Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences

by Jane Hyun, Audrey S. Lee

Overview

Renowned executive coaches and global leadership strategists Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee offer lessons on the vital skill of “Flexing”—the art of switching leadership styles to lead people who are different from you more effectively, equipping managers for success with the multicultural workers of today and tomorrow.

Flex offers a proactive strategy for managers to navigate and leverage diversity effectively in this new global economy, showing managers how to: understand the power gap, the social distance between you and those in the workplace of different cultures, ages, and gender; flex your management style, by stretching how you work and communicate with others, and bridging the gap with more effective communication, feedback tools and building healthy teams; and multiply the effect, by teaching these skills to others and closing the power gap with clients, customers, and partners to create innovative solutions.

Creating flex in a company’s management style will impact all aspects of developing the talent you have, attracting future talent and building relationships with customers in this competitive marketplace. Now, Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences shows you how.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062248527
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/25/2014
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Jane Hyun is an internationally renowned executive coach and global leadership adviser to Fortune 500 companies, business schools, and nonprofit organizations. She speaks frequently on the topics of authenticity, culture, and leadership. A graduate of Cornell University with a degree in economics, she is the author of Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling. She lives in New York City.

Audrey S. Lee is an executive coach and global leadership strategist for Fortune 500 companies, universities, and nonprofit organizations. A sought-after speaker, she is also a performer who combines her onstage experience and business acumen to deliver effective leadership programs focusing on culture, communications, and executive presence. Prior to her work in leadership development, she managed key marketing initiatives in high-tech companies. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

Glossary of Key Terms xxv

Part I Getting Inside the Gap: What Keeps Us from Connecting

Chapter 1 What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: How We (Don't) Talk about Difference 3

Chapter 2 Managing the Power Gap 33

Chapter 3 Culture and Communication: Flexing across Styles 47

Chapter 4 Portrait of a Fluent Leader 67

Fluent Leader Profile: Rosaline Koo-Building Fluency Beyond Stereotypes 89

Part II The Killer App: Flexing Across the Gap

Chapter 5 Power Gap Principle: Flex Your Management Style 99

Fluent Leader Profile: Don Liu-Bridging the Gap through Generosity of Spirit 126

Chapter 6 Navigate the Power Gap with Your Peers 131

Chapter 7 Go the Distance with Your Superiors 151

Fluent Leader Profile: Erby L. Foster Jr.-The Fluent "Agent" and Champion 170

Chapter 8 Connecting with Customers and Partners 177

Profile: Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital-Health-care System Identifies Innovative Solutions for Patient Needs 197

Part III Multiplying Your Success

Chapter 9 Onboarding Your Employees-Getting It Right from Day One 207

Fluent Leader Profile: Steve Miola and Ray Bain, Merck Research Laboratories-Creating a Fluent Company Culture 227

Chapter 10 Mentors, Sponsors, Coaches, and the Gift of Feedback 235

Fluent Leader Profile: Rich Hille-From the Baseball Fields to the Corporate Boardroom: Leading a Winning Team 257

Chapter 11 Leveraging Diverse Thinking from Your Teams to Drive Innovation 263

Conclusion 283

Bibliography 287

Editorial Reviews

01/13/2014
Executive coaches Hyun (Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling) and Lee offer a solid, common-sense guide to creating a successful and diverse workplace in terms of culture, age, and gender. Both authors were raised with strong Confucian values—hard work, humility, and an aversion to boasting about accomplishments. That kind of reticence won’t take one very far in a Western workplace, the authors argue. How to make sure differences in communications styles are acknowledged so that employees’ careers don’t get unfairly damaged? The answer lies in “flexing”: adapting work behavior and communication in a way that respects status and cultural differences. The authors cover differing management styles, “flexing” across different communication styles, finding common ground in workplaces that employee workers from different generations, becoming a difference-fluent leader, building trust, and serving as a mentor, sponsor, or coach, among other topics. Their guide is clear and illustrative, though the topic could have been addressed more succinctly. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

If you are in leadership or want to remain competitive and you don’t have a culturally diverse board or staff, you are part of the past. We need to focus now on understanding the need for developing this untapped pipeline. This remarkable resource will set you on the right path.” — Dr. Frances Hesselbein, President, Leader to Leader Institute

“A solid, common-sense guide to creating a successful and diverse workplace in terms of culture, age, and gender....clear and illustrative.” — Publishers Weekly

“Hyun and Lee’s book accomplishes what few guidebooks for employers do: It empowers leaders not only to manage differently, but to think differently by cultivating cultural fluency that will enable them to work more effectively with diverse teams.” — Sylvia Ann Hewlett, CEO, Center for Talent Innovation, author of Forget A Mentor, Find a Sponsor

“FLEX provides a way for leaders to re-define how to lead by understanding, embracing and seeking out differences.” — Karyn Detje, Chief Talent Officer, Tory Burch

“Flex is the first real field manual for managing across differences. Its lessons are relevant to people at every level and stage of their career. Flex is required reading for every manager who wants to empower his/her employees to reach their full potential.” — David A. Thomas, PhD Dean and William R. Berkley Chair Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business

“Read this book. If taken seriously, you will certainly challenge yourself to change the way you lead in today’s global marketplace.” — Steve Reinemund, Dean of Business, Wake Forest University, Retired Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo

“Flex is about thinking — managing one’s thinking to meet the demands of business relationships inside and outside of your organization. From the conceptual rationale to the practical how-to, take this journey with the authors!” — J.T. (Ted) Childs, Jr., Principal, Ted Childs LLC

“…a solid, common-sense guide to creating a successful and diverse workplace…Their guide is clear and illustrative…” — Publishers Weekly

“Coauthors Hyun and Lee provide the modern manager with a playbook on how to switch among leadership styles to get the most out of employees.” — Library Journal

“Hyun and Lee offer convincing evidence to illustrate how to enhance communication skills across various workplace divides.” — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Flex is about thinking — managing one’s thinking to meet the demands of business relationships inside and outside of your organization. From the conceptual rationale to the practical how-to, take this journey with the authors!

J.T. (Ted) Childs

FLEX provides a way for leaders to re-define how to lead by understanding, embracing and seeking out differences.

Karyn Detje

If you are in leadership or want to remain competitive and you don’t have a culturally diverse board or staff, you are part of the past. We need to focus now on understanding the need for developing this untapped pipeline. This remarkable resource will set you on the right path.

Dr. Frances Hesselbein

Hyun and Lee’s book accomplishes what few guidebooks for employers do: It empowers leaders not only to manage differently, but to think differently by cultivating cultural fluency that will enable them to work more effectively with diverse teams.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Read this book. If taken seriously, you will certainly challenge yourself to change the way you lead in today’s global marketplace.

Steve Reinemund

Flex is the first real field manual for managing across differences. Its lessons are relevant to people at every level and stage of their career. Flex is required reading for every manager who wants to empower his/her employees to reach their full potential.

David A. Thomas

Hyun and Lee offer convincing evidence to illustrate how to enhance communication skills across various workplace divides.

Stephanie Garber

2014-02-06
With the assistance of Miller, executive coaches Hyun (Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians, 2005) and Lee examine how "infusing cultural proficiency initiatives into company-wide values, policies and programs achieves a demonstrable effect." The authors report that the workforce is changing, growing more multicultural, younger and more female. These changes call for a much more nuanced response from corporate leaders to avoid pitfalls and achieve success. Hyun and Lee emphasize the importance of two requirements. The first, which they term "fluency," is the ability to work across cultures; it is comparable to speaking multiple foreign languages. The second, "flex," includes the skills required to work across "the power gap"—the distance that separates leaders from others in an organizational structure. However, the authors stress that sentiments like "let us respect each other" are insufficient. People in leadership positions need to face the problem of understanding how subtle cultural differences between people of different gender, ethnic and generational backgrounds can be critical for effective leadership—e.g., between more outgoing cultures, like Americans, and more reserved ones, like Asians. Problems also may arise from a failure to recognize more subtle differences between different age groups—baby boomers, Generation Xers and Yers and millenials—regarding how they communicate, as well as their goals and approaches to the dynamics of the workplace. The authors seek to show readers how to reduce losses of time and resources incurred when the potential contributions of well-qualified recruits or hires are lost because management doesn't fully understand how to bring them on board. They discuss many ways of overcoming the business consequences of such failures to flex across the gap. "[O]ur experience has taught us that interpersonal dynamics can change when people with a drive for making a difference take the initiative and then influence others to multiply the effect," they write. Hyun and Lee offer convincing evidence to illustrate how to enhance communication skills across various workplace divides.

Kirkus Reviews