• Do you believe you can perform at a world-class level on your own?
  
• Is your insight into your own performance good enough to pick up nuance and detail that could make a huge difference?
  
• Do you believe that, because you have more experience, that no one below your level could teach you anything?
  
• Do you believe that, because you have been successful, only someone who has had more personal success could teach you anything?

• Do you measure “competenceâ€? by hierarchy level?
  
• Who is your coach?

In honor of the Beijing Olympics, Shanghai’s #1 fag hag scoured the city for info on gay sports. Everyone knows a large gay contingent can be found daily at our most popular gyms. However, did you realize Shanghai also hosts gay swimming (we’re sure Michael Phelps or Zhang Lin are welcome), badminton, table tennis, volleyball and even kungfu!

Rainbow League is the fantastic association that organizes many of the gay sports clubs in Shanghai (more info available in Chinese here). They were created about one year ago as a splinter group of the national gay organization, Sunhomo. Currently, Rainbow League boasts about 700 members and offers a mix of athletic and cultural activities.

Rio, the friendly co-founder, said they started the organization so that gay people have a venue to make friends and play sports. Although for many participants, their families are unaware they are homosexual, they feel comfortable joining in gay sporting activities. Rio says, “Generally, outsiders don’t realize it’s a gay club, but they are curious as to why there are only males!” Predominantly Chinese men, about 10% of the members are foreigners and there is a mix of gay, straight, and bisexuals.

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Shanghaiist sports editor Maggie Rauch writes a biweekly column in Chinese for the 21st Century Business Herald. Below is a translation of her column from yesterday on today’s men’s basketball game between China and the USA.

China plays the United States in men’s basketball tonight at Wukesong Arena, in what is for Chinese fans one of the most anticipated events of this Olympics. Members of the USA’s “Dream Team,” or “Redeem Team,” have been received like rock stars since they arrived in China two weeks ago.

I have been quoted (accurately) as saying that the home team has no chance tonight, but I regret saying that. Of course China has a chance. That’s why we actually play the games. To atone for my sin against the beautiful unpredictability of sports, I am going to break down a few possibilities that could help tip the scales a little in China’s favor.

The Yao that we know finally returns.
Yao has given China a boost since his post-injury debut, but not the heroic performances the team requires from him if it is to pull off any upsets. He will suit up to play the USA after a week of rest and he’ll also be playing for bragging rights among his NBA buddies. There is every reason to believe that Yao’s strongest Olympic performance will come against the USA.

Read more »

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey probably has one thing to say to Yao Ming right now: Shut up.

The Houston Chronicle reported earlier this week that the Rockets were going to acquire forward Ron Artest from the Sacramento Kings, bringing a much-needed scoring threat and a strong defensive presence to help Yao and Tracy McGrady.

Yao should have a simple response to a trade for a proven veteran who would give the Rockets one of the NBA’s best trios and a shot at an NBA title: “Good move. I can’t wait to play with him.” Leave the speculating about Artest’s past to the media.

But when Yao got word of the trade in Nanjing, where he is getting warmed up for the Olympics with the Chinese national team, he didn’t sound too excited. Artest has been involved in some controversial situations, most famously a brawl four years ago at the Palace of Auburn Hills in a game against the Detroit Pistons, which resulted in Artest getting the longest ever NBA suspension for an in-game fight.

Apparently the fighting has Yao concerned. Here are his widely reported comments from Wednesday: Read more »

In February I wrote about scapegoating at work after noticing that the issue was coming up more and more with my coaching clients. It struck me that scapegoating had become a widespread and growing problem which was posing significant career implications for the victim.

What I hadn’t realised was just how endemic the phenomenon appears to be - as the comments the post attracted - and continues to attract over a month later - from people around the world. It appears to be happening every day, to a whole range of people, at all levels and in all sorts of companies, from India to Africa, Asia, the U.S., and Europe.

Here are some of the comments from people who have either been made scapegoats themselves or who have observed others suffering the same fate at the hands of their managers. I have grouped them under themes in order to try to make more sense of the phenomenon, plus a couple of questions at the end that remain unanswered for our commentators. My sincere thanks to everyone who sent in their comments and suggestions - from personal experiences to practical ways of dealing with scapegoating and suggestions for reading material. (I recognize this is very long, but that demonstrates how important many of you found this topic.)

Prevalence of scapegoating
This is one of the facts in professional life.(Anon)
One can find this vice practised all over the world. (Audrene Loke )
Scapegoating is becoming the ‘norm’ in the corporate world (Anon)
It is very common in small start-ups when it is all about the interests and directions of the CEO (L)
I don’t believe there are managers out there who haven’t been targeted as scapecoat one time or another throughout their professional career. ( A Wong)
Scapgoating is well known in the healthcare industry (Dinesh Patel)
This is schoolyard bullying in a corporate suit. (T.L. Scott)
I know of endless number of cases wherein managers have damaged the self-esteem of their subordinates. (Uma Arora)

Who is scapegoated?
Successful senior executives (Angela Blackburn/Kate)
Whole teams ( Anon)
Foreign-born engineers in Silicon Valley (Miai)
Junior staff (Amitava Mukherjee)
Quiet people who get on with their jobs (Anonymous)
All levels and in all functions of any organization. (Farooq Ahmed)
A new senior manager dismissing a reportee manager: “I don’t like her; it’s chemical”. (Out Loud)
Inter-departmental in large corporates (Virender Vaira)
Generally to a ‘nobody’. (Vijay)
People with as much as 30-40 years of experience. (pm)
People who do not have a voice.(pm)
Green employees with little or no experience (Oluwafemi Abioye)

By whom?
The boss (Anon)
The CEO (Anonymous)
Brilliant, well educated and successful young executives who grossly abuse their power and authority with no negative consequences (Angela Blackburn)
Those who are more visible to senior management and have more say (Vijay)
Above-board staff who have played politics - seeming them as a sincere, trustworthy and ever performing staff… (Oluwafemi Abioye)

When?
When an unfavourable result occurs and performance is poor (Mike Sewell)
When a new person has taken over as boss.( Anisur Rahman )
Whenever there’s a change - a new person is hired, a merger, a change in existing responsibilities or some other performance based initiatives. (LH Wong)

Why?
[This is] an old and very human tendency. Scapegoating exists in families, among friends, partners and as described above at the work place. Always has. (Mahadevan Sundarraj)
Globally we have lots of wrong pegs in wrong holes in terms of leadership - until leadership qualities are addressed the ugly incidence will continue to spread like cancer in our work environment. (Oluwafemi Abioye)
Less focus on hard work, more focus on quick progression and higher rewards leads to the short cuts. More focus/pressures on results and less focus on the route adopted to attain the results. (Farooq Ahmed)
All the actions are driven by the fear of what the result will be & how the boss will take the meaning. (Anon)
Scapegoating is often resorted by people with a herd mentality (Anonymous)
To create confusion and chaos, to blame rather than fix the problem itself. (Gyan Chand)
Pressures and desires to survive & compete, leading to manupulative tendencies (Virender Vaira)
So an individual may remain in good books of their superiors. (Pm)
Because of the inability or inefficiency of the boss to lead from the front and take onus of his / team resposibilities. (Arun)
Management playing a polical game, pitching one race group against the other. (miai)

Effects of scapegoating
Once scapegoating is observed and condoned, it will spread like fire, demotivate hard working employees who play by the rules and morale will spiral downwards. (Lena Lim )
Solid organisations stand to lose excellent staff thru this unethical practise. (Audrene Loke)
In many cases it takes people months and sometimes years to recover and reconstruct themselves from the damage. (Uma Arora)
10 years on I have not recovered - even today I am suffering because of this and unable to come out of this in my professional life. (Prasanna Kumar)
“Skin saving” attitudes [prevail rather than] than a real work (Jayant)
I was scapegoated by my CEO. I was the star performer now I am in therapy. This is a truly detrimental practice but its sadly the truth in business. (Anonymous)
Many workplace psychological crimes go unreported - the victims and oppressors stay quiet because they don’t want to risk their jobs. (Uma Arora)

What should managers do?
The same techniques we teach our children to use when dealing with bullying apply here. Regardless of whether we are the bullied or the bystander, staying clear, staying silent only supports the behavior. (T.L. Scott)
“Each manager or leader should at least communicate with two levels below him” or may be three levels. (Farooq Ahmed)
There should be something called organizational journalism - people should have a free voice to express their views at all levels so that before someone tries to make a scapegoat, it gets viewed in a very negative light by all concerned.(Uma Arora)
This would be typical issue for internal audit as shareholder’s value being destroyed by either team, CEO, who ever. (Martin Skakala)
Build trust and exercise ethical behavior at all times. It starts from the top. Remove the scapegoater if identified and proven, this person is neither a team player, nor does he or she has interests of the organisation as a whole, but only that of himself (Lena Lim)
Blame-placing should be discoraged - fixing problems is more important than finger pointing. (Jim Wile)
Regular 360 degrees feedback will go a long way in ensuring that such instances, if any are not left under the cover before the annual review / appraisal cycle. (arun)
Management has a role to play in being explicit about accountabiltiies and managing both the team and individuals. It is management’s responsibility to have a real, objective understanding of the performance and people issues behind unsatisfactory results. (Mike Sewell)
Managers should have an insight of the situation and try to investigate causes that lead to an individual be scapegoated. (Anonymous)
A cross-functional team should be put in place to examine such incidents to identify the scapegoater and he/she should either be eliminated or kept on strong vigil to avoid further damage. (Amitava Mukherjee)
Being specific and demonstrating visible and ‘public’ attempts to rectify the situation are advisable. (TL Scott)
Incorporate ethics and leadership courses more effectively into our schools, beginning in high school all the way through grad school. (Angela Blackburn)
Managers need to be more skilled and committed to spotting and stopping bad behaviors at the onset. (LH Wong)

What should victims do?
Keep good records of everything, and I mean everything, that you’ve done during the course of your work day…. from telephone conversation to e-mails to any other written documents. (A Wong)
Quiet, consistant, firm, ethical behavior has rewards greater the the price paid. Have a plan not to be a victim and hold to your standards! (Rick Lorenz)
Sometimes the best thing is to get out of Dodge. Some organizations are toxic. (Rick Maurer)
Don’t allow yourself to become a victim.Trust your instincts and never, never stop networking so that you do not feel trapped in a position that may negatively impact your self confidence and long term success. (Angela Blackburn)
Remaining can eat away at the employee’s sense of self-worth. When the only feedback you get is negative, it’s hard to keep remembering that it isn’t you. (Rick Maurer)

Purushotham Kumar V has this great outline of steps to take:
One should not only be good, but also be smart enough to prevent being scapegoating target. In my view, the following can be the steps to deal with scapegoating:
1. Build trust and confidence with peers, superiors, manager and manger’s manager.
2. Keep eyes wide open: observe who have the attitude to blame others when things fall apart, can be very minor situations. Those who take personal responsibility for failures are trust worthy folks.
3. Build protective fence from blamers, because these will be the potential candidates for scapegoaters. The protective fence includes building visibility, trust and confidence with the potential scapegoater’s manager, peers and other infulential folks in the upward hierarchy.
4. Maintain all documentation and evidence for all good work, communication, interactions with potential scapegoater. Maintain memo / document minutes by asking directed questions.
5. Communicate and attempt build positive relationship with the potential scapegoater. Try understand his/her perspective and analyze what you can do to bridge the gap.
6. When scapegoating seems peaking beyond acceptable threshold, raise the alarm, expose the scapegoater, use some of the documentation and evidence (still save some for later use, just anticipating counter moves by the scapegoater’s supporting party), invoke witness and support from the scapegoaters superiors and peers. Do some social service by doing your best to ensure the scapegoater does not continue in the environment.
7. If the upward hierarchy environment is hopeless, remove yourself from the environment before situation lands you as a scapegoat.

Last but not least, sympathy will only bury the victim into the problem. Let each target ask him/herself “what in me allowed scapegoating”.

I’d like to open up the debate again by building on these questions:
* Why is scapegoating happening so much now?
* Who are the targets and why?
* What are managers’ responsibilities?
* What can the victims do?
* What can the rest of us do about it?

Three respondents also have further questions:
* Diana: How does the scapegoater choose his or her victim? What is the profile of the victim? Male or female?
* Mayra Coppin: When this occurs in a direct reporting relationship, what are the most effective responses?
* Jim Wile: What about management’s involvement in and encouragement of scapegoating?

Let’s get to the bottom of this issue and see if we can construct some more useful, pracical approaches to ensure it doesn’t affect too many more individuals, teams and companies. I look forward to hearing from you.

Read all of Gill Corkindale’s Letter from London posts.

Before I became an executive coach I used to be fascinated by the insights of an acquaintance who acted as sounding board/father confessor to some of the top names in British industry. As director of a corporate intelligence firm, he became privy to the fears and concerns of CEOs and senior directors, usually men over the age of 55. And although he was very discreet, he said that one thing united these powerful men, regardless of their industry or background: loneliness at the top.

I was always curious about how he managed to get these executives to open up about these feelings of loneliness. His answer was novel: more often than not, he said, the main photograph on their desk didn’t show their wife or their children, but their pet dog: “The only one they could really tell everything”.

Of course, many British CEOs have a coach as well as a pet dog these days, but, humour aside, why should it be lonely at the top? As a management writer and editor on the Financial Times, I grew weary of hearing senior executives trot out this well-worn cliché. Yes, executives have huge responsibilities and workloads, busy schedules and critical decisions to make — but they also have small armies of assistants, executives and advisers to help them manage these things. The problems start when, instead of using their private staff to support them, they turn it into a shield to protect them from the realities of their leadership or organizational culture.

While some CEOs, especially introverted types, will gladly hide behind their assistants and senior executives, for others, this distancing from reality often happens imperceptibly, without their knowledge. I remember this happening in a company where I once worked: the previous CEO had been open and available to all staff. Anyone could make an appointment to see him within one day. Staff respected that and only went to see him when they had something important to discuss and they appreciated the fact that however long they spent with him, he was fully engaged. When he left, his deputy took over. Things changed quickly. It once took me three calls to get through to his assistant who quizzed me about why I wanted to see him. She then made an appointment for four weeks later, which was cancelled after a week. I never tried again. After a year, he left, an unpopular and remote leader.

When CEOs become shielded by their team from the everyday realities of their business and from those lower down the corporate ladder, they can become vulnerable. They lose touch with what is happening on the ground, they become disconnected from staff and customers who can give them valuable, ‘unspun’ information, and they become unable to see new threats and opportunities. As my colleague Michael Roberto has pointed out in his recent column, leaders become detached and their interaction with staff becomes stilted and highly orchestrated.

Michael has some great ideas to help CEOs prevent themselves from becoming isolated at the top. Another idea that will appeal to CEOs — especially younger ones — is Ram Charan’s concept of ‘social acumen’, which he describes in his latest book, Leaders at all Levels. Social acumen helps leaders build networks that help them avoid becoming isolated at the top. Leaders with social acumen develop a broad range of social networks that permeate the company, including subordinates, peers, and superiors, he says. These networks often extend beyond the business to include customers, suppliers, regulators, politicians, and various interest groups. “The relationships tend to be durable because they are built on trust, and that trust allows information to flow both ways, exposing the leader to new ideas and different ways to see things.”

In the modern business world, where matrix-based structures are replacing hierarchies and partnership models are replacing competition, communication and networking are emerging as the key skills for leaders. Social acumen and engagement are critical for leaders if they are to engage, inspire and retain their people. It is no longer acceptable or reasonable for leaders to complain it is lonely at the top. If leaders are lonely, they are not doing their job properly.

What do you think? Is it reasonable today for leaders to complain about being lonely at the top? Do you have any messages for your CEO? Are you a leader yourself? If so, are you fully engaged with your people or do you still feel isolated?

Read all of Gill Corkindale’s Letter from London posts.

A decade ago, I remember laughing out loud at Tom Peters’ Brand You 50, one of the first of a stream of books on how to develop your personal brand. I filed it in the ‘crazy management fads’ box, something that might work in the U.S. but would never be taken seriously in the rest of the world.

How wrong I was.

Now, every other client I coach now asks me for suggestions on how to raise their profile and improve their personal branding at work. Almost everyone is realising that it is not enough simply to sit back and expect recognition and promotion for a job well done.

While most executives recognise the power of personal branding, some people are better at it than others. Confidence and culture are the major determinants of how far people will go with their personal brand. More individualistic cultures, particularly those of the English-speaking world lead the way, with some of the most shameless examples of personal branding. The worst I encountered was a Canadian pharmaceuticals executive, now a venture capitalist, who asked me to ghostwrite a novel based on his career to promote him and his achievements to the world.

At the other end of the scale are executives from communitarian cultures, such as those in Asia, Scandinavia, and Africa, who feel genuinely uncomfortable singling themselves out for special attention. It can be an uphill struggle to convince them that, in a global world, personal visibility is important for their careers. Of course, the notable exceptions to this rule are China’s Generation Xers — the generation of only children dubbed ‘Little Emperors’ — who have no difficulty promoting themselves.

So why the change? Why is it more important than ever to develop your own brand? I like the words of Seth Godin: “Many of us are taught to do our best and then let the world decide how to judge us. I think it’s better to do your best and decide how you want to be judged. And act that way.” But beyond that, some important forces have emerged in the last decade that make the Brand You concept critical to business and career success. They are:

• Globalisation: international integration (through economic, technological, socio-cultural and political forces) which is proving to be a levelling mechanism for talent and opportunities.
• Organisational changes: globalisation and increased competition are forcing organisational change and restructuring, which are in turn increasing mobility, uncertainty and fluidity.
• Project-based work: team-based assignments are short-term and fast-moving, which can quickly affect reputations
• Career management: responsibility for managing careers has passed from employer to employee. Successful executives recognise they need to be ‘appropriately selfish’, putting their loyalty to themselves above their loyalty to their company.
• An increasingly competitive society: in every walk of life, it has become important to learn how to stand out from the crowd in order to win better opportunities
• The inexorable rise of brands: branding has become pervasive in all societies as a means to distinguish goods, services and personal preferences. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Bebo show how branding has moved squarely into the personal domain

What are your thoughts about the forces that are driving the power of personal branding? Are there any more lessons we need to learn from these forces?

I look forward to your comments — and next week I’ll give you my suggestings for developing your personal brand.

Read all of Gill Corkindale’s “Letter from London” posts.

Have you ever watched as a work colleague has been blamed, exposed or dismissed for the mistakes of their boss or colleague? What have been the effects on the individual and their colleagues? How has it been handled?

In my work as a coach, I am coming across more and more cases of corporate scapegoating, which the Scapegoat Society, a UK non-profit organisation which aims to raise consciousness about scapegoating in the workplace, defines as a hostile social or psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target or a group.

The effects of are deeply damaging, with long-term consequences for the victim. I recently coached a senior manager who had never recovered from being made a scapegoat. John, 39, had joined a financial services firm in his early 20s and had been doing well for four years until he was made a scapegoat by a new boss.

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