Unbound Ideas » values

How Leaders Breathe Underwater

Camille Smith — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:40:59 +0000

Many (many) summers ago, when I was in training to be a lifeguard on New York’s Lake George, the first principle I learned was how to safely approach a swimmer in distress. A safe approach included talking to them, letting them know I was there to help them, and giving them instructions.

The second principle I learned was how to get out of harm’s way if I didn’t successfully execute the first principle. Good to know. If the victim locked his arms around my neck, my automatic moves were: my right arm over his arms, right hand under right side of his chin, strongly

push chin to right as my left hand pushed up on other arm, lower my head, swim down and away. Regroup, approach swimmer again, safely.

Then again, there’s always holding your breath. But, if you’re like me, you can’t do it for long enough for the hangers-on to let go. The “be caught and released” scenario was my out. (Fascinated with people who do seeming inhuman feats? David Blaine broke the Guinness world record for breath-holding by staying underwater for 17 minutes and 4 seconds on “The Oprah Winfrey Program.”)

A leader must learn to recognize when they have been put in a headlock by the circumstances and are being pulled under, away from their vision, away from leading. The leadership moves are: Put your right hand on your belly and breathe deeply 3 times, with your left hand strongly push your chair from the desk, raise your head, stand up and take 3 steps away from the riptide called your “not-done” list.

Regroup by answering: What is it I need to do this moment to be most effective? (Prioritize? Remake promises? Stop doing what is comfortable and do what’s needed? Request support from my colleagues? Call my coach?) Approach work again, safely, from being centered and focused. Disengaging from the never-ending riptide of circumstances will help you stay on the surface so you don’t have to learn how to breathe underwater.

Camille Smith understands what it takes to change at the individual, team and organizational levels. It’s not easy, it’s worth doing, and it’s required of everyone today, not just leaders. Specializing in transformational leadership, Camille provides the knowledge and coaching to teach others to create and sustain breakthroughs in performance. She doesn’t bring the answers, she creates them with you. Reach her at camille@wipcoaching.com.

Shushing is Passé. Speaking Up is In.

Camille Smith — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:30:09 +0000

Letter to editor SJ Mercury News re: article published Jan 25, 2010. “Kudos to AMC Cupertino Square 16 for giving autistic kids and parents an opportunity to enjoy watching movies. You set a great example of how to appropriately alter rules (let them talk during the movie, stand up, even touch the screen) to create an environment that lets people bring their whole self to what they do and not be “shushed” by “that’s not the way we do it around here.”

By designating a time and place that accommodates kids with different styles of communicating and interacting with their environment, you earned my Class Act Award. I’m sending the article to the leaders I coach with a note reading:

“How can you get even better at leveraging the diverse styles and talents around the table? Look outside your organization to see what’s possible for yours.” View Full Story

I admit the metaphor may be a stretch: going to movies is supposed to be fun/going to work isn’t, going to the movies is an escape from the real world/going to work is the real world. Or, maybe it isn’t such a stretch. (Note to self: jump on soapbox re: real vs. unreal world later.)

The questions mused from the back of the darkened theatre to the leaders on the stage remain: How well does your team and organization’s culture and environment encourage people to bring their all? Do your systems release, recognize, reward and develop the talent you hired? Just looking at revenues will not give you the answer to these questions. You have to ask your people, and you have to listen and believe the world they describe.

I recommend that before you speak with your team you answer the questions for yourself. Honestly. To support understanding your preferred styles of communication, decision making, and relationship to process, I offer a free assessment. Click on https://advisor.target-teams.com/assessment.php?ag=Z1HW490709 when you have 25-30 minutes of uninterrupted time and complete the questionnaire. To help ensure accuracy: complete all questions at one sitting, answer questions as they relate to work, answer questions without input from others. When you complete the survey, the report will come to me and I’ll forward it to you.

If you don’t create a theatre of high-performance and high-satisfaction, your people may be in their chairs, but their focus will be on the door marked EXIT.

The Opportunity of Mistakes: Positive Impact with Authentic Apologies

Camille Smith — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:54:04 +0000

Sports blogs are read 100 times more than leadership blogs. So I’m going with Mark McGwire’s apology to raise a leadership point. During the Bob Costa interview, McGwire admitted to his steroid use http://tinyurl.com/yhxqb87 — use he’d been denying for years, even under oath to Congress. I’ll let you call McGwire’s apology a ball or a strike in the zone of authenticity.

First, let’s all get off our high horses – give me a moment to dismount – and move beyond the ball park and into cubical land where most of us work. The mistake is not the point. The point is, when we make them, what do we do next? What’s the leadership move? What’s the impact

we have the opportunity to make after we recognize the mistake?

For the mistake-maker and the mistake-receiver, an authentic apology works, a lame one does not. The truth works, lies do not. You know this, I know this, we tell our kids this. Well, some of us tell our kids this. Others say “Lie, Baby, Lie.” Who are these Others? Execs at Hooker Chemical who created the infamous Love canal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal. Enron traders who called power plants to request power outages, (watch the movie, The Smartest Guys in the Room). Unfortunately, there are lots of Others to choose from. Take malpractice lawyers.

The overwhelming consensus among medical malpractice lawyers, when it comes to conflict resolution and mediation strategies, is to recommend silence when their physician clients are sued for a medical error, http://www.perfectapology.com/medical-malpractice.html. The leader of South Carolina’s Trial Lawyers Association sums up this conventional wisdom about medical apologies—”I would never introduce a doctor’s apology in court. It is my job to make a doctor look bad in front of a jury, and telling the jury the doctor apologized and tried to do the right thing kills my case.”

More than the case gets killed when the truth is intentionally concealed. And more than the case is revived when the truth is told. Read about the impact of a doctor’s apology on a patient he misdiagnosed http://tinyurl.com/2evph2.The patient was deeply touched; the doctor changed lab procedures to eliminate the same mistake in the future. That’s the impact I seek.

To authentically apologize, a person has to first take responsibility, not blame, for how they contributed to the mistake happening. Once this first step is taken, the next steps show up: speak to the people impacted by the mistake. Ask what can be done to correct the impact of the mistake. Listen and get it..

Leaders impact. An authentic apology has the possibility to examine ‘how we do things around here” and how we treat each other. That’s the point. That’s what’s possible when people lead themselves first.

Earned Cynicism

David Cohen — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:38:49 +0000

When an organization launches a new initiative, employees are usually eager to go forward together in an attempt to accomplish those aims. Of course, there are always a few cynical doubters, reluctant traditionalists or destructive naysayers in any employee population. But leaders are generally given the benefit of the doubt. If senior leaders say this is the way the organization needs to go, most people are willing to help get it there.

The credibility of leaders is like an inherited trust. Under normal circumstances, that account has a high balance.

Those who have a stake in the company, like shareholders, customers and employees, prefer to see the value increase rather than go down. In fact, it takes a lot to deplete the accounts and put the perceived “value” of the organization in dangerous standing. But when a leader or manager breaks promises or fails to live the organization’s values or is inconsistent in word and deed, the drop-off in committed belief is often proportional to the disappointment. It’s as though credibility, the currency of leadership, has proved to be nothing but counterfeit money. The result is something I’ve learned to call “earned cynicism.”

I first heard the term when I was working with a focus group to validate an organization’s value set. The group was composed of a number of middle managers – the key link between the leadership team and the rank and file. Most in the group had been with the organization for over ten years, but there were two outsiders who’d been hired within the last year.

As we discussed how the organization exhibits each value, sparks began to fly. One manager declared in an increasingly emotional voice that the values all sounded good but the organization never acted that way when the chips were down. In other words, she continued, we were talking about some ideal world, not reality. In the real world, internal politics would get in the way, or the organization would never stick to its guns, or some people – usually important people – would act contrary to the values and yet face no consequences. In other words, she said, whether the values matter depends on who your boss is, and how willing he or she is to live by them. What’s the point in declaring something to be a value if it doesn’t apply equally to all people and circumstances?

I waited to see what would happen. Finally, one of the recently hired managers, still energetic about the company, said that he thought the values were inspirational and could help guide people in their growth and decision making. Therefore, he said, “we should learn to live up to those values, instead of being cynical about them.” The older manager, who had seen initiatives come and go, said, “Just wait and see. When you’re here as long as I am, you’ll have earned your cynicism.”

People who’ve been around an organization for a long time know what it means to earn their cynicism. Although Dilbert may have lost its steam as a cultural phenomenon, it still strikes a chord. When people have been told that something is going to happen and that it’s going to create a new and better way, they get excited and become emotionally vested. When it doesn’t happen, or happens for only a short time, or happens on only a case-by-case, manager-by-manager basis, their cynicism grows.

Some examples: Management fads that come and go – to no lasting effect. Declarations that people are our most important asset – followed by layoffs or cutbacks in training budgets. Managers who don’t have the courage to deal promptly with underperformers or – just as important – with those who achieve results but do so in a way that is counter to the organization’s way. Rewards, recognition and promotions that go to the favored instead of the worthy.

Think about the impact on morale, on the spirit of bringing in new employees, on the enthusiasm of your current employees as ambassadors of your organization. Earned cynicism is such a powerful and destructive force because it is the offspring of broken promises.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Earned cynicism can be stopped by creating a series of safeguards from the top down, manager by manager. In fact, that’s what leadership is all about.

Start with this premise: talented people leave even the best run organizations when managers are poor; and they stay in bad organizations when managers are heroes or stalwarts. In other words, people don’t leave organizations, they leave managers. Add in the idea that values – the reasons why employees join an organization in the first place – are disseminated most directly by those managers and you hold in your hands the key to preventing or overcoming the destructive force of cynicism.

In real life, we don’t often think in terms of values. Instead we look to our manager for the definition of right behavior, understanding it through how those managers treat people and what they do during a crisis. To get ahead, we do what our manager does so that they will see themselves in us and review our performance favorably. In other words, our direct manager has the most influence on how we behave and how fully we believe in our organization’s stated intentions.

It starts with senior leaders. Leaders bring values down to the next level below them. Each level of manager or supervisor helps to reinforce the word through what they do and how they treat others. The manager who doesn’t believe in something perpetuates that cynicism and gives direct reports permission to do the same.

If your organization’s level of earned cynicism is high, try this approach when launching new initiatives. For the first 8 months post launch, allow 15 minutes on the agenda of each monthly meeting to be taken up by conversations about the initiative, what it means for the organization’s vision and strategy, and how it impacts daily work and decision making. Don’t allow this discussion to happen in isolation, however, but have two managers from different divisions meet with their direct reports together. This way, not only are managers reinforced by each other, but employees get to see how vital the ideas are to different areas of the organization.

The more ideas or beliefs are talked about, the more real they become. This isn’t a cynical trick but a basic aspect of human psychology. Culture is a system of shared beliefs. Organizations need a strong culture to thrive. Discussions about the ways beliefs contribute to achieving real-world objectives are natural and healthy. They help people grapple with the right way to accomplish their day-to-day work in ever-changing circumstances.

A healthy organization doesn’t shy away from that debate or sweep the issues under the rug. Instead, it brings them to the light, celebrates those who do the right thing, and is consistent about teaching those who don’t.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

Challenge: Trade a transactional conversation for a transformational one

Camille Smith — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:09:48 +0000

Huge topic. Let’s start with a situation: An employee who doesn’t report to you asks that you keep the following in confidence. Their performance review is overdue by 4 months. The employee anticipates a pay raise which is needed due to their spouse’s working hours reduced due to forced furloughs. They also want to know if they are doing Ok or not. If not, what to improve. They think they are performing well, but without feedback, doubt is being to creep in. A pending lawsuit has resurfaced with newspaper visibility puling leader, their manager, into many meetings with different constituents; the organization’s board chair recently resigned; lack of funds may close organization within 6 months. The employee asked for the review 2 months ago and now does not how to approach manager. The employee does not want to show up as greedy, self-serving or add stress to manager; they love their job and how they are managed.

Your move. Will you advise them to have a transactional or the transformational conversation? The transactional track is easy, here’s what you say to the employee: Email boss with dates, facts and say you will forward this email to HR if review doesn’t happen within 5 days. Steve Roesle r gives us these distinctions: Transactional conversations keep things as they are. Transformational conversations

move people outside the boxes in which they’ve placed themselves and others. Yes, there are times when a transactional conversation is appropriate. I invite you to consider that a transformational conversation can accomplish the task and build trusting relationships in the process.

In the situation I’ve described, the transformational track may look something like this: You begin by asking the employee to separate (distinguish) what he thinks/imagines/fears might/could happen (i.e., add to manager’s stress) as his interpretation, not a fact. (To d this, you need to know this distinction.) You ask what he wants to accomplish in the long run in his relationship with the manager (his commitment) and in the short run (a legit performance review). You continue with action steps: Have a f2f (not email) conversation in which you acknowledge current situation and how you have held back in asking for the review. Take responsibility for not speaking up. Remind the employee to have an appreciation for what the manager may feel (guilt) and to not adopt the imagined feelings. Formulating a specific, clear request for the review may be necessary (the review to happen by a certain date).

Caveat: Do not “do” the steps above to anyone. Transformation is not a technique or parlor game it is a way of ‘being’, where you are coming from. There is a technology (methodology) associated with it: ontology, which you can learn.I invite you to take it on. Your world will never be the same, happily and outrageously satisfying and productively so.

OR:::: Camille Smith understands what it takes to change at the individual, team and organizational levels. It’s not easy, it’s worth doing, and it’s required of everyone today, not just leaders. Specializing in transformational leadership, she provides the knowledge and coaching to teach others to create and sustain breakthroughs in performance. She doesn’t bring the answers, she brings them out of you. Reach her at camille@wipcoaching.com.

We Are a Part of a Much Greater Picture: Our Passion is an Indicator

Maureen Simon — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:35:36 +0000

“Deep within every life, no matter how dull or ineffectual it may seem from the outside there is something eternal happening.” John O’Donohue

I’ve come to know that we are part of a much greater picture than we might believe when we sit stuck in a traffic jam or feel frustrated about a challenging communication in our day. These days I have been learning to take an aerial view and fly high above the simple challenges that take place in my day-to-day life. I have come to believe that each of our lives may sometimes feel ineffectual, but in reality something very major is happening. The real art is to learn how to tune in to what is most important in our life? How do we identify what our true passion is so that we can begin to move from ineffectual to fully alive and passionate.

I believe the answer to us finding our passion-lies in our ability to connect with what is deep in our life – what is significant and important to us. I believe that we have deep wells of joy that are waiting to erupt as a geyser or a spring. We must take time to listen and to allow the answers and information that we need to find us.

Silence is a natural way to connect with what we hold deep in our hearts. Trust that through silence signs that come into your daily life – trust and your ability to follow what feels good and right in your life will all serve as great resources on your journey to connecting with the bigger eternal aspects of your life.

Maureen Simon is the founder of The Essential Feminine Company™ (TEF)—a lifestyle and business design company that supports women in creating successful, powerful lives that incorporate their feminine attributes and gifts. She can be reached at:

415-381-5115
maureen@maureensimon.com

www.theessentialfeminine.com
http://globaldialoguecenter.blogs.com/women/
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What feels good and right in life

Maureen Simon — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:35:01 +0000

What feels good and right in life is where we need to place our attention. I’ve been speaking to a number of people recently who said that they are just not clear on what feels right in life for them at this time. I am convinced that we are at a point in time where so many systems are being restructured that we ourselves don’t even know what feels right. I must admit however that that answer is not strong enough for the days that we are now living in. Now knowing is not good enough any longer. Our personal responsibility to pay attention to what feels right and good in our life will lead us to answers that we thought we may never find.

I read a book once entitled, “You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought” I enjoyed the title more than the book as it inspired me at that time in my life that I was luxuriating in negativity – tossing my hands up to the skies and wondering what part of the challenges that I was living did I actually have a say in. Years later, I have come to realize that I have a say in a large portion of this life that I am co-creating. I am co-creating with you, with spirit, with nature and with this grand universe but at the end of the day my very thoughts lead me to the life that I live on a daily basis. I have learned to look closely at what feels good to me as I use the most clearly defined moral code that I have a available to me I combine the two and live life to the fullest.

Today, take time to look around your world and identify what really feels good what do you look forward to spending time on. What do you need to eliminate that is taking up too much of your time and not serving you well. I truly believe now more than ever we are at a time in history where we need to take personal responsibility and make decisions about our lives that serve us based on what feels right. Don’t feel greedy you are actually serving the betterment of all when you take time to create a better life.

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From Replacement Planning Purgatory To The Succession Planning Promised Land

David Cohen — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:05:00 +0000

In tough times, the last thing that should be slashed from corporate budgets are the development and training programs needed to turn today’s high potentials into tomorrow’s visionary leaders. Too often, however, they’re the first to go – a clear message that future leaders will not be grown from within, though they may be replicated to replace the leaders you’ve already got.

And what’s wrong with replication? After all, it sure makes the senior team feel good when they look in the mirror!

But enough about them, let’s take a look at the characteristics of replacement planning and succession planning and see which one is better for you.

Here’s how to spot replacement planning.

That’s what happens when a critical vacancy occurs and a qualified replacement (who can do the job as well as or better than the incumbent) is ready and available to fill that vacancy. When it works smoothly, the demand for talent meets the talent available. The selection of that person is usually done by the manager who has been through the same position and is knowledgeable of the skills and attributes required for the job. Typically, such selection is made on the basis of personal connections. Not only do managers get to validate their existence and choose someone with similar backgrounds and experiences, they also get to reward or take care of someone loyal to them.

Taken organization-wide, that’s a pretty good recipe for cronyism. Imagine if you are an employee who wants that job, has taken the development path that leads to it, and doesn’t know the manager making the selection. Chances are you’re going to feel pretty frustrated with your vertical opportunities. Or how about if you are someone working for that new appointee. The old manager had plenty of faults and weaknesses and you were glad to see them go because the business really needs some new direction. Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss. Welcome to purgatory.

Strategic succession planning is a deliberate, systematic effort to ensure continued organizational performance through the identification, assessment, development and placement of organizational talent. It’s difficult, expensive and time consuming. It requires a top-down vision that takes into account organizational values, business strategy and job-based competency descriptions; not to mention sufficient management training to support the system, as well as oversight and discipline so that the process will be adhered to, and development programs in place to build and track the desired capabilities.

Flaws in succession planning arise from poor design, implementation and operation. For example, sometimes organizational values are defined but have no relevancy to real values. In other cases, the variety of performance assessment and management systems that should contribute to succession planning don’t because they are not in line with the same measures and goals. Worst of all are those occasions when senior management itself declares the succession system meaningless by promoting those who don’t demonstrate the values or strategic competencies supposedly required. Talk about your credibility problems.

The end result is effectively the same as replacement planning, except with the additional waste of resources and energy. Don’t underestimate the political and emotional pain that arises. You may not sense it if you’re in the top ranks but you can measure its impact in decreased performance and retention levels. Your best employees will ask, why bother, while the ones who need the most improvement will know that their efforts would go unrewarded, regardless.

If you believe that succession planning is essential for your organization’s long-term success, do it right. Define your values, create meaningful job profiles, integrate your people systems and hold managers accountable. Make sure that promotion is objective and that those who are promoted demonstrate the right values and have the needed skills. By this I don’t mean that potential candidates should have merely mastered the skills of their current role; rather, they should have already gone beyond those capabilities to the point where they are successful in at least three competencies for the role they want. Let those high potentials know that they are in the selection pool without promising them promotion; otherwise, you’ll both end up regretting it when they leave your organization unaware of the opportunities. All of this needs organizational support in terms of time, money, executive input and – most vitally – that sacred development budget.

Finally, make sure that your selection pool is deep enough. One way to do so is to reconsider who you think will be taking the reigns of your company in years to come. In recent years organizations have become overly focused on their Generation X and Y employees. Sure, when the job market was hot, they were quite the commodity, but now that things have settled down, it’s time for a measured look at all your resources. Those baby boomers who comprise the more silent majority of your organization have a lot to offer. They’ve been around a while. Their loyalty is high. They are steeped in your values. They know what your organization needs to do to be more successful. They have a network of relationships inside and outside of the organization, not to mention a wealth of knowledge. And best of all, they’ve got 15 to 25 more career years available before they consider retirement. That’s a smart investment in your future leadership talent.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

Succession Planning For Dummies

David Cohen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:01:15 +0000

A wise man once told me, just because a cat has kittens in the oven doesn’t mean you get muffins. I think he was talking about the current state of succession planning systems in organizations throughout North America. In other words, we shouldn’t be so surprised when our succession management systems fail to turn up the leaders we need. It’s not as if we put the right ingredients into the mix in the first place.

For example, take the wide variety of HRIS (Human Resources Information Systems) tools available to enable the succession planning process. In years past, an incredible amount of time and money was poured into such software systems. The problem is, having the “system” doesn’t mean you have the “plan”; it just means you have the software. So before you go beating the nearest techie with an optical mouse, consider this: it’s not the expensive product that’s at fault, it’s the data you plugged into it that caused your woes. In the jargon of the industry, that’s a condition known as “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”

The same analogy holds for those who claim that they have a succession management system.

You may believe you have a rigorous performance management system or a variety of top-notch training and development programs or a kick-butt 360-feedback instrument. So what? Is the performance management data accurate and fair? Do all managers complete the process on time and with the same consistency? Does it get fed into the HRIS system in a timely fashion? Do the training programs have any follow up to see if the individual involved actually applied anything that they learned back on the job? Does your 360 instrument evaluate the behaviors that are vital for your business plan or just those that get dusted off each time there’s a review? Or, worse yet, are the behaviors you are teaching in your development programs not specific to your company’s values at all but very specific to one of a number of well recognized consulting firms!

Consider how most performance management reviews get completed. Usually, a manager approaches their direct report a few days prior to the annual event and asks them to “self-assess” their performance prior to the meeting. Sound familiar? I once asked the audience at an HR conference if it did to them. Most answered “Yes” and a few added that it’s what Human Resources taught them in their performance management training. Now, when most people self-assess they do so with a reliability of .20 on a scale of 00 – 1.0; while most managers are only accurate to the .40 range. A meeting of the minds between these two inaccuracies sends the end score up or down depending on whether the manager is overly critical or overly generous in their typical evaluation. To top it off, organizations then take that kind of data and feed it into their HRIS system. Presto! You’ve got Muffins!

Inaccuracies are also inherent when 360 assessments are used for performance management. The trend is tilted towards inflation for two reasons. First, if assessors know that a colleague’s performance review is linked to compensation, they don’t want to do anything to hinder that flow of income. Second, most people think that assessment is really the manager’s job anyway and don’t take it seriously as a result. On the other hand, if multi-source feedback is used for development purposes only, and managers do not have access to the actual results, participants tend to assess much more frankly and accurately, finding room for improvement in just about anyone.

In the end, whenever these sorts of inherent failings are part of the overall succession planning “system”, the people who get identified as top performers are really only a reflection of those who have been approved by their managers. In other words, the basic biases that we try to weed out through a more rigorous and controlled “system” get reinforced and reproduced – giving us not “Succession Planning” but “Replacement Planning.” Most managers have a hard time recognizing in themselves those behaviors that are irrelevent or insufficient for competitive advantage in the future. So most succession planning systems end up replicating today instead of anticipating tomorrow.

HRIS systems can do wonderful things when they integrate a variety of honest and relevant feedback and development activities into an overall succession planning strategy. But they do not, on their own or automatically, provide a substitute for that strategy nor do they function any better than the data that they process. If you want a system that perpetuates and validates existing management approaches regardless of future needs there are cheaper ways to do so. Just go back to the traditional means by which leaders were selected in the past and ask managers who they like. That way, everyone will understand the name of the game.

In the next column, we’ll continue this discussion to expose more flaws in traditional replacement planning, outline the basics for real strategic succession planning and show how you can tap the biggest source of underutilized leadership talent available to organizations today – their aging Baby Boomers.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

Who’s Leading the New Leaders?

David Cohen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:57:36 +0000

Now more than ever, quality of leadership is going to distinguish winners from losers. So what’s your organization doing to galvanize the development of its in-house leadership talent? Just as important, who’s ultimately responsible for the job?

Leadership development is not a program; it’s a process of many integrated activities. It can’t be plucked from a supermarket shelf or brought in by an expert consultant during times of corporate transformation. It needs to be an ongoing event, specific to the values and vision of the leadership team and the culture of the organization as a whole. To top it all off, effective leadership development needs to be honest and open about gaps in current leadership capabilities and crystal clear about future leadership needs.

A tall order, for sure, but who gets to fill it?

Relying on HR, Training and Organizational Development, only gets half the job done. Yes, they understand the need and can design the curriculum but development and learning that occurs in a vacuum (let alone a classroom) will have insufficient organizational impact without the support, participation and passion of the leadership team, itself. Indeed, the leadership team needs to be a full partner in determining leadership priorities and living and promoting leadership behaviors. They are the “content” experts for what leadership means to the organization.

So how to get started? The HR team must summon its courage to hold an executive group accountable and responsible for defining those leadership behaviors that are the stepping stones for continuity, stability and success. Such behaviors cannot be mere words, wish lists, or nice-to-haves – they need to be the meat of organizational legends and the real actions that bring desired business results not only today but in the future.

Are your leaders ready to commit to that kind of reality? If they are adverse to feedback and not serious about changing their own behaviours don’t develop something that doesn’t reflect their current way of leading. Further, if they don’t feel a strong passion for new behaviors but do feel intensely about the ones they currently live, chances are they will not support and encourage those who act differently than themselves. Employees will recognize when a “Do as I say, not as I do” dictum is being imposed and know that the smartest thing to do in such a case is to find a place to hide until it’s safe to come out again. On the other hand, if leaders work hard to live the values and behaviours they espouse, an environment is created in which those behaviours get emulated by all those who wish to succeed.

There are some other conditions that need to be in place. Does the organization have a vision that is simple, meaningful and understood by all? If leaders don’t have a passion for a vision that is at least ten years out, they won’t fight for it – and future leaders won’t see any rationale in making it come to life. Can the organization be honest and selective about identifying those employees worth developing? If a candidate has the right skills and abilities and is capable of growing and changing their behaviours over time they might be right for the task; if not, what’s the point? Focus on the keepers and let the “dead wood” go. Will high potentials get the time and support needed to make the changes the organization needs them to make? Change is not easy at the best of times – and without positive feedback linked to formal and informal programs, the will to change will not be reinforced.

But if those conditions are in place, a leadership program can be developed with a great deal of optimism. Such an investment does not need to be large-scale and expensive. It does need to begin with the current leadership team’s definition of leadership; and it also needs to incorporate their hands-on involvement in the progress of leadership development through participation in teaching, as well as formal and informal coaching and mentoring. In fact, good leadership development has less to do with formal education than with minor interactions during on-the-job situations and the providing of meaningful and timely follow-up, as well as continuous coaching and overall accountability. A real leadership curriculum is an integrated and connected series of activities that culminate in the development of individuals who become the company’s leaders of the future.

The only problem with all of this is that we’re no longer living in a boom economy. In tough times, who’s got the resources for leadership development? After all, when markets slow down and budgets get cut, the first thing to go is training… so what’s the point? But without an investment in leadership development, you may as well be throwing in the towel. Your employees know they have a future when you invest in that future on their behalf – by being dedicated and passionate about developing the leaders of tomorrow.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

How To Stay Afloat In The Competency Pool

David Cohen — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:50:45 +0000

Remember what they used to tell us kids when we went down to the swimming hole? Always check to see what’s under the water, before diving in. Unfortunately, when it comes to competencies, most companies don’t look very deep.

Fifteen years ago it was tough selling decision makers on the link between the success of an employee and the behaviors that employee exhibited. The real concern, people reasonably felt, was for business results. As far as prediction and measurement went, traditional performance indicators did the job just fine, thank you.

As market and talent competition heated up, the value of competencies became more clear. Here was a chance to align employee behavior with organizational culture and strategy and achieve an edge where it counts – with people. Today, many organizations have embraced competencies as the standard for employee measurement, using them throughout the employment life cycle in hiring, training, succession planning, career planning and performance management.

The problem is the majority of companies have not been able to develop a competency system that is behaviorally based and linked to corporate strategy and values. How come? Well, it can cost a lot in terms of time, money and resources to define competencies internally. So when consultants come along with a ready-to-use, off-the-shelf, priced-to-sell system of competency terms and descriptions, most decision makers are only too eager to take the supposedly easy way out.

One Human Resources leader saw the result when she switched companies to a competitor. Her new organization had a very unique culture, one that had been written about in prestigious magazines and newspapers. She was looking forward to capturing that uniqueness in unifying its competency models for locations and divisions around the world. As things currently stood, however, the position of manager in her new organization was described almost exactly as in her old organization as well as in a third company she had once benchmarked. Not surprisingly, all three companies had hired the same consultant. Never before had the term “cookie cutter” hit home so hard.

Despite her best efforts, she could not convince senior managers to put revamping those descriptions onto the agenda. The pressure was on, instead, to develop a more meaningful succession planning program. But if the competency descriptions used as the basis for that wasn’t capturing what it really took to succeed, how meaningful could the end result be?

Senior executives hold the following logic: if there are only a finite number of different types of behaviors characteristic of any one job, how many different ways can there be to describe them? Communications is communications. Team work is team work. A focus on results… is, of course, a focus on results. You know what we mean, right?

Unfortunately, we end up with a kind of modern Tower of Babel. Sure, we’re all using the same words, but are we talking the same language? Believe me, team work in an automotive plant does not involve the same behaviors or values as team work in a government agency. A focus on results in a financial institution is not the same as a focus on results in a charter school.

I wish my Human Resources friend’s story was an isolated one, but it’s not. Too many organizations are not going deep enough with their competency descriptions. They are either using stock or externally benchmarked competency dictionaries, or not being rigorous enough with their language in making those competencies behavioral, or forgoing the process of basing them on organizational culture and values. What results does not help managers to execute strategy or achieve results, human resources to implement meaningful people systems, or employees to understand what’s required of them to excel.

Here are a few basic considerations when writing or developing your own competency descriptors:

* Develop competencies through detailed employee and key stakeholder input. Base them on organizational values;

* Write your own descriptions without adapting them from outside sources. Use the concrete language of the job in the context of your unique culture;

* Use the behaviors of top performers who demonstrate the right values as your guide. Do not focus on status quo performers. Don’t get bamboozled by outcomes that weren’t arrived at through the correct behaviors;

* Define behaviors positively and realistically. Make sure they are truly valued by the organizational culture, not just wishful thinking.

Other, crucial writing tips can be found at our website. But for now, remember this: clearly defined behavioral competency statements support what is key to your organization’s strategy and culture. By creating widespread understanding of the concrete language of success, you ensure that employees will know and support the right way to do a job. Build your competency system through extensive participation. Share the results openly. Recognize and celebrate top performers who exhibit those behaviors in achieving results. In the process, you will develop a language that everyone can speak and understand, a depth of knowledge about what your organization needs to do to succeed that will be a source of common strength.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

So You Think You Conduct Behavioural Interviews?

David Cohen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:48:02 +0000

The workshop was crowded because attendance was mandatory but every line manager in the room felt confident they’d had plenty of behavioural interview training already in their careers. By the end of the session, all minds were changed. The behavioural questioning and profile matching they thought they’d been so skilled at, turned out to be just a slightly more sophisticated version of the old interview gab session. Here’s where they’d gone wrong:

Most managers thought they were actively seeking behavioural information when all they were doing was asking open-ended questions focused on topics that interested them. None of which was likely to be key to actually doing the job well.

Or, they sought out behavioural information by posing a hypothetical situation. As a result, all they got in return was an academic answer about what the candidate “would do” given the same circumstance. Who cares? The real question is, can the behaviours be transferred directly to real life? Research shows that while it’s slightly more likely a person who answers the situational question right will exhibit those behaviours on the job, the percentages still aren’t high enough to make a solid hiring decision by.

Another common mistake managers made was in providing the candidate with information about the position and the culture of the organization at the front end of the interview. Hiring managers who spoke in eloquent and glowing terms about the company and its goals virtually telegraphed the right behavioural answers to the candidate in advance. Thank you very much! If you really want to speak about the wonderful, idealistic behaviours that differentiate your firm from the pack, save it until the end. And use real examples. Otherwise, you’re just making a statement about your reality gap.

Or, those managers who were enthusiastic converts to the power of aligning interview responses with position profiles frequently made a different mistake. In the rush to embrace the behavioural way, they diminished the importance of actual skills and knowledge. Remember, behavioural information won’t solve all your interviewing woes. Skills and knowledge are as necessary to do the job as execution. Screen for threshold competencies as much as possible first so you can have more time to dig in on behaviours during the one-on-one interview.

So what makes a behavioural interview work? First, an interviewer must cover a mix of skills and knowledge questions as well as behavioural ones. Second, those behavioural questions are only effective if they focus on uncovering a candidate’s past behaviours and comparing them to the job profile. (Remember, the more recent the situation the better.) Third, and perhaps most important, each candidate must be compared to the job, not the other candidates. While comparing candidates to each other might be interesting, that’s not the purpose of the interview. You’re conducting it to measure their responses against the profile. Otherwise, you’ll end up picking the “best” candidate whether or not they are actually a good fit for the job. You and your new hire would be much better off if you’d continued searching for the right person.

What’s the lesson in all this? Only that calling something a behavioural interview does not necessarily make it so. Any workshop worth its salt has to first introduce managers to the concept of behavioural competencies, then show them how a competency-based job profile links to behavioural questions, then provide practice in asking those questions effectively. And it isn’t over until managers learn how to take good (behavioural) notes along the way, score the responses consistently, “code” those responses against the profile, and successfully discover the best “job-person” fit.

But the payoff is worth it. Training line managers in the right behavioural interviewing practices empowers them to make correct decisions and also removes the “blame human resources” attitude for bad selection decisions. As things currently stand, most managers do not feel accountable for the hiring process and human resources is a convenient whipping post for nearly all bad people decisions. For any organization’s selection process to improve, it is important to turn this blame-game around. Managers need to buy into the power of Behavioral profiles as a way of determining exactly what the job and organizational culture requires. They need to understand how radically different the quality of information obtained from Behavioral questions is compared to traditional questions. And they need to see first-hand how a Behavioral interview sets the tone for a future career with high performance standards and clear expectations.

There is only one-way to communicate all this and more: through the education provided in your behavioural interviewing workshop. It may be mandatory and it may feel like old hat, but it’s an unprecedented opportunity to give managers not only the tools and skills necessary to hire right but also the enthusiasm and excitement about their ability to be objective and accurate in the hiring decision. They should walk away knowing that they are the ones most responsible for an interview’s success at picking the right candidate.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

Why Management Is Kidding Itself When It Comes To Corporate Values

David Cohen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:42:11 +0000

Recently I presented at an insurance conference to an audience composed mostly of people with “C” in their titles. It seemed a good time to do a little on the spot survey.

I asked my group of CEOs and CFOs whether their companies had defined their unique corporate values. About half raised their hands. Those that did could only list some of those values without stumbling.

The values, however, were all the same, so how hard could they have been to remember?

Integrity, teamwork, respect, customer focus, learning, people. I could have listed them all myself without even asking. At least, I suggested, no one mentioned “thinking outside the box.”

A brief discussion followed. I proposed that since all their organizations listed similar values any employee should be able to switch companies within that industry and not even notice a change in atmosphere.

Of course not, I was told. Each company was unique. You could sense it as soon as you walked in the door. That’s what is meant by organizational culture, they declared. Reluctantly, they agreed that their values did not particularly reflect the culture of their firms in any concrete or meaningful way. They were words unlinked to action and thus empty rhetoric.

I encouraged them to think more deeply about what culture meant. Culture grows out of what people do. Organizations, if you haven’t noticed, are very picky about what their employees do. They want them to engage in a particular set of actions which, when repeated over time, achieve desired results.

Values, therefore, are not just words on the back of a business card, they are the actions which are acceptable within the organizational culture. In fact, the range of desired behaviour is so important that it needs to be set by those at the top and cascaded throughout the organization. That’s why it’s so dismaying when a roomful of CEOs can’t name their own corporate values. As stewards of the culture, they should be thinking continually about how to direct the actions of others in ways consistent with those values.

Like everyone else, my CEOs had come to believe that values and culture could be superimposed on an organization, created like a marketing campaign to suit the needs of the moment. Witness the recent “War For Talent” in which so many companies felt they had to create the image of a wild and wacky culture that Gen X and Y would find appealing. The truth is, while projecting a successful or fun culture to employees, investors and the media may seem like a sure-fired means of branding an organization, real culture and heartfelt values must be exhibited through the consistent and persistent actions of executives towards their employees. And then be exhibited by those employees to each other and to the customer.

Otherwise, when executives articulate values, with the best of intentions, but act contrary to them, the result is employee cynicism. The values, employees realize, are only surface coating meant for the outside world. It’s like the organization that lists “people” as a value, then fires everyone after a rough quarter. Or the one that declares “learning” sacred but cuts training and development from the budget. In other words, values are supposed to mean something. And executives decide how meaningful that is.

When values are meaningful, culture and work habits reflect them. Employees can even tell stories about “corporate legends” that typify them. There’s no need for managers to watch every move or for employees to consult their “rule books.” People live the values, act accordingly, and the results follow.

Here are some general guidelines for developing your company’s values.

State values not just as words but clear behaviours. Values do not waver with the market and are never situational or compromised. They should be less than six in number.

Articulate values to each level of management and have each level pass the meaning and interpretation of them to the next. Values only reach people and affect them if they see their direct manager live and act accordingly.

Make certain that values are brought into the business decision-making process. Ask about decisions in light of values. Consistency is the foundation for a strong culture.

Hold people accountable for actions that violate values. Those that do should never be promoted or rewarded.

Celebrate those that live the values, especially those that live them in tough times.

So next time you are asked what your corporate values are, tell the truth. State those things that make your company unique. Tell people about what is consistently celebrated and rewarded. If you paint a picture that is different from reality, your company employees recognize the shallowness of that and lose faith. Unfortunately, the attitude in the room last week was more common than not. The volumes of business books, the plethora of business magazines, the bombardment of business television have reinforced if not glorified the success of certain firms, oversimplifying value statements into buzzwords and headlines.

Make sure your organization doesn’t fall into the same trap.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group, and author of “Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success”.

The Ultimate Leadership FAQ & Answer

Camille Smith — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:59:19 +0000

Whether CEO, CFO, employee, spouse, spouse-ette, baker man, thief – we all want to know: How can I make him/her/them behave differently, the way I want them behave? The answer: You can’t, they must. OK, you saw that coming.

So, let’s rephrase the FAQ: How do you influence someone to change their behavior?

Answer: Obey the First Law of Performance, articulated by my past colleague Steve and Dave. How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them. Steve and Dave: “Consider that when we do something, it always makes complete sense to us. On the other hand, when others do something, we often question, “Why are they doing that? It doesn’t make any sense!” But, if we got into the world of the person [into their head], and looked at how the situation occurred to them, [Being John Malkovich, trailer] we would experience that the same actions that we were questioning were completely and absolutely the perfect and correct thing for him to do, given how the situation is occurring to the person.”

Knowing the First Law, you can probably answer The Ultimate Leadership FAQ. Give it a try. I’ll push the pause-blog button …. [Musak for 9 seconds] … Yes, you are right! To change someone’s behavior, change how the world occurs to them. Change how the world occurs and their actions change to match the new world view. Bingo!

That was easy. So the Real Ultimate Leadership FAQ is: How do you change someone’s “occurring world”?

The answer: Change where their world occurs. It occurs in the conversation they have about the world (situation, other people, sales targets, deadlines, frozen budgets, new competitors, you name it). It’s the conversation, Silly! Create a conversation that creates a new world occurring — a conversation that the person now generates for themselves, and lives inside of. Simple and profound. Welcome to leadership.

Camille Smith understands what it takes to change at the individual, team and organizational levels. It’s not easy, it’s worth doing, and it’s required of everyone today, not just leaders. Specializing in transformational leadership, she provides the knowledge and coaching to teach others to create and sustain breakthroughs in performance. She doesn’t bring the answers; she brings them out of you. Reach out to her at camille@wipcoaching.com.

Bad Reputation or Just Bad?

David Cohen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:37:58 +0000

Ten years ago, when I set up shop at a trade show and featured “360 Degree Feedback,” anyone who bothered to stop by asked me what the heck it was. As recently as a few years ago, 360 had become everyone’s magical answer to everything – how to align the organization, stimulate development, provide the people side to the Balanced Scorecard, change organizational culture overnight… you name it, just cry “Hallelujah!” and pass the intervention.

And now, just as quickly, the sun has set on yet another fad.

But was it as bad as people thought? Or was it just used badly by those who thought it was what it wasn’t?

Most early adopters started out the right way. They used the 360 Degree Feedback process as a means of providing a stimulant to employees to help them enhance their own development. Side-benefits also resulted, namely, improvement in general communication channels and further alignment between the organization’s desired behaviors and its values. And people also saw that 360 helped accelerate culture change. All noble intentions with humble but worthy objectives.

Then came the lure of corruption… and for many, it proved just too tempting to refuse.

In companies that had established their own programs, temptation took the following form. The first thing the powers-that-be realized was that this was a wonderful opportunity to finally “get” accurate employee performance data. Then, having gotten that data, what else was there to do but incorporate it into performance reviews that impacted compensation? Amazing how feedback changes when you raise the stakes like that. People who know that a colleague’s salary or annual review is going to be affected by what gets said in the feedback process, naturally edit and soften their remarks. Presto, you’ve got yourself a 360 Degree Kick-back program!

Next, companies that were late to the game, figured they needed 360 because everyone else had it… so guess what? The CEO mandated that it be built and implemented. Whenever I was contacted by someone charged with making that happen, the first question they always asked was: “How fast can it be implemented?” and the second question was: “How much is it going to cost?” If both answers satisfied them, it was off to the races. I could barely run fast enough to ask them what I needed to know: “Why are you doing it?” Because. “Do you have job profiles or value statements articulated behaviorally?” Not really. “Do you have a standard leadership instrument?” Sort of. “Who will see the results of individual feedback.” We’ll figure that out as we go. Out of breath, I’d slow down, and yell, “You’re going to fail miserably, waste your time and money, and everyone’s going to resent what you do!” But I’m not sure they ever heard.

Finally, there were those companies that had “Benchmark Fever.” It’s a peculiar disease whereby those in charge of a measurement program feel that the only way they can validate results is to compare them to other companies in similar industries. Unfortunately, nothing could be less helpful. Sure, you want to repeat the success of other companies… but your own company’s values, culture and strategy are unique. That’s why the behaviors that constitute top performance in your company are unique, as well. Comparing how people succeed in external environments is not going to be meaningful to you. If you want to benchmark, you can eventually do it internally, once sufficient data has accumulated, because behaviors rooted in your values should be winning ones no matter where they are exhibited within the organization.

If you desire your 360 Degree Feedback process to work, there are many key points you’ll want on your cheat sheet: implement the process in stages, keep the questions short, provide training for all involved, make sure managers follow-up by holding individuals accountable for their development commitments, etc., etc.

But the most important considerations have to do with those three temptations: Use feedback for development purposes only; know why you’re doing it and how it fits with your other programs; and build it internally, based on your values and job profiles, without using normative data from outside your organization.

As a motivator for behavior change, 360 Degree Feedback has few peers but feedback alone is not enough… it needs the right kind of support and follow-up to succeed. I believe the cynicism developed because the process was not perceived by employees as fair, safe, accurate or trustworthy. But if the process is 1) tailored to cultural values and top performance behaviors, 2) used primarily and initially for individual development and if 3) managers and employees are held accountable for the resulting development plans, tremendous benefits will result in performance, culture change, employee involvement and enhanced communication. Remember, feedback from multiple sources is a wonderful opportunity that should not be given short thrift. As Robert Burns said:

“Oh, what a great gift it would be, if I could only see others as they see me!”