GO Magazine | September 2015

Transcription

2015 Vol. 13, No. 2
Great People. Great Organizations. Great Results.
Build Your Leadership Brand
9
Reviewing Performance Appraisals
Elevations Credit Union On Top
14
20
David Robertson Redefines Innovation
26
Cardinal Health
Looks Forward
The health care giant is taking giant
steps to strengthen its leaders.
Page 4
Cardinal Health’s
Lisa George
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Ready Set...
Volume 13 • Number 2 • 2015
No career transition is more difficult or disorienting than
becoming a leader for the first time. Coworkers who may have been longtime
friends now report to you. Getting your own work done isn’t enough—now you
also have to focus on your team’s work and manage their performance. Problems
that once fell to someone else to solve now land on your desk.
Recognizing just how hard it all can be, my colleague Rich Wellins and I wrote a
book. It’s called Your First Leadership Job: How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the
Best in Others, and we filled it with practical advice, guidance, tools, and coaching
to help new leaders navigate the unfamiliar territory of their new role. While the
book is perfect for new leaders, it’s also a great resource for aspiring leaders, as
well as seasoned leaders who may want to push the reset button.
We were careful, though, not to write a “survival manual” akin to how to stay
alive if you get lost in the woods. Because, after all, becoming a leader shouldn’t
be viewed as an ordeal, but as an opportunity. Once you make the rookie mistakes
(many of which the book helps new leaders avoid), get your bearings, and begin
learning and practicing the craft of leadership, it’s fully possible to come through
the other side appreciating just how rewarding it can be to be a leader. That truth
is at the center of Your First Leadership Job.
In this issue of GO, we feature an excerpt of Your First Leadership Job that deals
with the importance of creating your leadership brand—something about which
too few leaders give much thought. Also here you will learn about how Cardinal
Health is developing leaders who develop trust and build morale, and how Elevations Credit Union’s focus on its people helped it become the first credit union to
win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Plus you can get a new take on career paths from Evan Sinar, rethink performance
appraisals with Andrew Gill, see new manufacturing findings from the Global
Leadership Forecast, and get insights on innovation from Wharton School professor
and author David Robertson.
Happy reading!
Tacy M. Byham, Ph.D.,
CEO, DDI
PUBLISHER
Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D.
MANAGING EDITOR
Craig Irons
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Susan Ryan
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Terri Sota
SENIOR GRAPHIC ARTIST
Mike Lawley
Editorial and Circulation:
GO
c/o Development Dimensions Intl.
1225 Washington Pike
Bridgeville, PA 15017-2838
Telephone: 412-257-0600
[email protected]
ABOUT DDI
DDI is one of the top talent management consultancies. Forty-five years
ago, we pioneered the field; today we
remain its chief innovator.
We help companies transform the way
they hire, promote, and develop their
leaders and workforce. The outcome?
People ready to instigate, understand,
and execute business strategy, and
address challenges head-on.
Our clients are some of the most
successful companies on earth.
They’re Fortune 500s and multinationals, doing business across a
vast array of industries. We serve
clients from 42 DDI-owned or
closely affiliated offices.
The principles and skills we teach
don’t just make people better employees, they are at the heart of what
makes for happier and more fulfilled
human beings—better family members, better neighbors, better friends.
©
Tacy and co-author Rich Wellins invite you to visit
www.YourFirstLeadershipJob.com for videos,
excerpts, and additional content related to the book.
evelopment Dimensions
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International, Inc., 2015.
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4
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20
14
26
Contents
GO Volume 13 • Number 2 • 2015
F EATUR E S
4
DE PART M E NT S
C
ardinal Health Nurtures Leadership Growth
Innovative development programs care for leaders
of people, projects, and processes.
13 T
rend Tracker
New manufacturing findings from the Global
Leadership Forecast 2014 ǀ 2015 data.
9 Building Your Leadership Brand
There’s no one perfect way to be a leader, but
there are identifiable practices that define a truly
effective one.
18 What’s
GOing On
Introducing the Service Ready support portal, Mindmarker training reinforcement bolsters DDI courses,
exciting changes to Business Impact LeadershipSM,
and Are You In the List? again recognizes India’s
rising HR stars.
14 Managing Performance in Real Time
The yearly performance appraisal cycle should
be only a starting point.
26 Coffee
on the GO with David Robertson
The innovation expert and author of a book on LEGO
discusses the human side of innovation.
20 “The Best Place You Have Ever Worked”
Unified talent processes helped Elevations Credit
Union win the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award.
31 Information
You Can Use!
New DDI research and thought leadership to spark
your thinking about talent management.
28 When Building Career Paths, Think Milton
Bradley—Not Rand McNally
A career isn’t a map: Why organizations need to
change how they think about career paths.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc., 2015. All rights reserved.
3
“Our message to employees:
Stay curious, try new things, and
stretch your thinking—we can all
make a difference in the future
of health care.”
- L isa George, VP,
global talent management
4
CARDINAL HEALTH
NURTURES LEADERSHIP
GROWTH
Innovative development programs care for
leaders of people, projects, and processes
Cardinal Health rigorously monitors the pulse of As a first step, the company translated its values into
its workforce. With the aid of its annual Voice of the
Employee (VOE) survey, the multinational health care
product and service provider routinely charts manager
effectiveness, inclusion, and employee engagement. In 2009
the survey data indicated room for improvement on trust and
morale measures and a need to continue to strengthen basic
leadership skills.
Cardinal Health executives point to the company’s history
as contributing to the VOE scores. For close to 40 years,
Cardinal Health was a holding company for a diverse portfolio of companies. Founded as a food distributor in 1971,
the company branched into pharmaceuticals eight years
later. Acquisitions followed; Cardinal Health added more
than 50 businesses to its growing health care segment.
Then in the mid-2000s, almost a decade after divesting its
food-related interests, Cardinal Health transitioned from a
holding company to an integrated operating organization.
“The pace of change in the health care marketplace is unprecedented and requires us to be innovative, adaptable,
and nimble. In order to do this, we have to have the best
talent focused on our customers and a culture that allows
that talent to grow and develop. We want all talent to see
Cardinal Health as the place they want to contribute and
grow their career,” says Carole Watkins, CHRO.
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actions. Cardinal Health created eight broad leadership
competencies known as the Leadership Essentials, which
embody its organizational leadership expectations for
those managing people, processes, and projects. “We integrated the Leadership Essentials into all of our HR processes—from selection to rewards—and rolled them out
with a strength-based approach that offered all employees
opportunities to build additional capabilities around leadership,” says Lisa George, vice president, global talent
management.
CONNECTING VALUES TO DEVELOPMENT
“Through a robust needs assessment process, we uncovered that we also lacked development and critical skills
at the first level of management. Given that these leaders
influence the greatest number of people, we focused our
initial development efforts on our frontline supervisors
and managers,” says Julie Blust, director, learning management.
Cardinal Health desired training content not only to build
capabilities and strengthen engagement, but also to align
with its values and Leadership Essentials, and connect to
its corporate mission—“Essential to care™.”
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Chairman and CEO George Barrett has been a champion of the Core Management Skills program.
The organization’s HR team found the solution it was looking for within DDI’s Interaction Management®: Exceptional
Leaders Series (IM: ExLSM). Courses from the series serve
as the foundation for Core Management Skills (CMS) 100, a
two-day program focused on developing fundamental skills
for effective workplace interactions. Topics covered in CMS
100 include building strategic work relationships, communication, coaching, and aligning performance for success.
Interest in the program grew rapidly by word of mouth;
leaders completing the program at one site would share their
experiences with colleagues at another. The executive team
was also busy buzzing about the new program. George Barrett, Cardinal Health’s chairman and CEO, recorded a video
message that introduced CMS 100. On screen, he reinforced
the importance of leadership development by sharing personal stories of influential leaders who’d shaped his career.
MAKING IT THEIR OWN
“We were able to customize the training examples to offer
real-world scenarios—things that happen on the floor of a
distribution or manufacturing center, in a nuclear pharmacy
or call center, out in the field, or at our corporate headquarters. The flexibility to add our own examples, based on where
we were facilitating the courses, worked so well. Plus, since
we began training our own trainers, the courses have a very
distinctive Cardinal Health connection,” says Julie Holbein,
director, global talent management.
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6
Program participants were particularly pleased with the
link between the training and Cardinal Health’s performance review process. Because individual performance
is evaluated equally based on goal accomplishment, the
company’s values, and the competencies comprising the
Leadership Essentials, the course content really resonated
with learners and advanced the goals of the organization.
“With CMS 100, we aimed to make managers more accountable for the performance of their employees through
better communication and coaching. Some of our facilities
have workers that span three generations,” says Enrique
Alvelais, HR director. “One of the main breakthroughs we
made with the program was to get our supervisors to understand that they need different leadership behaviors and
styles to address the different generations. Our people with
40-plus years of seniority don’t have the same expectations
as our millennials.”
FABULOUS FEEDBACK
As the number of CMS 100 graduates grew, the HR team
asked leaders to identify the capability and training needs
that remained. “We did balanced data mining of our talent
and performance reviews, looked at gaps in succession,
and conducted a 360 assessment, talking with managers,
their direct reports, as well as their management teams to
see how they were viewing one another,” says Blust. “This
was critical to ensure the capabilities we were building
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aligned to our culture, were linked to our business needs to
drive our strategy, and took into account the people side—
employees, customers, and, ultimately, patients. DDI was
of great help in our deep-dive analysis into the data.”
Leaders also gave high marks to their post-development job
performance. On a scale of 0 to 100 (with 100 being the
highest rating), trainees rated their overall performance at
91 points (an increase of approximately 10 percent).
In response to all the collected feedback, the HR team partnered with the business and created a second, follow-up
course series: CMS 200. The focus this time was on engaging and motivating employees, and creating an environment of trust. Whereas CMS 100 develops foundational
leadership skills for improving manager-employee interactions, CMS 200 course content offers skills for managing teams. Once again, selections from DDI’s IM: ExLSM
leadership series anchor the two-day program. To optimize
learning and allow for on-the-job application, HR asked
participants to allow 90 days between the two programs.
“We got fabulous feedback on the practicality of the tools
in our CMS programs,” says Holbein. “The fact that our
leaders received tools that they could take right out of the
classroom and use immediately was something we were
missing before.”
“After every class I facilitate, I give everyone about five
minutes to reflect on everything we talked about and
then identify two to three takeaways that they’re going to
implement back on the job,” says Jill Macinko, senior
consultant, learning delivery. “I think that has been impactful, and I encourage them to share those things with
class members and their managers so they have some
supportive accountability.”
DRAMATIC INCREASES IN
MANAGER EFFECTIVENESS
In 2013 DDI surveyed CMS 100 and 200 participants and
observers (peers, direct reports, etc.) to measure behavior
change—before and after training. Across the behavioral objectives of the six CMS/IM: ExLSM courses (Essentials of Leadership, Coaching for Success, Coaching for
Improvement, Adaptive Leadership, Building an Environment of Trust, and Motivating Others), the percent of
leaders who said they “often” or “almost always” display
effective leadership behaviors rose by 49 percent. Observers, meanwhile, witnessed a 30-percent improvement in
leader effectiveness on the same objectives.
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“Ultimately the companies that win in
the marketplace are the companies
that have the talent to win in the marketplace. We are deeply committed to
talent development inside Cardinal
Health. We believe this is the secret to
competitive advantage.”
George Barrett
Chairman and CEO, Cardinal Health
Looking at team-level results that were specifically attributed
to the CMS programs, leader effectiveness and communication between leaders and team members improved 62 and
63 percent, respectively. Employee efficiency, productivity,
engagement, morale, and inclusion in decision-making improved between 53 and 61 percent.
“If you look at our business results since we first implemented these programs, we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish all that we have as an organization without improving
the capabilities of our leaders,” says Barbara Hess, director,
global talent management. “Our Voice of the Employee surveys show dramatic increases in manager effectiveness and
employee engagement since the outset of these programs.”
When first launched, participation in CMS 100 and 200 was
voluntary; today, it is a welcomed requirement. The programs are now being delivered outside the U.S., at sites in
Canada, Malta, Thailand, China, and Latin America.
LEADERS OF PROCESS AND PRODUCT
Delighted by the CMS feedback from frontline leaders,
Cardinal Health turned its attention to individual contributors—process and project managers without direct reports.
The result was Maximizing Interactions (MI) 100 and 200.
Courses were chosen from DDI’s Interaction Management®:
Exceptional Performers Series (IM: ExPSM) and include:
Communicating with Impact, High-Impact Feedback and
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Listening, Navigating Beyond Conflict, and Influencing
Others. The two-day programs aimed not only to cascade the learning and language acquired by participants’
managers (in CMS 100 and 200), but also to standardize
workplace interactions for higher levels of engagement,
self-satisfaction, and performance. “One of the things I
took away from the training was the importance of getting
to know my associates better on a more human, personal level,” says Robert Moore, lead associate, warehouse
operations. “I listened to their pain points, learned to disagree respectfully…keeping it neutral and not making it
about me. It’s about the team, the company, and that we’re
all connected.”
“I am always looking to cut waste, be more lean,” says
Jessenia Gaitan, also a lead associate in warehouse operations. “Shortly after training I came up with a waste-cutting idea, but instead of taking action and instructing my
teammates to follow along, as had been my style, I went
to them and asked for their input. We agreed to roll it out,
as a pilot, to allow us all to evaluate how it was going to
impact the team and our customers. It was gratifying to
see the team take ownership of the project, make it theirs,
collaborate on tweaking the process, and make it even
better.”
To see videos about Cardinal Health’s development initiative, and learn
more about Interaction Management®, Manager Ready®, and Leader3
Ready® visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
JOURNEYS TO THE FUTURE
As its commitment to development continues to evolve, Cardinal Health is planning a series of learning journeys to deliver finely
targeted development across more levels of leadership.
“From our CMS participants, we would hear, ‘Why isn’t my leader going through this?’” says Pamela Henry, senior consultant,
learning delivery. “The learning journeys will put all leaders and their direct reports on the same page, speaking the same language.”
Four development stages comprise the two-year journeys. The customized content is tailored to meet the needs of new and long-time
employees, internal and external hires, and both people managers and highly valued individual contributors (many of whom lead
without direct authority).
To identify these needs, Cardinal Health is capitalizing on assessment.
All people-leader journeys will begin with either Manager Ready® or Leader3 Ready®, DDI’s online assessments for frontline and
mid-level managers, respectively. With these diagnostic tools, development needs can be identified before leaders embark on their
prescriptive, skill-building learning journeys.
Krista Juras, a sales supervisor who participated in a Manager Ready® pilot program says: “The feedback report was so beneficial.
It identified specific skills that I need to work on—and am working on every day!”
“In the near future, everyone at every level will have expanded and targeted development opportunities,” says Blust. “There will be
required, foundational training and experiences, as well as ‘elective’ offerings that individuals can self-select based on assessment
results, development planning, feedback discussions, career aspirations, etc. It’s the most exciting part—the ability to create your
own personalized learning path which becomes more flexible as you progress in your career.”
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8
BUILDING YOUR
LEADERSHIP
BRAND
There’s no one perfect way to be a leader, but there are identifiable practices that define a truly effective one.
By Tacy M. Byham, Ph.D., and Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D.
Most people
will experience moments when they
regret something they said, did, or failed to do. It’s part
of being human. But for a freshly minted leader, those
human moments can accumulate quickly and do real
damage if you’re not careful. This can happen for many
reasons, including underestimating just how profound
the transition is from individual contributor to leader.
You’re probably approaching the first encounters with
your new team with a sense of anxious anticipation and
armed with a mental checklist of the unique value you
have always brought to your work. As your new team
looks to you for the first time, they are understandably
worried about how that value will make things harder
for them.
The people who now report to you will form an early
judgment about your leadership capabilities that will define your reputation in ways that may not serve you well,
particularly when you’re also mastering the full scope of
your new job. Consider the simple truth that consumers
face: If their experience with a product is not good, they
won’t use it again. And they’ll most likely complain about
it to other people. The dark cloud spawned by poor word
of mouth can dampen a product’s prospects in the marketplace for a long time. So, whether you’re 30 seconds
into your leadership job or have been in place a while and
could use a reputational do-over, you’ll need to develop
and consistently operate within a broader framework of
how you think about your new role. Here we introduce
you to three attributes that will help you create a positive
leadership brand—one that cultivates trust and truly reflects your authentic self.
What’s in a Leadership Brand?
While there’s no one perfect way to be a leader, there are
clearly identifiable practices that set apart truly effective
leaders from average or poor ones. Research has shown
that successful leaders demonstrate three key attributes—
we call them leadership differentiators—that help them
gain confidence and skill in leading a group. Embrace
them and you will be successful out of the gate.
They are:
• Be Authentic.
• Bring Out the Best in People.
• Be Receptive to Feedback.
Clearly, these attributes are commendable for everyone,
whatever their life’s work. Good leaders eventually realize their true value—some earlier and some later—during
their career. Research clearly shows that these differentiators can predict future success, as well. That’s important
information for you on two other fronts. While as a leader
9
you’ll be coaching others, you also might be in a position
to help select future peers and team members. Look for
these attributes in others. Furthermore, even if you are not a
leader yet, these skills will help you make your mark as an
individual contributor and distinguish yourself as a strong
candidate for advancement. And people will want to work
with you more. Which is a good thing!
• Blame others for their missteps.
• Take credit.
• R
adically change their behavior to sound
more leaderly.
• Pretend to know everything.
With these behaviors in mind, it should come as no surprise to learn that in our many focus groups with senior
executives, the importance of authenticity in leaders received some of the most resounding affirmations—across
cultures, industries, and professional sectors. Executives
worry about how their leaders are perceived, and so should
you. Why? Authenticity is fueled by integrity, which in turn
fosters trust—the fundamental catalyst in the most-admired
workplaces. Most-admired workplaces have happier, more
engaged, productive, and creative employees. When people
trust you, it’s not just good for your reputation—it’s good
for business, too.
We’ve found that the best
leaders have the innate
ability to make everyone
around them better.
Be Authentic
Being authentic means that your actions mirror what you
believe and feel, and that there is no contradiction between
what you do and what you say.
Bring Out the Best in People
We’ve found that the best leaders have the innate ability to
make everyone around them better.
You demonstrate authenticity when you:
Management tomes and business magazines correctly tout
our current era as an age of collaboration—an optimistic
time where solutions are crowd-sourced, opportunities are
designed, and far-flung teams work together creatively at
all hours of the day from every corner of the globe. While it
is true that new technologies enable new ways of working
together, it’s also true that the type of leader who thrives
in this environment—one who resists traditional command
and control structure—has always existed. And it is precisely this type of person who will thrive as a leader today.
• Do what’s right, even in difficult situations.
• Treat people with respect.
• Promote trust among others.
• Keep promises and commitments.
• Admit mistakes.
• Give credit when it’s due.
• D
isclose by sharing your thoughts, feelings, and
rationale, when appropriate.
• Display confidence but avoid arrogance.
Don’t worry if you’re not a natural at this; you can learn.
One key is to ask smart questions and listen to the answers.
It takes win-win thinking to help others be the best they
can be. Great leaders possess this outlook. They know that
their own success relies on the success of the people they
lead and that one of their chief responsibilities is to foster
their team members’ skills, abilities, interests, and efforts.
It’s never too early to establish this positive philosophy and
put it into action.
Conversely, leaders who are inauthentic can have a debilitating effect on the teams they lead. These leaders tend to:
• Hoard information.
• Pit team members against each other or play favorites.
• Disregard team members who don’t agree with them.
• Ignore tensions and workplace conflict.
10
To bring out the best in people:
wrong typically suffer the ripple effects of low morale and
high turnover (which is bad for business). And they keep
making the same mistakes again and again, which can cause
real problems for an organization.
• Encourage your team to try new things.
• Cultivate and optimize others’ talents and capabilities.
• T
ake the time to find out what motivates your team and
assign work in line with people’s skills and interests.
But anyone can master the practice of seeking and using
feedback. The first steps, of course, are up to you. To show
your receptivity to feedback:
• Compliment people on their efforts.
• Give people input on things that affect them.
• A
sk for and use feedback about your leadership from
multiple sources.
• Trust in the strengths of others.
• Accept and act on developmental feedback.
• A
llow them to safely learn through failure, so they can
take appropriate risks.
• Acknowledge your shortcomings.
• Display humility.
• Unite others toward common goals.
• Hold yourself to high expectations.
Be Receptive to Feedback
Then, Widen the Circle
For this last differentiator, we’ll explore how team members
and other workplace associates can reciprocate and bring
out the best in you by giving you feedback.
With feedback it’s not a “less is more” but a “more is more”
opportunity. The more perspectives you gather, the more
likely you are to get the true message people are sending.
Leadership research bears out what USA Olympic gymnastics coach Mary Lee Tracy recognizes as a distinguishing
characteristic of elite athletes: “Athletes are no different
than other people in that they will make mistakes. What
is so important and what I look for in future elite athletes
is how they respond to failure. It’s so important they don’t
continue to fail, but fail forward.”
Consider asking:
• Y
our manager for perspective on how you’re leading
the team, how you’re communicating back up to him,
and how well you work with peers.
our peers to provide perspectives on your interdepart• Y
mental collaborations and insights from customers.
our direct reports, who can let you know if you’re
• Y
communicating your expectations clearly and appropriately seeking their input in your decision making.
One of the variables that over time has shown to predict
leadership success is an individual’s “receptivity to feedback.” Those who generally seek and use feedback from
others and view mistakes as learning opportunities tend to
be more successful in leadership roles. The fail-forward
concept should be adopted for all leaders. But it only works
if you’re willing to seek and accept the feedback of people
who are in a position to evaluate your work.
our customers to share their perspectives on your and
• Y
your team’s performance.
Leaders who are open to
feedback begin by thanking
the giver for sharing and then
asking questions to gather the
specifics. These are the leaders
who will succeed.
First, Ask . . .
We know from experience that what we’re asking you to do
is harder than it sounds. Most leaders find seeking feedback
to be pretty difficult. Nobody wants to show weakness, particularly in business. Part of it is personality based: Receptivity to feedback is learned early in life and can be difficult
to develop as an adult if you don’t make an effort. But seeking growth is not showing weakness. Leaders who are never
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Finally, Receive with Gratitude
• S
enior leaders are less likely to ask for feedback. Supervisors will seek feedback for improvement 64 percent
of the time, while senior leaders seek it only 43 percent
of the time.
Saying that you’re open to receiving feedback is one thing.
Actually welcoming it is another matter, especially if the
feedback challenges you in unexpected ways. It can feel like
very bad news. But you can train yourself to see feedback as
the gift it truly is.
Consistent failure to seek feedback on your brand can have
a negative impact on your career. In a study of 462 leaders
in a Fortune 500 company, 77 leaders, average age of 50,
were asked to leave their organizations, after an average
tenure of 18 years. An analysis of 360-degree feedback
data collected two years prior to their dismissal found a
significant difference on a measurement of the extent to
which leaders made a constructive effort to change based
on feedback from others.
Leaders who are open to feedback begin by thanking the
giver for sharing and then asking questions to gather the
specifics. And these are the leaders who will succeed.
Don’t like feedback surprises? Try asking team members
for feedback as a regular part of team or individual meetings. This signals that you’re trying to build an environment
of trust and continuous improvement. And acting on feedback is even better; it demonstrates that you have room for
improvement, which makes you more approachable and
human.
My Legacy, My Brand
Think about the legacy you want to build and how the differentiators might help you build that brand reputation.
And, while business results are important, the only way to
achieve them is through people.
Researchers Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman analyzed
the feedback-seeking behavior of 51,896 leaders over three
years. They discovered that:
This article is adapted from the recently published book Your First
Leadership Job: How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others
(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015). It is available through bookstores and
major online booksellers.
• L
eaders who seek more are viewed as stronger. Leaders
who actively sought feedback and looked for opportunities to improve were viewed as 86 percent effective.
They topped the list. Leaders who fell lowest on the survey in terms of openness to feedback were rated as only
15 percent effective.
Tacy M. Byham, Ph.D., is CEO, and
Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D., senior
vice president at DDI.
• F
eedback-seeking behaviors decline with age. Most
people seek more early in their career, but the tendency
diminishes over time.
12
Telling Number:
TRENDTRACKER
9
Manufacturing Leaders
Aren’t Ready to Deliver
The rich trove of data gathered for the Global Leadership Forecast 2014 ǀ 2015
included responses from 3,143 leaders and 322 human resources executives in
and compiled the results into a new study report, Ready-Now Leaders: Meeting
Times more likely companies
with high leadership quality and
engagement are to outperform
Tomorrow’s Manufacturing Talent Challenges. The report highlights the top
their peers financially.
talent-related barriers to revenue growth and also identifies 10 proven talent
Source: Global Leadership
Forecast 2014 ǀ 2015
manufacturing organizations across 48 countries. DDI has analyzed this data
practices to reduce costs and increase revenue.
To download the report, visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
Manufacturing Leaders
Get Last Place
We examined how various industries have
changed in the past few years and what
leadership readiness trends have emerged
since 2011 (the date of the previous Global
Leadership Forecast). Manufacturing is
at the bottom of the list in terms of leader
readiness to take on current and future
challenges.
Percent of leaders rating overall leader quality as high.
Percent of manufacturers that do each of the five types of analytics well.
Manufacturing Isn’t Leveraging
Talent Analytics
To better understand the gap between talent analytics
practices and recognized value to the manufacturing
plant or business unit, we focused on several forms
of leadership analytics, ranging from basic to advanced. We found that 47 percent of organizations
don’t do any form of leadership analytics well. Only
one in 20 does all forms well.
13
Managing Performance
in Real Time
The yearly performance
appraisal cycle should be
only a starting point.
By Andrew Gill
© Development
©
Inc., 2015.
2015. All
Allrights
rightsreserved
reserved..
14
A sound performance management system is
the year, a mid-year progress update, and an end-of-year
review. The problem with this discussion frequency, apart
from the often-questionable accuracy and completeness
of the data discussed, is that any learning moment has
been lost or delayed beyond its point of usefulness. As a
result, any “coaching” gets lost and the leader falls back
on a discussion of the results rather than how they were
achieved or not achieved—and what could have been
done differently to ensure success.
an invaluable asset to an organization. It cascades strategic
priorities down through the ranks, spells out the whats and
hows that define effective performance, promotes accountability, and enables leaders and employees to track and
monitor how they are performing.
But, unfortunately, even when a performance management
system is correctly focused, properly streamlined, and
functioning as intended, most leaders and employees
are not as engaged in the process as they could be. They
don’t recognize its full value and, often, don’t like going
through it.
Instead, they grudgingly participate by dutifully spending
hours compiling and filling out their performance management documentation and sitting through a biannual performance discussion with their leader. In this discussion
they find themselves justifying their ratings, defending
their “mistakes,” and explaining away their missed targets
and goals. In the end, they get their overall performance
rating, their leader signs off, and they learn what their pay
increase (if any) will be.
2. D
ata bias. When there are only two or three performance discussions a year, it becomes difficult to
prepare. This is because, with the exception of the
beginning-of-the-year planning discussion, they are
backward-looking and demand both leaders and employees to keep excellent records throughout the year
or to reconstruct performance from up to 12 months
ago. This requires significant effort on everyone’s part
and invariably leads to performance appraisal discussions being based on limited or incomplete data. Even
if the data is complete, performance data that is up to a
year old is, well, old.
Much changes from week to week and month to
month, and a discussion devoted in part to recounting
what happened up to a year ago can border on irrelevant. Just as bad is when recent performance overshadows the evaluation of a year’s worth of performance,
such as when a successful—or unsuccessful—project
at year end is given too much weight when evaluating
an individual’s performance for a 12-month period.
For their part, leaders often lack the timely and relevant
data needed to evaluate a full year’s worth of performance
accurately. The leader hopes to get through the discussion without the employee voicing concerns or objections
when the leader disagrees with a rating or highlights the
employee’s need for improvement or development.
It’s all such fun! And nobody ends up looking forward to
doing it again next year.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
It’s a shame that an important process, one that offers an
opportunity to improve employee motivation and capability is all too often seen as a challenging, time-consuming,
“check the box” biannual obligation. Yet, that’s the current
view of the performance appraisal process in most organizations. So, how has it come to this? There are multiple
reasons:
1. I nfrequent discussions. Most performance appraisal
discussions occur two to three times per year—a typical
cycle includes a planning discussion at the beginning of
3. Polluting the performance discussion with compensation. Then there is the all-too-common practice
of lumping together the performance appraisal and
compensation discussions. This lethal combination can
inhibit open and holistic discussion about performance,
as the employee is likely to see the size of his pay increase as the only metric that matters when it comes to
judging how well (or not well) he did during the year.
Also, any opportunity for a meaningful development
discussion is overshadowed by the discussion around
compensation—the real purpose of the meeting, in the
employee’s view.
15
4. The process overshadows the discussion. Because
an annual performance appraisal requires so much
preparation, it is easier for leaders and employees to
fall into the trap of focusing on the process and forms
rather than on the discussion. This is especially likely
when a leader has numerous direct reports. Given the
challenges with the data, it is often easier to see the
performance appraisal process as an exercise in satisfying organizational expectations than as an opportunity
to have a meaningful performance discussion—a fact
reinforced by the frequent email reminders sent by HR
to leaders and employees to complete these discussions
by the designated deadline date.
other words, annual and biannual performance discussions
need to be the culmination of, not a substitute for, frequent, timely feedback and performance coaching.
MAKING PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL BETTER
Be timely. The most valuable feedback and coaching are
provided in real time—immediately after, or even before,
an event or task. For example, feedback and coaching on
a poorly handled meeting is best provided immediately
after the fact, when the experience is fresh in the minds
of both the employee and the leader. This also allows the
employee to begin taking steps to improve as soon as possible. Better yet is to have a coaching discussion with the
employee before he leads the meeting to ensure a higher
likelihood of success.
Despite all the issues described above, the annual performance appraisal cycle isn’t going away anytime soon—
it’s too deeply entrenched in most organizations. To make
the most of their organization’s performance appraisal
process, however, leaders need to break free from the
strictures of talking to their people about their job performance just two or three times a year and incorporate performance discussions into their day-to-day interactions. In
Does this mean leaders should have their direct reports’
performance plans handy at all times, so they can have a
performance discussion at the drop of a hat? Do leaders
need to have more frequent formal performance reviews
with employees? Do employees need to keep better performance records? The answers are “No,” “No,” and “Not
at all.” But there are some quick tips and best practices
that will make performance feedback and coaching more
useful—and the formal performance appraisal discussions
less painful:
Twice a Year vs. Every Day CONVERSATIONS!
DEV
EL
ENT
PM
O
Let’s
discuss what
happened...
Leader:“Didn't we revise your
goals six months ago?”
16
Need help?
PERFO
R
End-of-year
What
did
you
learn?
MENT
OP PERFOR
CE
AN
M
Employee:“I should have done
WHAT three months ago?!!!”
Your goals
What’s next? will help us...
NCE
MA DEVEL
Mid-year
What do
you want
to learn?
How are
you doing?
goals six months ago?”
The Bottom Line on Conversations
Organizations with Effective Performance Management:
14x
1.8x
more likely to have
high-leadership strength
more likely to be in top
third of financial performers
(DDI, GLF 2014 | 2015)
(DDI, GLF 2014 | 2015)
Be specific and feed it forward. Vague feedback and
coaching open the door to misunderstanding and future
disagreement. There were some things in the meeting
you could have done better may be a good way to open a
feedback and coaching discussion, but the conversation
then needs to zero in on what specifically could have
been improved upon—and to discuss specific actions the
employee can take to improve.
1 to 20%
increase in customer retention,
revenue, and engagement
(Brandon Hall Group, 2015)
for the employee receiving the feedback and coaching to
self-reflect and identify where he could improve. How
do you feel you could have handled that meeting more
effectively? makes it more probable that the employee
will accept the need to develop in that area.
PERFORMANCE DISCUSSIONS
SHOULD NEVER END!
To be more effective when discussing employee performance, leaders need to stop relying solely on the annual
performance discussion and mid-year check-in. Instead,
they need to initiate multiple and ongoing conversations
with their people about their performance—and provide
timely feedback and coaching that continues to move the
employee forward in growth and development.
Explain benefits or implications. Because the discussion needs to motivate the individual to take action,
the leader needs to “sell” the importance of the feedback—i.e., the potential implications if the feedback isn’t
acted upon and the potential benefits if it is. Group feedback sessions where an entire team reflects on a recent
task or project can be an effective approach to promote
ownership and buy-in. In these settings the leader can
build on what is shared by the group, rather than being the
first to speak and leading the discussion.
These ongoing conversations are immediately relevant and
useful and, as such, they can feel supportive and personal.
Plus, a benefit of these conversations is that, when the
dreaded annual performance appraisal meeting comes
around, there are no surprises and the conversation can
focus on the future rather than rehashing the past.
Be interactive. Balancing telling and asking offers
multiple benefits. For one, it allows the leader to uncover
information about the situation she may not be aware of:
I had only been given the data to share with the group
right before the meeting. It also provides an opportunity
(or more)
To learn more about DDI’s solutions for driving effective performance
management, visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
Andrew Gill is vice president, consulting services, for DDI.
17
WHAT’S GOING ON
Are You In the List?
Recognizes India’s
Rising HR Stars
For the fourth year in a row, DDI is partnering with People Matters, India’s leading knowledge and media platform in the
HR space, to recognize India’s emerging
future HR leaders. The initiative Are
You In the List? is the largest to identify
dynamic HR leaders between the ages of
26 and 35 from organizations within India.
Introducing the Service Ready
Support Portal for End-Users
DDI’s new technology support portal, Service Ready, provides our
end-users with the ability to resolve technical product support issues—
online or on a mobile device. The portal enables candidates, participants,
and administrators to solve learning or assessment technology challenges
quickly and efficiently, and also provide input on DDI product development.
With Service Ready, end-users can:
+ Submit and track support tickets for technical issues 24/7.
+ Search for self-help information (in English only) on our systems and
products, 24/7 from anywhere in the world.
+ Stay up-to-date on important technology information, such as new
releases and technical specifications.
+ Provide feedback to DDI service teams and make suggestions for
new products or improvements to existing ones.
+ See alerts if there are DDI product or system outages.
To access the Service Ready portal, visit https://ddi.service-now.com/serviceready.
Since its inception in 2012, Are You In
the List? has drawn more than 4,500
applicants, including more than 2,000
in 2014.
Applicants go through a rigorous eightmonth journey that includes a cognitive
ability test, leadership assessment via
DDI’s Manager Ready®, video interviews, and a business analysis case
study. Each applicant is evaluated
against a comprehensive Success
Profile, based in part on DDI’s
exhaustive research base.
From the process, “HR’s 25 Most Wanted” are identified, honored at an awards
ceremony, and profiled on the People
Matters web site.
For more information on Are You In
the List? including how to apply, visit
www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
New Lineup of DDI Events Taking Shape!
DDI
events
DDI is planning an exciting new lineup of webinars on the leadership and assessment
topics that matter most to you and your organization! See the current schedule of webinars and
sign up for those that meet your needs at www.ddiworld.com/events. And check back often—
more topics and dates are added regularly!
18
DDI Courses Now Feature Mindmarker Training Reinforcement
DDI courses now are even more powerful and “sticky” thanks to a new partnership with Mindmarker, the leader
in training reinforcement. Mindmarker has developed and deployed training reinforcement for DDI’s leadership
development courses.
Many DDI courses now include custom-built Mindmarker Training Reinforcement, which is delivered to participants
through the Mindmarker app (iOS, Android, Windows, web application). Making Mindmarker Training Reinforcement
available post-training serves to increase knowledge retention and drive application toward mastery.
“This innovative, easy-to-use application automatically pushes key pieces of our content to learners, and the backend dashboard puts valuable information at the fingertips of our HR partners,” says Barry Stern, DDI senior vice
president, development solutions. “It’s like a mini-learning journey in a box for individuals—clearly, the right tool at
the right time.”
The Mindmarker Training Reinforcement app joins DDI’s robust toolbox for reinforcing and sustaining learning. To see an overview of all of the
available resources, visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
Business Impact Leadership®
More Exciting + Engaging!
DDI has updated the Business Impact Leadership® (BIL) development
series to create a more engaging, transformative experience for your
mid-level leaders! While each course objective remains the same, with
the updates there are numerous improvements, including:
+ A New Course—Leading with a Global Perspective—for developing
culturally-competent leaders with the best of DDI’s proven methodology and TMC/Berlitz’s leading-edge cultural self-insight tools. This
new course replaces Operating with a Global Perspective.
+ Updated Research and statistics within all of the course materials,
to ensure each course’s continued relevance in today’s business
environment.
+ Fine-Tuned Content drawn from feedback from our top facilitators,
including improved timing for activities, clearer instructions, and
better transitions between units.
+ A New Contemporary Design has been applied to all participant
and facilitator materials, providing the executive impact essential
for mid-level leaders.
Learn more about Business Impact LeadershipSM, visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
19
OUR NEW NEIGHBORHOOD
DDI’s UK office is moving
to the heart of London.
If you find yourself in the neighborhood,
we would love to give you a tour of our
new office. Stop by and say hello!
THE CONNECTION
198 HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON WC1V 7BD
20
“THE BEST PLACE YOU
HAVE EVER WORKED”
Unified talent processes helped Elevations Credit Union win
the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Annette Matthies, chief human resources officer
INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP
of Elevations Credit Union, has been talking for several
minutes when she politely punctuates her lengthy response
to a question with a statement of self-awareness.
Elevations Credit Union began in 1953 with a single branch
located on the campus of the University of Colorado in
Boulder. Today, the credit union has more than 110,000
members, assets in excess of $1.5 billion, and 11 branches
serving seven counties in and around metropolitan Denver.
“I’ll take a moment and breathe. I’m really passionate
about this part of our business, in case you couldn’t tell.”
The part of the business that has sparked Matthies’ passion is the range of improved talent initiatives the Boulder, Colorado-based credit union has put in place in recent years, including succession management, leadership
development, talent acquisition, and new-hire orientation
(see “How to … Help New Employees Start Strong” on
page 24). This spate of initiatives helped the 388-employee organization become the first-ever credit union to win
the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
in 2014, the U.S.’s highest level of recognition for performance excellence.
While the organization experienced steady growth during
its first half century, it wasn’t until Gerry Agnes came on
board as president and CEO in 2008 that Elevations began
taking its talent focus to a new level. The impetus was Agnes’ goal of winning the Baldrige award.
It’s not the Baldrige Award, however, that sets Elevations
apart when it comes to talent, although the systemization,
application of best practices, replicable processes, benchmarking, and metrics that led to the honor are what make
Elevations an organization from which others can learn.
What is most admirable is embodied by Elevations’ employee value proposition: “The best place you have ever
worked.”
For Elevations, pursuit of the Baldrige award provided an
organizational focal point, but, even more important, the
effort to attain the accolade served to bring structure and
discipline to its objectives around better serving the credit union’s 110,000-plus members. These member-centric
objectives are part of Elevations’ five-year strategic plan,
which the organization has tied directly to the architecture
of its talent systems.
The Baldrige program, established by the U.S. Congress
in 1987, recognizes manufacturers, service organizations,
and small businesses for their achievements in quality and
business performance. The program also aims to raise
awareness about the importance of quality and performance excellence in gaining a competitive edge.
21
“It starts first with employee engagement. If our employees
are engaged and giving everything they’ve got every single day, and they are happy in their jobs and fulfilled, that
translates into more and stronger member loyalty,” explains
Matthies. “We then have members that want to continue to
do business with us, because it’s an enjoyable experience.
They feel like we are trusted advisors. And the more member loyalty we have, that translates directly into financial
sustainability, and we have an organization that can then
take care of our employees. So, it’s really an interdependent
relationship.”
A program for new managers, Foothills Leadership, provides the skills and knowledge to be a successful leader at
Elevations. All participants in this program are required to
complete a curriculum covering topics such as communication, coaching, and developing others. Part of the program
also includes being trained in DDI’s behavioral interviewing system, Targeted Selection®.
The program for incumbent managers, Tree Line Leadership, enhances the core skills leaders already possess. The
program requires each participant to attend a course called
Building a Career Development Plan and is tailored to meet
the individual needs of each leader based on his or her career goals and leadership style. Upon completing 100 hours
of coursework, leaders in the program complete a 360 assessment to measure the progress they’ve made throughout
their leadership journey.
To optimize this interdependent relationship, Elevations
sought to bolster its existing talent processes. The first step
was adopting a competency framework around which to integrate all of these processes and establish consistency and
a common leadership language across all levels. The competencies also served to operationalize and reinforce the organizations strategic and cultural priorities.
Seasoned senior leaders take part in a program called Summit Leadership, in which they continue to refresh and add
new ideas and approaches to their leadership tool kits. As
with Tree Line Leadership, this program is tailored to address each manager’s career goals and leadership style, and
requires participants to collaborate with senior leaders or
executive coaches to review and refresh their development
plans. Once they’ve taken that step, they complete an additional 100 hours of coursework, drawing on a variety of
courses and learning methodologies, and then complete a
360 assessment to measure their progress.
“When we looked at DDI’s competencies, there were several things we liked about the model, especially how the
competencies have very clear definitions,” says Matthies.
Matthies and her team worked with the Elevations’ executive team to begin proactive succession planning, using the
competencies as a basis. This process entailed consulting
the five-year strategic plan, and determining what the org
chart would need to look like and where there were talent
gaps to be addressed.
“Once we started on the Baldrige journey, we had a stronger
leadership focus and the reason for that is the framework
Baldrige provides,” says Matthies, referring to the Criteria
for Performance Excellence that Elevations closely adhered
to in preparing to apply for the award. “We know that employees will more likely leave their managers than their
company, so the relationship with those leaders is really important. You need to have strong leaders.”
“In the Baldrige application, they asked us questions about
succession planning and developing our future leaders,
and doing it in a very systematic way so that it’s repeatable and that every time that we repeat it, we could then
look at what we did and improve upon it and measure it,”
says Matthies.
Toward addressing its talent gaps, Elevations launched a
four-level pipeline leadership training initiative. The four
programs in the initiative, which incorporate courses from
DDI’s Interaction Management® and Business Impact
Leadership® leadership development systems, include
a pre-leadership track called Base Camp Leadership to
prepare high-potential individual contributors for future
opportunities in management and leadership. Participants
in this program can choose to take elective courses that
align with their career goals.
TAKING HIRING HIGHER
The adoption of the competency framework also offered
Elevations an opportunity to create a better hiring process
by implementing DDI’s competency-based Targeted Selection® behavioral interviewing system. Targeted Selection®
enabled Elevations to standardize its interviewing process
across all jobs and locations. The system also provided
22
interviewers with job-relevant questions that more accurately assess for motivational fit and an interviewing experience
that makes a positive impression on candidates. Impressing
candidates throughout the selection process is important to
Elevations, because even those who aren’t hired are still
coveted as credit union members.
“We know that employees will more
likely leave their managers than their
company. You need to have strong
leaders.”
“When we started looking at Targeted Selection, we saw
that it would be a really nice complement,” says Matthies.
“It would enable us to ensure that the talent we’re bringing
into the organization is not only a good culture fit, but also a
match with the competencies required for the job. And then,
because we are using the same competencies for hiring that
we are for development, it also ties nicely into the development that we’re doing on the succession planning side, and
also for career development for all employees.”
won the award in 2014, upon its first time applying at the
national level—an outcome that was a pleasant surprise to all.
What’s more, Elevations found that the more standardized
interviewing process allowed it to more efficiently gather the information needed to make high-quality hiring
decisions.
“It’s basically performance management as an organization,” says Pete Reicks, senior vice president of enterprise
performance, pointing out that Elevations, in accordance
with the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, systemized areas such as strategic planning and operations,
in addition to its talent systems. “The Baldrige standards
dictate that performance has to be trended over time and,
where possible, matched to external benchmarks so we
know how we’re doing relative to both in-market and in-industry benchmarks, as well as out-of-industry, world-class
benchmarks. The standards are very rigorous. You can’t just
tell a story. You have to have numbers that align with your
story, and those numbers need to be not just how you’ve
performed over time, but how you’ve performed compared
with best-in-class role models.”
“We thought it would take 10, 15, 20 years to achieve,” says
Matthies, who believes the honor came Elevations’ way
because the entire organization was focused on the goal and
involved in the effort to make it happen.
The expectation that winning the award would be a longterm goal stemmed from all that is entailed in becoming
Baldrige worthy.
“Before, because of multiple branch locations, a candidate
would need to interview with different managers and it
was a time-consuming process,” says Kim Felton, senior
vice president, retail banking. “When we went to Targeted
Selection, with its standardized questions and data integration sessions where interviewers discuss the data they
gathered from the candidates, we found that we gathered
a lot more information and it really did work. We were
excited about that.”
Since implementing Targeted Selection, Elevations has
seen marked improvement in employee turnover. Its annual turnover rate in 2010 was 26 percent. By 2014 it had
dropped to 19 percent—a figure five percentage points
below the 24-percent benchmark the organization aims to
match or exceed.
“Part of the Baldrige framework, I believe, is to really make
sure those processes are repeatable and measurable and that
you can improve on them over time,” says Matthies, alluding to Elevations’ “huge effort” since 2009 to document
processes and put them in place.
“We have built an incredible team, having people in place
that like our culture and environment and that can succeed
here,” says Felton. “I think we have found the people that
really want to be here and have excelled.”
“ALL IN” EVERY DAY
By adopting the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, Elevations made significant progress in several areas.
It expanded its membership by 35 percent, grew assets 53
percent and deposits 51 percent, and increased consumer
loan production 189 percent. Elevations also became the top
credit union provider of mortgages in Colorado.
HOW TO WIN A BALDRIGE
Agnes believed it would take Elevations several years and
multiple attempts to win the Baldrige. Instead, Elevations
23
HOW TO. . . HELP NEW
EMPLOYEES START STRONG
On the talent side, Elevations has also seen a 17-percent rise in employee engagement, a result that
helped the credit union rank as finalist in the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2015 Best
Companies to Work for in Colorado competition.
While the higher engagement levels can be tied to
its stronger leaders, Elevations’ organizational culture, which is rooted in its core values, and its emphasis on career planning have also contributed to
these higher levels.
“If you were to walk around Elevations, you would
hear story after story of people who have started in
entry-level roles and have grown in the organization,” says Ellie Fordyce, assistant vice president,
human resources. “I am one of them. I started as
a teller, and now I help lead the department. But
there are dozens of people who have found a career here because of all the tools that we’ve given
our employees.”
The opportunities for upward mobility, the available tools, and the commitment to process-driven
continuous improvement have combined to make
Elevations not only an award-winning workplace,
but a special one.
“Our goal is for this to be the best place that everyone has ever worked,” says Matthies. “Looking at
our employee engagement surveys, for the vast majority of our employees, it is. But we’re still trying
to get better every single day and really just truly
making this an enjoyable place where you feel like
you have opportunities to learn and grow every year
and to have your strengths utilized.”
“I, for one, can honestly say this is the best place
I’ve ever worked. I’m pretty proud of that, and I’m
going to fight pretty hard to make sure it stays that
way,” says Reicks. “So, I am ‘all in’ every day.”
To learn more about DDI’s competency library, Interaction
Management®, Business Impact Leadership®, and Targeted
Selection® visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine.
Making what chief human resources officer Annette
Matthies describes as “a major investment” in its
workforce, Elevations puts all of its new hires through
a comprehensive four-week new-employee orientation
program at its Wilderness Peaks Support Center facility,
where most of the credit union’s back office operations are
located. This program has proved to be so valuable that
Elevations extended it to existing employees in order to
give them the same experience and information. Here’s
just some of what’s included in the month-long experience.
• Meeting senior leaders. Elevations runs the newemployee orientation program every month, and on
the first day of each session, members of Elevations’
executive team attend to introduce themselves and
even assist in delivering the training. Matthies points
out that while it’s not unheard of for senior leaders to
meet and greet new employees at orientation sessions,
the fact that Elevations’ executives do it every month is
“a huge commitment.”
• Learning through simulation. The facility where the
orientation program is conducted features a simulated
teller window where new hires can practice customer
interactions and learn Elevations’ approach to selling
services to meet member needs. This opportunity is important because not all new hires come from a financial
services background. “We are looking for people that
have specific competencies and not necessarily bank
experience,” says Ellie Fordyce, assistant vice president, human resources.
• Volunteering in the community. The new employees
are introduced to Elevations’ dedication to the community by taking part in a half day of volunteer work.
“We take the entire training class on what we call our
volunteer time off, and have that scheduled as part of
the new-employee orientation, just so they can experience it because it’s so much of who we are as an
organization,” says Kim Felton, senior vice president,
retail banking. The experience is about more than
team-building; time off to volunteer is a benefit offered
to all Elevations employees.
24
The difference between hoping
and knowing your next generation of leaders is ready.
It’s a gap that can be catastrophic
to your organization.
Your mid-level leaders play a critical role in achieving your strategic
goals. Yet there is no assessment that provides a clear picture of
their readiness to execute and lead. How long do you think you
can hang on if you fail to close that gap?
That’s why we’ve developed Leader3 Ready®, a virtual assessment
designed for mid-level leaders.
What if you could gain:
1.Deeper insights to make crucial hiring and promotion decisions?
2.A development catalyst to ensure leaders are successful in their
current roles while accelerating their development?
3.Greater reach into your mid-level leader population resulting in
more leaders ready faster?
With the right assessment, you’ll have actionable data to inform the
real-time talent and business decisions you need to make today.
Learn how you can close the gap and jumpstart your mid-level
leaders now with Leader3 Ready®.
Leader3 Ready®. It’s about time. Visit www.ddiworld.com/L3-TD.
Talent Ready for Business
25
COFFEE
ON THE
GO WITH
LEGO construction bricks are ubiquitous toys played with
by children—and also many adults—the world over. LEGO
was also, of course, the inspiration for the wildly successful 2014 film The LEGO Movie. But in the early 2000s,
LEGO’s story was far different; the Denmark-based company was in trouble, with its sales in free fall. How LEGO
employed innovation to turn itself around is the subject
of the book Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules
of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by
David Robertson, a highly regarded expert on innovation
and product development. A professor at the Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania, Robertson
researches innovation management and consults to U.S.
and European companies on reaping the returns from
their innovation investments.
Robertson spoke with GO about the challenge of defining
innovation, LEGO’s lessons for other companies, and the
role HR must play in driving innovation.
GO: How would you define innovation?
ROBERTSON: I think the definition of innovation is changing. It used to be about developing the next product, the
next car, the next widget, the next whatever. And I think
we’ve evolved that pretty significantly, and we’re now realizing innovation can be lots of different things. It’s not
just products but also services and channels to market,
business models, ways of pricing things, internal processes, etc. When Ford invented the assembly line, that was
innovation. When Dell changed the way you configure and
assemble and deliver personal computers, that was also
innovation. The problem is that we’re caught up in this
trade-off, this dichotomy, this balance between incremental and radical innovation.
DAVID
ROBERTSON
GO: By radical innovation, do you mean what’s often
referred to as disruptive innovation?
ROBERTSON: Yes, disruptive, little versus big. I think this
is a dangerous way to think about it because what many
companies are doing—LEGO is one of the best at this—
is actually getting all the benefits of big innovation from
well-integrated little innovations. In other words, by doing
lots of little things and putting them together really well,
they get all the competitive advantage of a big innovation
without the risk. I feel LEGO’s story has lessons for every
company. That’s the reason I wrote Brick by Brick.
The innovation expert and author
of a book on LEGO discusses the
human side of innovation.
26
GO: Is innovation something that morphs over time,
or is it more of an absolute that gets interpreted and
executed differently as we move forward?
broadly than that, if you think about innovation as something more than just products, then you have to involve
many more people from inside the company and start partnering with other companies outside the company.
ROBERTSON: I think it’s something that every company
has to define for itself. You have to think both where and
where not you are going to innovate. I had a wonderful conversation with the head of marketing for a Triple A baseball
team, a very innovative company that cannot innovate at all
around the core product. I mean, baseball is baseball. But
they’re doing amazing things about the experience around
baseball. They’re doing all kinds of things: giveaway nights,
rebranded uniforms and logos, new mascot, even video
games in the restrooms. Their challenge is unique, right?
When a minor league baseball team becomes successful,
the corporate parent is going to reach in, take their good
players, yank them out, and make the product bad again.
They have the worst corporate parent, one who demands
profitability yet works to sabotage the product. Like many
companies, this organization is making lots of small, fairly safe innovations, but creating a compelling proposition
that’s hard to match.
As an example, there are lots of different people at Apple
who are always thinking about not only the next little device, but also with whom they should partner to bring in
more interesting content and how they can innovatively
market it. When Apple came out with the iPod, it was a
nice little device but a fairly incremental improvement over
what already existed. iTunes, on the other hand, where
you can buy one song at a time and not have to buy the
whole CD, and the way they then expanded it to be not
just music but movies, books, and apps—there’s the true
innovation. Apple partnered with a lot of people—record
companies, book publishers, movie studios, app development companies—to create an entire Apple ecosystem
that makes owning the iPod, then the iPhone and iPad,
much more valuable.
GO: What’s your sense of ways in which HR is innovating, and how can it become more innovative?
GO: Why do you think so many companies struggle
with innovation?
ROBERTSON: I think HR is really critical as we change
innovation from something that just engineers do to something that lots of people do. HR must create all kinds of
new roles, new processes, and rewards systems. HR’s job
is, in part, to help with this kind of organizational design,
to be that thought partner with the management team, to
think about people structure—who’s going to be in the key
roles, how to think about succession planning, careers,
annual reviews, and so forth. If you don’t get that right, you
kill everything in terms of innovation. You doom yourself to
the same stuff that you’ve been doing in the past, and your
competition is going to surpass you. If HR isn’t on board
and really helping to restructure, rethink, and redo the way
the organization works—then all this falls apart.
ROBERTSON: I think companies struggle because they’re
always structured and organized around the last big innovation. Organizational structure and process are lagging indicators of innovation success. They show us that
we did a big innovation successfully many years before
and now the way we hire people, the way we train them,
the processes we use, the rewards systems we set up—
everything we do is around that last big innovation, which
makes the next one difficult because we’ve become very
good at the old way of doing things. And then when companies find an opportunity to do something really new and
different, they have trouble fitting it into that structure and
those processes.
David Robertson’s book, Brick by Brick: How LEGO
Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the
Global Toy Industry is available through bookstores
and major online booksellers.
GO: What’s the human side of innovation? How
should organizations align talent with doing something new?
ROBERTSON: The human side of it is that everybody
should be thinking about innovation in the company. Too
often I’ve seen companies where innovation is for the engineers and R&D, but if you think about innovation more
27
are
er is
n’t a m a p
ga n
: W h y or
izat
to change how
d
e
e
n
th e
i on s
By E v
an Sinar, Ph.D
a
th
Ac
s.
When Building
Career Paths, Think
Milton Bradley
—Not Rand McNally
y t h ink
abo ut c ar
p
eer
.
Milton Bradley, as many of us fondly remember,
makes timeless and beloved board games like Life, Candy
Land, Chutes and Ladders, and of course, Monopoly. Rand
McNally makes maps and (since the GPS revolution) directional guidance systems. Substantially less beloved, though
very useful.
These products don’t have much to do with careers, but
they do have a lot to do with paths, and in our Global Leadership Forecast 2014|2015, which drew on data from more
than 13,000 leaders from 48 countries, we isolated understanding one’s career path as the single strongest influence
on three key leader outcomes. As shown to the left, a clear
path—along with having opportunities to give open feedback to senior leaders about the organization’s strategy and
culture—was one of only two leadership experiences to be
a top driver of all three outcomes. These outcomes include
Employee Development Focus (active pursuit of opportunities to develop one’s employees), Engagement (leaders’
own involvement in the job), and Retention (leaders’ intent
to remain at the organization long-term).
Leadership experiences that drive positive organizational outcomes.
Inc., 2015.
2015. All
All rights
rights reserved
reserved..
©©Development
28
STRONGEST INFLUENCES ON
EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT FOCUS,
RETENTION, AND ENGAGEMENT
they put programs in place to hone in on this topic
so that managers know how to keep leaders moving
and to spot and take advantage when new paths
unexpectedly open up.
As we looked more closely at this data, we wanted
to know: If career pathing is so essential, under what
conditions does it flourish? The deeper we dug, the more
the data kept directing us to concepts alive and well in
games like the ones mentioned above—but nearly gone
from road atlases or mobile navigation apps.
Certainly, a career isn’t a “game,” but it’s even less
so a fixed map, where distance and time to reach
a pre-determined destination can be projected
down to the meter and minute. Because of this,
we can learn much more from the way Milton
Bradley designs timeless board games than we
can from how Rand McNally plots (and constantly
updates) highways, cities, and landmarks.
3.
aving deeply rooted coaching and mentoring
H
networks in place. These include one’s own manager of course, but also other internal and external
mentors who have “played the game” and who can
objectively advise on options for what’s next—especially what to do when rolls of the dice don’t go
a leader’s way or a move leads to a disappointing
dead-end.
4.
Developing managers to lead across generations.
Millennial leaders value having an awareness of a
range of possible paths that may lie ahead—NOT
a single route from point A to point B as on a map.
Managers need the know-how to tap into this motivator, as well as those that are important to other
generational groups, and to flex their coaching styles
accordingly.
5.
eploying a broad range of developmental
D
assignments. Special projects and rotational
assignments provide concrete yet temporary opportunities for career exploration, and, when designed well,
these “detours” are almost always win-win. They
allow promising leaders to move on—perhaps even
using a newly discovered shortcut. For those that
aren’t, they can easily take a couple of steps back
and try something else.
THE FIVE KEYS TO CAREER
PATHING SUCCESS
In our data analysis, we saw related themes pop up over
and over again in each of two ways we took the Global
Leadership Forecast research further.
First, for leaders who DO clearly understand their career
trajectory, how do organizations “set up the board” to get
them there? Our research found five keys to career pathing success for these organizations—in each case, those
taking these steps have leaders with significantly higher
levels of career path clarity:
1.
2.
These five talent practices differentiate organizations
leading the way with high-caliber career pathing for their
leaders, from those falling behind and absorbing the
dangerous consequences impacting leader engagement,
retention, and passion for development. Each practice
also has a clear “Now What” implication for other companies facing similar challenges, as outlined above.
learly defining the competencies leaders need
C
to be successful. This one is simple: Without knowing what the best player of a game does differently
from the rest (and how much is due purely to luck),
it’s impossible for leaders to come up with a strategy for getting and applying these skills. Importantly,
competencies—as opposed to knowledge or technical skills—extend beyond individual jobs, to avoid a
myopic focus on a single “best fit” career track.
This is an important part of the story, but we also wanted
to dive even deeper—and explore what the many, very
vocal, leaders who are struggling with career clarity need
from their organizations.
raining managers to identify and develop
T
future talent. Creating and reinforcing career plans
for ambitious leaders is a distinct and extremely challenging skill for managers, especially when ambiguity
is the reality. Companies that do this well don’t make
leaders figure out the rules on their own; instead,
©©Development
International,Inc.,
Inc.,2015.
2015. All
Allrights
rightsreserved.
reserved.
THE LEADER’S VIEW OF CAREER PATHING
We looked further behind the numbers to hear from the
most frustrated set of the 13,000+ leaders included in
29
On the surface, many of these sentiments lead back to a
“roadmap” model where leaders expect organizations to
be definitive about what’s next and when. But that viewpoint isn’t giving leaders nearly enough credit. Leaders—particularly those getting open information about the
organization’s status and their own strengths and weaknesses—fully recognize that risk, uncertainty, and even
randomness play key roles in what paths open up, and
how long they stay open.
the research—to ascertain what they needed to regain
confidence in their organization’s career-pathing efforts.
Leaders disappointed with their career guidance were
very vocal about what must change—generating plenty of
useful, constructive feedback for organizations.
What do these disgruntled leaders want their organizations
to hear about career pathing do’s and don’ts? Four words
captured the spirit of their suggestions:
Expectations—Give the basics about what’s realistic for
me to consider and prepare for; should I only be thinking
of moves straight up a ladder, or do many people move
sideways? Are moves regularly spaced or are there
times when I’m likely to plateau for a while before moving
again? Do I have skill gaps that I absolutely must close
before I can pursue a particular path?
Which brings us back to the board game analogy: Leaders moving down a path won’t always know exactly where
that path leads, or how long it will take to get there. For
HR or their managers to promise them otherwise would
be unrealistic and demotivating. But what HR and managers can offer is attentiveness, connectivity to the business,
and most importantly, openness: about formal and informal rules, about chance versus skill, about next steps in a
career sometimes being sideways or even backward, and
about balancing a single, long-term goal with awareness
that there are many ways to get from here to there.
Aspirations—Ask me, don’t assume, where I want to be
several steps from now. My manager should know and
help me work towards these goals, of course, but should
also support me in finding other mentors within the company too; I’ll tell them things I wouldn’t tell my manager.
Transparency—I won’t commit long-term unless I know
where we’re headed and how I fit in. Tell me what you can
or risk me assuming that there’s a mismatch between my
personal goals and the company’s overall strategy…and
quitting before you can prove me wrong.
Ultimately, the dice go in the leader’s hand—but before
they roll, it’s the job of HR and managers to set up a
board that leaders will find explanatory, reinforcing, and
engaging—no matter what numbers come up.
Exposure—Connect me to senior leaders for their advice
and perspective on how I can grow within the company
to help it succeed—this may mean moving ahead on my
current path or moving to another track where my skills
will add value, and I may make faster long-term progress.
Evan Sinar, Ph.D., is DDI’s chief scientist and director
of the Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research
(CABER).
FOLLOW @DDIworld THOUGHT LEADERSHIP DELIVERED DAILY
© Development
©
Inc., 2015.
2015. All
Allrights
rightsreserved
reserved..
30
Information
You Can Use!
Visit www.ddiworld.com/GOmagazine
Global Leadership
Forecast 2014|2015
Multinational Sub-Report
As part of the Global Leadership
Forecast 2014|2015 study, this
sub-report highlights findings on
the current state of leadership and
leadership practices in multinational
companies (MNCs). The findings are
based on responses from 2,972 leaders and 383 human resource executives in multinational organizations.
Optimized Competency
Management
Look inside this guidebook to
learn how to ensure alignment
and consistency by:
+ Setting a clear line of sight
from strategy to capabilities
and contributions of individuals.
+ A
ccelerating the adoption of
competencies, and embracing
the value of competencies as
a business success enabler.
DDI Plant Leadership Series
The DDI Plant Leadership five-part
series presents findings from the
MPI Manufacturing Study. This study,
conducted by the Manufacturing
Performance Institute (part of the MPI
Group), was based on responses from
319 manufacturing plants, encompassing a range of industries and
sizes.
Performance Management:
Coaching for Development
Needed
The business imperative for performance management is undeniable,
yet organizations everywhere seem
disenchanted with the effectiveness
of their approach and processes.
In Brandon Hall Group’s latest Performance Management Study, co-sponsored by DDI, 71 percent of organizations say their current approach
to managing performance needs
improvement, even reinvention.
3 Must Do’s For
Developing Leaders
This recorded webinar will explore
how organizations are incorporating
the three must-do’s when developing
leaders: using competency models
to align programs that drive strategy
and culture, prioritizing implementation details that deliver the most
impact, and putting into place lead
and lag measures to sustain and
prove results.
31
Intact Insurance
Read how Intact Insurance launched
development programs for leaders at
multiple levels, resulting in a fourpercent improvement in employee
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GO Magazine | September 2015

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