HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Stumbling on Happiness

Competency: self-development

Who benefits: happy people, unhappy people

Consultant Usage: it will cheer you up — and, oh yeah, may make you more effective

What’s it about?  I just finished reading Stumbling on Happiness. And I am sooooo happy to have stumbled upon this book.    

I consider this a perfect book.  So what makes a perfect book?  Well, of course, you first have to be interested in the topic.   I am. 

This book is about the science of happiness.  It is not a self-help book.  There is not one single “should” in the book.  You don’t have to should on yourself.  The only “should” associated with the book is in this sentence: I think you should read this book.  Which I wrote.

A perfect book must have style and substance.  This book is written in a clear and concise style.  It is filled with witty phrases and worthy analogies.  It entertains while it enlightens.

The author explains a complex subject in terms that even a simple creature like me can understand.  I learned something.  And it was valuable.  If you are at all interested in the topic of “happiness” I recommend it with enthusiasm.

One of the delights of the book was the unexpected gems that seemed to pop up on every page.  I delight in relaying some of those jewels that amused and educated me in the same moment.

I learned a new word: “Prospection” – The act of looking forward in time or considering the future.

I learned we are anticipation machines and what we look forward to are happy events, which creates happiness in the moment.  Daydreams at work can actually make us happy.  It is called “The Joy of Next”. 

I learned about the many uses of the word “happy” and how we misuse the word frequently…and yet still get by.  You might not appreciate the example I picked from the book, but boy the sentence just won’t leave my mind: “After a day spent killing his parents, Frank was happy.”  Not a pretty picture, but the author’s point is, who is to say Frank isn’t happy.  Happiness is not something easily defined nor universally agreed upon.

I loved one of the greatest written sentences of all time: “It is only when your brain predicts badly that you suddenly feel avocado.” 

Why is that sentence great?  Because it shocks us?  (My first thought was “What the Hell?”.)  Because within the paragraph it makes perfect sense.  And the sentence itself illustrates exactly what the author is trying to communicate.  You cannot possibly ask more of a sentence!

Our forefathers promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I am still working on the life and liberty thing; but the pursuit of happiness I now get. 

I respectfully suggest that if you are interested in the topic, you read this book.  You will be happy that you did.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: happy, happiness, prospection, the joy of next, mind’s eye, daniel gilbert, bill bradley, william bradley,   bradley

80% of success is showing up” 

Woody Allen

Ajax, our new guide dog puppy is learning how to lead.  It’s amazing how many people we meet (always with a smile, greeting and interesting questions–I often wonder what happened to those behaviors when you don’t have a guide dog you are raising??) typically ask two things:

1. How can you give him up after 12-18 months?
2. Do you think he will pass to become a guide dog

The last question is a great one because every organization I consult with asks this same question of high potential talent they are grooming for future leadership positions.  Do they really have the “right stuff” to become effective leaders?  How do you know if they have any “blind spots” that might potentially derail them?  How confident are we that they will be successful?  Is there any measure of future leadership success that we can use now to increase our confidence level?

I’ve published an earlier article on  approaches to selecting high performing talent that suggest we might actually consider calling it “human handicapping” as we might actually do a better job of predicting those who don’t succeed better than predicting those who do ((Nowack, K. M. (2007). Predicting the Future Success of Talent. Talent Management, 3 (2), p.14)).  We do have a number of assessments available that we could use to measure future leadership success–none are perfect but some are much better predictors than others.

Which approach to measuring key aspects of potential talent’s knowledge, experience and competence actually do a good job of predicting future success and performance? How should you go about making them legally defensible¹?

Current research on personality², emotional intelligence³ and traditional techniques⁴ provide some answers to these questions.

I’ve tried to summarize about 50+ years of research below and each time I look at the usefulness of various “human handicapping” approaches it is still surprising to me. 

Don’t be fooled about some like cognitive ability (intelligence) testing as “it’s not how smart you are, but how you are smart that really matters!  Even the traditional interview (the mutual seduction) can be improved by making it job related, structured and focused more on behavioral questions.  Finally, just forget about using interests/values to make a prediction about future performance or success–they are pretty strongly associated with satisfaction but it is easy to get these two outcomes mixed up when you are assessing these in candidates!  Whenever prospective candidates tell me with great passion just how much they “like doing things” I always politely thank them for sharing this with me and then find a way for them to actually demonstrate they possess the skill or ability to perform what they have a passion for on the job.

RANKING OF ASSESSMENT APPROACHES TO SELECTION (VALIDITY COEFFICIENTS)

Work Sample Tests (.33 to .54)
Cognitive Ability/Intelligence Tests (.27 to .51)
Assessment Centers (.41 to .50)
Peer/Supervisory Ratings (.41 to .49)
Work History (.24 to .35)
Emotional Intelligence (.20 to .24)
Unstructured Interviews (.15 to .38)
Personality Inventories (.15 to .31)
Reference Checks (.14 to .26)
Training Ratings (.13 to .15)
Self-Ratings (.10 to .15)
Education/Grade Point Average (.00 to .10)
Interests/Values (.00 to .10)
Age (.-.01 to .00)

Ajax certainly has demonstrated desire to work harder when he is wearing his “work clothes” which at this time is his yellow bib identifying him as an official “Guide Dog Puppy in Training.”  He has a personality that might be described as curious, stubborn, risk taking, playful, challenging and sweet.  He demonstrates the ability to learn quickly but to “do things his way.” 

Our “work sample” assessments suggest that at an early age he likely is to go on to become a successful leader. 

You might want to hold onto this prediction–our first guide dog (Ernie) was an absolute “devil” that nobody believed would make it and he went on to have a wonderful leadership career.  And our latest puppy (Elmo) who was an “angel” was tauted early as the “perfect guide dog” but he made a career transition from special education to recreation and lived with us until we had to say goodbye to him late last year.  So, our rate of predicting leadership success is pretty bad so far…..It will be fun to see if our predictions improve a bit now that we are raising Ajax….Be well…..

tags]pre-employment selection, assessment, interviewing, behavioral interviewing, emotional intelligence, personality inventories, work history, validation, interests, assessment centers, intelligence tests, cognitive ability measures, reference checks, peer ratings, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack[/tags]

1. Nowack, K. M. (1988). Approaches to validating assessment centers. Performance and Instruction, 27, 14-16 [↩]
2. Judge, T., Bono, J., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 765-780 [↩]
3. Van Rooy, D.  & Viswesvaran, C.(2004). Emotional intelligence: A meta-analytic investigation of predictive validity and nomological net. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, 71-95 [↩]
4. Schmidt, F. &  Hunter, J. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 262-274 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title:  800-CEO-Read

Competency: self-development

Who benefits: those in a personal growth mode

Consultant Usage: handy, quick reference site

What’s it about? Today’s post is quite short.  Made me wonder if one can tweet on a Blog?  Ah, probably not worth getting myself all in a dither.

Anyway, I came across a website (see link above) that posts monthly best selling business books.  It took me a while to figure out, but the list is composed of only books sold by the website.

What I found most interesting was that more than two-thirds of the top 25 books fall into the self-help category.  Is this because of the nature of the website or the current needs of business leaders and professions?  Or both?

The number one best seller for May is How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything … in Business (and in Life).  It is about leadership and corporate culture with a moral purpose, a la Covey books.  Certainly this could be a sign of the times.  The descrition of the book wasn’t enough to motivate me to read it.

Curiosity got the better of me and I compared their list to Amazon.com’s top 25.   Number one best seller at Amazon is Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.  Amazon has more financially oriented books, with less than 50% falling into the self-help category.  Amazon also has a very loose definition of “business books” (i.e. Three Cups of Tea – an inspirational book, but in the business category?)

Just a little more research for comparison: The New York Times non-fiction best sellers  included Outliers, but was led by biographies of great-modern-Americans-who-just-happen-to-be-talking-heads-or-radio-show-hosts (3 of top 7). 

Well, this posting was double the length of a tweet, but if you check out these lists maybe you can find a treat.  Sweet.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: self-development, business books, book reviews, book lists, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”
Mark Twain

Ajax is now 13-weeks old and learning his basic skills of leadership for guide dog puppies.  Here is what is doing pretty well in terms of “basic skills”:

• Sitting
• Laying down
• Walking on a leash (with his guide dog bib)
• Sleeping
• Eating Fast

Here is what he isn’t doing really well:

• Coming when called by name
• Ignoring other dogs when he is working (walking with his guide dog bib)
• Not jumping up on things

In order for him to become an effective guide dog, these basic skills are essential and foundations for learning more complicated lessons and behaviors required to help a sight impaired person maneuver in their life. All successful guide dogs learn these basics or early lessons and become so proficient that they become automatic to the point of almost knowing when they need to deploy them.  Of course, like humans young puppies need to practice these behaviors in different environments and with different handlers to become “strengths” and allow them to learn new and more challenging behaviors.  Lack of these “basic skills” will tend to ”derail” their leadership potential and future success to become a guide dog.

I see so many “leaders” today who seem to have never learned the basic skills of supervision, management and leadership practices.  Some have been moved from highly successful “specialist” roles where they relied on technical skills and competencies to roles where building teams, developing talent and managing day-today performance just aren’t done very well.  Great leaders also spend a great deal of their life practicing their craft.  In fact, one career anchor labeled by the management guru Ed Schein is actually called a “managerial anchor” which characterizes a cluster of interests, values, motives and skills that help enhance leadership performance, success and optimize satisfaction in that role.

Next week, we go to a big “open house” at Guide Dogs of America where puppies of all ages can “show off their stuff” and we can benchmark Ajax against the best of the best.  At least we will see how far behind or how far ahead he is relative to his own age group.  Again, Ajax has helped me to better understand what leaders really need to know–the “basics” that are just so essential for long term success no matter what culture they are in or whom they supervise.

We have a pretty well known leadership and management assessment called Manager View 360–it measures 20 competencies of leadership and management derived from job analyses of leaders in very diverse industries.  These 20 competencies are grouped into four clusters: 1) Task Management/Leadership; 2) Interpersonal; 3) Communication; and 4) Problem Solving.

We did a quick statistical analysis of over 17,000 managers in our database representing diverse industries to see which competencies were rated as the most effective and which were rated as the least effective from their managers, direct reports and peers.  Here is a list of the “bottom” five competencies which suggests where deficits of basic skills for manager tend to appear:

Manager View 360
Bottom Five Leadership Management Behaviors (N=17,025)

1. Conflict Management (5.22)
2. Active Listening (5.28)
3. Performance Management (5.32)
4. Leadership/Influence (5.33)
5. Involvement Orientation/Participative Management (5.34)

Interestingly, the competencies rated highest included written and oral communication, decision making, interpersonal sensitivity and planning.  These results suggest a “blueprint” for onboarding new supervisors and leaders particularly if they lack experience in the leadership role (e.g., promoted from a specialist or independent contributor position).

Today, talent don’t leave organizations as much as they leave bad bosses.  In my executive coaching practice I tend to find this same list of skill deficits that seem to present themselves when leaders are identified as “having potential” but struggling.  I’ve always wondered why organizations weren’t better prepared to help develop these core and basic competencies early in a leader’s career.  Some, like participative management, might actually run counter to what specialists who morphed into leadership got rewarded for early in their career (e.g., making decisions on their own, taking iniative without gaining consensus from others, using the “two heads are better than one” approach in problem solving).

Talent today also want leaders who can constructively confront poor performance, can manage diversity and differences in the workplace and to address the slackers who demotivate all of us and set a dangerous standard for the bare minimum of what needs to be done in a culture. 

The most successful guide dogs tend to have just a streak of stubborness and self-confidence to be able to successfully adjust to what comes up in their environment (e.g., loud noises, traffic, street barriers, etc.).  They need to be decisive and take charge when necessary but do so in a participatory way to ensure that the person they are “guiding” reaches their destination in a safe manner.

Thanks, Ajax, for reminding me that the building blocks of leadership excellence are pretty easy to understand and develop in young and more established leaders…..I’m off with Ajax now to work on his “come” command when he strays!  Stayed tuned for more leadership lessons with Ajax….Be well….

Technorati Tags: guide dogs, seeing eye dogs, Guide Dogs of America, leadership, executive coaching, performance, layoff, social support, mastery, expertise, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack, envisia, deliberate practice

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Emotional Intelligence for Managing Results in a Diverse World: The Hard Truth about Soft Skills in the Workplace

Competencies: self-development, diversity, performance management, coaching talent, influence skills, conflict management, anger management

Who benefits: managers and supervisors, employees, teams, human resource professionals

Consultant Usage: trainers in communication skills, diversity issues, emotional intelligence; diversity consultants; emotional intelligence consultants

What’s it about? I have been needlessly beating myself up (as my friends know I am prone to do) over last week’s posting of a book with “diversity” in the title.  I still stand by my recommendation.  It’s a good book to look at personal responsibility and accountability.  And that’s a good thing.  But it is a book of narrow focus.

I was lamenting this with a colleague who replied “How about Lee and Anita’s new book?”  Lee   Gardenswartz  and Anita Rowe are consultants I have know and admired since first meeting them back in the ‘70s.  In my opinion they are the “Diversity Gurus” of all time.  What they don’t know about diversity issues … well, as trite as is reads, probably isn’t worth knowing.  If they have something new out, I guarantee it is worth reading.

And my problem is solved about a book with a narrow focus. 

Lee is listed as the primary author and Anita along with Jorge Cherbosque from UCLA are listed as co-authors.  Their book came out in October of last year.  The book covers a lot of territory.  It covers generational, cultural, language, and behavioral differences in today’s global workplace, a far broader definition and necessity than when I was coming through the ranks.

Think about the expansion.  In my day diversity meant getting along and respecting the person in the next cubicle.  Today that cubicle and teammate may well be 12 time zones away and it is inhabited by a person who is of a different racial, gender, generation and language than you!  Boy, talk about the prospects of conflict management.

What I have always liked about Lee and Anita’s material (and now Jorge) is that along with providing great amounts of knowledge and insight, they provide tons of practical advice and useable tools.  This book is no exception, filled with how-tos, action tips, assessment tools, and plenty of workplace examples.

I am feeling my old self again.  This is the broad focus I was missing about how to create better working relationships, healthier, more satisfying workplaces, and more effective organizations.  Last week’s recommendation along with this week’s makes for a excellent reading about an important, on-going topic.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: self-development, diversity, performance management, coaching talent, influence skills, conflict management, anger management, generational differences, cultural differences, language differences, behavioral differences, healthy workplaces, global workplace, lee gardenswartz,   anita rowe, jorge cherbosque, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. .”
Franklin P. Jones

Cigarettes in the United States all come with health warning labels on boxes—perhaps vendors should do the same in marketing and selling multi-rater assessments that are so commonly used by coaches, consultants and organizational practitioners.  These same cautions also apply to multi-rater assessments developed “in-house” by many organizations focusing on their own competency models.  At least five important factors should be considered when using and interpreting multi-rater feedback interventions if the proximal and distal goals include increased awareness, behavior change, enhanced individual effectiveness and positive organizational impact:

1.  Ratings between rater groups are only modestly correlated with each other.   Research consistently shows that ratings between direct reports, peers, supervisors, self and others overlap only modestly.  Self-ratings are typically weakly correlated with other rater perspectives with greater convergence between peer and supervisor ratings (Nowack, 1992).  These diverse perspectives amount to different perspectives held for the participant by the different rater groups.

Perceptual frames of reference by different rater groups are also important when participants try to interpret feedback.  In general, direct reports tend to emphasize and filter interpersonal and relationship behaviors into their subjective ratings whereas superiors tend to focus more on “bottom line” resultsand task-oriented behaviors (Nowack, 2002).   

At a practical level, it means that clients we are coaching might be challenged to both understand how to interpret observed differences by rater groups and whether to decide to focus their developmental “energy” on managing upward, downward and/or laterally in light of these potentially discrepant results.

2.  Ratings within rater groups are only modestly correlated with each other. 

In one meta-analytic study by Conway & Huffcutt (1997), the average correlation between two supervisors was only .50, between two peers, .37 and between two subordinates only .30. 

Given these findings, vendors who do not provide a way for participants to evaluate within-rater agreement in feedback may increase the probability that average scores used in reports can be easily misinterpreted—particularly if they are used by coaches to help clients focus on specific competencies and behaviors for developmental planning purposes such as reviewing the “most and least” frequent behaviors or items seen as “most and least” effective.  It’s easy to observe our own clients react to these “most/least” lists so common in vendor’s feedback reports and focus on only a few items without a clear understanding of whether the agreement within raters is low or high.

3.  Perceptual distortions by participants and raters make interpretation of 360-feedback results challenging.

The prevalence of self-enhancement is not hotly debated but there is continued controversy on whether it is essentially adaptive or maladaptive which has important implications for understanding and interpreting multi-rater feedback for performance evaluation or development.  If self-enhancement is conceptualized as seeing one’s self generally more positively than others, then the outcomes (performance, health, career and life success) are frequently more favorable, but if it is defined as having higher self-ratings than others who provide feedback (self-rater congruence), then the outcomes are frequently less than favorable(Taylor & Brown, 1988; Sedikides & Gregg, 2003).  

Brett & Atwater (2001) found that managers who rated themselves higher than others had more negative reactions to the feedback process, lower motivation to improve and were significantly less likely to show improvement when they were reassessed.
 
In our own coaching practice, using diverse multi-rater assessments measuring different competency models, we have repeatedly observed that under-estimators (those whose self-ratings are meaningfully lower than others) tend to be highly perfectionist, self-critical, overly achievement strivingand likely to focus on their perceived weaknesses rather than leveraging their “signature” strengths in developmental planning discussions.  Despite, trying to help our clients interpret the feedback findings in a “balanced” manner, these over-estimators appear to be hypervigilant to the perceived “negative” information contained in their report and often “fixate” on the lowest average scores on ratings scales and the open-ended comments that appear to be “neutral or critical” in tone relative to other more positive comments collected within rater groups.

4.  There might be limits to the magnitude we can expect leaders to actually change and improve effectiveness following multi-rater feedback. 

Research by James Smither (2005) on 360 feedback suggests that although feedback does result in significant performance improvement, effect sizes are relatively small suggesting that “zebras don’t easily lose their stripes.”  It would appear that we must accept that all of us have some skill and ability “set points” that may provide an upward ceiling to the growth and development of most individuals.  One could also use these findings on the contributions of genetics to personality and leadership emergence to make a sound argument that “leaders are made” and not born but it would appear that both genetic predisposition and environment interact together to shape the overall development of key skills and abilities that impact our client’s professional and personal successes and failures in life.

5. Feedback combined with coaching leads to better performance outcomes.

All too often, vendors and some practitioners espouse the “diagnose and adios” approach to multi-rater feedback hoping that self-directed insight alone will result in motivated behavior change efforts.  In one of the few empirical studies recently conducted on the impact of executive coaching, Smither et al. (2003) reported that after receiving 360 feedback, managers who worked with a coach were significantly more likely to set measurable and specific goals, solicit ideas for improvement and subsequently received improved performance ratings.   

Our preliminary research suggets that special attention is required by leaders in organizations to development their own talent development coaching skills and minimally be held accountable for tracking and monitoring progress of the development plans of their direct reports and follow-up discussions to ensure completion.  Our coaching platform called Talent Accelerator and Coach Accelerator provide a link to translating insight from 360 assessments into actual behavior change which is a requirement for enhancing effectiveness in any position.  hey are great tools but they work best when leaders become better coaches and use such tools to track, monitor and reinforce developmental planning of their talent.

I’m pretty sure you will have some feedback on what vendors don’t really tell you about feedback!  Be well….

Technorati Tags: ken nowack, envisia learning, executive development, disengagement, multi-rater feedback leveraging strengths, overuse of strengths, 360 degree feedback, Johari Window, leadership effectiveness, management development, supervisory training, organizational development, leadership training, OD

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Diversity: Leaders Not Labels

Competencies: self-development, diversity skills, leadership skills

Who benefits: individuals in the workforce or going to enter the workforce

Consultant Usage: as a coach or career development specialist — useful as a book to recommend to others 

What’s it about? I had not read a book on the topic of diversity in 10 years.  I saw this book at my community library, loved the title, and checked it out.  I had come through the “diversity” era in the workplace and was curious about what was being written in this new century.

This book has something to offer but not what you might think.  So let me get past some of the obstacles in this book before I point out its strengths.  The title of the book is misleading.  It is not about “diversity” as most of us know the topic.  It is not about leadership in the traditional sense.

Like the very popular book Three Cups of Tea, it is not particularly well written, but the content is far more important than the flow and transitions.  The author is a public speaker, and the content often seems more like a transcript from a seminar than a traditional book.

Having said all that, the book is really a self-help book aimed at those who see themselves as disenfranchised or lacking in personal power.  That distinction, as the author, Stedman Graham, correctly points out, could be any one of us.  And the cause is often the labels society puts on us. 

In fact, for some it is those labels that gets in the way of their success.  You can love or hate this quote, but it is the central theme of this book: “The privileges once reserved only for affluent, non-ethnic males are now available to everyone.  All you need to know is how access them.”  He goes on to write “You will need the right set of leadership skills and the right attitude to thrive …in this new world.”

His book is then divided into three main areas topics.  The first is an analysis of labels, which I found most interesting.  Labels work two ways.  Those who do the labeling create stereotypes which puts people into convenient and often incorrect boxes (race boxes, women boxes, sexual orientation boxes, etc.).  But the author points out that in this day and age people need not and ought not accept those labels and by not confronting their labels and stereotypes, people hold themselves back.

The bulk of the book is story telling.  It is about the stories, history and chronologies of Native Americans, Latinos and Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Gender, Sex, and People with Disabilities.  There is also an insightful section called “Whites Are Not Immune to Labels.”  The net effect of the stories is a sad – but needed - reminder of our history and an optimistic future full of possibilities.

The book ends back where it began.  It is always up to the individual to take responsibility for his or her future.  His final chapter is “The Nine Steps: Transform and Thrive”.  The chapter is similar to many other self-help books except that its focus is on getting rid of the labels, the baggage, that holds a person back.  The core message is know your history so you can work through it.

There is one thing I dislike about this book.  It assumes we all start from the same starting line.  For starters, until all young people have equal opportunity at quality education, there will be large groups of people excluded from effectively utilizing his advice.  There are adults who don’t have enough education to even read his book.  You can’t run the race if you don’t know where the track is.

That said, there are two things I really like about this book.  First, he opens the door to the possibility that we may be coming to the end of the era where we need labels to define people and second, we all need to be responsible and accountable for all our choices. 

It is a book worth a read, but it is only for those who can read.
 
Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: diversity, labels, stereotypes, personal transformations, career development, self-help, equal opportunity, stedman graham, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“They say ‘practice” makes perfect.’ Of course, it doesn’t. For the vast majority of golfers it merely consolidates imperfection.”

Henry Longhurst

The phrase, “leverage your strengths” has become commonplace in the language of talent development positive psychology. By now you pretty much want to believe that the secret of success is to become more of who you already are–even if you happen to be sociopathic.

Those who “push” this attractive philosophy simply are saying that the best way to do good work is to do what you are intrinsically good at–not necessarily what you are interested in doing.

We now have measures of your “signature strengths” (Seligman) and ways to “discover” your strengths (Buckingham & Clifton).  It does seem to be true that deploying our “signature strengths”does seem to have a significant clinical impact on raising our psychological well-being¹.

But, is also seems to be true that strengths overdone can become our weaknesses. 

My friend and CEO of Personal Strengths publishing has made a career of selling a widely used and popular style tool called the Strength Deployment Inventory(SDI) that has conceptually is based on this premise.  If you emphasize being too direct, then others might experience you as autocratic, inflexible and pushy.  If you are emotionally controlled and calm in the face of stress others may see you as uncaring, non-responsive and possibly even fearful. If you practice being inclusive, participative and involving others in decision making you might find you don’t make independent decisions or take risks without input from others.

In a recent HBR article, Kaplan & Kaiser show that it is just as detrimental to overdo a strength as it is to under do it–those expressing the “right amount” of a strength showed an associated with a measure of leadership success².  As they point out, leveraging and emphasizing strength might lead to actually interfere with being flexible of adapting any behavior at the other end of the continuum.  If you receive feedback that you are admired for your perseverance in the face of ambiguity and challenge you might find that “letting go” and backing off won’t come easy–even if it is clear that ” repeatedly banging your head against the wall” creates a dent in the wall and a possible concussion that further impairs your reasoning and thinking.

We have looked at this “leveraging strengths” concept from an interesting angle in the last few years.  In our use of 360 feedback assessments we have an interpretation based on the Johari Window concept that shows self-ratings compared to others who provide feedback in a graphic manner.

We can classify individuals into four types based on the profile that emerges from their self-other ratings.  We have polite labels for these quadrants that include:

1. Potential Strengths–Underestimation of self-ratings compared to others
2. Confirmed Development Areas–both self and other ratings are low
3. Confirmed Strengths–both self and other ratings are high
4. Potential Development Areas–Self ratings are inflated relative to others

When we find individuals who are the “Underestimators” and have a substantial number of competencies appearing in the “Potential Strenghts”quadrant as we show below, our feedback meetings are pretty predictable.

First, we find that almost all of the clients with this profile tend to display strong perfectionist tendencies, set high goals for themselves and others and are very self-critical.

Second, they tend to be “hyper-vigilant” to the negative things in their report as if they are trying to confirm they really aren’t as strong or solid as others experience them to be.

In short, they tend to blow off all the “strengths” as seen by others and dwell on anything that isn’t perfect in their report (or the one open ended comment that is neutral out of 25 that are overwhelmingly positive and ruminate on it for years).

No matter what we try to do, these clients won’t leverage their strengths as seen clearly by others.  All they want to do if focus on what they see is their “developmental opportunities” or weaknesses.  Yep, even when they “discover” their strengths they just tend to glance beyond it and move to “what they don’t do very often or very effectively.

I’m sure some of these clients had parents who focused on the one “B” they got on a report card when the rest were all and “A” or pointed out the “soccer goal they missed” even though they made the only other one in the game.

So, maybe we need to stop the love affair with this concept of “leveraging strengths” as appealing as it sounds. 

Not everyone is a winner even if you have a 6th place ribbon to prove it….Be well….

Technorati Tags: ken nowack, envisia learning, executive development, disengagement, leveraging strengths, Johari window, cognitive distortions, self-enhancement, over estimators, under estimators, overuse of strengths, 360 degree feedback, Johari Window, leadership effectiveness, management development, supervisory training, organizational development, leadership training, OD

1. Seligman, M, Steen, T., Park, N, & Petersen, C. (2005).  Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions.  American Psychologist, 60, 410-421 [↩]
2. Kaplan, R. & Kaiser, R. (2009).Stop overdoing your strengths.  Harvard Business Review.  February 2009, 100-103 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: The Organization of the Future 2: Visions, Strategies, and Insights on Managing in a New Era

Competencies: visionary leadership, entrepreneurial leadership, financial leadership, driving strategic direction, managing change

Who benefits: leaders at all levels of an organization, students of organizations, organizational consultants

Consultant Usage: important book to stay current in the field of organizational development/leadership development

What’s it about? It’s been a while since I had looked at the Jossey-Bass website.  I have purchased more than 20 different books from them over the years and have never been disappointed.  They have some of the best authors and academics in the fields of leadership, managing, change management, organizational development, personal growth and probably several areas that have slipped my mind.  (Don’t confuse this book with a book with a similar title published in 1996 – same series, new articles and some new authors.)

Imagine my delight to see a new book with nearly all of my favorite authors as contributors.  And at a reasonable price.  (I have used the Amazon link to save you money!) 

The book title is a good summary of what is covered.  Unfortunately there isn’t much other information available on the websites except a listing of the 26 chapters and their authors.  I have ordered the book but I don’t want to wait to share this find with you, so I will just list some of the better known authors and the title of their chapters.  Hope that will suffice. 

• The Leader’s Mandate: Create a Shared Sense of Destiny, James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner
• Leadership Judgment: The Essence of a Good Leader, Noel M. Tichy & Christopher DeRose
• The Leader as Subculture Manager, Edgar H. Schein (Edgar Shines again!)
• Designing Organizations That Are Built to Change, Edward E. Lawler III & Christopher G. Worley
• Outsmart Your Rivals by Seeing What Others Don’t, Jim Champy
• Multidimensional, Multinational Organizations of the Future, Jay R. Galbraith
• Free to Choose: How American Managers Can Create Globally Competitive Workplaces, James O’Toole
• Reframing Ethics, Spirit, and Soul, Lee G. Bolman &Terrence E. Deal

Well, those are just a few of the gems waiting to be read.  Oh, and did I mention that Marshall Goldsmith is one of the editors.  Wow, can’t wait for my copy to arrive!!! 

Catch you later. 

Technorati Tags: vision, strategy, organizational insight, ethics, judgment, leaders, leadeship, change, change management, culture, organizational design, workplaces, future, James Kouzes, Barry Posner,   Noel Tichy, Edgar Schein, Edward Lawler, Christopher Worley, Jim Champy, Jay Galbraith, James O’Toole, Terrence Deal, bill bradley, william bradley,   bradley

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
Mark Twain

In Towers Perrin’s 2007-2008 Global Workforce Study, 29% of the U.S. workforce was engaged, while just 6% were disengaged. By December, 2008, several months into the rapidly deepening recession, another study showed that engagement slipped to 22% and disengagement rose to 11%.

OK, everyone uses the term “engagement” and some organizations have established themselves as “the” experts around the concept with well known surveys that are widely used.

So, what does this term really mean and how can it be measured?

As a “folk term” engagement has been used to describe a diverse set of measures getting at the following concepts—all have been used to define the concept and as a base to develop famous (and not so famous) surveys for research and practice:

Psychological States (e.g., energy, involvement, commitment, satisfaction, job burnout, perceived stress, perceived justice, empowerment)

Personality (e.g., positive affect, negative affect, conscientiousness, resilience/hardiness, optimism, core self-evaluations, proactive personality)

Behaviors/Performance (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior, initiative, high performance, collaboration/team work, dishonesty/theft/loss)

The Envisia Learning approach has been consistent with the other well known vendors of identifying and measuring conditions under which people work (e.g., leadership practices, perceived resources/justice, social connection etc.) that impact retention, perceptions of stress and productivity¹.

In fact, we have shown, like prior research, that talent today don’t leave organizations—they leave toxic leaders and poor leadership practices.  Talent working for the interpersonally challenged reported significantly more perceived stress, greater dissatisfaction and increased intentionality to actually leave the organization.  One could say these employees were “disengaged” and as my colleague and career expert Michele Rosa likes to say, “Eager to stay but ready to leave.”

What We Are Measuring

Here is what we have been using for many years—it’s called the Leadership Effectiveness Index and it appears to have reasonable reliability (Cronbach’s alpha of .91) and predictive validity.

Leadership Effectiveness Index Questions

(1=Strongly Agree, 2=Agree, 3= Neither Agree nor Disagree, 4=Disagree, 5=Strongly Disagree

1. My manager/supervisor demonstrates competence in his or her job.
2. My manager/supervisor treats everyone fairly (i.e., plays no favorites).
3. My manager/supervisor creates a motivating and supportive work climate.
4. My manager/supervisor represents my needs, ideas and suggestions to his/her manager.
5. My manager/supervisor takes an interest in my professional growth and
development.
6. My manager/supervisor involves me in decision making, problem solving and planning processes.
7. My manager/supervisor creates a high performance and collaborative work team.
8. I have the opportunity to interact with Management above my immediate supervisor.

The “engagement” literature is becoming a bit like the stress literature—confusing definitions, eclectic measurement tools and diverse methods to assess one or more components of this construct.  Finally, is “engagement” a state that impacts other things or the outcome?

So, feel free to use our “engagement” metric—the Leadership Effectiveness Index but be careful about defining exactly what it is measuring….or, maybe you just don’t care…..Be well….

Technorati Tags: ken nowack, envisia learning, executive development, disengagement, climate surveys, leadership effectiveness, management development, supervisory training, organizational development, leadership training, OD

1. Nowack, K. (2006). Emotional intelligence: Leaders Make a Difference. HR Trends, 17, 40-42 [↩]