Quote of the Week: 70 percent of employees in the typical company are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged.” Gallup Poll

Humor Break: How to properly engage with employees reminds us of this old “how not to engage” story:

For 30 years Al had arrived at work at 9 AM on the dot. He had never missed a day and was never late.

Consequently, when on one particular day 9 AM passed without Al’s arrival, it caused a sensation. All work ceased, and the boss himself, looking at his watch and muttering, came out into the corridor.

Finally, precisely at 10:00 AM, Al showed up, clothes dusty and torn, his face scratched and bruised, his glasses bent. He limped painfully to the time clock, punched in, and said, aware that all eyes were upon him, “I tripped and rolled down two flights of stairs in the subway. Nearly killed myself.”

And the boss said, “And to roll down two flights of stairs took you a whole hour?”

Stat of the Week: The same techniques for earning customer loyalty also work when engaging employees. After all, both efforts depend on treating people with respect. Here are two ways to use customer service tactics to improve relationships with employees.
1. Get real-time feedback.
2. Make engagement a priority for frontline managers.

Action Tip: Be your own Mystery Shopper.  Want to really know about your company’s customer service practices.  If you have outlets for your goods or services, conduct a visit.  Check out the Methodology Section of Mystery Shopping for some basic ideas of what to look for.  If you want to test your organization’s telephone customer service, here are two ideas: (1) count the number of times you are asked to push a number before you can order something that is not on the telephone menu; (2) try to order something pretending that you do not have your own telephone (and telephone number) … see if you system can handle a customer who chooses not to have a telephone (50% chance this technique won’t work with a telephone provider)!

Volunteering: Today is National Wear Red Day in the United States.  It is the combined efforts of many organizations to raise awareness about Heart Disease, especially in women.  It may be too late to change your wardrobe today, but it is not too late to check out the NWRD website.

Title: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Competency: customer service 

Who benefits: all levels of an organization

Consultant Usage: idea generator for organizational consultants and customer service trainers

What’s it about? As strongly hinted in my last post, I am declaring February as Customer Appreciation Month (CAM).  Very little peeves me more that poor customer service.  I shall use this forum to express personal opinions both positively and negatively.  I urge the readers of this Blog to add their 2-cents in the comments section.  Who have you had a great experience with?  Poor experience with?  Rant or Rave, let’s hear from you.

Public enemy #1 on my list of least favorite customer service experiences (and there have been several frustrating ones) is Direct TV.  Good thing they have the products I need or I would be long gone.  They test my limits and endurance.

Which is why I begin this mini-series with Lame Customer Service Excuses and Hidden Masterminds (dedicated to you, Direct TV).

This is the way Robert Plant (hey, isn’t that a famous musician?) begins his excellent recent post on his Blog:  “The next time a customer service rep says, ‘The computer won’t let me do that’ or ‘The system tells me what to do,’ remember this: Behind every such phrase is a set of processes designed, or at least endorsed, not by computers but by human beings somewhere in the corporate hierarchy. The system may tell the reps what to do, but someone told the system what to do.”

His post deserves a careful read.  There are many nuances deserving of our prime thinking time.  Senior executives who issue “efficiency” directives that may increase short term profits at the expense of customer loyalty.  Mid-level decision makers without direct customer experiences designing the wrong systems that effectively turn customer service representatives and agents into devolving employees who often are provocateurs instead of problem-solvers.  Pity the first line employee drenched under a waterfall of inaccurate or non-existent information.  The powerless employees who create enemies of the very customers they are hired to serve.  The next-to-useless application of technology frustrates and angers even the most loyal of supporters. 

Mr. Plant has some pointed and poignant observations and some answers. 

Here is a quick summary of his solutions.  But don’t stop here.  Go read his post and take in the magnitude of his concern and the details of these solutions:

1. (Organizations) should support their customer agents with technologies that are flexible and adaptive and that use case-based intelligent reasoning to anticipate customer and agent needs.
2. (Organizations) should reduce the experiential gap between employees and customers. With much of the corporate world’s customer interactions handled by offshore call centers, reps are often incapable of relating to customers’ needs.
3. (Organizations) should recognize the value of dialogue with customers.

Good advice for companies that prefer to stay in business.

Catch you later.

Title: Values and Visions

Competency: visionary leadership

Who benefits: primarily employees in leadership positions, secondarily anyone with an interest in the future of work

Consultant Usage: should be on every organizational consultant’s reading list … this is where your clients are going

What’s it about? January is an optimistic month.  Everything is new and fresh.  We still believe this year will be better than last year.  (Well, despite efforts to the contrary, most of us aren’t ready to acknowledge that it is one of those awful and gloomy election years. Why can’t we do elections in September through early November and not ruin a perfectly good summer?)

Back to a new and fresh January.  Might be a good time to look at some new and fresh ideas from the upcoming generation.  How about a newly published book on what is on the minds of young leaders today?  The book cover summarizes it this way: “Globalization. Sustainability. Technology. Diversity. Learning. Convergence of the public and private sectors.  These are the big issues on the minds of young leaders today—the challenges they most want to, and must, pursue.”

I am old.  There are several generations chasing me.  No generation yet has solved the biggest problems facing countries and industries.  I keep hoping there will be a generation that “gets it”.  I want to know what the youngest working generation is thinking.  I tried to catch a young executive recently, but I was too slow and he slipped away.  I guess he figured my generation had its chance he wasn’t going to be slowed down by an old codger.  (Oh yeah, just wait till Clint Eastwood gets a hold of him!)

Fortunately I don’t have to continue to run in futility.  Three distinguished recent Harvard MBA grads, along with some very well-known and impressive advisors have written Passion and Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders.  They write from their own passions and insights gained from a survey of 500 students from top U.S. business schools. 

Those young’uns sure are an optimistic bunch.  They seem to think they have what it takes to make the world a better place.  I get the feeling they don’t waste too much time watching the nightly news or listening to the talking heads.  The media does an excellent job of telling us what is wrong.  These young folks seem a lot more interested in showing us what is right. 

Well bless their pointy little heads and I hope they are right.  It’s January, the optimistic month.  Give a read to what these 20-something optimists have to say.  Wouldn’t hurt if our older generations would get behind them.  Just maybe they can fix what we didn’t.

Catch you later.

Title: What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

Competencies: executive leadership, visionary leadership

Who benefits: executives, consultants and students of organizational change

Consultant Usage: organizational development consultants, executive coaches, large scale change agents

What’s it about? It’s a new year.  Time to think big.  Today’s review is about a book that hasn’t even been published (although you can order it if you like).  The author of the book is Gary Hamel.  He is currently the Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School. He has been around long enough to write a number of well received books.  He writes about the Big Picture.

Unless you are a very senior executive, this book is not practical.  This does not diminish its value.  It is still educational to all readers of management and I would consider it a must read for consultants who deal directly with the C-suite.

Dr. Hamel rejects the notion of doing better.  He wants to reinvent management as currently practiced and to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about capitalism, organizational life, and the meaning of work.

Here is a quick summary to help you determine if this is a good read for you:

He says he is writing an essential agenda for leaders everywhere who are eager to…

“defeat bureaucracy
astonish their customers
foster extraordinary contribution
capture the moral high ground
outrun change
build a company that’s truly fit for the future”

To get there he writes the book centered on five paramount issues:
 
“Values: With trust in large organizations at an all time low, there is an urgent need to rebuild the ethical foundations of capitalism. What’s required is nothing less than a moral renaissance in business.

Innovation: Innovation is the only defense against margin-crushing competition, and the only way to outgrow a dismal economy. In too many companies, innovation is still a buzzword, rather than the responsibility of every single individual. This must change.

Adaptability: In a world of accelerating change, every company must build an evolutionary advantage. The forces of inertia must be vanquished. The ultimate prize: an organization that is as nimble as change itself.

Passion: In business as in life, the difference between “insipid” and “inspired” is passion. With mediocrity fast becoming a competitive liability, success depends on finding new ways to rouse the human spirit at work.

Ideology: Today, businesses need more than better practices; they need better principles. Bureaucracy and control have had their day. It’s time for a new ideology based on freedom and self-determination.”

If you want more of Dr. Hamel, you can read his earlier thoughts (2007) on the same topic in his well-reviewed The Future of Management.

And finally, if you have the curiosity, you can compare Hamel’s 2012  five paramount issues with Peter Drucker’s The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization.

2012 is now with us.  Embrace the change.

Catch you later.

“I visualize things in my mind before I have to do them. It’s like having a mental workshop”
Jack Youngblood

As a kid, I played baseball and probably made over 1,000 double plays successfully–at least in my mind. I used to visualize every moment of receiving the ball from the shortstop to avoiding the slide from the base runner to get the runner out. In games, I actually did a great job of quickly turning the pivot and getting both runners out.

I’ve always wondered if my mental practice made a difference and now it seems I might actually be “wired” in my brain to be more successful than many people (hear that Brian Saebean?).

We have known for many years that mental rehearsal is almost equivalent to physical rehearsal in terms of enhancing skills and performance.

In 1995, a Harvard neuroscientist named Alvaro Pascual-Leone conducted an incredible study¹. He divided volunteers into two groups with the first practicing a five-finger piano exercise for five days for two hours. At the end of each session they measured neural activation using transcranial-magnetic-stimulation (TMS) and they noticed that even after one week of practice, a stretch of the motor cortex in the brain related to finger movements took over surrounding areas demonstrating new neural circuits being established.

Pascual-Leone also asked a second group to only imagine playing the same piano piece mentally and again his research team found that the mere mental rehearsal of doing something like playing the piano altered the physical structure and function of our brain. Performance between the two groups was almost identical when both groups were tested after the two week period demonstrating for the first time the real power of mental practice.

Additional research has also demonstrated how meditation over time actually causes a significant reduction of brain activity in an area of the brain associated with sensations of pain. In a new study, researchers took 15 healthy volunteers who had never meditated and had them practice a 20 minute class just four times. The participants in the study reported a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness in response to a pain inducing heat device was placed on their legs. Mental practice in the form of meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine which typically reduces pain by 25 percent².

In another widely reported study, eight weeks of 27 minutes per day of mental rehearsal of mindfulness meditation results in measurable changes in brain regions associated wtih empathy and stress³. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.

Visualize Becoming a More Effective Leader

Each day you can mentally rehearse being more effective as a leader by:

1. See yourself allowing others to complete their thoughts and ideas before you share your recommendations, suggestions and ideas.
2. Visualize yourself speaking to a group and commanding a high degree of attention, respect and agreement with your message.
3. Rehearse and visualize yourself maintaining emotional control and being poised under interpersonal pressure and conflict (being non-defensive and open minded).
4. See yourself in a positive mood that rubs off on other talent and results in enhanced engagement and commitment to their job and tasks.
5. Mentally practice soliciting and seeking feedback from others and welcoming this as a gift to continuously improve.
6. Imagine using more participative leadership styles and involving more of your talent in problem solving, decision making and planning processes.
7. Focus on your peers saying to each other about how they would like to “follow” someone like you, believe you are always candid and direct with them and work in a collaborative, rather than, competitive manner.

So, maybe you can actually practice becoming a better leader just by deliberately practicing it in your mind. As Robert Collier said, “See things as you would have them be instead of as they are”….Be well….

1. Pascual-Leone, A. Nguyet, D.,Cohen, L., Brasil-Neto, J.,Cammarota, A.; & Hallett. M. (1995). Modulation of muscle responses evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation during the acquisition of new fine motor skills. Journal of Neurophysiology, 74, 1037-1045
2. 1.F. Zeidan, K. T. Martucci, R. A. Kraft, N. S. Gordon, J. G. McHaffie, R. C. Coghill. Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation. Journal of Neuroscience, 2011; 31 (14): 5540 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5791-10.2011
3. Britta K. Hölzel, James Carmody, Mark Vangel, Christina Congleton, Sita M. Yerramsetti, Tim Gard, Sara W. Lazar. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain graymatter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 2011; 191 (1): 36 DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.08.006

Title: Make Time for Time

Competency: time management

Who benefits: all of us

Consultant Usage: good check-up for clients of executive coaches, good review for time management and productivity trainers, probably also good for career counselors

What’s it about? Well here we are in the second week of the new year.  Still working your goals (see last week’s Wednesday post)?  Or are you struggling to find the time you need to bring about the changes forecast for the new You?

The good news for today is there is a short essay on the topic of You … and making time for what is really important.

Anthony K. Tjan in his internationally read Blog points out in a recent pithy post just how finite is our time.  We have less, much less, available time than we think. Routine and unavoidable tasks take up large chunks of our 24 day.  What is left determines the quality of our life.  His essay focuses on our work life, but it doesn’t take much imagination to extend it to our personal life.

“An unexamined life isn’t worth living” is attributed to Socrates.  Tjan would agree and in his article he provides five questions to examine our (mostly work) lives.  It would be a great investment of 10 minutes in your life to read his post and note his five recommendations. 

It would also be worth considerably more if you were to take time to consider those questions for yourself.  Don’t just use up your time.  Use your most precious gift and only non-renewable resource to bring fulfillment and meaningful results to your professional and personal life. 

It is a new year.  Make the most of it.

Catch you later.

“People don’t resist change, they resist being changed.”

Peter Scholtes

Did you make a New Year’s resolution?

Nearly four out of 10 adults will make one or more resolutions for the new year, according to a study done by the University of Scranton¹.

• After the first week of carrying out the goal, about 75 percent of people maintain their goal.
• After week two, nearly 70 percent of people will maintain their goal.
• After one month, about 64 percent will stick with their resolution.
• After six months, about 46 percent of people are still on track with their goal.

Rehab is for Quitters

Old habits are indeed very tough to break and relapse seems greatest when we are under stress. Starting new behaviors is indeed more challenging than sustaining them over time. Quitting is indeed something that some of us are pretty consistent in doing well.

According to new research, quitting may actually be better for your health. Psychologist’s Gregory Miller and Carsten Wroshch have found that people who are able to feel comfortable quitting when faced with unattainable goals may actually have better mental and physical health than those who persevere and push themselves to succeed².

This study was based on their previous research which found that those persistent individuals experienced higher levels of an inflammatory protein called C-reactive protein (an indicator of stress) as well as increased cortisol. They also reported lower psychological well-being. On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal but inflammation appears to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other stress related conditions.

Contrary to what we might have been taught, it appears that it might be in our best interests to “cut our losses” in the face of unattainable goals and life challenges and actually disengage from the goal to ensure optimum well-being and potentially long-term health. This appears to be true whether we are in unsatisfying long-term relationships, working for leaders who are toxic or targeting a goal that is beyond our skill and ability “set points.”

So, any good things for those who persist? In other research Carsten and colleagues found that in the face of life challenge and disengaging from unattainable goals, those who redefined and set new goals were more likely to be able to buffer the negative emotions associated with failure. Maybe “rebound” relationships and new entrepreneurial goals might actually serve to help us find closure to the past and re-engage us for future journeys³.

Want Help to Facilitate Successful Behavior Change in Clients?

Our new book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Dont’ Get it is based on a new three stage individual behavior change model. These stages include:

1. Enlighten
2. Encourage
3. Enable

We have developed over 80 free coaching exercises to help your clients translate awareness from coaching and feedback into deliberate practice. Over time, these new behaviors become automatic requiring less cognitive load (concentration) and rehearsal and greater effectiveness.

Have a look at our book and free exercises to see what might be useful for some of your challenging (and easy) coaching assignments….Be well…..

1. Norcross, J., Mrykalo, S., & Blagys, M. (2002). Auld Lang Syne: Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58, 397-405
2. Miller, G. & Wrosch, C. (2007). You’ve Gotta Know When to Fold ‘Em: Goal Disengagement and Systemic Inflammation in Adolescence. Psychological Science, 18
3. Wrosch, C., Miller, G. E., Scheier, M. F., & Brun de Pontet, S. (2007). Giving up on unattainable goals: Benefits for health? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 251-265

Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. 

Aaron Levenstein

Another edition of leadership and talent management “facts” from all over the world.  Some intuitive and some not….what do you think?

1. According to a late 2010 survey by CareerBuilder.com (2,482 U.S. managers and 3,910 full-time employees in the private sector), only 58 percent of managers said they ever received any formal management training to help them make the transition into leadership roles but nearly 60 percent think they are doing just fine. The most common problems they experienced included:

• Handling employee conflicts (25%)
• Motivating teams (22%)
• Performance reviews (15%)
• Finding resources for staff (15%)
• Creating career paths (12%)

2. In this same Careerbuilder.com survey, regardless of age or experience, 20 percent of the managers were rated as having poor leadership skills. The biggest complaints included:

• Doesn’t listen to employees or address morale issues (40%)
• Not enough transparency (33%)
• Major changes without warning (30%) and unreasonable workloads/demands (27%)

3. Based on the Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011, Transformations 2.0, World Economic Forum the U.S. is ranked fifth out of 138 countries for its use of communications technology and computers.  The top countries included Sweden, Singapore, Finland and Switzerland.

4. A July 2010 Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that 55 percent of U.S. mobile web users go online from their phones and mobile devices on a daily basis (up from 24 percent in 2009). 

5. According to the Thomson Reuters Workforce Wellness Index (March 2011), unhealthy behaviors of U.S. workers cost employers an average of $670 per employee annually. High body mass indices contributed to $400 of the overall per-employee cost.

6. A 2010 Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) survey found that 44% of employers offered telecommuting options on an ad hoc basis, 34% on a part-time basis and only 17% on a full-time basis. 

7. A May 2011 SHRM poll asking about whether one’s organization had a formal succession planning in place.  Results suggested that 38 percent had no formal succession plan in place and 17 percent don’t with no plan by leaders in the organization to develop a plan.

8.  Some findings from the DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2011 of 12,423 leaders and 1,897 HR professional representing 74 countries:

• Organizations whose employees rate their current leadership as high were 13 times more likely to outperform their competition on key metrics such as financial performance
• Only 38 percent of the 12,423 leaders in the study were rated as good or excellent with nearly 25 percent rated as poor or fair
• Both leaders and HR rated leadership quality highest in North America (52% rated it highly) and lowest in Europe and Asia (33% rated it highly)
• Approximately 33 percent of HR and leaders rated their leadership development programs as being effective
• The most critical skills required from leaders included driving change (48%), Identifying and coaching talent (36%), Fostering innovation/creativity (35%), Coaching and developing talent (32%) and executing strategy (32%).  When asked to rate the ineffectiveness of leaders in these areas, the ranges were from 40% to 50% on each
• 68 percent of organizations use managers as coaches (63% rate it as effective) and 27% use external coaches often (37% rate it as effective)
• The iPad generation desire to learn from others and coaching and the older generation appears to favor classroom training and special projects
• The range of effectiveness for leadership selection, succession planning, performance management and development programs ranged from 22 percent to 33 percent by HR respondents

9. According to an online survey of more than 500 senior managers and executives conducted by AMA Enterprise, one-quarter of employees in the U.S. and Canada tend to regard talent development programs as less than equitable.  Participants were asked, “How is the high potential program perceived by your organization’s employees?” They responded:

• Impartial and even-handed (12 percent)
• Flawed, but well-intentioned (27 percent)
• Unfair and political (24 percent)
• Don’t know (37 percent)

10. A 2011 survey by Addeco (“Workplace Outlook Study”) found that the most important thing(s) to job seekers now are:

• Job security (21%)
• Health benefits (20%)
• Salary/compensation (14%)
• Work/life balance (14%)
• Retirement benefits (11%)
• Vacation/days off (5%)
• Company culture (4%)
• Company perks (1%)

The largest fraction of Americans looking for jobs consisted of 18-34 year-olds.  And 28% of Americans are starting a new job in 2011 compared to only 14% in 2010.

Back to research some new talent development facts….Be well….

Title: Building good relationships with yourself and others

Competencies: self-development, managing self, oral and written communications, listening

Who benefits: everyone

Consultant Usage: communication trainers and consultants looking for interesting background material

What’s it about? As the year stumbles to a close, many of us look back and reflect on what was.  Much of “what was” we could do nothing about.  The economy is beyond most people’s understanding, much less influence.  World Peace, Global Warming, Poverty, Greed and Corruption … all issues of importance but somehow outside of our daily lives.

Many of us have our pet causes, but for the most part our contributions are a drop in a bucket.  Yes, I know, recent events in the Middle East have shown that enough drops will fill the bucket.  And that is a good thing.  But for most you reading this post, what concerns you most and what you can influence is in your line of sight.  And of all the things you have the most control over, your relationships with others is quite possibly the most important.

Most of us see ourselves as communication experts.  Most of us are wrong.

We are under the (often false) impression that because we know 1,000s of words that we know how to use them to great effect.  We speak volumes of words, but to what impact.  As my colleague Ken Nowack often writes in his Monday posts, how we see ourselves isn’t always how we are perceived. 

This brings me to today’s theme: How can we have the best possible relationships with those who we value most — either for personal or professional reasons.  If, in your-end-of-the year soul searching, you are dissatisfied with some of your existing relationships or you simply acknowledge that you can and want to be a better communicator with the important people in your life, here are a couple of suggestions: 

How to Click with People: The Secret to Better Relationships in Business and in Life is a new book that is a quick and easy read.  For many of you there won’t be much in the book you don’t already know.  But there are some good reminders, like remembering that people have different communication styles and to be effective with them, you have to communicate to their style.

And there are some relatively new ideas on how to build better relationships through email and assorted social media, which the author calls “Clicking Electronically”.  He also has a good chapter on the power of Listening.

Relationship Rules is a 2009 book written around the idea that self-confidence precedes good communication.  I never thought of it that way.  And I have struggled with my own self confidence for the better part of a century.  The book isn’t intended to be humorous.  There aren’t a lot of funny clips.  But without stopping to analyze why, I found myself smiling a lot and thinking “Boy, I would like to have lunch with this guy and get him talking.”

This book is a little more academic – citations, quotes and notes – than the first.  It is also fill with tips, hints and examples. 

What really grabbed me though was this quote: “(M)ake positive and productive strides toward getting your own house in order before inviting anyone over.” 

Happy Reflections.

Catch you later.

Title: Project Management

Competency: project management, planning, controlling, administrative control

Who benefits: employees involved in project management   

Consultant Usage: possible references for employees

What’s it about? One of the competencies this site supports is project management.  In my nearly 150 Wednesday posts I have never written anything about this competency.  I feel slightly guilty but remain uninspired.  It is not a thrilling topic.  But project management has grown exponentially during my career and much too often people are thrown into a project without the proper skills.

If project management holds no interest for you, stop reading this post.  Come back next week.  Maybe I can thrill you with another topic. 

If you are involved in project management, and especially if you have that sinking feeling, I have some development suggestions for you:

Workshops:

If you live in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area I can highly recommend the The Caltech IRC 10-Day Project Management Certificate.  All classes are on Saturday at Caltech in Pasadena.  Einstein did a lot of learning there.  You can too.

If you live out of the area and would like entry level courses in project management, the American Management Association offers courses all across the United States.

If you live somewhere on the planet and would like more advanced training, I can highly recommend Kepner-Tragoe Project Management and related courses.

Videos:

If viewing is your thing, check out the slightly offbeat website How To Find Project Management Training on YouTube Like A Ninja. 

 Or you might want to go to an introduction the PMP certification process at Project Management Professional (PMP) Video Training.

Books:

If key concepts and fundamentals of best-practice project management techniques are what you are looking for, try Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management.

McGraw-Hill has a good reputation as a publisher of quality books and The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Project Management, Second Edition should not be an exception.  The book is very broad and less nitty-gritty than some more technical books, but I like the way the authors put project management in a greater context.  

Website:

Visit ProjectMinds for a lengthy list of  project management educational programs (including online), websites, software (some free), and associations. They also provide a free download book and a number of free articles.

Well if you have read this far, the above should keep you busy.  As for me, I have to move on to my next project.

Catch you later.

Quote of the Week: Here is a summary of a performance review of a mediocre performer.  Be sure to read the punch line at the end. 

“In addition, I would have to say your output, while at times quite extraordinary, has been inconsistent. In Q1 you managed to publish one paper in the final two weeks of the quarter. In Q2 you improved productivity, with your dissertation in April, the Brownian Motion paper in May, and the Special Relativity paper in June. Not bad for a quarter, not bad at all. But then you seemed to slump: you did finish one paper 3 days before the close of Q3, but it was only 3 pages long. I admit that some reviewers did find it noteworthy, but really, couldn’t it have been the conclusion of your June paper? It almost seems like you held it back just to have something to show for Q3. (This flippant, almost disrespectful attitude is also evident in your dissertation: when told by your respected thesis committee that your thesis was too short, you added one sentence.)  And then in Q4 — no publications at all.”

This mediocre performer was Albert Einstein in 1905 when he came up with his Theory of Relativity.  Some bosses are just hard to please.

Humor Break: Statements purportedly found on performance appraisals:
“Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.”
“His men would follow him anywhere but only out of morbid curiosity.”
“This associate is really not so much a has-been, but more of a definitely won’t be.”
“Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.”
“When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change feet.”
“He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.”
“This young lady has delusions of adequacy.”
“He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.”
“This employee should go far — and the sooner he starts, the better we’ll be.”
“This man has the whole six pack but is missing the plastic thingy that holds them all together.”
“He certainly takes a long time to make his pointless.”
“He doesn’t have ulcers, but he is a carrier.”
“He would argue with a signpost.”
“He has a knack for making strangers immediately.”
“When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell.”
“Is apparently very careful with equipment, as his tools show very little signs of wear.”

Stat of the Week: This is a short follow-up to Wednesday’s post on Performance Appraisals/Reviews/Evaluations.  In this season of giving, there is No Such Thing as giving constructive criticism.  If you are giving performance appraisals/reviews this Holiday Season, you owe it to yourself to read this brief Blog.  Read these three tips for more effective feedback.

Action Tip: If you are an appraisal giver, be sure to let your employee(s) know when you are going to give the appraisal and what you expect from then.  Plan for a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.  A long time ago in a faraway place I used to conduct the required appraisal (with each employee) in a fancy restaurant.  We would begin at noon and conclude at 5:00.  My employees couldn’t wait for their review.  I realize those days are gone, but there are still ways to be creative.  Another thing I did was minimize discussion of the past and maximize discussion of the future.  After all, the future was the only thing we could do anything about.

Volunteering: While not likely, after giving your appraisals/reviews/evaluations you may want to get out of town for a while.  Universal Giving offers over 70 locations and a wide variety of volunteer experiences worldwide.  You can help preserve the Amazon forest, build a home, care for orphaned children, and much more.

Title: Grief Giving

Competencies: performance evaluation, performance management, coaching, giving feedback

Who benefits: all who give or receive performance appraisals/reviews/evaluations

Consultant Usage: background and resource information

What’s it about? It’s December and that can mean only one thing.  It is a time for the holidays traditions … like annual performance appraisals/reviews/evaluations (or whatever fancy name your company gives this often demeaning task … not that there is anything wrong with that).

So today’s post is about how to give the gift of a performance review without making an enemy.  I begin with my own suggestion.  When giving an appraisal to an employee, don’t say “Happy Holidays, here is your performance review, read it, sign it and return it to me by the end of the week.”

If your tendencies start with the above sentence, you might want to read a new book called How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals: Simple, Effective, Done Right.  The author, Dick Grote, has been at this for a long time and has written several other books on similar topics.  His writing style is reader friendly and practical.  If you are looking for a step-by-step process, this should do.

If you are interested in a systems approach then you might like this brand new book from the well-respected Jossy-Bass Publishing: The Performance Pipeline: Getting the Right Performance At Every Level of Leadership.  The book is more likely to appeal to organizational consultants, but it is a book for leaders to consider as they examine their organizational practices.  Author Stephen Drotter writes about three critical business needs:

-How to improve business performance by defining the unique purpose of each layer and providing clarity and focus on the results to be achieved
-How to make all leaders successful by having leaders at every layer pass down to the layers below things they need to be successful
-How to help leaders make the transition to a new layer and how to remove performance roadblocks so leaders deliver the results required at their new layer

So much for new books.  This next recommendation was last updated in the late 90’s but it is still a gem.  I was raised on it and use it frequently in my career (and in my personal life).  The book is Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna–How to Figure out Why People Aren’t Doing What They Should Be, and What to do About It. 

The flap says “It gives you a step-by-step process for solving virtually any performance problem you face. Instead of guessing at solutions that won’t work, you can save time, money, and frustration by finding the true cause of the problem and identifying the best and most economical way to solve it. You’ll learn to:

- Identify the true causes of performance problems
- Determine if you can use “fast fixes” (solutions that are quick and easy)
- Identify realistic, economically feasible solutions”

And finally a decade-old book to put performance appraisals/reviews in a different perspective.  I have previously reviewed this book and mentioned it in several other post.  Why?  I believe the authors got it right.  The best part of the book is not that they leave you hanging with what is wrong, but they suggest new and positive ways to manage employees.  Abolishing Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead

Ah, Performance Appraisals/Reviews/Evaluations, the gift that keeps on giving.

Catch you later.

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ”
Albert Einstein

Leaders are generally incompetent when it comes to coaching and developing talent.

Here ae few findings from some recent studies and surveys that may (or may not) surprise you:

1. In her 2006 doctoral research on the impact of 360 degree feedback on leadership, Nancy Rehbine found a high level of disappointment and greater opportunity to involve the leader as internal coach:

• 62% of the respondents reported being dissatisfied or highly dissatisfied with the amount of time their manager spent helping with a development plan
• More than 65% expressed strong interest in utilizing an online follow-up tool to measure progress toward behavior change

 2. In the Blessing White 2009 study targeting 2,000 leaders and HR professional exploring the role of leaders as coaches (The Coaching Conundrum 2009: Building a coaching culture that drives organizational success.  Blessing White Inc. Global Executive Summary) they found:

• 84% of managers are expected to coach talent but only 52% actually do (only 39% in Europe)
• Only 24% of all leaders are rewarded or recognized for coaching and developing talent
• 85% of all managers and employees see value in leaders as coaches but 32% of managers reported it takes too much time and interferes with their job

3. The 2011 DDI Global Leadership Forecast of 12,423 leaders and 1,897 HR professional representing 74 countries found:

• 68 percent of organizations use managers as coaches (63% rate it as effective) and 27% use external coaches often (37% rate it as effective)
• 43 percent of leaders were rated as ineffective in this particular skill area
• The most critical skills required from leaders included driving change (48%), Identifying and coaching talent (36%), Fostering innovation/creativity (35%), Coaching and developing talent (32%) and executing strategy (32%).  When asked to rate the ineffectiveness of leaders in these areas, the ranges were from 40% to 50% on each (43 percent were rated ineffective in coaching talent).

Ways to Improve Leaders as Coaches

What seems clear is that leaders today might not be that competent at developing and coaching talent.  One reason could be that leaders really lack passion for the role but are attracted to it by the latest mobile phone, title, decision making control and compensation.  Here are a few things that could be considered to help enhance the effectiveness of leaders as coaches today:

1. Select for those with interpersonal skills and social competence that can be good performance coaches with their direct reports.
2. Train and develop the skills to become better performance coaches.  Coaching skills and the micro-skills that underlie them are capable of being taught and developed further with deliberate practice.
3. Help leaders recognize how generational differences play a role in learning and engagement.  The iPad generation of today prefer blended learning and coaching as the primary way to learn and grow within organizations.
4. Recognize leaders who develop high potential talent.  You get what you recognize (and reward) so share what great leaders are doing internally as a performance coach to serve as a model to others in the organization.
5. Use employee engagement surveys to evaluate leaders who retain high potential talent.  Measure the leaders who are able to retain talent and explore the “line of sight” between your bad leaders with turnover, customer complaints, grievances and productivity.
6. Reward (through compensation) those who hold onto high potential talent and make it part of the performance management system.  Make performance coaching part of the performance review process and make salary increases and bonuses part of the leadership role.

I’m off to try to practice my leadership skills with my willful guide dog puppy in training Rocco on his journey to become a guide for someone who is blind–I will let you know in about 8 months if my coaching is effective….Be well….

Title: Perfectionism – curse or blessing?

Competency: coaching, performance management

Who benefits: all levels of management

Consultant Usage: highly recommended for professional coaches

What’s it about? Last week I reviewed a new book: Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It.  One group of people who have a hard time “getting it” are perfectionists. 

So this week when I came across a recent article entitled “How to Give Feedback to a Perfectionist”, I thought this would be a natural follow-up.    

I love the opening paragraph of the article: “Having a perfectionist on your team can be an asset. Perfectionists are driven to succeed, work hard to avoid mistakes, and are always striving to improve. Yet it can be a challenge to manage someone who needs everything to be perfect.”

Author Jeff Szymanski goes on to offer 4 coaching tips in this short article:

-Be clear about your goals and expectations for their work.
-Encourage a perfectionist to share a work-in-progress with you.
-Perfectionists can be obsessed with not wanting to make mistakes.
-Sometimes perfectionists get stuck because they use the same strategies over and over again, even when they stop working or aren’t working in a particular context.

Each of these four tips is explained in clear and concise writing with practical recommendations.  So if you have a perfectionist in the house … or in your house for that matter, be sure to read this short article.

If you would like to know more about perfectionists and perfectionism, the author also has a new book The Perfectionist’s Handbook: Take Risks, Invite Criticism, and Make the Most of Your Mistakes built around the following points:

-Distinguish between intention and strategy as a way of improving outcomes
-Identify diminishing returns and ways to redistribute your time and resources
-Make the most of mistakes rather than being preoccupied with trying to avoid them
-Learn to focus on your “Top 10″ list as a way of getting the most out of your life
-Interact with others more effectively as a way of improving performance
-Establish more balance in your life

I would like to especially emphasize that if you or your organization is engaged in a 360 degree feedback system, you will likely have the responsibility of coaching one or more perfectionists in the process.  From my own experiences I know coaching perfectionists can be difficult.  The article and/or the book can help prepare you.

As I reread this review I realize it’s not perfect.  But it gets the job done and it’s on time. 

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: perfectionists, perfectionism, coaching, executive coaching, 360 degree feedback, clueless, envisia, envisia learning, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.”

George Carlin

To stimulate research on the topic of poor leadership, Robert Hogan in 1990 suggested that the base rate of leadership incompetence was between 60% and 75%. Other research has confirmed that approximately one out of two executive leaders fail in corporate America. These leaders seem to consistently lack emotional intelligence, be overly controlling, poor at delegation and problem solving and perceived to be untrustworthy.  Leaders may be made but clearly finding the ones that are born with “leadership set points” would appear to maximize the success of organizations.

Based on several recent surveys (e.g., Abderdeen Group and Rocket-Hire), the utilization of assessment tools for pre-employment selection and promotion is approximately 60% to 70% across all industries with some projections of increased use in the next 12 months of about 14%. 

Of those using pre-employment assessments across job levels, the most popular approaches continue to be evaluation of work history, candidate interviews, skill and aptitude tests, and personality inventories.  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? The table below summarizes a large number of recent meta-analytic research studies in the industrial/organizational psychology literature across diverse industries, job levels and different measures of job performance and success.

The numbers in the column are called validity coefficients and they can range from 0 (no association with performance outcomes) to 1.0 (perfect association).  This table is based on very diverse industries for leadership positions across all levels using a wide variety of specific measures of success, salary, promotion, and performance in mind.  In the industrial/organizational literature, it is not unusual to find that most assessments today are only modest at actually predicting future success of leaders in any industry—regardless of how it is defined and measured.  The use of two or more of these pre-employment and selection methods doesn’t dramatically increase predictive validity but relying on only one approach may lead to erroneous hires and selection decisions (e.g., relying only on personality inventory results or interviews).

Any of these methods can be used for selecting talent as long as they are based on a systematic job analysis summarizing relevant knowledge, skills and abilities required for successful performance.  There are many ways to establish validation of a pre-employment assessment with the most common methods used including content validation (showing a link between the job requirements and the content of an assessment) and criterion related validation (showing a statistical relationship between the assessment and some measure of performance) methods.

What We Know About Selecting Successful Leaders in the Future

A number of practical and important observations can be made by looking at the relative average predictive validities (correlation coefficients) ranging from the highest (.54 for work samples) to the lowest (.01 for age). 

• No specific assessment approach is statistically very strong in predicting success or performance although work sample simulations, cognitive ability tests for entry positions and more structured interviews are the strongest.
• The standard “mutual seduction” interview is probably only modest at predicting future performance.  Predictive validity increases as interviews become more structured, based on a comprehensive review of the position requirements and based either on specific situations that can be reliably evaluated or behavioral samples from the past.
• Interests are relatively weak at telling us much about future performance or competence (just watch the television show American Idol and you can see this in action). However, interests are strong predictors of job satisfaction and turnover so it is important to get a sense of what will maximally engage talent.  New research suggests that job specific interests might be stronger in predicting performance and turnover.
• Although reference checks have legal restrictions that minimize their usefulness, in concept they should be pretty revealing if you can get information to be shared by previous colleagues, peers and employers given the predictive power of peer and supervisory ratings.
• Minimize stereotypes about the value of talent with particular educational backgrounds and age—both are virtually useless for making predictions about future leadership success.
• Those who demonstrate cognitive ability seem to learn more rapidly and assimilate information.  Cognitive ability tests are known for potential adverse impact and are often viewed more negatively by prospective candidates.  At higher levels there is a compression of mathematical-logical intelligence making these type of assessments less useful (predictive) but still the more of it you have the greater the job performance.
• It’s not how smart you are but how you are smart.  Interpersonal competence, self-awareness and social awareness (ingredients of emotional intelligence) are probably better predictors of who won’t succeed than who will.  Be careful about overstated claims about the predictive power of emotional intelligence on job performance.
• “Show me” assessments or simulations appear to be universally strong predictors of leadership success.  These types of measures have been incorporated into assessment centers with strong predictive validity and little or no adverse impact.  Because they are designed around the job in question, candidates also respond much better than to pre-employment approaches that don’t appear to be immediately relevant to the position (e.g., intelligence tests, personality inventories).
• Personality measures are modest predictors of job success with two “universal” or generalizable factors typically found to have the strongest association with job performance across diverse settings: conscientiousness (driven, dependable, organized, achievement oriented, responsible) and emotional stability (self-confident, even tempered, adaptable, resilient, emotionally well adjusted).
• When job performance depends on leading and influencing (e.g., sales and managerial positions) extroversion is a significant personality predictor and for customer service oriented positions interpersonal factors (agreeableness) appears most strongly associated with performance and success.
• In positions requiring creativity and innovation, a personality factor often referred to as “openness to experience” is quite predictive.
• There isn’t much argument that selecting and promoting the best leadership talent is a strategic competitive advantage.  However, what approach to use for “human handicapping” is an important decision when companies, large and small, begin to introduce specific assessment methods for pre-employment hiring and promotional decision making.  Most are significantly better than chance and some are certainly better at increasing the odds of predicting high performers.

If only it was as easy as the final scene in the baseball movie called The Natural where Roy Hobbs breaks his precious bat and tells the bat boy “Pick me out a winner Bobby” with pretty dramatic results (and even better score by Randy Newman)….Be well….