Quote of the Week: I found there was only one way to look thin, hang out with fat people.  Rodney Dangerfield 

Humor Break:

Bev: How’s your new diet going?

Al: Not sure.  When I got on the scales this morning it said “to be continued”.

Stat of the Week: In the United States, more than 78 million adults and 12 million children are obese. The numbers are staggering: One-third of Americans are obese; another third are overweight (that would be me).  A new HBO documentary series, The Weight of the Nation, explores how our country got this way and what can be done to tackle what has become a growing national health crisis. Divided into four parts — “Consequences,” “Choices,” “Children in Crisis” and “Challenges” — the series looks at the public health challenges posed by an increasingly overweight population, as well as the public policy debates around trying to solve the epidemic. It also profiles regular folks across America who have tried — and tried again — to lose their excess pounds.

Action Tip: If you are not out exercising when it is broadcast, please do yourself a favor and watch this HBO series on TV or Computer.  The series began May 14 but will repeat.  Free streaming on the computer … along with the opportunity to take the Pledge for Progress.

Weight Watch – Week:  (A personal 16 week Healthy Life style report)

The eighth week’s results are in: I LOST .4 pounds on the official digital scale.  Eight weeks into the program and I am down 12.2.  Half way through the experiment.  I thought for sure I would lose more.  But am happy to lose what I have lost and finding this new healthy life style isn’t so bad.  But still have a ways to go…

More exercise might be the answer.  Some time ago I wrote a post called “Stand For Something”.  It was about getting out of your chair!  Now comes New York Times Phys Ed columnist Gretchen Reynolds with more on the topic.  She stresses distress by taking frequent 2 minute breaks from your chair.  Gets the metabolism going again.  I can do that!  Read her very interesting article Stand Up, Walk Around, Even Just For ’20 Minutes’, or read her book The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can: Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer or listen to her on Fresh Air on NPR.

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.” -Jose Ortega y Gasset

Personality does indeed influence how participants react to 360-degree feedback, how motivated they will be to act on the suggestions and observations of others, and how likely they will be to implement and sustain new behaviors to become more effective. Here are some research findings supporting this:

Research by Smither, London, and Richmond (2005) explored the relationship between leaders’ personalities and their reactions to and use of 360-degree feedback. Leaders high in emotional stability were more likely to be rated by a psychologist as motivated to use the feedback results for professional development.

Additionally, leaders high in extroversion or sociability were more likely to have sought additional feedback six months later, while leaders high in conscientiousness were more likely to have engaged in developmental behaviors.

These researchers also found that extroverted leaders who are open to experience were more likely to perceive and view negative feedback as valuable and were most likely to seek further information about their feedback.

In general, individuals with high self-esteem reported more favorable attitudes toward the 360-degree feedback than those with low self-esteem. Feedback recipients who rate themselves highly on receptivity and the desire to make a good first impression were also perceived by feedback providers as having more positive reactions to feedback (Atwater, Brett, and Charles, 2007).

Research by Bono and Colbert (2005) suggests that the motivation to change behavior following 360-degree feedback is related to a personality concept called core self-evaluations (CSE). Specifically, they found that individuals with high levels of core self-evaluations (those with high self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, internal locus of control and low neuroticism) will be most motivated to change behavior when they receive discrepant feedback, while those with low levels of core self-evaluations will be most motivated when others’ ratings are most similar to their own.

These results suggest the potential value of coaching to assist individuals to understand potentially complex feedback and to increase the motivation to set developmental goals. In general, leaders with an internal locus of control (i.e., those who believe they have some control over what happens to them) tend to react to peer and subordinate feedback more favorably, with a greater intention to improve their skills.

Goal orientation may influence whether an individual views feedback as a development opportunity or a challenge to his or her self-rating. Individuals with a learning goal orientation tend to hold a view of ability as modifiable and believe they are capable of improving their level of abilities (Brett and Atwater, 2001). These researchers found that those with a learning goal orientation believed the feedback was more useful than those with a performance goal orientation.

Taken together, it seems people are most motivated to use 360-degree feedback for development when they are conscientious or extroverted and when they had high self-efficacy, an internal locus of control, and low anxiety. As a result, coaches should assess the personality and style of their clients and reflect on how this might impact the receptivity and use of the 360-degree feedback results.

Coach’s Critique: 

Some people are truly limited by their abilities to benefit from coaching and/or a behavioral change program. So, 360s could perhaps be implemented on most  types of individuals, however, who will actually utilize it as way to change behaviors is impacted by many factors including to a great extent, personality.

There are certain personality types such as the ones mentioned above that reflect individual level of coachability to create and sustain change. On the other hand, there are people with personality types that are considered so extreme that even the most seasoned and brilliant coaches cannot get them to change their behaviors. It is hard enough for any type of person to change and form habits, independent of personality. Now, to expect people to change with personalities that are less likely to result in proactive behavior and deliberate practice is simply NOT probable!

With that said, coaches should guage at their client’s likelihood for improvement by understanding their personality traits. In our recent book, Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It, Ken and I talk about the process and methods for maximizing coaching, as well as research about the various personality traits and their impact on behavioral change.

If you are interested in your own personality and how others experience it, take our brief 45-item five factor inventory at www.innnateindex.com.

What has been your experience with the impact of personality types on 360s? What personality types in particular were more prone to acceptance of feedback and/or development initiatives?

From Industry Week: Critical Steps to Bridging the Leadership Skills Gap

“Global competition has permanently changed the workplace. Consumers want cars and appliances meant to last and have little tolerance for overhead costs that snake their way into product prices. Amid the rising competition, the battle to find the best workers to produce goods and manage increasingly complex manufacturing processes has never been more pitched. A recent research report indicated that as many as 10 million manufacturing jobs may emerge globally over the next few years. At the same time, certain competencies have risen above other skills as critical to global competitiveness and success.”

Wally’s Comment: This article is aimed at manufacturers, but it describes a problem that faces companies in many industries.

From Dan McCarthy: The 6 Passages of Leadership and Management

“Unless you are an heir to a throne, people usually don’t begin their careers leading a large organization. There’s a progression of passages, or at least there should be. Charan, Drotter, and Noel wrote about six leadership passages in their classic book The Leadership Pipeline. However, they use the terms “leadership” and “management” interchangeably. There’s a big difference, right? What if we took a simplified version of the Pipeline model, and mash it with a distinction between leadership and management? We’ll call it The Great Leadership & Management Passages Model (OK, so we need a catchier name):”

Wally’s Comment: Most talent management people are familiar with the leadership pipeline model from the book, The Leadership Pipeline. Dan McCarthy describes the leadership learning and development challenges that a person will confront as he or she moves through that pipeline.

From the Human Capital Institute: Training Professionals: If You are Not Alarmed, You Should Be

“Two alarming statistics crossed my desk recently which should be wake-up calls for all of us in learning and development. The first was in a McKinsey Quarterly article entitled “Getting More from Your Training Programs.” What really got my attention was the third sentence of the opening paragraph: “only one-quarter of the respondents to a recent McKinsey survey said their training programs measurably improved business performance.” In other words, a whopping 75% of the senior managers that McKinsey surveyed felt that their training programs failed to contribute to the success of the business. The second was even more alarming. According to a study by the Executive Board’s Corporate Leadership Council, “more than 50% of line managers believe that shutting down the L&D function would have no impact on employee performance!” Can you image the alarm bells that would go off in your company if market research discovered that more than half your customers were dissatisfied with your products?”

Wally’s Comment: How effective is your training? How do you know? What does the CEO think?

From Katherine Jones: “Talking the Talk:” Applying Talent Management Best Practices to HR Itself

“I had the pleasure this week of participating in a workshop with a group of exceptionally dedicated, smart, and enthusiastic HR professionals who were spending several days together with the common goal of improving their efficacy and the effectiveness of HR within their large global company. As a group, we looked at Bersin & Associates research – research that looks at best practices in talent acquisition, performance management, leadership development, succession, and learning – with the goal of applying them not to the constituents that these HR professionals serve – but to themselves.”

Wally’s Comment: It’s always a squirm-in-your-chair moment when you review how well you’re following your own advice.

Title: HBR Insight Center of Innovation and Creativity

Competencies:  innovation, creativity

Who benefits: those responsible for and those who would like to develop in the areas of innovation and creativity

Consultant Usage: resource center

What’s it about?  Harvard Business Review has developed a nice online resource center.  If innovation and creativity is your thing, here is what you will find at the link:

Videos (2)

Disruptive Innovation Explained
Create an App Club

Audio (1)

Restoring America’s Innovation Economy – with one of my all-time favorite authors, Rosabeth Moss Kanter

New Articles (7) including my favorites:

What Doesn’t Motivate Creativity Can Kill It
How Introverts Can Become Better Innovators
The Four Worst Innovation Assassins

Further Reading (6) including my favorite:

The Anti-Creativity Checklist

HBR Classics (5) including my favorites:

Innovation: The Classic Traps

Strategies for Learning from Failure
Innovation’s Seven Deadly Sins: Avoiding the Most Common Pitfalls of Innovation

HBR also advertises several books on innovation and creativity.  All-in-all it is quite a treasure trove and certainly worthy of a visit if you are interested in the topic.

Catch you later.

The report outlines “a 3-5 year maturity model to building a world-class analytics solution.” Bersin divides the process into four “levels,” starting with “reporting” and culminating in “predictive analytics.

I think the view and sequence are right, but the time frame is suspect. After decades of making forecasting mistakes, I subscribe to futurist Paul Saffo’s sage advice: “never mistake a clear view for a short distance.”

To exploit Big Data, you need to upgrade your technology, but you also have to think differently. There is art as well as science involved when you search through mountains of data for nuggets of insight. Most of the folks who fill top HR positions have not learned to think this way. It could easily take a generation to change that.

Let’s take a look at how it all happened on the marketing side at Target. Read Charles Duhigg’s NY Times article, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets” to get a sense of why Target is often held up as the very model for the kind of results that Big Data can generate. Then think about how they got to where they are today.

Retailers have been gathering data about their customers for a couple of decades now and Target has been a leader. They’ve gone through a progression that is similar to what Bersin outlines in their report. But Target has been working on Bersin’s “Level 4,” including predictive analytics for about a decade.

One challenge was to gather everything that was important and put it where it could all be analyzed in helpful ways. For Target that meant connecting everything to their Guest ID, but that was no easy task. Target needed to think through how to get the data and develop tools to obtain it and consolidate it.

This has to happen in talent management, too. My guess is that it will be handled quite well by the combination of software vendors now bringing HR-specific packages on stream and leading edge companies who work with them to refine the packages. At that point, things get tougher.

Big Data will not give up its secrets to technology alone. You need two kinds of people to wring out the real value.

There must be people with a deep knowledge of talent management who can identify key issues for analysis. They need to be conversant and comfortable with technology.

And you need people with the deep technical skills necessary to use the technology. That means statisticians and analysts who have deep knowledge of how to pull insight out of the data and who are conversant and comfortable with talent management issues.

That world is coming, but it won’t be either easy or quick.

“42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.”

Steven Wright

Another addition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world. Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. According to a new study, the workplace is making U.S. men and women overweight. Researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge analyzed data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from the 1960s to 2008. They found that over the past five decades, physical activity during work has dramatically declined, causing men to burn an average of 142 fewer calories a day at work and women, 124. Overall, 34% of Americans over the age of 20 are classified as obese.

2. According to the August 2011 study by Bersin and Associates form 214 organizations on talent management revealed that only 11% of senior leaders coach their employees and only 15% discuss the importance of coaching and developmenting employees “very frequently.” The study concluded that managers lack the skills to coach their employees, and this presents the most severe challenge to effective management of employee performance.

3. According to a recent online survey of over 500 senior managers by the American Management Association, less than 10% of organizations identify future leaders (high potentials) in any systematic manner. The most common ways future leaders are identified are: Performance appraisal processes (69%), Contributions to the business (42%), Recommendations of senior leaders (35%), Input from peers (35%), Education (18%), and Don’t know (8%).

4. A world wide study of over 2,00 employees sponsored by WorldatWork/s Alliance for Work-Life Progress found that more than 50% of managers survey think the ideal employee is one that is available to meet business needs at any hour including nights and weekends (U.S., Germany, UK). Almost 30% believ that employees who use flexible arrangements are doomed not be promoted or advance very high in organizations.

5. A survey of 1,058 randomly selected HR professionals conducted by the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and commissioned by the Drug and Alcohol Testing Association (DATIA) examines the use of drug testing programs by organizations. Poll results indicate that more than one-half of employers (57 percent) conduct drug tests on all job candidates. Most employers who use tests on job candidates have done so for seven years or more (69 percent) and 12% have used them for five to six years.

6. A recent study from 81 large national and multinatiuonal coporations asked the conditions influencing executive development and leadership (2011/2012 Trends in Executive Development: A Benchmark Report by Pearson TalentLens and Executive Development Associates Inc. (EDA): 55.7% lack of bench strength; 31.6% need for increasing collaboraiton across the organization; 24.1% the “next generation” of employees who have different interests, needs and values; 22.8% rapid growth and expansion of the organization; and 22.8% globalization.

The same survey also asked about critical skills required of executives and 34.6 percent cited critical thinking skills followed by leadership (28.2 percent), stretegy execution (20.5 percent) and leading the next generation (16.7 percent).

7. According to the 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report, found that 70% of the 2,800 colleage students and young professionals surveyed from 14 countries reported that workplace mobility and social media freedom were more important than salary. Additionally, 70% mentioned they prefer to be out of the office regularly and working remotely.

8. A recent survey to 600 respondents by presentation expert Dave Paradi revealed the most common PowerPoint complaints. These included: 74% presenters reading their own slides; 52% slides with full sentences instead of bullets; 48% text that is too small to read; 34% slides that are had to see due to the color choice; and 26% overly complex charts or diagrams.

9. According to a new social media survey by Select Minds (ROI of Social Media in the Enterprise” A Benchmarking Survey), 69% of the firms surveyed use social media for brand awareness, 68% for recruiting new talent, and 63% for marketing purposes. Respondents rated social media most effective as a communications platform (66% and least effective for “finding candidates to hire” (44%).

10. Can’t get along with others? It might predict leadership failure according to a new Right Management survey of over 1,400 CEOs frm more than 700 companies. The best predictors of leadership success included: fit with company values 68%, interpersonal skills 66%, motivation to lead 62%, previous experiences 57%, lack of derailers 21%, educational background 11% and other 4%.

11. A late 2011 survey of over 431 workers by Office Team revealed that than three-quarters (76 percent) of employees polled said they have no interest in having their manager’s position. In addition, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) believe they couldn’t do a better job than their boss. The most imporatnt ingredients for successful bosses included integrity, judgement, diplomacy, adaptability, communication skills, and the ability to positively influence others.

12. Did drinking at with colleagues over the last holidays shape how others view you? In a 2011 survey by Harris International on behalf of Caron Treament centers, 52% of the 870 employees surveyed said they saw someone under the influence of alcohol doign something dangerous or inappropriate (e.g., flirting with a boss). Fifty-six percent said a co-worker or friend suffered consequences when this inappropriate behavior appears in photos on the Internet.

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

Quote of the Week: “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America.  If I’m not there, I go to work.”  Robert Orben

Humor Break: The following Notice was placed on a working area bulletin board:

Please Notice!!

You may have noticed the increased amount of notices for you to notice.

We have noticed that some of our notices have not been noticed. It is important for all of us to notice the notices.

This notice is to remind you to notice these notices and to take the appropriate response.  

From the CEO’s Select Committee on Noticing Notices

Stat of the Week: Office space costs money.  Less office space, more bonus $$$ for the CEO.  Loss of office (or cubicle) isn’t new.  Big accounting firms were leaders well into the past century.  What is new is the accelerated rate of shared work space.  Tis the fad de año:

 “As companies seek to cut costs and accommodate an increasingly mobile work force, some employees have had to say goodbye to their personal work areas. Unassigned workspaces, sometimes called “free address” or “non-territorial offices,” have long been a fact of life for consultants or employees who do their jobs mostly on the road or from home. But a growing number of workers, including some who spend more time at the office, have had their cubicles replaced by communal tables or unassigned desks they share with a sometimes shifting cast of colleagues.”

What is gained? — Besides 10s of millions of $$$, according to one large company, up to a 50% decrease in emails and decisions made 25% faster?

What is lost?  — Ah, if it saves money, who cares?

Weight Watch – Week 6:  (A personal 16 week Healthy Life style report)

The sixth week’s results are in: I LOST .7 on the official digital scale.  Six weeks into the program and I am down 11.8 pounds.

I am again of mixed feelings.  I am reminded that there is no easy journey to a proper weight.  Can’t undo 30+ years of overindulgence in days or even weeks.  Still, I think I am on the right track.  Not trying for any quick fixes.  My diet is balanced, proportions small, no sweets, no added sugar, no more than 2 slices of bread a week, lots of protein, very little carbs.  In short, I have traded fun food for healthy food.  I keep reminding myself that it is for a good cause.

There is one new source for joy.  The second digit from the decimal point is a new (and lower) number.  I haven’t seen this new number associated with me in 15 years! 

Eating tip: Check out this New York Times article: Eating Well Without the Flavor of Shame.  Want more (reading that is)?  Check out this book: Culinary Intelligence: The Art of Eating Healthy (and Really Well).

I worked out for an average of 1 hour a day for 6 of the past 7 days.  I also began a twice a week water aerobics class yesterday.  It was enjoyable, adds variety and works different muscle groups.  All good.

Exercise Tip: May is National Bike Month.  So if you are in need of an exercise program, get your seat on a bike and start peddling it.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” -Wayne Gretsky

A fundamental issue that comes up in practice has to do what to do once 360-degree feedback has been implemented. How do we maximize the use 360s to ensure our client’s behavior change?

Organizations that implement a systemic approach to talent development with support from a manager and follow up development activities tied to performance improvement will have the most effective outcomes in leadership development (Nowack, 2009).

1. Manager as a Coach. A better understanding of the role of the manager as an important internal coach and how organizational culture influences promoting and sustaining new behavior is in need of greater exploration. The manager can reinforce and support the implementation of the development plan of the participant. This is important in light of recent findings suggesting that effect sizes for transfer of management training interventions are generally low (particularly when seen by direct reports and peers) but can be improved significantly with opportunities for structured and deliberate practice (Taylor, Taylor, & Russ-Eft, 2009).

2. Online Goal Setting/Reminder Systems. Use of newer online goal setting and development planning/reminder systems can facilitate goal planning and follow-up in order to leverage multi-rater feedback interventions. In a recent unpublished one-year longitudinal study using this online coaching system with a major university medical center, significant behavior change was observed by managers, direct reports, and peers on a post-program assessment (Nowack, 2011).

These finding suggests that performance can be practically enhanced by using a 360-degree feedback process involving managers as “performance coaches” and holding participants accountable for creating and implementing a development plan based on 360 results.

Coach’s Critique: 

It is very common for 360s to be utilized without any kind of plan for leveraging the feedback for behavioral change. Organizations implement department wide 360s and hope that somehow the awareness that they received automatically turns them into better leaders. Managers implement 360 on their team, and expect that it would somehow result in their behavioral change without them knowing how to set goals, or have any kind of accountability or support system to work at their goals. Unfortunately, these expectations may be deemed as”wishful thinking”!

While feedback is a necessary condition for behavioral change, it is NOT sufficient in and of itself. In order for participants to translate their feedback into new habits, they need to collaboratively agree upon goals with their manager, and implement an accountability system in order to achieve them. While this is a necessary approach, managers often neglect to coach their teams, either because their organization isn’t rewarding them for it, or because they aren’t aware of the importance in doing so.

We all know that learning a new behavior isn’t easy. It is often a bumpy road for many individuals seeking change. In fact, research by Anders Ericsson and colleagues suggest that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice with on-going feedback in order to become an expert at something. With that said, shouldn’t managers take on the coaching role to ensure the behavioral change of their talent?

What has been your experience with ways to leverage 360-degree feedback?

The study always draws comment and analysis. Here are three looks at what it all means, starting with Dan McCarthy’s comments. I think that Dan does the best job, every year, of setting the study in perspective. There’s also analysis from Forbes and Human Resources Executive.

From Dan McCarthy: New Study IDs Best Companies for Leadership, Innovation

“Hay Group just released its seventh annual Best Companies for Leadership Study. Is this just another one of those touchy-feely, nice to do awards? Not at all. The Best Companies for Leadership consistently outperform their peers. Over a 10 year period, the Top 20 companies produced a 5.39 percent shareholder return, compared to a 2.92 percent shareholder return generated by the S&P 500.”

From Forbes: The World’s Best Companies for Leadership

“Which businesses most expect their employees to step up and lead, and best prepare them to do so? Those questions are tough to answer, of course. But for the last seven years, the Philadelphia-based global human resources management consultancy Hay Group has taken a stab at rating companies according to leadership measures. Today it released its latest “Best Companies for Leadership” survey. The winner: General Electric. GE also came out on top last year. According to Rick Lash, director of Hay Group’s leadership and talent practice, GE not only fosters leaders but it promotes innovation, securing it the top slot.”

From HREOnline: Building Leadership, Other Big Goals into Your System

“The top companies for developing leaders build innovation and idea-sharing into their corporate systems. This, according to the seventh annual Best Companies for Leadership Study, released today by the Philadelphia-based Hay Group. (Here’s a release from Business Wire about the study, and here are the top 20 companies, with General Electric and Procter & Gamble topping the list.)”

For more context, check out Hay Group’s white paper, “Leadership 2030” and the Fortune article on the most recent edition of another important study: the Aon/Hewitt study of best companies for leadership development.

Finally, here are two articles about the challenge of picking first-time leaders out of the pack.  Ken Nowack (who posts on this blog) offers the best article I’ve seen on assessment tools and techniques, “In Search of…..Excellent Leaders.” Ken Blanchard shares some succinct advice on “How to Identify a Future Leader.”

Title: Round’um up!  Bring’um in!  Keep’um Happy!

Competencies: customer service, sales

Who benefits: anyone in customer service or sales; however most articles are written for senior management

Consultant Usage: good read for sales and customer service consultants

What’s it about?  Today’s post is brief.  Harvard Business Review published an anthology on customer service.  It contains 9 articles previously published in HBR.  If you are in the customer service business, you will benefit greatly from some if not all of the articles.  If you are not in the customer service business, please return to this site next week.

The anthology is about best practices in customer service. The theme is “How do you keep your customers coming back-and get them to bring others?”  It promises to show you how to:

- Turn angry customers into loyal advocates
- Get more people to recommend you
- Boost customer satisfaction by satisfying your employees
- Focus on profitable customers–whether they’re loyal or not
- Invest in the right CRM technology for your business
- Mine customer data for more effective marketing
- Increase your customers’ lifetime value

If you like positive cost/benefit outcomes, here is an interesting tidbit.  The book costs under $16.  If the articles were purchased separately, the cost would be close to $75.  Great bargain if you are interested in the topic.

While researching this post I stumbled across a related book: Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: The Secrets of Building a Five-Star Customer Service Organization.  I have not read the book.  What attracted me to look at the book summary was the high number of positive reviews posted along with it.  It received a 4.8 out of 5 on 46 ratings.  If you are a regular Amazon visitor, I think you recognize that it exceptionally difficult to reach that score with that number of reviewers.  Also big names like Ken Blanchard (who endorses a little too easily for my taste, but not to be totally discounted), Daniel Pink (brilliant and colorful) and Horst Schulze, Founding President and COO, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company (now him you can take to the bank).  My hunch is the book has something important to offer those in customer service.

Catch you later.

I used to sit down with the facility manager and review the contents of his in and out-boxes. The exercise gave me a good sense of what was going on there and several springboards for conversation. On one of those visits, a manager showed me a memo that he wrote to the sales manager who had an office in the facility. The subject was a fairly routine matter.

I was concerned. I asked the manager why he wrote a memo, instead of simply walking the fifteen feet or so to the sales manager’s office and having a conversation. His behavior seemed bizarre to me. I believe that conversation is the primary tool that managers use to get things done.

Today technology has made it easier for managers like that one to avoid conversation. Email and text messaging are quick and easy. Conversation is richer, but also messier, and, it turns out to be a declining skill among those coming into our talent development pipelines today.

Dorothy Dalton recently wrote a post titled, “The declining art of conversation and Gen Y recruitment benchmarks” about the impact on recruiting. Here’s a money quote.

“So although we know that Millenials communicate and socialise differently to other generations, at some point they do have to engage with people outside their age group. What happens when skills core to the talent identification process are deficient?”

Sherry Turkle calls what’s happening “The Flight from Conversation.”  She describes the situation this way.

“Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention.”

If your job is talent development, this will become your problem. We have to revise our recruiting, on-boarding, and other processes to make them more effective in the face of this techno-social challenge. But there’s more.

Managers need to learn how to create teams from individuals who are, to use Ms Turkle’s term, used to being “alone together.” Leadership development will need increase and improve the way we teach communication.

For years we’ve atomized the workforce. Individuals in matrix organizations don’t belong to permanent teams. Telework has offered autonomy but withdrawn social support. It’s beginning to seem like a key challenge for the next few years will be maintaining our humanity while we wrestle with the twin challenges of technology and dispersal.

“Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.”
J. Paul Getty

Merriam-Webster defines “success” as one that succeeds, the attainment of wealth, favor or eminence or outcome/result.
 
How successful are you?  How do you define success in your own life?

We are begining our next book and looking for “success” stories to include in it so please feel free to share those with me directly at ken@envisiaonline.com

Personal Success Scorecard
 
In working with so many senior executives that might be described as “successful” in their chosen careers, it became pretty obvious that they were a success but in a very narrow way.  It would appear to be much more valuable to have a “scorecard” that could describe domains outside of work and career as a way to define, measure and strive for personal definitions of success.  I conceptualize “success” as having at least four overlapping pillars or domains that include:
 
1. Achievement: What have I done that I am most proud of?
 
2. Relationships: What Impact have I had with those who mean the most to me? What are my core values and reasons for living?
 
3. Well-Being: What brings me the most pleasure, happiness and contentment?
 
4. Legacy: What are my core values and reasons for living?

Each of these has specific definitions and metrics that help us to define just how “successful” we might be from our own perspective and as experienced or seen by others.

 
In fact, we can create a set of objectives and “metrics” for each of these domains that give you an idea of how to maximize your overall success both personally and in the eyes of others you interact with.
 
I’ve discovered that introducing this personal success scorecard early in my executive coaching intervention provides an interesting model for my clients to think about even if our primary contract is around cultivating their “leadership effectiveness” directly leading to enhanced individual, team and organizational effectiveness.  This scorecard also allows me to openly discuss “balance” and what it means to be at least actively cognizant and aware of how we are spending our time and energy.
 
If a client is completely unbalanced (e.g., a Type A engaged workaholic with total focus essentially on the career achievement domain) but isn’t dissatisfied, are they unsuccessful?  Perhaps the answer lies in what is valued by the client but I’ve yet to see senior level executives that can sustain a high degree of effectiveness and performance in their chosen occupational field without some time and attention in the other three success domains.
 
And just how happy should we be?  Does it really matter?  In fact, recent research suggests that if career success is an important goal, that being moderate or moderately high in self-reported happiness appears to be the most desirable level.  However, if we are looking at relationships, being as happy as possible is indeed the goal.  Even with a large genetic “set point” we now know that approximately 10% of our happiness level is situationally determined (e.g., we get a speeding ticket or we receive wonderful unexpected feedback from someone we value) and 40% is based on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings we can actively control each day.
 
Perhaps it isn’t possible to be totally balanced in each of these success scorecard domains but it’s something we should at least be actively reflective and conscious about each day. At least with the few executives I’ve worked with that have made the most progress in their careers, they have also attempted to focus some time and attention to one of the other domains.  I don’t have any research data to support this hypothesis but it seems that attention to the three domains other than work/career might actually have an unintended side effect of facilitating success in that one as well.
 
So, if you want to be a success I do believe it is directly related to the actions one takes each day.  As a Pablo Picasso said, “Action is the foundational key to all success”…Be well…..

Quotes of the Week:

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You’ll be criticized anyway.”  Eleanor Roosevelt 

And

“It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.”  Benjamin Disraeli 

Humor Break: “Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do criticize him, you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.”  Author unknown

Stat of the Week: Ever get “shot down”?  Embarrassed by a colleague or co-worker?  Blogger Dorie Clark offers up these 4 suggestions in her post “How to Deal with Critics”.  Personally I would rather tell my critics to go … well, it’s better if you read Dorie’s inputs!

Action Tip: When critics attack, that’s when you are happy to have a mentor.  Don’t have one?  If you have a future, get one — take if from someone who has done a lot of mentoring!  And if you have a mentor, today day would be a good day to pop up for no reason and thank him/her.

Weight Watch – Week 5:  (A personal 16 week Healthy Life style report)

The fifth week’s results are in: I had NO CHANGE on the official digital scale.  Five weeks into the program and I am down 11.1 pounds. 

Yikes!  Bummer!!  Disappointed!!!  These are the words (and implied feelings) I am experiencing at this moment.  Did I deserve “no change”.  Not sure.  I have stopped 2-a-day workouts, but still average well over an hour a day walking the neighborhood or in the gym (or a combination of both).  Haven’t missed a day of exercise in more than two weeks.  My diet is balanced and sensible.   Haven’t had a real desert since I started this healthy program.  No more than 2 slices of bread a week and none this past week.  So what will I do?  Well for now, not too much.  I will shrink my proportions by 10-15%, see if that helps.  I have been eating berries every day.  Maybe they have too much natural sugar.  I will cut down on the number of berries.  Maybe I will add 10 minutes on to my daily exercises.  I have signed up for a water aerobics class beginning next week.  It will at least add variety to my routine.  Let’s see what next week brings.

If you have been following along you know I am overweight.  But how much?  I found a site (click on tools & tips, then Healthy Weight Calculator) that gives you your weight range based on your height.  Fast, Fun, Funny, Tragic.  But give it a shot, it only takes seconds.  I did.  Apparently I am 6 inches too short.

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as is what direction we are moving.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes

When we think of revisiting the implementation of 360s, we want to consider the time needed to make meaningful behavior change, and for that change to be seen by others. We recommend that somewhere between 12 to 24 month intervals are most appropriate for repeating a 360-degree feedback process. This allows people to work through their development and action plans to create change.  For example, Envisia Learning Inc. provides a time series 360-degree feedback report that combines and summarizes results from the first and subsequent administrations of 360-degree feedback to show change in scores over a time period.

Of course, it is also highly recommended to periodically evaluate the impact of the participant’s goal setting and development plan progress.  For example, Envisia Learning Inc. has a goal evaluation system called ProgressPulse which can be administered at any time following coaching or training asks invited raters to evaluate progress on specific participant goals (i.e., whether they are improving, staying the same or even getting worse).  This feedback is combined into a brief report to help provide accountability and measure learning transfer.

Coach’s Critique: 

When thinking about when to repeat a 360-degree feedback assessment, it is important to consider a couple of issues before doing so. In my coaching practice, I have seen 360 sponsors that are quick to wanting to utilize the tool as a way to re-evaluate the participants progress.

It is a good idea to utilize a 360 again to track a participants progress with his or her development plan, however, there needs to be a realistic gauge at the time frame for behavioral change as well as sufficient sampling of behavioral change effort that people (raters) can notice.

In order for behavioral change to sustain and to be apparent in the eyes of others, participants need to commit to on-going deliberate practice of new habits. Frank Lally (2009) tested the number of days it takes for a behavior to become automatic, and found that depends on its complexity (eating habits take 65 days on average, exercise habits take 91 on average). This does not necessarily constitute a new skill or behavior as an expert.

Anders Erickson published research on the number of hours of practice it take to form a habit, and found that when individuals practice their new behaviors in a focused, structured, serious, and detailed way, it takes about 10,oooo hours to become an expert and unconsciously competent at a new behavior (Erickson, K.A., 2006). I will co-facilitate such research findings and on the topic “Clueless: Getting People to Successfully Change Behaviors” at the ASTD International Conference this Sunday, May 6th in Denver, Colorado.

So, we can gather that changing a habit and learning a new skill is not easy even with deliberate practice. So, before thinking about revisiting a repeat 360, they should consider a time gap in order for them to change their behavior and have sufficient change for it to be recognized by others.

What has been your experience with the time frame of when to do a repeat 360? Are there advantages and disadvantages of doing it sooner or later?