Sales Statistics

How to become a leader, even if you’re average

VANESSA JUDELMAN

Special to The Globe and Mail

My friend Joanne recently got promoted to a very senior leadership role in her organization. In fact, this is her third promotion in just a few years. Some of our peers were surprised by her rapid rise up the corporate ladder. Why? Well, at university, Joanne’s progress and results were fairly average. Yes, she worked hard, but she was never perceived as a rising star.

However, I am not surprised by her success. And this is why: I have always believed that leaders are made not born. This perspective is supported by the research findings of a book I read recently called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

According to the author, Carol Dweck, even great thought leaders like Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children. So does that mean that it is possible for any of us to become the next Einstein? Not exactly. However, although we are all born with certain skills, capabilities and attributes, Ms. Dweck says that “a person’s true potential is unknown; it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil and training.”

So, what really differentiates people like my friend Joanne from the rest of the pack? According to Ms. Dweck, it is their mindset, which is a series of beliefs that drives behaviour. These beliefs can either enable or limit our success. Leaders like Joanne have a “growth” mindset, meaning that they believe their qualities, abilities, and characteristics can change. When faced with challenges, they embrace them and see them as an opportunity to grow.

In contrast, leaders with a “fixed” mindset believe that each of us is born with certain immutable skills and abilities. Hence, these leaders tend to avoid challenges as they could reveal a lack of skills. When they encounter a setback, they blame others rather than seeing failure as an opportunity to develop and progress.

Many years ago, I worked for a chief executive officer who epitomized the growth mindset. He viewed talent as a starting point for success and strongly encouraged continuous improvement and growth in the organization.

Although he was nearing retirement, he never stopped reading, learning and improving himself. His growth mindset permeated throughout the organization. Yes, the company hired smart people, but why was it constantly No. 1 in the industry? Well, for one, the CEO encouraged personal growth and created a corporate culture that supported employee training, development and feedback – three strategies that help to create great performance.

Similarly, Lou Gerstner, CEO of IBM from 1993 to 2002, leveraged a growth mindset to turn his organization around. When he accepted his role, the organization was in trouble. It was riddled with fixed mindset leaders. These individuals were motivated by ego, power and the desire for control. They were reluctant to acknowledge their deficiencies, and the business started to suffer.

Mr. Gerstner, as he describes in his book, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?, scorned his predecessors who believed they were superior to both their colleagues and clients. Like other growth mindset leaders, Mr. Gerstner built a corporate culture that valued teamwork, accountability and service excellence. It was this attitude and approach that helped him to transform IBM.

So, if leaders with a growth mindset tend to build teams and organizations that thrive, what is the impact of fixed mindset leaders? Well, since they often believe they are inherently superior to others, they tend to alienate their team.

Have you had a leader who criticized you, micromanaged you, or mistreated you? This leader likely had a fixed mindset. As a result of this constant criticism, did you become disengaged or choose to play it safe? This is often the case, and it’s never good for business.

Now, consider your own beliefs. Do you tend to avoid feedback or resist personal change? If so, you are likely operating from a fixed mindset.

Conversely, are you someone who welcomes coaching and feedback? Do you leverage the advice of others to help you grow and improve your skills? If so, you likely have a growth mindset.

Regardless of where you are today, the good news is that, with awareness, a growth mindset can be developed. With a targeted development plan, a strong coach or mentor, and a tenacious drive to improve, anything is possible.

Vanessa Judelman is the president of Mosaic People Development (@MosaicPD), a leadership and executive development firm.

Four Muscles Leaders Can Strengthen Everyday

Leadership often seems like a natural ablity that some individuals are gifted with at birth. In reality, leadership is more often a group of muscles that are highly trained in the ability to influence others to take action. Leadership is a journey that never ends and one that you can continue to develop and strengthen like you would a muscle in the gym. Below are four traits of great leaders that if you develop into your daily routine, will help you carry the influence on your team to achieve greatness.


Be Genuine- Strong leaders genuinely care about the success of the people around them. They genuinely want to help others and share wisdom that will lead people to take actions that will reward them. If you only care about your team taking actions to make yourself successful, your team will sense that, and they will resent you. Of course, ultimately, their success will be your success, but focus first on how you will make them successful. Really listen when your team members are asking for help. Don’t let email or other projects distract you while they are speaking. Give your team member your full attention to fully understand how you can be of service.


Build Relationships- John C Maxwell said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Build relationships that are so strong with your team members that they are excited to come to work each day because they get to come to work with you. Plan a team outing and learn about whom your people really are when they are not in the office. Be a mentor to at least two or three members that you believe could be future leaders in your organization. Take them to lunch and talk about leadership opportunities with them. Let them know you want to see them in a leadership position and you plan to help them achieve that role.


Be the Pulse of the Team- If you show up late and cranky, your team members will be affected. Put your game face on each day. It’s your job to provide the energy, momentum and excitement around production each day. Put on some music, clap your hands or create a contest if you are having a rough day. All three are guaranteed to make your team members smile, which in turn should make you smile.


Deliver Feedback- I have a rule. If I’ll say it about you, I’ve already told you. Make sure that your team members know where they stand both on the good and the bad. Make a point to deliver both praise and discipline right away. When you see your team members taking the right actions, love them. When you see them pointed in the wrong direction, pick them up and put them back on the road of success.


Remember, great leadership cannot be truly developed if you only workout these traits once in a great while. Strong leadership is about consistently using your leadership muscles everyday. 

Posted by:Kelly McDonald

Teach the Key Ingredients for Leadership Success

There’s a major disconnect between what companies look for in their top performers and best leaders, and what students learn in school. Why don’t we better align these skill sets?

For instance, among educators there is lots of talk these days about “grit”: the tenacity to focus on working toward a goal despite obstacles and setbacks. It’s been found crucial in many ways – for instance in determining whether disadvantaged kids finish high school. That’s well and good.

But don’t think grit will make you an effective leader. Of course leaders need to be motivated – everyone does. But that’s not what makes them high-performing leaders.

Such self-motivation can help make you an outstanding individual performer – an accountant, say, or a programmer. But leadership requires an additional skill set: social intelligence.

In my model of emotional intelligence, grit falls under self-management, one of four essential leadership skills. The others are self-awareness – which is the basis for managing yourself – and empathy plus social skills.

A chronic complaint among companies who promote individuals to a leadership position who are excellent performers on their own is this: if they lack social intelligence, they will fail as leaders.

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a world expert on hiring, did a study of C-level leaders who were fired. The conclusion: they were hired for their intelligence and business expertise, but fired for weakness in emotional intelligence – usually the social variety.

“The best worker on the shop room floor can fail as a foreman for lack of social intelligence,” is how Edward Thorndike, the psychologist who first developed the concept, put it.

When I looked at competence studies done by companies to identify the skill sets of their outstanding performers – what sets top leaders apart from average – the vast majority fell in the emotional intelligence category.

With a fresh crop of college grads heading into a tight job market, I wish they had had help in developing their emotional intelligence skills during their studies. But with a very few exceptions colleges ignore this crucial skill set for success. Students acquire these abilities on their own time, and rather randomly, depending on happenstance.

As a trustee at MIT told me, when they did a study of the grads who had given the school the largest donations, the conclusion was that these had not been the top-of-the-class whizzes while in college. Instead they were good enough students (after all, they had gotten into MIT), but with strong side interests: often president of a club or sports team. Many had already showed entrepreneurial promise by starting their own small businesses on the side.

There are many successful programs on emotional intelligence for grade levels kindergarten through high school. These fall under the umbrella of “social and emotional learning.” One meta-analysis of more than 270,000 students showed that the courses boost pro-social behavior – e.g., behaving well in class – while lowering antisocial ones like bullying. 

Bonus: students’ achievement test scores jumped 11 percent.

Maybe it’s time to help all students at all levels get better at these life – and leadership – skills. 

Posted by:Daniel Goleman

What my kids have taught me about management

After more than 20 years in business, as a follower, employee, manager, leader and business owner; and being the father of three great kids, with one on the way this fall, it has become painfully obvious to me the parallels between managing and parenting. Rising into the management ranks at an early age, I was constantly asked by direct reports starting out their budding careers what they could do to gain the experience and practice necessary to advance up the corporate ranks so fast. I always told them the same thing: “You want practice and experience being a manager? Go have some kids.” Here are a few of the take-a ways I have experienced over the years: 

1. How many times does it take to get the point across? Everyone has his or her own learning curve. Some are quick studies and grasp new things like a sponge. Others take longer to learn the same things. Remember back to when we were in school, learning something new for the first time? Maybe you were the one that got it right away, it was intuitive for you. Maybe you were the one that could not understand how the Pythagorean theorem worked to save your life. Expecting everyone to grasp concepts on the same timeline is unrealistic. Understanding how people learn is the first step to helping get the point across.

2. How do they learn? Every child (or employee) has their own learning style and their own way of communicating effectively. Managers want to lead, teach and coach in their own natural learning style. This works great if your child or team member always shares your learning style. If they do not, you are in for a dysfunctional relationship unless you can figure out quickly how to effectively communicate with them in their own style. And yes, as the manager just like a parent, it’s up to you to adapt, not the other way around.

3. How best to discipline? My two year old is a typical terrible two. Do not get me wrong, she is a great, sweet little girl, but she is ornery and stubborn. When her brothers were her age, I could yell at them for getting out of line and they would straighten up quick. The oldest is a pleaser and he just wants to make you happy. You treat the little one that way and she melts down in a puddle of tears. Real tears, not the fake kind kids are so good at producing. Learning discipline styles and what works for your team is just as important as learning what motivates them. Everyone needs a boost or kick in the pants from time to time, but do it the wrong way and you will lose them. Learn how to coach them and you will have an ally.

4. How are they motivated? Everyone is motivated differently. Some people love being the center of attention and nothing will motivate them more to bust their butts everyday for you than praising them for a job well done in public, especially in front of their peers. Others cannot stand being in the spotlight, and so private acknowledgement works best for them. Many people could care less about benefits or special rewards for a job well done, while others thrive on those little extras or bonuses. Learning what motivates best is the quickest way to learn how to get the best out of those you are working with.

We are all different. Taking a step back and objectively comparing yourself to those you know should tell you that this is true. If we were all the same, this managing thing would be easy. Leadership would be a breeze. Just do everything the way I would expect it to be done and we would operate like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, this is not how it goes and anyone that has ever had to lead a group, manage a team, reason with young children or argue with teenagers can attest to the same thing. Trying to apply the cookie-cutter approach will never work. Ultimately, we have to accept the fact that to be a truly effective parent, leader or manager comes down to the same underlying premise: You have to get to know and understand the individuals you are working with to truly be able to lead, teach, coach and mentor them to success. 

Posted by:Matthew Motil

Managing Two People Who Hate Each Other

Managing people is never easy, but when the animosity between two of your direct reports escalates to the level of hatred, how do you minimize the drama and keep your team on track?  Before you call for a professional mediator, remember that this is a fundamental part of your job as a manager. If you can get to the root of your employees’ fear, you can help them rebuild their relationship. And if you do it the right way, the shared vulnerability will start to foster trust in place of hate. Try the following approach to get at the root of the problem and resolve the conflict once and for all:

Before addressing the interpersonal tension between your two direct reports, it’s important to ensure the conflict isn’t stemming from more systemic issues. First, ensure that your direct reports have clarity about their roles, a solid understanding of what is expected of them, and a set of measures and rewards that promote collaboration rather than competition. Make sure their relationship is set up for success.

Then, before you talk to them, spend a moment thinking about your own frustration with and judgments about them.  If you are fed up and unwilling or unable to be empathetic, you won’t be in a position to help. Hatred is the product of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and fear — empathy can dissolve it.  Start with the positive assumption that your direct reports are good people experiencing something stressful. Compose yourself, or risk provoking even more anxiety in the people you are trying to calm down.

When you are ready, relentlessly provide feedback whenever you see symptoms of the poor relationship. For example: “When Giselle spoke, you rolled your eyes.  For me, that demonstrated a lack of professional maturity. What caused your reaction to what Giselle was saying?”

Take every opportunity to call out bad behavior and don’t hesitate to provide feedback on the absence of behavior either, as in: “I noticed that you didn’t say anything during Giselle’s presentation. What was going on for you?” In each case, ensure that your feedback ends with an open-ended question that gets the person talking.

Use the answers to your questions to uncover clues about the root causes of the animosity.  Remember, for feelings as strong as hatred to be triggered, the root causes are probably very close to home.  Shed light on issues of low self-esteem, anxiety about change, or fear of losing control. Try questions such as: “What worries you?” “How do you see this playing out?” or “How do you experience it when she does that?” Let each answer show you the path to the next question. You are attempting to get beneath the person’s biased perceptions of situations and down into their motives and beliefs. That’s where the emotion is coming from.

As you listen closely to the answers, it is critical to redirect comments that include assumptions about what the other person is thinking or feeling. For example, if he says “she is trying to destroy my credibility,” reframe the idea as “we don’t know Giselle’s motive; I am interested in how her behavior is being interpreted by you. How do you feel when she disagrees with you in front of the team?”

Reflect back what you hear and start to make some hypotheses about what might be going on. “I get the sense that when Giselle was promoted two levels in three years, you started to think about your own career progression. Is that fair?” “Tell me more about what you’re thinking.” The objective is to make sure each individual understands how their thoughts and feelings affect their perceptions of the other.

Encourage each person to consider the possibility that the other is trying to cope in the best way they know how.  Ask questions that help them think about the situation differently.  “How do you think Giselle felt when she joined a team of people who are older and more experienced than her?” “How might you help Giselle get her point across so that she doesn’t need to be so assertive?”

Once you have helped each individual understand his or her half of the relationship, you can bring the two together to have a conversation. “I’ve been speaking with each of you about my concerns over your strained relationship. I think you’re ready to talk to one another.” Interject as little as possible in the conversation, but where you know there is something that’s not being said, provide a gentle nudge: “Giselle, we talked about how you experience it when Bob disengages in a meeting…” This process might take several conversations—stick with it.

The advantage of making this level of investment is that it will go a long way toward fixing the problem once and for all—once you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes, it’s very unlikely you will still feel animosity. Even more importantly, it will be some of the best leadership development the two individuals have ever received. You will have helped them grow up, gain some insight into themselves, and forge a relationship that benefits everyone. Their newfound accountability for relationships will serve them well throughout their careers.

 

Liane Davey

Liane Davey is the vice president of team solutions at Knightsbridge Human Capital. Her new book is You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done. She is also a co-author of Leadership Solutions: The Pathway to Bridge the Leadership Gap.

Making the Leap From Star Teammate to Great Leader

What do you do if you’re suddenly put in charge of a team, a project, a division – or even a company?

Having been an exceptional team member in the past doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be a great captain – in fact, what made you a star performer could actually get in your way. If your individual success hinged on doing superior work, for instance, you may need to overcome a pitfall familiar to straight-A students who end up doing all the work themselves when participating in group projects.

Suddenly accountable for people you can’t control, for work you can’t do on your own and maybe even for the output of people you’ve never met, you might panic. Many new leaders do. But realizing that not even the world’s most spectacular track star can beat the time of a just-average relay team may help you realize that the power of a team can outstrip your own performance, even if it’s world class. That’s a good starting point for getting out of your own way. Consider some of the following advice, as well.

1. Visualize “winning.” To do this, you’ll need to project all the way to the finish line. Create powerful images in your mind, and then express these objectives in ways everyone will remember – from the boardroom to the shop. It’s important to turn rudimentary wishes into specific goals; to go from earning a profit to earning $1 per share, to go from having happy customers to having a net promoter score of over 75, to go from being socially responsible to setting up 20 scholarships for employees’ kids.

Establishing quantifiable measures and time-frames turns wishes into goals. Goals then transform capable individuals into powerful teams. Unified teams lead to world-class performance. And articulating, measuring and celebrating meaningful goals means attracting highly qualified employees. 

2. Build a great team. If you hire talented people and put their interests ahead of your own, good things will happen. Your own commitment to serving your team will spur them to become stewards for clients, vendors, shareholders, other employees – and anyone else who has a stake in achieving shared goals. Once the right team is on the field, your own tasks are simply to make sure they have the resources they need and to clear any obstacles out of their way.

3. Don’t play the popularity game. You may be tempted to be popular, and to that end, you might use the proverbial carrot or another type of enticement to garner support. But don’t give outsized bonuses or spackle over real issues with any sort of “free lunch.” If you build fake esprit de corps by giving stuff away, it means you’re failing as a leader, because in actuality, there are no free lunches. Everything comes at a cost. And as leader, you’re accountable for the yet-to-be-reckoned expense of keeping people in line with bribes. You’ll find that not only do their appetites return, but you’ll eventually need to pay for the “food.”

4. Do play the long game. On a related note, only yield to pressures to fix things in the short run if you’re sure your solutions won’t have negative ramifications in the long run. If you keep an eye on the full array of short-, medium- and long-term consequences, not only will your team come to trust you – even though they won’t always agree with you – but so will the market.

5. Be ready to pivot. New problems will flow from every decision you make, so pick solutions that generate a next set of problems suited to your management abilities. You’re not solving a puzzle where finding the perfect piece will complete the picture; you’re dealing in ever-changing probabilities. So adapt, adjust, iterate until you find a good-enough course of action. Then, carry out your plan as if your life depended on it – it’s more reasonable to strive for perfection in execution than in decision-making.

6. Don’t pass the buck. In private enterprise, power can shift from manufacturer to distributor to retailer to customer, and back again. It all depends on an ever-changing balance between supply and demand. In government, politicians calculate how taking from one generation to give to another may keep them in office – until the wheels of society fall off. As a business leader, you’re a steward, not a politician, so resist the temptation to simply shift burdens. Success rooted in inequity spawns instability and strife, whereas applying fairness, durability and equity will pay dividends over time.

7. Listen to your team. Listening is an important part of your job, so be sure to ask for input. But also remember that the most popular ideas are often the least feasible, so don’t base your decisions on popular opinion or politics alone. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” Build the personal capital that allows you to make tough, unpopular calls – then make them. Explain your reasoning to your team, and if you’ve listened well to them, they’ll listen to you when you make the tough calls.

8. Pass the baton. If you insist on making every single decision, you’ll have a less-innovative, less-energized and less-committed team. So decentralize decision-making where possible; empower those closest to the facts and then make them accountable.

9. Know that sometimes, there actually is an “I” in team. People are naturally self-interested. Don’t be surprised by this, and don’t punish them for it. Instead, reward those who have enlightened self-interest – who take into account the long view, who consider the concerns of the community in which they’ve chosen to live and who work for the many non-financial interests other people have. Expecting others simply to deny self-interest altogether for an objective you’ve set will merely unleash instability – and can even destroy your organization.

10.Acknowledge your bloopers. Embracing feedback, particularly the negative kind, is one key to recognizing mistakes. Be humble, vulnerable and willing to learn. If you are, your whole team will learn from its mistakes, too.

Leadership is not about being the best producer, or about being liked, or about making speeches – it is, at its very core, about getting the best all-things-considered results. Incorporating the above tweaks into your already well-established pattern of great individual performance will put you on your way to transforming yourself from manager to leader.

As management-consulting pioneer Peter Drucker noted, “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.” In my experience, doing the right things the right way is the mark of a great leader. 

Posted by:Joel Peterson

What Actually Leads To Success

Why product strategy is key to innovation and new markets

Want to be a leader in sustainability? Start focusing on your product or service. 

 You're in business because your product or service delivers what your customers need. And a sustainable product strategy gives your customers the opportunity to reduce their impact through the purchase and use of sustainable products. That said, making the transition away from traditional products takes patience, perseverance and organizational buy-in.

Perhaps your organization's corporate sustainability evolution began with reporting and tracking metrics such as safety incidents or environmental violations. From there, you saw opportunities to drive operational efficiency and cut costs through initiatives like reducing fuel consumption by switching to electric or hybrid vehicles. A sustainable product strategy is a logical next step in the organizational evolution of corporate sustainability programs and has the potential to provide a huge upside.

A recent survey found that 32 percent of CFOs anticipate that over the next few years, about five percent of annual revenue growth will come from products and services that reduce environmental and social impacts. For instance, Dow Chemical's investment in sustainable product development to help customers address environmental challenges is projected to be a $350 billion market opportunity. While companies might see entering this market as a risk, we see it as an area of opportunity that is not as difficult as some might think.

For example, ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas (TKE) understands that its industry is full of products that require regular maintenance and updating to keep riders safe and comply with regulations. The constant use of its products causes significant wear and tear. Therefore, TKE developed a suite of products called Modernization that allow building owners to choose the parts they need to repair their existing elevators without purchasing an entirely new elevator.

Furthermore, these Modernization products are more efficient, reliable and durable, so they can extend the elevator's life over a longer period of time with less maintenance. TKE has also developed a line of sustainable products that lowers energy costs, reduces power consumption by eliminating the use of a motor generator, and captures and reuses energy through advanced regenerative drive technology. Again, these products extend the elevator's life but they also reduce travel time for riders, reduce noise inside the cab and increase the overall ride quality.

Making a leap from operational efficiencies to sustainable product design requires a change in the way you view your company's products and services. It is an opportunity to see what you already do in a new light but also see the potential for further innovation and leadership. There are two distinct paths that you could take if you decide to make this leap from traditional to sustainable products and services.

1. Recognize the sustainability attributes inherent within current products and services.
Many companies do not see the sustainable attributes of their products. This is often due to being too close to those goods or having an outdated perspective. Once a company looks at its own products with an eye for where the environmental and social benefits are, it's often surprised at what it finds.

The Davey Tree Expert Co., a professional tree care and landscaping company (and a BrownFlynn client), is early in its sustainability journey and has been focused on operational efficiencies. Initially, Davey was hesitant to promote its products and services as sustainable -- even though a large part of its business is based on the preservation of trees and vegetation - because it was afraid of greenwashing. The best way to ensure environmental claims are trustworthy is to use research and analysis like a lifecycle assessment (LCA) to back it up.

A number of companies out there are highlighting the sustainable attributes of current products. A great example is Salesforce, which came out with its first sustainability report earlier this year, proclaiming that its cloud computing platform produced less carbon than a traditional client server IT environment by 95 percent. Salesforce's aim here is to show customers that using its platform will help them reduce energy consumption and achieve sustainability goals.

2. Redesigning with sustainability in mind
Redesigning products using sustainability as a lens for development is evident of true leadership in this space. Nike's Considered Design initiative enabled the company to recycle 82 million plastic bottles into high-performance sportswear and increase the use of environmentally preferred materials by 20 percent. The initiative resulted in additional operational efficiency success such as reducing waste by 19 percent in its footwear business, and achieving a 95 percent reduction in volatile compounds. These activities have never been seen before in the footwear category, showing how sustainability is a tool for innovation and differentiation in the marketplace.

Making the decision to move from traditional products and services to thinking and designing in a more sustainable way will help companies secure a place in the market for years to come. A sustainable product strategy boosts reputation and credibility amongst peers and customers. It opens up doors for new customers and opportunities not yet realized. To become a truly sustainable enterprise, offering a sustainable product or service is the final evolution.

Sara Kennedy is an analyst with BrownFlynn, working on sustainability strategies that drive business value.

Read more from Sara Kennedy.

Marissa Beechuck is an associate consultant and marketing manager for BrownFlynn, serving clients in a number of industries while managing the firm’s brand and social media presence.

Fast Failure: The Secret to Success

Surveying the business landscape over the past five years makes me especially optimistic about growth. Strangely, that’s because so many U.S. businesses are failing—but failing successfully. As unexpected as that sounds, the best organizations and business leaders are now adept at failing and then quickly applying lessons learned from those misfires to fuel future successes. 

Today’s problems are incredibly complex. Few can be solved on the first try. But we find that clients who seek to understand what does and does not work ultimately make more confident, grounded decisions.

Kelley Buchanan, PwC’s managing director for insurance advisory, and I spoke yesterday at the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s Women in Insurance Forum in Chicago. Our theme was the frontiers of the future, and a big part of our discussion focused on failing fast and learning faster to take advantage of new opportunities.

The insurance industry focuses on mitigating risk, so the notion of failing in order to succeed does not come naturally, but the industry increasingly recognizes that the way forward requires a cultural shift. I see that transformation beginning as insurance industry leaders increasingly focus on tech-driven innovation.

For example, insurers are contemplating how drone technology might be integrated into claim adjustment. Sending drones to record and instantly transmit an aerial view holds great promise, particularly in situations where sending an adjuster to a remote or dangerous location would be too costly, risky, or time-consuming. Google Glass is another exciting innovation to increase adjustor efficiency. Outfitting a junior adjustor with Google Glass, while senior talent fields multiple claims at a command center, will significantly streamline the industry.

Innovative thinking is also on the rise in insurance marketing. With the help of technology, insurance companies have the opportunity to form new partnerships outside the industry and to bring in fresh perspectives in consumer packaging. Just think—we can now purchase life insurance in a box at Walmart.

To be clear, the type of trial and failure I am applauding is not about putting an entire company at risk. It’s about creating an open environment where today’s business people can learn from mistakes, experiment and innovate without the stigma often associated with failing.

Cloud technology, for example, facilitates fast failure. By speeding up the availability of applications and infrastructure and decreasing costs, the cloud allows innovators to try out more ideas more quickly. Because cloud technology enables analysis of huge quantities of data, ideas that aren’t working can be quickly identified and closed out while investment continues in areas that are performing well. In social media and web services, for example, mining vast amounts of customer data for timely and rapid feedback is essential to making decisions about next steps.

Change is occurring at unprecedented speeds, and failure also needs to be rapid. Whether learning simply to use a new app or implementing new technological systems, most of us don’t get it right the first time. Ultimately, a willingness to try, fail, and learn creates opportunities for organizations and individuals ready to innovate. An organization that focuses on quickly and efficiently extracting lessons learned from failures, instead of pointing fingers, is well-equipped to lead in real time.

Posted by:Timothy F. Ryan

9 Things Millennials Can Teach the Rest of Us About Engagement

Search the Internet and you find a ton of theories on how to engage Millennials at work. Fair enough given those born between 1980 and 1999 are tomorrow’s leaders, if they aren’t there already. Yet most research suggests longer tenured employees are the bigger engagement challenge. So why aren’t we asking Millennials to help engage the rest of us versus the other way around?

Millennial stereotypes abound -- lazy, unfocused, entitled, disloyal.... And the reasons range from over-indulgent parenting to advances in technology or, more recently, the massive blow to trust in corporations. However my experience, observing from the cusp of the Boomer and X generations, has been very different.

First off, much of what Millennials want, even expect, from employment is not unique to their generation. “Boomers and Gen X’ers want more leadership, more involvement and ultimately more balance too,” says Youthful Cities co-founder Robert Barnard. “Millennials are just able to scream that much louder!”

The combined voice of Millennials merits a good listen, not just because of its volume but because it makes good sense. Based on many discussions here at Edelman and at other organisations, following are a few tips Millennials might suggest about engagement if given the chance:

1. Frequent, instant recognition. Young employees are not far from their school years where they received consistent, measurable and peer comparable feedback almost weekly from the age of six. Also conditioned by gaming, Millennials have been accustomed to instant, albeit virtual, rewards for achieving new levels of competence. Applied in the workplace, we could all benefit from immediate and specific feedback rather than waiting for the annual or semi-annual review.
2. More productive use of time. I’ve always found Millennials are willing to put in the hours. But they’re not interested in just appearing to be busy. In charge, they'd likely schedule fewer and shorter meetings or conference calls but with focused agendas and action logs. And when our work is done, they’d encourage us to leave and enjoy the rest of their life, always remaining connected if necessary. Better use of time could make us more productive, and frankly more interesting, when we’re at work. Shouldn’t that be a goal for all of us?
3. Short term performance management. Among the stereotypes I see reinforced every day is that Millennials don’t have much patience for long-term promises. Based on seeing their parents often toil for many years with one company only to have the rug pulled out due to the financial crisis or the latest recession, can we blame them? Long-term incentive programs and 10-year career-path trajectories don’t hold much interest. What they do tend to embrace are clear, measurable objectives that are regularly reviewed and challenging short-term assignments, at home or abroad. With rapid change requiring companies to be agile, employees’ ability to be so nimble will be a big advantage.
4. More collaboration. Millennials tend to be very comfortable working in teams. They want to be involved and ultimately share their experiences as widely as possible. For organizations that value teamwork and seek to instill a spirit of advocacy for their brands, Millennials can show the rest of us how to do it.
5. A more explicit employee deal. Full transparency around the expectations between employer and employee has probably always been an engagement driver. If Millennials take it further and shout for a more explicit “employee deal,” that’s a good thing according to Andy Brown, CEO of the UK-based Engage. “Increasingly, organizations are putting in place explicit sets of “terms” that outline what the employer expects from employees in terms of behaviours, effort and delivery. And they also spell out what employees can expect back in terms of development, opportunity, culture and rewards.
6. Meritocracy. Yes, the opposite of entitlement. Millennials consistently hate “waiting their turn” to give input and will run from a traditional, tenure-based workplace hierarchy. By evolving in this regard, organizations surely benefit from environments in which rewards are earned versus entitled.
7. More fun. To truly enjoy their work, Millennials will tell you they need to enjoy their workplace. Open, engaging environments promote inspiration, innovation and collegiality. And friends at the office are the norm versus the exception, making work and life seamless. I recently enjoyed reading HR Magazine's interview with tech firm FNZ’s HR director Daniel Kasmir, who describes the company’s Edinburgh location, complete with a four-pod think tank, kitchen meeting area with pool table and large graffiti wall. If we create a workplace that promotes fun, Millennials are more likely to stick around. As for the balance of us, we just need to lighten up and join in.
8. More purpose. Millennials will consistently tell you they want to work for a company that makes a positive difference. Do they want to have their cake and it eat it too? Perhaps. And why not? Today’s young adults have often had experience of contributing their time and reasonably expect their employer to generate more than a profit as well. Articulating a clear purpose, or "North Star," and actively involving employees in corporate social responsibility programs will reap big dividends.
9. Tailored engagement action plans. While there are many common denominators for engagement across the generations, it’s also true that we value different things as we journey through life’s stages. I think Millennials would advise us to segment our engagement actions and avoid using a “single hammer” to address engagement across everyone as if we were one homogenous mass.

I'd love to see this list extended with more suggestions, but the point is clear. Rather than constantly trying to figure out how to engage Millennials, we can seek their help to engage us. It could be the key to improving the terrible math I referred to in my blog a few weeks ago. Finding the answers will only become more important as retirement ages get pushed back and three or even four generations work side by side in the companies of the future.

Nigel Miller is co-chair Europe CIS Employee Engagement & global director Talent 

Engagement, Edelman.Posted by:Nigel Miller

Conversation vs presentation