Punit Renjen

Transcription

Punit Renjen

10.2013
Vol.30 No. 10
Essentials of leadership
development,
managerial effectiveness,
and organizational
productivity
Presented By
The Standard of Global Leadership Development
$9.99 a month
07080915
Leaders Must Get Real
By Margie Warrell
Five ways to unlock
authentic leadership.
Key to Engagement
By Razor Suleman
Leaders and employees
working together.
Culture of Collabration
By Eric Mosley
What does crowdsourcing mean for HR?
Impostor Syndrome
By Joyce M. Roché
Step into compassionate
leadership.
Punit
Renjen
Culture of Purpose
Training
for your
Millennials
We design and deliver workplace
intelligence with Millennials in
mind. g5 is mobile, simple and
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online: www.g5leadership.com
10.2013
Vol.30 No. 10
development,
and organizational
productivity
Presented By
$9.99 a month
Features
07080915
By Margie Warrell
Five ways to unlock
authentic leadership.
Key to Engagement
By Razor Suleman
Leaders and employees
working together.
Culture of Collabration
By Eric Mosley
What does crowdsourcing mean for HR?
Positive Deviants
Impostor Syndrome
By Joyce M. Roché
We are all prisoners of the familiar. Many things—the first iPhone, J.K.
Rowling’s wizardly world... PG23
4 Great Leaders Think
Differently
Ken Shelton
5 Leading Innovation
Chip R. Bell
6 Killing Stupid rules
Lisa Bodell
7 Leaders Must Get Real
Margie Warrell
8 Key to Engagement Razor Suleman
9 Culture of Collabration
Eric Mosley
10 Keys to Great
Collaboration
Judith H. Katz and Frederick
A. Miller
12 Motivational Focus
Heidi Grant Halvorson and
E. Tory Higgins
17 Leadership Contract
Vince Molinaro
25 Positive Deviants
Gary Hamel
18 Neuroscience of Talent
Karen Cvitkovich
26 Strategy Execution
Fredrick Schuller
21 Smart Networking
Sallie Krawcheck
27 The Practical Drucker
William A. Cohen
13 Sustainable Workforce
Kate Donovan
22 Culture of Purpose
Punit Renjen
15 Impostor Syndrome
Joyce M. Roché
23 Strengths and Fatal
Flaws
Joe Folkman
16 Why Powerful People
Fall Steven Mundahl
Step into compassionate
leadership.
24 Decide to Be Excellent
Nick Tasler
33
editors note
Great Leaders Think Differently
They seek to build enduring organizations.
By Ken Shelton
A s the authors to this stellar edition of
Leadership Excellence attest, great leaders think
and act differently.
Along with many leaders, I know the price one
pays for nonconformity—for thinking, talking,
acting and writing differently. Alas, in many
organizations and societies, non-conformity is
mistaken for disobedience or subversion, often
resulting in a showdown between the peon and
the powers that be. That’s when you learn the street
version of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold,
rules (or, at least, makes and enforces the rules
in a way that ensures He always wins). When I
was writing books and articles for
Stephen R. Covey, famous for his
7 Habits, I often remarked that the
street version of Habit 4—Win-Win
or No Deal—is when two or more
people of the opposing party win,
at your expense (they still consider
it to be a win-win deal).
Great leaders often see the inverse, the opposite,
the flip side, the upside, the new “opportunity” in
disaster, the innovation in the R&D experimentation. Yes, it helps to be street wise but not pound
foolish (as in, He who is good with a hammer sees
everything and everybody as a nail).
Poet Ezra Pound said: “I’ve never known
anyone worth a damn who wasn’t irascible.” He
also said: “When two men in business always
agree, one of them is unnecessary.” Yes, but then
the irascible and disagreeable tend to get pounded
or impounded—unless they can outlast opponents by passing the stern test of time.
Notes Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss
Kanter. “It’s time that beliefs and theories about
business catch up with the way great companies
operate. Great leaders work to make money, of
course, but in their choices of how to do so, they
think about building enduring institutions. They
invest in the future while being aware of the need
to build people and society.”
The alarming need for innovative thinking
is evident in the many studies and surveys that
have crossed my desk in recent weeks:
Workers confide feeling trapped in job: 84%
concede that they feel trapped in their job and
want to find a new position elsewhere. “We view
job satisfaction and wanting to get another job
as indicators of engagement,” said Ron Sims,
Talent Management Practice Leader at Right
Management. “The workplace mood is still sullen.
Management’s job is more difficult when employees are disaffected and distracted—as this
harms performance, engagement, productivity,
recruitment and retention. Managers must en-
4
courage employees to take charge of their own
development and also provide development to
grow and broaden their capabilities.”
Many employees try to pass the buck. Many
workers today appear risk-averse and seek to
avoid their responsibilities and pass the buck.
On average, 25% of workers avoid responsibility on the job and duck any blame for a failure,
says Jennifer Jones, Director at AMA Enterprise.
“Evading responsibility or playing it safe may
be part of human nature, but worker are more
hunkered down. There’s less job mobility and
less risk taking overall. This hinders workers are
innovation and creativity.
Leader is now defined more broadly. More
than half of global companies define leaders not
by their authority or position on the org chart but
by their influence, performance, and impact in
their role. “We’re reaching a tipping point where
pace-setting companies now recognize that the
term leader applies to a far broader group than
just those at the top,” said Jennifer Jones. “Individuals realize the need for leadership skills while
collaborating with colleagues, sharing expertise
with peers in different locations or working on
ad-hoc projects. The leadership challenge is to
master interpersonal communication and collaboration skills. Interpersonal skills are moving
to the center of more leadership development.”
American executives get fewer international
assignments in their leadership development
programs than those in Europe or Asia, notes
Ric Roi, Head of the Global Center of Excellence
for Talent Management at Right Management.
“International assignments introduce up-andcoming managers to the demands and intricacies
of global business. They learn to navigate unfamiliar settings, cultures and politics to meet their
objectives. It’s action learning on an international
scale. Nothing can take the place of managing
in situ in a foreign region, culture and work
setting. This is how global leadership skills are
forged.” Roi reports that spending on leadership
programs is expected to rise. “This will mean an
increased investment in talent development initiatives—from coaching to social learning to action
learning—at a time when so many organizations
struggle to maintain an ample pipeline of ready
now candidates to move up into positions of
greater responsibility and scope.”
The clarion call is for leaders of innovative
thinking and action.
Vol.30 No. 10
$9.99 a month
Leadership Excellence Essentials
(ISSN 8756-2308)
is published monthly by HR.com,
124 Wellington Street East
Aurora, Ontario Canada L4G 1J1.
Editorial Purpose:
Our mission is to promote personal
and organizational leadership based on
constructive values, sound ethics, and
timeless principles.
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Copyright © 2013 HR.com
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Ken Shelton
Editor since 1984
leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013
Leading Innovation
Try leading the Swamp Fox way.
By Chip R. Bell
Interactive
Chip’s article
Customer Forensics
Change This: Why a
Corrupted Service
Covenant Has Made...
Few war heroes capture the imagination like General Francis asked the examiner (Rip Torn), “Exactly why are we here?” Another
Marion. Marion was physically unattractive, stood only five feet tall,
and walked with a limp. But, two qualities made him a major contributor to the defeat of the British in the Revolutionary War: courageous leadership and ingenuity (earning him the name the swamp fox).
Colonel Marion’s hotly pursued Marion’s Brigade often embarrassed
the British through bold tactics that altered how battles were fought.
The British soldiers fought with order, precision and methodical
planning; Marion from trees and bushes. The British wore bright red
uniforms; Marion’s Brigade donned camouflage. Creatively engineered
guerrilla tactics enabled his small, under-resourced unit to take on a
well-supplied enemy with many more troops. In one decisive victory
Marion was out-numbered 20-1 and his soldiers had only three bullets
each with no artillery. It was guerrilla warfare at its finest.
Video
The Road Less Traveled
Like guerrilla warfare, innovation is unconventional, maverick, and
unexpected. It requires a leader with courage enough to take The Road
Less Traveled—to lead from a solid grounding and purpose, and with
collaboration and passion.
1. Lead from a solid grounding. Francis Marion grew up in the
coastal town of Georgetown, SC and spent his childhood learning the
ways of the swamp. By the time his family moved to a newer plantation, Francis was 15 and an expert on the wild. When he formed
Marion’s Brigade, he made his headquarters deep in the swamp near
the Pee Dee River. The unit’s expertise with terrain strange to the
British soldiers bolstered their courage to play “David and Goliath.”
The COO of a client asked me the names of the best service providers.
“We need our leaders go visit Zappos, USAA, and a Ritz-Carlton,” he
said. “They will learn best practices to bring back and implement.”
His concept was that once leaders from the top witnessed the best of
the best, they would disperse their new-found brilliance to all their
underlings. When I asked what would happen if he skipped the visits
and gathered a group of front-line employees to brainstorm new approaches that would rival the best, he reacted as if the idea had never
occurred to him.
The part of his answer that worried me most was his interest in
witnessing the best. It reminded me of a scene from the movie, Men
in Black. When NYPD detective Jay Edwards (Will Smith) came
late to the examination for a new candidate for the MIB force, he
candidate raises his hand to answer the question and jumped to his
feet. “Second lieutenant Jake Jenson, West Point with honors. We
are here because you are looking for the best of the best of the best....sir!”
Edwards is noticeably amused. The examiner asks, “Why are you
laughing, Edwards?” His answer spotlights the ambiguity of the scene.
“Your boy, Captain America over here...Best of the best of the best,
SIR...with honors,” says Edwards. “He’s just real excited, and he has
no clue why we’re here.”
Pursuit of the best of the best of the best needs a plan and grounding.
It means starting with knowing who and where you are before reaching for who you want to be. I once had a client who owned a chain
of hardware stores. After seeing the piano player in a Nordstrom, he
wanted to put one in every hardware store!
2. Lead from purpose. A British officer was invited to visit Marion’s
swamp camp under a flag of truce. Marion offered his visitor a sweet
potato baked on a campfire and served on a slab of pine bark. “Surely
this cannot be your usual food,” said the British officer. “Actually,”
replied General Marion, “because you are our visitor we are fortunate
to have more than our usual amount.” When the British officer returned to the British unit’s headquarters in Georgetown, his colonel
asked why he looked so somber. “I have seen an American general
and his officers, without pay, and almost without clothes, living on
roots in the swamp; and all for the quest of liberty! What chances
have we against such men?”
Stoking the flames of boldness starts with a wide-eyed focus on a
dream rather than squint-eyed look at the tasks. Caution and hesitance
can come from being mired in the day-to-day activity. As one loses
touch with the forest vista because there are too many trees to view, one
is soon left blind to aspirations. Daring without recklessness requires
an awareness of a vision and a desire to move in the direction of that
vision. Innovation leaders have a valued purpose that serves as the
compass and inspiration for their courage.
3. Lead with collaboration. Marion viewed his men as partners,
not subordinates. In most army units, commanders lived much better
than their troops. This was not Marion’s style. With his troops he
slept on the ground wrapped in a blanket. He deliberated on tactics
with privates, not just sergeants. Shared hardship served to galvanize
the zeal of the brigade drawing their bravery from Marion’s spirit and
example. “Authority is the last resort of the inept …and frustrated,”
goes the adage. When rank becomes the primary means of ensuring
compliance, one has long lost the battle to effectively influence.
It is challenging for leaders, often affirmed for being visionary
and charged with “charting the course,” to embrace the egalitarian
concept of a truly shared vision. Shared vision typically implies “you
share my vision as being your vision.” A shared vision is one crafted
collectively. It entails creating contexts in which everyone enters the
dialogue about direction. It involves getting every person impacted by
the vision to have an honest, non-pressured say in what it looks like.
4. Lead with passion. Francis Marion was not a romantic in search
of a hero’s funeral. He hurt when he was wounded; felt remorse when
he wronged another. In their book, The Life of General Francis Marion,
authors Peter Horry and Mason Weems write, “The Tories murdered
5
Leading Innovation
several prisoners in cold blood. They said that Marion, at sight of
such horrid scenes, appeared much shocked and seeing among them
a man who had often been entertained at his uncle’s table, he flew to
him for protection, and threw himself into his arms.” Marion was a
leader with passion, not just of person of reason.
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin in boldness,” wrote
Philosopher Goethe. “Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
Scottish explorer W.H. Murray echoed the same sentiment when he
wrote, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw
back, always ineffectiveness. …the moment one definitely commits
oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help
one that would never otherwise have occurred.”
Innovation is counter cultural, against the grain, and unconventional.
It is sometimes cut of unfamiliar cloth. And, while the specific act
of innovation might not be that controversial, it springs from a place
that is. It is that place—that restless, unsettled place--leaders must
occupy if they are to model the pursuit of ingenuity. It is the habitat
of ground-breaking pioneers and norm-breaking entrepreneurs. Helen
Keller wrote, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing!”
Innovation is all about a journey to become remarkable. “Remarkable takes originality, passion, guts and daring,” wrote Seth Godin in
his best-selling book Purple Cow. “Not just because going through life
with passion and guts beats the alternative (which it does), but because
it is the only way to be successful. Today, the one sure way to fail is
to be boring. Your one chance for success is to be remarkable.” LE
Chip R. Bell is a customer loyalty consultant and the author of several bestselling books. His newest book is The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service.
visit www.simpletruths.com or www.chipbell.com
Killing Stupid Rules
Also, rules in the right quadrant of easy-to-implement and highimpact indicate your immediate targets—your quick wins. As you
open up discussion about the rules, listen objectively about where
Engaging staff to kill complexity.
change is needed and resist the urge to be defensive. Most companies
find that their most vilified rules aren’t really rules at all. Instead, they
By Lisa Bodell
Interactive
are annoying procedures—like ongoing meetings or conference calls,
unnecessary reports, or layers of sign-offs.
Now it’s time for the moment of truth—and action. Among these
Right now, somewhere in your company, some employee is
rolling his eyes over a policy or rule that leadership created. The eye- rules, have the employees take a vote on which one should be killed.
roll—and the defeated shrug—are the silent protests of people in Then do it, right on the spot. If possible, kill more than one. (Or do
every department. If you want to know the true source and depth of the next best thing: do a pilot test by killing the rule for a few months
their frustration, invite them to a brainstorming meeting. Everybody and promise that if no one misses it, the change will be permanent.)
Your staff will likely be shocked and ecstatic. Moreover, this exerloves those.
cise sends a powerful message that you’re listening and
However, this time try something different. Once you
committed to improving their work lives.
have gathered your teams together, provide blank sticky
Video
When used correctly, processes should standardize
notes and ask everyone to pair up. Now, present this quesand simplify necessary tasks to keep business running
tion: “If you could kill or change all the stupid rules that
smoothly. But excess procedures suffocate the sparks
get in the way of doing your work or better servicing our
that drive innovation—a common reality today. Evenclients, what would they be?”
tually, meetings seem to stand in for mile-stones, timeThey might stare back in stunned silence, so push them
by adding, “Ten minutes! Go!” After 10 minutes, people will likely consuming email threads are used to justify decisions, and reports
ask for more time—because there are so many stupid rules. Don’t end up requiring more time than the initiatives they outline. If you
interrupt their catharsis. After all, how often do you see your em- have adopted complex and tedious procedures in the name of efployees so engaged? Remind them, however, that government regu- ficiency, rule-killing offers you a simple solution.
The exercise has the power to engage employees and open up
lations are red rules—illegal to change—but everything else is a green
positive dialogue within the company. Leaders get a strong pulse
rule and thus, fair game.
When the pairs finish listing stupid rules, ask each person to take on where change is most needed and people are encouraged to cona sticky note and write the one rule she hates the most. Create a 2x2 tribute ideas. As teams free themselves from unnecessary low value
tasks—the rules that they kill—they have more time to tackle biggrid on a whiteboard or flipchart.
Axis Y represents how easy or difficult the rule is to kill, and picture projects that can measurably grow your business. As you move
Axis X represents the business impact (low-to-high) of killing the forward, Kill a Stupid Rule can either serve as the pivotal moment
rule. Invite employees to place their rule in the most fitting quad- when things began to change—or better, as a quarterly ritual that
rant and let them know there’s no right or wrong placement as each actually inspires employee excitement with zero eye-rolling. LE
person defines what goes where according to their unique perspecLisa Bodell is the CEO of futurethink and author of Kill the Company: End
tive in the company. If they believe it’s easy to kill the rule and the
the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution.
effect is high impact, it belongs on the top right quadrant. If they
Email [email protected].
believe it’s difficult to destroy—or it won’t impact the entire business—put it on the bottom left.
At this point, you have a visual cluster of rules that your employees
want to eliminate. Look for themes in the rules (is there a particular
“Kill the Company”
Download “Kill the
policy or rule that you keep seeing on the sticky notes?). If so, it’s
diagnostic
Company” book chapter
Book
proof that certain rules need to be re-evaluated.
6
Interactive
Five ways to unlock authentic leadership.
By Margie Warrell
Leadership is far less about what you are doing, than about who trust, and it fosters collaboration. Unlocking the profound power of
you are being. If you think about the people who have influenced you presence takes not more than putting your agenda aside and allowing
most over your career and life, it’s likely that what impacted you most yourself to be fully present to the person you are being with—opening
was not what they did, but about who they were being while doing it: yourself to see what they see and feel what they feel. If you haven’t
genuine, honest, courageous, resilient, real.
tried it for a while, do so today. The impact you can make—both on
Engaging authentically with people is the first task of genuine yourself and the other person--can be profound.
leadership—daring people to work, live and lead more courageously.
4. Acknowledge authentically—Unlock the power of appreciation.
In today’s culture, where so much emphasis is placed on the superficial, It’s easy to criticize. Many people are exceptionally good at it. But while
people crave authenticity. They are hungry for real what-you-see-is- constructive criticism—delivered in the right way at the right time—is
what-you-get leadership. The most inspiring and influential leaders crucial to strong leadership, its effectiveness increases when balanced
don’t lead because of what they do (although they do plenty), but with praise, appreciation, and acknowledgement. Since, according
because of who they are. Too often leaders—and those who aspire to to Gallup, two-thirds of employees worldwide feel that their efforts
be leaders—forget that fact.
aren’t fully recognized, and only one-third are engaged in their jobs,
When you connect authentically with people, you become more one of the best ways a leader can boost engagement is to help employees
approachable, trusted, and influential. Here are five ways leaders can know their strengths—and that starts by acknowledging them. Don’t be
unlock the power of authenticity:
limited to a result achieved. Focus on the virtues they brought to the
1. Share authentically—Unlock the power of vulnerability. task at hand: perseverance, collaboration, humor, tenacity, resilience,
Sharing ourselves authentically often goes against our instincts for creativity, assertiveness, flexibility, a strong work ethic. Often we
self-preservation. It explains why, when we anticipate finding ourselves assume that others don’t need our affirmation to know they’ve done
in a vulnerable predicament, our automatic reaction is to protect a good job, but I’ve yet to see a word of gratitude go unappreciated.
ourselves: pull out of the launch, cancel the meeting, step back from
5. Serve authentically—Unlock the power of other-centeredness.
the relationship, or retreat from centre stage. Yet it’s through becom- Ultimately leaders aren’t judged so much by how well they lead, but
ing vulnerable that we can connect most deeply. While researching by how well they serve. No carrot or stick of any size will ever trump
Stop Playing Safe, James Strong, former CEO of Qantas,
the effect you have on those around you when you engage
shared with me, “You have to put yourself at risk in the way
with them from a place of genuine service. As Bill
Video
you communicate and interact with employees.” We trust
Treasurer points out in Leaders Open Doors, people will
people who don’t need to prove their superiority, success, or
move mountains for you if they know that you genuinely
significance—who can connect from a place of being human
care about them, not just the results you want them to
a bit better than the rest of us. When people can relate to
achieve. Leadership isn’t about the leader—it’s about
you as a fellow human being—rather than as someone with
those being led. Treasurer writes, “When you care about
the power to cut your budget or outsource your job—you can build people, you take an interest in their career aspirations. You seek and
engagement and lift performance beyond anything unreal leaders value their opinion and treat people as more important than results.”
ever can. As Shawn Achor wrote in The Happiness Advantage, ‘The Serving authentically is about focusing on what you can contribute
more genuinely expressive someone is, the more their mindset and to the longer-term prosperity of many people versus what you can
feelings spread.’
gain in the short-term for yourself. The more you engage with people
2. Express EXPR +3.01% authentically—Unlock the power of from a place of service, the more effective you’ll be at harnessing their
individuality. Margaret Thatcher once said, “You cannot lead from talents—and the stronger the results you will achieve through them.
When you engage in each of these five practices, you will grow
the crowd.” While sometimes leadership entails confronting powerful
forces of opposition, as Thatcher did with single-minded determina- into a leader others will connect to more easily, follow more readily,
tion, more often it requires standing firm against the powerful inner and put themselves on the line for again and again. In the end, there
forces that drive us to conform and vanilla down that which makes is no greater test of leadership than to inspire greater authenticity and
us different. When all we do is try to fit in, we negate the difference courage in those you lead. LE
our difference makes. Owning what makes you different enables you
to differentiate yourself and build a unique brand in your work and
Margie Warrell is the bestselling author of Stop Playing Safe (Wiley) and Find
Your Courage (McGraw-Hill), leadership coach, and keynote speaker.
career marketplace. Yes, you need to be mindful about how others
Visit www.margiewarrell.com
perceive you, but when you allow what you think that they might think
determine who you will be, you sell out to conformity and deprive
them of the unique contribution you have to make.
3. Listen authentically—Unlock the power of presence. Listening is
the most powerful yet poorly practiced of all leadership skills. Authentic
listening is done with the intention to see the world through another’s
Find Your Courage Book
Take the Courage Quiz
Club Discussion Guide
eyes, not to have them see it through yours. Listening authentically
Book
enables you to break down the barriers that cause people to withhold
7
Key to Engagement
Interactive
Leaders and employees working together.
By Razor Suleman
When we partnered with the Human Capital Institute (HCI)
to study the three sources of employee engagement—employees,
managers, and senior leaders—we discovered that independent of one
another, none of these groups can sustain employee engagement: all
three groups must work together.
Why care about engagement? When an organization experiences
high engagement, it can expect increased performance, dedication,
and productivity. Happy employees who feel their efforts are appreciated and who recognize how their position affects the success of
the business are more likely to go above and beyond: they put forth
discretionary effort, provide better customer service, and sincerely care
about the success of their companies. Ultimately, engaged employees
are more likely to be long-term, valued members who actively and
consistently contributes to business success.
An engaged workforce results in higher retention rates, improved
product quality, higher safety ratings, higher revenues, and greater
efficiency and productivity. Gallup reports, “Business units that score
in the top half in employee engagement have nearly double the odds
of success (based on a composite of financial, customer, retention,
safety, quality, shrinkage, and absenteeism metrics) when compared
with those in the bottom half.” Nearly double the odds!
Again, senior leaders, managers, and employees are the key to
engagement. Clearly, businesses need to engage their employees. But
individuals can’t simply choose to be engaged. If their immediate supervisor or manager does nothing to affirm the quality of work they
do, if the organization does nothing to communicate how their work
contributes to the success of the business, or they are told to act one
way and then see managers and senior leaders acting another, their
engagement will evaporate. The entire organization—senior leaders,
managers, and employees—must work together.
Role Responsibilities
So what are the role responsibilities of senior leaders, managers,
and employees?
Leaders set the tone. They create the vision and their actions must
be consistent with that message. In their role as stewards, senior leaders
set the vision, values, and mission that inform all other actions. Our
respondents rated several aspects of senior leader performance. Low
engaged (LE) employees gave lower scores to their leaders in every
category, such as “keeping open lines of communication” and “providing a forum for the exchange of ideas.” But the widest gulf appeared
in their assessment of their leaders’ ability to model values. In fact,
more than twice as many High Engaged (HE) employees (83 versus
38 percent) indicated that their senior leaders effectively walk the
talk. Senior leaders with LE employees need to address this perceived
lack of credibility. For example, if a company’s mission statement
values collaboration, senior executives must actively participate in
collaborative processes and behave in accordance with the ideals they
assert. This is the first step in establishing credibility and trust. If the
leaders are adhering to the values set forth, other employees are more
likely to follow.
Managers lead by example. They have a huge impact on the work
environment, and are responsible for effectively deploying employees
and developing skills according to the needs of the individual and
8
The Trifecta of Engagement:
The Organization, the Manager,
and the Employee
The Leadership Excellence
Learning Module on
Engagement
company. When asked to rate their managers, highly engaged employees
are more likely to agree that their managers value their employees’
skills and live the values of the organization. Because managers and
supervisors have much more personal relationships with employees
than senior leaders do, they need to focus on the basics: to support,
recognize, and value the strengths that employees offer. Recognizing
employee contributions is a low-risk, high-reward skill for managers to
learn. Some industry insiders even recommend limiting performance
review processes in lieu of more substantive recognition and rewards
programs that publicly acknowledge employee contributions to their
organizations. Employee recognition and performance management
software can help companies integrate recognition programs into
HRIS and LMS platforms so management is held more accountable
to this practice. For most employees, their managers are the gateway
to success and advancement, and as such, building personal relationships with their team members is critical. Employees want to be
valued for what they bring to the table, and managers need to align
individuals to the projects that best leverage their specific skills and
reward outstanding work.
Employees invest emotionally in their work, and are open to
engagement efforts by the organization. The biggest differences we
identified between individual employee behavior among HE and LE
employees pertain their emotional investment in the organization.
HEs feel empowered, which stems from their clear understanding
of how their work contributes to the company mission and business
results. More than twice as many HEs feel emotionally attached to
their organizations, understand their roles and how they impact the
business strategy, and work in an environment of mutual respect and
open exchange of ideas. Also of note: 24 percent more HEs than LEs
are provided development opportunities by their organizations. No
wonder they’re more engaged!
While the responsibilities of the senior leaders and managers should
not be underestimated, ultimately individuals bear primary responsibility for engaging in their organization and role. Leaders provide the
framework for engagement, but employees must be present, attentive,
and open to embracing these ideas and opportunities. Individual
employees need to see how their roles contribute to the bigger picture
and capitalize on advancement and development opportunities. Also,
they need to support a mutual exchange of ideas among colleagues,
managers, and senior leaders.
Employees, managers, and leaders can’t practice these behaviors
without the support of each other. For example, managers can’t offer
training and development opportunities to their teams if the senior
leaders don’t see the value and won’t sign off on the expense. Individual
employees can’t clearly recognize their roles in achieving business
success if their managers are underutilizing them and failing to send
those messages. And why should senior leaders bother to set goals
and values if their employees won’t commit to making them work?
For engagement to take root, leaders need to send clear and consistent
messaging about the value and purpose of every role and live those
values. Managers must understand, develop, and deploy employees in
a way that best utilizes their skills and ambitions. Employees should
never miss a chance to capitalize on development opportunities and
Key to Engagement
engagement drivers. Organizations should provide challenging and
exciting work in a safe and respectful environment that supports the
exchange of ideas.
To create a highly engaged culture, review the employee experience
by asking three questions: 1) Is on-boarding an effective experience
that lays the foundation for engagement? 2) What are the skill-sets of
employees, and how do these skills relate to the work they do? Are
there any mismatches that would result in individuals being assigned
work that is not challenging or interesting to them? 3) Does the
behavior of senior leaders and managers contradict their messages?
Beyond assessing and implementing engagement initiatives, recognize
that the engagement process is never complete. As employee motivations and backgrounds change, you need to monitor engagement and
update tactics. What is compelling and relevant for employees will
likely change as future generations enter the workforce.
Fostering employee engagement can yield extensive benefits, but the
process needs to be pursued with dedication and energy. Embracing
this initiative is a cause worth pursuing to capitalize on your greatest
asset—your people. LE
Razor Suleman is founder/chairman of Achievers, a SaaS company, producer
of engagement and performance management tools, a top employer, and
fastest-growing company.
Email [email protected]
Download the 2013 Guide to
Recognition
Culture of Collaboration
suggests that past work behaviors are the best predictors of future
behaviors. Behavior-based interviewing has earned the respect of a
generation of HR executives, and crowdsourced performance assessWhat does crowdsourcing mean for HR?
ment is built on the same logic.
The bigger changes brought on by crowdsourcing performance
By Eric Mosley
Interactive
management are cultural. True collaboration is characterized by
trust, positivity, and shared responsibility. This is the cultural opposite
Today, we’re on the leading edge of a major change in how of a traditional, top-down performance review regimen. It is also a
companies are managed. Strategic leaders are talking about social good aspirational definition of a 21st century workplace, not because
hierarchies and social, community-based styles of collaboration and everybody has to feel good but because trust, positivity, and shared
goal-setting. Companies are engaging their internal information responsibility are foundations of fast-moving, creative, and energetic
markets (private information of their employees) in grassroots versions business cultures.
The pace of change is argument enough that a culture of collaboof management, as opposed to purely executive-driven, inflexible,
hierarchical management.
ration is needed for organizations to compete. The crowd-sourced
Great managers know that knowledge is more valuable than facts performance review re-imagines the performance review system by
alone. At work, knowledge is not simply memorizing facts but also adding cultural practices and habits that keep pace with the changes
manipulating facts, experience, intuition, understanding, insight, in business thinking and technology. Performance management using
memories, impressions, and feelings. Knowledge is shared by social the wisdom of crowds requires a cultural bias toward collaboration.
contact and is manifest in behaviors, not just in words.
For millennial employees, this is a natural extension of
In practice, social recognition means that peers are insocial media and social work habits. Others will have
Video
spired to publicly recognize each other’s accomplishments
to change their habits.
on an ongoing basis. Good performance, large and small,
In practice, everyone involved has to offer his or her
inspires peers to publicly approve and broadcast the behavior
positive opinion about performance. Social recognition
while recognizing the person responsible. Performance is exaggregates the opinions and thoughts of many individuplicitly linked to job goals and company values, and that link
als to arrive at a richer, more accurate conclusion than
is based on all the components of knowledge (experience, intuition, one person alone could attain. The key is to reach a critical mass of
and insight)—not on rigid, preconceived scenarios.
employees participating by offering star rankings of others’ performance
Each recognition insight benefits the employee and his or her manager. in a managed system. Participation should be at least 80 percent for
Over time, the collective insights of the crowd create incredible value the system to reach maximum effectiveness.
for the organization.
Workers who fear personal risk in offering their opinion of others
With a mechanism to harness the wisdom of crowds, a large might be less inclined to participate; this is one reason why a social
amount of new data about individual behaviors, on a number of recognition system is based on positive reaction. But reassuring the
dimensions, becomes available for performance reviews. And for timid is not enough for most workplaces, and people who are not
HR, those data can be collated and analyzed for multiple purposes, used to sharing openly need to acquire the habit of observing and
for example, creating work teams including skills and experience, noting good performance in others.
and also temperamental factors like willingness to share informaA culture of collaboration also means that no single person comes
tion or tendency toward initiative. Today’s HR executive looks to up with the ultimate, definitive assessment of someone’s performance.
assessment testing and the observations of managers (as well as work This is anathema to old-fashioned executives and micromanagers.
results) to gain this information. Adding a wisdom-of-crowds system Their resistance is based on a misperception that using the wisdom
that creates a mosaic of every employee gives HR and the managers of crowds robs them of authority and accountability. That’s not the
it advises more data.
case. Managers are charged with achieving work goals through others.
HR values that all these data about individuals are based on They need to realize that the added information created by a social
observed behaviors and on facts, not opinions. This is reminiscent recognition system empowers them to make wiser decisions about
of behavior-based interviewing, familiar to every HR manager, which performance—decisions that range beyond the old pigeonholes of
9
Culture of Collaboration
A, B, C ratings and offer a nuanced and actionable narrative of each
employee’s behavior.
Collaboration is a business process movement much larger than HR
or performance management. As we’ve seen, it is a set of enabling
technologies and habits that extend the manager’s ability to make
the right decisions.
You might think of social recognition as a healthy-living routine for
company culture. It promotes only desired behaviors and discourages superfluous or unhealthy behaviors. It finds positive culture
clues in work behaviors large and small. Properly implemented, it
also differentiates among efforts, distributing rewards for behaviors
proportionate to their impact.
At its core, social recognition democratizes performance management. In a company, 90 percent of activities have eyewitnesses
who see successful work because it affects them, but too often the
manager hasn’t seen it and the eyewitnesses don’t have management
responsibility or accountability to reward or recognize that behavior.
To democratize performance recognition is to give everyone an incentive
Keys to Great Collaboration
Change the interactions to change the result.
By Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller
Interactive
Leaders have known the value of collaboration for years. They talk
about the need for cross-functional teams to solve complex problems
and to break down silos across the enterprise. However, many find that
this level of collaboration—in which people quickly come together
to create an environment of trust and safety, where people can share
their different perspectives and create breakthroughs—is not the norm.
You can make it the new norm by focusing on the interactions between
people. Organizations are only as effective as the interactions between
the people who work there. Enhancing the quality of interactions
could help people collaborate more readily, communicate with clarity,
build trust more quickly, and eliminate the waste that comes with
misunderstandings. Yet even as technology to enhance interaction
evolves faster, human interaction appears to be progressing slower at
a pace we can no longer afford.
In recent years, we’ve seen organizations transformed—accelerating
results, achieving higher performance, facilitating breakthroughs—
through one foundational choice and four simple practices. These 4
Keys eliminate waste in interactions and provide a common language
that enables people to be clear as they collaborate.
The Choice to Join
All too often, people approach one another in a judging mode. They
may be wary of individuals from another department or function and
wonder whether it is safe to collaborate with them. They might be
reluctant to share information or engage others for the common good.
This judging mode creates distance and erects barriers, which slows
us down and prevents us from collaborating effectively.
In joining, we approach others with openness and support rather
than caution and defensiveness. We begin with the assumption that
we are going to connect—that each of us has a perspective with value.
People who join seek out areas of agreement and find ways to link to
others. Joining, in short, is the foundation of better interactions and
an important first step in fostering collaboration.
Note the difference between judging people and evaluating their
10
to improve performance across the board—to give everyone access to
catch someone doing something good.
But first we must ask, what might motivate people to collaborate
in business? What might allow people to perform at higher levels?
In an information economy, what is the juice that unleashes higher
levels of creativity and innovation? Financial reward? Prestige? Ego?
The answer is even more basic—the answer is happiness. LE
Eric Mosley is CEO/cofounder of Globforce—the innovator in the employee
recognition industry—and is author of The Crowdsourced Performance Review.
Visit www.globoforce.com
Download Globoforce’s
“Recognition Blueprint” PDF
Case Study
Download the
JetBlue case study
Crowdsource Your
Performance Reviews
performance or ideas. Leaders need to assess the value of ideas and
the performance of individuals. The question becomes, how do we
engage with the other person during and after such an evaluation? Do
we place blame? Just reinforce what is wrong? Or do we share ideas
of how to address the situation as allies? Joining can create a path for
development from an experience that often causes misunderstanding,
hard feelings, and apprehension.
Video
4 Keys Change Everything
Once individuals and teams have decided to join, how do they
proceed? This is where the 4 Keys come in: they both enhance interactions and provide a common language for interactions—which
results in greater collaboration.
1. Lean into discomfort. Everything new feels uncomfortable at
first, and working with unfamiliar people is no exception. Many people
will wait until they are comfortable with others before trusting them
enough to collaborate. Leaning into discomfort enables trust to grow
quickly, as we position ourselves to engage faster than if we waited
for our comfort levels to catch up. Trust is built rapidly as individuals
and teams have the honest conversations needed to join one another
to deliver results together. As we all lean into discomfort, we create
an environment of safety—an environment where we can trust that
others have our back rather than stabbing us in the back. We create
an environment in which trust and collaboration thrive.
2. Listen as an ally. Collaboration requires the belief that “we are
all in this together.” In many organizations, however, the sense of we
is too narrow. The challenge is to extend that we, to see all others as
partners and allies. And one step to seeing people as allies is to listen as
Keys to Great Collaboration
an ally. In listening as an ally, rather than trying to find flaws in what
others are saying, we work together—partnering to get underneath
our assumptions, link to one another’s ideas, and resolve conflicts. We
assume good intent, listen from a learning posture, start by assuming
that we can connect, and seek out those points of connection. We
can also challenge as allies, offering alternatives in the spirit of adding
value from another perspective. Allies are willing to work harder to
hear, understand, appreciate, and build on others’ ideas. Listening as
an ally opens doors for collaboration.
3. State your intent and intensity. We can’t tell exactly how others
are interpreting our words and ideas. Sometimes this leads to tremendous waste—as when a senior leader casually tossed out an idea for
consideration during a cross-functional team meeting, and the team
changed its direction as a result. Disclosing our intent and intensity
enables others to avoid this waste. They know how much to invest in
a discussion, when to contribute ideas, and when to move to action.
The use of a common language to clarify intent and intensity greatly
reduces misinterpretations and missteps. We encourage leaders to share
whether what they say is a: 1) Notion: a casual idea, mentioned as an
invitation for further discussion. 2) Stake: you have some commitment
to the idea but offer it as something for consideration. 3) Boulder: an
item requiring action, with little room for negotiation. 4) Tombstone:
a nonnegotiable position, usually related to values.
4. Share your street corner. A key benefit of collaboration is the
gathering of many perspectives to resolve challenges (on the theory
that none of us individually is as smart as all of us together). If we
want to make sure we are getting the complete picture on these chal-
lenges, the first thing to do is make sure we hear from all relevant
perspectives, or street corners (as in “the view from my street corner”).
We need to assume that there is a bigger picture and that therefore it
is vital to get input from everyone with a street corner on the issue.
As we do this—asking who else needs to be included, sharing our
street corners, hearing those of others—we eliminate the waste that
occurs when an important perspective is missed, which necessitates
additional meetings and rework.
Amid more change, greater complexity, and ever-increasing speed,
leaders must leverage every tool at their disposal to achieve high
performance. That calls for a focus on collaboration—and the interactions that make it work. These 4 Keys will enhance collaboration
and accelerate results. LE
Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller are authors of Opening Doors to
Teamwork & Collaboration: 4 Keys That Change EVERYTHING (BerrettKoehler).
Visit openingdoors4keys.com
Download the PDF “12 Inclusive
Behaviors
Book
Opening Doors to Teamwork
and Collaboration: 4 Keys That
Change Everything
Checklist for Opening Doors to
Teamwork and Collaboration
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11
Motivational Focus
Is it about promotion or prevention?
By Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins
Interactive
Download the “Focus
Companion Workbook”
Survey
What is your dominant
motivation focus?
One-size-fits-all principles of management don’t work. The strate- Creating a Good Fit
gies that help you excel may not help your colleagues or employees;
what works for your boss or your mentor doesn’t always work for
you. Personality matters.
In particular, the way you tend to think about the goals you
pursue matters.
Promotion-focused people see their goals as leading to gain or
advancement and concentrate on the benefits and rewards that will
accrue when they achieve them. They are eager and play to win. They
are comfortable taking chances, like to work quickly, dream big, think
creatively, and generate lots of ideas, good and bad. Unfortunately,
all this makes them more prone to error, less likely to think things
through, and unprepared with a Plan B if things go wrong. That’s a
price they’ll pay, because for them, the worst thing is a chance not
taken, a reward unearned, a failure to advance.
Prevention-focused people see their goals as responsibilities, and
focus on staying safe. They worry about what might go wrong if they
don’t work hard or aren’t careful. They are vigilant and play to not
lose, to hang on to what they have, to maintain the status quo. They
are often more risk-averse, but their work is also more thorough, accurate, and planned. To succeed, they work slowly and meticulously.
They aren’t the most creative thinkers, but they may have excellent
analytical and problem-solving skills.
Video
Although everyone is concerned at times with both promotion
and prevention, most of us have a dominant motivational focus that
we use to approach life’s challenges and demands. It affects what we
pay attention to, what we value, and how we feel when we succeed
or fail. It determines our strengths and weaknesses, both personally
and professionally. And it’s why the decisions and preferences of our
differently focused colleagues can seem so odd at times.
Here are some signs of focus to look for in yourself or your colleagues:
Promotion-focused people: work quickly, consider alternatives and
are brainstormers, are open to new opportunities, are optimists, plan
only for best-case scenarios, seek positive feedback and lose steam
without it, and feel dejected or depressed when things go wrong.
Prevention-focused people: work slowly and deliberately, tend to be
accurate, are prepared for the worst, are stressed by short deadlines,
stick to tried-and-true ways of doing things, are uncomfortable with
praise or optimism, and feel worried when things go wrong.
12
Once you know your focus, you can choose role models, frame
goals, seek or give feedback, and provide incentives that will strengthen
motivation. Motivational fit enhances and sustains the eagerness of
the promotion-minded and the vigilance of the prevention-minded,
making our work seem more valuable and boosting both performance
and enjoyment. When our motivational strategies don’t align with our
dominant focus, we’re less likely to achieve goals.
Choose role models. Storytelling is touted as a motivational tool,
but different types of people need certain stories. The promotionfocused are more engaged when they hear about an inspirational role
model, such as a high-performing salesperson or a uniquely effective
team leader. The prevention-focused, in contrast, are impressed by a
strong cautionary tale about someone whose path they can try to
avoid, because thinking about avoiding mistakes feels right to them.
You naturally pay attention to the kind of story that resonates most
with you. As a leader, think about whether the stories you share with
others are motivational for them.
Promotion-minded people thrive under transformational leaders,
who support creative solutions, have a long-term vision, and look
for ways to shake things up. Prevention-focused people do best under
transactional leaders, who emphasize rules and standards, protect the
status quo, tend to micromanage, discourage errors, and focus on
effectively reaching more-immediate goals. When people work for a
leader who fits, they value their work more and are less likely to want
to leave. When employees and bosses are mismatched, enjoyment of
and commitment to work declines. If no one counteracts the tension,
serious problems can arise.
Frame goals. Even minor tweaks in how you think about a goal
or the language you use to describe it can make a difference. For
example, in Germany, coaches in a top semipro soccer league were
told to prep their players for high-pressure penalty kicks with one of
two statements: “You are going to shoot five penalties. Your aspiration
is to score at least three times.” Or “You are going to shoot five penalties. Your obligation is to not miss more than twice.” You wouldn’t
expect a small change in wording to affect these highly practiced,
highly motivated players, but it had a big impact. Players did much
better when the instructions were framed to match their dominant
motivational focus (previously measured)—especially the preventionminded players, who scored nearly twice as often when they received
the don’t-miss instructions.
Seek or give feedback. Once goals are set in a way that creates
motivational fit, seek (or give) the right kind of feedback. Promotionfocused people tend to increase their effort when a supervisor offers
them praise for excellent work, whereas prevention-focused people are
more responsive to criticism and the looming possibility of failure. For
instance, in one study the promotion-focused were more motivated
and tried harder in a task when assured that they were on target to
reach a goal, as opposed to when they were told that they were below
target but could catch up. For prevention-focused people, the reverse
was true: They tried harder when told they weren’t on target; in fact,
being assured of success undermined their motivation.
As a leader, always give honest feedback, but adjust your emphasis
to maximize motivation. Don’t be overly effusive when praising the
Motivational Focus
prevention-focused, and don’t gloss over mistakes they’ve made or
areas that need improvement. Meanwhile, don’t be overly critical
when delivering bad news to the promotion-focused—they need
reassurance that you have confidence in their ability and recognize
their good work.
Provide incentives. Tangible incentives can also sustain motivational
fit. However, not all rewards are motivating, since incentives vary according to personality type. You can create your own incentives (“If
I finish this project by Friday, I’ll treat myself to a spa day,” or “If I
don’t finish this project by Friday, I’ll spend the weekend cleaning
out the garage”) and you can make sure your employees’ incentives
create fit. Avoid incentives that misalign with focus—they can be demotivating. For example, after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the
PR disaster it created for BP, the new CEO, Bob Dudley, changed
the rules governing employee bonuses: Increasing safety would be the
sole criterion on which they were calculated. One shortcoming of this
approach is that it can lead to underreporting of problems rather than
to increasing safety; and rewarding people for safety (a prevention
concern) is a poor motivational fit for promotion-focused people—the
thought of a bonus makes them eager to take chances. In contrast,
for prevention-minded people, penalties (such as taking bonus money
away) for not meeting new safety standards would provide the right
motivational fit.
Both promotion-focused and prevention-focused people are crucial
for success. Businesses (and teams) need to excel at innovation and
at maintaining what works, at speed and at accuracy. The key is to
understand and embrace our personality types and our colleagues’,
and to bring out the best of our disparate strengths. LE
Heidi Grant Halvorson is Assoc. Director of Columbia Business School’s
Motivation Science Center (MSC) and author of Nine Things Successful People
Do Differently (HBR Press). E. Tory Higgins is a professor of psychology and
management, and Director of the MSC. They are authors of Focus (Hudson
Street Press).
Sustainable Workforce
reasons. It is virtually impossible for a generation impacted by high
youth unemployment to regain lost earning potential, and a generation left behind has long lasting business and societal impact.
Here’s how you can you build one.
Forward-thinking employers can benefit from an untapped source
of
talent—the current junior-level workers who will become our
By Kate Donovan
Interactive
future leaders. As a talent segment, young people are largely being
ignored. This is short-sighted. Those who make the most of unemOne-third of employers globally are experiencing difficulty ployed youth today will win the talent war tomorrow. HR leaders
finding talent (per ManpowerGroup’s 2013 Talent Shortage survey). have the power to create a win for their company and for the greater
This is exacerbated in countries undergoing major demographic societal good—simply through creative workforce planning. How We Got Here
shifts—with either a surge in youth or a rapidly aging population.
Shrinking fertility rates, longer life expectancies and social poliIn Japan, the country with the oldest median age group, 85% of employers can’t find the talent they need. In India, which is experienc- cies have led to rapid population aging in some wealthier, developed
ing unprecedented population growth, 61% of employers struggle nations. For example, Japan’s proportion of citizens over 65 is the
to find talent. In Brazil, where the fertility rate has dropped from highest in the world, while Canada expects retirees to outnumber
six births per woman to two in less than two generations, the talent youth for the first time in 2013. Globally, the number elderly as a
share of the working population is expected to double this year, to
shortage rate is 68%.
more than 25 percent.
One might think aging populations would translate to more opVideo
portunities for youth employment, but this isn’t the case. In Japan,
young people are unemployed at almost twice the rate of adults. In
Canada, the percentage is greater than 50%. This is not a matter of
resource availability, but it is a problem of resource readiness.
Conversely, in some countries (sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America
and the Middle East), there is a youth bulge—the share of 15 to 24
year-olds is increasing faster than other age groups.
This so-called demographic dividend (when the working population outnumbers the dependent population of children and the
elderly) was once thought to set the stage for economic progress.
Indeed, East Asia’s massive economic growth in the 1990s is largely
attributed to this dividend. But in today’s economy, a rising youth
population is not so easy to capitalize upon. For example, India will
No region or country is exempt from the demographic trends that soon have 1/5 of the world’s working age population. However, there
guarantee a talent shortage is here to stay. In parallel, global youth is widespread concern that India is unprepared to deploy this talent.
unemployment is at an all-time high. High and sustained youth un- Some of this relates to the availability of meaningful work, but it also
employment is a dangerous trend for many political and economic relates to education, and the capability of existing infrastructure to
13
Sustainable Workforce
support a growing economy. The net result is more young without
work and businesses unable to take advantage of this resource.
Youth Unemployment Conundrum
Employers report that lack of technical skills, little experience, and
dearth of candidates are three top reasons they can’t fill positions. An
alarming number of youth are unemployed; in fact, young people
were unemployed at nearly three times the rate of the total global
labor force in 2012. That translates to 74 million youth or 12.6%
of the youth labor force. Since this is a measure of unemployment—
meaning those without a job who are actively seeking employment
—it doesn’t paint the whole picture. In actuality, a full 66 percent
of youth worldwide are without a job. While some of these jobless
youth are in school or training for future employment, many are
not. Knowing that school dropout rates are upward of 30% in some
wealthy countries and 80% in poorer ones, we clearly see that an
alarming number of young people are inactive.
The problem is most acute in Southeast Asia and the Pacific,
where youth are unemployed at five times the rate of older workers.
The ratio is 3.8 in the Middle East, where nearly 28% of young
people are unemployed.
High rates of youth unemployment lead to an oversupply of
available labor, which depresses wages, impacting the economy
as a whole. Young people may never regain what they’ve lost. For
example, a young person who is unemployed for six months will
earn $22,000 less over the next 10 years. Youth unemployment is
always been linked to political and social instability—and the threats
from this issue have increased in severity.
In business, we see this playing out in real time. In the past 30
years, employers have virtually abandoned training programs for new
entrants, and in difficult times, tend to eliminate training and development investments for existing employees. We are at a point where
we can see the impact of these business decisions on entire industries.
For example, when the North American energy industry tanked
in the 80s and 90s, training programs were scaled back or eliminated
and hiring stalled. Now the industry is booming, thanks to technological innovations. However, energy employers predict that half
of their current workforce will retire in the coming years, and there
is no talent pipeline to backfill. Could a moderate investment in
workforce planning have been afforded in the short-term?
Energy leaders aren’t the only ones in this position. When global
14
markets collapsed, many financial services firms stopped hiring juniorlevel employees. Now, these companies are seeing a dearth of mid-level
managers because those leaders were once cultivated from within.
HR leaders can make an impact for the future benefit of their
employer and local communities. High quality, work-ready talent
is no longer available on demand. To create a sustainable workforce,
employers need to put the same effort into gaining the right human
resources as they do their financial resources. Recruit for Potential
For positions that are available in some quantity, employers can
pursue a teachable fit strategy. Manpower Group has pioneered this
recruiting method, which emphasizes soft skills and cultural fit in
cases where the necessary hard skills can be reasonably taught.
When we look at large and systemic talent gaps, HR professionals may need to do some pioneering—and think through the
benefits of three-way partnerships between educational institutions,
local government and employers. The teachable fit model (analytical
framework) helps predict if a candidate’s skills gap can be closed.
It organizes the capabilities required for a given role into four categories: knowledge, skills, values/ mindset, and personality/ intelligence. Each of these categories is weighted on two scales: Is it important? and Is it teachable?
The answers can greatly expand the pool of potential candidates
and your future leaders. By hiring for potential, and training for
skills, employers can bring a new generation of youth into the workforce and engender loyalty. Knowing the what, why and how of it
all, HR leaders need to embrace their role as change agents and the
challenge of doing well by doing good. LE

Kate Donovan is the President of Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing at
ManpowerGroup Solutions.
Visit www.manpowergroupsolutions.com
2013 Talent Shortage Survey
Global Results
Teachable Fit: A New Approach
for Easing the Talent Mismatch
Impostor Syndrome
Interactive
Step into compassionate leadership.
By Joyce M. Roché
As I walked into my boss’s office, my heart was racing with a about this is that you have to provide leadership in your own life.
mixture of excitement and fear. I had worked long and hard for this
moment, and now I was about to become the first African American
woman to be named an officer of Avon Products.
“Well, it’s official,” Jim Preston, the President of the U.S. business,
said before I had even sat down. “You are now VP of Marketing and
Purchasing for Gifts and Jewelry. Congratulations.”
I managed to say “Thank you” and to give him an appreciative smile,
but my head was swimming, and I had trouble staying in the moment.
Jim looked at me quizzically and said, “Look Joyce, I know you. You’re
going to worry about what happens to other women and African
Americans coming up behind you if you mess up. My advice is, just
don’t take that on.”
I was a little taken aback that Jim saw so clearly into what was in
my heart. But it was good advice. I was, of course, elated to have
gotten to this place—one I had worked so hard to reach. At the same
time, I was scared to death. I had put myself out there, had said that
I wanted this role and that I deserved it. Now, I was filled with doubt
about my ability to cut it. All the hard work that had come before
didn’t seem to count for much, and I was consumed with worries
about whether I was good enough to manage this job.
It was wonderful to get all the congratulations from friends and
family, and it made me that much more concerned about falling on
my face. All I could hear in my mind was, “Oh my goodness, if I fail
at this, it is going to be a huge failure.”
Although I did not know the term at the time, this new success had
brought the impostor syndrome I had experienced throughout most
of my life to a new height. I could picture the epic failure very clearly.
My business does not perform, and I am fired from the company.
At this stage, the failure would be complete, and public. I would be
exposed as an impostor. What would the headlines be then? It was
awful to think about giving ammunition to people who insisted that
people who looked like me were inherently unsuited for leadership.
At the very heart of this fear was the knowledge that I couldn’t
work any harder than I already was. I had always responded to new
challenges by working more, putting in extra hours, doing additional
prep. In this new position, I was going to be managing many more
people, overseeing units I knew nothing about, and functioning in a
peer group that had never included anyone like me. And I was terrified
that I didn’t have enough of the smarts to succeed in this bigger role.
One of the major dangers the impostor syndrome poses for those
of us who experience it is the isolation it imposes on us. I felt that if
I admitted that there were things I didn’t know, people would question
whether I deserved the job. And now the fear was magnified, because
if I showed weakness, “they” might say, “We knew she couldn’t cut
it.” So I worked twice as hard to project an aura of confidence, all
the while questioning my ability to handle the pressure.
The terrible irony of the impostor syndrome is that it drives those
of who suffer from it to reach for bigger and bigger successes to satisfy
our boundless need for external validation only to make us question
our own abilities and worth the moment we succeed. To find relief
from this terrible burden, you need learn to use external validation
to build your ability to validate yourself. Another way of thinking
Video
The strategy I developed was to rely on the analytical tools I used
to make business decisions. The next time I felt like an impostor—it
happened after I received a particularly positive review from my boss—I
sat myself down with a pad of paper and, in side-by-side columns,
wrote out the facts about the situation and my feelings about it. I had
launched a new product to rave reviews and great initial sales and had
surpassed all projections for the year. In the feelings column, I wrote:
“got lucky;” “the numbers won’t hold up;” “won’t be able to do it
again.” But when I looked at the objective data, the facts, it was hard
to argue with the success. I had to accept the possibility that maybe
I did know what I was doing, that I did earn this success. It wasn’t
easy, but I even allowed myself a few minutes to enjoy the feeling.
As we enter into positions of leadership, it is essential that we
learn to manage our own impostor fears—not only for the sake
of enjoying our success but also to offer empathetic guidance and
support to the people we lead. The impostor syndrome, because it is
essentially a form of social anxiety, often narrows our vision, driving
us to see others through our own sense of inadequacy. To lead successfully, we have to hone our ability to see people as they really are.
“What I always looked for was folks’ ability to be comfortable in
people situations,” says Ed Whitacre, Jr., former Chairman/CEO of
GM and of AT&T. “That’s what I think makes a leader. And that’s
what I would always reinforce. We all have days, minutes, hours,
where you feel totally lost. But if you know how to treat people, they
will relate to you and they will show you what you need to know.”
I once heard Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ, say, “You’ve
got to metabolize your blessings.” To lead, we have learn to metabolize our blessings so we can bestow the blessings of compassion and
understanding on others. LE
Joyce Roche is author of The Empress Has No Clothes. (Berrett-Koehler).
Interview with Joyce Roche
15
Why Powerful People Fall
Interactive
I see seven clear reasons—and solutions.
Collaboration Survey
Survey
By Steven Mundahl
Why do so many influential leaders engage in risky behavior that
causes them to plummet from positions of power? Consider the cases of
NYC mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner, Yankees star Alex Rodriguez,
and hedge fund manager Steven Cohen.
Why do such powerful people make such poor decisions? Behavioral scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists have identified
attitudes, beliefs, and other factors that contribute to risky behavior.
Here are seven of them.
1. They don’t know about hedonic adaptation. The term hedonic
adaptation describes the pleasure and excitement of something new
wearing off. For example, a leader starts to feel a loss of interest in
his spouse, and the wife seems unhappy and dissatisfied as well. He
starts to resent coming home, and opts instead to stay at work in the
company of a playful and attractive staff member. But if that leader
acquired the scientific awareness that the normal high in any relationship lasts for two years, he might instead look within his marriage for
new activities, spiritual time together, and honest communication to
keep the intimacy alive.
2. They have unchecked self-importance. One reason people engage
in destructive behavior such as overspending, overeating, shoplifting,
smoking, pornography, abusing alcohol or drugs, gambling, embezzling, and infidelity is because they have an attitude of entitlement.
They may believe that they deserve forbidden treats because they work
hard, they’re smarter than others, or their status places them above
the law. They believe they have the right to act without consequences
and enjoy the risk-taking high. Working on self-awareness is the only
way out of this trap.
3. They aren’t tuned in to their vibrational gap. Picture a gap
that widens if something in your life is pulling your emotional state
downward. I call this a vibrational gap. Signs that your gap is widening
include depression; a desire to get high with alcohol, gambling, or an
affair; or a simple desire to leave the office a few hours early. Those
intuitive signals are meant to lead us to take action to close the gap
instead of filling it with destructive short-term highs. Leaders need
to continually monitor their vibrational levels, overcome blocks to
resolution, and take corrective action—aligning with their purpose,
securing true satisfaction in relationships, and building a spiritual
inner life, for example—instead of succumbing to the pull of negative behaviors.
4. They don’t weigh the reward. Leaders who pursue behaviors that
make them feel good for a moment forget to ask, What is the greatest
reward I could receive from taking this risk? What is my greatest fear?
These two questions, if asked, would eliminate most impulsive and
risky behaviors. The reality is people are internally outed the minute
they perform the risky or addictive behavior. Guilt, shame, embarrassment, self-talk, remorse—these are all internal reminders that
we’re not living in accordance with our true values. It’s our conscience
on one side vs. the immediate gratification on the other. We have to
learn how to weigh them.
5. They experience amygdala hijack. Author Daniel Goleman
coined the term amygdala hijack, which describes how brains under
stress are not properly equipped for self-control. The amygdala is the
part of the brain that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system
16
(fight, flight, or freeze), which takes over for the thinking parts of the
brain, in the neocortex, which are responsible for rational decision
making. Leaders need to learn ways to manage stress, because if they
don’t, they’re liable to make poor choices at work and in their personal
lives. One quick strategy is to take deep breaths, which slows down
the heart rate and enables the prefrontal cortex to regain control.
6. They have weak will power. Some neuroscientists say our inner
voice that seeks immediate gratification is akin to having a second self
living inside us. One version of us acts on impulse; the other version
controls our impulses to protect our long-term goals. We switch back
and forth between these two selves. These two opposing parts can and
do work together. If what we desire comes with a big negative such
as a high price tag or big danger, our more primitive instinct, or “gut
reaction,” can agree with our wiser self, which is already saying no.
The will-powered self can only be operational if one handles stress
throughout the day. Ensure your brain has plenty of sleep, good
food, proper exercise, and ongoing stress reduction each day to act
on those values.
7. They tumble from the “domino effect.” When one poor decision
is made in a distracted or unaware moment, a door to an unsavory
path opens for us to walk through. An example would be choosing
to stay up late to watch a TV show. The next morning you’re underslept, so you skip the gym. You feel grumpy and depleted, so you
grab a donut someone brought to work. And the repetitive tumble
continues. If you’re feeling bad about a mistake, it can lead to other
bad decisions. With your brain now under stress, you may say what
the heck and keep going down the self-destructive path.
No leadership sphere is free of fallen heroes, whether it’s in business, the government arena, the entertainment world, athletics, or
religion. The salient point is to make sure you are not one of them. LE
Steven Mundahl is a leadership scholar, professor, president/CEO of Goodwill Industries and author of The Alchemy of Authentic Leadership.
Visit www.alchemyofauthenticleadership.com
Steven’s article It’s Your
Higher Self Calling
Steven’s article Become
the Leader of Your Own
Leadership Contract
Be clear about your obligations.
By Vince Molinaro
Interactive
Download the
“Leadership Contract”
and to present to the public a visible symbol identifying the engineer.
Over my career, I have worked with many technical organizations
leading a project to build the Quebec Bridge. Once complete, it and engineers. I respect and admire the care and concern they have
would be one of the largest and longest structures ever built, spanning for safety in the work that they do. They carry the weight of their
the St. Lawrence River. It would provide an economic boost to the obligations front and center in their minds every day.
I believe too many leaders in business today lack this sense of
region, enabling goods to be shipped more easily by rail between the
American New England states and the Canadian province of Quebec. obligation. When people first take on leadership roles, nobody teaches
Cooper was chosen because of his stellar reputation, illustrious them that leadership is an obligation. We only need to look at the
career, and deep expertise in bridge building. His 1884 book, General leaders at the center of scandals and corporate corruption. It’s clear
Specifications for Iron Railroad Bridges and Viaducts, was the textbook that many of them have lost their way. They have either forgotten or
were never aware of the obligations that come with being a leader.
for other bridge design engineers at the time.
But on a hot day in August of that year, tragedy struck. Near the
As a leader, you need to feel the weight of your leadership obligaend of the workday, a worker was driving rivets into the southern span tions. If you don’t, you run the risk of not living up to them, and we
of the bridge. He noticed that the rivets he had driven in an hour have all seen what happens then. The consequences will go beyond
before had snapped in two. As he was about to report his concerns to you and end up affecting your customers, your organization, your
his foreman, the air filled with the deafening sound of grinding metal. employees, and your communities.
When you become a leader, you need to realize is that
The worker looked up and saw the bridge begin to fall
it’s
not all about you. When you work with leaders who
into the water, creating a force like nothing he had ever
Video
seen before. The sound carried for miles. People in nearby
are driven by personal gain—the money, titles, stock
Quebec City felt an earthquake-like tremor.
options, company cars, perks, and power—you sense
Most of the 85 men working on the bridge were catathat they have lost their way.
pulted hundreds of feet into the air as the bridge fell beneath
I work with executive teams in two-day off-sites to
their feet. They died the second they hit the water. Others
discuss strategy or the future leadership, and I can always
were crushed or dragged underwater by the weight of the bridge. Some tell how wired they are by what they talk about during their dinners
died on shore because rescuers couldn’t free them from the twisted together. Some teams continue the discussion from the day’s meeting.
metal debris. And when the tide came in that night, these workers Others talk about their personal lives. And then from time to time,
drowned. 75 men lost their lives that day.
you get the team that talks only about what’s in it for them; hours of
A Royal Commission investigating the tragic event found that the discussion about who is getting a new BMW or Audi as their company
bridge had collapsed under its own weight. Design errors and miscal- car or other perks being handed out. I believe these leaders are missing
culations of the load that the structure would bear were the root of the mark. If their employees could hear these conversations, they’d
the problem. But the issues went far beyond technical errors. The be very disappointed.
I believe this partly explains the low level of trust and confidence
commission criticized Cooper and the bridge company for putting
in senior leadership. Employees see leaders primarily motivated by
profit before the safety of the public.
Cooper came under fire because, although he was an expert in personal gain. I suspect that if you asked, employees would say, “I see
bridge design, he had never personally designed a bridge as large as what’s in it for you, but I don’t see what’s in it for me and the rest of us.”
the Quebec Bridge. The commission also concluded that political and I invite you to reflect on the obligations of leadership. If you make it
economic pressure had influenced his judgment. Finally, Cooper’s all about you, you won’t be successful because you will be leading for
arrogance kept him from heeding the many warning signs regarding the wrong reasons. You will be letting down everyone who is counting
the weight of the bridge and quality of materials that emerged during on you. Your true colors will shine through when your leadership is
tested. As a leader you must be clear about your obligation to your
the construction.
It would take a full two years for all the metal debris to be cleared customers, employees, organization, and the communities in which
from the river. But even then the story of the Quebec Bridge wasn’t you do business.
As leaders we need to learn from engineers and put our leadership
over. In 1916, a second attempt at building the bridge ended in another
obligations
front and center in how we lead every day. LE
collapse—13 more lives were lost. The two tragedies clearly showed
that the engineering profession needed to change.
Vince Molinaro Ph.D., is a keynote speaker and New York Times Best Selling
In 1918, reforms put the engineering profession on a stronger
author of The Leadership Contract. He is also the Managing Director of
Leadership Solutions at Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions. He’s also
foundation. Professional engineers would have to be licensed, and
the author of Leadership Solutions, and The Leadership Gap.
designs for public infrastructure projects would need to be approved
by a licensed engineer. Then in 1925, a group of Canadian engineers
established the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. They aimed to make
graduating engineers aware of the obligations of their profession. In
1970, U.S. engineers began observing a similar ceremony, called the
Download the
Download the
Order of the Engineer, to foster a spirit of pride and responsibility in
“Leadership Contract Workbook”
“Leadership Manifesto”
the profession, to bridge the gap between training and experience,
In 1907, an American engineer named Theodore Cooper was
17
Neuroscience of Talent
Interactive
Neuroscience of Talent.
By Karen Cvitkovich
an unconscious level without our awareness that the bias even exists,
How effectively and accurately do you assess talent when you let alone influences our behavior. Implicit bias is activated automati-
conduct job interviews and when you judge their abilities and make
decisions about their careers? I find that two behaviors impede the
ability to effectively recruit and hire global talent—interview bias and
inaccurate talent assessments.
Interview bias is the erroneous perception of a candidate by the
interviewer that results in overestimating or underestimating the
candidate’s ability and qualifications. Such bias can also impact assessments of current employees and their potential. Inaccurate talent
assessments can result in bad hiring decisions that can add huge costs
and an unfair situation for the candidate.
Recruiting, developing, and retaining the best talent is vital for
growth. Unconscious bias impacts assessing talent accurately. To
ensure we are assessing talent accurately, we can look to the field of
cultural neuroscience. This field uses cultural psychology, brain imaging
technology, and genetics to measure how cultural values and practices
shape thinking and behavior.
Bias in Action
Over 15 years, I’ve facilitated hundreds of groups exploring cultural
differences and their impact on perceptions. A key framework for
these sessions is cultural dimensions—continuums of difference across
cultures. They give individuals a common language to explore some
of the similarities and differences they may experience.
In a popular exercise, we define one of many cultural dimensions as risk and restraint. Some individuals and cultures tend to
be risk-oriented—they prefer rapid decision-making and quick results,
value flexibility and initiative, and value speed over thoroughness.
In contrast restraint-oriented individuals spend time on background
research, establish proper procedures before starting a project, and
value thoroughness over speed. In this exercise,individuals are asked
to place themselves on a line, one end representing risk and the other
restraint, either based on where they fall on a cultural assessment tool
(such as GlobeSmart®) or based on their self-perceptions. Individuals
on each end of the spectrum are given a scenario to consider in which
they have been put in charge of a very important project. They have
been assigned members of the project team to manage—as opposed
to being able to choose the members themselves—and as they work
with these team members, they realize that they are the opposite style
to themselves. Each group—the risk-oriented and restraint-oriented—is
asked to prepare a list of adjectives describing these team members.
As a second step, each group is asked to write adjectives that describe
themselves. People tend to describe individuals who are different
from themselves with negative adjectives and themselves with positive
words. This is often called the mirror exercise since the words we use
to describe others who we view as different is often the mirror image
of how we describe ourselves. Why? And what implications does this
have on assessing global talent accurately?
Potential Causes of Interview Bias
This bias is not because we are bad people or intentionally make
negative judgments about people who are different than ourselves.
This is a result of how our brains are wired. In her research, Kathy
Bobula describes the concept of implicit or unconscious bias (This is
Your Brain on Bias…or, The Neuroscience of Bias). It is processed at
18
cally and includes emotions or feelings about the target. The implicit
stereotypes that people have “are category associations that become
activated” without the person’s intention or awareness when he or
she interacts with a person different than themselves. For example,
an employer who, having several equally qualified job applicants,
chooses the one who is a member of his/her in group, citing that the
applicant would fit in better with co-workers. In conditions of stress,
multi-tasking, or need for closure, this bias becomes more pronounced
and can lead to an unearned advantage or disadvantage.
In his writings about the SCARF Model, David Rock cites research
on how our brain functions, leveraging the work of fellow neuroscientist, Evian Gordan. (SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating
with and Influencing Others.) When we meet a new person in an
interview or casually, the brain is programmed to minimize danger
and maximize reward. According to Gordon’s Integrate Model, five
times each second the brain non-consciously determines what is
dangerous and positive and the strongest responses are to avoid what
is perceived as different or dangerous, especially in five social situations:
status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness (SCARF). (An
‘Integrative Neuroscience’ Platform: Application to Profiles of Negativity
and Positivity Bias). When we sense a drop in any of these areas, our
brains perceive danger, and unconsciously, we try to avoid it.
The decision that someone is a friend or a foe happens quickly
and impacts brain functioning. Information from people perceived
as like us is processed using similar brain circuits for thinking one’s
own thoughts. When someone is perceived as a foe, different circuits
are used. Meeting someone unknown tends to generate an automatic
threat response. Therefore, this quick evaluation of “friend or foe”
when assessing talent impacts a person’s filter of that individual and
even on the part of the brain used to process data or responses from
a candidate.
As organizations globalize, managers and leaders must evaluate
the skills and talent of individuals from different countries. “Collaboration between people from different cultures, who are unlikely
to meet in person, can be hard work,” asserts Rock. This is confirmed
by Bopula: “Under stress and pressure, we tend to default to implicit
associations. Cross-cultural interactions use more energy. When we
are stressed, we have less energy available. Implicit prejudice and stereotypes are most likely to be expressed under these circumstances.”
Our tendency to make negative assessments of different people causes
us to make inaccurate talent assessments, and prevents us from seeing
and leveraging the business value of diverse teams (diverse teams in
which the leader acknowledges and supports individual differences
and sees those differences as an asset versus an obstacle to overcome
tend to perform better than homogeneous teams whose members
resemble the leader).
What Can We Do About This?
The more we know ourselves, how our brain works, and the
impact of our bias, the more we can self-regulate, question our
assumptions, and make more accurate assessments of talent. Aperian
Global’s study of What’s Different about Global Leadership provides
strategies for minimizing interview bias and making accurate talent
Conversational
INTELLIGENCE
How Great Leaders Build Trust & Get Extraordinary Results
by
JUDITH E. GLASER
Getting to the next level of greatness
depends on the quality of the culture,
which depends on the quality of
relationships, which depends on
the quality of conversations…
Everything happens through
conversation!
– Judith E. Glaser –
A concept whose time has come,
Conversational IntelligenceTM is the key
to success in life and business. It’s not
about how smart you are, but how open
you are to learn new and effective powerful
conversational rituals that prime the brain
for trust, partnership, and mutual success.
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Conversational Intelligence:
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Author and Organizational Anthropologist Judith E.
Glaser presents a framework for knowing which
kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive
brain and which conversations activate higher-level
intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy, and
good judgment. Conversational IntelligenceTM makes
complex scientific material simple to understand and
apply through a wealth of easy-to-use tools, examples
and practices for all levels of an organization.
Named one of Leadership Excellence’s Top 20 Thought Leaders, Judith has also been quoted in and interviewed on
CBS MORNING NEWS, NBC’S TODAY SHOW, ABC WORLD NEWS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL, THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY,
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, HUFFINGTON POST, CRAIN’S and AMA WORLD.
www.conversationalintelligence.com
“The quintessential
memoir on leadership…”
—ANNE MULCAHY, former chairman and CEO, Xerox Corporation
“A magnificent and mesmerizing account of his life. There’s
enough wisdom here to fill the
world’s largest library.”
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of Excellence
“As a wonderfully honest reporter,
Warren does not hesitate to
discuss his disappointments and
his mistakes, personal as well
as professional. Yet this book
has an excitement, an energy, a
joie de vivre that is inspiring.”
—HOWARD GARDNER
The Washington Post
“[A] must-read memoir.
Each chapter in his fascinating
life draws him inexorably
toward becoming the father
of leadership.”
—BILL GEORGE, professor,
Harvard Business School;
former chairman and CEO,
Medtronic
978-0-470-43238-9
Available wherever books and e-books are sold.
For more information, visit warrenbennis.com
Neuroscience of Talent
assessments. In this research, 10 key behaviors differentiate successful
global leaders, and of these, two help minimize interview bias:
• Cultural self-awareness: Seeing our own leadership practices are
shaped by a particular cultural environment and realizing that there
are other viable ways of getting things done. The more that people
assessing talent have a sense of their own culture and style, the more
easily they can use this self-awareness to minimize potential biases.
• Frame-shifting: Shifting communication style, leadership
methods, and strategy to fit different contexts—moving skillfully
back and forth between different business environments and seeing
the benefits of different approaches, even when they are unfamiliar.
The more people assessing talent have a true appreciation of the value
of different styles, the better they can acknowledge the value different
approaches they may have, in spite of their brain telling them that a
different person poses a threat.
Tool for Accurate Talent Assessment
The more you can make an unconscious process conscious, the
easier it is to minimize bias. To minimize interview bias and to assess
and evaluate talent more accurately, I suggest four actions: 1 ) List
the main elements of a job or position, based on the job description;
2) identify the competencies of an ideal candidate—what is needed
to be successful and what do you value in a candidate?; 3) Identify
potential biases that you need to be aware of as you assess the candidate—based on your cultural self-awareness what are qualities or
Smart Networking
I have only three simple rules.
By Sallie Krawcheck
Interactive
I don’t have to convince you of the power of a creating and
maintaining a professional network, do I? Or that networking should
be done not only inside your current company but also outside of its
walls? Or that networking is often listed as one of the most important
unwritten rules of success in business? And that research shows that
your next business opportunity (and often, your next job) is more
likely to come from a loose connection in your network than from a
friend or close colleague?
But networks are like any good investment. The great ones can have
an extremely high return on investment (ROI)—but not right away,
and often not from the sources that you might expect.
Practice Three Simple Rules
I have only three simple rules of networking:
1. Try to meet at least one new person in my area of interest every
month, or significantly deepen one existing relationship. I find that
meeting at least one new person in my area of interest every month,
or significantly deepening an existing relationship every month keeps
me connected and relevant.
2. Do something nice for someone in my network every week.
Yes, I do something nice for someone in my network every week.
This doesn’t have to be a big favor like finding someone a job, but
instead can be connecting two people who should know each other,
sharing research or information that someone you know may find
useful, or posting a LinkedIn recommendation on a colleague. True,
these favors likely won’t find you a new job or get you a big deal next
week. (I almost don’t know how to reply to the email sitting in my
in-box from someone who says that she keeps trying to sell things to
attributes that you favor that are not relevant to the success of the
candidate for this position? And 4) Identify what questions you can
ask that enable you to accurately assess if the person has the needed
competencies and will minimize your potential biases—ensure that all
questions pass the legal criteria and accurately assess the competency.
Recruiting, developing, and retaining the best global talent is critical
to growth. When assessing talent, be aware of our unconscious bias
rooted in the functioning of the brain, and how it can be an obstacle
to assessing talent accurately and fairly. By developing our cultural
self-awareness and ability to frame-shift and utilizing a more conscious
process in assessing global talent, we can minimize interview bias and
make more accurate assessments of talent. LE
Karen Cvitkovich is Managing Director, Aperian Global, a consulting, training and talent development firm.
Visit www.Aperian.com
Read - SCARF: A Brain-based
Model for Collaborating with
and Influencing Others
Book
Download a chapter
from Karen’s - What is Global
Leadership?
Read - “This is Your Brain on Bias
or, The Neuroscienc e of Bias
Assessment
Take The GlobeSmart®
Assessment Profile
new people in her network, but some of them won’t buy….or reply.)
But over time, these two very simple rules are small seeds that you
plant, any one of which can one day provide a strong return. And in
the meantime, they’ll give you a lot of joy.
3. Make sure that I am spending time
with professionals who are different from
Video
me. At an extreme, if my network is made
up solely of female financial services professionals of my generation, who all hail from
the south, I will likely feel very comfortable
with them. And I will likely enjoy my time
with them. And I will no doubt learn from them. But at some point,
this will become an echo chamber of similar-enough experiences
and perspectives. Some of my most meaningful new connections
over the past few years have been with professionals from different
industries and different parts of the country from me. And my most
valuable connections may have been with entrepreneurs who are a
couple of decades younger than me, who possess a significantly different perspective.
We are all most comfortable networking with (living with and
working with) people who are like us. But just as the most successful
management and leadership teams bring complementary strengths
to the table, so the most meaningful professional networks do as
well—even if it takes a bit more effort. LE
Sallie Krawcheck is past Head of Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney....
Investor....Board Member...Crazed UNC Basketball Fan....Mom.
Sallie’s Professional
Women’s Network blog
21
Culture of Purpose
Interactive
Four ways to create and sustain one.
By Punit Renjen
to recognize individuals and teams that tackle challenging client situ-
The past few years have seen troubling disconnects in the work- ations and create positive impact—for clients and society.
place. One recent study found that employee engagement—the emotional commitment of workers to the organization and its goals—is
a meager 40 percent. Another study found trust in leaders in even
greater disrepair. The expectation that business leaders will tell the
truth when confronted with a difficult issue is less than 20 percent.
Yet there is cause for hope. Findings from the annual Deloitte
Core Beliefs & Culture Survey indicate some common ground shared
by employees and executives—and suggest that establishing a culture
of purpose can help executives close the divide while helping their
business and people excel.
Specifically, 91% of employees and executives who said their
company has a strong sense of purpose also said their company has a
history of strong financial performance. This finding strikes me as a
narrative about corporate exceptionalism. The iconic businesses of our
time have a culture of purpose that is clearly articulated, propagated, and
embedded into their business strategy—and they align their culture
with execution far better than their competitors.
For others, however, there’s work to do. Two-thirds of employees
and executives believe that “businesses are not doing enough to instill
in their culture a sense of purpose aimed at making a positive impact
on all stakeholders.”
Take Four Actions
How can your business create and sustain a culture of purpose? Here’s
a four-step process that I’ve learned from working with exceptional
clients – and from my own experience in sustaining our culture of
purpose at Deloitte:
Articulate. This means to capture exactly who you are, in language
that’s specific and clear. There’s no one person who is responsible for
defining what makes your organization unique. Instead, it takes a
process of socialization in which you seek input on the values and
beliefs that resonate as unmistakably true among your people. We went
through that process at my firm to articulate our core beliefs – and
then we refined them, vetted them, previewed them. Our litmus test
for moving forward? When we were confident that our people would
say, “Yes, that’s true. That’s who we are.” Exceptional companies know
very clearly who they are—and so do all of their stakeholders. Two
lines from Apple’s recent advertising stand out: “We spend a lot of
time on a few great things. Until every idea we touch enhances every
life it touches.” Amazon.com seeks to “be Earth’s most customercentric company.” For exceptional companies, profit doesn’t come
first. Impact does – followed by profits and other positive outcomes.
2. Propagate. This means to communicate and illustrate your
identity and purpose. Not through a big-splash, one-off corporate
program that’s the flavor of the month, but subtly and steadily over
time. From the vantage points of board rooms and C-suites, leaders
may see how a culture of purpose permeates the organization. However,
employees may have less context. For example, only 59 percent of
employees—compared with 73 percent of executives—said that providing products and services benefiting society was completely or very
integrated into their business strategy. This disconnect suggests that
employees need a better understanding of how their efforts make a
difference. At Deloitte, for example, we feature Issue to Impact stories
22
3. Embed. This means to create the framework of programs and
operations that gives your people a way to live your culture of purpose.
Consider 3M. Its culture of purpose is innovation. Since 1948, 3M has
encouraged its employees to use 15 percent of their time to explore
new ideas. The outcome—revolutionary products, including 3M’s
ubiquitous invention, the Post-it®note. At Deloitte, we provide opportunities for practitioners to volunteer—applying their skills pro
bono—which creates experiences far more fulfilling than financial
contributions. Making meaningful impact is a need increasingly voiced,
especially by Millennials. Companies can best address this need – and
attract these talented people—by becoming highly visible as agents of
social change. Opportunities abound: 46 percent of employees and
60 percent of executives strongly agree that government cannot reach
its full potential without help from the business community. Virtually identical percentages of employees and executives felt the same
way about the need for the business community to help nonprofits
reach their full potential. Enabling our people to better serve others
heightens engagement and pride. It also transforms their daily work
into their life’s work – an important distinction.
4. Live. A culture of purpose can look impressive on paper. But
it becomes powerful and sustainable when the behavior of leaders and
employees alike aligns with “who you are” and “what you say you’re
going to do.” How to get there? Executives can measure the extent to
which a culture of purpose is lived through evaluations that focus on
such key behaviors as: What impact have you generated for the clients
and customers you serve? Who are you mentoring or developing as
an apprentice? How are you contributing your time and skills to make
your community or our society stronger? How do you live your core
beliefs and serve as a steward of its brand and resources?
Providing positive, meaningful societal impact isn’t just the right
thing to do—it is the right thing to do for your business. By establishing
and sustaining a culture of purpose, executives can change the conversation—and reorient their businesses toward a more meaningful,
sustainable, and rewarding future. LE
Punit Renjen is chairman of the board, Deloitte LLP.
Visit www.Deloitte.com
Survey
Results of Deloitte’s
Core Beliefs and Culture
Download - Cultivating a Risk
Tolerant Culture
Punit’s article
Lead or Be Left Behind
Strengths and Fatal Flaws
Interactive
The yin and yang of leader development.
By Joe Folkman
Slideshow
When Jack Zenger and I discovered that what makes leaders great
is the presence of strengths, not the absence of weaknesses, we shifted our
view about how leaders can best improve. And when we teach people
about building on strengths, many have an ah-ha experience that
reinforces their intuition that our strengths make us successful.
What makes a leader indispensable is not being good at many things
but being uniquely outstanding at a few things that correlate with the
needs of the organization.
Of course, great leaders are not perfect. They do have weakness, but
no fatal flaws. The weaknesses don’t hurt them because their strengths
are so profound. For many people who go through our Extraordinary
Leader training, the principle of building on strengths—once you fix a
fatal flaw has the most impact. We define a fatal flaw as a competency in
which you receive strong negative feedback and poor performance reviews
or a below-average capability in an area that is mission critical to your job.
Being below average, compared to our global norm, could mean that
you perform this competency fairly well, and may not even consider
it a weakness. However, when that poor competency becomes the
centerpiece of a new job, it can become a fatal flaw.
If you have a fatal flaw, you should fix it first. Fatal flaws always
take priority. When we review the 16 differentiating competencies of
leaders, we reinforce that with only three strengths a leader’s leadership
effectiveness rating goes to the 81st percentile, but with one or more fatal
flaws, it falls to the 18th percentile. The more research we do, the more
the impact of fatal flaws becomes evident. So, build on strengths and
beware of fatal flaws. Focus on building strengths—once you fix a
fatal flaw.
Video
You might assume that fatal flaws occur only when leaders are young
and inexperienced. However, we find that leaders often get moved or
promoted into a new job where a competency that was not critical in
the past becomes essential in the new position. A leader can have a
fatal flaw at any point—and when a competency is mission critical,
average performance is never good enough. Yes, our strengths set you apart and make you distinctive as a leader.
But, don’t try to apply your strengths to fixing every problem. Some
problems require a different tool. So, take regular assessment of your
abilities—both strengths and weaknesses—and improve accordingly.
Build Strengths by Cross-Training
Doing more of what you already do well yields only incremental
improvement. To make major progress, you need to work on complementary skills (cross-training).
Learn more about
developing your strengths
White Paper
Download - Developing
Strengths or Weaknesses
Learn more about developing your strengths with this slideshow.
In cross-training, the combination of two activities produces a
synergistic effect—greater than either one can produce on its own.
For example, we find that 16 differentiating leadership competencies
correlate strongly with positive business outcomes. We also find that
certain competency companions produce synergistic effects. So, if one of
your main strengths is displays honesty and integrity, you might practice
the competency-companion of assertiveness. You are then more likely
to speak up and act with the courage of your convictions. If you are
technically strong, you might improve your communication. If you are
innovative, you might learn how to champion change.
To engage in cross training, take four steps:
1. Identify your strengths. Your view of your strengths is less
important than other people’s view, since leadership is all about your
influence on others. We start with a 360 in which you and your
direct reports, peers, and bosses anonymously rank your leadership
attributes on a quantitative scale. You and they should also answer
some qualitative, open-ended questions concerning your strengths
and your fatal flaws (potential derailers). To help them be honest,
ensure the feedback is anonymous.
2. Choose a strength to focus on. Focus on a competency that
matters to the organization and about which you feel some passion.
For each strength, answer these questions: Do I look for ways to
enhance this skill and use it? Am I energized, not exhausted, when I
use it? Do I pursue projects in which I can apply this strength? Would
I devote time to improving it and enjoy getting better at it? Focus
on a strength—like inspires and motivates others—where your skills,
passions, and the organization’s needs or priorities dovetail.
3. Select a complementary behavior. People who motivate and
influence others excel at persuading them to take action and inspiring
them to go the extra mile. If you already do those things well, select
one of 10 competency companions: Connects emotionally with
others, sets stretch goals, exhibits clear vision and direction, communicates powerfully and broadly, develops others, collaborates and
fosters teamwork, nurtures innovation, takes initiative, champions
change, is a strong role model. Also consider your lower scores (like
communication skills) since raising them can make a big difference.
4. Develop it in a linear way. Having settled on a competency companion, work at directly improving in that area. Strong communicators
speak concisely and deliver effective presentations; their instructions
are clear; they write well; they explain new concepts clearly; they help
people understand how their work contributes to business objectives;
and they can translate terms used by people in different functions.
If you see lots of room for improvement here, look for opportunities, inside and outside work, to improve your communication. You
could take a course in business writing, practice with friends and
family, volunteer to make presentations or to help high school students
write college application essays. You could videotape yourself making
speeches or join a local Toastmasters club.
Expect to see evidence of improvement within 60 days. If you don’t,
what you’re doing is not working. Complementary behaviors improve
steadily with practice—so keep at it. Improve another competency
companion or two until you become expert at inspiring others.
Then you can start the process again with another strength and its
23
Strengths and Fatal Flaws
complements to start making a uniquely valuable contribution to
the company. What skills will magnify your strengths? The 16 differentiating
competencies fall into five categories: character, personal capability,
getting results, interpersonal skills, and leading change. If you have
many strengths, consider how they are distributed across those categories and focus improvement efforts on an underrepresented one.
Developing competency companions makes you a more effective leader
precisely because, rather than simply doing more of the same, you
enhance how you already behave with new ways of working and
interacting that make that behavior more effective.
Developing a few strengths can make a big difference, and yet fewer
Decide to Be Excellent
Moving ahead, know what you’ll leave behind.
By Nick Tasler
Interactive
Decisions are the most basic building blocks of successful change
in our organizations, teams, and careers. The faster and more strategically we stack those blocks, the faster and more successfully we
achieve change. Yet, change efforts often stall precisely because those
decisions don’t happen. The question is why?
Avoid changing by addition. The Latin root of the word decide is
caidere, meaning to kill or to cut (think homicide, suicide, genocide),
Technically, deciding to do something new without killing something old is not a decision at all—it is merely an addition. When
an executive announces that her business will change to become a
luxury service provider, technically it is not a decision until she also
states that they will not provide low cost services to price-sensitive
customers anymore. When a sales manager declares that his strategy
this quarter will require his salespeople to spend more time strengthening existing customer relationships, he has only made an addition
until he also declares that they should spend less time on hunting for
new prospects.
Your palms might be sweating at the mere thought of telling your
team to ignore some group of paying customers or to not spend time
hunting for new business, even if you really want to see the change
happen. Making tradeoffs is so mentally exhausting that most people
try to avoid them whenever possible. That’s why a manager who is
no stranger to long hours and hard work will escape the discomfort
simply by piling on new change objectives without killing any of
the current priorities. But this change-by-addition approach can be
a death blow.
Avoid trickle-down tradeoffs. When team leaders fail to decide
which old directions are going to be sacrificed in service of the new
direction, the tradeoff doesn’t magically disappear. It simply slides
down the ladder. Instead of the team leader leaning into the discomfort and deciding once that the team will spend this quarter strengthening existing customer relationships, and not actively hunting for
new prospects, each team member now has to decide for themselves
whether to call on an existing customer or go find a new one every
time they pick up the phone, open their email, or hop in the car.
Trickle-down tradeoffs create two major problems for change
efforts. First, they undermine team alignment toward the change. It
is highly unlikely that each team member will independently arrive
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than 10% of the executives we work with have any plan to do so.
Why? The problem is less a matter of conviction than of execution.
Executives need a path to enhancing their strengths that is as clear as
the one to fixing their weaknesses. Cross-training enables you to use
the linear improvement techniques you know to produce a distinctive,
extraordinary strength. LE
Joe Folkman is president Zenger Folkman.
Visit www.zengerfolkman.com
at the same conclusion about what to do
Video
and what not to do. Part of the team will
choose to move in one direction while the
other part moves in another direction—
the very definition of misaligned.
Second, making tradeoffs depletes our
mental capacity and causes us to make
poorer judgments in unrelated situations. This phenomenon is why
otherwise healthy eaters end a long afternoon at the mall of choosing
between stylish shoes and comfortable shoes by feasting on a hearty
dinner of French fries and Cinnabons. They have no mental energy
left to make good dieting decisions. Similarly, when your team has
to spend a long morning making tradeoffs it leads to long afternoons
of either staring at the wall and web-surfing, or making poor choices
for their customers, their workloads, and their budgets.
Survey
How does your team react
when faced with Making
Decisions?
Assessment
What is your decision
pulse?
To lead is to decide. Making change decisions is a cognitively
and emotionally taxing activity that the average person will go to
great lengths to avoid. While I have discovered some techniques for
increasing the consistency and reliability of our decisions, there is
no proven way of completely eliminating the discomfort of making
tradeoffs. That might be a key element of what makes great leaders
great. Great leaders and change agents have come in all shapes, sizes,
colors, genders, and personality types. But the one thing they all
seem to have in common—the one thing that distinguishes them
from ordinary people—is their willingness to decide when others
could not. LE
Nick Tasler is CEO of Decision Pulse, a global consulting and training
company, and author of Why Quitters Win: Decide to Be Excellent.
Positive Deviants
Interactive
Their management model is unique.
By Gary Hamel
White Paper
Download - Morningstar
Self-Management Institute
A hierarchy of managers exacts a hefty tax. This levy comes in
We are all prisoners of the familiar. Many things—the first iPhone, four forms.
J.K. Rowling’s wizardly world, Lady Gaga’s sirloin gown—were difficult
to envision until we encountered them. So it is with organizations.
It’s tough to imagine a company where no one has a boss; employees
negotiate responsibilities with their peers; everyone can spend the
company’s money; each individual is responsible for acquiring the
tools needed to do his or her work; there are no titles, managers, or
promotions; compensation decisions are peer-based; employees (colleagues) are ridiculously empowered; and yet all work together like
members of a carefully choreographed dance troupe.
This may sound impossible, but it’s not. These are the signature
characteristics of at least one positive deviant—Morning Star Company—a large, capital-intensive corporation whose plants devour
tons of raw materials every hour, where dozens of processes have to
be kept within tight tolerances, and where 400 full-time employees
produce over $700 million a year in revenues.
This probably stretches your credulity—as it did mine. That’s why
I visited one of its plants in California. Morning Star is the world’s
largest tomato processor. Founded in 1970 as a tomato trucking operation by Chris Rufer, then an MBA student at UCLA, who is still
its president, Morning Star now has three large plants. Over the past
20 years, its volumes, revenues, and profits have grown at a doubledigit clip (industry growth has averaged 1% a year). The company
has funded virtually all its growth from internal sources, suggesting
it is robustly profitable.
Video
Video
I believe Morning Star’s model could work in companies of any
size—as long as all divisions share its management philosophy. The
real question is not whether the model can be scaled up but whether
it can be adopted by traditional hierarchies. I believe the answer is yes,
but the metamorphosis will take time, energy, and passion.
Why Reinvent Management?
Management is the least efficient activity in your organization.
Think of the countless hours that team leaders, department heads,
and VPs devote to supervising the work of others. Most managers are
hard-working; the problem doesn’t lie with them. The inefficiency
stems from a top-heavy, cumbersome, and costly management model.
1. Managers add overhead, and as an organization grows, the
costs of management rise. A small firm may have one manager and
10 employees; one with 100,000 employees and the same 1:10 span of
control will have 11,111 managers, since an additional 1,111 managers
will be needed to manage the managers. And, there will be hundreds of
employees in management-related functions (finance, HR, planning)
to keep the organization from collapsing under the weight of its own
complexity. If each manager earns three times the average salary of a
first-level employee, direct management costs would account for 33%
of payroll. Any way you cut it, management is expensive.
2. The typical management hierarchy increases the risk of large,
calamitous decisions. As decisions get bigger, the ranks of those
able to challenge decision-makers get smaller. Hubris, myopia, and
naïveté can lead to bad judgment at any level, but the danger is greatest when the decision-maker’s power is uncontestable. Give someone
monarch-like authority, and soon there will be a royal screw-up. The
most powerful managers are the ones furthest from front-line realities. All too often, decisions made on an Olympian peak prove to be
unworkable on the ground.
3. A multi-tiered management structure means more approval
layers and slower responses. In their eagerness to exercise authority,
managers often impede, rather than expedite, decision making. Bias
is another tax. In a hierarchy the power to kill or modify a new idea is
often vested in one person whose parochial interests may skew decisions.
4. Tyranny is costly. The problem isn’t the occasional control freak;
it’s the hierarchical structure that systematically disempowers people.
For example, as a consumer, you have the freedom to spend $25,000
on a new car, but as an employee you don’t have the authority to
requisition a $500 office chair. Narrow an individual’s scope of authority, and you shrink the incentive to dream, imagine, and contribute.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could achieve high coordination without
a supervisory superstructure? Wouldn’t it be terrific if we could get
the freedom and flexibility of an open market with the control and
coordination of a tightly knit hierarchy? If only we could manage
without managers!
Is there no way to buy coordination and control tax-free? Are we then
stuck with trade-offs? It might seem so, since most us have never come
across a company, like Morning Star, that’s both highly decentralized
and precisely synchronized. By digging into the principles and practices
that underpin Morning Star’s unique management model, we can learn
how it might be possible to escape—or reduce—the management tax.
Whatever the uncertainties, Morning Star’s example makes it clear
that, with a bit of imagination, it’s possible to transcend the seemingly
intractable trade-offs, such as freedom versus control, that have long
bedeviled management. We don’t have to be starry-eyed romantics
to dream of organizations where managing is no longer the right of
a vaunted few but the responsibility of all. LE
Gary Hamel is a visiting professor at London Business School and director
of the Management Innovation eXchange, author of seven books, including
What Matters Now (Jossey-Bass).
Visit www.GaryHamel.com
25
Strategy Execution
Interactive
Is your organization sabotaging it?
By Fredrick Schuller
What is the definition and purpose of strategy? One of the three
principles of strategic positioning, according to Michael Porter, a leading
authority on competitive strategy, is to create unique and valuable
positioning in the marketplace—involving a different set of activities
or the same activities performed different from competitors.
The key words are different and unique. But in a world where benchmarking and best practices flourish, it’s difficult to remain unique.
Methods most companies use to shape leaders can backfire and destroy
uniqueness, differentiation and ability to execute. Current leadership models set organizations up for failure. Bestin-class competencies and leadership expectation models are often so
general that they apply to everyone but are useful to no one. This is
opposite of what you need to do to be unique.
For example, the president of an Asian business unit of a global
oil and gas company—operating in the country for a century—was
interested in looking at their five to ten year strategy and defining
the leadership capabilities that would be required for their top 100
leaders to meet their business objectives. Leases for some of their large
producing fields were expiring in the next five-to-ten years and the
National Oil Company wanted to take over the leases for production. There are many complexities working in the country including
a mandate of 80% of employees and leaders needing to be nationals
of the country, and maintain impeccable environmental performance.
To succeed, the company must ensure its region leaders have the right
skills and capabilities.
Video
How would traditional competency models be used in this case?
Competencies would be selected from a library. You might think
communication and stakeholder management would be two natural
competencies to choose in this case. Stock behaviors would likely
be: “Engages with external stakeholders to find win-win solutions”
and “Communicates the company’s value proposition to partners
and customers”
The problem is that we don’t even touch the complexity of what we
need from the leaders. For example, to renew the leases: 1) \Leaders
will need to anticipate changes in power on a local and federal government level and build relationships with people in power as well as
with people coming to power in the future. 2) Everyone interacting with officials also needs to be aligned on messaging and have a
26
common voice clearly articulating how company operations benefit
the government and people of the country.
One example of a specific behavior might be: Networks with
government officials, parliament members, local, and community
leaders regularly to build new relationships and strengthen existing
ones to leverage in the future. In utilizing the behaviors and strategy
in this example, the company’s strategic differentiation is its safety and
environmental stewardship, relationships with the local and federal
governments, and technology that helps get more of the resources
out of the ground.
BTS article - Business
Acumen Demystified
BTS article - Exceptional
Strategy Execution
To define and hold leaders accountable for behaviors, organizations need to tie them to the execution of the strategy and define the
behaviors specific to their role that ensure strategic differentiation.
Leaders who can draw a line of sight between the strategic goals of
the organization, the objectives of the target leadership role, and the
high-impact behaviors that represent the foundation for achieving
those results will find the key to effective strategy execution. Here are eight ways to connect impact profiles to strategy execution: 1. Conduct leader interviews to uncover the three-to-five year
strategy and identify the high-leverage behaviors that are unique to
execution (executives always have a great perspective on what behaviors
are required for strategy execution). 2. Let the leaders own the execution factors and behaviors by having them be the steering committee.
3. Analyze and assess the organization to uncover the critical gaps.
4. Connect and hardwire the refined list of high leverage behaviors
directly to key business metrics and outcomes. 5. Create a high-impact
learning and execution journey to build execution capability. Make
sure intentionality, support and accountability is built into the process.
6. Embed behaviors and business metrics into selections, promotions,
performance management reviews and compensation systems. 7. As
the strategy evolves, refine and update. 8. Always focus on what drives
differentiation for the company.
Now, here’s your exercise: Align your company’s strategic goals with
the goals of leader role and identify high-impact behaviors to achieve
those results. LE
Frederick Schuller is VP of BTS, the global leader in strategy execution. Call
203-391-5224
Visit www.BTS.com
The Practical Drucker
Put timeless principles in practice.
By William A. Cohen
Book
Interactive
Review - Management
Challenges for the 21st
Century
Top 10 Lessons from
Peter Drucker
journalist, first in German, and later in England and the United States,
Some 34 years ago, I last sat in Peter Drucker’s class at then in the language of the land of his adoption, this is highly unlikely. In
Claremont Graduate School and heard him lecture on management.
Living only 30 miles from him in Pasadena, California our relationship
continued after I graduated with my PhD. So while my studies are
over and Peter has left us, I continue to learn from him as I evaluate
his ideas and what they mean for us.
When I was interviewed about my fourth book on
Drucker’s ideas (The Practical Drucker), I was asked,
“Does this mean that Drucker was impractical in what
he recommended?” This introduces a challenge: How can
you best apply Drucker’s wisdom to your daily business?
Even a Chinese executive who flew to the U.S. annually
to consult Drucker said, “He never gave me specific advice on what
to do in my business.” Another client wrote, “His methodology was
to ask us questions, rather than to answer questions we asked.” When
pushed, Drucker would turn the question to the client: “Okay, so
you’re in trouble: What are you going to do about it?”
Everyone understands Einstein’s Relativity equation—or at least,
what the letters e = mc2 stand for: the energy produced is equal to the
mass of the body times the speed of light squared. Find a way to release
that energy and you can build an atomic bomb to destroy a city, or
develop a nuclear power plant to power one. Many find applying
Drucker far more complex than applying Einstein’s theory. Some
don’t even buy into Drucker’s ideas since he was not a scientist, and
his conclusions were not based on the scientific method.
When I first interviewed for a teaching position after acquiring my
PhD, one interviewer at a major university who noted my having
been taught by Drucker volunteered: “If Drucker applied here for a
position, we would not make him an offer.” Many academics resented
his emphasis on qualitative observation and reasoning. But Drucker’s
concepts, usually explained without numbers, are proved by their
remarkable effects in practice.
Drucker in Practice
Some focus on Drucker’s Management by Objectives as a concept
unproven by scientific methods and unworkable in practice due to
the context of its employment—from the resources available to the
commitment of senior managers. However, context is always important, no matter the methodology. For example, Einstein claimed that
he developed his theory of relativity and the famous equation that
evolved from it merely by imagining himself sitting on the leading
edge of a beam of light traveling through space.
Drucker wrote an early article which explained why marketing
and selling were only not the same, but could even be adversarial.
He applauded the idea of changing the title of a VP of sales to VP of
marketing—if the executive also had his responsibilities altered. “If we
call an undertaker a mortician to make him sound more important,
he’s still only a graver digger,” he said. Drucker’s work caused even
Professor Philip Kotler, known as the “the father of modern marketing” to write that “if I am the father of marketing, than Peter Drucker
is the grandfather.”
Some felt that Peter, being foreign born and speaking with a heavy
Viennese accent, just didn’t know how to write clearly in English.
Since Drucker made his living primarily from popular writing as a
the 1940s and 50s, he was a frequent contributor to magazines, and
his first book in English, The End of Economic Man, was reviewed
favorably by Winston Churchill. No, Drucker knew how to write
clearly in English.
What then, is the problem? When I wrote my first book about
Drucker I participated in a panel discussion at the University of
Rosario in Borgata, Colombia. More than 300 people filled the room.
The Universidad del Rosario was founded by Catholic Friars in 1653.
Today the institution is based on secular ideas, but it is still influential
in Colombian culture and public life. Indeed, 28 of Colombia’s presidents have been University of Rosario students. The panel attracted
some high-powered participants. One panelist, a wealthy Colombian
businessman had read my book in Spanish and commented, “I’ve
read Drucker for years, but reading Dr. Cohen’s book was the first the
time that I felt that I understood what Drucker was talking about.”
This executive’s difficulty in understanding Drucker was simple.
Drucker’s genius resulted in many important insights and innovative
ideas, all of which he explained and supported through reasoning and
historical facts, some going back several thousand years. However,
Drucker rarely told us how to do anything. Drucker usually told his
readers what they should do. In my book, I took Drucker’s examples
of what to do and turned them into actions required for implementation. Explaining how to do things is what I seem to do best.
Secret of Drucker’s Consulting Success
Drucker’s consulting provides a good example. In one class, a student
asked him how he could have such extensive knowledge about so
much and to be in demand as a consultant. Drucker replied that he
didn’t bring or rely on prior knowledge in his consulting, but rather
his ignorance. I realized that Drucker had a method or investigative
template which he used in his consulting, but he did not explain
how to do this.
I began to investigate effective problem-solving methodologies. One
involves defining the problem, deciding on the relevant information
bearing on the problem situation, developing potential alternative solutions to the problem along with their advantages and disadvantages,
analyzing these alternatives, developing solutions from this analysis,
and finally making the decision or recommendations. Something
along these lines was Drucker’s consulting template.
At first I used this process only in written form. However, over time,
I started applying the process mentally with little conscious effort (the
more you use the template, the more automatic it becomes). Most of
my analysis was done almost without conscious thought.
I continue to review Drucker’s insights and to make Drucker practical by discovering how to use and apply his remarkable ideas and
concepts. LE
William A. Cohen is president of the California Institute of Advanced Management, a new graduate school offering an MBA based on Drucker’s methods
and the author of The Practical Drucker (AMACOM).
Slideshow
25 Management
Lessons from Peter Drucker
27
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IHR Certification:
Developing Organizational
Leadership Capabilities
Developing Organizational Leadership refers to any activity that enhances the quality of leadership within an individual or
organization. There is a differentiation between leader development and leadership development. Leader development focuses on
the development of the leader such as personal attributes desired in a leader, desired ways to behave, ways of thinking or feeling.
In contrast, leadership development focuses on the development of leadership as a process.
The Institute for Human Resources (IHR) provides certification and accreditation to industry professionals along specialized HR verticals.
In doing this, we are able to build talent pools of highly skilled and trained professionals with critical niche skills and networks that can
share best practices across these key HR verticals. Start your certification program today, and showcase your expertise in Leadership!
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Upcoming HR.com Webcasts & Virtual Events
Virtual Events
Vertical Name
Virtual Event Schedule
Canadian Masters in HR Strategy and Execution
Nov 14-15/13
Feb 26-27/14
May 12-13/14
Developing Organizational Leadership Capabilities
Oct 10-11/13
Jan 28-29/14
April 1-2/14
HR Information Systems: Audits, Compliance and Risk Management
Nov 12-13/13
Feb 19-20/14
May 27-28/14
Integrated Talent Management
Dec 12-13/13
Mar 20-21/14
Jun 18-19/14
HR in California
Dec 2-3/13
Mar 27-28/14
Mar 27-28/14
Online Staffing and Sourcing
Oct 17-18/13
Jan 9-10/14
April 16-17/14
Performance Management
Nov 19-20/13
Feb 3-4/14
May 5-6/14
Recruitment Process Outsourcing
Oct 23-24/13
Jan 15-16/14
April 14-15/14
Workforce Management: Time and Attendance
Dec 5-6/13
Mar 5-6/14
June 16-17/14
Workforce Planning and Analytics
Nov 18-19/13
Feb 10-11/14
May 29-30/14
Click here to view all HR.com Virtual Conferences
Webcasts
Webcast
Date
Time
Developing the Matrix Mindset for Success
Oct 10 2013
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Running HR Like a Business: Four Steps You Must Take to Deliver Value to
the Organization
Oct 10 2013
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Leadership for Maximum Impact: Strategies for Supercharging Your
Leadership Development Program
Oct 10 2013
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Leading Technical People + … a leadership development solution for
today’s workforce
Oct 10 2013
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Help Leaders to be GREAT Bosses
Oct 10 2013
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Awakening the Leader Within: The 3 Keys to Unlocking Your Ability to
Influence HR Issues
Oct 11 2013
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
The Crucial First 100 Days of a Leader: Managing the Political, Cultural
and Operational Minefields
Oct 11 2013
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Becoming An Inclusive Leader
Oct 11 2013
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Click here to view all HR.com Webcasts
32
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.
What are the Leadership Excellence Products & Services?
We provide the latest and greatest leadership solutions from the world’s top leaders, consultants, and trainers – plus
development guides, plans, and additional tools designed to turn those solutions into an action plan that works for you.
Leadership Excellence Essentials Monthly Interactive Learning Journal
Watch as this monthly interactive learning experience captures key metrics,
actionable items and keeps you focused on developing yourself and
corporation as top leaders.
Leadership Excellence Community
Join 150,000+ HR.com members with a similar interest and focus on
Leadership and specific Leadership Development topics. Share content
and download white papers, blogs, and articles, network, and “follow” peers
and have them “follow” you in a social network platform to communicate
regularly and stay on top of the latest updates. The well established
Leadership Excellence Community is an invaluable resource for any HR
professional, leadership coach or executive.
Leadership Excellence Expert Certification Program (40 hours)
Work towards the ultimate credential for education. Showcase your
expertise with Expert Certification in the Leadership Domain and learn how
to bring the right leadership programs into your organization and make
them impactful. The program offers credit courses on topics related to the
quality of leadership within an individual or organization, the difference
between leader development and leadership development, and the latest
leadership solutions and strategies.
Leadership Excellence Forum
April 9 – 11, 2014, Vail Cascade Resort & Spa, Vail, Colorado
The Leadership Excellence Forum will bring together top Leadership
experts and Chief Leadership Officers from around the world. Also included
will be recognition of the Top 500 Leaders earning this year’s Leadership
Excellence Awards. Keynote Speakers including Dr. Marshall Goldsmith Best selling author and world authority in helping successful leaders.
Leadership Excellence Certificate Program (5 hours)
A Certificate in Leadership Excellence with the Institute for Human Resources
(IHR) makes you credible, marketable, and shows your dedication to your
profession.
08.2013
Vol.30 No. 8
development,
and organizational
productivity
Presented By
$9.99 a month
Crucial Accountability
By Kerry Patterson
Confront slackers
Leadership Excellence Top 500 Awards
April 9 – 11, 2014, Vail Cascade Resort & Spa, Vail, Colorado
The esteemed Leadership Excellence awards to be presented at the
Leadership Excellence Forum in Vail will recognize companies that excel in
offering top Leadership Development programs globally.
HR.com/Leadership Excellence also services organizations by creating custom monthly editions
for organizational use. Our leadership resources are designed to supplement and complement
your current leadership development program – or stand alone as an extremely cost-effective plan.
062224
Purpose of Power
By Gary Hamel
It gets things done
Preparing Leaders
By Elaine Varelas
Develop the next
generation now
Developing Leaders
By Jack Zenger, Kurt
Sandholtz, Joe Folkman
Apply five insights
Kerry
Patterson
VitalSmarts
Co-Founder
“Leadership exceLLence
is an exceptionaL
way to Learn and then appLy the best and
Latest ideas in the fieLd of Leadership .”
—warren bennis,
usc professor of
author and
management
All of our leadership resources can be customized for organizational use by design, content,
packaging, and delivery based on your development needs.
Use these resources today! Contact us now to inquire about
organizational customization, individual or organizational pricing!
Phone: 1.877.472.6648
Email: [email protected]
Investing in people has multiplicative impact.
You have a defined strategy. You have talented staff. Are the two connected
in a meaningful way?
By designing development initiatives tailored to
specific employee populations, we efficiently impact the whole organization.
Some people might call it ‘leverage’.
Through executive coaching, leadership development and employee
engagement we provide the tools to build a purposeful culture: one in which
individuals are deeply commited to helping their organizations succeed.
Leadership Development | Employee Engagement
Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?
Leading Technical People+
Influencing Across the Matrix
The OutThinker Process
Leading Out Loud
MPG: The Success Connection
It’s Your Career / Career Coaching
The Engagement Equation
Helping Others Succeed
FastStart
www.BlessingWhite.com
23 Orchard Road | Skillman, NJ 08558-2609 | +1 908.904.1000 | [email protected]

Punit Renjen

Transcription

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