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.

“….Ain’t it good to know you’ve got a friend”

Carlole King

What exactly do relationships at work do for talent? Do close relationships with one’s boss and colleagues have any impact on engagement and productivity? Current research suggest strong relationships with one’s boss and direct reports are associated with:

1. Less inflammation measured as C-Reactive Protein¹.
2. Enhanced immunity².
3. Less burnout in professional working women–lower depersonalization and higher personal accomplishment³.
4. Decreased depression⁴.
5. Enhanced job satisfaction⁵.
6. Greater longevity and less illness during our life based on meta-analytics reviews of over 148 studies⁶.

Work Relationships and Job Burnout

A recent study by Claude Fernet at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières explored the relationship between friendships at work and job burnout⁷.

A total of 533 college employees participated in this study. Data were collected at two time points, two years apart. Their prospective study suggests that high-quality relationships with coworkers are crucial to minimize job burnout (emotional exhaustion, cynicism/depersonalization and negative self-evaluation, and personal accomplishment). So, having strong relationships at work certainly seems associated with preventing psychological distress and enhancing our level of energy over time.

Work Relationships and Longevity

People who have a good peer support system at work may live longer than people who don’t have such a support system, according to new research⁸.

The researchers, at Tel Aviv University, looked at the medical records of 820 adults who were followed for 20 years, from 1988 to 2008. The workers were drawn from people who had been referred to an HMO’s screening center in Israel for routine examinations. (People who were referred because of suspected physical or mental health problems were excluded from the sample). The workers came from some of Israel’s largest firms in finance, insurance, public utilities, health care and manufacturing. They reported working on average 8.8 hours a day. One-third of them were women; 80 percent were married with children; and 45 percent had at least 12 years of formal education.

The researchers controlled for the physiological, behavioral and psychological risk factors of total cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose levels, blood pressure, body mass index, alcohol consumption, smoking, depressive symptoms, anxiety and past hospitalizations. They obtained the data on the control variables from each person’s periodic health examinations, including tests of physiological risk factors and a questionnaire completed during the examinations by all participants.

So, it appears that relationships with one’s boss can have direct and important associations with the physical health and psychological well-being of talent. 

Social support with other colleagues and non-work peers also talent affect health and we all know that we bring work stress home with us as well as transfer family problems back to our jobs (known as spillover effects).  We also know that gender plays a role in the relationship between social support and well-being.

For example, we have taken a look at some social support research results from our stress and health risk assessment called StressScan by analyzing availability, utility and satisfaction of social support by gender. We tested gender differences by using a statistical test called analysis of variance (ANOVA) and found some interesting differences in gender with a sample of almost 800 professional working men and women.

1. In general, women reported greater availability and use of their social support network (supervisor/boss, colleagues/co-workers, partner, family and friends) than their male counterparts (all p’s < .01).
2. Women reported using their boss or supervisor significantly more frequently than men which was surprising as research suggests that more successful women indicate that mentoring was less important to their career advancement than did less successful women.
3. Women reported significantly more availability, use and satisfaction with their friends compared to males. They also reported greater availability and use of their partners, families and friends (all p’s < .01) which is consistent to what Shelly Taylor, Ph.D. has suggested as part of the female “tend and befriend” response to coping with work and life stress⁹.

What else do we know about social relationships, psychological health and physical well-being?

So, it seems pretty convincing that support and friendships are independent risk factors for mental and physical health…..The bigger question, as the Beatles asked, is “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty four?”….Be well…..

1. Suarez, E. (2004). C Reactive Protein Is Associated With Psychological Risk Factors of Cardiovascular Disease in Apparently Healthy Adults. Psychosomatic Medicine 66:684-690
2. Schwartz, G.E., Schwartz, J.I., Nowack, K.M., & Eichling, P.S. (1992). Changes in perceived stress and social support over time are related to changes in immune function. University of Arizona and Canyon Ranch. Unpublished manuscript
3. Nowack, K. and Pentkowski, A. (1994). Lifestyle habits, substance use, and predictors of job burnout in professional working women. Work and Stress, 8, 19-35
4. Stroetzer, U. et al. (2006). Problematic interpersonal relationships at work and depression: A Swedish prospective cohort study. Journal of Occupational Health, 51, 144-151
5. Simon, L., Judge, T., & Halvorsen-Ganepola, M. (2010). In good company? A multi-level investigation of the effects of coworker relationships on well-being. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76, 534-546
6. Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB (2010) Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLoS Med 7(7): e1000316. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
7. Fernet, C. et al. (2010). When does quality of relationships with coworkers predict burnout over time? The moderating role of work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 1163–1180
8. Shirom, A. et al., (2011). Work-Based Predictors of Mortality: A 20-Year Follow-Up of Healthy Employees. Health Psychology, 30, No. 3
9. Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. Behavioral Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight” Psychological Review, 107(3):41-429

Written by Sam Alibrando, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and president of APC, Inc. his own consulting firm that works with organizations and senior executives.

There are few things more important to the success of an organization, than getting the right people into your organization (and then keeping them). The costs of a bad hire are enormous in terms of the financial investment in the hiring process, cost of poor performance, lost time and energy in needless management, decreased morale and employee retention (there is growing evidence that good employees don’t leave organizations, they leave bad bosses).

When you think of the worst things about your organization, you can probably trace it back to a bad hire. Likewise, when you consider what is working well, you will probably trace it back to a good hire. 

There are three ways to get the Best People into your organization. You can Hire them, you can Inspire (or develop and retain) them or you can Retire (reposition or fire) them. Firing people is necessary but difficult and at times carries with it risk. Repositioning is often a good alternative as long as the problem was poor fit rather than poor emotional intelligence or incompetence. Developing is always good but you can only develop people within their capacity to truly learn. It is hard to take an average employee and develop them into a star (and even more difficult to take a low-performing employee even to only the next level). By far and away, the best option of getting the work force that you want is to hire them. It is easier to hire a star than attempt to develop them over years. And let’s face it, not everyone is teachable.

One of the favorite things that I do as a consultant is to help organizations hire good-fit, emotionally intelligent leaders and then to help integrate them into their new position (and possible new work culture). Below is the five-step choreography that I use, let’s D.I.S.C.O.

Define the position.  Not enough time is spent on thinking about the position to be filled. What exactly are you looking for and what kind of person would fill it?  We often assume that we should just fill the same position that is vacated. If you think like that you will at best get what you already had. Think about what you need now and into the future. We are currently helping the president of a company hire a COO. We are suggesting to him to think 2-3 years ahead. Who do you want or need this person to be in two years? Consider the position that you are looking to fill, a new position that is aligned with your current strategic plan (if you have one). Once you do that, describe the KSA (knowledge, Skills and Aptitudes) of the ideal person. As consultants we use a system that profiles that ideal candidate, one that we later use for assessment and interviewing purposes and even later for measuring success after they are hired.

Identify the best (and fewest) candidates. There are many ways to identify the best candidates. You can identify candidates as simply as advertising the position on the web (e.g. Craig’s List or Monster.com) for lower level hires to employing a search firm for C-level executives. Although very expensive, the advantage of using an executive search firm is that they can locate people who are already working and currently not-looking. Although we do not identify and recruit we help you determine the best way to do it. We also partner with recruiters and search firms as well. What is important in the Identification process is to get the best prospects, and not one more. This involves not just identification but also good screening.   You can screen candidates by reviewing their resumes, doing a standardized phone screen or hire a search firm to do the screening for you.

• Selection.  Once you have a final group of good candidates you now need to go through a thorough selection process. Here are the ABCs of this process:
• Assessment. We put candidates through a battery of assessments that assess fit to ideal profile, strength assessment, their team role, cognitive capacity and personality fit. We then use this information to guide the interviewing process.
• Behavioral Interviews. The typical interview has about a 50% accuracy (might as well flip a coin) for predicting success.  Do you want to improve your odds? Then you need to do what is called a behavioral interview. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. In the interview, you want to assess how a person performed and therefore will perform in your organization. If you do this, you improve your predictability to 80%. I would take those odds. As consultants, we have both guided this process and will actually sit in on interviews. And speaking of sitting in on interviews, generally speaking the more touches (the more people in the interviewing process)–up to a certain reasonable amount, the better chances of making a good hire (and avoiding a bad one). 

 Confirm. You want to confirm what you are told. This includes actually following up with references, confirming allegations and doing background checks. We worked with one company that was hiring a very important general manager. The chair of the hiring committee found someone who was a friend of a friend (not the best way to identify a candidate) and he had everything that they were looking for in a GM. The chair of the committee loved him was ready to hire him on the spot. Fortunately, three other people interviewed him. One seasoned executive who interviewed the candidate had a “bad feeling” about this prospect. The assessments that we did indicated an average to poor fit for the position. This instigated enough concern that a background check was done. And when they did a background check, they found that he had a history of serious problems that would likely follow him into this next position.  If the chair selected this person–in a manner that most organizations do– without following the ABCs of Selection, they would have hired their next huge headache and unnecessary expense.

Choose.  This is the shortest but obviously most important decision you will make in the DISCO process. Bring together all the stakeholders, interviewers, data from assessment, information from references and background check and make a decision. Honor people who have a “bad feeling” about someone.  Don’t necessarily trust “likeability” (remember narcissistic people are notorious charmers).  You need to tie likeability to performance and fit. And when you choose someone, think emotional intelligence. You can have a very talented person but if they cannot regulate their emotions or they relate poorly to others, you will get more than you bargained for.  After having the basic KSAs in place, few things are more important than emotional intelligence, especially if this person works with clients, needs to work in a team or manage or lead others.   

Onboarding. The hiring process does NOT end with the hire. This is a mistake that many organizations make. In our process we will stay with the new hire over the course a several months helping them integrate into the new position–and the new culture if they are an outside hire. Monitoring and assessing their progress and enhancing important communications along the way. We will use all the assessment data to both coach the new hire and direct his or her boss on how to mentor the new hire. The purpose of onboarding is to instigate a soft landing (integration), detect any issues early that might be problematic down the road and hone in the performance to the strategic needs of the position. 

If you are going to cut costs in an organization, do not cut costs in the hiring process. It will come back to haunt you for years.  Instead learn to do the D.I.S.C.O. and you will not regret it for a minute.

Quote of the Week:

“Well if this is the wrong number, why did you answer it” James Thurber (How come wrong numbers are never busy?)

Humor Break: Remember “Laugh-In”? “One ringy-dingy….” aimed a spoof of customer service at the phone company and concluded with the message, “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”

Stat of the Week: February is around the corner. It is the month of Love (Valentine’s Day). I thought I would declare the month “Customer Appreciation Month” and focus on the customer. Since it isn’t quite February, I will begin a “Customer Unappreciation Article”. Pepperdine University Professor David McMahon wrote a scholarly yet very readable article about how to manage customer waiting time. My Stat of the Week is pretty loose this week, but in the article he lists a number of ways to deal with wait times. The whole article was so logical and well-reasoned that I couldn’t help but sit back a feel satisfied…until I started to challenge some assumptions. Two in particular stood out. (1) the organization’s time is more valuable than the customer’s and (2) the purpose isn’t to minimize or eliminate wait times, but to make wait time more palatable. On second reading the article is all about how to trick the customer. My favorite example, how a telephone company kept customers waiting and charged them for the waiting time.

Action Tip: If you haven’t lost your sanity but want a quick way to voice a complaint and (maybe) even get a response, try the 3rd party website MeasureUP .  If you have lost your sanity and really want to rant, google “ihate(name of company)”. Here is one of the most popular rant sites. I have even considered using on several occasions: ihatedirecttv Blog. (Not well done, goes from earliest posts to latest post???, lots of literacy issues, but lots of posts.) I have read that Direct TV monitors this site for statistical purposes and according to one source on the site, action was actually taken.

Volunteering: One place being put on hold could be deadly is with teenagers in trouble. Every town needs consiencious adults as telephone volunteers. Google “teen telephone crisis hotlines” for a crisis center in your area. Don’t wait. Don’t leave them waiting.

“Nearly 80% of people believe they are among the top 50% most emotionally intelligent people”

Peter Salovey

There are at least three distinct approaches to measuring EI and emotional and social competence representing different models.

The first, delineated by Reuven Bar-On, was influenced by his interest in the aspects of performance not linked to intelligence; the second, often tied to Daniel Goleman’s interpretation, approached EI through competencies; and the third, represented by Mayer and Salovey and colleagues, was influenced by their interest in the relationship between cognition and emotion.

These three approaches have led to diverse and non-overlapping measures of EI characterized as: 1) Personality oriented (e.g, Bar-On Emotion Quotient Inventory); 2) Competency or “Mixed” model oriented (e.g., Emotional Intelligence View 360); and 3) Ability or skill oriented (e.g., Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test; MSCEIT).

Issues with Ability Based Measures of Emotional Intelligence

• Independece from personality measures (e.g., five factor models)
• Weak convergent validity with other cognitive ability measures (i.e., they don’t highly correlate with IQ)
• Scoring issues (i.e., lack of agreement and some controversy on how these assessments are scored)
• Confounded with a measure of knowledge (i.e., they seem to be measuring what someone “knows” as well as emotional intelligence)

Problems wiht Self-Report (Mixed) Measures of Emotional Intelligence

• High correlations with five factor personality measures (i.e., the overlap is so high it suggests that some measures of EI are really nothing more than another personality inventory)
• Limitations of 360-feedback (e.g., inflated self-ratings, moderate correlations between and within rater groups)
• Limitations of self-report (how do you measure EI in people who lack emotional intelligence?)
• Tend to ignore context, situation and setting (EI is not a useful predictor of performance in jobs that don’t have high emotional labor or are socially demanding)

Our own “mixed measure” of ESC called Emotional Intelligence View 360 based on the Goleman construct has some strengths and limitations as all measures. Our EIV360 appears to be statistically unique from ability based measures (very low correlations with the MSCEIT), correlated with the most popular measures of transformational leadership and predictive of both academic and work performance.

In a review by Joseph and Newman (2010), they found a negative association between measures of EI and work performance when jobs do not require strong social skills. Although the sample sizes for this analysis were rather low (N = 220 and N =223, respectively) it does suggest that EI is important for positions like sales, customer service and leadership and less important in predicting performance and success when high levels of interpersonal interaction are required¹.

A newer 2010 meta-analysis by O’Boyle et al. included 65% more studies and twice the sample size to estimate EI and job performance outcomes².

Their findings extent those of Newman (2010) and suggest that trait, personality and mixed measures demonstrated corrected correlations ranging from 0.24 to 0.30 with job performance. Their research also shows that all measures show incremental validity over cognitive ability and personality measures.

Measurement of emotional intelligence (ability based) is most likely different from other approaches (personality and mixed) but all techniques tend to significantly predict job performance, health and social competence particularly in roles and positions requiring high interpersonal interaction. So, depending on your purpose (e.g., selection versus development of talent) some approaches to measuring EI might be better than others.

The one big lesson from the confusion in the measurement of emotional intelligence is that “it’s not HOW smart you are that counts, but how you are smart…Be well….

1. Joseph, D. & Newman, D. (2010). Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 54-78
2. O’Boyle, E., Humphrey, R., Pollack, Hawver, T. & Story, P. (2010). The relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 10.1002/job.714

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

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

Anne Frank

One of my favorite motivational stories to tell is an adaption of the “starfish story” by Loren Eiseley and as many of you know popularized by Joel Barker.

In the story, a man walking at the beach approaches a boy who is vigorously throwing back stranded starfish. He stops and asks how the boy can really make a difference with so many starfish laying on the beach. Without hesitation and throwing another back another into the ocean the boy replies, “I bet I made a difference for that one.”

We all know that leadership behavior makes a significant difference in followership engagement, retention and level of stress¹.

I’d like to devote this updated Blog to an unsung leader who has taught me a lot about leadership practices, passion, patience and caring who has made a real difference for those he has helped and those who he has recruited to help him…His name is “Memo” Bradley (aka, Bill, William, and Bo).

Bill is headed back for perhaps his last trip with donations, financial assistance and clothes along with a giving spirit that makes me proud to be one of his best friends.

“Memo” has spent amounts of time each year after first visiting in 2007 since he semi-retired from the Los Angeles Times as a senior human resources consultant and doing other independent HR consulting work. The town is and his work has involved working with less privileged children trying their best to grow up and get an education in some of the poorest parts of this city.

Memo has given his heart, taught lessons of life and orchestrated local and non-local volunteers to give money, clothes and time to “make a difference.” It would be too long to share all the things Memo has done since he arrived (some of which are summarized in his living Blog called “ZihuaBill’s Weblog at http://zihuabill.wordpress.com) but I thought I’d try to summarize just a few more recent things he has done.

Each gesture, behavior and act of giving by Memo has truly made a difference in one or more lives of the children, the schools they attend, the teachers who receive no real salary but teach every day, and the children’s families:

• Financially sponsoring a college student named Karen who is attending and doing fabulously at the prestigious University of Guadalajara
• Financially sponsoring three children so they may attend school. He has been mentoring Bernabe, Lizbeth and Jose Angel since they were in the 4th grade. In an effort to help them, he hired his friend and out of work teacher Lucy to tutor them for an hour a day, three days a week
• Helped collect financial contributions to fund schools supplies and suplement almost non-existent annual salaries
• Brought enough clothes/supplies for a school sale in November 2011 and more for February 2012
• Sponsored a “school beach day” for a very large group of hard working students who enjoyed a party at the beach to celebrate their hard academic work and play with some American volunteers who wanted to share in the work of “Memo”

Some of us talk about what we want to do, some of us dream about what would be nice to do, and others “just do it” (Isn’t that a slogan?).

Memo has taught me some valuable lessons about leadership without holding a formal title of “leader” or the authority to officially make anything happen. Memo has been a great model to watch and learn from. Hopefully, some of these “leadership tips” will be helpful to all of you trying to make change in yourself, in your teams, and in your organization:

1. Passion First, Vision Second. “Memo” talked about what he wanted to accomplish in a way that made all of us understand what he wanted to accomplish but it was his passion that was so contagious to engender the greatest followership from others he met and touched. Great leaders know where they want to go but it is their passion that ignites true followership.

2. Manage Short-Term, but Lead Long-Term. Most leaders are stuck in too short a time perspective to try to evoke change (some financially and personally driven). The most effective leaders have a longer term view of the life cycle of their businesses. Memo wanted to make things happen fast but quickly understood that a longer term view would build a greater infrastructure for future success of those things he was working to build. As he leaves this week for one of his last trips he can begin to see that the changes he has helped to create in the children, school system and families will carry on to benefit other children in the future.

3. Reward Results First and Then Recognize Effort. It’s easy to confuse these two but the best leaders are tough, fair and compassionate without giving every last place finisher in a contest a big trophy just for showing up. Memo rewarded the kids that completed assignments on time and taught those with “good intentions” that not everything in life comes to those of us thinking that a large percentage of success in life is just showing up.

4. Leave a Legacy of Doing for Others and Not Just for Doing. Great leaders all understand that organizations ultimately exist for people, rather than, people existing for organizations. They hopefully leave a legacy of creating a “better tomorrow” for those they lead. Memo accomplished a lot in the last 6 months he spent at his “office” but he never lost sight of how “giving forward” is really the legacy of what he has given.

Each week Bill also writes a special Blog for Envisia Learning called TGIF that always has a special call on becoming more involved as a volunteer in areas where you might have a passion and some skills/experience to offer others. As Henry Drummon said, “There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving.”

Memo, keep throwing those starfish into the ocean. Turn around when you can because there are a lot of others at your “office” continuing to be willing to also lend a hand…See you February 17…..

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

“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

Title: Important Reads for Educated and Concerned People

Competencies: communication, self-development, ethics, leadership, managing others

Who benefits: individuals who are engaged in self-development, the workplace and in the world

Consultant Usage: consultants who are engaged in self-development, the workplace and in the world

What’s it about? This is my final Wednesday post of the year.  I thought perhaps a summary would be in order.  Many others will be doing a top ten list of something.  I am semi-retired and can’t afford a top ten.  So here is my Top Nine Reads of what I consider the most important recommendations of the year.  Not the best sellers, not the most interesting, not the best written, not even the most useful.  I want to review the Most Important. If you see yourself as an educated person and/or concerned citizen I urge you to put one or more of the five books on your self-development “to-do” list. 

The four articles are all very short, quick reads (or rereads if you are a dedicated reader of my posts).  They total maybe 15 minutes of reading and I recommend reading them before you make any New Year’s resolutions. 

5 Books:

Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload (2011)

Getting to the truth is more difficult than ever.  Beliefs are treated as facts.  Opinions are treated as truth. What is reliable?  How can the concerned citizen know what is true?  This unusual book was written with journalism students in mind, but in fact is a must read and guide for any concerned citizen seeking to separate the Blur between truth and fiction in the world we live in.  My book of the year.

The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders (2009)

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year is The Protestor.  This book was written by some very positive young protestors who, to loosely borrow a line from an old movie, are Mad as Hell and won’t take it anymore.  They are fed up with corporate greed and political corruption and they intend to do something about it.  Not a practical book, but instills optimism. 

What To Ask The Person In The Mirror (2011)

Easily, I mean easily the best book on leadership in this century.  The kind of advice Peter Drucker would give if he were still with us.  Every wannabe, supervisor, manager and executive should consider this book required reading.  If I were a chief honcho, I would pay a bonus to my management team to read this book … with the proviso that this is how their performance will be measured.

Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader (2011)

Second best leadership book in a long time.  The three imperatives are (1) Manage yourself, (2) Manage a network and (3) Manage a team.  Well written and right on.

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (2009)

This is your personal work quality program.  It takes ideas from airplane pilots’ flight checklist and cooks’ recipes and applies the concepts first to doctors (the book was written by a surgeon) and then to the rest of us.  You will need to think through how these ideas apply to your work world and life, but if you are still in search of excellence – here it is.

4 Short Articles

The Betterness Manifesto (2010)

You want to build a better 21st Century?  Here is how.

Ten Principles to Live by in Fiercely Complex Times (2011)

You want to be a better you?

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently (2011)

You want to build a better you?

30 Things We Need — and 30 We Don’t (2011)

If your life expectancy is more than a month, this is a must read.

Happy New Year and Continued Growth!

Catch you later.

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….

“You can observe a lot by watching.”
Yogi Berra

What factors are most important to an individual’s career success and how do they contribute to it?

A recent study tried to answer this question in an unusual way — by analyzing the speeches of baseball stars when they are inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame¹. The study’s findings are based on all available speeches, 62 in total, made by former Major League position players inducted into the Hall of Fame between 1956 and 2005.  Some of the speeches quoted were those of Joe Morgan, Reggie Jackson, Stan Musial, Carl Yastrzemski, Dave Winfield, Hank Greenberg, Ernie Banks, Wade Boggs, George Kell, Robin Yount, Frank Robinson, Paul Molitor, and Mike Schmidt.

It is important to note that these researchers studied professionals that achieved extraordinary career success that largely required physical and not cognitive skills.

Hall of Famers’ words of appreciation were mostly for individuals who had provided psychological and social support as opposed to those who gave practical career assistance.

About 63% of all of the thanks from inductees in their speeches were for things like emotional support, inspiration, motivation or friendship. Slightly more than one third (about 37%) were for coaching or other specific instructions on technical skills. Families accounted for about two thirds of that emotional support and the second largest type of contribution cited by the Hall of Famers was friendship (mostly other Major league teammates and then role modeling from others).  The final category was coaching–mostly by Major league managers and coaches, rather than, players.

The authors make an interesting observation and suggestion that “Employers, for their part, benefit from evaluating workers not simply on the basis of performance but on their developmental networks — whom they relate to in the company and beyond and whom they might benefit from relating to. Performance appraisals, in other words, should focus not just on the what but on the who.”

Well, this study focused only on men so it is worth asking how much social support do women report and how satisfied are they with their sources of social support.

Gender and Emotional and Social Support

We took a look at some results from our stress and health risk assessment called StressScan by analyzing availability, utility and satisfaction of social support by gender.  We tested gender differences by using a statistical test called Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and found some interesting differences in gender with a sample of almost 800 professional working men and women.

1. In general, women reported greater availability and use of their social support network (supervisor/boss, colleagues/co-workers, partner, family and friends) then their male counterparts (all p’s < .01).

2.  Women reported using their boss or supervisor significantly more frequently than men.  This is somewhat surprising as research suggests that successful women have indicated that mentoring is less important to their career advancement than did less successful women.  Perhaps in our sample we have a mix of both “successful” and “unsuccessful” women or that using one’s boss is different from internal or external use of mentors for job and career success.

3. Women reported significantly more availability, use and satisfaction with their friends compared to males.  They also reported greater availability and use of their partners, families and friends (all p’s < .01) which is consistent to what Shelly Taylor, Ph.D. has suggested is central to the female “tend and befriend” response to coping with work and life stress².

In our statistical analysis of social support for professional men and women we were able to determine the relative amount of dissatisfaction with specific sources of social support. Men and women (N= 785) rated they were either “Not at All” or only “Slightly” satisfied with the following sources to meet their emotional and direct support needs:

• Boss/Supervisor 31.0%
• Colleagues/Co-Workers 16.8%
• Family 13.0%
• Partners/Significant Others 9.9%
• Friends 8.3%

Men and women in our sample who reported higher overall social support also reported significantly:

• Lower Stress (correlation r = .35, p < .01)
• Greater Resilience/Hardiness (correlation r = .47, p < .01)
• Greater Happiness (correlation r = .58, p < .01)

Even if you are not research oriented it is important to note that the magnitude of these correlations are impressive ranging from moderate to moderately high which is not always found in psychology research studies.

If you want to see how strong your own social support is, just contact me at ken@envisiaonline.com and we can make our research measure called StressScan available to you for free.

So, not only is psychological and social support important for our health it appears to be a pretty important key to career success….Be well…

1. Cotton, R., Shen, Y., Livne-Tarandach, R. (2011).  On Becoming Extraordinary: The Content and Structure of the Developmental Networks of Major League Baseball Hall of Famers. The Academy of Management, 54, 15-46
2. Taylor, 2006. Tend and Befriend: Biobehavioral Bases of Affiliation Under Stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science December 2006 vol. 15 no. 6 273-277

Quote of the Week: “Mom always liked you best!”  Tommy Smothers

Humor Break: “Why is it always my least favorite people who accuse me of favoritism?”

Stat of the Week: Twenty-three percent of more than 300 senior business executives in the U.S. admitted to practicing favoritism in determining promotions, with 9 percent saying it played a role in deciding their last promotion.

Action Tip: Interested in learning more about favoritism in the workplace?  Read about similar statistics in this Wall Street Journal article: Playing Favorites.

Volunteering: If there is one group out of favor, it is the homeless.  The holiday season is upon us.  Volunteer through your religious organization or a community volunteer organization to take a half day and serve meals to the less favored.  (There are probably a dozen places you can volunteer within 10 miles of you.  It isn’t hard to find a place.)

“Too bad you can’t buy a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin real fast and freak everybody out.”

Jack Handy

Sometimes we just have to blow off steam to deal with work and life challenges. Surprisingly, only about 30 percent of individuals experiencing severe life trauma and pain experience post traumatic distress (PTSD) or are unable to cope effectively.

In our own research with our stress/resilience tool StressScan, we have found the following associations between coping styles (trait) and a variety of health outcomes:

• People who utilize negative appraisal coping (i.e., high self-blame and self-criticism) report significantly higher levels of psychological distress (e.g., depression).
• People who utilize high levels of threat minimization coping (i.e., feel and express emotions but are able to let go and move on) experience less job burnout, absenteeism and adverse physical health.
• People who use positive appraisal coping tend to report the highest levels of happiness or psychological well-being.
• People who use problem solving coping respond better to psychoeducational interventions aimed to enhance well-being and resilience¹.

We know that expression of emotions (particularly behavioral in the form of writing) is significantly associated with improved physical and psychological health. The largest recent meta-analyses show that emotional expressive writing has about the same effect size as those produced by other psychological interventions–shorter intervals between writing sessions produce larger overall effect sizes and males seem to benefit even more than females².

In general those who write and use more positive emotional words than negative tend to improve (negative emotion use is curvilinear with the greatest benefit coming from those who don’t use either a very small or very large amount). Overall, the greatest benefit seems to come with a focus on positive thoughts and feelings about the situation causing pain, trauma or stress for individuals. When individuals write about the positive aspects and express positive feelings regarding a distressing situation it seems to produce favorable therapeutic effects including post traumatic growth³.

Stick it to the Man (or Women) Exercise

My wife recently took a trip to New Orleans.  I jokingly asked her to bring me back a voodoo doll — and she did. It came with an instruction book and was bigger than most “Happy Meal” toys. So, in the spirit (no pun intended) of the existing literature of the impact of emotional expression I offer the 5-minute “stick it to the man (or woman)” stress reliever technique:

1. Buy or make a “stick it to the man (or women)” voodoo doll
2. Visualize the toxic person at work or home that is creating stress, strain and/or unhappiness being the voodoo doll (it helps to place a small piece of paper with the name or image (e.g., face) on top of the voodoo doll.
3. Use or find a small needle, pin, paper clip or pruning shears and insert into a strategic location (or give to your pet who likes to shred stuffed animals).
4. Focus on the pleasurable feelings you have “sticking it to the man (or woman) and express a positive mantra (e.g., “I feel as much pleasure right now as smashing a Piñata and enjoying all the goodies that spill out”).
5. Repeat each day for one week (or until the toxic person improves their jerk behavior).

OK, now this technique has not been clinically tested in a rigorous manner or conducted in a placebo controlled double blind study but I’m guessing it can’t hurt (except for the man or woman you stick it to).

Even if you don’t find or appreciate the attempt at humor here, focusing on the positive and finding the benefit and blessings in tough situations or interpersonal interactions might actually make us stronger and happier.  Give it a try and let me know how it works for you (or just give me the needle about this Blog).

If you want to find out how resilient you are, just let me know at ken@envisiaonline.com  and I can set you up with a free trial of StressScan…..Be well….

1. Giesser, B., Coleman, L., Fisher, S., Guttry, M., Herlihy, E., Nonoguch, S., Nowack, D., Roberts, C. & Nowack, K. (2007). Living Well with Multiple Sclerosis: Lessons Learned from a 12-Week Community Based Quality of Life Program. Paper presented at 17th Annual Art & Science of Health Promotion Conference, March, 2007, San Francisco, CA
2. Frattaroli, J. (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: A Meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 823-865
3. Tedeshi, R. & Calhoun, C. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 1-18