The Connoisseur's Thought

6 Ways For Better Work-Life Balance

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 05:35:00 +0000

These days, work-life balance can seem like an impossible feat. Technology makes workers accessible around the clock. Fears of job loss incentivize longer hours. In fact, a whopping 94% of working professionals reported working more than 50 hours per week and nearly half said they worked more than 65 hours per week in a Harvard Business School survey.Experts agree: the compounding stress from the never-ending workday is damaging. It can hurt relationships, health and overall happiness.

Work-life balance means something different to every individual, but here health and career experts share tips to help you find the balance that’s right for you.

1. Let go of perfectionism

A lot of overachievers develop perfectionist tendencies at a young age when demands on their time are limited to school, hobbies and maybe an after-school job. It’s easier to maintain that perfectionist habit as a kid, but as you grow up, life gets more complicated. As you climb the ladder at work and as your family grows, your responsibilities mushroom. Perfectionism becomes out of reach, and if that habit is left unchecked, it can become destructive.

The key to avoid burning out is to let go of perfectionism. “As life gets more expanded it’s very hard, both neurologically and psychologically, to keep that habit of perfection going,” she says, adding that the healthier option is to strive not for perfection, but for excellence.

2. Unplug

From telecommuting to programs that make work easier, technology has helped our lives in many ways. But it has also created expectations of constant accessibility. The work day never seems to end. “There are times when you should just shut your phone off and enjoy the moment,” says Robert Brooks, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and co-author of The Power of Resilience: Achieving Balance, Confidence and Personal Strength in Your Life. Brooks says that phone notifications interrupt your off time and inject an undercurrent of stress in your system. So don’t text at your kid’s soccer game and don’t send work emails while you’re hanging out with family, Brooks advises. Make quality time true quality time. By not reacting to the updates from work, you will developing a stronger habit of resilience. “Resilient people feel a greater sense of control over their lives,” says Brooks, while reactive people have less control and are more prone to stress.

3. Exercise and meditate

Even when we’re busy, we make time for the crucial things in life. We eat. We go to the bathroom. We sleep. And yet one of our most crucial needs - exercise - is often the first thing to go when our calendars fill up. Exercise is an effective stress reducer. It pumps feel-good endorphins through your body. It helps lift your mood and can even serve a one-two punch by also putting you in a meditative state, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Puder-York recommends dedicating a few chunks of time each week to self-care, whether it’s exercise, yoga or meditation. And if you’re really pressed for time, start small with deep breathing exercises during your commute, a quick five minute meditation session morning and night, or replacing drinking alcohol with a healthier form of stress reduction.

“When I talk about balance, not everything has to be the completion and achievement of a task, it also has to include self-care so that your body, mind and soul are being refreshed,” .

These exercises require minor effort but offer major payoffs. Psychotherapist Bryan Robinson, who is also professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of the book Chained to the Desk, explains that our autonomic nervous system includes two branches: the sympathetic nervous system (our body’s stress response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (our body’s rest and digest response).

“The key is to find something that you can build into your life that will activate your parasympathetic nervous system,” says Robinson. Short, meditative exercises like deep breathing or grounding your senses in your present surroundings, are great places to start. The more you do these, the more you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which “calms everything down, (and) not just in the moment,” says Robinson. “Over time you start to notice that in your life, your parasympathetic nervous system will start to trump your sympathetic nervous system.”

4. Limit time-wasting activities and people

First, identify what’s most important in your life. This list will differ for everyone, so make sure it truly reflects your priorities, not someone else’s. Next, draw firm boundaries so you can devote quality time to these high-priority people and activities.

From there, it will be easier to determine what needs to be trimmed from the schedule. If email or internet surfing sends you into a time-wasting spiral, establish rules to keep you on task. That may mean turning off email notifications and replying in batches during limited times each day. If you’re mindlessly surfing Facebook or cat blogs when you should be getting work done, try using productivity software like Freedom, LeechBlock or RescueTime. And if you find your time being gobbled up by less constructive people, find ways to diplomatically limit these interactions. Cornered every morning by the office chatterbox? Politely excuse yourself. Drinks with the work gang the night before a busy, important day? Bow out and get a good night sleep. Focus on the people and activities that reward you the most.

To some, this may seem selfish. “But it isn’t selfish,” says Robinson. “It’s that whole airplane metaphor. If you have a child, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, not on the child.” When it comes to being a good friend, spouse, parent or worker, “the better you are yourself, the better you are going to be in all those areas as well.”

5. Change the structure of your life

Sometimes we fall into a rut and assume our habits are set in stone. Take a birds-eye view of your life and ask yourself: What changes could make life easier?

Puder-York remembers meeting with a senior executive woman who, for 20 years of her marriage, arranged dinner for her husband every night. But as the higher earner with the more demanding job, the trips to the grocery store and daily meal preparations were adding too much stress to her life. “My response to her was, "Maybe it's time to change the habit,'” recalls Puder-York. The executive worried her husband might be upset, but Puder-York insisted that, if she wanted to reduce stress, this structural change could accomplish just that.

So instead of trying to do it all, focus on activities you specialize in and value most. Delegate or outsource everything else. Delegating can be a win-win situation, says Stewart Freidman, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and author of Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life. Freidman recommends talking to the “key stakeholders” in different areas of your life, which could include employees or colleagues at work, a spouse or a partner in a community project. “Find out what you can do to let go in ways that benefit other people by giving them opportunities to grow,” he says. This will give them a chance to learn something new and free you up so you may devote attention to your higher priorities.

6. Start small. Build from there.

We’ve all been there: crash diets that fizzle out, New Year’s resolutions we forget by February. It’s the same with work-life balance when we take on too much too quickly, says Brooks. Many of his workaholic clients commit to drastic changes: cutting their hours from 80 hours a week to 40, bumping up their daily run from zero miles a day to five miles a day. It’s a recipe for failure, says Brooks. When one client, who was always absent from his family dinners, vowed to begin attending the meals nightly, Brooks urged him to start smaller. So he began with one evening a week. Eventually, he worked his way up to two to three dinners per week.

“If you’re trying to change a certain script in your life, start small and experience some success. Build from there,” says Brooks.

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Are you a Leader or just a Boss?

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:48:00 +0000

I often find that many people on fuse leadership with positional power. We tend to believe that a person in a position of authority or someone with a title, has their position or title due to their leadership qualities. However, in many cases there is no correlation between someone’s position and their leadership ability. Just having a title does not make you a leader, leaderships is about influence. Title only buys you time to exercise true leadership, and in this time your leadership either increases or diminishes and eventually fails. There is a huge difference between being a boss and being a leader…! Consider the following…

* “The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them.
* The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will.
* The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.
* The boss says ‘I’; the leader says ‘we.’
* The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace.
* The boss says, ‘Get there on time’; the leader gets there ahead of time.
* The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.
* The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how.
* The boss makes work a drudgery; the leader makes it a game.
* The boss says, ‘Go’; the leader says, ‘Let’s go.’“

– Author unknown

People follow the boss because they have to if they want to keep their jobs. People follow leaders because of who they are and were they are going. Too many leaders today rely on their position to lead. How about you?

Hard Work Vs Smart Work...

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:27:00 +0000

It’s always a big question in the Industry where I am working, or is it a common phenomenon? People, who do work as a duty, or rather as an obligation try to drag it till the end and end up in the swirl of procrastination. That embarks a journey of crib club..

If you work for what you believe, its not hard work! You will consider it hard work when it becomes an obligation. Alas, we don’t find entrepreneurs in every day of life, at least to the nonobservant eye. Probably they are the same people whom we tease as hard workers or the one who don’t find time to take for themselves. What we may not realize is that their enjoyment lies in work. A typical phenomenon I observe is that people believe that they work for their ends and there exists a fine line between personal enjoyment and professional work. Ask what effects personal enjoyment? I have strong objection to people who resign themselves to 12 hours of long work the moment they enter office campus. Neither do I have respect for canteen mongers, or the shirkers who pretend to work only when their boss lands at their cubicle.

One should have a balanced approach to work. Even if I love my job, there are certain finer aspects for which I pay attention to. Probably it’s my fav music, a book by bed side, a morning workout at the local gym or a walk by the wild side. That’s where smart work comes in. Engaging mind and body in what we love to do every moment. As my boss quotes often, “if you got no mood to work, don’t work lady. Coz U will spend 8 hours miserably doing what you can finish off in a couple of hours!” Quite true indeed! In this high tension world, where struggle for life is quite evident in every walk of life, one should realize oneself to the full potential. Being smart, managing priorities in the deliverables, intelligently balancing different aspects of life, being focused on career and emotional balance helps in a big way! Keeping a sense of humour about oneself and wearing heart on sleeve helps too.

Even in a recession, some companies are hiring

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:13:00 +0000

Even in a painful recession, some companies are hiring, but competition for jobs is fierce.

Help wanted: pharmacists, engineers and nurses. Believe it or not, even some banks are hiring, at least for their technology teams.

While the recession has claimed 4.4 million jobs, the economy has created others, many of them for highly trained and specialized professionals. More than 2 million jobs openings now exist across a range of industries, according to government data.

Job seekers beware, though. An average of nearly five people are competing for each opening. That's up sharply from a ratio of less than 2-to-1 in December 2007, when the recession was just starting and nearly 4 million openings existed.

Human resources executives say companies that are hiring are benefiting from a top-notch talent pool as applications pour in from a larger base of job seekers. The number of unemployed Americans has soared, to 12.5 million last month, from 7 million when the recession began.

Broadly, jobs are being added in education, health care and the federal government, the Labor Department said, with the government adding 9,000 new jobs last month alone.

But beyond those areas, jobs can be found in a variety of sectors. Some places that are hiring, such as companies that make nuclear power equipment, haven't been hit that hard by the recession. Others, such as discount retailers, are actually benefiting from the downturn as shoppers turn thriftier.

Even some businesses at the center of the economic meltdown are managing to add a few employees. Banks involved in recent mergers, for example, are hiring information technology specialists to help integrate companies, said Tig Gilliam, chief executive of the Adecco Group North America, a human resources firm.

Some mortgage lending companies, notably those never involved in subprime or other exotic loans, are actually growing and hiring as larger competitors have folded.

"We've been busy," said Terry Schmidt, chief financial officer of Guild Mortgage Co. in California, whose company has doubled in size, from around 450 to close to 900 employees, in the past year and a half.

The new hires originate home loans and process them, among other duties.

"We're finding that the talent pool -- the level of talent and experience -- is much better than we've ever had," Schmidt said.

Mortgage servicing companies -- those that collect payments for the lenders that originated them -- are also hiring as lower mortgage rates fuel mortgage refinance applications.

Marina Walsh, associate vice president of industry analysis at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said servicers "are just scrambling for workers."

The nuclear power industry, meanwhile, doesn't seem to have noticed the economic downturn. It is adding thousands of jobs as it gears up to build as many as 26 new nuclear power plants in the next decade.

Corporations such as Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Company and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are hiring engineers and adding other workers as they expand manufacturing facilities, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group. (GE Hitachi is a partnership between General Electric Co. and Tokyo-based Hitachi Ltd.)

Engineers of all kinds are in demand and are facing a rock-bottom jobless rate of about 3 percent, according to Gilliam of the Adecco Group North America. That compares with a nationwide unemployment rate of 8.1 percent last month.

Adecco is trying to fill about 1,200 engineering jobs, Gilliam said. They include product engineers who test the next generation of computer equipment, he said.

Other bright spots in an otherwise dismal labor market:

-- Pharmacists: An aging U.S. population is taking more medicine and pharmacists are taking more time helping patients with chronic diseases manage their dosages, said Douglas Scheckelhoff of the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.

There is a 6 percent shortage of hospital pharmacists, Scheckelhoff said, while many drug stores are also looking to hire new pharmacists and pharmacist technicians, he said.

-- Nurses: Hospitals also need more nurses to care for the aging population and to replace those nearing retirement, said Cheryl Peterson, director of nursing practice and policy at the American Nurses Association. Hospitals added 7,000 jobs of all kinds last month, even as the economy overall shed 651,000.

-- Veterinarians: "There's a tremendous demand" for veterinarians, particularly to serve livestock growers in rural areas, said Dr. Ron DeHaven, chief executive officer of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The government is also short of veterinarians needed to inspect slaughterhouses and undertake other food safety measures, he said. The Labor Department projects that the number of veterinary jobs will grow by 35 percent by 2016, DeHaven said.

Some companies are benefiting from the recession as shoppers shift to lower-priced stores. The economy has lost more than 600,000 retail jobs since the slowdown began, but discount retailer Family Dollar Stores Inc. is hiring.

The company plans to hire new workers for 200 stores it expects to open this year, said spokesman Josh Braverman, and will also add employees at some of its nine distribution centers. Family Dollar saw its sales at stores open at least a year rise by 6.4 percent in the three months ending in February.

Other companies prospering amid the economic gloom include liquidators -- firms that sell the assets of troubled businesses.

Bill Angrick, chief executive of Washington, D.C.-based Liquidity Services Inc., which operates the Web site Liquidation.com, said his company expects record profits for the first quarter. Among the items his company liquidates are vehicles and networking and communications equipment.

Julie Davis, a spokeswoman for the firm, said it has openings for at least 10 people in its sales, marketing, operations and finance departments.

"We are absolutely in hiring mode," she said. The company employs about 700 people worldwide.

AP Business Writers Jeannine Aversa and Daniel Lovering contributed to this report.

(Source: Yahoo Finance!)

Why Money Isn't a Motivator

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:02:00 +0000

To make today's unpopular government bailouts more palatable, the Obama administration has mandated caps on executive compensation. But given what science tells us about the way the mind works, proposed limits on pay--even if merited--risk being self-defeating.

Studies have shown that our level of satisfaction depends not on our absolute salaries, but on how much we're paid relative to our peers, and so salary increases are judged relative to what we've become accustomed to. Using salary as a motivator ensures only that financial incentives grow exponentially to obscene levels while they, at the same time, become less and less effective.

It's also been well established that such external motivators decrease our internal motivation. Working for the carrot displaces the human need for purposeful achievement, and it comes at a huge cost--both in results and in satisfaction. When people are totally engaged in their work, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, which sharpens focus and increases performance while creating a profound sense of wellbeing. We are motivated by the work itself, not the reward.

By holding out a big compensation package as a motivator, we attract less-than-stellar performers and inevitably run out of money to motivate them. But when we cap their salaries, we not only focus attention on compensation, we virtually ensure we end up with executives that can't get jobs elsewhere.

Besides, most Americans still see a half-million dollars as excessive relative to their own incomes. We need to move away from the issue of money altogether, and the way to do that is to change the story we tell ourselves; a story that focuses on monetary rewards as the primary goal of work decreases both our motivation and performance.

But scientists have shown that our stories can be fundamentally changed by a crisis. The current financial meltdown gives us a chance to create a better narrative, one that's not just about the accumulation of wealth, but about community and public service.

If we replace the emphasis on financial rewards, capped or otherwise, with the significance of the work to be done and its importance to our country, we would see the American spirit of service rise to levels not seen since World War II. Back then, "dollar-a-year" men took government jobs because it was the right thing to do and our country was in need. Today, this same spirit is needed to get us back on track.

As studies of transformational leadership have shown, the example should start at the top. Think of the impact it would have if President Obama announced he would take a salary of a dollar a year until the economy turned around. The rest of the White House staff and perhaps even well-heeled members of Congress could join in. CEOs of bailed-out companies would quickly fall in line.

Studies of the brain show that when leaders seize the opportunity of a crisis to tell a new story that's a better fit with the times, it can change the way the rest of us think and behave. We eagerly claim the message as our own and willingly make whatever sacrifices are needed. During the Great Depression and World War II, our leaders told new stories powerful enough to recharge the can-do spirit America is known for.

The times may have changed, but our brains will respond to the same stimuli now as they did then. Forcing executives or citizens to blindly accept certain circumstances is not going to work, because neither extremely high salaries nor salary caps will properly motivate us to work ourselves out of the recession.

(Source: Charles S. Jacobs, Forbes.com, Mon, Mar 9 09:30 AM)

The seven characteristics of a powerful visions

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:18:00 +0000

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet." - Theodore Hesburgh

Vision is central to effective leadership. A leader’s vision is his passion. Leaders are constantly striving for the achievement of their vision. Leaders adopt challenging visions, driven by passion… this inspires others to commit to the journey… they inspire others to volunteer their energies to make it happen. Consider the following…

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

If a leader is to inspire and enlist others to their cause, they will need an effective vision. This means leaders must be clear about “What is a vision?” and “What makes a vision effective?” Burt Nanus in his book “Visionary Leadership” defines vision as:

“… a realistic, credible, attractive future for your organization. It is your articulation of a destination toward which your organization should aim, a future that in important ways is better, more successful, or more desirable for your organization than is the present.”

So how do you know if your vision is effective? Burt Nanus provides the following characteristics of powerful visions:

Appropriateness: “They are appropriate for the organization and the times. They fit in terms of the organization’s history, culture and values, are consistent with the organization’s present situation, and provide a realistic and informed a assessment of what is attainable in the future.”

Challenging: “They set standards of excellence and reflect high ideals.”

Set Direction: “They clarify purpose and direction. They are persuasive and credible in defining what the organization wants to make happen… They provide agendas that create focus and hold out hope and promise of a better tomorrow.”

Inspirational: “They inspire enthusiasm and encourage commitment. They widen the leader’s support base by reflecting the needs and aspirations of many stakeholders…”

Understandable: “They are well articulated and easily understood. They are unambiguous enough to serve as a guide to strategy and action and to be internalized by those whose efforts are needed to turn the vision into reality”

Unique: “They reflect the uniqueness of the organization, its distinctive competence, what it stands for, and what it is able to achieve”

Ambitious: “They are ambitious. The represent undisputed progress and expand the organizations horizons.”

Review your company and team vision:

Does your vision exhibit the characteristics of a powerful vision as described above?
What change do you need to make to ensure your vision is more powerful?

How much time are you investing in developing a shared vision?

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:08:00 +0000

The January 2009 edition of the Harvard Business Review has a piece titled “To Lead, Create a Shared Vision” by James Kouzes and Barry Posner discussing the importance of a shared vision for effective leadership…

“Being forward-looking—envisioning exciting possibilities and enlisting others in a shared view of the future—is the attribute that most distinguishes leaders from non-leaders.”

It seems that organisations with a true sense of purpose, vision and passion are few and far between… The article goes on to point out that:

“… researchers who study executives’ work activities estimate that only 3% of the typical business leader’s time is spent envisioning and enlisting.”

The process of creating a shared vision requires significantly more effort that 3% of an executive or senior managers time! A shared vision is not something that can happen with just a 3% investment by executives.

When it comes to vision their is no miracle moment, rather it’s a daily journey. A journey that requires constant investment in modeling the right behaviours - daily, in communication - daily and the management of people’s expectations - daily.

Are you investing time in developing a shared vision?
What percentage of your time are you investing in developing a shared vision?
How much time are you spending in enlisting others?

10 Questions Never to Ask in Job Interviews

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:48:00 +0000

You know enough to bring a list of questions to a job interview. When the interviewer asks you, "So, do you have any questions for me?" the last thing? You want to say is "No." But that could be the best option if you're at a loss for words, because some interview questions are better left unasked.

Here are 10 highly unsuitable interview questions that should never make an appearance, unless you don't want the job:

1. "What does your company do?"
This was a reasonable interview question in 1950 or in 1980, before the Internet existed. Today, it's your job to research any company you're interviewing with before setting foot in the door. We need to show up for a job interview knowing what the employer does, who its competitors are, and which of its accomplishments (or challenges) have made the news lately.

2. "Are you going to do a background check?"
It is amazing how many job candidates ask this question, which provokes alarm on the part of the interviewer, instead of the more general, "Can you please tell me a little about your selection process, from this point on?" Lots of people have credit issues that cause them worry during a job search, or aren't sure how solid their references from a previous job might be. If you're invited for a second interview, you can broach any sensitive topics from your past then. Asking "Will you do a background check?" makes you look like a person with something to hide.

3. "When will I be eligible for a raise?"
Companies fear underpaying people almost as much as they fear overpaying them, because a person who's underpaid vis-a-vis his counterparts in the job market is a person with one eye on the career sites. Instead of asking about your first raise before you've got the job, you can ask (at a second interview) "Does your organization do a conventional one-year performance and salary review?"

4. "Do you have any other jobs available?"
A job search requires quick thinking about straight talk, and if a job is far below your abilities, you're better off saying so than beating around the bush with this question. You don't have to take yourself out of the running; you can say, "The job sounds interesting, but frankly I was earning 30% more and supervising people in my last job. Could you help me understand the career path for this role?" That's the cue for the interviewer, if he or she is on the ball, to highlight another job opening that might exist.

5. "How soon can I transfer to another position?"
You're broadcasting "I'm outta here at the first chance" when you ask this question. If you like the job, take the job. If it's not for you, wait for the right opportunity. Almost every employer will keep you in your seat for at least one year before approving an internal transfer, so a job-search bait-and-switch probably won't work out the way you'd hoped.

6. "Can you tell me about bus lines to your facility?"
Get online and research this yourself. It's not your employer's problem to figure out how you get to work.

7. "Do you have smoking breaks?"
If you're working in retail or in a call center, you could ask about breaks. Everyone else, keep mum; if your need to smoke intrudes so much on your work life that you feel the need to ask about it, ask your best friend or significant other for smoking-cessation help as a new-job present. Lots of companies don't permit smoking anywhere on the premises, and some don't like to hire smokers at all. Why give an employer a reason to turn you down?

8. "Is [my medical condition] covered under your insurance?"
This is a bad question on two counts. You don't want to tell a perfect stranger about your medical issues, especially one who's deciding whether or not to hire you. Ask to see a copy of the company's benefits booklet when an offer has been extended. This is also a bad question from a judgment standpoint; no department managers and only a tiny percentage of HR people could be expected to know on a condition-by-condition basis what's covered under the health plan. Anyway, your pre-existing condition won't be covered under most corporate plans for at least a year.

9. "Do you do a drug test?"
If you have a philosophical objection to drug tests, wait until they ask you to take a drug test and tell them about your objection. Otherwise, your question sounds like, "I'd fail a drug test," so don't ask.

10. "If you hire me, can I wait until [more than three weeks from now] to start the job?"
Employers expect you to give two weeks' notice. If you're not working, they'd love to see you more quickly. If you ask for tons of time off before you start working -- unless you have a very good reason -- the employer may think, "How serious is this candidate about working?" In any case, a start-date extension is something to request after you've got the offer in hand, not before.

The Secret Technique of Hiring Managers

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 06:37:00 +0000

How to Anticipate and Succeed in Behavioral Interviews

Let's be honest: Coming out of college, you probably don't have that much real world experience. So how are you going to talk about past experiences in a job interview for a sales position if you haven't sold anything? And how is a potential employer going to gauge whether you'd be a good fit for the company?

Hiring managers have a secret -- it's called behavioral interviewing, a technique developed in the 1970s for employers who were frustrated that the people they interviewed turned out to be much different than the people they actually hired.

What Behavioral Interviews Show

Why the big deal about it? One study showed that behavioral interviews were 55 percent predictive of future job behavior while traditional interviews clocked in at only 10 percent. And behavioral interviewing also cuts through resume exaggerations -- according to the Society of Human Resource Management, 51 percent of resumes have inaccuracies.

If you're being asked open-ended questions that force you to draw on events that have happened in your life to answer, you've got yourself a behavioral interview. The difference between "What's your weakness"? and "Tell me about a time you failed at something" might not seem like much, but it forces you to give a different kind of answer.

"Employers love behavioral-based interviewing because it allows them to see patterns that are often missed when people are answering basic questions," says principal of Human Resource Solutions, an HR consulting firm. "Employers can get past what a candidate says and focus on how they respond."

Behavioral interviewing also helps employers get over that hurdle of experience, so any experience you've had is fair game -- extracurricular activities, Greek life, relationships. You can even go back to things that happened to you in Boy or Girl Scouts, or on a sports team.

Simple Preparation Tips

Some employers like behavioral interviews because they think you can't prepare for it. Think again. No matter how many employers say you can't prepare for them, you can still dig deep into your memory before the interview and be ready to talk experiences that could fit situations your potential employer throws at you.

Here are some questions you might encounter, courtesy of Scott Weighart, author of "Find Your First Professional Job: A Guide to Co-ops, Interns and Full-Time Job Seekers":

Tell me about a time you:

failed at something

had to take an unpopular stand

really had to go way above and beyond

had to show exceptional attention to detail

dealt well with a difficult colleague/co-worker

showed that you can multitask under pressure

Make sure you prepare your stories, too -- you might be able to wing it, but you won't give the best answers if you do.

And don't even think of making stuff up. "You don't want to invent stories about yourself that aren't true. Those would be seen through pretty quickly because you need so much detail," says Weighart.

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:05:00 +0000

What is Self Analysis?

The transition from student life to working life represents a significant milestone in anyone's life. While it is not necessary to constantly contemplate life and its meaning, it is often said that at such important milestones, it is important to think carefully, or risk the possibility of drifting for ever after.

This then leads to a situation, some years down the track, when you may say to yourself, "If only I had thought a little more carefully back then."

Now is the time to think once again, "What do I want to do in the future?" and "What are my dreams?" In other words, you must make the effort to think in earnest about the kind of life you want to lead from now. It is these thought processes that are referred to as "self analysis."

One of the foremost experts on career development and research was Professor Emeritus of Columbia University D.E. Super (1910-1994). According to Professor Super, everyone has what he termed a "self-concept," concerning "what I like and don't like," and "What kind of things do I find enjoyable?" He had the following to say concerning the relationship between selecting a job and self-concept.

If your self-concept is unclear or not well defined, this will result in inappropriate job selection, or dissatisfaction with the job you choose.

Through work it is possible to express "individual skills (what you do best)", "interests (what you want to do most),"and "values (what you think is most important." If this is not the case, you will find your job boring and without meaning.

It is important to consider an approach for self-advancement whereby you engage in self analysis and use it to identify the type of work and company through which you could achieve the things you want to do.

However, there are also people who believe that "you cannot decide now what is in the far distant future." As an entry point into working life, at the very least you should consider "the things I am good at," "the things I find enjoyable," and "the things I like." From this starting point, it is perfectly acceptable to gain various experiences in the process of working, from which the "things you want to do" may change somewhat. In the case of companies it is said in general that a person should identify "their individual expertise" by about the time he or she is 35.

How to implement self analysis?

So, in specific terms, what is the best way of implementing self analysis? Firstly, try to answer the following three questions:

What can you do, and what are you good at?

What do you want to do, who do want to please, and what kind of people do you want to work with?

Why do you want to do such a job and what are you aiming for? What are your dreams?

Extract from "Career Counseling for Dynamic Companies and Individuals"

There are probably many people who cannot immediately respond to these questions. If this is the case, use the following as a source of reference.

Ask your friends and parents what your good points are What you may think of as completely natural may be viewed by others as an excellent strong point.

Think back and write down what you found enjoyable in the past.

Write down things you think you are better at than other people. This can include things you have studied at university.

Write down any particular things that are important to you, and things that "you won't budge from."

If you are still not sure…
- Utilize assessment tools for self-understanding -

Even after a great deal of thought you are still none the wiser, it may be a good idea to use assessment tools.

Assessment means to "examine or evaluate something." From the point of view of someone taking a test, this means "understanding yourself just as you are now." However, you should avoid focusing purely on the results of such assessments and depending on them. Assessment tools are at the very most a supplementary means of "considering how to use the results for your own future."

Bearing in mind this premise, you can utilize the following assessment tools, that are representative of those aimed at students.

R-CAP (RECRUIT Career Assessment Program)

This is an assessment with a style that utilizes value systems thought to be related to career tracks (preferences, interests and concerns, intentions, values in narrow terms) and thought processes. Skills, knowledge and intellectual capacity are not utilized.

http://www.r-cap.net/RCAP07/index.html
(Fee required)

Standard diagnostic CPS-J (Career Planning Survey - Japanese Version)

This is an assessment tool that attempts to enable understand themselves appropriately from the dual aspects of "interest in work" and "self assessment in terms of skills."

http://www.nipponmanpower.co.jp/ps/think/cpsj/index.php
(Fee required through credit card payment)

This back one more time on your past actions to date

Once you have grasped a picture of your own skills, interests and sense of values as described above, the next step is to look back on your own past actions to date, to see to what extent you can put your skills and strengths into use to achieve the results you require.

As a student what are the things that have given you the greatest sense of achievement? Among these, what was the most difficult or challenging? How did you overcome this challenge? Look back and recall not the result, but the actual process you went through in order to achieve that result.

By recalling such actions you can identify the "pointers to overcoming challenges" that you have devised to resolve problems. It is no exaggeration to say that when you join the workforce you will be faced with problems that require solutions on an almost daily basis. If there is something in the past that you devised that worked in overcoming a challenge, the same method is more than likely to be useful in the future.

For the sake of a fulfilling life as you move forward, spend a little time now to consider your future. Employment is not a goal in itself, for each individual it represents a start.

Five Challenges that accelerate leadership development

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:02:00 +0000

The high levels of change demand increased leadership capabilities and the requires organisation to focus on the development of future leaders. The Center for Creative Leadership has studies the development of leadership for the last 38 years and have identified five key challenges that have facilitate the effective development of leadership:

Challenge 1: Unfamiliar responsibilities. When you practice new skills and expand your knowledge base, you learn how to operate effectively when you are early in a learning curve.
Challenge 2: Creating change. When you lead change, you learn to operate in ambiguous situations, think strategically, make tough decisions and persevere in the face of adversity.
Challenge 3: Significant accountabilities. By expanding your role in terms of scope, scale, time pressure and accountability, you learn what it takes to be decisive, to work and learn at a fast pace and to have significant impact.
Challenge 4: Managing across boundaries. Assignments that require you to collaborate across functions and business units or to work with people over whom you have no authority will strengthen your ability to influence others.
Challenge 5: Dealing with diversity. By working with people of another culture, gender or background, you will be better prepared to adapt to different expectations and persuade people of different backgrounds to work together.

Organisation face an increasing leadership shortage, not having sufficient leaders to meet their organisations future needs. Given this leadership crunch the way organisations approach the development of leaders is critical.

Have you included these five challenges as key components of your leadership development programme?
Have you included these five challenges as part of your personal leadership development?

The management of attention through vision

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:12:00 +0000

“The scarcest resource for today’s business leaders is no longer just land, capital or human labor, and it certainly isn’t information. Attention is what’s in short supply..” - Thomas H. Davenport and John C.

In other words, it’s not about managing time effectively, its about managing attention….! In the book “Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge” Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus discuss the practice of managing attention through vision.

The management of attention through vision is about the creation of focus. Leaders are results-orientated people, they know what they want, they’re committed and focused on outcomes. It’s this intense focus and commitment to results, draws people to them. Effective leaders have a clear vision of the future. A clear vision guides effective action as it provides the all important bridge from the present to the future. Vision provides the necessary focus required to limit distractions and drive meaningful action. The intensity of the leaders vision coupled with the high levels of commitment in making the vision come to pass, creates a powerful force of momentum that draws people into the flow. It’s this passion and commitment dynamic that grabs attention.

This vision becomes shared by the organisation and drives action as Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus state that…

“A shared vision of the future also suggests measures of effectiveness for the organization and for all its parts. It helps individuals distinguish between what’s good and what’s bad for the organization, and what it’s worthwhile to achieve. And most important, it makes it possible to distribute decision making widely. People can make difficult decisions without having to appeal to higher levels in the organization each time because they know what end results are desired.”

Vision is central to leadership success, without it leaders and their teams are flying blind!

Do you have a clear vision of your future?
Does your team understand and share this vision?
Are all your plans and actions aligned behind this vision?

Is your behaviour damaging trust?

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:48:00 +0000

Management-issues has a great article that asks the question “Does your behavior damage trust?” and list the following 25 behaviours that contribute to creating mistrust within your team:

You fail to keep your promises, agreements and commitments.
You serve your self first and others only when it is convenient.
You micromanage and resist delegating.
You demonstrate an inconsistency between what you say and how you behave.
You fail to share critical information with your colleagues.
You choose to not tell the truth.
You resort to blaming and scapegoating others rather than own your mistakes.
You judge, and criticize rather than offer constructive feedback.
You betray confidences, gossip and talk about others behind their backs.
You choose to not allow others to contribute or make decisions.
You downplay others’ talents, knowledge and skills.
You refuse to support others with their professional development.
You resist creating shared values, expectations and intentions in favor of your own agenda; you refuse to compromise and foster win-lose arguments.
You refuse to be held accountable by your colleagues.
You resist discussing your personal life, allowing your vulnerability, disclosing your weaknesses and admitting your relationship challenges.
You rationalize sarcasm, put-down humor and off-putting remarks as "good for the group".
You fail to admit you need support and don’t ask colleagues for help.
You take others’ suggestions and critiques as personal attacks.
You fail to speak up in team meetings and avoid contributing constructively.
You refuse to consider the idea of constructive conflict and avoid conflict at all costs.
You consistently hijack team meetings and move them off topic.
You refuse to follow through on decisions agreed upon at team meetings.
You secretly engage in back-door negotiations with other team members to create your own alliances.
You refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt and prefer to judge them without asking them to explain their position or actions.
You refuse to apologize for mistakes, misunderstandings and inappropriate behavior and dig your heels in to defend yourself and protect your reputation.

Looking at the above list how are you doing? Are you creating or destroying trust?

Leadership is a choice

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:57:00 +0000

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

- Ayn Rand

As people we are designed to choose. Like many other things in life, leadership too is a choice we make. . We do not become great leaders because of our title or position. Leadership is about making the decision and taking the responsibility to bring our future into the present. This first step to becoming an effective leader… it is the choice to be proactive.

The question is “have we make the choice to lead?” Although you may think of yourself as a leader, until you choose leadership you will find yourself drifting around aimlessly. Lacking passion, commitment, courage and direction.

We don’t usually choose not to lead, we simply choose not to get involved. We choose to be neutral and not to participate. We choose to simply observe from the sidelines, choosing rather to be an observer of life rather than a liver of life!

Unless we make the choice to lead… we we will fail at leadership…

We fail to choose to leadership when…. we choose to take action by what seems possible or reasonable. We have chosen to live with the constraints of the circumstances. We have chosen to surrender.
We fail to choose leadership when…. we do not to choose and rather wait to see what happens.
We fail to choose leadership when… we do what everyone else seems to be doing and follow that route.
We fail to choose leadership when… we eliminate all other options and follow the one that seems to have the best chances of producing good results. This is usually the safe and risk free option. It’s also the mediocre option.

Many of the “choices” listed above are the result of living a passive and mediocre existence. Leadership is never a mediocre response to life. Leadership is inspired and passionate. In fact, the choice to lead requires passion, there is a clear relationship between leadership, passion and action. The more passionate you are the more proactive you tend to be and passionate people initiate action. Passionate people make things happen. Passionate people don’t wait for others form ‘permission’ to lead, they make the choice and take leadership.

Have you made the choice to lead or are you waiting for someone to give you permission?
Have you made the choice to lead…. or are you just going with the flow?

We were not created to watch from the sidelines… we were made to get involved… to lead… Remember that we first we make our choices… then our choices make us. If you don’t choose to lead, you will be used to accomplished the vision of someone who has made the choice to lead.

Decide today..!

Jon Gordon’s 10 thoughts on leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:18:00 +0000

I stumbled across these “10 Thoughts about Leadership” from Jon Gordon’s blog which are great and I thought them worth sharing.

People follow the leader first and the leader’s vision second - It doesn’t matter if the leader shares a powerful vision, if the leader is not someone who people will follow the vision will never be realized. As a leader, who you are makes a difference. The most important message you can share is yourself.
Trust is the force that connects people to the leader and his/her vision - Without trust there is a huge gap between the leader and the vision. Without trust people will stay off the bus. However if people trust the leader they will hop on the bus with the leader and help move the bus forward towards the vision.
Leadership is not just about what you do but what you can inspire, encourage and empower others to do.
A leader brings out the best within others by sharing the best within themselves.
Just because you’re driving the bus doesn’t mean you have the right to run people over - Abraham Lincoln said “Most anyone can stand adversity, but to test a man’s character give him power.” The more power you are granted the more it is your responsibility to serve, develop and empower others. When you help them grow they’ll help you grow.
“Rules without Relationship Leads to Rebellion” - Andy Stanley said this and it’s one of my favorite quotes. As a leader you can have all the rules you want but if you don’t invest in your people and develop a relationship with them they will rebel. This applies amazingly to children as well. It’s all about relationships.
Lead with optimism, enthusiasm and positive energy, guard against pessimism and weed out negativity.
Great Leaders know they don’t have all the answers. Rather they build a team of people who either know the answers or will find them.
Leaders inspire and teach their people to focus on solutions, not complaints. (The No Complaining Rule)
Great leaders know that success is a process not a destination - One of my heroes John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, never focused on winning. He knew that winning was the by product of great leadership, teamwork, focus, commitment and execution of the fundamentals. As a leader focus on your people and process, not the outcome.

This list really resonated with me. Point 1 “People follow the leader first and the leader’s vision second” is so true. Unless people have the confidence in the leader’s character and his ability to successfully lead the way people will not follow. Have you given the necessary attention to you character and competence so that people have the confidence to follow? It’s this that create the trust, “the force that connects people to the leader and his/her vision”, which inspire the commitment to take action.

Communication is essential in times of crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:14:00 +0000

During these difficult economic times clear and meaningful communication is critical. People are looking to their leaders for direction and hope. Richard Guinn from Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm, in the article “Communication is Essential to Lead Workers Through Current Economic Crisis”, suggests that leader keep in mind the following communications principles: whilst navigating this financial crisis:

Be a leader. Leaders don’t have to have all the answers. Tell employees what you know and what you don’t. Explain the steps the organization is taking to identify issues and resolve problems. Knowing senior executives are there to lead through uncertain economic times is crucial to your people.
Show your strengths. Reinforce the core competencies and values that make your organization successful. Talk about how they will help the organization thrive in the future.
Be visible. Credibility, conviction and passion are important messages that only actual presence can convey. Employees can benefit from seeing engaged and informed senior leaders through Web casts or other interactive vehicles.
Use your team. Make sure the management team knows how and what to communicate, and that no one is a bystander. Limit potential damage from leaders’ informal conversations that are overheard and ripple through every organization.
Be coordinated. Coordinate your internal and external messages. Employees should hear company news from the company first.
Share responsibility. Be clear about what you want your managers and your workforce to do. People want to help — tell them how. It’s never a bad time to reinforce customer focus.
Give up the myth of message control. Find ways to listen to what is on employees’ minds. Monitor the press and social media for what is being said about your company and your industry. Have a process for quickly developing and distributing answers to rumors and for clarifying inaccurate statements, such as possible layoffs.
Be humane. Some employees are experiencing personal trauma from falling 401(k) account balances and home prices. Acknowledge their pain and make them aware of the resources at their disposal, such as the company’s Employee Assistance Plan.

This is a great list to keep in mind whilst you navigate the turbulence and uncertain financial times we are experiencing. It’s in times like these that visible leadership is of utmost importance. You cannot afford to lead from the corner office neither can you inspire hope from high up in the ivory tower. Leader need to be visible, walking around on the floor, engaged in setting vision and inspiring hope.

Seven critical questions to assess your leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:25:00 +0000

Effective leaders are always striving to become better, always stretching themselves and their teams. The Harvard Business Review of January 2007 had a great article “What to Ask the Person in the Mirror” by Robert S. Kaplan, discusses seven questions that leaders can use to assess themselves to stay on top of their game.

“I have learned the key characteristics of highly successful leaders is not that they figure out how to always stay on course, but that they develop techniques to help them recognize a deteriorating situation and get back on track as quickly as possible. In may experience, the best way to do that is to step back regularly, say every three to six months (and certainly whenever things feel as though they aren’t going well), and honestly ask yourself some questions about how you’re doing and what you may need to do differently.”

The seven questions Robert recommends we ask ourselves to keep us on course and on track are are:

Vision and Priorities: “How frequently do I communicate a vision and priorities for my business? Would my employees, if asked, be able to articulate the vision and priorities?” “Have I identified and communicated three to five key priorities to achieve that vision?”
Managing Time: “How am I spending my time? Once you know your priorities, you need to determine whether you’re spending your time – your most precious asset – in a way that will allow you to achieve them…. The key here is, whatever you decide, time allocation needs to be a conscious decision that fits your vision and priorities for the business.”
Feedback: “Do I give people timely, direct and constructive feedback? And second: Do I have five or six junior people who will tell me things I don’t want to hear and need to hear? …As hard as it is to give effective and timely feedback, many leaders find it much more challenging to get feedback from their employees. Once you reach a certain stage of your career, junior people are in a much better position than your boss to tell you how you’re doing. They see you in your day-to-day activities, and they experience your decisions directly….”
Succession Planning: “Have I, at least in my own mind, picked one or more potential successors?” “Am I coaching them and giving them challenging assignments? Am I delegating sufficiently? Have I become a decision-making bottleneck?… This issue is critical because if you aren’t identifying potential successors, you are probably not delegating extensively as you should and you may well be a decision-making bottleneck. Being a bottleneck invariably means that you are not spending enough time on vital leadership priorities and are failing to develop your key subordinates.”
Evaluation and Alignment: “Am I attuned to changes in the business environment that would require a change in the way we organize and run our business?” “If I had to design my business with a clean sheet of paper, how would I design it? How would it differ from the current design? Should I create a task force of subordinates to answer these questions and make recommendations to me? …Even the most successful business is susceptible to new challenges posed by a changing world. Effective executives regularly look at their businesses with a clean sheet of paper – seeking advice and other perspectives from people who are less emotionally invested in the business – in order to determine whether key aspects of the way they run their organizations are still appropriate.”
Leading Under Pressure: “How do I behave under pressure, and what signals am I sending my employees?” “What types of events create pressure for me?… As a leader you are watched closely, During crisis, your people watch you with a microscope, noting every move you make. In such times, your subordinates learn a great deal about you and what you really believe, as opposed to what you say. Do you accept responsibility for your mistakes, or do you look for someone to blame. Do you support your employees or do you turn on them? Are you cool and calm, or do you lose your temper? D you stand up for what you believe, or do you take the expedient route and advocate what you think your seniors want to hear? You need to be self-aware enough to recognize the situations that create severe anxiety for you and manage your behavior to avoid sending unproductive messages to your people.”
Staying True to Yourself: “Does my leadership style reflect who I truly am? … A business career is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you aren’t true to yourself, eventually you’re going to wear down.”

Considering the above seven questions…. are you still on track?

HRD Versus HRM

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:45:00 +0000

If we view the field carefully, we can easily differentiate the two field in the following manner:

Human Resources Development (HRD):

Continuous process.
Sub system of a large system, more organizational oriented.
More proactive; it copes with the changing needs of the people as well as anticipate these needs.
Developing the whole organization. (Ex: Organizational Development).
Involvement of the entire workforce from top to bottom is more and a must in most of the cases.

Human Resources Management / Personnel Management (HRM):

A routine and administrative function.
Function more independent with separate roles to play.
Mainly a reactive function responding to the demands which may arise.
Concerned with people only.
It is basically responsibilities of the HR department.

Thus, the differentiation will give you a feel that again it's a difference in scope and orientation and nothing else. Thus, if we want a composite view we find that they will placed like the following, historically, in scope and in orientation.

How to know when you’re not leading?

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:18:00 +0000

People fail to lead when they act from the stance of a victim. People fail to lead when they act from a sense of helplessness. You have a victim attitude and are failing to lead if you recognise any of the following symptoms:

You take no action until you have satisfied that you have complete information. That you understand all the steps and risks involved. This means you fail to act and nothing happens.
You wait for authority and permission to act from those higher up on the organisational ladder.
You expect senior management to provide you with all the answers and the solution to your problems.
You place safety ahead of your vision.
You avoid conflict by not raising issues and concerns which need to be address for any real change to occur.

This is not a leadership attitude. Leadership happens when we make the decision that what is happens around us is our responsibility. One of the hallmarks of effective leadership is the willingness to accept responsibility, to become the change we want to see in the world. Truly empowered leadership occurs when an individual comes to the realisation they they are the problem! That they are responsible for the problems in their life, the frustrations they feel, for their responses to circumstances and for how they feel.

Leaders adopt an empowered response toward life, they do not allow life to just happen to them. They have decided to own their life and their future, by acting everyday to create the future they want. The have accepted their responsibility to act to make the difference.

Do you have a vision for your life?
Are you acting to create the future you want?
Do you act as an owner of life’s circumstances and your future or more like a victim?
Have you decided to begin the journey of learning how to act on your vision and create the future that you want?

Behaviours that create or break trust…

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:47:00 +0000

Trust is the foundation of effective leadership. Dennis and Michelle Reina, founders of the Reina Trust Building Institute and the authors of “Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace”, discussed in the article titled “Building Sustainable Trust” (pdf) the behaviours of people we are and are not inclined to trust.

We are inclined to trust people who…

Are self-aware.
Take responsibility for their role in the relationship.
Demonstrate that they consider the best interests of others rather than just themselves.
Do what they say they will do.
Practice the values they tell us are important to them.
Are willing to recognize and consider both sides of the story.
Listen and respond to our needs and interests.
Are willing to think about what they have to give as well as what they hope to receive.

We are NOT inclined to trust people who…

We experience as selfish and self-absorbed.
Do not demonstrate an interest in the needs of others.
Are not willing to accept responsibility for their actions.
Gossip/talk about others behind their back.
Blame others without looking at their role in the experience.
Make snap judgments and draw conclusions before hearing all the information.
Are not open and receptive to the ideas and views of others.
Change the rules all the time.
Are inconsistent in their behavior so we don’t know what to expect from one interaction to the next.
Distort the truth by omitting information for their own purposes.

Considering your behaviour over the past week, are you someone who can be trusted?

Bob Sutton on Leadership vs Management

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:22:00 +0000

Having previously posted on the distinction between leadership and management, the recent discussion by Bob Sutton on his view of the differences between leadership and management in his post “Leadership vs. Management: An Accurate But Dangerous Distinction?” caught my eye. In the post Bob makes an important point concerning how the distinction between management and leadership affects the conduct and behavior of leaders…

“… although I think this distinction is more or less correct, and is useful to a degree (one emphasizes the focusing on the bigger picture and the other on the details of implementation), I also think that it has unintended negative effects on how some leaders view and do their work. Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’ Moreover, this distinction also seems to be used a reason for leaders to avoid the hard work of learning about the technologies their companies use and the people that they lead and to make decisions without considering the roadblocks and constraints that affect the cost and time line, and even if it is possible to implement their grand decisions and big ideas…. But one characteristic of the successful dreamers I think of — Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Jobs, folks at Pixar like Ed Catmull and Brad Bird — is that they also have remarkably deep understanding of the industry they work in and the people they lead, and they often are willing to get very deep into the weeds. This ability to go back and forth between the little details and the big picture is also evident in the behavior of some of the leaders I admire most who aren’t usually thought of as dreamers… am all for grand visions and strategies. But the people who seem to make them come true usually seem to have deep understanding of the little details required to make them work — or if they don’t, they have the wisdom to surround themselves with people who can offset their weaknesses and who have the courage to argue with them when there is no clear path between their dreams and reality… I am not much rejecting the distinction between leadership and management, but I am saying that the best leaders do something that might be most properly called a mix of leadership and management (a great example is HP CEO Mark Hurd) , or at least, lead in a way that constantly takes into account the importance of management. And some of the worst senior executives use the distinction between leadership and management as an excuse to avoid learning the details they need to understand the big picture and to select the right strategies.”

I agree with Bob concerning the effect that the distinction between leadership and management has on the behaviour of leaders where “Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’”. I have also observer this behaviour in many organisations. It is also true that great leaders have a good grasp on the details of the industry and the job at hand, they need to understand an practice the word of leaders and the work of managers.

It is also true that many of the organisations today tend to be over managed and under led. This requires that a focus on developing a leadership practice. It does not mean we stop or reduce our management discipline. We need both to be effective.

I agree that the distinction between management and leadership is useful, as it help us become more self-aware, giving us insight into when we are behaving as leaders and when we are behaving as managers.

If you assess your behaviour over the past few months, what percentage of your time was spent on management (the details) and what percentage of your time was spend on leadership (the big picture)? What have been the results? Was this an effective use of your time?

Abraham Maslow’s 8 Ways to Self-Actualize

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:10:00 +0000

Derek Sivers has a great post on Abraham Maslow’s and his 8 Ways to Self-Actualize. Maslow defined as self actualisation follows:

"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."

One of the interesting insights concerning Maslow from this article is that:

“Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.”

Rather than studying sick people and seeking to avoid the issues and challenges faced by these people. Maslow studied healthy people and identified what drove them to be healthy and successful. This approach resulted in some really interesting insights. Maslow came to the conclusion the man is basically good and that man has a natural drive to become the best person that he can be. Maslow also recognised the need for man to live a life that is an expression of himself and a life that is founded in moral and ethical behaviour. That man has a longing to live as a person of character. His research led him to articulate the following eight ways to self actualise:

Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you
Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don’t like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses - and then finding the courage to give them up.

Executives are unhappy with their leadership development

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:32:00 +0000

Leadership development is the pressing need of organisations across the globe. Whilst there are organisations investing significant sums of money to develop leaders, according to recent research the results have been disappointing. Management-Issues discusses research by the Global Leadership Forecast 2008|2009, by consultants DDI, which sets out to examine why confidence in leaders is declining despite a heightened focus on developing leadership talent. The study surveyed almost 1,500 HR professionals and more than 12,000 leaders from 76 countries. The key findings of this research is as follows:

Although three-quarters of the executives surveyed said that improving leadership talent was a top business priority, just four out of 10 were satisfied with what their organizations were actually doing to help them, a decline of 12 percentage points since the last Leadership Forecast was published two years ago.
“… what emerges from the report is a clear message that while executives want more opportunities to learn on the job, such as special projects or moving to a new assignment, their senior management seldom takes responsibility for making this happen".”
Almost six out of 10 executives said that they and their manager had not agreed on a formal written plan for their development.
Only around a third of senior managers were held accountable for the success of leadership development programs.
Just a quarter of organizations monitor their leadership development programs or formally measure their results. "Great leadership doesn’t happen by accident - organizations need to start listening to their leaders and make the right development investments if they want different results than they’re getting now," Wellins said.
Only half of organizations globally have succession plans for their leadership team and US organizations even lower than the global sample. “But having succession plans isn’t the whole story - HR professionals indicated that one in three succession candidates fail.”

This research makes it clear that developing future leaders is not seen as a priority by today’s leaders. The sad thing is that one of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to grow and develop other leaders. It seems that we are failing in executing this responsibility. What actions can you take over the following week to start developing a programme to grow and develop future leaders in your teams and organisations?

Responsibility and it’s role in leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:04:00 +0000

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness." - Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit

As leaders we can be given accountability and we can given authority, but we cannot be given responsibility. We have to take responsibility. Leadership is a choice we make. The attitude of responsibility, is a leadership mindset. We do not become leaders because we have authority and are therefore accountable. We are leaders because of how we choose to respond. Leadership rests on our responsibility, not our authority.

Leaders take responsibility, whether or not they actually do have responsibility. Great leaders are not afraid to take responsibility for things that are out of their control. Leaders don’t wait for permission or for authority, before they take responsibility and act to make a difference. When a situation needs to be improved, leaders make the choice to take responsibility. They choose to make different choices, to take difference actions and change life’s situations.

Have you made the choice to take responsibility?
Where can you take responsibility for changing?
What are the first few steps that you can take?

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Leader as Map maker

noreply@blogger.com (Sam Rifay) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:38:00 +0000

Leadership is a journey and an effective leader brings along a map. Maps are useful tools to helping us understand where we are, where we want to be and what route we need to take when journeying from where we are, to where we want to be.

A key leadership practice is that of leading change. Leading change requires that we shape people’s thinking. Thinking guides action….. resulting in either great or mediocre performance. Thinking and reflecting results in robust mental maps and robust mental maps leads to effective action. Shaping thinking is about, shaping the maps of current reality and that of future destinations that people carry around in their heads.

As leaders, we are responsible for the mental maps we develop for ourselves and others. These mental maps are used to guide our journey. Peter Senge in his best selling book “The Fifth Discipline” called these mental maps, mental models, which he defined as follows:

“’Mental models’ are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behavior.” - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Mental models or as I like to refer to them mental maps, are the maps of how we see the world and how we understand, the way that the world around us works. These are maps and frameworks which reflect our understanding of the critical aspects of reality. Why is all of this important? Well, the key reason, requires us to understand that we all make decisions, resulting in actions, based on the mental maps we hold of reality. Poor maps lead to poor results. The more effective the mental maps we hold, the more effective is our action, resulting to better results.

If you get the facts wrong, you get the map wrong
If you get the map wrong, you do the wrong things and take the wrong action

As leaders we need robust mental maps that help to ensure that we take action that produces positive results. The three steps detailed below describe how we go about building robust mental maps.

1. Map reading through sensemaking: I have posted on the importance of sensemaking to leaders on this blog in the past. The MIT Leadership Center article “Making a Difference by Making Sense” makes the following observation concerning sensemaking.

“As a leadership capability, sensemaking closely resembles map making. At the MIT Leadership Center dialogue on sensemaking, academics and practitioners spoke of places, observations, and directions, of ‘where we are,’ ‘where and why we are going,’ and ‘what we should look for as we go.’… Like cartographers, sensemakers create consequences with their maps. The way they understand and then describe an environment has ramifications, because this understanding guides future action.”

As we travel through life we read the landscape of people, events and consequences. Interpreting and assigning meaning and importance to events and behaviours. Through this process of observation, we begin to develop a picture of how the world works and how we need to behaviour to be effective in it. It’s conclusions that form the beginning of our leadership map.

2. Map making through inquiry: We develop and build upon our initial mental maps though a process of further inquiry and learning. This is how our comprehension of reality and possible futures are developed. Inquiry is not something that just happens, we need to make conscious effort to inquire and build our maps. The inquiry we do may be in the form of research, reading, interviewing other or the observation of cause and effect relationships of everyday life. Some of the best learning happens when we reflect on life’s experiences and the consequences of decisions we make.

3. Map testing through experimentation: Map reading through sensemaking, leads to map making, resulting in insight and understanding, leading to map testing through experimentation. Experimentation with our ideas and insights are important, as poor maps lead to poor results. We need to ensure that we have our maps right. When we act, we act within the context of the leadership map we have developed. Through experimentation we test our maps, testing whether we are getting the results we expected when acting based on our leadership map. After evaluating the effectiveness of our actions, we get an idea of the effectiveness of our mental maps. If, after some experimentation, we are not getting the results we expect, then the map is wrong and requires adjustment.

As leaders, we need to ensure that we are leading from a mental map that results in effective action.

Do you have a clear mental map as to what is effective leadership?
Do you consciously use this map to guide your actions?
Do you test your mental map through experimentation?
Do have a mental map that is shared with others to align organizational action?