Great Leadership

The First Thing Leaders Need to Do When Leading a Big Change

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Guest post from Phil Buckley:

Most leaders will lead their organizations through multiple big change projects. Constant change is a business reality and organizations must continually adapt to their environments to stay competitive or risk losing relevance and becoming obsolete. For each change, leaders must define it, create a vision of the post-change world, and mobilize their teams to make it.

Often, leaders become paralyzed by the magnitude of the change. Transforming an organization while keeping day-to-day operations running is like fixing a car as it is being driven; it’s complicated, risky, and it’s not clear whether the team can pull it off. Since most changes are in response to performance gaps, speed to completion is a default success factor. Many leaders immediately jump into action mode without taking stock of the environment in which the change is being made and their abilities to lead it.

The first thing leaders need to ask themselves is, “What do I bring to the project?” They need to think of what they can draw upon to help the organization make the change; what past experiences, knowledge, skills and relationships are relevant to the project? Taking stock of their qualifications will focus their energy and build confidence. Many will be surprised at how much they have to offer and how these abilities will benefit them over the course of the change. They may also realize that there are some gaps that need to be filled to successfully lead the project.

Here are some tips on how leaders can assess what they bring to their role in leading change:

1. Review past change projects they have led and what they learned from them. A leader is less likely to repeat mistakes if they are analyzed and written down. If there is no record of lessons learned, the leader can interview past project team members, asking them for their views on what worked and what didn’t. Two or three short discussions will be enough to capture the key learnings so that the successes can be repeated and mistakes can be avoided.

2. Read past performance appraisals and note the skills and capabilities they have been recognized for. There will be themes over time around strengths and development needs. Leaders need to draw upon their strengths and mitigate their gaps by selecting team members who are strong in these areas.

3. Speak with peers (internal and external) who have managed similar change projects. Ask them to identify what experiences, knowledge, skills and relationships contributed to their success. Also, can they suggest which areas the leader is strong in and which ones needs some support. These resources can also be tapped when the leader needs advice on project challenges.

4. Assess the relationships they have with the groups that are going through the change. Personal credibility and trust is important when supporting teams through change. Employees have excellent memories and their initial view of the change will be influenced by their past experience with the leader. Knowing this point is critical to how the leader should frame the change and communicate the details to them.

5. Meet with employees they know that will be undergoing the change. These people will be able to give leaders insider perspectives on needs, concerns and cultural norms. Understanding the uncensored beliefs of the groups will enable them to amplify positive perceptions and refute negative ones.

Identifying the unique experiences, skills and behaviors leaders bring to a big change project is the best way to start building a plan to successfully managing it. Drawing upon these assets as they develop a deeper understanding of the change and what has to be done to make it successful will help them lead from their strengths and support their gaps.

Phil Buckley is a senior change management professional with nearly twenty-five years of experience developing and executing change strategies to achieve aggressive business goals. He has managed twenty-seven large scale change projects, most recently co-leading global change management for the $19.6 billion Kraft Foods acquisition of Cadbury with a team of forty change leads across sixty countries.

Phil is the author of a new book, CHANGE WITH CONFIDENCE: Answers to the 50 Biggest Questions that keep Change Leaders Up at Night (Jossey-Bass, March, 18 2013). It provides complete, actionable answers to the fifty burning questions that leaders routinely ask about how to manage change successfully.

After the Talent Review…Now What?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:30:00 +0000

I was at a conference recently and the session topic was leadership development and succession planning. One of the participants, an HR manager, raised her hand and asked: “We’ve recently implemented a talent review process, so we’ve done a decent job assessing our leaders, but now we’re struggling with what to do next. Do you have any suggestions?”
The presenter did his best to provide a few tips, but in fairness, that’s a tough question to answer within the time allowed in a 60 minute conference session. It’s especially hard to provide a succinct answer when you’re been doing it for so long - it’s easy to go off on a tangent with so many aspects of leadership development. Believe me; I’ve made a few eyes glaze over myself. Thankfully I have this blog as an outlet. (-:

The “what do we do next” question is a common one that leadership teams will ask, and most busy executives, especially those in smaller, fast-paced companies don’t have a lot of patience for long lectures and complicated theory. What they want is a checklist – or a menu - something they can get their heads around, start implementing immediately, measure, and start seeing results. That’s how they are used to running their businesses.

How about if we give ‘em what they want? Otherwise, they’ll do what most organizations do – spend a lot of time identifying and assessing potential leaders, and then drop the ball on developing those high potentials.

Here are 20 suggestions for what to do after a talent review. These are not all sequential – some are, and some are menu items to pick and choose:

1. Don’t wait to discuss development – do it at the same talent review meeting. Instead of rating everyone on a performance and potential matrix and then leaving the discussion of development needs and actions for a follow-up meeting, as the team is assessing each person, take a few extra minutes to summarize the person’s strengths and development needs and 1-2 high impact development actions (from the list below).

Make sure someone (a talent review facilitator, HR) is taking notes, so the development needs and actions can be summarized and distributed to the team as a follow-up.

2. Have a development discussion with each individual that was assessed. While specific performance and potential ratings or “who said what” should never be shared with employees, talent review discussions can be a valuable source of feedback and input into a person’s development plans. The person’s manager can let the employee how they are perceived, and make development recommendations based on that talent review discussion.

3. Conduct formal assessments. Talent reviews are an efficient and effective way to assess employees, but a 360 degree or behavioral assessment will go much deeper and provide more specific and accurate feedback to the employee and can be used for development planning.

4. Provide an assessment “debrief”. Assessments are great, but the value of an assessment is limited without a follow-up session with someone who really understands the assessment and how to change behaviors.

5. Offer executive coaching. An executive coach can work with each individual (in partnership with their manager) to help them implement their development plans, be a sounding board, overcome obstacles, serve as a reminder, and ensure new behaviors take root.

6. Offer a senior leader mentor (usually for high potentials)

7. Suggest subject matter experts for the person to work with on specific development needs.

8. Offer to send the person to an executive development program.

9. Create a custom development program for a group of high potentials. Assuming there is a large enough group with common development needs (there usually are), developing a group of high potentials at the same time, together, can be a more cost-effective approach. Action learning programs are often used for high potentials, where they work on real company issues and learn at the same time.

10. Discuss moving to a new role (in order to acquire the skills and experience needed to prepare for next level opportunities).

11. Decide on a “stretch assignment” (challenging project) for the individual.

12. Recommend targeted reading.

13. Invite the person to participate in a leadership meeting or event one level above them (for exposure, learning).

14. Suggest a person for the person to “shadow” (subject matter expert, role model, mentor, different business or country, etc…) for a few days.

15. Give each person access to an online training library.

16. Recommend and help the person get involved in a non-profit or Board assignment.

17. Recommend a professional organization to join or a conference to attend.

18. Establish ways for the person to get ongoing feedback.

19. Assign someone to collect and monitor all development plans.

20. Survey each person in 6 months to assess how they feel about the level of development support they are receiving.

What else can we add to the list?

This post was brought to you by Jobandtalent: “We help you to find the jobs that are right for you."

The Widening Gap Between Leaders and Up-and-coming Leaders…and What to Do About It

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Never in our time has there been a greater need for outstanding leaders. Regulatory changes and changes to the international economic landscape have made it challenging for today’s leaders to achieve the results they need to survive, never mind the results they need to thrive. There is, however, much that can be done to confront these challenges head-on. What’s needed to overcome what I call the “leadership crisis,” is not new technology or massive staffing changes. What’s needed is a shift in focus towards recognizing, supporting and developing leaders who possess both a strong “inner-core” of character and conviction and “outer-core” of leadership capability. These leaders, old guard and new, must be able to think creatively and critically at the same time. They must strategize effectively and respond with speed and competence to high-pressure situations.

Succession planning programs are meant to address the need for strong leaders, however the gap between those currently in leadership positions and the next wave of leaders is growing by the day, and these programs have not been designed to keep up with the accelerated pace dictated by this dramatic shift in demographics. By some estimates, up to 40-70% of any organization’s management population is currently eligible to retire. And of course, the succession planning debate is not only about having the right number of people to step into leadership roles; the quality and state of readiness of those who will take over leadership is even more vital to an organization’s success.

To address the leadership crisis from both angles (the need for both enough people and more importantly the right people), innovative practices such as job rotation, leadership development through coaching, mentoring, action-learning, and next-generation behavioral performance evaluation must all be considered. All of these practices, and other methods of identification and tracking of leaders, will be required to increase the speed with which organizations develop talent. The challenge is to put these and other innovative tools to use in a structured manner to build an enduring leadership succession program. One way to achieve this is by starting with a strong, compelling Succession Management Value Proposition.

In practical terms, an organization’s Succession Management Value Proposition (SMVP) is the holistic sum of the following practices:

(1) Demarcation-performance management;

(2) Diagnostic—objectively assessing leaders andpotential leaders;

(3) Deployment-structured meetings to integrate performance and potential assessments, calibrate capability, determine development options, and identify potential replacement scenarios; and

(4) Development—coaching, on-the-job development and training programs.

There exists no better way to create the belief in the value of the human capital asset, than by demonstrating the connectedness between winning succession practices and operational success. As I discuss in my book Talent Leadership, a strong SMVP foundation leads to:

(1) Capability-“Can Do”;

(2) Commitment-“Will Do”; and

(3) Alignment-“Must Do”.

To put in different words, a strong SMVP is the foundation for any organization to build and sustain a culture in which leaders and future leaders become continuously more capable, committed and aligned. In fact, organizations of all sizes that excel in promoting and developing leadership talent—with a focus and unwavering commitment to optimizing these “leading” indicators achieve impressive results.

About John Mattone
John Mattone is a sought-after keynote speaker, trainer and coach to many leading corporations and government agencies. John has been recognized by the prestigious Thinkers50 as one of the world’s leading management thinkers and by Leadership Excellence Magazine as one of the world’s top leadership consultants, speakers and executive coaches. John is the author of seven books, including the best-selling, Talent Leadership: A Proven Method for Identifying and Developing High-Potential Employees (October, 2012). John’s newest book, Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential is set for release in hardcover in April, (digital versions are already available for purchase). Connect with John by email at askjohnmattone@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter and like his page on Facebook and visit his website.

Satisfied Employees = Satisfied Customers = Profitable Companies

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:30:00 +0000

When it comes to understanding how to balance the need to keep a sharp eye on the bottom line and keep a workforce fully satisfied and productive, some managers and companies seem to get it while others don’t have a clue.

There’s a ton of research and surveys that prove the following:

Satisfied employees = satisfied customers = profitable companies

While I may not be a researcher, I have no shortage of stories from readers, friends, family, and acquaintances that bring this simple formula to life.

Here are two real recent examples. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Company #1: 20 Cents an hour

“Marty” is a department manager at a regional grocery chain. Marty consistently hits his numbers – in fact, he often the #1 performing department of the entire chain for stores.

How does he do it? Well, he works hard, keeps waste to a minimum, is good with the customers, and takes care of his employees.

He recently did a performance evaluation for one of his assistant managers, “Bob”. Bob is a 17 year employee, hard worker, never calls in sick, and over the last year has consistently gone above and beyond to help Marty meet his goals and take care of the customers. After submitting the paperwork and getting the required approval from above, Marty gave him a great review and a 70 cents per hour raise.

You would have thought Bob had won the lottery! He was ecstatic, grateful, proud, and walking on air for the next two weeks. It was the biggest raise he had ever received. Bob was already a solid employee, but as a result of that extra recognition, he was working even harder with extra enthusiasm.

Four weeks later Marty got a call from one of the regional managers. It seems there was an oversight in the approval process, and Bob’s raise was 20 cents more than allowed under company policy. No matter how hard Marty fought, at the end of the day, he had to tell Bob his raise would be 20 cents less.

Bob was devastated. What was once an engaged, productive, proud “associate” quickly turned into a dejected, bitter, and completely demotivated employee. Marty did the best he could to soften the blow, but he couldn’t blame Bob for being ticked off.

I’m not sure how the story will end – maybe Bob will come around – or maybe he’ll go work for a competitor or get fired for a bad attitude. If that happens, it’s going to cost the company thousands of dollars in lost productivity, replacement hiring costs, and training costs. Some estimate the average cost of turnover to be $75,000. I’d say that’s conservative.

All for 20 cents per hour. $400 dollars per year.

Company #2: The $2000 sales management training lesson

Tony, a newly hired sales manager, went to his manager, Joanne, and confessed: “I screwed up! I made a promise to a sales rep that I shouldn’t have made. The operations manager just let me know that I didn’t fully understand our compensation policy and we need to take it back, or it’s going to put us $2,000 over budget. What should I do?”

The response from Joanne? “Take it back?! Hell no! Admit that you made a mistake, and the let the sales rep keep the payment. He’ll respect you for it, and word will quickly spread amongst the rest of the sales reps that you have their backs. That’s a small price to pay for that kind of loyalty and commitment. We’ll make up the $2000 in no time. I’ll talk to the operations manager.”

Joanne clearly understood the impact of the perception of screwing over one of the company’s top sales reps because of a management mistake. The sales rep was even more appreciative when he found out it was a mistake yet it wouldn’t be taken away. While the operations manager wasn’t too happy initially, he got over when he saw the sales numbers at the end of the month.

And now….. the rest of the story:

Company #1 continues to struggle and just got purchased by a competitor. Company # 2 is making money hand over fist in a tough economy. You might argue that company #2 could afford to make the policy exception. Actually, one of the reasons that company is so successful is that they keep a sharp eye on costs and wastes. Apparently, making good on a promise isn’t considered an unnecessary expense; it’s considered an investment in keeping your workforce engaged and productive.

Both true stories – better than anything I could make up. Two similar management mistakes and company policies, yet two very different responses and results.

Comments?

May 2013 Leadership Development Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:26:00 +0000

The May 2013 Leadership Development Carnival is hosted this month by Karin Hurt, from her Let's Grow Leaders blog.

You can find here right here. Hope you enjoy it!

Leading Successfully… Start with the Right Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:08:00 +0000

Guest post by Jimmy Brown, Ph.D.

Business leaders have a lot on their plate. There are administrative chores like budgeting and logistics. There are people development tasks like encouraging, coaching, and what we’ll politely call correcting. Then there are the big picture and forward thinking undertakings that help set the vision and define the mission for the organization. The exact nomenclature for this last set of responsibilities can vary from organization to organization, but what we are talking about is finding the right strategy.

Finding the right strategy can be the difference between a leader’s success and failure. Just look at Léo Apotheker’s brief tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. He made several strategic missteps that not only led to his quick dismissal, but also drove value erosion and a loss of market position that the company is still trying to recover from. While the Apotheker example is one of the more recent, public, and dramatic, it is far from the only one. You can’t open up the business pages of any newspaper without reading about the negative impact of a leader’s poor strategic decision making. So why is this so hard? Our research suggests that one of the drivers is that leaders are approaching strategy the wrong way.

Most leaders take one of three approaches. The first is to use what we’ll respectfully call intuitive synthesis. This is a fancy term for guess work and gut-feel. The second is to use intuitive synthesis, often augmented by a couple days of management meetings, to come up with three or four options. Then, the accounting department will run a bunch of financial models to figure out which option is the cheapest. The third approach is to use some established strategic planning model to come up with the options, run the financial models, and then pick whatever is cheapest.

This third approach is actually good progress towards better strategies because using a standard model helps leaders structure their thinking in a way that reduces the risk of overlooking important inputs. More importantly, if we consistently apply a standard model over several cycles, we can begin to see trends in the data. These trends can allow for even better decision making. The challenge with this approach, however, is that most of the standard models tend to only look at one domain (typically competitive data) and the analysis is still focused on whichever option is the cheapest.

Leaders in top performing organizations take a much more systemic and holistic approach to strategic decision making. In particular, they incorporate data from three specific domains:

· Capabilities – What we do well and how we can do it better

· Customers – Who we serve, or who has a need we can meet

· Competitive Environment – What inhibits our success. This includes both direct competitors (i.e., other organizations), and other indirect factors in the external environment

Armed with this full view of their ecosystem, leaders are now better equipped to decide how to best position their organizations for success.

Another important differentiator of top performing leaders is that they do not make decisions based solely on which option is the cheapest. They approach these decisions in terms of how much return they will get on the investment, not just the cost. More importantly, that investment decision is not purely financial. Top performing leaders also engage in a sense-making process that considers their Organizational Orientation, as well as their organization’s Process Preferences.

Organizational Orientation is about the mental models that people in the organization use to get their jobs done. Are they more longitudinally focused and stick to their guns despite changes in the market, or do they actively react to every change? Do they take their mission and vision into account for every decision, or are they more concerned with day-to-day numbers? This orientation is closely related to the culture, the brand, and the example set by the organization’s leaders. A strategy that is aligned with the organization’s orientation is much more likely to be embraced by the people who have to execute it.

Process Preference is about how the people in the organization choose to execute their tasks. Do they prefer a more centralized command and control structure, or allow each unit to operate more independently? Do new ideas only come from the top, or do they look for the field to come up with new solutions and bubble those up? Regardless of which approach a particular organization prefers, good leaders stay aware of those inclinations, incorporate them into their strategies, and then leverage those to maximize the efficiency of the implementation and execution.

To be honest, what was just described is an oversimplification of a very robust methodology. Each of the three data domains has several sub-levels of data that need to be collected to fully understand the organization’s ecosystem. The Organizational Orientation and Process Preference considerations are subsets of a larger sense-making process. It includes sorting through the mounds of data from the three domains to determine which particular data points need to be considered in each strategic cycle, and what kinds of analyses should be conducted. Starting at a high level like this is okay because good leaders know how to begin with the big picture, work with their teams to drill down to the details, and then make decisions based on complete information. And that is what strategy is all about.

About the author:

Jimmy Brown, Ph.D. is the author of Systems Thinking Strategy: The New Way to Understand Your Business and Drive Performance. He is also the Strategy & Change Practice Area Lead at Beacon Associates where he is responsible for change management, organizational performance, and business strategy consulting engagements. In addition to his consulting work, he is a professional speaker and adjunct professor in graduate psychology and management programs. He can be reached at jbrown@beaconassociates.net.

Is it Time to Create your own Succession Plan?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

If you’re in a senior leadership role in a large organization, there’s a good chance there is a succession plan for your position in case you get promoted, win the lottery, get hit by a bus, leave to take a position at another company, or need to be replaced for poor performance. In smart companies, an orderly replacement of high level, critical positions is considered to be strategically important to the continued success of the company. A failure to proactively plan for succession is the same as failing to safeguard the financial assets of an organization.

Other than this handful of critical executive positions, succession planning for the rest of the organizations is usually managed by identifying “pools” of candidates that are considered to have potential to move into any number of senior leadership roles. In other words, the typical mid-senior level leadership position isn’t considered important enough to worry about if the incumbent leaves. When it happens, the organization reaches into the pool for a replacement, hires externally, or re-shapes the position in a way so that it doesn’t look anything like it used to.

Some companies would rather exclude the incumbent manager from recommending replacement candidates, as it can be seen as threatening, and when asked, they often come up with blank lists or weak candidates.

However, just because there isn’t a formal, HR-driven succession plan for your position, that doesn’t mean you can’t create one yourself.

Why would any leader want to bother, especially if they are even not being asked to?

There are at least four compelling reasons:

1. So that you are not seen as “irreplaceable”.

On the surface, being so important that no one else could replace you seems like a good deal. That’s job security, right? Well, that’s OK if you want to do the same job for the rest of your career. But if you have aspirations to do something different (like get promoted), then being irreplaceable is painting yourself into a career corner. I have been in the meetings when those decisions are made – it happens.

2. So that you can take time off with peace of mind.

Being “replaceable” has immediate, tangible benefits too. You can actually take a vacation, maternity or disability leave, or time off for some other reason without worrying about your department falling apart or being called in to clean up the mess.

3. Failure to groom a successor is seen as poor leadership.

Talent management is considered a critical competency for leaders these days. Leaders that do it well have higher performing organizations and are seen as being strategic and confident leaders. If your management looks at your position and doesn’t see a viable slate of candidates, you’ll be labeled a leader that can’t coach, delegate, develop, or let go. The heck with that promotion, maybe it’ll be time to replace you for not doing your job.

4. If self-interest and fear aren’t enough motivation, then think about your legacy.

Francis Hesselbein, considered by Peter Drucker to be one of the greatest leaders of all time, said it best: “Successful transition is the last act of a great leader”.

You’ve worked hard to make a difference, establish a vision, achieve results, and build your team. Why wouldn’t you want someone that you handpicked and groomed to step into your role and continue to build on what you’ve created?

Once you’ve made the decision to plan for your own succession, here are a few tips on how to do it:

1. Define the future requirements for your position.

Unless you’re planning on leaving next week, don’t think about the skills needed to do your job as it exists today – think about what it would take to be successful 3-5 years in the future. It’s a good exercise in strategic thinking, and it may even change the way you’re approaching your own development.

2. Assess your team.

Use a performance and potential matrix to assess your own team. Does anyone have the potential to be considered a candidate for the role as you’ve envisioned it in the future? If so, put them on your “short list” of successors.

3. Look outside of your team.

A well rounded, talented, diverse “virtual bench” should include 1-2 candidates from your own team (if they exist) and a 2-3 from outside of your immediate team. They could be from within your organization or external. These external candidates could also be part of your virtual bench for new hires or replacements on your own team.

4. Coach and develop your succession candidates.

Coaching and developing will help everyone on your team become better performers – it shouldn’t be limited to just potential successors. However, if you are preparing someone to step into your role, either short term (i.e., a vacation or leave), or long term, development has a different focus. It’s not just about helping them do their own job better; it’s preparing them to do your job through stretch assignments, delegation, training, coaching, and feedback.

5. Share your succession plan with your boss.

If you have enough self-confidence to create your own succession plan, then share it with your manager. Why? In addition to the benefits already listed above, it’s a chance to get feedback and another perspective. Who knows, maybe your manager knows something about your role’s future requirements that you were not aware of, has opinions about the performance and potential of your candidates, or has other candidate suggestions. It’s all good information to share and be aware of.

How about you – are you ready to create your own succession plan?

How Nonprofit Leaders Can Use Strategy and Technology to Enhance Organization’s Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:06:00 +0000

Guest post by Harrison Coerver:

Many membership organizations and not-for-profits are struggling to maintain their relevance in today’s fast changing environment. Unprecedented competition, higher expectations, accelerating technology, changing preferences and time pressures are all converging to create a challenging landscape. At the root of the problem: weak, hidebound board leadership.

Given the strong role that not-for-profit boards have in directing their organizations, it is difficult for volunteer leaders to not to take responsibility for the plight of these groups. Many boards of membership and voluntary organizations share three characteristics that hamstring their leadership.

First, most boards are not composed for performance. Directors are selected based on who they know, what interest they represent or how long they have been hanging around. Let’s face it; many on boards are along for the ride. They have superficial levels of involvement and they engage in “social loafing” -- the propensity of those in large groups to default to a smaller group to carry the workload. While there are leaders on boards, there are not enough of them.

Second, board leadership rarely holds themselves or their peers accountable. Admittedly, it is difficult to challenge a non-performing director that is volunteering their time. But, tolerating slackers marginalizes the efforts of true leaders intent on advancing the organization’s mission.

Third, tradition – not strategy – is the master of most non-profits. This year’s board does what last year’s board did. Officers perpetuate time-honored programs and legacy processes. There is a lot of talk about “strategic boards” and “strategic thinking,” but most nonprofits are driven by convention and “the way we’ve always done it” mentality. Traditions have a stranglehold on most tax exempts.

Membership, civic, and charitable organizations are in a race for relevance. To win, it requires leadership that can craft and execute strategy: skillful, creative, and disciplined use of resources to achieve their objectives. Strategy doesn’t just happen. It requires leadership, focus, and work. Successful nonprofits will embrace the following three approaches to succeed:

1. Small, competency-based boards with rigorous director selection
Most boards are too large. They are cumbersome and consume an inordinate amount of staff time. A five-member board is likely to be most effective in many cases. And, directors need to be carefully selected based on predetermined criteria. For starters, ask “What are the major opportunities and challenges we will encounter in the next five years?” Then ask, “What kind of directors will be best suited to govern (“direct and control”) the organization given those opportunities and challenges?”

This takes time and effort, but think of the time and effort costs of underperforming boards. It will be well worth the effort. For those who pushback at a five member board, please show me a large board where the Executive Committee does not do the lion’s share of the work anyway.

2. Strategy-driven vs. tradition-driven governance
Boards that perform will recognize the risks associated with clinging to obsolete programs and processes that once served them well, but now threaten their relevance. They will assess their true strengths and areas where they excel, and concentrate their scarce resources on them like never before. To do so will require them to say “no” – something politicians can’t do, but leaders know they must. Losing focus in today’s environment is a prescription for failure.

Directors on effective boards will eliminate waste by understanding the cost of an activity and effort that doesn’t deliver value or advance the organization towards its mission. They will eliminate unproductive effort, just as manufacturers eliminated waste in the production process to compete in global markets. Many tax-exempts are overweight and out of shape, yet vying with lean and nimble competitors.

Non-profit leaders of tomorrow will know that purposefully discontinuing programs and activities that have outlived their usefulness frees up resources for innovation. They can’t continue to add new services, events, and initiatives year after year without spreading resources too thin and marginalizing performance in all of them. Leaders will learn that at times you need to “shrink to grow” as did General Motors when it eliminated Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Saab, and Hummer to focus on Cadillac and Chevrolet.

3. The technology imperative
Many associations and non-profits have been slow to adopt technology in a world that is rapidly going digital. Members, donors, policymakers, and volunteers alike are constantly using technology from apps to streaming video to social media. They expect non-profits to use the same technologies they are accustomed to in their day-to-day lives. Ignoring the imperative and potential of technology is a short cut to irrelevance.

Change is particularly difficult when organizations have decades of operating based on long-standing traditions. But, as someone tweeted recently during my keynote speech, “If you don’t like change, you’ll like irrelevance even less.” Association and not-for-profit leaders will understand the tradeoffs involved and make the necessary changes with a sense of urgency.

About the author:

Harrison Coerver is an internationally recognized strategy and planning consultant and bestselling co-author of Race for Relevance: 5 Radical Changes for Associations (www.raceforrelevance.com) and Road to Relevance: 5 Strategies for Competitive Associations (www.roadtorelevance.com). He can be reached at harrison@harrisoncoerver.com or 239.281.1691

6 Types of Bosses

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

I've been involved in leadership development for a long time, so I've been exposed to a lot of bosses from all walks of life. One question people often ask me and others in this business is "If all of this leadership development stuff is supposed to be so great, then why are there so many bad bosses?"

It's a fair question. It seems like wherever you turn, there are horror stories of bully bosses, bad bosses, evil bosses, and devil bosses. Bad bosses are lampooned on shows like the Office, in movies like Horrible Bosses, in comics like Dilbert, and in books, blogs, magazines, and other media outlets.

There's a lot of attention being given to "bullying" these days, and bosses are often the bully culprits in the workplace.

It's not just some kind of anti-boss media conspiracy. A lack of respect for bosses will often show up in polls and surveys as well.

How could this be? How could so many incapable, evil-doing nincompoops end up in positions of management?

I believe these kind of bosses are the minority, not the majority. That's not based on polls or research - only on my own personal experience in working with real managers, as well as reviewing the results of hundreds of 360 assessments.

Here's my view of the world of bosses:

1. Great Leaders: 10%
These are those rare bosses that are able to consistently bring out the best in others and achieve extraordinary results. They are the ones that make a positive difference in the lives of their employees, organizations, and the world around them. They are not just the famous historical figures - great leaders are all around us.

2. Good Bosses: 40%
This is the bell curve of bosses: decent, hard working, well-intended bosses that strive to be great leaders - and often are - but don't always get it right. When given feedback, they will work on their weak areas, but don't always have the tools or support needed to improve.

3. Unskilled Bosses: 30% (sometimes referred to as incompetent)
These bosses may be new, or just never learned the basics of good management and leadership. Sometimes they had poor roles models or were never trained. They have good intentions - they are just going about it the wrong way, and get frustrated when they don't get the results they need. With proper training, coaching, and development, they can become at least good, if not great leaders.

4. Apathetic Bosses: 10%
These are the ones that for some reason have just checked out. They may have been a good boss at some point - or at least have the potential to be a good boss - but just don't care anymore. They don't embrace the role of a boss - having to manage people is just a requirement of the role that they would just as soon not have to do.

5. Jerks: 5%
"Jerks" is a subjective assessment, and everyone has their own level of tolerance when it comes to the imperfections of others. Mine just happens to be around 5%, not just for bosses, but people in general.
Jerk bosses are just jerks that somehow got promoted when they should not have. Sadly, most jerks don't know they are jerks. In fact, these are some of the bosses who think they are great leaders. They will take a good management or leadership concept, and screw it up in practice. Unlike unskilled bosses, I'm not sure if any amount of training or coaching will make enough of a difference to overcome being a jerk.

6. Bullies: 5%.
Bully bosses, like jerks, were probably always mean-spirited people but got promoted because of their hard work, technical talent, and their ability to manipulate, intimidate, suck-up, and get short-term results. In a position of power and authority, they have even more ability to push others around and make the workplace a living hell for those unlucky enough to work for them.

These last two categories are the ones we read about the most. If you search "types of bosses", you'll find a lot of articles written about different variations of these last two, but not much about the other 90%.

Again, these percentages are heavily biased based on the the kind of organizations I've worked in and for. I'm sure, based on Glassdoor reviews, that the percentages vary quite a bit based on organizational culture.

I think the percentages are also dependant on people's life experiences, their tolerance, as well as their expectations for a boss. For example, if you've never been a boss, are fiercely independent with little respect for anyone in a position of authority, you'd probably rate ANY boss as incompetent at best.

So why are do many surveys should that 50% or more employees have an unfavorable view of their bosses? Well, if you add up categories 3-6, there's 50% right there. I also think people often have unrealistic expectations of their bosses - they are rating them against "Great Leader" standards (based on the survey questions), when in reality, that's a pretty high bar that few will ever reach. So many from the "Good Boss" category end up getting low marks in surveys.

So what do you think? Do you agree or disagree with my categories and percentages, and if so, why?

Leading through Long Term Influence

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:46:00 +0000

Guest post by Great Leadership regular contributor Beth Armknecht Miller:

Webster’s Dictionary defines a “leader” as a person who has commanding authority or influence”. I would argue that in the 21st century it’s all about influence, not authority. If a leader only has authority and is unable to influence others, then his leadership will be short lived. And with the shortage of talent, leaders need to create sustainability in an organization.

Think about those leaders and individual contributors in your organization, whether for profit or not for profit, who may not have the title of VP, Director, or Manager yet they have followers because of their influence with others. These are the people who others listen to and respect but don’t have the title providing them with the authority to lead. They are able to use specific behaviors that align with the situation that will get others to change behaviors, opinions, attitudes, goals, needs and values.

What are the critical methods to leadership influence?

It is important to understand that influence much like leadership, is dependent on the situation that requires influence. It may be that you are trying to influence someone higher in the organization, a peer, or a direct report. All of these are different situations in themselves. Other types of situations where influence may be needed include:

• Changes to project plans

• Support of proposals by upper management

• Agree to new assignments and tasks

• Provide necessary information in a timely fashion

• Stop ineffective or negative behaviors

The Power Use Model outlined by Anita Hall, Extension Educator  and Leverne Barrett, Extension Leadership Specialist of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension, depicts someone’s choice of influence tactics in terms of the “softness” versus “hardness” of the tactic. The spectrum relates to the freedom the tactic leaves the person being influenced to decide either to yield or to resist the influence attempt:

Hard tactics give individuals less freedom than soft tactics. They are perceived as more forceful and push the person to comply versus support. Hard tactics include “exchange,” “legitimating,” “pressure,” “assertiveness,” “upward appeal” and “coalitions.” Soft tactics are considered thoughtful and constructive, and pull the person to make the necessary change. Soft tactics include “personal appeal,” “consultation,” “inspirational appeal,” “ingratiation” and “rational persuasion.” It is important to note that soft tactics tend to provide more lasting change because they create an emotion of support versus compliance by the person being influenced.

And, there are certain methods when used to influence that are generally unsuccessful. These tactics are often associated with a leader who has the authority but lacks influence. Autocratic leaders will often make demands, threats or intimidation, which will generate short-term change but no support.

When would this tactic be useful? In an emergency, demands are often necessary. A leader needs to have people move quickly when the office is on fire or the plant has been exposed to dangerous chemicals.

Yet for the most part, when soft tactics are used more than hard tactics, such as demands and threats, a leader can build influence capital. From my experience with leaders, those who are highly influential use these two tactics more than others:

• Inspirational appeal - a request or proposal that arouses emotions and enthusiasm by appealing to other’s values and ideals, or by increasing their confidence in being successful.

• Consultation- includes others’ in making a decision or planning how to implement a change that impacts them

So what if you’re a leader with authority, you’ve got the title, how do you know whether or not you have influence with the people you are leading? My suggestion to leaders is to start taking an audit of the methods they use to influence. How much time are they using the consultation and inspirational appeal methods to influence others? And if the percent is low, how are you going to increase your soft tactic influence?

For additional information on the Power Use Model read more.

Beth Armknecht Miller, of Atlanta, Georgia, is Founder and President of Executive Velocity, a leadership development advisory firm accelerating the leadership success of CEOs and business leaders. She is also a Vistage Chair and Executive Coach. She is certified in Myers Briggs and Hogan leadership assessment tools and is a Certified Managerial Coach by Kennesaw State University. Visit http://www.executive-velocity.com/ or http://executivevelocityblog.com/ or follow her on twitter at SrExecAdvisor.

What Matrix Leaders Can Learn from Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:57:00 +0000

The success of his nighttime ride almost 240 years ago is a testament to effective matrix leadership skills–and a lesson for today’s leaders.

Guest post by Signe Spencer, Hay Group

A few months ago, I would never have considered Paul Revere a useful example of a matrix leader. I always thought of him as the prototypical lone hero, galloping through the night shouting “the British are coming,” more or less at random, to rouse the countryside.

But then I read Paul Revere’s Ride, David Hackett Fischer’s excellent account of the people and events leading to the start of the American revolution. It turns out Paul Revere wasn’t working alone, and didn’t shout randomly as he rode.

In fact, almost nothing about his ride that night was random. Revere had spent decades laying the foundation for his overnight success. And his story has important lessons for anyone concerned about effective matrix leadership.

A colonial matrix?

When we think of early patriots today, we remember a few outsized historical figures like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and the Sons of Liberty. But the reality was far more complex.

The Sons of Liberty was just one of seven important Boston patriot groups involving hundreds of influential citizens. Each was loosely organized around its own focus and goals, with few connections and little or no formal communication between them.

In the same way, every town had its own militia, created for its protection and commanded by its leading citizens. There was little overlap between them, and no overarching organization or command structure uniting them.

Today we would call this assemblage a matrix – a poorly organized one at that. And veteran managers know better than to expect quick, decisive action from a poorly organized matrix.

But Paul Revere succeeded

Paul Revere, it turns out, had the exact qualities that were required to bring clarity to this confusion of colonial coalitions, and unify its divergent forces to deliver a coherent, revolutionary response.

He was a natural matrix leader, displaying the key leadership qualities that are essential to success in today’s matrixed organizations.

Revere knew the patriot groups. He was a joiner who had been active in the civic affairs of Boston all his life. In fact, he was one of only two people known to have belonged to five of the seven important patriot organizations. As a result, Revere was familiar with the activities, goals and leadership of all these groups, and was perfectly positioned to help coordinate the separate streams of patriot activities when events required.

The take-away for matrix managers: Like Revere, effective matrix leaders must have a broad organizational awareness to successfully align their group’s objectives and activities with those of parallel groups, as well as the strategic goals of the organization as a whole. They also must know where to seek the resources they need to meet their objectives, and what levers they have to push to get them.

Revere knew people and how to influence them. Through his long record of civic activism, his broad range of interests, and his work as a silversmith, Revere not only knew most of Boston’s influential citizens, but those of neighboring towns as well. He also knew how to build consensus to accomplish common goals, and had established a regional reputation as a man of his word who could be trusted to get things done.

The take-away for matrix managers: Leaders in a matrix often lack line authority over critical team members, or over gatekeepers who control critical resources elsewhere in the organization. The ability to understand people and their motivations – and to use the tools of influence and persuasion to enlist their support and assistance – is vital to successful matrix management.

Revere took initiative in guiding a collaborative solution. He spent months visiting and talking with local leaders in Boston and surrounding towns, helping to forge unity and create a specific plan of action to counter an anticipated British move against the armory in Concord. When the time came, Revere didn’t shout from horseback to just anyone; he rode to prearranged homes and roused the residents, who in turn notified other key individuals, activating a cascading communication network that he had helped to create.

What it means for matrix managers: Successful matrix efforts almost always require thoughtful preparation to create the conditions that will support a positive outcome. Keen organization awareness and outstanding influence skills are empty assets unless matrix leaders take the initiative to use them to lay the groundwork for success, and guide their teams to create collaborative solutions that meet organizational goals.

Leadership you can learn

No business wants managers running through the halls shouting, “The competition is coming.” But as more organizations shift to matrix structures, the leadership skills that the real Paul Revere possessed are in greater, and growing, demand.

Yet many organizations find that good matrix leaders are in short supply – in large part because veteran managers accustomed to traditional, hierchical roles are not necessarily prepared for the very different demands of a matrix.

Fortunately, the skills required of effective matrix leaders can be learned – and your organizational patriots can be ready and waiting when the competition arrives.

Signe Spencer is a senior consultant and global practice leader for capability assessment at Hay Group, and has researched successful leadership practices in matrix structures.

Is that Development Goal Really Worth it?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:02:00 +0000

When it came to individual development planning and coaching, I never used to be a fan of adding a lot of muckety-muck to the process. I’ve always felt that way when it comes to most HR and leadership development processes – simple is always better.

I’ve developed that perspective from devoting my career as an internal practitioner working with a lot of busy, impatient, hard-charging executives. Given the nature of succession planning cycles, most of them ended up scrambling to create individual development plans (IDPs) at the last minute all at the same time, and it was my job to help them. Out of necessity, I perfected the “45 minute drive-by IDP”.

However, I’ve learned that there are times when it’s important to slow down, step back, and take the time to think through the implications of a development plan. After all, it’s relatively easy to create a spiffy looking plan with all of the right buzz words, but its hard work to actually change your behavior. Way hard! When the going gets tough, people can give up, throw up their hands, and tell themselves and others “that’s just the way I am”.

One way to increase the chances of changing behavior is to ask yourself or others that you are coaching a few “return on investment” (ROI) questions before a development goal and actions are committed to. Taking the time to consider the implications of changing – or not changing – will help create the internal motivation, ownership, and commitment to change.

While you don’t need to add a section to your IDP, I’d recommend that you write down your answers to the following questions:

1. If I get better at (add the behavior you want to improve), one benefit will be: ________. Don’t be satisfied with one of two benefits – keep asking the question. Sometimes the most valuable benefits take a while to bubble up.

2. How will the company or my organization benefit? See if you can connect the dots to your organization’s mission and measurable objectives.

3. How will changing this behavior help me achieve my business and personal objectives?

4. What will happen if I don’t change?

5. What will be the cost of changing this behavior? Even where there are lots of benefits to change, all change comes at a price. What will you lose by changing? What will you have to give up? How much effort will it take?

Once you’ve answered each of these questions (or the person you are coaching has), decide if it’s really worth changing the behavior. People won’t change their behavior if they don’t want to – and neither will you. Even if there a lot of positive benefits to changing, it just might not be worth the cost and effort. The point is, you (or someone else) need to make a decision. Only then should you move on to deciding how you’re going to change. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

Learning a new behavior, or eliminating a bad habit, takes a lot of discipline, practice and a dose of humility. No one gets it right the first time, and it takes up to a year to get completely comfortable with it. Going back and reviewing the answers to these five questions might just give you the inspiration you need to stick with it.

Note: Credit and thanks for these coaching “ROI” questions goes to executive coaches Mary, Susan, and Marshall Goldsmith.

Engaged Employees Volunteer Their Hearts, Minds, & Imaginations

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:01:00 +0000

Guest post by Ray Attiyah:

I had a conversation a few days ago with somebody about how to create an engaged workforce. Hiscompany had a huge collection of training material, charts, books, pamphlets, and seminar schedules that they passed out to their people. But even with all of these resources, they were having trouble with a more basic issue – defining an engaged workforce. Is it a workforce that shows up on time for their shift? Is it a workforce that is emotionally happy at work? It is a workforce that brings up ideas to improve their workplace? What is it?

When he asked me what his company’s definition of “engaged workforce” should be, I responded, “What do you want it to be?”

And I answered him this way because engagement isn’t something that’s precisely defined. How would a parent define a good child? It’s not just about how he or she feels about the kid on a particular day. And it’s not just about a checklist of behaviors that the kid completes. It’s a combination of both feelings and behaviors. Engagement occurs when employees feel that the direction of the organization is a direction that satisfies their personal objectives. Employees are engaged when they feel that they are working for themselves, that is, they are working to meet their own goals, not just to make their boss happy.

When employees are engaged, they are investing their time in something that is meaningful to them and right for them. They show their engagement through their voluntary behaviors. One of my favorite sayings is “We rent people’s hands and their backs, but they volunteer their hearts, their minds and their imaginations.” That to me is a really good way to think about engagement – it’s when people volunteer their hearts, their minds and their imaginations.

So the question is when will people do that and when will they not? They won’t do it if they don’t believe in what you are doing. They won’t do it if they don’t believe they are being appreciated for what they do. They won’t do it if they don’t feel as though everybody else is putting forth a good effort. And they won’t do it if they feel their managers are not helping them. People engage when they believe in a purpose, feel appreciated, and have the environment to succeed.

Leaders define standards. What you promise and how you define employee engagement is fine, but realize that the best and brightest talent, as well as customers, will gravitate to the organizations with the boldest promise with a robust reputation of delivering upon their engagement promise.

Ray Attiyah is a serial entrepreneur and author of “The Fearless Front Line: The Key to Liberating Leaders to Improve and Grow Their Business.”

Do You Know What Your 3 Greatest Strengths and Weaknesses Are?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:13:00 +0000

I was helping out our Career Services team last week by being an interviewer for some of our soon-to-graduate senior business majors. Although I have my own preferred way on doing selection interviewing, I was provided with a list of standard questions and was asked to stick to the script.

Two of the questions were:

1. What you’re your greatest strengths?

2. What are your greatest weaknesses and what are you doing to overcome them?

One of the student candidates nailed them both! She had very specific and authentic answers for each question, along with a story to illustrate each strength and weakness. The strengths were highly relevant to the position she was interviewing for. The weaknesses less relevant, but she skillfully used the question to show humble self-awareness and the desire to develop and improve.

The other three candidates didn’t do so well with the questions, which somewhat surprised me. I always thought those lame questions were two of the most overused interview questions used by inexperienced hiring managers. Anyone in the job market, or soon to be in the job market, should at a minimum have answers for those questioned memorized and rehearsed. They paused, they stumbled, and they rambled on, and eventually were able to sweat their way to the next question.

I was happy to give them constructive feedback. (-:

However, as I think about the work I’ve done with very seasoned successful executives, maybe I was too hard on those 20 something year-old students. When faced with the results of their 360 degree assessment reports and feedback, I’d say at least half of the executives I’ve coached didn’t have a clear handle on what their greatest strengths and weaknesses were. Or, even if they thought they did, there was a mismatch between the person they thought they were and how they were perceived by others.

Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses isn’t just important in acing interviews and landing a spot on a television reality show. It’s also important in order to be a successful leader. “Blind-spot” weaknesses, often manifested as over-used strengths that may have served as leader well early in their career, will most likely derail a senior leader if not identified and addressed. Attention to detail turns into micromanaging; confidence turns into arrogance, and being a good problem solver leads to an inability to delegate and develop others.

How aware are you of your strengths and weaknesses? If you haven’t already, could you answer the two questions about greatest strengths and weaknesses any better than our students did?

I could have two years ago when I was interviewing for my current position, but if I had to honestly answer the same questions today, I’m sure my answers would be different.

So here’s what I think we need to do:

At least once a year – about as often as we should get an annual performance review and be updating our resumes – take a few moments to answer those two questions. Then, if you have a weakness or overused strength that’s hindering your performance as a leader, create a development plan and do something about it. If you’re not sure what your strengths or weaknesses are – or want to verify your self-assessment (which in most cases is pretty inaccurate), get a 360 degree assessment and engage an executive coach to help your sort out the results and create your development plan.

If you can’t do a 360 or afford a coach, then at least ask others – your boss, coworkers, and employees – for their feedback. That’s what the most successful leaders do – they are always on the lookout for blind spots, and know when and how to adapt their behavior to the context of the situation they are faced with.

Don’t wait for that next job interview to take stock of your strengths and weaknesses – do it on a regular basis, as a part of your ongoing development as a leader.

Executive Presence: What’s Your “Talk Track”?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Guest post from Elizabeth Freedman (originally published 12/6/2012 on the Bates Communication blog). Elizabeth is one of the instructors in our upcoming UNH Woman's Leadership Development program.

In my work as an executive coach, I meet at least once a month with each of my coaching clients. I often talk to them on the phone and exchange emails with them as we work on their real-time business challenges.

So what happens in those conversations? Recurring themes start to come up. I find that many leaders have a “talk track” of words and phrases that they use all the time—without always being aware of the impact. For better or worse, this talk track ends up becoming part of their executive presence and their brand as a leader.

One of my clients had a talk track for many years that led to a reputation for negativity. In one meeting alone, I noticed that he had described about ten different work experiences as “nightmares.” Strong word! So we talked about this talk track. And the next time I heard him lapse into that way of talking, I decided to delve into it. “What I just heard from you was an example of that ‘talk track’ we’ve talked about,” I said. “So let’s talk about this. You say it was a ‘nightmare.’ Okay—why do you call it a nightmare?”

The upshot was that he had made a sales presentation but didn’t get the deal. I said, “Let’s use accurate language to describe the situation.” Was it a nightmare? No. Maybe it was a disappointment. Maybe he could have said, “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the deal” or “They decided to go with another vendor” and state why, objectively. My goal was to get him to stop “catastrophizing” when something didn’t work out.

This leader didn’t want to be defined by that negative “talk track” anymore. So I told him that the only way to do that is to turn up the volume on a very different talk track—one that captures the brand and presence that you want to project.

I’ve had clients who always talked about how difficult or challenging or complex things seemed to them. You’ve probably had a boss or colleague with any number of talk-track themes:

“I’m so exhausted/overwhelmed/unhappy/unappreciated….”
“Everyone here is useless/stupid/incompetent….”
“It’s such a difficult environment/project/client/travel schedule…”
“That will never work/We won’t get that deal/It’s a dumb idea/What were they thinking?”

Often people aren’t even aware of how much they harp on a conversational theme and how negatively this lack of executive presence is affecting their professional brand. So what can you do to make sure your talk track is working for you and not against you as a leader? Take these four steps:

1. Identify your talk-track themes.

What are the words and phrases that you find yourself constantly using in conversations at work? Write down the things you seem to say almost every day—or think about what themes come up all the time for you in conversation at work or elsewhere.

2. Consider the impact of your talk track.

As a leader, your words carry more weight than others. You’re setting the tone for your team or division or organization. Whether that tone is absurdly optimistic, cynical, critical, upbeat, energized, or overly emotional, it’s going to be the model for others. Make sure that your talk track is consistent with the values and behaviors you want to drive.

3. Challenge the reality of your talk track.

How accurate is your talk track? Do you have a natural tendency to see the part of the glass that’s empty? How do you respond to setbacks? Do you gloss over the pain? Do you make a mountain out of a molehill? It’s crucial for leaders to be balanced, objective, and real about what’s happening. Your language choices need to reflect that.

4. Consider what you could say differently.

It’s easy to lapse into your talk track. When you catch yourself saying the same old things, try to catch yourself as if an alarm was going off. Can you find another way to say it—something that’s consistent with the brand and presence you want to project.

Don’t get me wrong. Leaders do need to be “real” about challenges and setbacks, and a somber tone may be appropriate and even helpful at times. The goal is to become more aware of your talk track and what it’s doing for you and others. As a leader, people take their cues from you. Before you know it, your talk track can dominate or drive the culture.

Changing your talk track is a challenge. Our ways of talking and viewing the world are pretty ingrained through several decades of life experiences. But change is also very possible. Pump up the volume on a more positive talk track for the holidays, and your presence will be viewed as a gift.

Elizabeth Freedman is an executive coach and senior communications consultant with Bates Communications. She spent over 15 years as a global brand and marketing consultant, working with large companies in the financial services, technology and consumer products industries on behalf of the global consulting firms Accenture and marchFIRST, as well as in her private coaching and consulting practice. Elizabeth enjoys working closely with her clients to help them lead, persuade, and strategically influence their stakeholders.

How to Confront an Employee Performance Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:04:00 +0000

This post was recently published on SmartBlog on Leadership:

In all of the work I’ve done in management development over the last 20-plus years, if I had to pick the one thing that managers at all levels either won’t do, can’t do, should do or could do it better, it’s having the will and skill to sit down with an employee and have the tough conversation about performance.

In the life cycle of management development, we tend to view this as “supervision 101.” And it’s true — learning how to handle a performance problem is one of the very first things a new leader should learn how to do. The problem is, for whatever reason, they just don’t. Instead, they often develop all kind of ways to work around performance problems as they work their way up to the executive ranks.

They develop the ability to think strategically, lead change, make a great presentation and other executive skills, but it’s like they skipped class when this skill was taught. Then, usually when it’s too late, they’ll call in HR or hire an executive coach to do their dirty work for them, as handling a performance problem would be a task beneath their pay grade.

Am I being too harsh or cynical? Here’s why it ticks me off so much: In the worst-case scenario, some poor employee ends up doing what they thought was good work for their entire career in a company and ends up finally getting let go because no one had the courage or ability to deal with it while there was still time to fix it. It’s sad, and it should never happen, but it does.

So, because the problem still exists (and it still gets me fired up), here’s an update from a post I wrote about three years ago. It’s based on a methodology I learned when I first started training new supervisors, and it’s still as effective now as it was back then.

The roadmap:

1. Get your ducks in a row (preparation):

Something’s happened that has brought the performance problem to your attention. It’s either some objective performance data (sales numbers) or some kind of behavioral issue (falling asleep in a meeting). Gather all the data you can – get input from other sources if you can. It’s like CSI work – you’re gathering evidence to be able to convince yourself first, then the employee.

Then, write an outline of what you want to say and how you want to say it. If it’s serious stuff, you’ll want to involve your friendly local HR person. No, really – involve them. This is when you’ll realize how valuable a good HR pro can be. They deal with this stuff on a regular basis.

Schedule a meeting — allow an hour — in a private location (closed door office or conference room). There’s no good time to have this kind of conversation, but Friday afternoon might be about the best.

Finally, step back and check your motivation. The objective of this discussion should be to truly help the employee – not to punish them or let off steam just to get it off your chest. Having the right frame of mind going into the discussion will set the tone and make all the difference.

2. Explain the performance issue.

Forget the friendly small talk — just get to the point. In a calm and conversational manner, explain to the employee what the performance issue or behavior is and why it concerns you. There are a couple models for doing this:

SBR (Situation, Behavior, and Result): “In our meeting this week, you fell asleep. I had to wake you up and embarrass you in front of your peers.”

BFE (Behavior, Feeling, and Effect): “When you fell asleep in our meeting, I felt like you were not interested in what I had to say. That sets a poor example for the rest of the team.”

However you do it, you’re basically helping the employee understand what exactly you are concerned about and why it concerns you. Not too harsh and judgmental, but don’t sugarcoat it.

3. Ask for reasons and listen.

This is where you give the employee a chance to give their side of things. Don’t ask: “So — what the hell were you thinking?” Instead, try something like: “So help me understand how this could happen?”

The key here is to really listen — for facts and feelings. There may be some legitimate reason for the problem; there usually is, at least from the employee’s perspective. Understanding the real underlying causes will help you and the employee do the next step, which is:
4. Solve the problem.

That’s the whole point of the discussion, right? Eliminate the causes and make the problem go away. A lot of managers seem to lose sight of that. It’s also a coaching opportunity for the employee to learn and develop.

This really should be a collaborative discussion. In fact, it’s best to ask for the employee’s ideas on solving the problem first. People support what they create. The employee’s idea may not be as good as yours, but they’ll be more likely to own it and have success implementing it. If you’re not confident the employee’s idea is going to work, you can always add your own as an additional idea. The key here is to make sure the employee is committed — which leads to the next step….

5. Ask for commitment and set a follow-up date.

Summarize the action plan, and ask for the employee’s commitment. They need to say it to own it. Then make sure to set and agree on a follow-up date to check in on progress. That way, if the initial ideas are not working, you can come up with additional ideas. You also let the employee know you’re not going to let it slide.

6. Express your confidence (and possible consequences).

If this is just the first discussion, and not a serious infraction, then there’s no need to mention consequences. However, if not, then you’ll need to make sure you clearly describe what will happen if there is insufficient improvement in performance or if the behavior does not improve. Either way, end it on a positive note — by expressing your confidence that the solutions you’ve both come up with will work. I realize this is hard to do if you don’t sincerely mean it; if that’s the case, then don’t say it.

There you go. After the meeting, document the discussion, and keep it in your employee file. Then, make sure there’s follow-up.

A lot of good employees screw up now and then. In fact, at some point in our careers, we all do. If you follow this process, you’ll get most of them back on track before it gets out of hand.

No Joke: The April 1st, 2013 Leadership Development Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:52:00 +0000

Welcome to the April 1st, 2013 Leadership Development Carnival!

I’ve never been a fan of practical jokes, so April fool’s Day is one of my least favorite days of the year. However, this year is different, because I get to host the April Carnival and bring you an outstanding collection of the “best of the best” in leadership development.

All are recent posts are fresh picked within the last two weeks – and guaranteed to help you grow as a leader. There’s not a weed in the entire bunch!

Before we get started, I wanted to share a little Carnival trivia with you. I started hosting this Carnival in July, 2008, my second year of blogging. The inaugural edition included over 30 submissions. Only one of them, Wally Bock from Three Star Leadership, and one of my early blogging mentors, is still a regular contributor and included in this month's edition (Mike Myatt and Mark Stelzner still show up now and then). I clicked on a few of the others, and most are no longer blogging, and a few are still around but I've not heard from in a while.

Most of the bloggers included in today's Carnival are regular contributors and share the hosting duties every other month. I've gotten to know many of them, and I have to say, they are an outstanding community of professionals. Managing this Carnival gives me a reason to connect with each of them, keep up with their blogs, and discover some new ones each month. I've hope it's helped do the same for you, and you enjoy reading it every month as much as we enjoy hosting it for you.

Wally Bock from Three Star Leadership presents The Key to Engagement. “Supervisors are the key to engagement. What are you doing to select and prepare better supervisors?”

Jim Taggart from Changing Winds blog presents Big-Bang in Practice: Antifragility, Innovation and Leadership.

Sharlyn Lauby from HR Bartender presents Is Leading While Learning Really Effective. “In a “do the job then get the job” world of work, is leading while learning really effective?”

Joel Garfinkle from Career Advancement Blog presents How to stop employee turnover in the first 90 days. “We seem to have a particular problem keeping our new hires from jumping ship. Turnover in the first 90 days is the main area of concern. Here are three steps you can start taking right away to turn your situation around.”

Bernd Geropp from More Leadership presents Five Questions you should ask before holding a meeting! “Lots of managers spend 50 % of their time at work in meetings.
Many meetings are just a waste of time. They are boring, they don’t serve a purpose.
If you want an effective meeting you need to answer 5 crucial questions before you hold the meeting… “

Linda Fisher Thornton from Leading in Context Blog presents Which of These is Ethical Leadership? “The graphic in this post illustrates the point that leaders are interpreting “ethical leadership” at very different levels. Which one of the 3 represents ethical leadership”

Mary Jo Asmus from Mary Jo Asmus presents Embracing Feedback. “For those who want feedback but haven’t yet learned to fully appreciate it.”

Jesse Lyn Stoner from Jesse Lyn Stoner Blog presents Let's Stop Confusing Cooperation and Teamwork with Collaboration. “Using collaboration, cooperation and teamwork interchangeably dilutes their meaning and diminishes the potential to create powerful, collaborative environments. This post defines the difference, discusses Marissa Mayer's memo that she was recalling remote Yahoo employees back to offices in order to promote collaboration and explains what is required to create a truly collaborative environment.”

Julie Winkle Giulioni from juliewinklegiulioni.com presents Building the Bench. “Recent research suggests that just as many organizations are beginning to feel that they’re stabilizing after a long period of economic uncertainty, they may in fact find themselves facing a new and unexpected challenge: deficient management bench strength. This post spotlights an under-leveraged approach to addressing this issue... while at the same time driving business results.”

S. Chris Edmonds from Driving Results Through Culture presents WOW Your Customers, Grow Your Business. “How employees treat customers has a huge impact on your business' buzz . . . and your business' revenues.”

Randy Conley from Leading with Trust presents Trust is…. “Trust is…” – How would you complete that phrase? Trust means something different to each person, and in this reflective post, Randy shares thoughts on what trust is to him and he invites you to add to the list by completing the phrase, “Trust is…”

Steve Roesler from All Things Workplace presents Self-Leadership & 3 Key Variables. “When it comes to making career and leadership changes, there are three variables that come into play. If you are wrestling with where you are right now, this may help you clarify where you need to focus your energy and your effort.”

Tim Milburn from www.timmilburn.com presents Five Ways To Turn Your Crisis Into A Comeback. “Leadership is difficult (even in your own home). This heartfelt post was written from my own personal experience of moving forward in the face of failure.”

Bill Matthies from Business Wisdom What I Will, What I Won't. “While the philosophic take on this is what we will resist versus what we will attempt to maintain, the business version is about spending or saving resources. In Vegas, knowing when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em. It's not easy is it?”

Dana Theus from InPower Consulting Blog presents The 3% Leadership Revolution: A (Missed) Opportunity for Women. “There is a quiet leadership revolution going on, a shift in the definition of success from “what” to “how.” In times of major change, the underdog has a strategic opportunity to end up on top. In this revolution, the women-in-leadership underdogs have a unique opportunity to capitalize on it and use it to define our leadership careers – to play a leadership role in the revolution, so to speak – or miss our chance at squeezing out from under the dominant culture that keeps women and men (both!) from valuing what women bring to leadership table.”

Bruce Lewin from Four Groups' Blog presents Why is Understanding People So Hard.
“The lack of well recognised tools and techniques that help us better understand people through reliable predictions undoubtedly contributes to the fact that understanding people is hard. Taking this conclusion at face value, it’s then easy to see how some managers don’t want to get involved in ‘people’ issues and instead they prefer to pass the problem to HR. Time will tell how long this situation endures but given the 50 year time frames above, it’s difficult to see this cliché being consigned to history any time soon.”

Miki Saxon from MAPping Company Success presents You are NOT Your Company. “Ego-merge has an out-sized negative effect on people and companies, yet it is rarely, if ever, recognized, let alone discussed.”

Karen Kanakanui from Lead Change Group! presents a post by Karin Hurt called Why Doesn’t My Team Feel Recognized? “You’ve served up regular recognition cocktails of programs, plaques, bonuses, and fun. You’ve spent lots of money… you’ve put in heartfelt effort. And then… the employee survey results come in. It’s not enough. They want more. What if your recognition cocktails don’t work?”

Anne Perschel from Germane Insights presents Dear Leader: Verbal Feedback Not Working? Try Action Feedback Instead.

Lolly Daskal from www.lollydaskal.com presents Leadership: Disappointed To The Core. “If you meet a leader who’s a loner, who doesn’t communicate, who’s not engaged, who seems removed and not trusting, it’s probably not because they enjoy solitude or disengagement. It’s far more likely that they have been disappointed. There will always be people and events that will let us down, and when that happens it can shake us to the core.”

Kevin Eikenberry from Blog: Leadership & Learning presents Leading in Living Color. “Too many leaders think they can leave their real selves at home, leading from a place of policy, procedure and a pursuit of perceived perfection. If you want to be a more effective leader, be real and relatable. Lead in living color.”

Anna Farmery from The Engaging Brand presents What is the definition of empowerment. “People often mistake delegation for empowerment, yet in a networked world empowerment becomes even more vital.”

Susan Mazza from Random Acts of Leadership presents The Key to Being Adaptable. “If you want to be adaptable you must be willing to let go of one particular need.”

Wendy Appel from The Enneagram Source presents I Choose Now.

included in next week's Leadership Dev'p carnival. It was originally published on my blog

Jon Mertz from Thin Difference presents Follow / Unfollow – Making Relationships Work. “In business and life, there are people we associate with and build relationships with. The key questions are: Who do we follow, and who do we unfollow?”

Karin Hurt from Let's Grow Leaders presents Humility and Leadership: Can We Teach Leaders to Be Humble? “Is it possible to teach humility?”

David Burkus from LDRLB presents Do You Have Executive Presence? “David Burkus examines the research on "executive presence" and its role in developing leaders.”

Robyn McLeod from The Thoughtful LeadersÔ Blog presents Your strengths can hurt you, “where she shares four tips to avoid having your strengths turn into derailers.”

What does the Millennial generation seek in leadership development opportunities and do generational stereotypes get in the way? As part of her article research for the Huffington Post on “filling the leadership pipeline” Jennifer V. Miller of The People Equation interviewed what Gen Y professionals had to say in Gen Y and Leadership: Young Professionals Speak Up.

Neal Burgis, Ph.D. from Practical Solutions Blog presents Coloring Outside the Lines of Your Leadership. “Many leaders are known as unconventional, non-traditional, and even trailblazers. These individuals step over the boundary lines to be creative and implement their creative side in business, and sometimes in everything else they do. Coloring outside the lines is primarily about stepping outside your comfort zone & take a risk to be creative with your thinking skills. This is where you get to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Mary Ila Ward from The Point Blog: Sound Advice for Career and Leadership Development presents Questions for Striving Servant Leaders. “This post examines if you are truly acting like a servant leader by questioning where is your car parked and where is your nursery located.”

Joan Kofodimos from Anyone Can Lead presents Why are you so swamped? “Most causes of managers' work overload aren't in the nature of the work - they're from within the manager. Understanding your own patterns and what you do to keep yourself swamped is key to getting un-swamped, and key to making the transition from managing to leading.”

Tanveer Naseer from Tanveer Naseer's blog presents "What Organizations Really Need To Succeed And Thrive".

Anadi Upadhyaya from TalentedApps presents Getting it Right: 100KM, Team of 4 and 48 Hours. “A great story about the four C’s of Shared Goals: Criteria, Communication, Change and Collaboration.”

Bret Simmons from Positive Organizational Behavior presents How we enhance our organizational citizenship. “The evidence on what makes us more likely to be good citizens at work”.

Nick McCormick from Joe and Wanda on Management presents Listen Up Managers. Don’t Forget to Change Your Oil. “Advice on listening from Greg Blencoe's book, The Supermanager”.

Next month's edition will be hosted by Karin Hurt on May 6th at her Let's Grow Leaders Blog.

Three Management Styles

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:45:00 +0000

Guest post from Great Leadership regular contributor Paul Thornton:

Management style greatly affects employees’ motivation and capacity to learn. The most effective managers vary their styles depending on the employee’s knowledge and skills, the nature of the task, time constraints, and other factors. By so doing, they encourage and inspire employees to do their best at all times.

The basic concepts presented in this article are derived from the “Situational Leadership Theory Model,” developed by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey. I was privileged to study with both Professor Hersey and Professor Blanchard at Ohio University. Since then, as a college instructor, coach, consultant, corporate trainer, manager, and facilitator, I have successfully applied the concepts described below with many employees and students in a variety of settings.

The Three Ds

It is helpful to think of management styles according to the three Ds: Directing, Discussing, and Delegating. In essence, the three management styles boil down to this.

· Direct — Tell employees what to do

· Discuss — Ask questions and listen

· Delegate — Empower employees

Using an appropriate management style helps the employee learn, grow, and become more independent.

Managers need to consider how much experience their employee has had in doing a particular task. Does the employee have the required knowledge and skills to do the task? If the employee has little or no experience a directing style is appropriate. As employees gain experience and know-how, managers need to move to a discussing style and then a delegating style. The goal is to use a management style that fits the needs of the employee relative to the task he or she is assigned.

The Directing Style
Start with the big picture. Provide the context before launching into specifics. State clearly what you expect, how you expect it to be done, and when it’s due. Wordy and poorly organized directions confuse, overwhelm, and frustrate employees. It’s important to provide the right amount of detail. Communication breakdowns occur when important details are omitted.

· Communication in the directing style is predominantly one-way, from manager to employee. The manager imparts information to the employee via verbal or written instructions. The only feedback the manager looks for is “Do you understand the instructions?”

· Coaching occurs as the manager tells the employees what they need to do or change. In addition, the manager may demonstrate desired behaviors.

· Decision making occurs when the manager defines the problem, evaluates options, and makes a decision. Employees learn how to frame problems, evaluate alternatives, and make effective decisions by understanding the process the manager follows.

· Recognition happens spontaneously when the manager praises employees who follow directions and complete assignments correctly. It can be accomplished on a more formal basis through company reward/recognition programs and feedback provided in private manager-employee conferences.

The Discussing Style
Prepare questions in advance. Great discussions don’t just happen. Ask one question at a time. Be open, curious, and interested in learning what your employees think and why they think that way.

· Communication in the discussing style is two-way (between manager and employee) or multi-way (among employees, or among employees and manager). The manager asks challenging questions and listens carefully to the employees’ comments. Follow-up questions help uncover underlying assumptions, reasoning, and feelings. Employees learn to have opinions and be able to back them up with facts and data.

· Coaching occurs when the manager asks questions that require employees to evaluate their own performance. “How do you think you did? What could you have done better? The goal is to encourage employees to examine what they did, why they did it, and what they can do to improve.

· Decision making occurs as the manager and employees collaborate and work together to define problems, identify and evaluate alternative solutions, and make sound decisions. Employees learn as they respond to the manager’s questions, offer their own ideas, and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

· Recognition may be given to employees who express their ideas clearly and succinctly. In addition, employees should be praised for thoughtful observations, creative ideas, building on the ideas of others, and helping the group reach a logical conclusion.

In meetings don’t allow one or two employees to dominate the discussion. Solicit everyone’s ideas and opinions. Promote broad participation by engaging all employees. After a good discussion it’s important to get closure on who is going to do what tasks by when.

The Delegating Style
Assign tasks that are challenging, but not overwhelming. Increase the probability of success for each employee by expressing confidence in his or her ability to get the job done.

· Communication occurs as the manager assigns tasks for employees to tackle independently or in small groups. Employees listen and ask follow-up questions until they fully understand what they need to deliver. Managers need to get periodic updates from employees to insure appropriate progress is being made.

· Coaching is accomplished primarily through self-coaching. Employees gain the most maturity and confidence when they are able to critique their own performance.

· Decision making happens as employees establish goals, implement plans, and work through issues on their own. They make the decisions.

· Recognition most often takes the form of praise and other rewards given to employees who work well independently, meet deadlines, and produce quality work.

As employees grow and develop they want the freedom to make their own decisions and solve their own problems. Such independence promotes maturity and increases motivation.

Summary

Effective managers use a variety of styles. They know how and when to choose the most appropriate one for the specific situation. At the end of each week, managers should assess their own performance with questions like the following:

· Did I use the most appropriate management style for each task?
· Am I asking the right questions?

· What else can I delegate?

· Who’s ready to take on a bigger task?

· Are employees becoming more capable and independent?

__________________________________________________________________

Paul B. Thornton is speaker, trainer and professor of business administration at Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, MA, where he teaches principles of management, organizational behavior, and principles of leadership. He may be contacted at PThornton@stcc.edu.

25 Questions (and answers) From LinkedIn Members About Leadership Development

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:48:00 +0000

I belong to a number of Leadership Development LinkedIn groups, and everyone once in a while I’ll take a look at the discussions to see what I can learn. Sure, a lot of the “discussions” are just promotional, but it’s still a good way to stay abreast of hot topics and best practices.

It’s also a good way to find out what people are genuinely asking about. I did a scan of some of the groups and pulled out the questions that I found to be intriguing, along with a few goofy ones. I’ll let you decide which is which. Just for grins, I also included my own brief answer or blog post, and tried to avoid answering every question with "it depends". Feel free to provide your own answers (or questions) in the comments section, or disagree with mine.

1. Do you believe emotional intelligence is a skill you can develop in others?

Yes, according to Daniel Goleman.

2. Does anyone have any research on the best leadership development programs and talent development practices across organizations?

CCL has the best research I’ve seen, but the basic principles of effective leadership development are well known and relatively timeless. It’s just that the companies that do it so well and get positive results are truly committed and take no shortcuts.

3. Do you agree that of all the skills of leadership, listening is the most valuable? – and one of the least understood?

Yes, if not the most, at least in the top 3.

4. Should leaders take action to create a "happy" environment for their people?

Hmmm. Not so sure about “happy”, but how about “engaged”?

5. How do you get leaders to realize that they need to develop further? How do you approach small business owners who don't have a boss over them to convince them to develop?

Feedback can help, as can peer networking.

6. Should "high potential" employees know of their status?

Yes, but only if it’s done right: High Potential Notification Guidelines: Not Too Heavy, Not Too Light

7. I'm looking for criteria to identify "business critical roles" to narrow the list of positions for succession planning purposes. Any recommendations?

What roles are critical to the growth of our organization in which you are forecasting high demand and low supply? What positions would your Board of Directors be concerned about if the incumbent were to leave?

8. What are the workplace behaviors you have observed that have the most negative impact on organizational success?

A lack of emotional intelligence. See question #1.

9. What have you found is the biggest hurdle to getting Succession Planning implemented?

A lack of CEO and executive teamcommitment.

10. How often should Talent Review meetings occur?

At least yearly, with quarterly check-ins.

11. I am looking for a good book on succession planning do you have any recommendations?

The Great Leadership Development and Succession Planning Toolkit. (-:

12. What should happen to an individual's placement in the 9-Box Chart if they take on a new and challenging position?

Create a special category: “Too new to rate”, then place 6-12 months later.

13. Should Talent Profiles (internal resumes) include a photograph of each employee?

Yes.

14. Can you teach old dogs new tricks?

Grrrrr. Yes.

15. Is relationship building the cornerstone of successful Leadership?

Yes.

16. Leadership Lessons from the Movies - what's your favorite Movie?

20 Best Leadership Movies; Break Out the Popcorn

17. Are Leaders Born or Made?

About 70% made, 30% born.

18. How are you using Social Media for your personal leadership development?

I think we're just starting to scratch the surface, lot's of exciting potential here, even minus the hype.

19. Leaders Develop Themselves First! Don't You Agree?

Absolutely! To Help Others Develop, Start With Yourself.

20. Can you train people to be authentic?

Yes.

21. In designing a Leadership 101 course for new managers, what do you feel should be the main topics to be included (- Presuming a 5 day course)?

An “Out-of-the-Box” Training Program for New Managers

22. How important do you think it is to prepare the next generation for leadership before they enter the workplace?

Hmmm, not so sure.

23. Can a manager be a coach?

Yes, at least a manager can coach.

24. How does internal training compare to external training?

Internal vs. External?

25. What have you found to be the most effective methods for maximizing the "stickability" of learnings from leadership workshops and other educational events?

How to Maximize Your Return on Investment from a Leadership Development Program.

5 Reasons Most Teams Underperform

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Guest post from Mark Miller:

Have you ever been on a great team? I’ve come to realize over the years not everyone can say yes. As I think about my own experience, I realize I’ve been on scores, if not hundreds of teams; unfortunately, the majority have not lived up to their potential. The more I study the topic, the more it feels like there’s a global pandemic of underperforming teams.

Think about the wasted human and financial capital from teams who don’t reach high performance team status. Like a scientist from the Center for Disease Control, I wanted to find the root cause of this problem and the cure.

My personal team journey began almost 50 years ago. As a child, I played on sports teams from my earliest memory. My professional team journey officially began just over 20 years ago. In an attempt to improve quality in our restaurants, Chick-fil-A asked me to help us learn and apply the best practices of the most elite, high performing teams. I wrote about our journey in my book, The Secret of Teams.

Today, I’ll focus on the five most common reasons we’ve seen over the years for underperforming teams.

1. Lack of Leadership

This may seem obvious but the truth is most teams that struggle and those that ultimately fail do so because of poor leadership. There is a legend that great teams can exist without leadership – it is a myth. Teams must be well led. This can come from an individual or the team itself, but leadership is the single-most critical factor for team success.

2. Insufficient Focus on Results

Great teams exist to accomplish something. If a team doesn’t have clarity on the results they are pursuing, they will drift. Worse yet, they will waste resources. A compelling performance challenge is at the heart of high performance.

3. Wrong Players on the Team

The team with the best talent usually wins. This is no guarantee but it matters. Do you have men and women on the team who are team players? Are they willing to learn and grow? Are they open to feedback and coaching? Are they willing to accept responsibility? If you’ve got the wrong players, high performance will forever be just out of your reach.

4. Skill Gaps

Does your team have the necessary skills to excel? A team needs two distinct skill sets to perform at its best – individual and team skills. Do the members have the skills needed to perform their assigned responsibilities with excellence? Does the team know how to solve problems, make decisions, resolve conflict and have effective meetings? If any of these are lacking, the performance will be too.

5. No Sense of Community

The little known fact about teams is what actually makes the great ones great. As important as Talent and Skills are, they are insufficient to propel a team to greatness. The best teams always demonstrate a genuine care and concern for each other. We call this community. It is a place where the team members know, serve, celebrate and mourn together. It is not an accident; it is the result of a conscious decision to create this type of place.

The good news – all of these deficiencies can be overcome. Your team can do it! Many have successfully navigated the road you’re on today. Granted, the path to the top is not easy to travel, but the view from the summit is unmatched. Stay the course and enjoy the journey!

Mark Miller, well known business leader, best-selling author, and communicator, is excited about sharing The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do with those who are ready to grow. You can find it on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere. You can also read Mark’s blog at greatleadersserve.org.

How to Respond to an Employee's Mistake

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 19:04:00 +0000

Mistakes happens. I've made them, you've made them, we've all made them. As a manager, you're not only responsible for your own dumb mistakes, you're responsible for every one of the mistakes that each of your employee's make.

Given all of these mistakes, there's a lot of potential opportunities to practice how you respond.

You have two choices:

You can lose your temper, yell, scream, embarrass and punish the employee. While that approach may produce a temporary feeling of euphoria via an adrenaline rush for YOU, it'll only makes sure your employee will do everything they can do to ensure you never find out about future mistakes they make. In other words, they'll get really good at covering up, and not so good at accountability.

The employee will most likely also think you're an $&*#-hole, and no one wants to work for an $&*#-hole. Oh, and the next time you make a mistake - that's the one the employee won't be so careful to cover up.

A better approach is to step back, take a deep breadth, and look at each time an employee makes a mistake as an opportunity to lead and develop the employee.

Here are tips for how to respond to an employee's mistake in a way that develops, vs. punishes, and provides you an opportunity to shine as a leader and earn your employee's respect and loyalty:

1. If the employee discovers their own mistake and comes to you, thank them for being accountable and bringing it to your attention. Let them know that mistakes happen, and it's important to you to acknowledge them and fix them as soon as possible.

2. Be a role model for the above behavior by publicly acknowledging your own mistakes.

3. Don't focus on placing blame - focus on solving the problem and making sure it doesn't happen again.

4. Ask questions and listen - without judgement - in order to gather all of the facts.

5. If appropriate, ask the employee what they think needs to be done to solve the problem and make sure it doesn't happen again. In most cases, people will know. If you rush in to solve the problem yourself (and sometimes you may have to), you miss the opportunity to coach and teach the employee to think for themselves.

There will be times when an employee just won't know what they did wrong and how to solve the problem. That's the time to practice situational leadership, and switch from coaching to teaching. You might have to spend time explaining to the employee WHY what they did was a mistake, i.e., it was a violation of a policy, the negative impact it has on the business or customer, etc...

Almost every mistake can be treated as a development opportunity. You may as well - it's a sunk cost, and not harvesting a return on the investment is bad management.

6. Separate the behavior from the end result. Sometimes, the employee practiced all the right behaviors, but didn't get the desired result. Other times, they'll get the desired result, but do it in a way that you'd never want them to repeat. By asking questions and listening (tip #4), you'll be able to learn what to reinforce and what to correct.

7. After the meeting, take some time to step back and examine the system, process, structure, etc... that may have contributed to the mistake. Maybe similar istakes can be prevented with better training, communication, and/or procedures. Mistakes rarely have just a single cause, and people are not always the problem.

A measure of a leader is the impact you have on every employee's energy level, or morale, after an interaction with you. Chances are, if they came to you with a mistake, they were dreading the meeting and already feeling pretty crummy about it.

This is often the time when an employee needs to know it's OK - that it's not the end of the world, and you're not going to hold it against them. I'm not saying the mistake should be minimized, especially if it's a doozy. However, once an action plan is agreed to and lessons were learned, make sure the employee leaves the discussion with their head held high and feeling confident in their abilities. They will always remember that moment - not just because they learned a valuable lesson, but they'll remember what you did for them as a leader.

Carefrontation — The Ultimate Leadership Trait

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Guest post by Mark Hopkins:

The best leadership tip I ever received came from a pastor’s sermon during a non-denominational service in Yosemite Valley Chapel. Maybe it was the message or maybe it was that I had 5 hours to think about it as I hiked up Half Dome later that morning, but 25 years later I can still recall it clearly. The reverend’s message was that if you find yourself in a position where you have the opportunity to help another person recognize their own limiting behavior, and make a change for the better, that you are obligated to help them. He went on to explain that this kind of feedback was confrontational and would only be accepted and processed by the recipient if it was delivered in an extremely caring fashion. In fact he had coined a name for the process when it was done correctly. He called it carefrontation.

The pastor was clearly providing guidance to parishioners on how to help others confront tough problems, but to me it sounded a lot like a leadership strategy. As a new project manager at Hewlett Packard I found that I interacted with a lot of brilliant people, many of who had been conditioned by higher learning institutions to compete rather than collaborate. It was clear that we would get a lot more done if we could move the culture toward a higher level of trust and cooperation and away from the zero sum game to which they were accustomed. HP had a great training program for new managers, but I decided to add carefrontation to my management style and had great results almost immediately. When team members began to understand that I really cared about them and would always act in their best interest, we started building a level of trust that changed the way we worked. And it was contagious. Team members started cooperating and collaborating at a level that got them, and me, noticed.

Over the years I have witnessed the powerful changes that occur when team members care about each other and truly have each other’s backs. Trust based organizations:

1. Execute faster: Stephen Covey calls it “The Speed of Trust”. A trust-based organization spends less time on formal communication and more time getting the job done. Speed = productivity.

2. Innovate more: Employees who know the boss has their back think outside the box without fear of failure or retribution.

3. Produce higher quality work: Happy people simply care more and do better work because of it.

4. Attract Customers: If you think customers can’t feel the company culture, think again. They sense a trust based organization intuitively and want to be associated with it.

5. Have lower turnover: After working within a culture of carefrontation it’s almost impossible to go back — and they don’t.

The need for these kinds of organizational attributes has never been higher. Here in Denver, DaVita Healthcare Partners has demonstrated how this philosophy can pay big dividends in the increasingly scrutinized world of healthcare service providers. DaVita operates more than 1,800 dialysis centers and employs over 40,000 people domestically. In spite of their size, or perhaps because of it, they have gone to great lengths to communicate a carefrontation mentality that you can see woven through their core values document. Here’s an excerpt: “We are trusted because we are trustworthy… We genuinely care for and support, not only those to whom we provide care, but those with whom we work shoulder-to-shoulder.” The company has used this foundation to achieve an incredible 11 straight years of improved clinical outcomes and financial results.

Regardless of the markets we serve, every one of us knows that our organization’s providence rests squarely on our ability to make the changes demanded by the fast moving target of customer satisfaction. Creating a company culture where people genuinely care about each other is the best way I know of for a team to confront the challenges it faces and confidently drive improvement in the value chain as well as in itself.

Mark Hopkins earned engineering degrees from Cornell and Stanford and then spent the next twenty-five years deciphering the factors that make some people prosperous, successful and happy After building a leadership career with companies like Hewlett Packard and Emerson Electric, Hopkins founded Peak Industries, a medical device contract manufacturer, which he grew to $75 million and later sold to Delphi. He then founded Crescendo Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and Catalyst, a private foundation supporting Colorado-based nonprofits and micro-lending in the developing world. He is the author of Shortcut to Prosperity: 10 Entrepreneurial Habits and a Roadmap For An Exceptional Career. www.shortcuttoprosperity.com

Succession Planning Development Plans: Skill Gaps or Experience Gaps?

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:30:00 +0000

Let’s say you’ve had your talent review meeting, using a performance and potential (9 box) matrix, and have identified a pool of high potential employees. Or, you’ve done a position based succession plan for key positions, and identified a slate of 3-4 candidates for each position. Maybe you’re a manager, and you’re just concerned about identifying and grooming successors for you own position, so that you’ll have a replacement ready when it’s time for you to move up or on.

Now what? Well, unless you create and implement a targeted, robust, realistic, and measurable development plan, all that work will have been for nothing. Because in 2-3 years, you’ll be staring at the same list of candidates, and they won’t be any more ready than they were when you started.

The Skill Gap Approach

High potentials or succession planning candidates are rarely “ready now” for a higher level position. There’s always at least one significant “gap”, usually a few, that stands between them and being qualified for that next level position. The most common way to create development plans to address those gaps is to identify 1-3 key skills, or competencies, that the candidate is lacking that need to get better at. For example, the ability to “think strategically” is often identified for senior level positions. To create a development plan to address this skill gap, we might have the candidate take an executive development course in strategy, be mentored or coached by someone who’s really strategic, and assign them to lead a project that will require them to be strategic. For each skill, you’d have a set of development actions to address the skill.

The Experience Gap Approach:

There’s an less often used, but just as effective way to get someone ready for a higher level position – the experience gap approach.

Managers often find it challenging to identify specific skills required for a role. Even when they do, coming up with the right mix of development actions often involves a little bit of guess work and a roll of the dice. In the example above, there’s no guarantee the candidate is actually going to learn how to think strategically by doing that mix of activities. They may learn how to plan, delegate, develop a strategy, influence, and who knows what else, but never learn how to think in a difference way. That’s the nature of development – no two people will learn the exact same thing taking an identical course, being coached by the same individual, or leading the same project.

So instead of trying to identify and close skill gaps, it’s often easier to identify the key experiences a candidate needs in order to be qualified for the higher level position. For example, in order to be a global general manager, a candidate should have the following experiences:

- Created a budget

- Led a multi-function, diverse team

- Worked in at least two difference countries

- Have turned around a struggling business

- Created an implemented a new go-to-market strategy

- Led a six-sigma project

Once these key experiences have been identified, it’s much easier to assess s if a candidate has done these things – you just need to read their resume. If they have not, then viola, there’s the development plan - i.e., create a budget, a transfer to a role in a different country, etc…

New experiences will always develop many new skills, not just one.

When this approach is used, it’s still important to identify other elements of the development plan needed to learn how to be successful in the new experience. For any of the examples above, the person is going to have a greater chance of success – and development – if they supplement the experience with the right courses, books, subject matter experts, etc…. At the end of the day, the desired end result is the same – a qualified successor.

In my experience, both methods are equally effective. However, if you find yourself stuck using the skill gap method, try the experience gap method and it should get you to the same place.

Why Leaders Need to Stop Making the Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Guest post from Dennis Bakke:

I believe the vast majority of people are creative, trustworthy, and capable of making meaningful decisions at work. My new book, The Decision Maker, is a clarion call for bosses to STOP making decisions. Instead of bosses making the call, I believe the best approach is to push decision-making down to the lowest levels of the organization; to those on the “front line”. It’s not always easy to trust and empower others. It’s hard to let go.

I’ve embedded a summary slideshow of my thinking below – also on slideshare.

One of the keys to empower others in your organization is what I call “the advice process.” It is a very simple, although often controversial, concept. It takes the “suggestion box” management approach of the 1970s and ’80s and turns it upside down. Instead of the boss getting advice and suggestions from people below, the decision-maker—who is almost always not an official leader—seeks advice from leaders and from peers.

Usually, the decision-maker is the person whose area is most affected, or the one who initiated an idea, discovered a problem, or saw an opportunity. If it is unclear who the decision-maker should be, the leader selects an individual to gather advice and make the final decision. Before any decision can be made on any company matter, the decision-maker must seek advice. The bigger the issue or problem, the wider the net that should be thrown to gather pertinent information from people inside and outside the company. In my opinion, all issues of importance require the decision maker to get advice. I’d go as far as to fire someone if they didn’t ask for advice on a big decision.

At AES, the global energy company I co-founded with Roger Sant, we did not always do a good job of carrying out the advice process, especially the requirement to reach beyond the team or business unit where the decision-maker worked. Sometimes, the information and analysis provided to the potential adviser was sloppy and incomplete. However, even with these weaknesses, the quality of the decisions using this approach was at least as good as those decisions made under more conventional management systems, often better. Probably more important, it made work more interesting and fun for thousands of AES people.

The advice process is my answer to the age-old organizational dilemma of how to embrace the rights and needs of the individual, while simultaneously ensuring the successful functioning of the team, community, or company. I observed that Japanese companies tended to emphasize the group and consensus, while American culture pushed rugged individualism. I believe the advice process strikes a better balance. It leaves the final decisions to individuals, but it forces them to weigh the needs and wishes of the community. Parenthetically, the Internet was made to order for our advice process. The kind of wide consultations that I advocate would not be possible in large, dispersed organizations were it not for email.

Five important things happen when the advice process is used by an individual before making a decision or taking action:

1. Asking for advice draws the people whose advice is sought into the question at hand. They learn about the issues and become knowledgeable critics or cheerleaders. The sharing of information reinforces the feeling of community. Each person whose advice is sought feels honored and needed.

2. Asking for advice is an act of humility, which is one of the most important characteristics of a fun workplace. The act alone says, “I need you.” The decision-maker and the adviser are pushed into a closer relationship. In my experience, this makes it nearly impossible for the decision-maker to simply ignore advice.

3. Making decisions is on-the-job education. Advice comes from people who have an understanding of the situation and care about the outcome. No other form of education or training can match this real-time experience.

4. The chances of reaching the best decision are greater than under conventional top-down approaches. The decision-maker has the advantage of being closer to the issue and will probably be more conversant with the pros and cons than people in more senior positions. What’s more, the decision-maker usually has to live with consequences of the decision.

5. The process is just plain fun for the decision-maker because it mirrors the joy found in playing team sports. The amount of fun in an organization is largely a function of the number of individuals allowed to make decisions. The advice process stimulates initiative and creativity, which are enhanced by wisdom from knowledgeable people elsewhere in the organization.

Dennis Bakke is the co-founder of Imagine Schools and the author of the upcoming book “The Decision Maker” (March, Pear Press). In “The Decision Maker,” a leadership fable loosely based on his personal experience, shows how giving decisions to the people closest to the action can transform any organization. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller “Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job.” Bakke previously co-founded and served as the president and CEO of AES, a Fortune 200 global power company. He lives with his wife in Arlington, VA. Learn more at www.decisionmakerbook.com.

The March 2013 Leadership Development Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Dan McCarthy) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:24:00 +0000

The March 2013 Leadership Development Carnival isn't here this month.... but you can take a trip over to Jesse Lyn Stoner's blog and find it right here:

http://seapointcenter.com/march-2013-leadership-development-carnival/

You'll find an all-star collection of 40 or so recent leadership and leadership development posts from some of my favorite bloggers.

Next month's Carnival (April 1) is back here at Great Leadership, after a little hiatus.