con­sis­tently ful­fill respon­si­bil­i­ties? How much follow-up is required? How reli­able is the slave?

6) Qual­ity of Inter­per­sonal Rela­tion­ships — Does the slave cre­ate resent­ment in fel­low slaves? How tact­ful is the slave when com­mu­ni­cat­ing with other slaves? Does she pro­mote team­work? Is the slave coop­er­a­tive with fel­low slaves?

7) Con­sis­tency — How con­sis­tent is your slave in the per­for­mance of her duties?

8) Punc­tu­al­ity — Is the slave con­sis­tently prompt? Is there an impact on her ser­vice to her Master?

9) Super­vi­sory and Train­ing Abil­ity — Does the slave exert a pos­i­tive influ­ence on oth­ers? If granted super­vi­sion or train­ing author­ity over other slaves, does she demon­strate fair and equal treat­ment of sub­or­di­nates or trainees? Does the slave demon­strate the abil­ity to make sound fea­si­ble train­ing deci­sions? Does the slave attempt to resolve prob­lems at the local level with­out involv­ing you? In the same light, does your slave accept train­ing or super­vi­sion from oth­ers you have assigned that author­ity to?

In addi­tion, the fol­low­ing list can also be used as a guide for estab­lish­ing eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria for dif­fer­ent areas: Applies knowl­edge and skills Under­stands and applies rules Under­stands goals Fol­lows instruc­tions Com­pletes task on time Pays atten­tion to accu­racy and detail Accepts guid­ance Works well with oth­ers Per­sonal appear­ance Abil­ity to per­form tasks inde­pen­dent of super­vi­sion Assumes respon­si­bil­ity for actions Takes effec­tive action with­out being told Com­mu­ni­cates infor­ma­tion to her Mas­ter Under­stands and adheres to Master’s rules and pro­to­cols Will­ing­ness to learn new skills

Estab­lish­ing slave modes (levels):

I use three lev­els or modes for a slave. They are 1) “slave mode,” 2) “ser­vice mode”  and  3)  “at ease mode.”

The slave mode hav­ing the high­est pro­to­col level and the “at ease” mode hav­ing the low­est pro­to­col level with the ser­vice mode being in the mid­dle. A slave is placed in a mode by voice com­mand. Once a voice com­mand is given to the slave inform­ing her which mode I require at that time, her behav­ior changes to match the rules and pro­to­cols she has learned for that mode.

Modes are a very effec­tive tool in slave man­age­ment. It allows you to teach an appro­pri­ate behav­ior that you require at dif­fer­ent times and places and with a sim­ple voice com­mand change your slave’s behav­ior to match your desires. It allows you to deter­mine the amount of con­trol you wish at any moment and direct your slave in a sin­gle com­mand. It takes time to teach the higher modes to the slave, but the time spent in train­ing pays off. In each mode the slave’s behav­ior that includes speech, PRESENTING to her Mas­ter, dress, and eat­ing habits are dif­fer­ent. For exam­ple, if you wish to spend a day of dis­ci­pline train­ing, you can order her into the slave mode and the mode itself pro­vides a high level of training.

In the slave mode she is not allowed to speak with­out per­mis­sion and she is required to have your per­mis­sion to do almost every­thing. This alone pro­vides focus on her slav­ery and struc­ture to her train­ing. If a slave is placed in the slave mode, she knows from her prior train­ing that she can’t use the fol­low­ing items unless ordered to: i. Food/drink (water is an excep­tion) ii. Elec­tron­ics, includ­ing tele­phone, — excep­tions: alarm clock, cook­ing equip­ment iii. Fur­ni­ture both pub­lic and pri­vate with­out per­mis­sion. iv. Cloth­ing (gen­er­ally a slave presents her­self in the “slave mode” with­out clothing)

She also knows that she is to PRESENT her­self to her Mas­ter each time she enters the room he is in or before leav­ing the room he is in. In fact, most of her move­ments, includ­ing going to the bath­room require prior per­mis­sion. Her speech pat­tern is very for­mal. In the slave mode she is required to use “Sir, Yes Sir, Thank you, Sir” when respond­ing to an order given to her as opposed to just “Yes, Sir” in the ser­vice mode. The fol­low­ing of the speech pat­tern requires more focus on her part.

A less for­mal mode, but still an effec­tive mode for a slave to serve her Mas­ter in is the ser­vice mode. It still requires a slave to PRESENT to her Mas­ter but is less restric­tive in speech and behav­ior. Teach­ing dif­fer­ent modes can be a very use­ful tool for Mas­ters. It requires more of your time early in train­ing and also requires the Mas­ter to develop his MODES, but will pay off in the long run.

I rec­om­mend that the modes be put in writ­ing so your slave can study and learn them. The object is to pro­vide a clear path for your slave to fol­low and study­ing writ­ten pro­to­cols and rules is help­ful in that process.  If you have never trained a slave in the use of Modes before it will help you to have them in writing.

Career and Per­sonal Devel­op­ment Gen­eral Colin Pow­ell: 18 Lessons from a very suc­cess­ful leader

Les­son 1: (Good lead­ers some­times make peo­ple unhappy). Good lead­er­ship involves respon­si­bil­ity to the wel­fare of the group, which means that some peo­ple will get angry at your actions and deci­sions. It’s inevitable-if you’re hon­or­able. Try­ing to get every­one to like you is a sign of medi­oc­rity: You’ll avoid the tough deci­sions, you’ll avoid con­fronting the peo­ple who need to be con­fronted, and you’ll avoid offer­ing dif­fer­en­tial rewards based on dif­fer­en­tial per­for­mance because some peo­ple might get upset. Iron­i­cally, pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on the dif­fi­cult choices, by try­ing not to get any­one mad, and by treat­ing every­one equally “nicely” regard­less of their con­tri­bu­tions, you’ll sim­ply ensure that the only peo­ple you’ll wind up anger­ing are the most cre­ative and pro­duc­tive peo­ple in the organization.

Les­son 2: “The day sol­diers stop bring­ing you their prob­lems is the day you have stopped lead­ing them. They have either lost con­fi­dence that you can help them or con­cluded that you do not care. Either case is a fail­ure of a rela­tion­ship”. If this were a lit­mus test, the major­ity of CEOs would fail. One, they build so many bar­ri­ers to upward com­mu­ni­ca­tion that the very idea of some­one lower in the hier­ar­chy look­ing up to the leader for help is ludi­crous. Two, the cor­po­rate cul­ture they fos­ter often defines ask­ing for help as weak­ness or fail­ure, so peo­ple cover up their gaps, and the orga­ni­za­tion suf­fers accord­ingly. Real lead­ers make them­selves acces­si­ble and avail­able. They show con­cern for the efforts and chal­lenges faced by under­lings – even as they demand high stan­dards. Accord­ingly, they are more likely to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where prob­lem analy­sis replaces blame.

Les­son 3: “Don’t be buf­faloed by experts and elites. Experts often pos­sess more data than judg­ment. Elites can become so inbred that they pro­duce hemo­phil­i­acs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world.” Small com­pa­nies and star­tups don’t have time for ana­lyt­i­cally detached experts. They don’t have the money to sub­si­dize lofty elites, either. The pres­i­dent answers the phone and dri­ves the truck when nec­es­sary; every­one on the pay­roll vis­i­bly pro­duces and con­tributes to the bottom-line results or they’re his­tory. But as com­pa­nies get big­ger, they often for­get who “brung them to the dance”: things like all-hands involve­ment, egal­i­tar­i­an­ism, infor­mal­ity, mar­ket inti­macy, dar­ing, risk, speed, agility. Poli­cies that emanate from ivory tow­ers often have an adverse impact on the peo­ple out in the field who are fight­ing the wars or bring­ing in the rev­enues. Real lead­ers are vigilant-and combative-in the face of these trends.

Les­son 4: ” Don’t be afraid to chal­lenge the pros, even in their own back­yard.” Learn from the pros, observe them, seek them out as men­tors and part­ners. But remem­ber that even the pros may have lev­eled out in terms of their learn­ing and skills. Some­times even the pros can become com­pla­cent and lazy. Lead­er­ship does not emerge from blind obe­di­ence to any­one. Xerox’s Barry Rand was right on tar­get when he warned his peo­ple that if you have a yes-man work­ing for you, one of you is redun­dant. Good lead­er­ship encour­ages everyone’s evolution.

Les­son 5: “Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or dis­tracted, the leader must be dou­bly vig­i­lant.” Strat­egy equals exe­cu­tion. All great ideas and visions in the world are worth­less if they can’t be imple­mented rapidly and effi­ciently. Good lead­ers del­e­gate and empower oth­ers lib­er­ally, but they pay atten­tion to details every day. (Think about supreme ath­letic coaches like Jimmy John­son, Pat Riley and Tony La Russa). Bad ones – even those who fancy them­selves as pro­gres­sive “vision­ar­ies” – think they’re some­how “above” oper­a­tional details. “Para­dox­i­cally, good lead­ers under­stand some­thing else: An obses­sive rou­tine in car­ry­ing out the details begets con­for­mity and com­pla­cency, which in turn dulls everyone’s mind. That is why even as they pay atten­tion to details, they con­tin­u­ally encour­age peo­ple to chal­lenge the process. They implic­itly under­stand the sen­ti­ment of CEO-leaders like Quad Graphic’s Harry Quadrac­chi, Oticon’s Lars Kolind and the late Bill McGowan of MCI, who all inde­pen­dently asserted the Job of a leader is not to be the chief orga­nizer, but the chief disorganizer.

Les­son 6: “You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.” You know the expres­sion “it’s eas­ier to get for­give­ness than per­mis­sion?” Well it’s true. Good lead­ers don’t wait for offi­cial bless­ing to try things out. They’re pru­dent, not reck­less. But they also real­ize a fact of life in most orga­ni­za­tions: If you ask enough peo­ple for per­mis­sion, you’ll inevitably come up against some­one who believes his job is to say “no”. So the moral is, don’t ask. I’m seri­ous. In my own research with col­league Linda Mukai, we found that less effec­tive mid­dle man­agers endorsed the sen­ti­ment, “If I haven’t been told ‘yes’, I can’t do it,” whereas the good ones believed “If I haven’t been explic­itly told ‘no’ I can.” There’s a world of dif­fer­ence between these two points of view.

Les­son 7: “Keep look­ing below sur­face appear­ances. Don’t shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the slo­gan of the com­pla­cent, the arro­gant or the scared. It’s an excuse for inac­tion, a call to non-arms. It’s a mind-set that assumes (or hopes) that today’s real­i­ties will con­tinue tomor­row in a tidy, lin­ear and pre­dictable fash­ion. Pure fan­tasy. In this sort of cul­ture, you won’t find peo­ple who proac­tively take steps to solve prob­lems as they emerge. Here’s a lit­tle tip: Don’t invest in these companies.

Les­son 8: ” Orga­ni­za­tion doesn’t really accom­plish any­thing. Plans don’t accom­plish any­thing, either. The­o­ries of man­age­ment don’t much mat­ter. Endeav­ors suc­ceed or fail because of the peo­ple involved. Only by attract­ing the best peo­ple will you accom­plish great deeds.” In a brain-based econ­omy, your best assets are peo­ple. We’ve heard this expres­sion so often that it’s become trite. But how many lead­ers really “walk the talk” with this stuff? Too often, peo­ple are assumed to be empty chess pieces to be moved around by grand viziers, which may explain why so many top man­agers immerse their cal­en­dar time in deal mak­ing, restruc­tur­ing and the lat­est man­age­ment fad. How many immerse them­selves in the goal of cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment where the best, the bright­est, the most cre­ative are attracted, retained and – most importantly-unleashed.

Les­son 9: “Orga­ni­za­tion charts and fancy titles count for next to noth­ing”. Orga­ni­za­tion charts are frozen, anachro­nis­tic pho­tos in a work­place that ought to be as dynamic as the exter­nal envi­ron­ment around you. If peo­ple really fol­lowed orga­ni­za­tion charts, com­pa­nies would col­lapse. In well-run orga­ni­za­tions, titles are also pretty mean­ing­less. At best, they adver­tise some authority-an offi­cial sta­tus con­cern­ing the abil­ity to give orders or induce obe­di­ence. But titles mean lit­tle in terms of real power, which is the capac­ity to influ­ence and inspire. Have you ever noticed that peo­ple will per­son­ally com­mit to cer­tain indi­vid­u­als who on paper (or on the org. chart) pos­sess lit­tle authority-but instead pos­sess piz­zazz, drive, exper­tise and gen­uine car­ing for team­mates and prod­ucts? On the flip side, non-leaders in man­age­ment may be for­mally anointed with all the perks and frills asso­ci­ated with high posi­tions, but they have lit­tle influ­ence on oth­ers, apart from their abil­ity to extract min­i­mal com­pli­ance to min­i­mal standards.

Les­son 10: “Never let your ego get so close to your posi­tion that when your posi­tion goes, your ego goes with it.” Too often, change is sti­fled by peo­ple who cling to famil­iar turfs and job descrip­tions. One rea­son that even large orga­ni­za­tions wither is that man­agers won’t chal­lenge old, com­fort­able ways of doing things. But real lead­ers under­stand that, nowa­days, every one of our jobs is becom­ing obso­lete. The proper response is to obso­lete our activ­i­ties before some­one else does. Effec­tive lead­ers cre­ate a cli­mate where people’s worth is deter­mined by their will­ing­ness to learn new skills and grab new respon­si­bil­i­ties, thus not per­pet­u­ally rein­vent­ing their jobs. The most impor­tant ques­tion in per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion becomes not, “How well did you per­form your job since the last time we met?” but, “How much did you change it?”

Les­son 11: “Fit no stereo­types. Don’t chase the lat­est man­age­ment fads. The sit­u­a­tion dic­tates which approach best accom­plishes the team’s mis­sion.” Fit­ting from fad to fad cre­ates team con­fu­sion, reduces the leader’s cred­i­bil­ity and drains orga­ni­za­tional cof­fers. Blindly fol­low­ing a par­tic­u­lar fad gen­er­ates rigid­ity in thought and action. Some­times speed to mar­ket is more impor­tant than total qual­ity. Some­times an unapolo­getic direc­tive is more appro­pri­ate than par­tic­i­pa­tory dis­cus­sion. To quote Pow­ell, some sit­u­a­tions require long, loose leashes. Lead­ers honor their core val­ues, but they are flex­i­ble in how they exe­cute them. They under­stand that man­age­ment tech­niques are not magic mantras but sim­ply tools to be reached for at the right times.

Les­son 12: “Per­pet­ual opti­mism is a force mul­ti­plier.” The rip­ple effect of a leader’s enthu­si­asm and opti­mism is awe­some. So is the impact of cyn­i­cism and pes­simism. Lead­ers who whine and blame engen­dered those same behav­iors among their col­leagues. I am not talk­ing about sto­ically accept­ing orga­ni­za­tional stu­pid­ity and per­for­mance incom­pe­tence with a “what, me worry?” smile. I am talk­ing about a gung ho atti­tude that says “we can change things here, we can achieve awe­some goals, we can be the best.” Spare me the grim litany of the “real­ist”, give me the unre­al­is­tic aspi­ra­tions of the opti­mist any day.

Les­son 13: “Powell’s Rules for Pick­ing Peo­ple” – Look for intel­li­gence and judg­ment and, most crit­i­cally, a capac­ity to antic­i­pate, to see around cor­ners. Also look for loy­alty, integrity, a high energy drive, a bal­anced ego and the drive to get things done.” How often do our recruit­ment and hir­ing processes tap into these attrib­utes? More often than not, we ignore them in favor of length of resume, degrees and prior titles. A string of job descrip­tions a recruit held yes­ter­day seem to be more impor­tant than who one is today, what she can con­tribute tomor­row or how well her val­ues mesh with those of the orga­ni­za­tion. You can train a bright, will­ing novice in the fun­da­men­tals of your busi­ness fairly read­ily, but it’s a lot harder to train some­one to have integrity, judg­ment, energy, bal­ance and the drive to get things done. Good lead­ers stack the deck in their favor right in the recruit­ment phase.

Les­son 14: (Bor­rowed by Pow­ell from Michael Korda): “Great lead­ers are almost always great sim­pli­fiers, who can cut through argu­ment, debate and doubt to offer a solu­tion every­body can under­stand.” Effec­tive lead­ers under­stand the KISS prin­ci­ple, Keep It Sim­ple, Stu­pid. They artic­u­late vivid over­ar­ch­ing goals and val­ues, which they use to drive daily behav­iors and choices among com­pet­ing alter­na­tives. Their visions and pri­or­i­ties are lean and com­pelling, not clut­tered and buzzword-laden. Their deci­sions are crisp and clear, not ten­ta­tive and ambigu­ous. They con­vey an unwa­ver­ing firm­ness and con­sis­tency in their actions, aligned with the pic­ture of the future they paint. The result? Clar­ity of pur­pose, cred­i­bil­ity of lead­er­ship, and integrity in organizations.

Les­son 15:

Part I: “Use the for­mula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the prob­a­bil­ity of suc­cess and the num­bers indi­cate the per­cent­age of infor­ma­tion acquired.”

Part II: “Once the infor­ma­tion is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.” Powell’s advice is don’t take action if you have only enough infor­ma­tion to give you less than a 40 per­cent chance of being right, but don’t wait until you have enough facts to be 100 per­cent sure, because by then it is almost always too late. His instinct is right: “Today, exces­sive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds “analy­sis paral­y­sis”. Pro­cras­ti­na­tion in the name of reduc­ing risk actu­ally increases risk.

Les­son 16: “The com­man­der in the field is always right and the rear ech­e­lon is wrong, unless proven oth­er­wise.” Too often the reverse defines cor­po­rate cul­ture. This is one of the main rea­sons why lead­ers like Ken Iver­son of Nucor Steel, Percy Barnevik of Asea Brown Boveri, and Richard Bran­son of Vir­gin have kept their cor­po­rate staffs to bare-bones min­i­mum. (And I do mean minimum-how about fewer than 100 cen­tral cor­po­rate staffers for global $30 bil­lion plus ABB? Or around 25 and 3 for multi-billion Nucor and Vir­gin respec­tively?) Shift the power and the finan­cial account­abil­ity to the folks who are bring­ing in the beans, not the ones who are count­ing or ana­lyz­ing them.

Les­son 17: “Have fun in your com­mand. Don’t always run at a break­neck pace. Take leave when you’ve earned it: Spend time with your fam­i­lies. Corol­lary: “Sur­round your­self with peo­ple who take their work seri­ously, but not them­selves, those who work hard and play hard.” Herb Kelle­her of South­west Air and Anita Rod­dick of the The Body Shop would agree: Seek peo­ple who have some bal­ance in their lives, who are fun to hang out with, who like to laugh (at them­selves, too) and who have some non-job pri­or­i­ties which they approach with the same pas­sion that they do their work. Spare me the grim worka­holic or the pompous pre­ten­tious “pro­fes­sional”; I’ll help them find jobs with my competitor.

Les­son 18: “Com­mand is lonely.” Harry Tru­man was right. Whether you’re a CEO or the tem­po­rary head of a project team, the buck stops here. You can encour­age par­tic­i­pa­tive man­age­ment and bottom-up employee involve­ment but ulti­mately, the essence of lead­er­ship is the will­ing­ness to make the tough, unam­bigu­ous choices that will have an impact on the fate of the orga­ni­za­tion. I’ve seen too many non-leaders flinch from this respon­si­bil­ity. Even as you cre­ate an infor­mal, open, col­lab­o­ra­tive cor­po­rate cul­ture, pre­pare to be lonely.

PERFORMANCE BASED ON SERVICE

If a slave is the prop­erty of her Mas­ter, then as prop­erty she has a value. This value its deter­mined by her ser­vice to her Master.

Ser­vice has a two part mean­ing; behav­ior and state of mind. Both are defined as follows:

A) Behav­ior:

1. Com­plet­ing assigned work or duties for her Mas­ter (fol­low­ing orders) This is a major part of being a slave. She is given an order or com­mand and stops what she is doing and com­pletes that order. It also may mean com­plet­ing orders that take a period of time to complete.
2. The fol­low­ing of estab­lished rules and pro­to­cols (Pre-existing guide­lines for behav­ior, work and duties) This can be rules of sub­mis­sion, behav­ior detailed in a con­tract, guide­lines or oral prior instructions.
3. Being an assis­tant to, help­ing or ben­e­fit­ing her Mas­ter (Act­ing on behalf of or in con­junc­tion with her Mas­ter, which involves her using her own judg­ment and intel­li­gence for the plea­sure and bet­ter­ment of her Mas­ter) Being a slave is not always fol­low­ing orders each step of the way. It may mean that a slave is given a gen­eral order to com­plete a task and all the judg­ment and rea­son­ing nec­es­sary to accom­plish it is hers. Many slaves are given posi­tions of author­ity in dif­fer­ent forms by their Mas­ters. She is expected to per­form in this posi­tion of author­ity in a way that is pleas­ing to her Mas­ter. Being a slave does not mean you never use your judg­ment or intel­li­gence again. In fact, it usu­ally means that you are given ways to use both more than a submissive.

B) State of Mind:

1.  Being ready to help and be use­ful to her Mas­ter (Being flex­i­ble and avail­able) This the will­ing­ness to accept spon­ta­neous orders.
2. The active devo­tion to her Mas­ter (actual behavior)

 A) (wor­ship­ing her Mas­ter) — (love/admire/submit to) Ser­vice to her Mas­ter by her wor­ship of him is a way she shows her devo­tion and her slav­ery. It is behav­ior that exhibits love/admiration/submission. By wor­ship­ing her Mas­ter she expresses her sub­mis­sion, devo­tion and the desire for his dom­i­nance. This may involve kneel­ing or face down posi­tions, kiss­ing his feet or other rituals.

B) (com­mit­ment to her slavery)

 i) A will­ing­ness to give her time, energy and effort to pleas­ing her Mas­ter and learn­ing the skills nec­es­sary for her slavery.

 ii) she also has a loy­alty to her Mas­ter and hon­ors his dom­i­nance of her.

The observ­able objec­tive of slave train­ing is proper ser­vice. A Mas­ter can only truly judge a slave by what his five senses reveal to him. Try as he may, he is unable to com­pletely see into his slave’s mind and heart. This is one thing he must accept and be hon­est with him­self about. He can’t hear her thoughts or feel the emo­tions a slave feels. He can only observe her behav­ior and come to a con­clu­sion about what he sees. Demon­strat­ing proper behav­ior is the best way a slave shows her state of mind to her Master.

Many have down­played the use of con­tracts, writ­ten pro­to­cols and rules and have opted for a more flex­i­ble unwrit­ten code of con­duct and rules of ser­vice. In goal ori­ented train­ing for­mal doc­u­men­ta­tion that details what is expected is very use­ful. It is espe­cially use­ful dur­ing early stages of train­ing. Pro­vid­ing a stan­dard that can be stud­ied and prac­ticed fos­ters pos­i­tive behav­ior and improves over­all ser­vice. It also helps to direct her motivations.

I agree that pro­vid­ing writ­ten rules and guide­lines will involve more work on the part of a Mas­ter. I dis­agree that it implies inflex­i­ble rules. The advan­tage is that changes in the writ­ten guide­lines are more likely to be dis­cussed, under­stood and obeyed by the slave.

If the objec­tive is to change a slave from her cur­rent behav­ior to a behav­ior that enables her to serve her Mas­ter bet­ter and in a way that is pleas­ing to him, then writ­ten instruc­tions are of great value. This assumes that a Mas­ter has a plan and is aware of what behav­ior he wants from her. If this is the case, rules don’t change that often.

The eval­u­a­tion of a slave’s ser­vice is best judged upon stan­dards that are clearly known by Mas­ter and slave. An eval­u­a­tion plan can be for­mally or infor­mally devel­oped for each of the areas defined as ser­vice. An eval­u­a­tion of her past and present ser­vice pro­vides a way a slave can see her progress as well as high­light­ing areas that need improvement.

Train­ing a slave is a process of re-educating and re-socializing her to serve her Mas­ter. A slave has to be edu­cated as to how she is expected to behave and to social­ize in the con­tract of her slavery.