05.2014Essentials of leadership

development, managerial effectiveness,

and organizational productivity

Vol.31 No. 5

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

A blueprint for successInterview with Jim Concelman

Development Dimensions international (DDi)

0805 Accessing Charisma

by lou solomon

Transforming Leadership by Ken Keis

Judging the Leadersby Jim clemmer19

17

Leadership is About Responsibility by Debbie ruston

For 30 years, Leadership Excellence has provided real solutions to the challenges leaders face every day. HR.com and Leadership Excellence joined forces in May 2013 to continue providing world-class leadership development resources and tools – now to a combined audience of over 350,000 individuals and organizations throughout the world.

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08.2013Essentials of leadership

development, managerial effectiveness,

and organizational productivity

Vol.30 No. 8

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

$9.99 a month

06

Crucial AccountabilityBy Kerry PattersonConfront slackers

Preparing LeadersBy Elaine VarelasDevelop the next generation now

Purpose of PowerBy Gary Hamel It gets things done

Developing LeadersBy Jack Zenger, KurtSandholtz, Joe FolkmanApply five insights

2422

Email: LE@editor.hr.com

05.2014Essentials of leadership

development, managerial effectiveness,

and organizational productivity

Vol.31 No. 5

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

5 Accessing Charisma A social skill that can be learned lou solomon

7 Become a Wellness Leader Today! You can no longer afford to ignore

wellness leadership

William Mcpeck

8 Transforming Leadership Five pillars critical to becoming a transforming leader Ken Keis

12 Measurement-based Leadership How leadership with measurement component works Aleksey savkin

13 Stupidest Strategies Leaders Use to Motivate Team and how to avoid them Antoine Gerschel and lawrence polsky

15 Orbit-shifting Innovation Thought triggers for a CEO

rajiv narang

17 Judging the Leaders Are the most effective leaders

loved or feared?

Jim clemmer

19 Leadership is About Responsibility Stop managing & start leading Debbie ruston

20 Thriving in Changing Times When your successful past becomes

your greatest obstacle

carol Kinsey Goman

25 Character at the Top Concentrating on “follower-ship” is what counts Dick cross

29 Lean Conversations Leadership conversations for productivity breakthroughs Dwight frindt

31 The Great Leadership Challenge And its impact on the quality of execution Gabriel paradiso

33 Finding a Mentor Know the 4 simple steps Glen Harrison

38 It’s Not Just Leadership Development Anymore It’s also about followership Dr. Greer A. staples

39 Career Development Four resolutions to grow your

future leaders

John salamone and Jacob flinck

41 The New Bottom Line Return on self-awareness Kevin cashman

42 Stay Ready! Seven ways leaders can stay ready la June Davis-Wiley

47 Strategy and Leadership How to do a strategy audit in 10 minutes? lászló Kővári 49 Want Change? Try Lincoln’s formula Mary e. Marshall

51 Leader as Coach Create the drive organizations require to thrive tony Kubica and sara laforest

A blueprint for successLeadership Excellence interviewed Jim Concelman from Development Dimensions International (DDI), at the Leadership Excellence Awards this past April. DDI was placed first in the Large Consulting Category - Interview excerpts. PG.22

0805 Accessing Charisma

by lou solomon

Transforming Leadership by Ken Keis

Judging the Leadersby Jim clemmer19

17

Leadership is About Responsibility by Debbie ruston

Leadership is not all about power, influ-ence and money. It is also about compassion, humility and integrity. Benjamin Disraeli once said, “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” This plain sentence has a powerful meaning behind it, which pops a question in open - Who is a true leader? Well, leadership is one of those intricate terms - you hear it many times but with various defini-tions. A true leader is all at once – he is the servant as well as the manager.

The different leadership traits and respon-sibilities have been chalked out by our dis-tinguished authors in this edition of Lead-ership Excellence. Would you love working with a charismatic leader or a dull leader? Without a speck of doubt you will choose the first option. And isn’t it true that we all long for oozing out that charismatic charm from within us? It can be learned, says Lou Solomon in her article Accessing Charisma. An interesting read that makes you understand how to access charisma!

It is really fortunate and rewarding if you find the right mentor. Glen Harrison in his article Finding a Mentor says how you can develop special knowledge, skills or abilities with the help of a mentor. Understanding your needs, engaging a wide network of ex-perience, selecting someone you trust, and actually asking someone to be your mentor will get you started.

Ego is the prime villain that comes in way when you become successful. Effective man-agers are continually learning and growing themselves. They completely understand that every single person in their team is unique in their own ways and approve their merits.

Author Debbie Ruston in her article Lead-ership is About Responsibility clearly points out that leaders should stop managing and start leading. Well there is a difference between managing and leading!

This month’s Leadership Excellence also in-cludes 5 exclusive interviews with the winners of the Leadership Excellence Awards (Large Leadership Partners & Providers Category)this past April.

Hope you enjoy reading the inspirational write-ups by our authors in this issue of Leadership Excellence.

Leadership Excellence Essentials (ISSN 8756-2308)is published monthly by HR.com,124 Wellington Street EastAurora, Ontario Canada L4G 1J1.

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Copyright © 2014 HR.comNo part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher. Quotations must be credited.

Vol.31 No. 5Editor’s Note

4leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Regards,Debbie McGrathHR.com

As a shy, military brat starting school in Great Britain, I was anything but comfortable in my own skin. At home my father was a disciplinarian. At school, kids who were too talkative got called out. So, I put my head down, made straight A’s and tried to be invisible. I didn’t speak up until I was about 10.

Somewhere along the way I decided it would cost me too much to stay uncomfortable and invisible and I put myself out there.

Today, as the founder of a firm that develops leaders like Fortune 500 CEOs, managers, entrepreneurs and their teams into strong communicators, with a focus on authenticity – helping them to make connections, earn trust and build influence - I have learned one thing they all have in common. They all covet

charisma and executive presence. The question they always ask is, “Can you learn presence and charisma?”

My early struggle has been a gift, so I know these things can be learned. To be sure, the learning feels less risky for some. But for me and many of the executives I have worked with, the learning has been something of a re-invention.

The 20th century celebrated business people with turbo-extroversion. Charisma doesn’t fit neatly in to that box. It’s not about personality style, professional title or economic status. Researchers at MIT have figured out that connecting with people is what generates charisma. You don’t show up and spew charisma as a solo act. It’s actually a social skill, which like many

Accessing CharismaA social skill that can be learned

By Lou Solomon

5 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Accessing Charisma

6leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

others is learned. Here are six tips on how to access charisma that I give my clients:

1. Be attentive. Attention is the electrical current that connects us. It’s unattractive to be distracted when others are speaking, leading a meeting or just trying to have a conversation. A Harvard study confirms that our brain is wired to wander—which is okay when you’re stuck waiting at the doctor’s office or riding the train into work. According to best-selling author Daniel Goleman, “mindfulness” is the ability to notice when your mind wanders and redirect your thoughts back into the present moment. It is a learned, leadership habit that takes constant practice.

2. Humanness before rank. Leaders who prioritize the human connection before wielding power are perceived to be more trustworthy than those who do the same thing in reverse. It doesn’t take long to connect. We all love that moment when a leader looks us in the eye. I don’t mean the quick “ping” of eye contact. People know when you only glance and quickly look past them, absorbed in your own mental agenda. I mean the feeling that someone has taken a moment to “see who’s within.”

3. Draw people out. Charisma is measured by your ability to release others into a more enjoyable state of communicating. You do this by being curious, asking questions, listening and being positive. Researchers at MIT have found that upbeat people who are sincerely interested in what other people have to say have natural charisma—and they are successful in negotiations and presentations. You have a serious handicap in conversation if you are not curious about the other person.

4. Notice your second language. Did you attend school with a shy kid who was sometimes labeled “stuck up?” That was me. At times I was so uncomfortable that I stood apart and turned away from groups of my peers. I appeared uninterested and un-approachable. Non-verbal signals are a second language. Being aware of your own signals will allow you to channel the energy of connection. Some of the most important non-verbal signals for connection are a warm tone of voice, friendly facial expres-sion, open gestures and standing near and fully facing others. Even a warm handshake can trigger a connection.

5. Strength from vulnerability. Most of the executives who come to my studio don’t trust themselves to use their own experi-ence and wisdom to connect with people. They are surprised to learn they’ve got everything they need to be an authentic leader. I once coached a successful entrepreneur who lost a leg during his service in the military. He concealed his prosthetic leg under long trousers and other than a slight limp you wouldn’t know he wore one. His instinct was to keep this part of his story to himself and speak only to his business experience. He didn’t want people to think he was telling a “sob story.” It turned out that sharing this part of his story increased the connections he made as a human being not just a successful entrepreneur. The language of personal story is a medium for human connection. The ability to empower others by sharing what your life has taught you is an important part of authentic leadership.

Leaders are quick to tell me that their organization is too big and they can’t possibly connect with everyone. The bar keeps going up for communicators, but the stakes are too high to give up on connection. The right approach is to think of culture as a conversation in which we can draw out employees and release

them into a higher quality expression and innovation. For example, it has been more than five years since the acquisi-

tion of Wachovia by Wells Fargo was announced. For five years, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf has been on the road, greeting his new employees and thanking everyone for their good work. He holds town meeting after town meeting—and each one is telecast to all employees at Wells Fargo. He tells personal stories and laughs with the audience. Each year he writes a thoughtful and personal year-end summary to his leaders. He passes on opportunities to be a celebrity spokesperson for the banking industry and focuses on what’s good for Wells Fargo. In an in-terview with American Banker on his awards for 2013 Banker of the Year, Stumpf said his number one job was “keeper of the culture,” which is about community. He is warm and welcom-ing when he meets employees—who glow with pride when they speak about their CEO.

6. Finally, never try to fake it. The attempt to manipulate a connection is much more transparent than we’d like to think. The brain knows incongruence in a millisecond. First and fore-most, be a student. The real work of life is going within and developing your own self-awareness. LE

Lou Solomon is CEO of Interact, a communications consultancy that helps business leaders and their teams build authenticity, make connections, earn trust and build influence. She is also an adjunct faculty member at the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte. Solomon’s new book focuses on building trust, influence and charisma, and is set for release later this year.Visit www.interactauthentically.comEmail lou@interactauthentically.com

By William McPeck

You can no longer afford to ignore wellness leadership

Become a Wellness Leader Today!

Wellness leaderships time has come. Read on to learn how and why wellness leadership must be incorporated into your leadership practices starting today.

Which leadership model do you practice? Is it authentic leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership or another? No matter which model it is, I would argue you also need to practice wellness leadership.

In today’s value added economy, the statement, “Our employees are our most valuable asset” is no longer just a trite statement. It is reality. Thanks to the global 24/7 economy, ever increasing complexity and the increasing pace of change, employers need the whole employee showing up for work each and every day.

If you are a senior leader of an organization that provides em-ployees with health benefits, you are well aware of the costs to your organization associated with employee health and wellness. While these costs are the most visible, they are neither the only costs, nor even the largest cost to your organization.

Employee health and wellness impact your organization in many other ways, including:• Absenteeism• Presenteeism• Engagement• Performance and productivity• Motivation• MoraleIt is for all these reasons combined, I would argue that why

you, as a leader, can no longer ignore employee health, wellness and wellbeing. Today, wellness leadership must be included in your leadership repertoire.

The leadership literature is broad, comprehensive and complex. Much has been written about leadership theories, leader quali-ties, leader competencies and so forth.

From this literature, I take the essence of leadership to be:• Creating a strategic vision• Choosing the right strategies• Successfully executing the strategies• Influencing, inspiring and motivating others• Developing othersSo what is wellness leadership and how do these seven key func-

tions of leadership apply within a wellness leadership framework?Wellness leadership is about:• Creating a framework for the organization for all employee

health and wellness efforts• Using the key functions of leadership to create workplace

conditions that make it easy for employees to practice living healthy lifestyles• Supporting employees in their quest for health, happiness,

wellness and wellbeing• Identifying and removing the barriers to health and well-

ness successWellness leaders include employee health and wellness as

part of their organization’s vision. They readily and frequently share this vision with everyone within the organization, as well as other stakeholders. It is important that employee health and wellness be seen as positive and affirming. Wellness program strategies will always have the best chance of success when they are closely aligned with the organizations overall strategic goals and initiatives.

Employees look to their leaders as being role models. By serving as a role model for health and wellness, leaders can be inspirational, influential, and enhance employee motivation. Leaders, who visibly demonstrate commitment for wellness, send a strong message to their organization that contributes significantly to wellness program success and sustainability. In fact, researchers have found that leadership commitment is one of the keys to wellness program success.

Leaders play a strategic role in their organizations culture. Wellness leadership is about aligning wellness norms and goals with the organizations culture. It is absolutely critical for the wellness program to be aligned with the organizations culture.

During the course of any year, a majority of employees have been known to attempt, on their own, to make healthy lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, most attempts do not result in long term behavior change. In my mind, this creates a great opportunity for leaders to create the opportunity for employees to include any lifestyle changes within their employee development plan. Wellness leaders support healthy lifestyle changes as much as they support other work related changes the employee wishes to make.As a leader, you are a living example of what you want yourself and your employees to accomplish. You are a representative of the organization. Wellness leadership will help you inspire your employees from yet another perspective or dimension.

Do not ignore wellness leadership any longer. Incorporate it into your leadership practices beginning today. Start by invit-ing others to join you in a short walk around the building or parking lot. LE

7 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

As an independent contractor, William McPeck is a worksite wellness and wellbeing program thought leader, strategist and mentor. He is dedicated to helping employers and program coordinators create successful, sustain-able worksite wellness and well-being programs, especially in small employer settings. Email williammcpeck@gmail.com

Leadership: Never has there been a greater need for it—nor such a lack of it.

This article is about you, the Leader, and your skills—not the multiple theories of leadership. We’ll save that for another time.

Everyone is a leader at some level with someone. Leadership skills are required for parenting and for being a friend and part of a couple, in your household and at work. You also have the responsibility of leading yourself. 

Leaders are not born. Leaders are developed. They hone their skills over years, not days, weeks, or months.

Most effective leaders are in their late 30s or older. Why? Ex-periencing, learning, developing, and maturing take time. Any winemaker will tell you excellence can’t be rushedTo be a successful leader, an individual must have certain foundational skills.

Research released this year identifies two main reasons why leaders fail and three skills that help them succeed. The Top Two Reasons Leaders Fail1. Lack of Interpersonal and Emotional Intelligence Skills2. Hubris: Excessive Pride and Exaggerated Self-Confidence (Arrogance) The Top Three Reasons/Skills Leaders Succeed1. High Self-Awareness2. High Emotional Mastery (Self-Management Skills)3. Deep Understanding of Human Behavior We identified those truths over 20 years ago in the first edition of our book Transforming Leadership. Bestselling authors Kenneth Blanchard, The One Minute Manager, and Jim Kouzes, The Lead-ership Challenge, have endorsed CRG’s Transforming Leadership model as the next step in any leadership development track.

Transforming LeadershipFive pillars critical to becoming a transforming leader

By Ken Keis

Interactive

8leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

What does that mean for you? Simply put, if you have a desire to be an effective leader in any

area of your life, you must be proficient in various leadership skills. Our research identified 60 specific skills in five categories (pillars) as critical to becoming a transforming leader. The skills required to be successful will vary depending on the situation and the need.

We found skills are not independent of each other; they are interdependent. They build on one another like LEGO® blocks.

The first step? Become “Self-Aware” of your leadership skills levels before you set out on a training or development track. If you have gaps or deficiencies in your skills, we encourage you to investigate further—and design a development plan. CRG will help you do that.

The Five Categories/Pillars of Transforming Leadership 1. Transforming Leaders have first-rate Self-Management

Skills. If you can’t manage yourself, how can you possibly lead others? The clearer you are about who you are, the more cred-ibility you have as a leader. Who you are includes your values, beliefs, purpose, goals, plans, wellness, confidence level, positive mental attitude, and your willingness to be a continuous learner.

2. Transforming Leaders have excellent Interpersonal Com-munication Skills. The ability to talk has little to do with successful communication. An effective leader is an effective communicator. That includes understanding and being able to implement the skills of attending, observing, suspending, questioning, listening, challenging, and being assertive.

3. Transforming Leaders demonstrate Coaching, Counsel-ling, and Problem-Management Skills. You need to be able to lead yourself, communicate with others, coach and help others solve problems, and persuade and influence others to own their problems. Do you know how to show advanced empathy and encourage others to identify and be accountable to specific performance and outcomes? Can you manage confrontation and engage the skill of immediacy? Those skills are required in work situations and every day at home in your personal relationships. 

4. Transforming Leaders have exceptional Team/Consulting Skills. The dynamics of leadership involve being awake and aware. In this skill set, you address the following skills.• The current state of a team  • The group’s needs, wants, problems, and fears • The readiness and willingness levels of the team and in-

dividuals  • How to facilitate and overcome resistance to change

• How to design and implement steps and solutions Can you imagine a sports coach being successful without those skills?

5. Transforming Leaders have outstanding Organizational Development Skills. You must be grounded about yourself; com-municate effectively with others; hold individuals accountable for their actions; facilitate team needs, wants, and performance; AND understand how those actions fit into the bigger picture of the organization—and the steps that need to be taken when, with whom, and how. Your understanding of the five stages of organizational devel-

opment and what is needed to fulfill each one is also critical.Upon reflection, some of you may feel overwhelmed about the

prospect and complexity of becoming a Transforming Leader. The fact is that most people don’t engage the process. That’s why there are so few Transforming Leaders! 

If you want to rise to the challenge, there are unlimited oppor-tunities. It is a long-term commitment with enormous rewards.

Note: Abraham Lincoln was a mature person before he attained the level of leadership skill that motivated people to vote him into the Office of the President of the United States of America.

Here are some resources to support you on your Leadership Development journey.• If you are serious about your leadership development and

the development of others, the second edition of Transforming Leadership is one of the best resources. The 330-page hardcover book goes into detail on each of the skill sets and provides examples on how to develop and embrace each skill. It is intense and content-driven. If you are looking for light and fluffy, it’s not for you. • To confirm your current Transforming Leadership skills, we

suggest you consider the Leadership Skills Inventory 360° (LSI–360) assessment. In the online interface, you can request up to 10 indi-viduals that work with you to provide feedback about you regarding the five pillars and the 60 critical leadership skills. The process is set up to serve small to very large teams. Organizations can deploy the assessment company-wide. A detailed report compares your opinion of yourself to the feedback of the others.• If you are not ready for the LSI–360, then consider the Leader-

ship Skills Inventory–Self (LSI–S) assessment, where you rate your-self on the 60 skills and answer 12 questions about the principles of Transforming Leadership. A report creates an outline of how you are doing in each of the critical leadership skills areas. You immediately see areas where you can improve. Many coaches use this assessment to serve their clients in coaching sessions.

One of the 10 truths of today’s most successful leaders is they are continuous learners. Transforming Leaders are constantly growing and learning. LE

Ken Keis, MBA, President of CRG, is considered a global authority on the way assessment strategies increase and multiply your success rate. In 25 years, he has made over 3000 presentations and invested 10,000+ hours in consulting and coaching. He is the author of Why Aren’t You More Like Me? Discover the Secrets to Understanding Yourself and Others. Ken’s expertise includes assisting individuals, families, teams, and organizations to realize their full potential and to live On Purpose! Call 604 852-0566Visit www.crgleader.comEmail info@crgleader.com

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9 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Transforming Leadership

Phone: 1.877.472.6648 | Email : peapp@editor.hr.com

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By Aleksey Savkin

How leadership with measurement component works

Measurement-based Leadership Interactive

Measurement-based leadership“Strategy” and “Leadership” are buzz words today. Training

Centers teach to think “strategically;” they promise to improve “leadership style” by giving various best practices that are driven by past experience. Basically, there is nothing bad about this until people start losing the focus on what actually matters.• If leadership training works, then why is it that so many

employees don’t see the big picture of what they are doing; why then do so many strategies failed to be executed? Hopefully someone in the company stops chasing for another leadership skill, or another of “the emperor’s new clothes.”

Leadership is one of the soft skills that can be hardly quantified, but the results of the leadership can be successfully measured. With this article I’d like to share another point of view on leader-ship and how leadership can be actually based on measurement.There is a problem with “leadership” and “strategy”

Recently I got a call from a potential customer who had a problem with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). It doesn’t make sense suggesting KPIs that are out of a business context, so I asked him right away about the company’s business strategy. The customer was happy to inform me that they have a well-formulated strategy and what they are looking for is to support their leadership efforts with some numbers that KPIs are sup-posed to give them.

After a short discussion it appeared that a company’s “strategy” consisted of 3 goals formulated using vague phrases like “We

want to be the best...” and “We want to have the biggest...” I was prepared to share my point of view on what a correctly formulated strategy is, but it was not clear for me what exactly the customer meant by “leadership efforts.”

I continued with the questions and it appeared that the main channel of communicating a strategy to employees were weekly meetings. According to a new top management initiative de-partment managers were obligated to add some KPIs into their presentations and this was supposed to improve their leader-ship styles.

This and many other examples showed that nowadays people tend to misuse terms like “leadership” and “strategy.” Any deci-sion is called “strategic” just because it was taken by top man-agement; any skill related to communication with employees is now labeled as a “leadership” skill:• People tend to use a term “strategy” for a vague set of busi-

ness goals that company has. For sure, a company needs to have these goals, but a strategy is more about finding the reasons of the problem, defining clear objectives and formulating a plan to achieve them.• Managers attend business training that is supposed to

improve their leadership styles, but what they actually need is to improve their basic project management skills.

Confused by various buzz words, leaders start to lose their focus on what their role is and how to fulfill it. A good ap-proach to solve this problem is to make leadership a little bit more «technology» than «art,» this would be possible if we could implement a proper measurement system. Let›s see how we can quantify and measure leadership.How to implement measurement in leadership

As any soft skill it is hard to measure leadership, but it is pos-sible to measure the result of an application of leadership skills in real business. You won’t know what a “leadership score” of a manager is, but you will be able to say, if specific results were achieved and to what extent.

Measurement cannot be done at the end of the project, it should be implemented in the beginning together with the definition of business objectives. When on a weekly meeting someone suggests a new business objective and others agree on it, and the next step is to discuss 2 questions:• “How is this supposed to help a company with our ulti-

mate business goals?” E.g. is a suggested objective is coherent with other objectives and how it can be implemented into a business strategy.• “How are we supposed to track this?” E.g. how does a

company know what the progress towards an expected result is?If you don’t know how an objective will help to achieve an

ultimate goal or if it is hard / impossible to track the effect, then you need to formulate a business objective in some other way.

We were not talking about leadership (as “an ability to lead”) yet, but this is a home task that a person needs to do before leading others. Those leaders who formulated their business

12leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

strategy well don’t need to search for a Philosopher’s stone for their leadership skills.How leadership with measurement component works

There are people who say that leadership cannot be measured. That’s true, but the results of the leadership should be measured and tracked.• Do something that can be tracked and you’ll find a way

to track it!Let’s review how leadership will work when measurement was

implemented into the strategy:1. Business strategy was correctly formulated. Business objec-

tives are cause-and-effect linked and show how you will get to a desired business outcome.

2. Each objective can be tracked. One can tell if it was achieved and to what extent.

3. When employees have a new task, they can see the big picture (why this needs to be done) and they know about how their progress will be tracked. As a result this task is much more tangible for them.

4. If the task was not completed successfully a team can report back obstacles that they faced so that a strategy can be updated.

Leader will still need to be charismatic, listen to a team, see the picture of the future, etc. What has changed then?Leadership is more design than art

By implementing measurement systems into their business strategy, a leader makes the strategy more tangible. By sharing the big picture of the strategy with the team he or she involves employees in the strategy design and execution. On this level, the leadership is supported more by specific business processes rather than by some soft skills. In this sense it is more about design than about art.

Try this approach for your business. I’m sure that the discussed approach will generate more tangible results for your business than a development of abstract leadership skills. LE

Measurement-based Leadership

Aleksey Savkin, is a founder of AKS-Labs, vendor of BSC Designer software and tools for software engineers. His areas of expertise are remote team management, Balanced Scorecard, KPIs, business performance management, general info-business development and marketing. Aleksey is the author of a number of articles and books on Balanced Scorecard. He runs Balanced Scorecard seminars in the Moscow Business School (MBS).

13 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

A journey from a bad KPI to an excellent strategy

How to track soft skills like leadership

A main job of leaders is to motivate their teams. Faced with endless changes and challenges, employees need leaders who will give them energy to continue when all seems lost. Yet, it is amazing how stupid some leaders can be when they try to motivate their teams. We are especially surprised when we work with really bright executives (Ph.D.’s, MD’s, MBA’s at Fortune 500 companies) to find that even they employ the stupidest strategies.Here are the seven stupidest strategies that not only don’t work, but do the opposite of what is intended:

1. Instituting change via email – I wish I could only count on my two hands the number of times I have seen executives implement changes via an email: new system rollouts, organizational structure changes and other large scale change. Yet some leaders think an email will suffice to communicate change. All it does is leave employees frustrated, scared and unable to succeed. Instead, change should always be delivered in person either individually or in a meeting. While it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of time, it does take prepara-tion and thought. We have a time-tested one-minute change speech that brings an organization together instead of tearing it apart during times of upheaval or shift.

2. Being unavailable – How can you motivate your team if you are not available to answer questions, fill in the blanks or lend a sup-portive ear. John, a Fortune 500 Insurance executive, consistently sent

requests to his leaders via email (see #1) and then could not be reached to discuss them until after the requests were due. No wonder his team was so frustrated that one of them even had a nervous breakdown. If something is important to you, then act like it. With texts, video chat, email and phones, there is always a way to be reached. Don’t let your laziness or inflexibility hurt your employees or cause them to not meet your required deadlines.

3. Not saying hello – Sarah hired us to lead a team event for her 80-person marketing division to motivate her team. As a result, she learned from her team what she needed to do to motivate them. Just say hello. If she would just say “Hi” as she walked into the department in the morning, people would be a lot more motivated. How could she think that she could have a productive, motivated team that cared about anything she thought without having the courtesy to say “hi” in the morning? So take five seconds to say hello to your team members each day, let them know you see each of them as a person, and you’ll start earning some relationship capital to build on.

4. Starting with “I” think – When leaders are trying to get employees motivated to come up with new ideas, and they start by sharing their ideas first, it instantly demotivates their employees. At a Fortune 200 energy company, Andy, a finance executive, would do this day after day and then wonder why his team never came up with any ideas or wouldn’t take action on his ideas. It was because they felt like it didn’t matter what they thought because Andy was so excited about what he thought. Before you offer your thoughts, start idea generation with “What do you think? How would you go about it? What should we do?” Then let your team go at it. If they can’t figure it out, then you chime in. But if you reach that point too many times, either you need a new team or you need to be more open.

5. Not frequently recognizing and reinforcing the positive – We have heard all the excuses about why leaders don’t take time to recog-nize and celebrate success. The most frequently cited reasons include that they believe that their employees are paid to do a good job, may

By Antoine Gerschel and Lawrence Polsky

and how to avoid them

Stupidest Strategies Leaders Use to Motivate Team

14leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

expect a raise, or that there is no time to notice or pay compliments. Yet we have polled over 1,000 professionals at public, government, and private companies and over 80% say that they don’t get enough positive feedback. Taking a moment to say, “thanks for the extra effort” or, “I appreciate your creativity on that” goes a long way to keep people humming.

6. Doing their job for them – Henry, the top operations executive at a multibillion dollar manufacturing conglomerate, would fly around the world involved in every detail of global operations, visiting one market after the other. There are very few places on this planet he had not been. He was so busy with travel and managing details of the global operations, that he couldn’t spend enough time leading his function. It got so bad that his CEO told him: “Change the way you run your business or we’ll send you into early retirement!” Tempting as it may be sometimes because you may think you can do it faster or better, don’t do your employees’ job for them. That is why you pay them.

7. Avoiding conflict – We all know that conflict is the gateway to new ideas and stronger relationships. Yet leaders around the world avoid it all costs. They think they can ‘nice’ there way to success. Christine, a middle manager at a technology organization, is a perfect example. Everyone who worked for her loved her. That was because she avoided the tough conversations she needed to have. The result? Her team continually reported the lowest morale and productivity

of any division. Despite feeling good talking to her, her team knew there were problems all around, and her avoidance of them drove their spirits into the toilet. Don’t be fooled into thinking being nice will motivate anyone. It never does. When your team brings problems up, your job is to address them: make a list, prioritize, work on the ones that are achievable and explain why others are not. This is the definition of leadership.

So if you want to really motivate your team, be smart. Do the op-posite of the stupid strategies. Your team will be more motivated and productive than you can imagine. LE

Stupidest Strategies Leaders Use to Motivate Team

Business performance experts Antoine Gerschel and Lawrence Polsky are managing partners at PeopleNRG. The global leadership and team consulting firm has educated and inspired more than 60,000 leaders in 11 industries in 30 countries on five continents since 2008. Visit www.PeopleNRG.com

By Rajiv Narang

Thought triggers for a CEO

Orbit-shifting Innovation

Today no CEO dare be caught not talking innovation. However, very few succeed in making innovation happen. There is usually a gap between a CEO’s aspiration for innovation and the reality of making organization innovation happen. As a result, most of them repeatedly find themselves faced with more questions and fewer answers. Orbit-shifting Innovation is the outcome of Erehwon’s twenty-year quest to find answers for the unanswered questions of innovation, the unanswered questions raised and posed to us by CEOs.

Surfing through the multiple uncertainties that confront in-novation, we have unearthed many innovation myths that CEO’S still need to bust. These persistent myths are the reason why innovation doesn’t necessarily drive results the way the CEO aspires, resulting in an innovation gap.

The first innovation myth is at the heart and soul of every innovation endeavour: the WHY of innovation. Most organiza-tions believe that purpose of innovation is to conjure up a new, breakthrough idea. In pursuing the new, they often miss the bigger picture- will this new idea create a transformative impact? In fact, the world has gotten so seduced with the romance of the new; to the extent that the pursuit of newness overrides the purpose of innovation.

Most innovation leaders have become mesmerized with newness to such an obsessive extent that it becomes the end in itself. ‘What’s new about this idea’ is almost always the first driving question. However, a search for the new in itself doesn’t usually lead to innovation. Instead, when an organization chooses to pursue a transformative (orbit shifting) purpose, then innovation becomes a natural outcome. The focus here is on the transfor-mative purpose, rather than the new idea for the sake of itself.

It was the Orbit-shifting ambition to ‘save lives in Africa with textiles’ that led Vestergaard Frandsen to the Orbit-shifting idea ‘Lifestraw – a straw with which a person can drink from any source and it purifies it as you drink’. Orbit-shifting, as this example illustrates, is the real passion and the driving purpose and innovation is merely the means to make the Orbit-shift happen. Hence, one of the biggest myths that a CEO will need to bust is this romance with chasing the next new idea. Instead, s/he will need to ask, “What is the next big transformative purpose? and then, how can innovation be a route to this transformation?”

In the course of our innovation journey, we have come across many organizations that start by saying, ‘The problem is not ideas, we have over 3,000 ideas - the problem is execution’. However, digging deeper, what we have almost always uncovered

15 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

is that what ‘at first sight’, appears to be a multitude of ideas is usually rooted in only a few and limited ways of thinking. The many ideas are often restricted to the conventional, more of the same tracks. This busts the second myth that innovation equals ideation. In reality, we have found that an Orbit-shifting innovation emerges not with the search for ideas but by uncover-ing the unquestioned boundaries within which most of the current ideas co-exist. The crux for CEOs is the realization that creating breakthroughs needs the organization innovation drive to move beyond mere ideation to recognizing and then breaking through mental model boundaries related to growth, customers, markets, business models, etc.

The belief that market research, market trend studies, and even direct consumer contacts will lead to a new market insight is another myth. Consumer insight is the new buzzword, and so most top managers now slot time to meet customers. However, meeting consumers does not guarantee insight. We (Erehwon) have discovered that an insight gap exists because the lenses with which we engage customers are jaded. Hence, we first need to renew our lenses An Orbit-shifting insight is a quest for questions, to join new dots and not a search for answers. A new question leads the team at Nintentdo to create Wii – a game changing game. This orbit-shifting idea emerged when the Nintendo team questioned the industry trend of following technology roadmaps in designing the next game. This new question leads the team to discover a previously unrecognized market need- going beyond teenagers and creating a family game. Sony, on the other hand, missed discovering this op-portunity because they continued to ask the same questions and got the same answer – in fact even when the question of social gaming was raised by one of their senior leaders, it was ignored. Further, in the search for new questions, the organization and the team will need go beyond merely engaging with customers. They will need to engage with a wide spectrum of the insight sources including ecosystem entities, domain experts, and lateral experts. New insight sources are needed to open up new questions and join new dots. In fact, the greater the challenge, the wider has to be the spectrum of insight sources to be engaged with.

CEOs need to go beyond merely challenging their people to come up with out of the box ideas. Instead, they have to start by identifying the box and then provoking their teams with an out of the box challenge. That Breakthrough innovation starts with an out-of-the-box idea is another myth waiting to be busted. Orbit-shifting innovation, by design, does not start with an out-of-the-box idea; it really starts with an out-of-the-box challenge. For SK Telecom in Korea, ‘monetize the non-monetized part of the network’ was an out of the box challenge that led to an out of the box idea ‘Ring Back Tones’. This created a new revenue stream. An out-of-the-box challenge, as this example brings alive, is what is needed to propel the team /organization thinking to go beyond the current box to discover an Orbit-shifting idea. On deeper reflection, most CEO’s find themselves faced with a painful realization that most big ideas don’t get killed, they just get diluted. Most organization’s innovation journeys usually end with the emergence of a promising new idea. The strategists in organizations believe they are the thinkers and their role ends with the identification of the big idea. The execution is left to the implementers. This is one myth that needs to be busted ruth-lessly. As much, if not more, innovation will be needed to execute

a new idea, as was required in coming up with it.Another myth is that the top management can mandate in-novation. Therefore, CEOs have begun to believe that if they bring in the right experts or create an innovation department, innovation will be delivered. The reality is that innovation cannot be mandated because ownership and excitement cannot be mandated: people have to take charge. Hence, innovation is as much a leadership journey as a structural journey. How do the people who lead innovation inspire others to also believe in the new idea, the new proposition, with as much commitment as they do? How can they get key stakeholders to be owners rather than just presiders or evaluators of the innovation journey? How do they get implementers to execute the new idea with the same passion that it was conceived with? Merely mandating innovation will not be enough, passion will need to be ignited and innovation will need to be to unleashed.Yet another myth is that if organizations want innovation to flourish, they need to hire new people with new capabilities. However, in reality, a new person can rapidly get sucked into the gravity of the organization, very quickly delivering more of the same. This myth stands busted for us because we have experi-enced a number of Orbit-shifts that have happened when existing teams and leaders - the same people, have broken through their mindset gravity, to lead the organization towards a transformative impact. Hence, it is not about ‘who’ leads innovation. Instead, it is the organization’s capacity to confront and breakout of the limiting mindset gravity that uplifts the pursuit of innovation. The final myth, and in our experience the biggest source of dilu-tion, is that once the big idea has been developed into a working prototype, then taking it to market is a simple case of Test and Launch. But a new idea entering the old pipe may suffer its greatest dilution in the last mile. Take-to-a-market is usually done with the conventional approach of piloting in one market and then simply cascading the formula to other markets. An Orbit-shifting idea needs to be taken to market with a version-ing mindset instead, which is about how to make it work rather than the conventional piloting mindset, which is rooted in the go or no go mindset.Busting these myths will enable CEO’s to first unleash Orbit-shifting Innovation and then lead it to in-market success. LE

16leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Orbit-shifting Innovation

Rajiv Narang is Founder, Chairman, and Managing Director of Erehwon Consulting, India’s leading innovation consulting firm. Narang has spoken at strategy, innovation, and business conferences around the world, and is a sought after expert on everything innovation. He is the author of “Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen – How 11 Indians Did the Impossible” and co–author of the new book ORBIT SHIFTING INNOVATION: The Dynamics Of Ideas That Create History.Visit www.erewhonconsulting.com

By Jim Clemmer

Are the most effective leaders loved or feared?

Judging the Leaders

According to behavioral sciences research cited in “Connect, Then Lead,” in the July-August issue of Harvard Business Review, “when we judge others — especially our leaders — we look first at two characteristics: how lovable they are (their warmth, communion, or trustworthiness) and how fearsome they are (their strength, agency, or competence).”

The authors point out that  most leaders emphasize their authority, credentials, or capability. But doing that before establishing trust “is exactly the wrong approach” because it can evoke fear or disengagement.

The feature article answers the 500 year old question raised by Niccolò Machiavelli on whether it’s better to be feared or loved by pointing to:

“A growing body of research suggests that the way to influence — and to lead — is to begin with warmth.  Warmth is the conduit of influence: It facilitates trust and the communication and absorption of ideas…helps you connect immediately with those around you, demonstrating that you hear them, understand them, and can be trusted by them.“

The authors cite Zenger Folkman’s recent research on likability to make their case that the chances of a leader being strongly disliked (such as being feared) and still considered a good leader is about one in 2,000. See “Demanding Leaders Are Much More Effective – and More Likable”  for more on this research. It includes a chart showing the “Impact on Likability of Being Demanding” for men and women. You can also link to Zenger Folkman’s new Likability Index for a self-assessment.

Where I start disconnecting with “Connect, Then Lead” is

when the authors provide advice on how to project warmth and strength or power. Their focus on body language, speech, and presence smacks of “faking authenticity.”

How to be more likable, build trust, or increase perceived honesty and integrity is a challenge we often encounter in our leadership development work.

Another groundbreaking and highly effective approach to this conundrum pioneered by Zenger Folkman’s research is leadership cross-training at the heart of their Extraordinary Leader Development System. See Leadership Cross-Training is Powerful and Revolutionary or Powerful Combinations: Drive for Results and Builds Relationships.

Leadership is situational and different leadership is needed in different circumstances and times.  In the 15th century Florentine Republic, Machivelli’s advice that “it’s much safer to be feared than loved” may have been appropriate for those times. In today’s world, it’s clear the most effective leaders who consistently deliver top results are loved — or at least very likable. LE

Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leader-ship, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth. Prior to founding The CLEMMER Group, Jim was co-founder of The Achieve Group and Achieve International. Both were purchased by California-based Zenger Miller Inc. and now part of AchieveGlobal.Call +420 731 503 023Visit jim.clemmer@clemmer.net

Demanding Leaders Are Much More Effective – and More Likable

Interactive

17 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

http://paycom.com/

By Debbie Ruston

Stop managing & start leading

Leadership is About Responsibility

Leadership is a huge responsibility that is often confused with “managing”. When an individual is promoted to a manage-ment position, ego often gets in the way. Many new or existing managers, use their “power” to micromanage and see themselves as an authority figure. This is one of the things that cause disen-gagement in the workplace. According to a recent gallup poll, 70% of employees are disengaged. What is this costing companies in lost production and profits? 

How can managers play a role in turning this around? It starts with letting go of “managing” people, and being willing to start leading them. We lead through our example. Not by our words, but by our actions. When you become a manager, you have not “arrived”. You cannot stop pushing yourself to do more, and learn more. It is not about securing the corner office and handing out instructions. You are now responsible to help others learn how to step into their own leadership and be the best they can be in the work they are doing.

Effective managers are continually learning and growing themselves. They are in the game with their employees. They have their finger on the pulse of what has worked, what is happening, and what needs to be done to move forward. These 3 points are the distinct combination

of how to be a highly respected visionary leader.Wisdom is built through experience. Effective managers under-

stand exactly what it’s like to be an employee. They know what has inspired or discouraged them. They have seen people before them do things the right way and do things the wrong way and because of this, know how to make improvements to take what has worked and make it even better. When you experience something you have new distinctions of thinking. You are able to take good and bad results to gain a distinction, to course correct and do things a little differently or in a new way completely. This is a valuable resource to bring to a leadership position.

They understand every person in their team has something valuable to bring to the table, and know how to bring out the best in each individual. They know how to recognize the strengths and contribu-tions of each individual and how to help them excel in what they are doing. They also know how to teach them how to improve on things they could do better so the individual is learning and growing.

They know where they are going. Based on their own experience of what works and what doesn’t, who they have on their team and what their strengths are, and have the vision of how they can effectively put all of that together to create the future growth of all. They have a vision of what’s possible based on these factors, and are not simply running reports and doing forecasts for the next quarter. 

Great leaders have the ability to create a vision so strong that people step into that vision because the leader has credibility in their eyes. They have demonstrated results through their own example. They are confident but not cocky. They see the value in others. They recognize and utilize people’s strengths and help them learn and grow in other areas they want to improve upon. They bring people up to duplicate their leadership, all working together as a team and do not feel threat-ened by ideas or strengths their team brings to the table. They respect their employees and see them as equals, not as juniors that must be dominated to fear management in order to gain the best performance.

It is a choice what style of management you are using. You can sit in the corner office using the outdated, ego driven, stick and carrot style management. Or, you can get in the game of leadership, under-standing your role is to bring out the best potential in others, helping them learn and grow, with the goal of helping others outshine you. It is bigger picture thinking. It is having the confidence to embrace others’ potential, instead of being threatened by it. It is the ability to collaborate and work together to achieve bigger potential than you could ever reach yourself.

Take some time to reflect on who you are being. Are you managing or leading others? If you are managing, what is the next step you can take to improve your leadership? LE

19 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Debbie Ruston is an entrepreneur, international trainer and visionary leader. She works with individuals, and groups interested in developing their entre-preneurial leadership mindset.Email Debbie@TheSuccessEducator.comLinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/debbieruston

20leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

By Carol Kinsey Goman

When your successful past becomes your greatest obstacle

Thriving in Changing Times

There are two kinds of change -- incremental and discon-tinuous -- that are taking place simultaneously and constantly in today’s business organizations. Incremental change is the process of continuous improvement -- what the Japanese refer to as “kaizen.” Discontinuous change is the kind of large-scale trans-formation that turns organizations inside out and upside down.

Incremental change fits the Newtonian framework of a linear, progressive and predictable world. There is an unmistakable logic behind incremental change that makes it easy to communicate and relatively easy for people to adopt because it uses current practices as a baseline for the systematic improvement of a product, service or system. And we human beings like that. We can base our future success on our past performance.

But much of the change our organizations are facing today is not incremental. It is discontinuous. And, if leading incremental change can be compared to encouraging a group of joggers to gradually pick up the pace, then leading discontinuous change is like encouraging those same joggers to leap off a cliff and build their parachutes on the way down. Discontinuous change -- restructuring, re-engineering, transformation, etc. -- chal-lenges our most deeply held beliefs about the past. It confronts the entire organization with the possibility that the very roles, actions and attitudes that were most responsible for past success will be insufficient and perhaps even detrimental in the future. That concept is harder to communicate and much harder for people to adopt. We don’t like to contemplate letting go of the skills and behaviors that “got us here.” That’s understandable, that’s basic human psychology -- it’s just not an attitude that helps an enterprise move forward.

One of the greatest challenges for a leader who wants his or her team to thrive in changing times is to identify those prac-tices and attitudes that need to be eliminated in order to more quickly adopt new behaviors. Here are five key questions that you should ask your team members to consider:

1. What do we do best? (What skills, abilities, and attitudes are we most proud of?)

2. Which of these current skills, abilities, and attitudes will continue to make us successful in the future?

3. What do we need to unlearn? (Which skills are becoming obsolete? What practices -- attitudes, behaviors, work routines, etc. -- that worked for us in the past may be a detriment in the future?)

4. How does our competence stop us from doing things dif-ferently? (Where are the “comfort zones” we’re most reluctant to leave?)

5. What new skills do we need to learn to stay valuable to the organization?

Building a culture that is comfortable with -- even aggressive about -- innovation, risk, and change, means that everyone needs to embrace the process of continuous learning, unlearning, and relearning that is essential to personal and organizational success.As the leader, you can begin by identifying those behaviors and attitudes that you personally need to unlearn. Then address the topic openly: Talk candidly about your problems with letting go of the past, empathize with the feelings of awkwardness that comes with leaving the “comfort zone,” and massage damaged egos by applauding all efforts that your team members make. LE

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is a popular international speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s a body language coach who helps politicians, business executives, and sales teams align their verbal and nonver-bal messages for greater impact and professional success. Call: 510-526-1727 Visit www.CKG.comEmail CGoman@CKG.com

The Leadership 500 Awards dinner at the beautiful Vail Cascade Resort in Vail, Colorado.

Christine Belknap & Andrea Lawson from NCR Corporation, accepting their 2nd place award in the Large Companies category

The winners from the Large Companies category being recognized for their leadership achieve-ments by HR.com CEO, Debbie McGrath

Jim Concelman (DDI), Al Switzler (VitalSmarts), Fraser Marlow (Bless-ingWhite), ‘Nancy Sullivan (Lee Hecht Harrison) and Craig Ross (Verus Global) accepting their awards in the Large Leadership Partners and Providers category

Conference participants and keynote speaker Lance Secretan celebrating the Non-Profit Organization category winners

Describe your overall leadership vision and mission specific to this program.DDI’s Vision is to ignite positive change in people, workplaces, and communities

around the world through our talent solutions and global team of engaged associates. We are grateful for this recognition of Interaction Management® (or IM for short) that has helped transform millions of leaders and lives around the world. At the heart of IM is the Catalyst Leader who sparks positive change in others and learns what’s essential to leadership—how to maintain self-esteem, listen and respond with empathy, seek inputs and ideas, build trust, and empower others; and how to conduct an effective interaction with teams and peers.

What makes your program unique and differentiated?The Interaction Management (IM) system focuses on proven Interaction Essentials or

foundational skills that all leaders need to develop and maintain high-trust, effective, and productive relationships, both in and out of the workplace, that drive business results. And, with DDI’s global footprint, IM is also uniquely positioned to support our multinational clients looking to establish or strengthen a global leadership culture across their enterprise.

Our approach provides leaders with a blueprint and a common leadership language for how to engage in effective interactions to meet both the personal and practical needs of their direct reports and colleagues. And once they have a strong foundation on the essentials, IM builds on other critical competencies like coaching, influencing others, delegation, resolving conflict, fostering innovation, among other skills. Before leaders can do any of those, they must first understand how to treat people with respect, listen, empathize, etc.

How is this program delivered, both online and in a classroom?The flexible components of IM are designed to allow organizations to create their

own curriculum, learning journeys, or custom development solution. IM offers a wide range of topics critical for frontline leaders that can be delivered through traditional classroom, virtual classroom, Web-based training, informal learning and just-in-time support. With the help of self-assessment exercises, positive model videos, job aids, skill practice, and more importantly, practical tools to engage the managers of the learners, newly-learned skills “stick” and are put to use back on the job as soon as learners step out of training.

For clients with dispersed audiences, they have seen the same learning outcomes with virtual classrooms (compared to traditional classroom sessions) without the time and

Large Leadership Partners & Providers Category

Leadership Excellence Rank

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

Jim Concelman

1

Company Name: Development Dimensions International (DDI)Program Name: Interaction Management®Program Director: Jim ConcelmanAddress: 1225 Washington Pike, Bridgeville, PA 15017Call: +1 (800) 933-4463, +1 (412) 257-0600Email: info@ddiworld.comVisit: www.ddiworld.com

A blueprint for successLeadership Excellence interviewed Jim Concelman from Development Dimensions International (DDI), at the Leadership Excellence Awards this past April. DDI was placed first in the Large Consulting Category. Here are some excerpts from the exclusive interview.

Video

expense of travel. For learners with impossible schedules, Web-based training takes two hours or less to complete and Practice Labs ensure that you are not sacrificing engagement and application for flexibility. To make the 70:20:10 approach easier, we have a variety of informal learning offerings through additional instructor-led or self-directed exercises that can be used before, during, and after formal training. For today’s learners, we’ve also built just-in-time options with mobile and social learning, plus virtual simulations to practice skills.

So depending on the needs of our clients, we can help design custom development solutions. If they need a 90-minute learning modules spaced out over a few weeks, a half-day virtual course, a 3-day program, or a comprehensive Learning Journey that incorporates assessment, application, and measurement—we can help. The options are limitless!

What level of leaders do you address?While IM is designed for frontline leaders (ie. first-level managers,

supervisors, team leaders, or emerging leaders), we recognize that leaders across all levels continue to struggle with the foundational skills—so yes, many senior leaders have still benefited from IM. DDI also has a suite of leadership development solutions designed to address the unique challenges for middle managers and executives.

How do you measure success and ROI of your program?DDI’s Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research (CABER) uses

a set of proven, standardized tools to measure beyond Kirkpatrick’s 4 levels of evaluation. We’ve helped companies to identify leadership skills critical to success, check reactions and learning, identify and monitor catalysts or barriers to desired results, and measure behavior change. We have also helped clients report improved talent and business outcomes, like higher employee engagement or lower voluntary turnover and demonstrate how improved leadership behaviors impact business results.

What is your area of expertise in leadership training, when it comes to teamwork, execution and frontline managers?

IM draws on our 40-plus years of experience assessing and developing millions of leaders around the world; we developed IM to equip leaders at the frontline with essential skills to drive both engagement and execution. We pioneered behavior-modeling for leadership training and hundreds of research studies have shown post-training behavior change—leaders who have really changed how they lead, manage their teams, and execute strategy—that really improves business results.

What is the customer, client, or participant able to take away and apply to improve themselves and the performance of their team members?

Through extensive studies across multiple companies and industries, we have seen measurable and significant behavior change. Leaders transformed into better coaches and managers. They listened more, gave better feedback, and delegated more effectively. Our impact analysis showed post-training improvements in quality of work (44%

improvement), customer satisfaction (42%), productivity (38%), and efficiency (37%). Such improvements had a positive impact on the bottom line: an increase in sales productivity, a drop in absenteeism and downtime, and increased employee retention by 42.3%.

What impact does your program have on the users?Clients from around the world have shared how they have become

better people in and out of the work place, sparked by an experience with our leadership development programs. We captured their stories in a book called SPARK!. Leaders become people who others want to be around. People who benefit from stronger relationships at work, at home, and in the community; who can solve problems in a spirit of partnership; and who can effectively express empathy and emotions.

What lies ahead for your program?We are excited to add to our series of online simulations for different

environments and situations to provide virtual platforms for leaders to practice and further develop their skills after formal training. One of the things that we found from initial customer feedback is that leaders love taking the challenge. The simulations are engaging, they are game-like, and they pull leaders in. So we will be developing more simulations, broadening to topics like coaching and giving feedback, and making them an even more immersive experience. Another thing we are looking at is how to more effectively deploy continuous learning, how we make our informal learning content more accessible and easier for L&D managers to get out to their leaders.

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

We’d love to share the specifics of our recent analyst rankings asthe world’s premier leadership development firm. But we can’t do it here.Our agreements with the third-party research firms preclude going public with the rankings. But we can show them to you one-on-one—you have only to contact us directly. Get a privatebriefing and learn how working with DDI can help put your organization on top.

Contact us at insight.ddiworld.com/Outrank or 1-800-933-4463to see how better leaders can help you outrank competitors.

We’ve been put in quite a position.

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25 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

By Dick Cross

Concentrating on “follower-ship” is what counts

Character at the Top

Nine assignments as a turnaround CEO have cut a path for me to a single, overarching conclusion about leadership in a job at the top. Of a company, a division, a team, a project, a family or a church group - Concentrating on “follower-ship” is what counts.

And the concomitant? I’ve become skeptical about the value of “techniques” for leadership. The idea that leadership is a “technique,” and that its highest effects can be replicated by copying someone else’s success, has lost its appeal for me.

The crucible that alloys us into effective leaders lies on the inside, not on the outside. The headwaters of a “Braveheart-brand “of follower-ship arise only from within. It seldom results from attempting to fit into someone else’s suit.

Zealous following germinates in a soil of authenticity. In the degree to which every aspect of the character we exhibit at the top is anchored in unswerving commitment to a clear set of principles by which we live. In all circumstances. Particularly the hardest. Because everyone is watching.

Many of us fail to pay sufficient, conscious attention to the degree of scrutiny with which others in our organizations look to us for clues in even the most subtle points of our behaviors and demeanor. Clues for signals about whether to give more than the minimum to keep their jobs. About whether or not to put themselves at risk in order to contribute their all to our inten-tions. And about how to maintain themselves in our good graces.

Yet the models for how to fashion our behaviors and our

demeanor as the seeds of patriotic followings is inconclusive. Because the record evidences no particular style that is reliable in generating that result. Different styles attract different fol-lowings. And many, when effectively executed, can be equally compelling. Both Hells Angels and The Angels of Mercy inspire deeply loyal constituencies. Just different. The point is that con-sistency of behavior, of decision making and of action anchored unambiguously to a deep set of clearly demonstrated convictions is what counts.So, what makes a powerful leader?

Cutting across the spectrum of the models for leadership are two “inside” attributes, not techniques, that raise the odds of transforming who we already are into powerful, adhesive forces in our organizations.

The first “inside” attribute has to do with how we view our own jobs. So often the signal we get from our bankers, boards of directors, investors and even our employees is that ours is a job of ultimate responsibility. The responsibility to craft powerful vision, to define a winning strategy and to oversee precise and superior execution. And when we chin to these responsibilities, we get to keep our jobs, get a pat on the back and maybe, a deposit in our bank accounts.

This is a transactional way of approaching our jobs at the top, which is the way most of business works. You deliver performance of “A” …. you get reward of “B.” Accordingly, most of us have little chance of changing that prevailing protocol among those outsiders who evaluate and have influence over us.

But the protocol for how all those outsiders operate doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the mindset we need to adopt in ap-proaching our own roles. In fact, it’s not our most effective positioning for creating zealous followings.

A better angle is to think of our own motivation as duty, versus responsibility. Our duty is our allegiance to a higher calling. One that we decide is worthy of our complete commitment. One that we will sacrifice and put ourselves at risk to accomplish. Because of its fundamental goodness and because of its worth to others.

When we are driven by a sense of duty to a higher calling versus fulfilling a responsibility that someone else placed upon us through a transactional agreement, our thinking is clearer. Our motivation is deeper. Every expression of our being attracts and inspires people, the ones who care deeply about the same things we care about, to give their all to our cause. Because they believe deeply in us, and want to be successful together.

The second “inside” attribute has to do with how we view those people who are assembled for us to lead. Those whom we intend to molt into a zealous following. This second anchor point for the platform for “Braveheart-brand” leadership begins with discarding our concept of employees and replacing it with the concept of volunteers.

Everyone has choices for where to spend their 40-60 hours a week for pay. The fact that some have chosen our organization, and that we have agreed to pay them for their efforts, gives us no right to treat them as anything less than valuable volunteers-Individuals who have gifted us with their abilities to think and with their skills. Our jobs, therefore, are not to discipline them into what we believe will be the most productive use of their time. But rather to create settings where they can develop as far as they can, and where they can contribute the full extend of

their capacities in supporting us, and all our others, in achieving our shared intentions.

Viewing those around us as volunteers, versus employees, resets our idea of being “in charge.” No longer is it our job to decide what each individual needs to do and through our powers to hire, incent and fire to direct him into that activity. Maniacal following attaches itself to leadership that evidences authentic caring about the individuals around it. Not simply enforcing the terms of job descriptions and employment agreements. Caring about every individual becoming better than he ever might be in any other organization. To be intensely proud of the working part of his life. Not only in the actual performance of his specified duties, but also in every aspect of contributing to our organization in order to further a cause and a leader he admires.

So, how do the ideas of duty and volunteers circle back to the creation of zealous followings? The record supports the hypoth-esis. And the evidence is building, particularly in what we are learning about the motivations of the Gen X’ers, Y’s Millenials and Nexters.

What is it that anchors the capacity to mold these new gen-erations into powerful-packed follower-ships? What foments the their pandemic zeal to help us achieve what we seek to ac-complish with our organizations?

Their allegiance is not attracted to hubris at the top, nor to the “command and control” and “follow the rules I’ve established” models we’ve inherited. But rather to vivid and consistent demonstrations of generosity of spirit, and love. Love for one’s cause and for one’s assembly ….. from the top.

Not only have I found the quest for “follower-ship” through the ideas of duty and volunteers more effective than emulating someone else’s “techniques” for leadership in building zealous organizations …. but this shift in thinking also opens the gates to a deeply satisfying pathway for a lifetime of fascination with building zealous follower-ships. And with the role of the job at the top in creating them. LE

Dick Cross has worked with underperforming companies for more than 25 years, helping mainstream businesses achieve their next level of success. Dick has been the Chairman, CEO, or President at nine of those companies, and has mentored more than 100 CEOs. Dick is the author of Just Run It!: Running an Exceptional Business is Easier Than You Think (Bibliomo-tion 2012) and 60-Minute CEO: Mastering Leadership an Hour at a Time (Bibliomotion 2014)

Character at the Top

26leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Describe your overall leadership vision and mission specific to this program?VitalSmarts believes organizations that invest in their people enable their workforce

to carry out business practice more successfully. That is because what lies between an organization’s lofty goals and the outcomes it desires is often good old-fashioned human behavior. VitalSmarts has identified an innovative approach for enabling organizations to achieve new levels of performance by focusing on the human system, otherwise known as the Cultural Operating System. Just as electronic devices need basic functions like input, output, data management, and so on, organizations need basic human software to execute flawlessly and innovate consistently over time. Our research led us to four foundational skill sets that, when present across all levels of the organization, ensure things run smoothly and improve routinely. They are: self-directed change for the individual, open dialogue for interpersonal interaction, universal accountability for the team, and influential leadership for the organization. Crucial Conversations addresses one of the foundational skill sets of a high-performance culture--open dialogue. Specifically, it teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics at all levels of your organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), training graduates can begin to surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions, and then act on their decisions with unity and commitment.

What makes your program unique and different?In addition to the Cultural Operating System approach to leading organizational

change and improving performance, VitalSmarts’ competitive advantage lies in training programs that are research and evidence-based. We’ve spent the past 30 years studying top performers worldwide to find out what separates the best from the rest. Our observation led us to identify high-leverage behaviors exhibited by top performers across industries, occupations, and cultures. The outcome is a research-based training methodology that focuses on teaching these best-practice behaviors to employees at all levels, from top executives to front-line workers. Organizations that adopt the behaviors taught in Crucial Conversations see marked behavioral change and measurable improvements in quality, productivity, cost, employee engagement, and other key results.

How many people do you impact per year with this program?To date, more than 900,000 people have graduated from Crucial Conversations

Training. Each year, VitalSmarts trains between 125,000 to 150,000 people in Crucial Conversations.

Large Leadership Partners & Providers Category

Leadership Excellence Rank

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

Al Switzler

2

Company Name: VitalSmartsProgram Name: Crucial ConversationsProgram Director: Andy ShimbergAddress: 282 River Bend Lane, Suite 100 Provo, UTCall: 801-724-6272Visit: www.vitalsmarts.com

Begin with behaviorIt is important to focus on the human system (cultural operating system), says Al Switzler from VitalSmarts in an exclusive interview with Leadership Excellence.

Video

How long does it take to complete this program?Crucial Conversations is available through both classroom and virtual

training. Classroom courses are delivered over one to two consecutive days, or can also be spread out in space-learning sessions according to a schedule that best meets client needs. Virtual Training is delivered in five to seven two-hour learning blocks via live, synchronous learning.

How is this program delivered (online, classroom, etc.)?Crucial Conversations is available through both classroom and

virtual training options. Our classroom courses infuse engaging classroom time with original video clips and practice using real-life examples. Classroom courses are available via avenues such as: in-house training, where one of our expert trainers delivers the program at the client location; public workshops, where anyone can attend a pre-scheduled, public training workshop held in locations around the world; or Trainer Certification, where individuals or trainers from a client organization get certified to teach the course within their company. Virtual participants can expect a live webcam feed of the Master Trainer, large presentation slides, chat and hand-raise capabilities, quizzes, polls, breakout sessions with fellow participants, and digital participant materials.

What level of leaders do you address?Crucial Conversations is ideal for employees at all levels, from

front-line workers to top executives. It teaches people how to engage in effective dialogue when the stakes are high, opinions differ, and emotions run strong. While every person encounters these conditions daily, leaders who manage direct reports, teams, or projects can especially benefit from these skills. Following Crucial Conversations Training, leaders can navigate crucial moments much better to achieve results while fostering a productive working environment.

How do you measure success and ROI of your program?Our clients report several results of their Crucial Conversations

Training initiatives. Firstly, there is productivity and quality. Sprint Nextel saw a 93% improvement inproductivity and a 10 to 15% improvement in quality, time, and cost. Secondly is teamwork. Employees at MaineGeneral Health were 167% more likely to speak up and resolve problems with colleagues after being trained in Crucial Conversations. Thirdly, it can be measured in the area of relationships. Franklin Pierce College reduced passive-aggressive behavior by 14% and increased trust levels by 15%. Fourthly, it is evident in the area of performance. STP Nuclear Power Plant went from total shutdown to generating the most electricity in the nation among two-unit plants. Finally, when it comes to efficiency, AT&T reduced billing costs by 30%and Sprint Nextel reduced customer care expenses by $20 million annually.

What is your area of expertise in regards to leadership training, like teamwork, execution and frontline managers?

Crucial Conversations offers many benefits to leaders as they can

manage their team members better and increase their personal influence. Specifically, clients report improvements to teamwork, employee morale, client satisfaction, efficiency, execution, and corporate culture.

What is the customer, client, or participant able to take away and apply to improve themselves and the performance of their team members?

Crucial Conversations Training teaches a high-leverage skill set for navigating high-stakes, political, or emotionally volatile situations in a way that secures results while also improving relationships. Participants learn how to“Speak persuasively, not abrasively”; “Foster teamwork and better decision making”; “Build acceptance rather than resistance”; and “Resolve individual and group disagreements.”

What impact does your program have on the users?Crucial Conversations graduates leave training with a tool box of

skills to create alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topicsat all levels of the organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), they can surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions, and then act on their decisions with unity and commitment. We also receive overwhelming feedback from our graduates that these skills are applicable not only at work, but also in the home. Graduates use these skills when communicating with their spouses, children, and family members – to repair strained relationships and navigate life’s most crucial conversations with their loved ones, with both candor and respect.

What’s in store for the future?We did a second edition of Crucial Conversations at the tenth year

anniversary. We have done four iterations of the training program to be sure it increases the transference and the ROI because we are totally devoted to that. And in March, as mentioned earlier, we announced our instructor-lead Virtual Classroom Training. This way we’re making it available to many more people who can’t travel, don’t have the budget, or don’t have the time for a two-day course. We are excited that after all these years, Crucial Conversations is still finding acceptance.

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

By Dwight Frindt

Leadership conversations for productivity breakthroughs

Lean Conversations

Lean Conversations are conversational structures and pro-cesses that use less of everything: less intellectual effort, less time devoted to non-value adding conversations, less emotional energy expended, and less time to produce outcomes desired by a team of people or the organization overall. They are designed to eliminate the friction and waste from your own interactions and throughout your organization that have resulted from unproductive, unexamined conversational patterns. Mastery of lean conversations may provide the edge that separates those companies who thrive during lean economic times from those that disappear.

Conversations include spoken conversations, memos, emails, written policies and procedures and any other structures of language, especially including body language, intended to pass information or cause or guide interactions between people.

We are forwarding our proposition based on ideas developed in the Toyota Production System. Toyota defined three types of waste: muda or non-value-added work, mura or unevenness and muri or overburden. Non-value adding work is waste that must be done under the present work conditions. The ‘flow’ (or smoothness) based approach aims to achieve JIT by removing the variation caused by work scheduling. Muri is all the unreason-able work that management imposes through poor organization. Unfortunately, most lean practitioners in North America focus on the tools and methodologies of lean, versus the philosophy and culture of lean. -Excerpts From Wikipedia

The thought processes of lean can be successfully applied to create taxonomy of all of the types of conversations held throughout an organization. Conversations which add waste can

be identified and reduced, with the ultimate goal of elimination, and conversations that add value can be nurtured and developed. More importantly, the effectiveness or productivity of a group’s conversations can be dramatically enhanced by building new conversational capacities to replace the wasteful ones.

Muda, or non-value-added conversations are those that cur-rently occur throughout the day while attempting to accomplish work. Most have never been examined for true necessity or value. More and more, the obvious example of this is the rapidly ac-celerating percentage of time being spent on email, texts and live chat, if only to delete all of those that have been cc’d to whole lists of people with no real thought for relevance.

Shigeo Shingo, the driver of this thinking at Toyota, pointed out that it’s only the last turn of a bolt that tightens it - the rest is just movement. If you apply this thinking to a rigorous examination of all the conversations involved in moving a type of work forward, how many of the conversations, currently perceived as necessary, can be removed? In addition to looking at very visible and identified steps in a process; focus on things like the seven conversations you had to have with Bob to get him to complete the project he was assigned.

We regard mura or unevenness as those conversations that arise from all of the “surprises” that occur during the day, generally as a result of failures to communicate with people who need to know. This type of waste seems to be heightened in those of our clients who pride themselves in being in “rush businesses” like advertising or seasonal businesses like tax accounting. Much of the “crunch time” is actually self-induced through the absence of productive conversational capacities, systems & processes

29 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Leadership Development Part 3 – Your Speaking

Interactive

30leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

that can go a long way towards smooth or balanced work flow.When it comes to “unreasonable work imposed by manage-

ment” (muri or overburden), most executives and managers will conceptually agree with the idea of eliminating it but believe that creation of the problem pretty much belongs to others. If they are in the middle of the organization, they might see themselves as victims of muri. It is much harder to see and own work we are imposing on others that may be unreasonable.

One of the most obvious targets for reducing “overburden” is the seemingly endless meetings that managers in many organi-zations attend. Simply requiring a clear Purpose and Intended Outcomes for each meeting and asking “who are the essential attendees to produce these outcomes?” will lead to tremendous reductions in meeting attendance and lost work hours. Further exploration for the underlying beliefs that drove past attendance levels may expose broader unproductive beliefs and misunder-standings that can lead to even greater savings.Diagnostic:For self-discovery, do a tracking and recording process for just 24 hours:

1. How many times a day do you break your thought or action pattern to react to calls, texts, emails, and instant chats?

2. How many useless to unimportant emails do you look at, glance at, or at least take the time to delete?

3. Note how many minutes it took you to do that.4. How many calls do you answer just because your phone

or cell rang?5. How many were unimportant or could have been directed

to others?6. How many times did someone walk into your office to

take advantage of your “open door policy?”7. How much time did you spend on conversations that could

have been directed to others?8. How many times and how much time did you spend

thinking or worrying about projects or tasks that are someone else’s accountability?

9. Can I make an appointment with you that you will keep or do I have to resort to wandering into your office (or worse, standing in line outside your office) to get the response I need?

10. How many times and for how long did you wander down the hall and into others’ offices to talk over something that was on your mind?

11. How many times did you or anyone else you engaged with in the test period share at least a rough draft of a purpose and intended outcomes for the conversation?

12. When you engaged with another person, how many times did you check in to be sure you got their content, feelings, and intention before you moved the conversation to action or solution?

13. What percentage of your interactions is like that?14. How many times during the day did you pause to check in

with your three top strategic priorities to be sure your interac-tions with others were based on those?

15. How many and what kind of wasteful conversations or interactions did you observe in others during the day?Proposed Actions:

It’s one thing to diagnose the three types of waste and friction

in an organization and another to do something about any, let alone all three of them. Actually, the doing is simple, but not easy. The central challenge is intervening in the inertia of your automatic behavior.

There are several initial steps to get you started making Lean Conversations the standard in your life and your organization. First, it begins with you. If you actually did the exercise for at least a day, you were probably shocked at the opportunities you saw for time and energy savings. Now multiply that by all the people in your organization. You will quickly see the huge return available on any investment of time and money in training and development for “Capacity Building” of the skills required to engage in Productive Interactions.

Start by creating a mental picture (“Yonder Star”) of what your day would look like if you were excited about your answers to just three of the most important diagnostic questions above. Create a specific measurable goal for each. Turn those three behaviors into productive habits through practice, practice, practice. Then it will be time to pick another three and not before.

Creating productive habits will require developing new ca-pacities. You will have to learn to self-observe, preferably with rigor. New outcomes require that you catch and correct your existing behaviors. You can’t do that until you can notice them. You can support yourself by telling others around you about your new commitment and giving them permission to call you when you backslide.

Be aware that, at every moment, you are at the “Leadership Choice Point.” The basic premise is that in each instant you have a new choice to pursue your vision (“Green Line”), continue with a predictable behavior (“Blue Line”), or succumb to one of your worries or concerns (“Red Line”). The model below illustrates this idea.

The model shows three characters; all focused on the shared vision or shared vision. This kind of alignment will be required for collective success in your undertakings. Being truly “Lean” in the execution process requires re-training the people around you in what to expect from you and how to interact with you. That’s right, re-train! After all, you trained them to interact with you the way they do now!

Retraining consists primarily on making them aware of the work you are doing on yourself to be lean in your conversations and requesting that they do the same with you. Invite them to do the Diagnostic in this paper and take on the hard work of fundamentally altering their old habits. You might even include dialogue and progress sharing as part of your regular team meet-ings or create accountability groups where members can support each other in making the shift to Lean Conversations!

The degree of payoff from this work is a function of your willingness to risk vulnerability and to invest the time and energy to do the work, both individually and collectively. LE

Dwight Frindt is the Co-founder and Principal of 2130 Partners. He is an author, executive consultant and coach and skilled facilitator. Prior to found-ing 2130 Partners, he held executive positions in mining, heavy construction, nuclear plant construction management, real estate acquisition and invest-ment management.Visit www.2130partners.comLinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/dwightfrindt

Lean Conversations

31 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

By Gabriel Paradiso

And its impact on the quality of execution

The Great Leadership Challenge

Fortunately, Daniel Goleman comments that it has already been proved that the DNA of an organization is marked by the emotional atmosphere that exits in it, and this atmosphere arises from nearly between 50% and 70% of the actions taken by their leaders. Looking at these figures, the impact is high. An organization gains the personality or the DNA of its leaders.

The leader is, more than any other person, who sets the con-ditions which directly determine the ability and motivation to answer positively to work, therefore its impact in the organiza-tional results. That´s why, Goleman continues, “Organizations start to develop effectively when they start to understand their real emotional reality.

However, can we create profitable organizations and, at the same time, healthy ones? The more positive the mood of the directors is, the better the organization DNA will be, the better its operation and its economic returns, or in other words, the longer a team of executives are deep in a negative DNA, the worst the returns will be. There is a formula to quantify this rela-tion, according to it; an increase of 1% in emotional atmosphere of services goes with an increase of 2% in returns.” Sometimes I am in organizations where my internal voice says “How good it would be to work here!” Sometimes I am in companies where I do not want to stay for more than two hours. Emotional atmosphere is smelt, is felt, and is experienced. The “smell” of a sustainable company is not the same as the “smell” of an organization with high turnover, high index of labor accidents, lack of commitment and its impact on clients’ dissatisfaction.

So, can leadership improve the quality of execution? Is the

quality of execution that great future challenge or an everyday task that we are not hitting the nail on the head? Both things.I want to be clear, it is neither at the expense of strategic pur-poses, nor income statements or EBITDA follow up, nor the strategy of operations or if the supply chain is effective or not. Of course, it is important to know in depth the decision to di-versify products and services or to choose to work with LEAN Manufacturing, certify an international quality standard or upload data to the “cloud”. What can I say about carrying out innovations according to the model of Blue Ocean Strategy! All these have a great impact on execution, we cannot deny it, “results orientation” is a vital organizational competence. But be careful, there are studies which show that the way people feel working for an organization accounts for between 20% and 30% of the global returns. That´s why it is not surprising that a “soft” variable as it is managing appropriately “emotional resources” can end causing “hard” results.

Having mentioned this; I would like you to revise and think some concepts of S.M.R. Covey that he worked on very well in his book “El Factor Confianza” and where he adheres and sup-ports the thesis of how “soft” variables finish being a positive drive to “hard” business results and indicators.The first formulas he contrasts are:

Strategy x Execution (Strategy x Execution) x Trust = Returns = Value

Here we can see that solving this formula is not just a word game. In terms of profitability the word “returns” will be well

32leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 03.2014

seen, but in terms of competitiveness and sustainability, it is the value which makes the difference.

This author introduces the existence of another simple formula which permits us to take trust as an intangible and non-quan-tifiable variable and transform it into an indispensable factor that becomes not only tangible but quantifiable: Trust always determines two results, speed and costs. When there is less trust, there is less speed to take decisions and costs increase.

It seems difficult to measure or see it reflected in an Income Statement and Balance Sheets, but transcendental values as trust and integrity are literally translated into income, benefits and long term development. Some people think – as Professor John Whitney - that the lack of trust doubles the costs of doing business.

Clarifying it, the lack of trust is a “tax” that it is paid when we are in the presence of : a toxic culture, functional areas fighting among them, micro management, rules and procedures of a high bureaucratic level, leaders with “hidden diaries”, information transmitted in a slow and cautious manner, employees behavior to protect themselves, among others. When does trust become a “dividend”? , surely in the presence of: mutual tolerance, healthy communications, cooperative atmosphere, transparent human relations, employees listened by their leaders, innovation, com-mitment and when the priority is work and not the “political agenda”, to mention some references.

Once Jack Welch was asked, how would you classify the leaders

at work and he recognized four dimensions:• Leaders who get results and live respecting the values: we

must keep and promote them.• Leaders who don´t get results or respect the values: we

must open the doors to let them go• Leaders who respect the values but do not get returns:

we can teach, advice, transfer to other sectors or they can have another position.• Leaders who are the most difficult to treat are those who

get high returns but do not respect the organization values. They meet their objectives but they do those using methods

that are clearly challenging these values. According to the author, these leaders must learn to act according to the values or they can be allowed to leave in spite of the returns. Keeping them is harmful for the organization and destroys credibility and trust.

Some sustain that the capacity to inspire, grow, develop and recover trust with all the stakeholders – shareholders, clients, suppliers, community and colleagues – is the key leading com-petence of the new global economy. This is the great leadership challenge and its impact on the quality of execution. It is “what” and “how”. A long term challenge and a hard task every day. LE

Gabriel Paradiso is the CEO of Umana Consulting. He is also a speaker, trainer and coach.Visit www.umanaonline.com.ar

The Great Leadership Challenge

Celgene - Joe GarbusVP, Talent & Leadership Development

Deloitte - Bill RibaudoManaging Partner

Directv - Linda Simon Sr. VP, Leadership & Org. DevelopmentDirectv - Maureen WilliamsDirector, Leadership Development

Renault - Mara OlaizolaTalent & Career Development Director

Sony PlayStation - Ronda RyanProgram Manager, Leadership Development

State of Minnesota - Dr. Brenda NormanDirector, Workforce Planning & Development

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

For more information and to register:zengerfolkman.com/events

July 28 - August 1Park City, Utah

For questions or group discounts contact trobert@zengerfolkman.com

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Join us for what is fast becoming one of the premier leadership development events in the country. You’ll have the opportunity to experience Zenger Folkman’s award-winning workshops, learn from today’s global leadership development experts, and network with peers from across the country.

Learn how our research and strengths-based approach can help your organization drive employee engagement, build customer satisfaction and boost bottom-line profitability.

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by June 1st

Finding a MentorKnow the 4 simple steps

By Glen Harrison

“A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.” Zig Ziglar

Richard Branson followed this famous quote with one of his own in a recent blog post…“Find a mentor.” Branson clearly under-stands the impact a mentor can have on our success. So, why don’t more of us take advantage of the benefits of mentorship? Simply put, it can seem like an overwhelming task. Who do I choose? How should I ask them? How does this whole mentoring thing work? Won’t this take too much time? With this in mind, here are 4 simple steps to help you find a mentor and maximize the value of the relationship.Why You Need a Mentor

Define what specifically you want your mentor for.Is it to develop special knowledge, skills or abilities? Are you looking

for a champion that will advocate for your next promotion? Or, are you just looking for a general resource as a ‘go to’ or sounding board when you run into a challenge.

Being very clear about ‘the why’ before thinking about ‘the who’ will help you find the right person and help you both benefit from the relationship.

READ MORE: 5 Ways To Find Mentors and Make it Matter - Forbes MagazineMake a Mentor List

Draft a list of potential mentors based on the requirements you iden-tified earlier.Not sure where to start?Think about colleagues (past and present).See if your organization has a formal mentorship program in

place.Look at your local chamber or professional association.Leverage your LinkedIn network.

Now that you are aware of potential sources:• Challenge yourself to include at least one person from each

group to make sure your list is comprehensive.• Rank the list against the requirements you identified in step one.• Create a short-list of potential mentors to connect with.READ MORE: Ten Ways to Find Your Mentorship Match – Globe

and MailWhat Makes a Great Mentor?

List the qualities that you are looking for in a mentor.While there are many qualities that you could look for, I would

simplify it to one simple word; TRUST.Look at your short-list of mentor candidates, and ask yourself these two questions: 

1. Do you trust that they will be invested in your success and genuinely want to see you succeed?

2. Do you trust that they have the knowledge and experience that will help you to grow as a leader? Essentially, have they been where you want to go?

Obviously trust is something that will need to be developed, but if you can answer yes to each of these questions, you’ve likely found your mentor.

READ MORE: What Makes a Great Mentor – Profit GuideWill You Be My…Mentor?

Connect with the mentor that you have identified in the above

steps and ask them if they are interested.Asking someone to be your mentor probably feels a lot like asking

out your high school crush. But, it doesn’t have to be. Like dating, mentorship works best when you start slow and develop a relation-ship first. So, start the ‘relationship’ by identifying something that you can do for them.

Looking for an opportunity to help out on a project they are working on or facilitating a professional connection are just a few quick ideas for starting the relationship in a meaningful way. Delivering value is a great way to demonstrate to a potential mentor that they will benefit from the engagement.Now you still have the tough part...asking. Again, like dating, start slow.

Express your interest in following a similar career path and ask your potential mentor if you can schedule some time to discuss how they developed throughout their career.  It is a great ‘first date’ and an opportunity to validate your choosing them in the first place, gives them the opportunity to see if they want to work with you, and sets a foundation for the relationship. A few weeks after the conversation - or a few conversations - you can reach out to them again for the formal Will You Be My ... Mentor.

This is one of the few times that I recommend emails. Emails are less likely to put the potential mentor on the spot and make them feel pressured to say yes.  You don’t want them if they are not all in.  With this in mind:Make it easy for them to say no

“If this is not a good time for you, would you kindly refer me to a colleague who might be available…”Be clear on the time commitment required

“...I am hoping that we could meet once a month for an hour. I will plan a short agenda with specific topics to discuss for each meeting.”Make clear your intentions for the relationship.

“...I am looking to enhance my leadership skills and am confident that your experience and insight would be invaluable in this pursuit.”READ MORE: How to Successfully Turn (Almost) Anyone into Your Mentor – Entrepreneur Magazine It’s Not That Hard

Can you really exploit the advantages of mentorship in just four easy steps? Absolutely.

You could write hundreds of books on how to identify a mentor, how to get the most from the relationship, how to be a good mentee (always hated this word). However, to get value from mentorship, you actually have to start.

Breaking down the process into these four simple steps enables you to put meaningful thought and consideration into each step instead of getting bogged down in a complex process.

Understanding your needs, engaging a wide network of experience, selecting someone you trust, and actually asking someone to be your mentor (this is kind of an important one) will get you started. The rest is up to you. LE

33 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Glen Harrison started his journey with Sigma Assessment Systems nearly two decades ago managing a large scale employee development project for Chrysler that involved over 30,000 management and staff.  Over his career, Glen has worked with a third of the Fortune 500 and with every level of government in Canada and the United States. Blog Glen-Harrison.comVisit www.sigmaleader.comTwitter @SigmaLeader

Describe your overall leadership vision and mission specific to this programOrganizations of all types depend on technical experts. Be it in engineering, finance,

IT or HR - all aspects of the organization require the advanced expertise of highly educated professionals. But leading such technical experts presents a double challenge: First, technical populations have specific workplace needs and their engagement drivers differ from non-technical teams. Second, leaders of technical experts are for the most part technical experts themselves. As a result, leaders in technical environments need to learn a specific set of skills and techniques to lead their expert colleagues without letting their own technical talent becoming a hindrance.

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Fraser Marlow

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Company Name: Blessingwhite, A Division of GP Strategies.Program Name: Leading Technical People +Program Director: Marissa GarfieldAddress: 23 Orchard Road, Skillman, Princeton NJCall: +1 (908) 431-2147Visit: www.blessingwhite.com

Leading Technical PeopleLeaders of technical teams face a double challenge, says Fraser Marlow from Blessingwhite in an exclusive interview with Leadership Excellence: They must understand the idiosyncrasies of technical people and develop skills outside their traditional areas of expertise.

Video

What makes your program unique and different?Leading Technical People+ is unique in that it is built around the

specific challenges that technical leaders face and the instructional design is based on ongoing research into how technical audiences want to learn ‘soft skills’. This is actually different from how technical audiences learn hard skills and also from how non-technical audiences learn soft skills. So it is a specific area of expertise that BlessingWhite provides. BlessingWhite made substantial investments into Leading Technical People+ and completely overhauled the program in 2013. Today it is one of our most popular solutions.

How many people do you impact per year with this program?We impact around 6,000 people with this specific program.

How long does it take to complete this program?Leading Technical People+ is based on an ongoing learning approach.

This leadership development journey typically lasts 3 to 6 months. At the core of the program is an instructor led series of modules that can be as short as a day, but in most implementations will include a foundations module plus 3 to 5 half-day modules.

How is this program delivered, both online and in the classroom?It is a multi-modality program, blending self-paced content, online

tools for pre-work and feedback gathering, and instructor led modules (both classroom based and virtual). The program incorporates business simulations, peer coaching, assessments and social media / peer learning.

What level of leaders do you address?Leading Technical People+ benefits all leaders in technical

environments, but is of particular value to newly promoted managers who are facing the challenge of leading teams for the first time.

How do you measure success and ROI of your program?The ROI of the program is measured by tracking pre- and post-

feedback from followers. Depending on the client’s own measurement process we will incorporate multiple Kirkpatrick levels or other success metrics.

What is your area of expertise in regards to leadership training, like teamwork, execution and frontline managers?

For Leading Technical People+ the area of expertise is Leadership in a Technical Environment. This addresses the challenges of leading technical people, the challenges technical people face in taking on leadership roles, and also addresses the fact that most leadership development programs are not delivered in a way that engage technical audiences.

What is the customer, client, or participant able to take away and apply to improve themselves and the performance of their team members?

For individual participants, Leading Technical People+ provides an accessible and pragmatic framework for technical leaders. Because of it’s modular format, clients and participants can pick those modules that are most aligned with their desired learning outcomes. Organizations running Leading Technical People+ report the following improvements within technical teams: accelerated time-to-market for new product concepts, reduced friction and increased productivity, more rapid adoption and implementation of new technology, techniques, and processes, retention of high-value technical talent, smoother, faster transitions for people promoted to leadership roles, leaders who can handle increased span of control;d a culture where technical experts thrive and a reputation that attracts the best in the business

What impact does your program have on the users?Testimonials from Leading Technical People+ participants highlight

the blind spots they had and how these blind spots would derail their engagement and leadership efforts. When entire teams participate from the same technical department, we see a very rapid adoption of a common language around leadership and a greater respect for other team members. Ultimately, Leading Technical People+ gives technical managers the tools, the confidence and the skills to lead their teams more effectively.

What’s in store for the future?We are taking the great programs of Blessingwhite that we have

developed over 40 years and we will keep updating them.

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

Can you tell us about your leadership vision and mission specific to this program?

Our vision is to see the day when a majority of businesses achieve enduring profits as a result of building and developing an inspired and fulfilled workforce. Our mission: to equip leaders and teams everywhere to live and lead true to their values and deliver their best ever in every interaction of every day. The Pathways to Leadership® Process supports leaders and teams in creating more inspiration and fulfilment in their daily interactions -- and getting the results to achieve their strategic objectives and contribute to productivity and innovation.

What makes your program unique and differentiated?We offer a BIG PROMISE of “2 Years in 3 Days.” In three days, we will accelerate

your team’s leadership competencies at a rate that would otherwise take two years to accomplish. It’s proven, and that’s why our flagship process, Pathways to Leadership® is our most requested.

In our programs, there are three ways we ensure ROI to and sustainable change for our client-partners. We promise more INSPIRED & FULFILLED LEADERS, we equip leaders to realize and activate the potential in every interaction of every day to establish a fulfilled and inspired workforce. We promise IMMEDIATE PERFORMANCE IMPACT so what happens in the training room shows up consistently in the workplace. The result is that leaders with the skill to anticipate and respond to their day-to-day business challenges. We promise to BLEND THE WORK & DEVELOPMENT STREAMS because the days of taking people away from the work they need to get done are over. Your business objectives form the backbone of our curriculum, so there’s no time away from work.

How many people do you impact per year with this program?We serve nearly 2,000 participants each year, and because our work focuses on the

whole person and those leaders go home to create more inspired families, friends and communities, their ripple effect impacts thousands more.

How long does it take to complete this program?Pathways to Leadership is a 24-week process.

How is this program delivered, both online and classroom?The program includes pre-learning, a three-day offsite launch session led by a

facilitator. Following the launch offsite, the group of leaders engage in self-guided sustainability teams for 12-weeks, with agendas provided. The process then includes a two-day offsite mastery session led by a facilitator, followed by an additional 12-

Large Leadership Partners & Providers Category

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Craig Ross

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Company Name: Verus Global Inc.Program Name: Pathways to Leadership® ProcessProgram Director: Craig RossAddress:10822 West Toller Drive, Ste. 300, Littleton, CO 80127Call: 303-577-0075Visit: verusglobal.com

Value driven lifePeople should lead lives that are true to their values, says Craig Ross in an exclusive interview with Leadership Excellence.

weeks of sustainability team meetings, with agendas provided. What level of leaders do you address?

Most often leaders who are Executives, Directors, Managers, Supervisors, High Potential and/or Influencers

Accountability/measurement. How do you measure success and ROI of your program?

Overwhelmingly our clients have informed us they are assessed to death, and so they readily adopt our preferred method of linking outcomes to their objectives: We align the training to their existing internal assessment or set of criteria or data they’ve collected. Common measurements include productivity and engagement scores. We collect ongoing quantified and qualified data that is shared back to clients, including participant evaluations and reports highlighting successes in their application of the tools to their leadership competencies and behavior/business objectives.

What is your area of expertise in regards to leadership training, like teamwork, execution and frontline managers?

Behaviors and mindsets, culture, alignment, agility, communication, culture, innovation, performance and trust.

What is the customer, client, or participant able to take away and apply to improve themselves and the performance of their team members?

Leaders apply 20+ tools to their personal development plans, current business objectives and real-time business challenges. By becoming proficient with a large suite of tools, leaders and teams increase their engagement. Leaders spend time on work objectives, building accountability and ownership to ensure successful execution and they focus on accelerating results, reversing the trend of fixing and fighting fires to building and developing people, partnerships and performance. They develop the ability to create new solutions and a sustainable flow of continuous improvement and innovation. They’ll incorporate a common language to up-level leadership and communicate more effectively. The process creates an environment of trust and alignment among team members.

What impact does your program have on the users?Sample Successes include:

600% Increase in Incremental Sales Driven by Innovation in an “Innovate or Die” business situation. That reality was facing Terence Calloway, then Associate Director of R&D (Procter & Gamble) and Reza Rahaman, Vice President of Specialty Division Innovation (Clorox) in their joint venture: GLAD. Their challenge: increase product innovation productivity by 4X, while increasing profit margins, building consumer loyalty and delivering what Consumer Reports rates as “simply the best” trash bag. As they focused on developing culture via Pathways to Leadership®, and created fast and robust improvement to their growth -- increasing incremental sales

driven by innovation 600%. The team created a 6X improvement in R&D productivity.

A $54 Million Turnaround: Building on the premise that “People Want to be Great,” and every interaction is an opportunity to build and develop their greatness -- they attribute a large part of the turnaround to Pathways to Leadership®. In February 2011, an international coffee distributor’s senior management team was in turmoil, slowed-down by lack of trust and infrequent communication. They met for three days to begin the Pathways to Leadership® Process. They team turned around their $54 Million Deficit in 12 months and saw a stock increase of 125% within six months of attending their launch Pathways to Leadership® session.

A 10% Increase in Productivity: Shortly after taking over as Plant Manager for a plant owned by one of the largest glass bottle manufacturers in the world the Plant Manager realized that the livelihood of 210 families depended on his ability to turn the plant around. He was asked what was needed to turn the plant into a High-Performance Plant in three years. His answer: “We need to invest in the people.” He had the right people -- and they had more potential to offer. Within six months of their first Pathways to Leadership® session, trending lines in Gross Margin, Productivity, Quality and Safety had all shifted upward.

What lies ahead for the program?What lies ahead for the leaders we serve is the scalability: We are in

the early stages of contracting with our most inspired client-partners to serve their entire workforce and the results to-date have been very compelling. They need to impact not 40 leaders, but 40,000 leaders to be more focused and living their values to inspire a high-performance organization.

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38leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

It’s Not Just Leadership Development AnymoreIt’s also about followership

By Dr. Greer A. Staples

Organizations spend much time and money to train and develop management to be efficient at leadership, but little is done about those people who are meant to follow. Research suggests that there is a general lack of understanding on the role of followers in the leadership equation. There is, however, an increasing amount of literature on the subject of followership in human resource management training to help companies improve their training and performance. Followership has been described as many things, but the bottom line is that follower-ship is intertwined with leadership and organizations that ignore the fact that followership is mutually reliant on leaders as well as followers do at their own peril. In order to be a good leader, almost every leader needs to be good a follower. A lot of the research has been carried on human resource management, and it suggests that there are traits and behaviors associated with followership that good leaders need to learn to manage.

In an ideal world, followers should be able to be their own leaders. However, organizational standards of performance for followers puts a wedge between leaders and followers forcing individuals to follow social views of hierarchical structures that exist in terms of the power, command, title and control.

Various sectors have identified an array of techniques that can help build effective organizations, at a minimum, these techniques include commitment, authenticity, alignment, and servant leadership to drive leadership in the direction of fol-lowership development.Engagement

An employer who is more involved is supposed to be more productive and contributes more to the organization’s human resources management bottom line. Leaders who understand that they do not exist in a vacuum and recognize that success, come because of a conscious contribution of followers. Leaders who allow followers to be more involved will get followers who exercise more initiative and put more effort in being more productivity thus furthering the missions and goals of their organizations.Authentic leaders and followers

A person is more likely to follow a leader who is authentic than someone who does not meet expectations of truth. A leader who engages with employees can be assured that his/ her followers will bring him a positive achievement in business. Trust is essential for followership and authentic leaders foster sustainable and positive follower behavior. Researchers and others need deeper insights into follower behaviors, and their work engagement to identify the behaviors that are unique to influencing positive follower outcomes.Followers’ Alignment

Organizations who recognize the importance of followership in human resource management will advocate alignment of both leaders and followers at all levels of the organizational struc-ture. Leaders need to understand the significance of engaging followers in the organizational strategic planning process. This makes it easier for followers to understand what they are working towards and to know what is needed to push the organizational vision forward. Alignment is more about vision than it is about leadership. It is about showing followers what they need to see, making sure they know what they need to know about how their leaders will help in advancing the organization’s goals. Servant Leadership

The concept of servant-leaders was introduced in the 70s, and this concept has been compared with shared leadership as well as with authentic leadership. Servant leadership suggests that leaders should learn to serve the people they lead first. It is a concept that replaces the traditional leadership model of control and command. Servant leadership focuses on the developmental need of followers, this makes followers more committed to the success of the organization.Resource Box

Elevating the conversation in each of the above topics can help organizational leadership learn or hone various techniques that organizations can employ to develop effective followers. LE

Dr. Greer Staples is an adjunct professor at Brenau University School of Business Management and Mass Communications in Gainesville, Georgia. Dr. Staples is also a faculty member at Prince Institute Southeast in Mont-gomery, Alabama. She is an alumnus at the University of Phoenix, School of Advanced Studies and holds a doctorate in Management of Organizational Leadership. LinkedIn Greer Staples

Leadership Develop-ment Program

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By John Salamone and Jacob Flinck

Four resolutions to grow your future leaders

Career Development

Look around your organization. Which of your employees are in line to play critical leadership roles? Do you know? And more importantly, what are you doing to get them ready? If your organization is like most, creating a comprehensive leadership development plan is like keeping a New Year’s resolution. You know that it is important, you set the goal, you have all the intention to keep it, but then you get too busy, make excuses and soon forget about it. However, based on certain trends, the creation of a leadership development plan is one resolution that organizations can no longer be ignored.

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report indicated that 48% of organizational leaders will be eligible to retire by 2015. This is not to suggest that they will all walk out the door next year. However, when they do, organizations must have an established plan to replace them. This is especially true since the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 70 million Americans will retire from the workforce between 2010 and 2020 while only 40 million will enter the job market. If these trends hold, the pressure from the labor market will ultimately cause a war for talented leaders and this is not a battle you want to lose.

To plan for this impending reality, organizations must proac-tively identify and cultivate a talent pipeline. However, cracking the leadership development code is a task only some organiza-tions have perfected. In fact, in 2008, only 36% of companies surveyed by Oracle indicated they were ready to fill their leader-ship positions immediately.

So, what makes a great organization good at developing leaders? First, they understand that every employee is vital to the mission, vision and success of an organization. Next, they create career paths and development programs for employees at all levels of the organization. Finally, as openings occur, they have a succes-sion plan that allows them to put the right leader, in the right job, at the right time.

If you think your organization is ready to crack the code, it’s time to start working on some resolutions. Resolution #1: Assess the needs of your organization

As the renowned author and consultant Jim Collins always says make sure you get the right people on your bus. This is also true for your leadership pipeline. First, figure out the type of leader your organization needs and identify the most important skills by asking some key questions. Do you need substance over style; technical ability over managerial experience; or a strong presence versus a quiet confidence? At its core, every organiza-tion is different and you may even need individual leadership styles based on the required expectations for specific positions. So, take the time to evaluate and understand what competencies and experiences you’ll need to develop and maintain a strong and capable leadership cadre. Resolution #2: Be transparent

Once you understand the needs of the organization, don’t fall into the trap of letting the yearly performance review be the only time you discuss career aspirations with your workforce. Holding in-depth career development conversations with your employees throughout the course of the year will enable you to understand their short and long term goals. Employees with an interest and immediate ability to perform at the leadership level should be considered for high-priority positions. Those who need a longer range timeline required to develop the knowledge

and abilities necessary for the rigors of leadership should fully understand their path to success. Transparency is also a two way street. The Society of Human Resource Management (2012) reported that 44% of employees will be looking for new jobs in the next year – up 8% from the previous year. By having regular career development conversations with your employees, you’re more likely to know if they are planning to leave. Resolution #3: Create career paths

After you’ve identified your talent pool, it will become easier to align your pipeline to specific career paths around occupa-tional roles and responsibilities. Those employees on a fast track will accelerate through the path to leadership positions. Keep in mind that their forward progress creates opportunities for other employees to rise up as well. In a 2012 report by Oracle, it was reported that only 42% of employees understood their career paths and only 45% knew about internal opportunities for advancement. Therefore, make sure you are creating and cultivating career paths at the entry, mid, and senior levels of the organization. Resolution #4: Link training to leadership career paths

Once the paths are established, it’s time to inject training into the equation. However, progression through the path will only work if training is strategically aligned to the appropriate career levels. This overarching talent management approach must also take into account the individual needs of each employee at given points in their career. Let’s say you have an entry level employee who possesses all the technical abilities to advance to next level but lacks confidence required to present solutions to large groups of seasoned managers. A designated career path complemented with corresponding formal and informal training opportunities will enable you to design and implement a strategy to help this employee reach the expected levels of performance for advancement.

One final word on the resolutions, don’t let anyone tell you that that leadership cannot be taught. According to John Kotter (Harvard Business Review), “the most pernicious half-truth about leadership is that it’s just a matter of charisma and vision—you either have it or you don’t. The fact of the matter is that leader-ship skills are not innate. They can be acquired, and honed.” This is further supported by Peter Drucker (Harvard Business Review), who states that “leaders are not born; they are grown.” With the right experiences and training, anybody can lead at any level of an organization!

Remember that career development and leadership training are lifelong processes. Providing career paths and development op-portunities that aligns the aspirations of your employees with the goals of the organization will build your leadership pipeline and finally enable you to cross off those important resolutions. LE

39 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

John Salamone and Jacob Flinck both work at FMP, Inc. John is a Vice President specializing in strategic human capital management. Jacob Flinck is a Senior Consultant specializing in career development and talent management.Email jsalamone@fmpconsulting.comEmail jflinck@fmpconsulting.com

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41 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

By Kevin Cashman

Return on self-awareness

The New Bottom Line

Nosce Teipsum, know thyself, threads it way through history as one of the pre-eminent precepts in life. It is a classic theme that appears in the writings of great thinkers: Socrates, Ovid, Cicero, as well as in the sayings of the Seven Sages of Greece, and on the entrance of the Temple of Apollo, in early Christian writing, Vedic literature, and in Taoist texts. Despite the contin-ued urging of contemporary thought leaders and scientists, who validate this fundamental principle via social and neuroscience, many still ignore this essential wisdom.

Scoffed at and relegated to back-seat stature, self-awareness has been seen by many for too long as too soft for business, merely a nice-to-have skill, but not critical to tangible bottom-line performance. And although many leaders are obsessed with changing the world or the marketplace in which they operate, only a few, exceedingly aware leaders are humble enough to take the time to understand and change themselves and to make the connection between their personal development and their orga-nization’s. However, the few who have made this commitment and taken this tact have tangibly experienced growth.Research Links Performance to Better Self-Awareness

Now new research validates with a large body of data the unequivocal relationship between leader self-awareness and organizational performance. Korn Ferry analysts, David Zes and Dana Landis write in their whitepaper, A Better Return on Self-Awareness, that “public companies with a higher rate of return (ROR) also employ professionals who exhibit higher levels of self-awareness.” In a recent interview with Dana Landis, she noted “self-awareness is not a soft skill, a nice-to-have. It’s playing out in your bottom line. This is about leadership ef-fectiveness.” The researchers analyzed 6,977 self-assessments from professionals at 486 publicly traded companies to identify “blind spots”—disparities between self-reported skills and peer ratings. At the same time, they tracked stock performance. They pursued the questions: “Did the individual leaders see themselves the same way others saw them? How significant is a culture with widespread feedback?” The frequency of blind spots was measured against the ROR of those companies’ stock. The analysis demonstrated that, on average:

•  Poorly performing companies’ employees had 20 percent more blind spots than those working at financially strong com-panies.

• Poor-performing companies’ employees were 79 percent more likely to have low overall self-awareness than those at firms with robust ROR. Stock performance was tracked over thirty months, from July 2010 through January 2013. During that period the companies with the greater percentage o f self-aware employees consistently outperformed those with a lower percentage. (Zes and Landis, 2013)

Landis shared that people with fewer blind spots had improved performance, as well as greater satisfaction. She emphasized the potential implications of what we can discern from this large body of data, the macro patterns and the micro learning. For

example: What can we learn from the differentiators? How can we apply this learning in terms of fostering a culture that values a high level of self-awareness and feedback?

This research with its hard evidence makes it very difficult to cast self-awareness aside as unimportant or too soft. Self-Awareness may be the most crucial developmental breakthrough for accelerating personal leadership growth, for optimizing the effectiveness of senior teams, and for engaging and building a pipeline of future leaders. Learning to pause to build self-awareness is an evolving, never-ending process critical to leader success. It is critical to know ourselves in order to leverage our potentialities:

• We need to know our strengths to assert them in the ap-propriate circumstances;

• We need to know our vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and dis-tressing emotions, to check them and to prevent asserting them inappropriately and in non-value creating ways;

• When we are not self-aware, people around us have a better sense of our strengths and weaknesses than we do, and we lose credibility;

• When we are self-aware, we are more in touch with reality; people trust and respect us more.

St. Augustine reflected, “People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.” Knowing others is one outward indicator of emotional intel-ligence but knowing ourselves is possibly the principal inward sign of wisdom.

While pragmatic experience demonstrates that successful change begins with self-change, who would have thought that it is such a critical factor in sustaining business performance? With this validated connection, the world of leadership and performance may never be the same. Have you paused today in order to deepen your self-awareness and business impact? LE

Kevin Cashman is a best-selling author, top-ten thought leader, world-class speaker, global CEO coach and pioneer of the “grow the whole person to grow the whole leader” approach to integrated leadership development. He is the founder of the Chief Executive Institute®, referred to as the “Mayo Clinic” of executive development by Fast Company magazine. He also founded LeaderSource, recognized as one of the top three leadership development programs globally. Visit www.cashmanleadership.com

A better return on self-awareness

Interactive

By La June Davis-Wiley

Seven ways leaders can stay ready

Stay Ready!

We’ve spent most of our lives focused on getting ready. It started before pre-school. Our parents found the best schools for us. We continued the pattern through high school and college. We got ready for college. We got ready for our career. We got ready for the next promotion. However, when we achieve what we initially set out for, we feel accomplished. However, in today’s workforce we know that change is inevitable. We need to know that what got us here won’t get us to the next level, unless we learn to STAY READY!

What skills, knowledge and attributes can keep a leader in the “Ready” position?Be a Life-Long Learner

In your life-time, you will never learn it all. But who is going to stop you from trying?

Many feel that they’ve graduated from college and they attend a seminar or two annually, isn’t that enough? Being a life-long learner is not an act it is a habit. The practice of life-long learn-ing is achieved a little each day. It starts with a little curiosity and enough passion to take it a step further to investigate it.

When Leslie Watkins used the term in her schools mission statement in 1993, it recognized that learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations. (Wikipedia) An opportunity to learn is everywhere that we are and with everyone that we encounter. Life-long learning places a leader in the position to have answers, knowledge and the ability to speak with confidence on any topic.Be a Clear Communicator

Communication is the most important key to being a “Stay

Ready” leader. Communication is a two-way process, transmis-sion and reception. Always consider your audience (the receiver) when communicating. Identifying and connecting with your audience decreases the likelihood of miscommunication. Clear communication involves clarifying your goals. Do you have a purpose for speaking? Or are you simply talking to hear yourself? Your audience is very intelligent and they know fluff when they hear it. Express your point with conviction. Either you have something important to deliver or you are passionate about your words. You must exude confidence and conviction when you speak. If you don’t believe yourself, why should I? What is the action that you want taken as a result of your message? Always wrap up with a clear call to action. Before ending your talk, ensure that the receiver understood the transmission and reiterate the key points. At last, thank the audience for their time and make yourself available for questions. Be Knowledgeable on Industry Trends

In order to be a Stay Ready Leader, you have to know what’s going on around you. It is not enough to know your day-to-day operations. Be an anticipatory leader, know what’s coming, anticipate how to prepare for it and get out in front of it. Tunnel vision is not your friend. if you want to be a Stay Ready leader. Don’t be afraid of the internet and social media. Make it a weekly practice to review industry magazines and white papers. Stay abreast of what your industry thought leaders are saying. Attend conferences, network and venture out into the world of blogging. Read what industry bloggers are writing. Follow your competitors.

42leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

43 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

Improve and Promote Your TeamThere’s no “I” in Team. Yes, you are the leader, but where

would you be without the team? Who would you lead? Who would follow? As you learn and grow, encourage your team to learn and grow. Affirm and acknowledge your team. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Make sure that your team members know what you think and how you feel about them. This should not be a mystery. Don’t be afraid to challenge your team to go further. Lead by example.

Let the team know that you are a part of the team. Inspire and motivate your team. Let them know your vision. Explain the common goal that you all work toward. Provide updates on team progress. Recognize your high performers. Encourage your middle performers and coach your low performers to the middle.Be a Coaching Leader

Once guidelines have been set and the collaborative focus has been established it is a great time for the leader to act as coach. Once the marching orders have been declared, allow your team to do the work. This does not mean go away, just give them room to learn and grow. Let your team know that you are there to assist and help them when it is needed. Check in at regular intervals to make sure they are on track. In time, the leader will know who requires more coaching and who doesn’t. This style of leading creates a partnership, a collaborative. Employees are more fully vested in the end result when they buy in and own it. Just because you have been granted the role of leader it doesn’t mean that you must do all of the work. As leader, you will have your own set of responsibilities and probably more than a handful of meetings to attend. Your employees will feel empowered and will come to you when assistance is needed.

All employees need coaching on professional development. This is a major role for the leader. Talk to your team and help them to develop in areas where you see a need and where they have expressed interest. After all, you hired these people. There was something that you saw in them. Now give them the tools that they need to do their job and give them the room to ac-complish it.Be a Change Leader

Be ready for change. You know it’s coming, whether it presents itself as a new implementation, a new team member or simply a new coffee pot. With change comes resistance, obstacles and confusion. As leader, it is your responsibility to welcome change, encourage change and promote change. As an agent for the organization it is your job to introduce the change to your team. Include your team in the change process. Identify change

agents who can assist from a staff level in getting the word out about the change. Don’t hide from it. Embrace the change and model acceptance with your actions.

Be a Grateful LeaderPractice an attitude of gratitude. Through gratitude comes

respect for oneself and for those that come in contact. Gratitude, although not considered a business trait can change how a leader responds to situations and how staff responds to a leader. If it feels better, we can call it customer service. It is in the service that you will find the gratitude.

Employees emulate actions that are performed by their leader. These actions will be repeated with co-workers and internal and external customers. Leaders must accept responsibility for teaching their staff how to interact with others.

Leaders have spent the greater part of their lives getting ready. At last, you are in charge. You are the leader. Now it’s time to stay ready. Stay ready for the next move. Stay ready for interact-ing with, motivating and cultivating staff. A great leader must stay ready for change. A respected leader must stay abreast of industry trends. How can you coach me, if you don’t know? Most importantly a great leader must stay a clear communicator. Finally, stay grateful and express your gratitude freely.

It seemed to be a hard task getting ready. It won’t be easy to Stay Ready. If you are passionate about being a great leader it is worth it. Remember, what got you here, won’t get you there. If you stay ready, you won’t have to get ready! LE

La June Davis-Wiley, M.A., SPHR is an accomplished human resources professional with over twenty years in the industry. She currently works as Corporate Director of Human Resources, in the Healthcare market. She is a Life Coach and presents workshops, and seminars on Communication, Change Management and Conflict Resolution.Email lajune.davis-wiley@provena.org

“people don’t resist change. they resist being changed!” — peter senge

“to lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. the next best, the people honor and praise. the next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!” lao-tsu

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Can you tell us about your leadership vision and mission specific to this program?As the global leader in talent mobility, Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) is distinguished

in our ability to deliver scalable leadership development solutions and consistent quality that help organizations develop role-ready leaders at all levels. Through structured coaching and experiential learning, leaders are better able to meet present and future organizational leadership and business objectives. We bring an unmatched global infrastructure that leverages the expertise of a community of 3,000 coaches worldwide and 800 at the Executive Coaching level, serving individuals in hundreds of locations across 64 countries. With nearly 50 years of industry experience and 20 years in Executive Coaching, LHH’s Executive Coaching practice focuses on helping organizations identify development gaps, build leadership capabilities, and strengthen leadership pipelines.

What makes your program unique and differentiated?Lee Hecht Harrison is differentiated in the industry through our delivery of

consistent, quality coaching services worldwide. Unlike other firms, we are not a consortium. We deliver globally through a community of local, certified coaches with continuity and accountability in our processes, tools, and methodology across all of our 300 global locations. The International Coach Federation has designated the training LHH provides to its coaches as an Accredited Coach Training Program for ICF Certification.

Another differentiator for LHH is our global capability. LHH has a highly organized infrastructure that enables global delivery of leadership consulting services and allows us to smoothly implement and execute on large-scale, enterprise-wide coaching programs. This is fully supported by a dedicated project management team staffed by 25+ experts who are dedicated to ensuring organizations achieve their goals. And once a program is initiated, our global reporting platform provides a clear line of sight into activity, spend, outcomes, and ROI with 24/7 access for our client organizations.

Finally, LHH is recognized by independent research a between as and top provider of leadership development. In 2013, Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory named Lee Hecht Harrison a Vanguard Leader in Leadership Development Consulting. The Kennedy report confirms that LHH has one of the largest forces of leadership development consultants in the market. Our capabilities are built on a solid infrastructure that supports consistent delivery and project management, and informed by local and regional insights. Our clients value the open and collaborative approach we offer and the results achieved.

How many people do you impact per year with this program?Lee Hecht Harrison delivers coaching to approximately 2,500 people each year.

Large Leadership Partners & Providers Category

Leadership Excellence Rank

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

Nancy Sullivan

6

Company Name: Lee Hecht HarrisonProgram Name: Executive CoachingProgram Director: Vicki Foley, SVP Global Leadership Development Practice LeaderAddress: 50 Tice Boulevard, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07067Call: 609-259-1663Email: Vicki.Foley@lhh.comVisit: lhh.com

Creating Coaching CulturesLHH helps clients create high performing cultures by developing leaders’ coaching skills, says Nancy Sullivan in an exclusive interview with our editorial team.

Video

How is this program delivered, both online and the classroom?LHH Executive Coaching is delivered primarily in person, via

face-to-face meetings. Additionally, all of our coaches are also skilled in delivering coaching virtually, if requested by the coachee.

What level of leaders do you address?LHH Executive Coaching addresses leaders at all levels, from

managers through the C-Suite. These individuals may be high-potentials, succession candidates, emerging leaders, or newly hired or transitioning leaders. Our point of view is that there is benefit in coaching at all levels in the organization.

How do you measure success and ROI of your program?LHH defines coaching as a development process designed to help

individuals and teams achieve and sustain top performance in ways that are linked to the organization’s needs and measurable business results. We measure success in every coaching engagement. The three categories where we can track quantifiable results are People, Productivity, and Profitability. People measures include turnover costs, value of retention, engagement scores, and hiring costs. Productivity measures include cost or time savings, the impact of goal achievement, project completion and enhanced speed. Profitability measures include value of customer retention or acquisition, increased sales or revenues, accelerated time to market for new product development, and improved bottom-line business results. In addition, we find that many of our client firms also choose to identify intangible or perceived changes including improved teamwork and morale, accelerated effectiveness on the job, enhanced communication skills, and increased employee engagement.

What is your area of expertise in regards to leadership training in areas of teamwork, execution and frontline managers?

LHH’s expertise in coaching is widely recognized as best-in-class. One of the reasons for this is that our Results Based Coaching Model™ is applied to every coaching engagement. In Phase 1, we set goals and expectations, starting with an agreement on desired results based on both the individual’s and the company’s perspectives. This Coaching Agreement ensures that all stakeholders are in alignment with the desired outcomes and how these support the coachee’s and the organization’s objectives. In Phase 2, we collect and analyze data using assessments and/or interviews. LHH coaches collect information to help the individual generate self-awareness and also to understand how they are perceived by key stakeholders. Analysis of this information guides the design of a detailed development plan that also supports the company’s business objectives. In Phase 3, the coaching action plan is created. Completely aligned with business needs, the action plan is designed to identify areas for development, actions to be taken, timeframes, resources needed, and success measures. With the action plan in place, regularly scheduled coaching meetings occur to discuss specific actions, develop competencies using role-play, experiential learning, and coaching, review progress, and clarify next steps. Throughout the coaching engagement, there are periodic check-ins with stakeholders to assess progress and observable behavior shifts. In Phase 4, we conduct a final meeting between the coach, the

coachee, and his or her manager to review results of the engagement and to plan further development through training and/or mentoring programs to ensure sustainability.

Beyond addressing individual coaching needs, LHH knows that building a coaching culture is a top priority for most organizations. Designed leveraging our Results Based Coaching Model and proven Coaching Practices and techniques, our Coaching Conversations™ program is delivered around the world to create coaching cultures within our client organizations. This blended learning, group capability-building program assists managers and leaders in gaining skills and confidence in conducting coaching conversations, enhancing the ability of managers to improve employee performance, retain top talent, and develop emerging leaders. Via our online Coaching Portal, managers have access to coaching skills videos, bite-sized learning modules, tools, and resources to ensure the sustainability of the program.

What is the customer, client, or participant able to take away and apply to improve themselves and the performance of their team members?

Each coaching engagement is unique because it is specific to the individual being coached and the organization. However, since LHH coaches over 2,500 leaders each year are able to share themes of key stakeholders’ experiences. Some of the developmental areas we are consistently asked to address include increased self-awareness and emotional intelligence, improved executive presence, faster integration into a new role, improved relational skills, improved leadership skills, effective team leader techniques, improved relationships with peers, boss and direct reports, better listening skills, intentional messaging, and modelling effective coaching techniques learned from the coaching experience.

What impact does your program have on the users?LHH finds that many of our clients report impact in the areas

of: retention of top talent, increased productivity of a team, higher levels of engagement, customer retention, increased sales or revenues, decreased time to market for new product development, accelerated assimilation and results for a leader in a new role, a robust talent pipeline, and improved bottom-line business results.

What lies ahead in the future?We want to be where our clients and coachees are. Expectations about

how and where people work and learn are shifting dramatically. The old model was about doing everything in person, in the office, with plenty of paper. We know that generations entering the workforce are changing and the expectations of the organizations are changing along with them. Now, with the emergence of online collaborative technologies, LHH has an opportunity to help organizations as they transition to a totally mobile enterprise that leverages new social and virtual technologies. We are continuing to build upon our blended learning approach, influenced not only by the availability of new media but also by the behaviors of the people we work with. This is an exciting new frontier for us and for everyone in our company.

#Globalleadership14 Global Leadership Excellence 2014

47 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

By László Kővári

How to do a strategy audit in 10 minutes?

Strategy and Leadership

Considering that over 90% of companies are mediocre, it doesn’t make much sense to even raise the question of strategy. Companies are mediocre because they have no leadership who could provide a concept that may serve as the foundation of any kind of strategy, so they are, without exception playing catch-up.Their “leaders” are staring in the rear-view mirror and at various indicators while stepping ever heavier on the gas pedal. All the while there is only one song coming from the speakers at maximum volume: faster!

Paradoxically they are terrified of taking their eyes off the rear-view mirror and focusing on the road.

People leading firms do precisely this. There is no noise, their attention is proportionately spread between the road, the mirrors and the indicators with most attention dedicated to the road, they feel the car and most of all: they know precisely why they are driving and they know it pretty well where they are heading.There is no strategy without a concept!

It’s easy to find out if there really is a concept behind a written and “internalized” strategy; we just need to ask the question: what is your strategy based on? If the CEO’s answer is quantitative or is based on outside factors, like last year’s results, market data, competitive behavior, etc., then there is no concept.There is no focus without strategy

This is also easy to test. Just see what happens in the controlling department in budgeting or reporting times: so called bullshit strategies, that are not based on a defendable concept but are

dreamed up by management in offsite sessions somewhere in the mountains or beach resorts, simply can’t be implemented. If they still appear to be implemented, it is mostly because the controlling team is diligently correcting the numbers in the reporting period.The organization is weak without focus

A weak organization is slow and reactive. It is passive. There is simply nothing to organize around. Most of the people don’t do what they should be doing and almost everybody performs way below their abilities – 10-12 hours a day.

We can immediately recognize a weak organization: it’s enough to sit around at the main reception for 5-15 minutes during lunchtime and listen to the people. They are typically cynical, complaining or you can see fear in the eyes.A weak organization is a sign of no leadership

Without a leader there is no concept, strategy is forgotten and resources are wasted on trying to keep together a disintegrating organization while the company is missing opportunities and falls behind. LE

László Kővári is the founder of Prakhsis, an international group of top indus-try experts with CEO and board experience who provide hands-on support for boards and c- teams for building leading companies. In the past 15 years László has handled executive search and strategy consulting assignments across North America and Central Eastern Europe in all major industries. Call +420 731 503 023Visit www.prakhsis.com

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By Mary E. Marshall

Try Lincoln’s formula

Want Change?

My work often takes me into organizations that need to make some fundamental change, but have been unsuccessful doing so in the past. I have thought a lot about how companies get themselves into this predicament and more importantly, how they get out of it.

It seems to start with a state of discontent and therefore, unproductivity, because some process, person or product doesn’t work as well as it used to and no one really knows how to address it. It’s usually not that the organization doesn’t foster an open culture and welcome opinions and ideas, (although that can be the problem), it’s more likely that the players don’t even realize they are in the middle of dysfunction.

Its likely things have been slowly declining for a while and people have become complacent, always waiting for someone else to address it, or hoping that it will get magically fixed. Then the discontent starts to bleed on to the customers and good people become disenchanted and leave. The leaders are left wondering what the heck just happened.

The first step in repair is to recognize there is a problem. If the organization is not getting the results, deadlines are not met, and good people are leaving, you have a problem. My guess is that multiple people could tell you what’s going on in two seconds, so as the leader, your job is to ask. Someone will tell you the truth.

Assuming you have diagnosed the right problem, test it out with your senior managers and ask if you have identified the issue. Make it a safe place for conversation and ask lots of questions – most importantly don’t be defensive or you’ll

stop getting honest feedback.The next phase is solving the issue including insuring that

it won’t happen again. I like to use the approach outlined in a great article in the Wall Street Journal from February 15, 2014 entitled, “What Would Lincoln Do?” The article talks about how to solve problems and engage people to get behind one’s cause. Lincoln’s approach included the following:• Cite precedent - When has this approach been used

successfully in the past?• Make your case - What do you want to do?• Humor helps - Don’t take yourself or the situation too

seriously.• Principles first - Always adhere to your values and the

company’s.• Be inclusive - No one ever solved a problem in a vacuum.My guess is that if you take this approach to a solution, whether

it’s a small issue or a larger systemic problem, it will eventually get solved. Remember that the key to lasting solutions is that it was everyone’s solution, not just yours. Everyone wants to be a part of a solution – and rarely admit they were part of the original problem.

So next time you know you have a situation where a significant change needs to happen in the organization, ask yourself, “what would Lincoln do?” LE

Mary E. Marshall is an entrepreneur who has spent her career making small businesses into successful ventures. She has done this both as a CEO and busi-ness owner herself, and as an executive coach and consultant. She launched Marshall Advisors, LLC as an Executive Advisory agency to work with CEOs and their executive teams to help them achieve their goals more quickly and efficiently.Email mary@mary-marshall.com

49 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

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By Tony Kubica and Sara LaForest

Create the drive organizations require to thrive

Leader as Coach

Whether you, as the leader, are responsible for the success of a business or an operating unit within the business, a key responsibility is to ensure that each person reporting to you understands what it takes for him or her to succeed. The traditional way to do this is to:• Define your expectations.• Identify metrics to measure success (although unfortunately

they are often not tied to organization or team goals).• Conduct an annual performance review.• Identify corrective actions that the employee needs to focus on.• Follow-up to ensure that the employee is making the necessary

progress (although we often find this left unattended).In other words, performance management is most often approached

using negative feedback: Focusing on what’s not going well.When approached in this way, leaders are in effect managing for

compliance.1 They identify what is not working and strive to correct those deficiencies so that employees are compliant with the expecta-tions you have for their performance.

Sure, managers are taught to start with the positive and then point out the negative. Unfortunately, using this process, employees have been conditioned to wait for the “but.” And it’s the “but” that erases the positives – especially if the feedback (not just in the performance review but also in day-to-day interactions) focuses on what is not right. When the negative feedback is equal to or more than the posi-tive feedback – compliance is the outcome.

At this point you may ask: Isn’t this what I need – compliant em-ployees? The answer is No. Compliant employees may or may not be committed employees, and it is only committed employees who serve as differentiators for your business.

When we ask leaders, “What are your differentiators?,” we invari-ably get the answer: Our employees are the best. Yet, employees are differentiators only when they are:• Committed to the success of the organization.• Selfless team players.• Creative and innovative.• Excited about what they doing.Turning employees into differentiators is achieved through coaching

for commitment.2 This process focuses on five elements:1. Understanding what is important to employees – their goals,

aspirations, and underlying motivations.2. Assessing if employees’ goals and aspirations align with the

mission, vision, and values of the organization.3. Determining how you can help employees achieve their goals

and aspirations within the context of the organization.4. Defining and agreeing on actions and steps employees can take

to progress.5. Providing ongoing feedback on how employees are performing

and specifying areas in which they are doing well and areas in which they can make further adjustments.

Managing for compliance operates in a traditional hierarchical organization. A manager’s performance review or potential for promo-

tion is not dependent on performance reviews of his or her reports. In comparison, coaching for commitment operates in an environment where employee development and growth are a significant part of the manager’s job. It is one of the criteria a manager must meet if he/she is expects to be promoted in the organization.

Good leaders (that is, managers by title who also demonstrate strong positive leadership) understand the importance of coaching for commitment, and they live it. It’s palpable in the organizational culture and in the relationships among its members.Coaching for Commitment Process

1. Understanding what is important to employees – their goals, aspira-tions and underlying motivations.

Each employee comes to the job with different aspirations, moti-vations, career goals, contribution goals, and underlying motivators. Can you define these for each of your employees?

How can you help employees reach their goals if you don’t know what they are? And, helping your employees reach their goals is part of your job. Creativity and innovation thrive when people are working in concert to achieve what’s important to them. When they realize that what’s important to them is also important to their manager and to the organization, a new dynamic is created that injects positive energy into both the manager/managed dyad and the organization itself.

2. Assessing how employees’ goals and aspiration align with the mission, vision, and values of the organization.

If employees’ goals are contrary to the organizations’ there is a mismatch. For example, if an employee wants to travel and gain international experience and the organization is a regional firm with no travel opportunities, this will be an obvious mismatch. Or, if an employee believes success comes only by working alone while one of the organization’s values is teamwork, there is another mismatch.

As you start this process, you may uncover a mismatch between an employee’s expectations and the organization’s culture. Should this happen, you have two options:

a. Work to align the employee with the organization by an honest and open discussion about how success relates to the mission, vision, and values of the organization. You always start with working toward alignment.

b. Counsel the employee to move to a different position within the organization or to another company. Perhaps the employee is with the right company but in the wrong job or, perhaps, is just in the wrong company. After working toward alignment, you may both agree the job and the employee or the company and the employee are a mismatch. In some cases, repositioning the employee may be possible and helpful. In other cases, it is best they move along, and you can help them do so constructively. The sooner this is done, the better for the employee, the employee’s colleagues, the manager, and the company.

3. Determining how you can help employees achieve their goals and aspirations within the context of the organization.

Your job as manager/leader is to help your employees achieve their goals. To do this, you must be realistic and supportive and tell them

51 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

what specifically they must do, and what you, in turn, can do to help them.

The specifics of this discussion (which should be an ongoing one throughout their employment with you) will depend on each em-ployee’s goals and expectations. Your job at this stage is to reach a mutual understanding and identify how you can help and what they can expect from you. Thereafter, you should continue to support them and nurture their growth.

4. Defining and agreeing on actions and steps employees can take to progress

Once you and the employee are aligned, the next step is helping them define what they specifically need to do to achieve their goals. Again, this is a process rather than an event and should be ongoing throughout their work with you/the organization.

This process can include things like:• Participation in the training programs offered by the organization.• Becoming an effective team player.• Practicing and living organizational values.• Demonstrating leadership if promotion is a goal. For example,

an employee can work within a committee or manage a small project.• Demonstrating deep expertise if they aspire to be a subject

matter expert.• Meeting specific requirements based on your organization and

its needs.• Seeking cross-functional exposure, learning, and relationships.5. Providing ongoing feedback on how employees are performing and

specifying areas in which they are doing well and areas in which they can make further adjustments.

You are supporting, and the employee is pursuing, a process of improvement. Ongoing feedback is critical; developmental feedback is a process not an event.

In addition to conducting formal performance reviews at least twice a year, you should also provide ongoing micro reviews (infor-mal feedback) that provide feedback at a specific moment and are real-time based. Some of this feedback will be positive, some will be negative – that is, corrective in nature. Although negative feedback alone is not constructive, balanced feedback is important. Remember, however, that how you deliver it is more important than what you say. Our earlier concern was the ratio of positive-to-negative feedback. Research, however, shows that high-performing teams have a positive to negative feedback ratio of 2.9 or greater.3

The reason for biannual performance reviews and frequent micro reviews is to ensure that both you and the employee are doing what you each committed to do. If either of you is not living up to your commitment or if the employee’s performance is raising a concern, then quick (timely) and candid feedback is important. Coaching for Commitment Benefits

Coaching for commitment may appear to be time consuming, and you may wonder if it is worth it. The answers to these questions are:• Yes, it involves a greater upfront commitment of time.• Yes it’s worth it.

The benefits you can expect from coaching for commitment are:• Stronger employee engagement and commitment.• Better employee/job match, which results in higher productiv-

ity and retention.• Less time required to replace senior people who leave, as this

process is also inherently a succession building process.• Improved recruiting, as good employees will hear about your

work environment and will want to work there (we call this talent gravity).• A happier work environment (organizational and employee

health and well-being are proving ROI).• Greater creativity and innovation as employees feel supported

and inspired.• And. ultimately, better customer service from happier more

empowered employees.Is this a panacea? No. There are no panaceas. This is simply a better

way to manage the current workforce and to create the energy, creativ-ity, commitment, and drive organizations require to thrive.

When you are coaching for commitment, you will have a workforce that truly is one of your key differentiators in the marketplace. LE

References:1. Boyatzis, Richard E., et al. Coaching for Change, People Matters,

June 20102. Coaching for commitment is based on the work of Richard

E. Boyatizis and his team at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio

3. Losada, Marcial, and Heaphy, Emily. The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol 47(6), 740-765.

Tony Kubica and Sara LaForest are founding partners of Kubica LaForest Consulting, a con-sulting and coaching firm specializing in leadership development and business growth initiatives. They are authors of Organizational Gravity - Strategically Growing Your Companies Brand, Culture and Talent and speak to audiences nationally.Visit www.kubicalaforestconsulting.comVisit www.yourbusinessgyroscope.comEmail tony@kubicalaforestconsulting.comEmail sara@kubicalaforestconsulting.com

Leader as Coach

52leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 05.2014

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