Effective Succession Management

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

War vs. Combat. What’s Your Growth Strategy?

There are two ways to grow a business.


One, I’ll call the War Business Model.


The war business model is the style where you spread out the world map on a table, and expand your business while keeping your ultimate strategy in mind. To win, you need to capture more than 50% of the market share. What the organization needs to do is take dynamic action in the direction of the goal.


Microsoft’s operating system and Google’s search engine are good examples of the war business model. Despite losing hundreds of billions of dollars at first, they were eventually able to turn their losses into profits by continually aiming toward ultimate victory.


By contrast, the combat business model is where you can see the faces of the people you are working with. In our early days when, after much running around all over Japan, we had managed to at last acquire four or five store owners, our style was a good example of the combat business model. In this way of doing business, the organization values each small victory, and slowly builds these small victories into something really big.

The overall strategy that I formulated was to expand the company’s performance in this manner. Through a gradual accumulation of victories, we eventually reached a critical point.

Under the war business model—the model where from the beginning you make large investments and have a big army at your disposal—the return for success is great, but the risk of failure is equally great. With the combat business model you can easily pick yourself up again, even if you fail, because there is nothing much to lose. The reason why we were able to meet the challenge of the Internet shopping business—a model, it was believed, that would never succeed in Japan—was because from the outset, we employed the combat business model. Because I had the psychological fallback of knowing that we could always do things over again, I was able to make bold and decisive decisions.


Do not hold back on your growth ideas just because you can’t afford to wage war. Instead, try combat and grow one small victory at a time.

(Photo: FC Photography)nt

Posted by:Hiroshi Mikitani

What A Music Conductor Knows About Leadership: Hugh Ballou

Leadership coach Hugh Ballou spent the first 40 years of his career with his back to the audience

In my recent article on Cooperative Capitalism I promised more information from CEO Space faculty co-lead Hugh Ballou, who directs that effort together with multi-award winning author and expert on integrity in business Dr. David Gruder. The two coach, train and provide keynote addresses and learning experiences for corporations, both individually and jointly.

Of particular interest to me was seeing the way Ballou’s years of background as a music conductor have contributed to the skills he presents to leaders of organizations of all sizes including the world’s largest musical efforts, church organizations and even Fortune 1000 CEOs.

Says Ballou: “In 40 years of music ministry I conducted my work with my back to the audience.” Now, in his leadership training, he is addressing the challenges corporate leaders face head on.

Ballou defines a leader as one of three things:

1. A person who gets things done.
2. A person who learns how things get done.
3. A person who accomplishes work by influencing others.

Sometimes the influence is autocratic and negative. In other cases it’s based on inspiration, through trusted relationships (which is the path he selects and promotes).

Orchestrating Success
Have you ever watched a musical conductor at work? It’s leadership in motion. There is never an instant of indecision or a moment of doubt. The musical conductor is always in control. This may sound and seem like a dictatorship, but it is not, Ballou says. Nor is it a democracy, as a single person directs the will of others and the artistic vision that will shape the result.

On a corporate team, the leader articulates a vision through carefully crafted goals and empowers and directs key players in their role to the outcome and success.

In either case, the leader inspires the maximum result by inspiring and empowering the team of participants. If the leader is open and straightforward, the team will engage and do their best to succeed. But if the leader is ill-prepared, guarded and uncommunicative…the result is subpar (or perhaps a disaster).

Each player is highly skilled, and each person contributes the best of their unique talent. Together, the team creates a result that far surpasses what any individual could produce on their own. If the leader tells an expert oboe player how to play oboe – by the next season that player will likely be gone. But if he or she can bring out the greatest creativity and enthusiasm in the player, magic ensues.

Today, leadership coach Hugh Ballou trains leaders ranging from startup entrepreneurs to Fortune 1000 CEOs

From a musical conductor we can observe the following, Ballou says:

• If the leader is autocratic, there’s a limit to success.
• The leader should strive to portray a commanding presence—not a fearful dominance.
• The leader is only as effective as his or her success in inspiring and leading others.
• The leader defines how the result is expressed:
  • With passion and commitment
  • With unanimity of movement and expression
  • With a combination of skills that create momentum
  • With unity of pace and harmony
  • The leader invites people to participate through the aura of their presence
  • The leader knows and communicates that the team can only achieve its result with every member doing their best

Conductors and leaders inspire the highest possible performance from the groups that they lead. They are alert to circumstances and make adjustments and changes needed as the program progresses to ensure an optimal result. According to Ballou, corporate leaders can do much to sharpen their skills and understanding of ideal leadership by attending a symphony performance and observing the nuances and non-verbal signals that separate the merely good and acceptable from inspiring and unforgettable.

From Music Conductor to Meeting Conductor
One of the great problems Ballou notes that leaders seem to universally face is that they want to blame others for the problems they helped to create. Perhaps they are unclear about specifics or time frames and fail to provide mentoring.  Sometimes as leaders we confuse mentoring with micromanaging, Ballou says. When leaders fall short, he suggests they turn around once again, to take a close look in the mirror.

As Ballou teaches leaders he often uses his orchestra experience as an analogy:

• The orchestra lecturn holds the score (the strategic plan.)
• Every event that will happen is notated, with clearly defined roles and parts.
• The action plan is directly tied to the musical score.
• The CEO directs from the score (as opposed to playing the music). Their highest value is inspiring and allowing other people to perform to their highest level of expertise.
• As a conductor, the team lead (or CEO) begins with the “why” of a given performance, influences people with a common purpose, then gives them a clear pathway and coaches them to excellence.
• The choir or orchestra’s job is to listen to each other, and to use their level of expertise and also combine it with others then to attain a harmonic ensemble result. Many leaders inadvertently squelch these possibilities by being the “answer person” rather than allowing people to function in the areas they know best (a phenomenon leadership expert Murray Bowen has described as “irresponsible responsibility”). The result: A burned out leader and a frustrated team.

“In audiences and in facilitations it’s been interesting to note that 65-75% of those who attend have had some musical experience, and the rest have generally observed a conductor,” Ballou says. “So when I create the analogy, I hear ‘Ah’.”

“I particularly enjoy working with startup entrepreneurs,” says Ballou. “In these cases, companies can create a ‘ground up’ culture of high performance.”

That culture is vital, he notes, in that the U.S. currently suffers from an estimated 70% disengaged employees, according to research numbers from Gallup. It is an epidemic that costs organizations millions of lost hours and billions in lost revenue, particularly when we consider the vast hours leaders spend undoing conflict, much of which they’ve inadvertently (or occasionally even purposely) set up as a misguided ploy to show strength.

Relationships, trust, and a sense of ensemble are vital for optimal companies and teams, Ballou says.

"I love the concept of Jazz ensembles as an analogy,” he says. “It’s the most creative musical form we have in America. But it is not at all haphazard. In a group you have a chord structure, a rhythm, and there are rules of the road to dictate behavior such as if you don’t have a solo, you don’t play loud.”

“Yet we have leaders declaring, ‘I don’t want to be held back by a plan’. With a good structure, you have the room to be creative. Leaders tell me ‘I don’t have time to write down my goals.’ So do you have time to redo your projects, I ask?”

Finally, Ballou shares a set of leadership principles that music conductors know best:

1. Know the score. Know your vision and plan, and set it down in advance.
2. If you want a good ensemble, hire the best players. Look for good skills and good potential to grow.
3. Build effective relationships. Leaders lead people; managers manage money.
4. Every fine ensemble rehearses for every performance. But we often run straight to execution in business and then we execute poorly. By doing so, we build the DNA for poor performance. If we don’t rehearse what we want to accomplish as leaders, we’re modeling poor leadership (which others will copy). Is this the legacy we want to instill?
5. Prepare for meetings by preparing for the outcomes. Within meetings, allow people to play their instruments and to do their parts.
6. Value the rests. The pauses in any musical score are there for a distinct reason. They are punctuation. Yet as leaders we don’t value rest and we don’t put it into our calendar. We need time to plan, evaluate, think, rest and play. In doing this, we deprive ourselves of the chance to perform as a whole person, so we don’t show up as our best selves. An anxious leader communicates anxiety that is contagious throughout the whole human system. So we should value the rest periods and we should perpetually work on ourselves.

Cheryl Conner,

12 Most Appealing Boss Behaviors

• 
• 
  
• 
  
• 63
  inShare
• Email

Great bosses, like great coaches, get the most out of their players. If you’re lucky enough to work for one, it means you’ll develop skills more quickly, develop skills you never thought you had, advance in your career, and if you’re really lucky, enjoy coming to work every day.

Here are the 12 most appealing boss behaviors — behaviors appealing not only to a boss’s direct reports, but also to the bosses of the boss. 

1. Wants you to succeed
A great boss takes great satisfaction in helping an employee achieve results. This foundational aspect of the relationship is, more than anything, what builds the employee’s self-confidence, loyalty and passion for the job. In contrast, a boss who wants to keep the employee down and hog the spotlight creates a team of underachievers who will leave for greener pastures at the first opportunity. 

2. Always has time to talk
Just as great salespeople make you feel like you’re their only customer, great bosses make you feel like you’re their only responsibility. The door is always open. No issue is too pressing to distract their attention from the problem you are discussing, no matter how trivial it may seem. This is smart business. If the boss doesn’t appear to care about the employee’s problems, why should the employee care? 

3. Turns mistakes into teaching opportunities
A great boss doesn’t scream at you in the heat of battle for something you’re in the midst of screwing up. All that accomplishes is emotional flare-ups, shame and resentment. Instead, a great boss takes you aside later, in a period of calm, and goes over what happened. Part of that conversation may indeed be unpleasant, but you’ll come away knowing how to do better next time. Instead of fearing the next challenging situation, you’ll welcome it. 

4. Keeps you on your toes
Because great bosses want you to succeed, they don’t mind giving you tough love. They’ll push you to do better, point out mistakes and poke around in your business to make sure you’re putting in the hours and not taking shortcuts. A great boss I had even went so far as to call customers I called on that week to see if I showed up when I said I did, and if so, how the call went. It felt intrusive, but looking back, it made me a more productive sales rep than I ever would have become otherwise.  

5. Doesn’t micromanage
Even though great bosses keep you on your toes, they do it selectively, not 24/7. As any victim of micromanagement knows, a boss who constantly looks over your shoulder saps every ounce of creative energy out of you. It’s a slow, painful death. A great boss, in complete contrast, leaves matters in your hands, and can even make you feel at times like you’re working without a net. Feeling that independence and exposure to risk makes a job exciting and builds a sense of ownership in an employee.  

6. Has consistent expectations
When you work for a certain type of bad boss, you come to the office every day in a state of anxiety. If one day you’re being told that filling out detailed reports is your main priority, and the next day you’re being told entertaining customers is your main priority, you’re bound to get confused, and never know whether you’re about to be fired or promoted. On the other hand, if you’ve been working for a great boss for any length of time, you’ll know what the priorities are without anything being said at all. 

7. Has high expectations
Great bosses have high hopes for you — maybe higher than yours. A good boss praises you for a job well done and asks how you can do even better next time. The great boss gives you opportunities to further your education and take on new work challenges. 

8. Conducts formal performance reviews
Everybody knows daily encouragement and “attaboys” improve morale, but employees benefit even more from regularly scheduled, comprehensive performance reviews. Employees need and appreciate detailed feedback, even when it’s not all positive. And, formal reviews are an opportunity to set new expectations and build a clear career path. A boss who never has time for performance reviews, or doesn’t know how to conduct them, will never be more than mediocre. 

9. Communicates clearly and directly
Great bosses know how to make themselves understood. They know how to explain an assignment so employees can get going on it with confidence, and they know how to evaluate results so employees know exactly what they did well and what needs improvement. With a great boss, you always know where you stand; you’re never waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

10. Is decisive
From the employee’s perspective, “yes” is exciting, “no” is disappointing, and “maybe” is intolerable. Nothing kills enthusiasm and productivity like a boss who can’t make up his mind, who dithers and fiddles while Rome burns. Great bosses make reasoned decisions, and make them as quickly as circumstances allow. This keeps the team motivated and perhaps more importantly, moving. 

11. Takes responsibility
When great bosses make mistakes, they take ownership rather than lay off blame on subordinates. This not only goes a long way toward earning the respect and loyalty of subordinates, it sets an example and a high standard for everyone in the organization. 

12. Will fire you without hesitation
As soon as great bosses conclude that an employee is a hopelessly bad fit, they proceed with the termination. Getting fired is bad, of course — but stagnating in an unfulfilling, dead-end job for years or decades is far worse. Great bosses don’t allow that to happen; instead, they make the tough decision that gives an employee a chance to find the right fit, to pursue the best possible career.

As this list demonstrates, being a standout boss isn’t easy. Notice that all of the 12 items stress interpersonal skills rather than technical proficiency. This is why promoting, for instance, star sales reps into sales managers usually backfires. Being great at doing something won’t necessarily make you great at helping others do it.

Have you ever had a boss with some or all of these qualities? What qualities can you add to my list of appealing boss behaviors?

Brad Shorr

http://straightnorth.com
Brad Shorr is Director of B2B Marketing for Straight North, a full service Internet marketing agency with headquarters in Chicago. A blogger since 2005, he writes frequently on social media, content marketing, SEO and business strategy.

How CEOs Can Transform HR into a Revenue Driver

 

As I visit with big companies and organizations all over the world, it’s clear that most CEOs realize they need to make some dramatic changes in how they recruit people, align and manage performance, make compensation decisions, and optimize talent.

What’s not so clear to them is how they make that happen. While HR leaders and their teams are supposed to bring alive the cliché that “people are our most valuable asset,” many CEOs are not yet leading the way in giving those HR leaders the tools, authority, and organizational opportunity they need to unlock the value of the organizations’ talent pools.

Paradoxically, that lack of support from top executives is occurring even as 60 percent of CEOs surveyed by PwC say they’re concerned about not having enough talent, and/or the right mix of talent. As a result, those CEOs say, that talent gap is presenting them with some significant challenges:

• 31 percent said they couldn’t innovate effectively;
• 29 percent couldn’t pursue attractive market opportunities; and
• 24 percent had to cancel or delay a strategic initiative.

In many companies, a lack of CEO-level support for the HR organization and its mission keeps the HR team walled off from the ultimate sources of value in a company—revenue generation and customer engagement. This prevents HR executives from joining the rest of the company in using modern technology to gain new insights, make data-driven decisions, and engage with employees and customers more intimately and productively.

And that tricky situation will surely be compounded over the next few years as rapidly shifting demographics lead to a surge in millenials among your workforce: while millenials will comprise 36 percent of the workforce in 2014, they’ll make up almost half of it—46 percent—by 2020, according to a study conducted by the business school at the University of North Carolina.

The impact these young digital natives will have on your company isn’t limited to their sheer numbers. In fact, the biggest influence they’ll have is their demand—not their request, mind you, but their requirement—that the technology they use at work provides them with the same degree of social immersion, accessibility, and collaboration as the technology they use in their personal lives.

So the simple truth is that unless your company is offering these sorts of tools—indeed, these sorts of “workstyles”—then you’ll be sending a clear signal to recruits and new employees that you’re really not interested in hiring or keeping them.

For those companies that are willing to embrace the new social and mobile imperatives, you’ll find that modern HCM systems will improve employee engagement, productivity, and collaboration across the organization. By having social and mobile capabilities embedded in the key context of HR processes—from social sourcing, performance, and learning goal-setting and career management—these millennial-friendly companies will create engaging, two-way environments that don’t just allow but help people connect with each other and build mutually beneficial work relationships.

These are significant changes, and they require full support from the very top of the company. CEOs have to take ownership of this issue to ensure the ongoing viability of their companies. Otherwise:

• If your HR team lacks the tools to exploit social technologies to find excellent new recruits, how can your company find and hire the best people?
• If your HR team lacks the tools to identify high-potential stars within your organization and help create new high-impact opportunities for them, how will you retain top talent?
• If your HR team lacks the tools to tie compensation decisions to business strategy and real-world results, how will you be able to keep up in today’s ultracompetitive marketplace?

Let me offer a before-and-after example.

Let’s say Company XYZ has 100,000 employees, with annual compensation and benefits costing about $10 billion. At the annual budget meeting, everyone turns to the head of HR as the CEO asks, “What’s our plan for raises for next year?”

The HR leader squirms and looks a bit uncomfortable and says, “Our consultant says we should give 4 percent raises across the board.”

The CEO asks, “Why 4 percent?”

“Uh, well, because that’s what the consultant recommended, and we’ve used this consultant for the past five years.”

“I get that,” says the CEO, “but why 4 percent?”

And the head of HR swallows hard and says, “Because the consultant thinks 5 percent is too high and 3 percent is too low.”

Believe me, even if that conversation seems a bit silly, it’s pretty darn close to what’s happening within a lot of companies. And what they need to understand is that the HR leader doesn’t want to give such a vague answer—rather, the HR leader simply lacks the business insights and data-driven analysis to offer a more precise and relevant response.

Remember, in most big companies, compensation and benefits are the single biggest expense in the entire cost structure—by far! For company XYZ, we said its compensation costs are about $10 billion—so the 4 percent raise would equate to a new cost to the company of $400 million. That’s a significant cost to the business. Yet, the HR leader doesn’t have the modern technology necessary to make an insightful and business-driven decision on whether or not that level of spend is correct or will have the desired outcome on the business!

In the “after” scenario, an HR leader equipped with a modern HCM system could have answered that question about raises very differently by saying, “Let’s step back one second and look at the overall situation that will eventually include what type of raise pool we want for next year.

“Our attrition rate for the past 18 months has been 10 percent, which means we had to replace 10,000 people this year. But because of our rapid growth, we also had to hire an additional 4,000 people to handle that growth and sustain our momentum. So this year, we had to add 14,000 new people.

“And I’m pleased to be able to tell you that with our new recruitment and onboarding system, we were able to bring on 14,000 terrific new people—more on that in a moment—and with our new talent management system, we were able to create more than 1,500 growth opportunities for our brightest people. All in one year.

“On top of that, our performance management system tells us that those 14,000 new employees are not only costing us less than average—they come in at a cumulative 93 percent of midpoint—but more than two-thirds of them are performing in the top 20 percent quintile. We’re bringing in better performers while spending less money—and because of that, I’d like to recommend that we completely rethink our old concepts of ‘annual raises’ and use our data-driven analytics to find a better way.”

Hey, it sounds great—but that type of insight simply will not come to pass if HR leaders are left behind with an old, brittle, and incompatible hodgepodge of inflexible systems that make it impossible for the HR to deliver quantitative insights, forward-looking analyses, and revenue-driving decisions.

Those insights are absolutely essential for companies to be able to unleash the full potential of their people and begin to deliver employee experiences that parallel the terrific new customer experiences that today’s business environment demands: socially driven, optimized for mobile, and seamlessly consistent across smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

As an example of great business leadership and HCM strategy, let me mention what our friends at British Telecom (BT) are doing. One of the world leaders in communications services and solutions, BT has just decided to install a full suite of Oracle HCM Cloud applications to support the company’s growth agenda and help deliver its business strategy to more than 87,000 employees in 170 countries.

BT believes that its new HCM applications – with everything from recruiting and talent management to workforce-deployment optimization – will help the company increase productivity, accelerate business performance, and empower its people to innovate, grow, and delight customers.

Yes, those are lofty ambitions, but they’re also essential in today’s consumer-driven global marketplace where social-mobile lifestyles are disrupting not only how people shop and consume, but also their decisions about where they’ll work and why they’ll work there.

So it’s up to the CEO to drive HR transformation and help HR leaders become business-centric and data-driven enablers of revenue, innovation, and superb employee experiences.Posted by:Mark V. Hurd

10 Ways To Make Each Day A Leadership Masterpiece

 

Brian Layer, Brigadier General, United States Army (Retired) knows a few things about leadership. Brian is a West Point graduate who also holds three masters degrees. He twice commanded a brigade in Iraq, and is perhaps the most gifted and humble leader I’ve ever worked with. Brian now chairs our organizational development practice at N2growth.  I am surrendering my column today in favor of a guest contribution from Brian. You’ll find his thinking to be crisp, insightful and on point. I’ll be back next week, but in the meantime please enjoy this introduction to some of Brian’s work…
—————————————————————
Years ago, I picked up a pearl of wisdom from coaching great, John Wooden.  Make each day your masterpiece!  Living at that level is a powerful and challenging concept.  Most of us fall short and it‘s easy to blame our circumstances and those around us for their distraction.  Yet, a leader has a duty to perform at the highest possible level and an honest assessment may reveal days laden with missed leadership opportunities.

The riddle of a leadership masterpiece is the hands of others reveal our artistry.  Therefore, we must make their performance and growth our daily focus.  How much time do we really spend helping, leading and developing others? That’s an important question because it reveals our priorities.

The following daily goals will help assess your performance.  You can use them to review your leadership opportunities at the beginning of the day and assess your performance at the end.  In time, these goals will become habits and when they do, you may find you are making each day your leadership masterpiece.

1. Excel in the moment.  Your focused attention is true barometer of your interest.  Presence in the moment requires discipline, preparation and empathy.
2. Invest in a relationship and build trust.  Relationships built on trust hold up in tough conditions.  Every interaction alters the well of trust between two people.  A wise leader fills the well at every opportunity.  Listen!
3. Help someone else achieve and grow.  The success and growth of others is the legacy of great leadership and worthy of your time, energy, and passion.
4. Listen.  Take time to listen to a variety of voices.  A leader who fails to listen is likely to fail.
5. Connect someone to your vision, mission, and priorities.  Every organization has noise and distortion. A leader’s clarity sets the course, builds confidence and saves time.  Never miss an opportunity to tie another’s effort to the greater purpose.
6. Thank someone.  Expressing gratitude is an essential leadership task.  The two most powerful words in a leader’s vocabulary are thank you.
7. Prepare for the known and study for the unknown.  Adequate preparation allows you to excel in the present.  Yet, every leadership environment is uncertain and the unexpected will demand great leadership too.  Education is the best hedge against uncertainty.
8. Prepare for an important decision.  Charisma makes you interesting, good decisions make you effective.  They spring from preparation, wisdom and timing and are the proof of thoughtful leadership.  Remember, deciding what not to do is also your responsibility.
9. Leverage white space.  Avoid the trap of filling every minute of your calendar.  Leaders need white space to respond to unexpected opportunities and issues.  Better to commit to less and deliver more than to promise and not come through.
10. Grow physically, mentally, spiritually. Making each day a masterpiece takes stamina.  Leadership challenges are unpredictable and you need strength to face them when they arise. Get stronger today for an uncertain tomorrow.

What is keeping you from making each day your leadership masterpiece?

Mike Myatt, Contributor

You're Going To Need More Than New Packaging To Call It Innovation

The definition of what constitutes an "innovative" idea has gotten pretty loose lately. It's time to challenge your team to come up with truly revolutionary ideas that create a distinct competitive advantage.

Stand in front of a grocery store’s cereal aisle and you may be confronted with more than 130 different boxes of flakes, Os, pops, or puffed forms of grain slathered with varying amounts of sugar. Move to the detergents and you will see a wall of powders, liquids, bleaches, softeners, stain removers, and more, stretching on for 20 feet. Move to oral care and you may encounter 42 different variants of Crest toothpaste alone. Then just try to pick out a toothbrush. Sheesh.

Yet if you were to go into virtually any of the world’s largest firms that make the items sold in that grocery store today, you would find that most of what they are cooking up are yet more such product variants and line extensions. “Surely, we will sell more if we make one in mango flavor, no? What if we make the potato chips with pink Hawaiian sea salt?" Changes like these are easy in big firms--they don’t require factories to be retooled--so they’re common.

There’s only one problem: As an innovation strategy, it’s nearly useless.

Why Product Performance Isn’t Enough

There’s nothing wrong with product performance innovation per se. In fact, depending on industry or context, such innovation may be necessary to cut through the noise of existing offerings. When a PC first gets designed with special chips for managing graphics, or includes a nice little biometric feature that starts it up securely with just your fingerprint, users value these advances. But if that’s all you use, this steady progression of new functions and features is insufficient for continued success and differentiation. Today, nearly every category is hyper-contested. Also, suppliers can only succeed if they can sell their little specialty ingredient or functional doohickey to all the market players in an ecosystem, not just one. That means any unique effect is swiftly eroded.

Remember that a firm’s overall performance inexorably erodes through the phenomenon known as the cost of complexity. Pickup truck wars illustrate this trend. For several decades, the key to marketing a pickup truck has been to assert that yours is more macho than everyone else’s. Toughness and torque are keys, with horsepower and towing power detailed in a basso profundo voiceover. To dramatize just how tough these trucks are, we see ads showing them being thrown off cliffs, driven through fiery tunnels, and molested by robots in underground bunkers. It’s certainly a relief to know that these fine vehicles will survive such ordeals, but thankfully such situations seldom arise in real life. When all the trucks are mighty macho, innovation that helps the truck driver or owner do something else is what matters.

Today, almost any design can be knocked off in record time, whether you work in textiles or technology. Launch any new gadget and an engineering deconstruction will quickly appear online showing the components used, with clear speculations about the suppliers and costs of each one. Twenty thousand products were introduced at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show, including dozens of new ultrabooks, OLED TVs, next-generation smartphones, and 3-D printers. There is always room for thoughtful designs in the world, but who’d like to make a bet on how many of these will be successful in the marketplace? It’s safe to say that a large percentage of them will enjoy only a short and troubled life.

Apple represents the apotheosis of gadget lust. Still, with reliable regularity, it adds to its arsenal of beautifully designed technology objects, causing the technorati to swoon on cue. Yet Apple’s products are just the tip of an innovation spear that has been carefully designed from start to finish. Even before he became CEO, Tim Cook had won praise for the way in which he drove efficiencies through every part of Apple’s supply chain. For example, many analysts believe the company has a substantial cost advantage on flash memory due to its supply chain management. The platform of iTunes and the App store has allowed it to generate enormous value from an ecosystem of developers and record labels keen to connect with Apple’s audience. That makes any of the devices that connect to that ecosystem much more valuable and appealing. 25 billion songs had been downloaded by February 2013, an indication of a lucrative business model by anyone’s standards.

So, while Apple designs beautiful products, the point is that there is much more to its success than “mere” product performance or industrial design.

It’s not that product performance is unimportant. Rather, challenge your team to add other types of innovation to achieve a bigger and more sustainable competitive advantage.

Text adapted from Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs (April 2013; Wiley) by Larry Keeley, Ryan Pikkel, Brian Quinn, and Helen Walters. For more details, see www.doblin.com/tentypes 

--Larry Keeley is cofounder of Doblin, an innovation strategy firm, now a unit of Deloitte Consulting LLP. He teaches innovation effectiveness at both Chicago’s Institute of Design and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Ryan Pikkel is a design strategist at Doblin. Brian Quinn leads client relationships and programs at Doblin. Helen Walters is the Ideas Editor at TED.

10 Things Inspire Teams to Optimally Perform

 

More and more people feel stuck at work and are looking for validation.    

Not only do they want to be heard, but more importantly they want to know that their contributions are being noticed and not taken for granted.  Not for the sake of attention, but more so because they want to know that their skill sets are still relevant and useful and that they are making a difference to advance the organizations they serve. 

 With professional development budget cut-backs in recent years, employees have had to start investing in themselves as concerns grow about where their capabilities best fit in their organizations and what their futures hold.

At the same time, leaders are trying to make their employees feel more secure in order to keep the ship afloat, aware that if too much disruption leaks out into the workplace, there is risk of losing top-talent that is difficult and costly to replace. In this ever changing workplace terrain, leaders need to think differently about how to keep their teams on track.  They must become more intuitive; diverting from the traditional ways of leading that have become too predictable and uninspiring. 

  

Many leaders are out of touch and disconnected from their employees, focusing solely on their own personal agendas.   This is most evident in leaders that still try to use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to earn trust, build loyalty and stimulate team and individual performance.

 

Leaders must understand that in today’s new workplace, there does not exist a single recipe to encourage employees to perform better.   Rather, it’s about how to maximize the ingredients in order to create hundreds of recipes that are customized and authentic; that provide long-term continuity and impact.    To get you started, here are ten ways to inspire teams to optimally perform. 

 

1. Solving, Not Just Selling

Stop selling your employees about why they need to perform better.  Explain why their contributions help solve problems and contribute to the company’s advancement.  Employees are more inclined to step up their game when they know their work can add-value to the healthier whole.

For example, I would always show my team the outcome of their collected efforts.   We would go to the manufacturing plant and watch a new product on the production line or to the stores to see new label designs  on the shelves.   Inspire performance by connecting the dots of your employees’ efforts.

It’s not only about what you are trying to sell, but also what you  as a team were able to solve along the way.

2. Purpose, Not Just Profit

Employees are inspired by knowing that their hard work  makes a difference beyond profitability.  Employees want leaders who see beyond the obvious and look to create wider reaching impact that extends into the community and influences social causes.  

Look what IKEA did in1995, after they discovered that some of the factories that manufactured and sold carpets to IKEA were exploiting child labor.  Founder Ingvar Kamprad and his IKEA executives immediately took action, addressing the problem from within and taking all steps necessary to ensure that an IKEA product never again would be created by manufacturers that exploited children. IKEA then solidified its commitment to eradicate the problem at its root. The company partnered with UNICEF to create a program to help prevent child labor by changing the conditions that lead to child labor in the first place, namely: poverty, hunger, and illiteracy.  Today, this same program serves more than five hundred villages in India’s Carpet Belt, an area with a population in excess of 1.3 million. 

 

3. Know the Ingredients, Not Just the Recipe

The secret recipe to inspiring employees is to know the “ingredients” of the people you are inspiring.  People want to know that their leaders understand their tendencies, aptitudes and behaviors well-enough to best work-with and motivate them.   The best leaders and coaches always do.

When you spend time with your employees, make it matter.   Don’t just expect your time and title to inspire them.    Employees want a leader that pays attention and genuinely cares about them.

Great leaders take the time to know the ingredients before they can create the best recipe for success.   Employees are most inspired when a leader takes the times to know them and show that they have their best interests at heart.

Leaders that know how to prepare thousands of recipes are those who continually make the ingredients better – and keep them from spoiling.

4. Learning, Not Just Lecturing

Employees are tired of being told what to do.   They are eager to learn and remain relevant.   But they find it difficult to be inspired by leaders who only inflict fear.    In today’s fast-paced world, people don’t have time for lectures; they want continuous coaching and leaders that are paying attention.  Eager to grow, they want objective feedback.

Simplify the process.  Don’t exhaust your employees through complexity and buzz-words.    People seek direction that is too the point.  Remember, most people have mastered the art of execution.  Let your employee do their jobs well by providing the right tools and support to make them better at carrying out their roles & responsibilities.  Be a great teacher, but quickly shift into facilitator mode.   People are inspired when given the opportunity to learn how to do new things. Stop lecturing and start teaching.   

5. Innovation, Not Just Ideation

Employees want to create impact.  Allow them to be part of the innovation-based projects in your company by letting them get their hands dirty.    Ideation is important, but being part of implementing the ideas that come to life can be a more exciting and meaningful growth opportunity for your employees that will inspire them to perform. 

Additionally, provide your employees the resources to be innovative in their work.   Stay close enough to your employees’ activities to know the 2 or 3 tools  and/or resources that  each would require to take their performance to the next level. 

 

When given the right tools and resources, the best employees will instinctively challenge themselves to be more innovative in their work – and will perform better.    That is why incentives inspire performance – but remember that money alone is not the sustainable answer.   Focus on giving your employees the opportunities to elevate their individual value while serving the needs of the company.  

 

Allow innovation to inspire performance.

6.    Significance, Not Just Success

Helping your employees to be successful is important, but not inspiring enough in itself.  People want much more out of their leaders and if you can activate the natural talents of your employees in ways that make them feel more responsible about their jobs, you will be inspiring something that is more significant – and has longer lasting impact.

The next time you conduct an employee performance review, evaluate each performance in two areas:  success and significance.   Let’s say that “sales” is a performance category – and your employee has performed at 90% of plan.  That’s good.   After you discuss what is required to reach 100% of plan, measure the significance of the sales generated.  For example, perhaps reaching 90% of plan generated enough revenue to hire 5 more people or contributed to a particular community outreach plan as a result of a local market push.  You never know the significance of someone’s performance until you measure it; and when you do, it’s an effective way to inspire even greater performance.

7. Ownership, Not Just Accountability

Enforcing accountability is a key component to sustaining performance momentum. However, when you can give your employees “ownership” in the process of defining how accountability is enforced – you inspire trust and a desire to go above and beyond the call of duty. 

Giving your employees ownership means that you have shared and entrust them with your authority.   You are now allowing your employees to “call the shots” based on what they believe is in the best interests of the team and the organization.    For example, create a special project and allow an employee to take ownership of it.   Outline your expectations for the end-result, but allow him or her to take charge of the project.  Agree to meet once-a-week and observe the change in attitude and desire to perform.     Use the results and what you learned along the way about the employee as a means to customize your approach to best inspire that employee’s performance long-term.   Again, this is a great way to learn more about “the ingredients” as noted in point #3.

8. Respect, Not Just Recognition

Beyond appreciation and praise, show your respect and admiration for the work of your employees.  While people want to know they are respected, you must establish the ground rules for how respect is earned.  

 

There are too many recognition addicts in the workplace.  In a world of fierce competition, we have come to believe we are our own best allies. We believe we must rely only on ourselves. We believe we can sell ourselves better than anyone else.  But this attitude puts our long-term careers in danger.

Unfortunately, too many people want recognition because they forgot the significantly greater value of earning respect.   Re-train your employees about the importance of respect and lead them in how to earn it.  When they see the greater impact respect delivers, they will be inspired by your example. 

 

9. Personal Growth, Not Just Responsibility

Historically, leaders have used “increased responsibility” to inspire performance.    While this approach may still have merit, it is when a leader can help foster the professional growth and development of their employees that performance most flourishes.    Leaders must take more time to mentor and / or guide their employee’s development and growth.

Encourage networking opportunities and performance development forums.  If the budget gets cut,– put your money where your mouth is.  For example, purchase copies of a book that you believe will help your employees advance and grow in their work. 

Phil Jackson, former basketball coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls, has won 11 NBA championships – the most in history.   Jackson became known for giving each one of his players a specific book that would help the player be a better teammate, decision-maker, leader, etc. on the basketball court.  

10. Trust, Not Just Transparency

Ultimately, it is a relationship based on trust that inspires employees to perform.   When you are mindful of managing and concurrently implementing points #1 – #9 this will certainly jump-start your ability to earn trust with your employees and inspire their performance.  When you trust someone, you believe in them.   People are inspired when they know that their leaders believe in their capabilities to deliver.  

As a young executive, I had a boss that I trusted, not only because he was transparent with me – but more importantly because he believed in me.   He created an environment that helped me grow and prosper.   For example, he assigned the most significant corporate growth strategies to my team and me.   This level of trust inspired us to perform not only for the sake of seizing the unique opportunity that was given to us – but equally to prove to those above my boss that it was the right decision for the organization.    We wanted our boss to earn respect and recognition for the bold decision he made to place such a significant amount of trust on the youngest leader and team in the organization – and not to let him down.

Inspiring employees to optimally perform requires a leader who can see beyond the obvious in people.  Inspiration comes not from something that you turn on and off, but rather   from constant behavior – triggered through multiple ways – that makes your employees feel that they matter and that you genuinely care. 

About Glenn Llopis Contributor