Can One Employee Take Your Company Down?
Your company is doing great work. It is creating jobs where they didn't exist before... you are contributing to the betterment of society... have you considered whether or not one employee could bring that all to a screeching halt?
Since February of 2017, with the recording of Travis Kalanick's (former CEO of Uber) poor behavior as he berated an Uber driver, displayed all across America, there have been frequent episodes of bad behavior demonstrated by numerous corporate leaders. In just the last month we've seen:
Adam Neumann, the CEO of WeWork was forced to step down after the filing of the company's pre-IPO paperwork shone a light on suspect financial dealings which ultimately benefitted Mr. Neumann to the tune of millions of dollars. The IPO was withdrawn, the company has laid off over 4000 employees, and its estimated value dropped 40 billion in the blink of an eye. See more here.
The Houston Astros baseball team fired their assistant General Manager for verbally attacking 3 female reporters after a pennant win in October. In addition to a social media onslaught faulting the organization and how it handled the incident (initially accusing one reporter of fabricating the incident and then taking 3 days to admit to it and holding the AGM accountable), the team will be fined by Major League Baseball, and the way that the incident was handled is now inviting scrutiny of the company's culture, which will result in further public relations embarrassment and could see the departure of many others in leadership positions in the organization. This incident, and the stress it caused the whole organization, may have just cost the team the 2019 World Series. See more here.
The CEO of McDonald's resigned this past week, saying this: "Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on." The values of the company? The values, that as CEO, he was most-responsible for upholding? See more here.
Now, you might argue that these are people in positions of power and it is often the case that with power comes the belief that you are above "following the rules." But a leader is also responsible for the "unwritten rule" that he or she sets the acceptable behaviors and culture of an organization through their example.
When Does It Start?
We cannot assume that only those in the "higher echelon" are behaving badly (and costing their companies money as well as reputation). Think of the myriad of "little" ethical violations that occur in companies daily: taking home office supplies, failing to report a breakdown in product or process because "it's not my job," refusing to cooperate with another department or colleague, giving a customer favorable terms over other customers, the list could go on and on. At what point does a "little" ethical violation bloom into something that is egregious and damaging to your company financially or reputationally?
These types of incidents are precisely the reason why The Training Doctor created its Leadership From Day One development approach. By developing leadership behaviors such as ethics, decision making, and self-management early in one's career, incidents like these should not occur down the line. If all of your employees are immersed in a culture that supports the good of all (the company, its employees and customers), you'll make a bigger impact on the world and sleep better at night.
Are you at risk?
As a business owner, do you presume that your employees are behaving ethically? Do you know your organization's culpability from actions committed by your employees? Especially your senior/leader employees who have more of a "platform" to do harm to the company?
It is never, never too soon to start developing leadership characteristics in your workforce. Don't wait until you've already promoted someone to a leadership role to start to foster the skills they need to lead themselves as well as others; it is harder to rewire behavior than it is to develop it from the start. When you start leadership development early in your employee's careers, it becomes an ingrained and reflexive behavior as they move up through the ranks.
Go to our contact us page if you'd like help establishing a leadership development program that starts with everybody. Today.
Encourage Contrarian Thinking
Very often leaders are emboldened by people who are in agreement with their ideas.
That sounds great! I'll get right on it.
Brilliant idea! No way we can lose this one.
This will really knock the competition on their arse.
The employee you REALLY want on your team is the one that says, "Hold up! I see three ways this can go sideways. Did we think this through? Did we ask for input from customers (nod to New Coke), vendors (hello State of NC), or our employees (here's looking at you, Google).
As a consultant, I believe that part of what you pay me for is my ability to "see the other side;" to bring questions and alternative perspectives to your organization. When I worked as an employee my approach was always to ask, "How can I break this?" much like testing a new software... what if I did this? or this? or this pressure is applied?
Contrarian thinkers - and similarly, devil's advocates - aren't negative for the sake of being negative; they are thinking ahead to the future and to ramifications of your, or your company's, actions.
If you are a leader and a developer of future leaders, here are three ways to encourage contrarian thinkers:
Always have two meetings: Don't make decisions at the first discussion of a new idea. Simply have an open discussion about the idea (new product, new process, new hire) and allow a few days for people to think about it. You might even want to charge your attendees with coming to meeting #2 with at least one "argument" against the idea. This process will prevent ideas from becoming run-away before they've been thoroughly vetted. Yes, it will take more time to make decisions, but they will be good (or at least better) decisions.
When addressing your followers, always ask, "What am I missing?" This is especially important to ask of people on the front-line. They are the ones who are actually doing the work and have a pulse on what customers, vendors, and fellow employees are thinking and feeling.
Praise those who come forward with their opposing views. When you ask the "what am I missing?" question, always thank the person who offers their negative outlook. Your job is not to argue the opposing view, but to give it consideration. You might even ask open-ended questions to gather more information, such as "do you have an example you could share?" or ask of the group, "have others seen this same phenomenon?"
By engaging in a conversation, purposefully asking for opposing views, and thanking the contrarian for offering their insight, you are encouraging others to do so in the future; which means you are building a stronger company and a community of forward-thinking employees which helps your organization to foresee and mitigate potential risk.
NOTE: This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-risk-part-3-nanette-miner-ed-d-/
You Need a Leadership Development Program that Starts at Day 1 - and here's why
We wait too long to start leadership development. A 2016 meta-analysis of leadership development programs determined that most leadership development begins at age 46 AND leadership development almost always begins after someone is appointed to a leadership role. That makes little sense. Wouldn't you rather have an employee that learns feedback skills or problem-solving or strategy at the start of their career, rather than at the end?
There are a number of other approaches to as-we-do-it-today leadership development that are illogical - here is a sampling, with the rationale for a "better way."
- Leadership development programs are generally short-term (one week, 10 months) and generic - leaving the individual to figure out how their new knowledge and skills apply to the work that they are doing.
- You want a development strategy that integrates work with learning and outputs.
- To be cost-effective, companies generally are selective about whom they will send through leadership development - sacrificing hundreds of capable individuals for the development of a few. Do you really want only a few people in your organization to be fully capable in their roles?
- When leadership skills are integrated with regular activities and duties – starting on day 1 – the costs are minimal and absorbed daily, you don't need a "special event."
- As leadership development is currently administered...ROI is iffy. If your organization has 15 individuals, in 10 different disciplines, who have gone through leadership development this year - how do you associate their output with the learning?
- When the learning process is integrated with every worker's role and responsibilities, you can easily connect output to increased knowledge and skill through various measure of productivity.
100% ROI
Whenever I ask business owners and managers this question they are always a bit dumbfounded at the logic of it: Would you rather increase the capabilities and competencies of 15% of your employees? Or raise 100% of your employee's skills by 15%?
If every employee made better decisions, took responsibility for problem-solving, communicated better with their colleagues and other departments, understood who their stakeholders were... and more "leadership skills"... the efficiency and productivity of your company would be boundless.
But that "training" needs to begin on the first day they walk in the door. Your company should have a 3- or 5- or 10-year plan for the development of every employee. It should include skills building in the role they were hired for as well as broader, more business-acumen topics like risk, finance, and strategy.
And most importantly - it should include exposure to all areas of the business. Too many poor decisions are made because HR doesn't understand Ops, or Marketing doesn't understand Finance. When individuals understand the "big picture" of how your company operates - and they make relationships with people in other functions - companies run more smoothly, efficiently, and profitably. But they need to develop those skills at the start of their career, not the end.
The Importance of Teaching Debate
Arguments can be deadly; debate notsomuch
Remember the Debate Club in high school? It was an excellent tool to help young people to start thinking critically about various issues and honing their communication skills to be able to intelligently articulate issues.
Debate requires someone to construct an argument. That argument can be pro or against, but it must incorporate research, analysis, reasoning, and sometimes synthesis and evaluation in order to establish and substantiate one's position.
Debate also requires the debater to master their content, to practice both listening and speaking skills in order to counter the opposing side, and to not only be able to verbalize but also to speak persuasively about their position. These skills are known on Bloom's Taxonomy as higher order thinking skills. Debate takes one beyond the ability to research and "know" information to the ability to construct something and do something with that information.
One of the reasons that I like to utilize debate in my training designs is because it helps people to understand how to deal with conflict in a constructive and measured way. Countering an opposing argument does not mean name calling, introducing distracting or off-topic issues, or simply blustering louder than one's opponent. That is an argument. Arguments are rarely constructive and lead to hurt feelings and opposing sides. I can't think of any appropriate situation - in the business world - where opposing sides is a good thing - especially if those two sides are within the same company.
Debate can be taught in a "learning experience," such as a classroom. This approach is often fabricated, however; for instance the instructor provides a topic or asks for one from the audience and it often is a topic that is already deemed to be controversial. Another approach would be to teach debate in the regular course of our workplace meetings. Rather than rushing to a conclusion about a topic, stop and ask the group "What are the opposing arguments for this idea / decision?" Encourage attendees to voice their concerns and their arguments in support of those concerns. This will teach your employees that debating is a normal and expected conversational process. Priming your employees to be accustomed to debating ensures they will be more comfortable voicing opposing viewpoints when decisions really matter.
Thinking Skills and Teaming Skills go Hand-in-Hand
The sheer complexity of business today means that no one person can know it all or be in command of it all. With the global marketplace, the importance and reliance on technology, and the imperative for innovation, cross-functional teams are the only way to develop viable business solutions. Learning to be a contributing member of a team is so critical that Carter Cast, former CEO of Walmart.com, deems it one of only two reasons for career derailment - the other being a lack of self-awareness.
There is a misguided assumption that teaming comes naturally.
Oftentimes organizations provide team building events, such as experiential activities (rope climbing) or retreats (three days off-site) which are designed to enhance interpersonal relationships. But these types of events are not related to the work itself.
Teaching individuals how to work together as a team is a different outcome (see Team Capabilities, below) and requires learning team skills in the context of conducting team work. Being a contributing member of a team is as much about the personal contribution of one's role, as the functional role.
The capabilities listed below don't come together overnight. They require multiple exposures to team assignments and projects, and to be truly successful they require an understanding of the various functions of a business and how each contributes to the overall organization. This is just a short list - you can find the full list in the Future-Proofing book. Collaboration and Cooperation - knowing how your work fits in to the larger-whole means you make decisions based on the impact to others / the organization.
Communication - expressing ideas as well as feelings AND being open to receiving communication demonstrates the ability to "make sense" of information and people.
Sharing credit - being able to share credit demonstrates an ability to see one's role in perspective and demonstrates leadership.
Promoting understanding - being open to new or conflicting ideas, asking for more information, allowing "unpopular" sentiment to be heard and valued all stretch one's thinking abilities,
Appreciating diversity - well-developed thinkers appreciate that almost everything can be seen from multiple angles and that more diverse ideas bring about better outcomes.
Moderating conflict - the ability to resolve conflict without anger or resentment demonstrates a mature thought process and commitment to the greater good.
Putting a group of people together does not make them "a team." Teaming skills are developed through the give and take of team-related work over the course of months and sometimes years.
Mentoring as a Leadership Development Tool
Too often companies see mentoring as a “program” that takes away from the “business” of making money. It’s another thing “to do” on one’s already packed list of action items. BUT when done as a normal course of business, it’s not onerous and pays back exponentially.
In fact, a recent study found that 58% of new-hires who had been assigned mentors felt valued by their immediate manager and 68% felt more valued by the organization.
It’s natural to assume that the mentee gains the most benefit from the mentoring relationship since they are the recipient of new knowledge and skills, but in fact benefits abound - to the mentee, the mentor, and the organization itself.
Mentees
Mentees benefit immediately from higher performance and productivity, increased job satisfaction, higher morale, increased visibility with people in higher levels and more insight into a career path. In the long-term, the mentee benefits from having a non-judgmental and unbiased champion in their corner. They get candid feedback without repercussions, insight in to the workings of the organization, and personalized guidance regarding the skills they should develop or the choices they could make to further their career.
Mentors
Mentors also report increased job satisfaction because they feel valued and are able to give back to their organization. Additionally a mentor benefits from fresh perspectives due to new relationships and develops their own leadership skills.
The Organization
Benefits to the organization include enhanced teamwork, communication across vertical and horizontal boundaries, an efficient transmission of knowledge and skills, stronger organizational culture, and being seen as an employer of choice.
Here is an idea for establishing an
absolutely free
mentoring program at your company:
A mentor asks high-gain questions, gives constructive feedback, and helps the more junior associate to recognize and capitalize on their strengths and weaknesses - that's a pretty simple “task” to accomplish over lunch.
Why not monthly mentor lunches? Instead of sitting with one’s normal group of friends at lunch, at least once a month a junior person and more senior person meet up in the cafeteria for lunch. (Twice a month would be ideal.)
Maybe once a year the company can buy the lunch as a reward for those pairs that have continued their relationship throughout the year. A public “mentor appreciation day” will get attention from those not participating - and encourage more participation!
= = = = =
By building relationships and networks within the organization, mentoring strongly impacts retention. An organization that utilizes mentoring is preparing for the future of its people as well as the organization as a whole.
FREE Developmental Assessments
Self Management is Key to Leadership Development
One of the hallmarks of a good leader is the ability to "manage" oneself. In other words - stay grounded, communicate well, use emotion in a positive way, etc. Unfortunately most folks learn self management skills through trial and error - sometimes through life changing and career ending moves, such as Carter Cast's. But it doesn't have to be that way. Developing self awareness can be achieved through various assessments to help one to identify their values, their tendencies and their strengths - in order to mitigate or improve upon them. Here are a few FREE assessments to get you started.
Managing Stress and Burnout
Gretchen Rubin researches what makes people tick, and is a prolific author of her findings. Her assessment The 4 Tendencies helps individuals to understand how they respond to expectations. It explains why we act and why we don't act; and is helpful in managing stress and burnout.
Capitalize on Your Strengths
The High5Test is part Clifton Strengths (formerly Strengths Finder) and part Values in Action. Both assessments, as well as the High5, seek to determine what one is good at and then lead individuals to capitalize on and develop what it is they do well, rather than struggle trying to improve in areas they are weak.
What are your Character Strengths?
Developed by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in 2004, the Values in Action assessment (VIA) seeks to identify one's character strengths. You'll see results in domains such as Wisdom, Tenacity, Courage, Temperance, and more.It is one of the most well-researched personality assessments holding validity over time, cultures and scientific peer review. The website offers two assessments - one personal, to develop self-knowledge and introspection, and one professional, to help you to bring out the best in others.
Core Values / How You View the World
The Core Values Index (CVI) from Taylor Protocols helps individuals to understand the unique perspective from which they view the world. From that they are able to extrapolate how they will respond to life's challenges. Directed inward, the CVI helps an individual to make choices that align with their core values - leading to a sense of mission, purpose, and self-confidence.
Who "Gets" Leadership Development?
Why Not Everyone?
A question we are frequently asked - and frequently wrestle with in conjunction with new clients is - who "gets" to attend thinking skills / leadership development? It's a tough question to answer because on the one hand, the logical answer is "everyone." Why wouldn't you want everyone in the organization to work smarter, make good decisions, understand the vision and mission of your organization, etc.? On the other hand, unless you are a small company of 150 people or less, that would be a prohibitively expensive endeavor. So the tough question is - how do we make the cut? Who makes the cut? Here are some "arguments" - none is "the best."
Argument #1
As stated in the headline - why not everyone? Simple things - not full blown curriculums - could be enmeshed in everyday work responsibilities (much like Google's now defunct 20% time). Sending a business / industry article out each week via email, or leaving copies of it on the lunch tables, can help to ensure everyone has the same industry knowledge. By leaving articles on the lunch tables, spontaneous discussions can begin about the content and merits of the article. Managers can hold short, 20 minute, meetings two days after the articles are issued asking for feedback or questions about the article.
To help managers, the department that issues the article can include 3 or 4 discussion questions they'd like the employees to focus on. This article sharing can be rotated throughout the organization. Much like "it's your week for carpool," it could be "your week for article sharing."
Let's say your company works in manufacturing or healthcare - while there are plenty of articles about the industry itself, there are department-specific articles as well - manufacturing operations, healthcare marketing, etc.
This is just one small and easily do-able activity that can be rolled out throughout the organization. Why not increase the knowledge and capabilities of all your employees?
Argument #2
Focus on leaders in the organization. We've spent so many years making individuals experts (through training) in their fields that they often don't have a big picture view of their organization or their role. Sales Managers often don't appreciate the need for profitability which is a finance-department focus. Charge nurses often don't appreciate customer service which is an operations (and accreditation) focus. By directly impacting the thinking skills and thereby the leadership skills of leaders in an organization there will be an immediate and beneficial impact on the departments that they run and the individuals that they manage.
Argument #3
Include all new hires - starting now. If everyone who joins your organization is indoctrinated into a thinking curriculum from day one, they will grow in to your (smartest) future leaders. Over a planned development process of 3 years, 5 years, or 20 years, you will have an organization chock-full of individuals who not only understand how the organization is run (because they will have had linear exposure to the organization), but they will also be knowledgeable and skilled in critical business topics such as communication, teamwork, risk management, continuous improvement, fiscal management and much, much more.
Because they have been brought-up in cohorts (The Training Doctor's branded design), they will have relationships and the ability to communicate with other departments and individuals in other disciplines.
The choice for every individual company will be different. Increase everyone's skills just a little bit? Deep dive for leaders who will return the most immediate ROI? Or plan a long-tail approach to enmesh employees in "lifetime" development to create a leadership pipeline?
Mea Culpa - Is it really better to ask for forgiveness?
The number of “apology ads” I’ve seen on TV in the last month is astounding. It’s caused me to wonder – as a company, is it really better to ask for forgiveness from your customers than to do the right thing, or behave the right way, to begin with? Is the message we are learning “do your own thing, until you get caught, and then apologize and carry on as usual?”
Wells Fargo is apologizing for violating our trust by opening over 2 million fake accounts in order to hit their sales goals. One of their ads (seen here) begins by saying “We know the value of trust…” later in the commercial they promise they are “holding ourselves accountable to find and fix issues proactively…” Finally, they declare that they are halting the business process (sales goals for branches) that caused the bad-behavior in the first place.
Facebook apologized for unknowingly allowing the personal information of tens of millions of users to be leaked and/or manipulated by advertising; possibly impacting the 2016 US elections. In their apology ads the company says it will do “more” to make you feel safe and protect your privacy.”
In Uber’s apology ad, the new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi , looks straight in to the camera and says “we have new leadership and a new culture.” He states that as a company, “one of our values is to always do the right thing.” Is that a new thing, which started with you, Dara? Or was that always in place but now you’ll take it seriously?
Apologies that Miss the Mark
Wells Fargo stating it has ended the business process that caused the “problem” is simply addressing the symptom – what is the root cause of an organization that is unethical, views cheating as necessary to maintain one’s job, and has little regard for its customers?
In the case of Facebook and Uber, their ads don’t even really claim responsibility; they simply say “Oops, something went south. We’ll fix it.” And Uber’s “responsible CEO” made no appearance at all – they sent out the new guy to apologize for past transgressions.
Here’s Rolling Stone’s take on the limp apologies:
Hi, America. We were awesome for a long time. Here are some culturally representative shots of people like you smiling and enjoying our services. After repeated denials, we recently had to admit to violating your trust, but the unelucidated bad thing doesn’t have to come between us. We promise: we fixed [all] that. You will now wake up feeling refreshed in 3,2,1…
The Burning Question
What role did leadership play in creating these damages in the first place? And what role could leadership development play to get these companies back on track? Teaching individuals to be better leaders after the fact is not the best approach; what about the future leaders of these companies? When does their development begin? And more broadly, of course, the future leaders of any company, because a scandal or business transgression could indeed happen to any company.
Go Forward
A multi-faceted leadership development curriculum – offered over the long-term, to everyone in the organization – would benefit from a groundswell of workers who understand ethics, risk, team work, communication, self-management and more. If companies are not solely reliant on leaders to set the course, then everyone is a leader. That’s what we need going forward.
Can You Develop Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence (EI) is one of those “sciences” that might be the key to success., or it might be a bunch of hooey. Who’s to know? While it might be hard to define emotional intelligence (although I have below, keep reading) we definitely know when it isn’t being exhibited. A three year old lying on the floor screaming “Nooo” lacks emotional intelligence. So does the forty year old who says “You can’t fire me because I quit!”
In today’s fast paced and tumultuous business climate, emotional intelligence is an important skill to have. We need to be able to accept challenges and frustrations, work with others cooperatively, accomplish assignments independently, participate in activities we might rather not, and so much more.
Talent Smart has been able to equate high performance in the workplace with high EI (and likewise poor performance with low EI [also known as EQ]). John Mayer, professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, is one of those who thinks that claim is hooey. But let’s assume that emotional intelligence IS a definable and measurable skill and that we’d like to develop it in our workforce.
Emotional Intelligence Defined
There are five “domains” or competencies of emotional intelligence:
Self-awareness (recognizing emotion and its effect, knowing one’s strengths and limitations)
Self-regulation (conscientiousness, adaptability, comfort with ambiguity)
Self-motivation (goal setting, commitment, optimism)
Social awareness (interest in others, empathy, understanding power relationships)
Social skill (communication, conflict management, leadership, etc.)
Each of these can be further broken down. For instance, conscientiousness can be further defined as keeping promises, fulfilling commitments, and holding oneself accountable.If we believe Talent Smart’s claims, these would be nifty markers on a performance evaluation, don’t you think? Do we assess people on their ability to complete their work correctly and in a timely fashion or are they really being assessed on their conscientiousness? Correcting poor performance would be quite different depending on whether you were assessing the visible output or the EI that underlies it.
Developing Emotional Intelligence
If we want to develop better performers in the workplace, it behooves us to examine whether we can develop emotional intelligence. Many of the things that we do when Teaching Thinking naturally align with increasing emotional intelligence. For instance. being open to and examining different perspectives. Let’s assume your company announced that there will be no bonuses this year. People with poor EI will think “that’s not fair!” while people with higher EI will realize the business climate has changed and the company acted accordingly.
To “teach” this skill we can include higher-order, open-ended questions in our training. Coaching and mentoring also help to develop emotional intelligence because coaches and mentors ask open-ended questions aimed at getting people to self-examine. Questions such as, What would you do differently next time? Who could be an ally? and What did you learn from this? get at examining and developing self-awareness – an important EI skill.
Another way to develop EI is to turn the coaching / mentoring idea around and have your trainees act as a coach / mentor. This assignment requires social awareness and the ability to empathize with others. The coach / mentor doesn’t have to be an expert. For example, providing feedback about an upcoming presentation requires the coach / mentor to consider the developmental needs of the presenter, frame feedback in a constructive way – taking in to consideration the emotions of the other person, and provide emotional support (you can do this!) – all EI skills. These are all great leadership skills too… but I digress.
So whether EI can be developed in others or not may be nebulous, the skills that lead to EI can and should be incorporated in to many aspects of the workplace (training, managing, performance reviews, and more).If you’d like to assess your own Emotional Intelligence, check out this short, on-line assessment.
Twelve Weeks to Becoming the Manager of the Most Kick-ass Department in Your Company
As organizational development consultants, we are often tasked with creating activities or events that "move an organization forward." Clients ask us to solve problems related to communication, teamwork, poor workmanship, lack of commitment or accountability, and many other issues which stymie output and frustrate individuals.
Every organization is different, of course, but if you are a manager who would like to elevate your profile and your department's reputation, here is an activity that anyone can use to achieve both. All you need to do is commit to one hour per week for three months and follow the process below.
Week 1
This works better if your team is co-located. There is something to be said for looking your colleagues in the eye.) Bring together your team and have each person stand, state their name, their role, and declare how their role interacts with or is enmeshed with another person in attendance and their role. Repeat until everyone has spoken.Be aware: This will be an uncomfortable struggle at first, but by week 6 people will easily rattle off their inter-dependencies and accountabilities.
Weeks 2 - 6
At subsequent weekly 1-hour meetings add one-more-individual to the interdependency declaration. In other words, in week 1 each speaker must choose one other individual and declare how their role interacts with or is enmeshed with that person’s role. In week 2 they'll need to choose two other individuals. In week 3, they'll choose three other individuals, and so on. Slowly your department will begin to recognize how they are dependent on one another. This process works because it is visual, verbal, requires people to think to make the association, and is repeated week after week.
Weeks 4 - 6
Once people have the routine of choosing co-workers and declaring how they work together, "step it up" by having them add something about the other role that is frustrating, confusing or that they always wondered about. This might sound like, "I'm Susan Jones. I schedule the demo-rooms for the sales group. Sean Rhodes is one of my internal customers; he frequently meets with prospective clients in the demo rooms. Sean, I've wondered how far in advance you schedule meetings with prospects that need a demo. Is it usually the same-week or do you have more notice?"
What Susan is really getting at is, "I am tired of Sean always yelling at me that he has a client arriving within the hour and no where to put them." But perhaps Susan doesn't realize that Sean gets little advance notice himself. Or perhaps she just made Sean aware that he needs to schedule the demo rooms with more notice than he has been giving.
Further conversation can happen after your 1-hour meeting, allowing Susan and Sean to come to a solution so that neither of them regularly feels frustrated by the other (without your meeting, and this process, the chance of this conversation happening at all is slim and perhaps the whole "issue" would lead to a major blow-up down the road).
Weeks 7 - 12
Time to step it up again. Now that you've got your team regularly focusing on the way they work with and are dependent upon one another, start bringing in "guests" from other departments (directly upstream and downstream are easiest at the start). Stretch their knowledge of and accountability for other roles and departments. The same process is used, but now each speaker must include someone (the guest) outside your immediate group.
Let's assume you invited a mechanic from the maintenance group. This might sound like, "I'm Susan Jones. I schedule the demo-rooms for the sales group. I also issue a monthly report to maintenance for each machine, which logs how many hours each machine was used during the month."
Susan may or may not know that the hours-used report allows maintenance to conduct preventative maintenance on the demo-machines which are otherwise out-of-sight, out-of-mind for them. Preventative maintenance ensures that a salesperson isn't embarrassed by a demo-machine that fails during a client presentation. If Susan doesn't know that's what her report is used for, she'll learn it during your monthly meeting (by asking "I've often wondered what that report is used for,") and will understand the value and utility of it.
If Susan does know and declares the purpose of her report, the rest of the group will come to learn that this maintenance occurs unbeknownst to them in order to ensure the sales group has the equipment they need to be successful.
In addition to your current group of workers becoming more knowledgeable about, and accountable to, their co-workers and the larger organization, this is a great process for bringing new hires into the fold. They will quickly understand the work processes and outputs of your department and how they are interrelated, which is crucial to doing their own job well and knowing who to ask for help.
In just 12 short weeks you'll have the most highly functioning department in your organization, guaranteed.
Drop us a line and tell us how it went. And don't be stingy! When other managers ask how you created such a high-functioning team - share the process, like we just did for you.
Developing Well Rounded Leaders - Future-Proofing Your Organization
A recent MBA World blog posting by Juliette Alban-Metcalfe makes a strong point about developing a learning culture in organizations, “We can’t afford to maintain the silos we’ve built up and ignored for years.” In this simple statement, she challenges us as L+D professionals to address a very important issue – Developing Well-Rounded Leaders. Specifically, let’s look at mid-career professionals.
For years, possibly decades, we have helped people develop expertise around specific jobs, or how to do their current job better. What was often neglected was the need to expand the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our future leaders and executives. What we’ve created is a talent base that is very skilled in a narrow area of expertise, but not well prepared for upper management or executive positions. For example, if you started in accounting you might end up as a director or VP of finance, but would you know anything about operations or marketing? If you started as an HR generalist you might end up as a benefits specialist or HR manager, but would you know the sales cycle of your organization or how your company really makes money?
Estimates are that by 2030, Baby Boomers will be completely out of the workforce. This presents a call to action and an opportunity, because the generation with the most breadth and depth of work experience will be leaving the workforce. We – as L+D departments and professionals – need to quickly rectify the silos of specialists we’ve created by broadening the role-specific training of the past in order to address the workforce needs of the future. Our challenge is to develop a new generation of company leaders capable of making well-rounded and well-informed decisions based on their experiences in a multitude of business areas.
So what types of things should we be helping employees to learn - and how? Some of the “basic” and important leadership skills include:
Strategy
Many employees don’t know the strategy and the vision of their organization. They are so focused on their individual job, or perhaps their business unit goals, they miss the big-picture future of the organization and the plan for getting there. The 2016 Wells Fargo scandal is a perfect example of mid-level leadership focusing on business unit goals (sales) and not the overall success of the business.
Competitor Knowledge
This is something we’ve seen particularly lacking in sales professionals. They know how to sell their own products or services, but get caught short in being able to “sell” them as the best choice in comparison to their competitors. For example, What is the difference between Uber and Lyft? Why would you choose Dropbox over Box? This is not to pick on sales professionals; in an ideal world ALL employees would understand their company mission, vision, strategy (see above) and competitive advantage. What makes your company unique and ultimately the better choice?
How the Company Makes Money
Surprisingly few individuals understand their company’s business model or how it makes (or spends) money. For example, a retail organization typically only nets 2 cents on every revenue dollar. Selling copiers or printers is really a loss leader, while the company makes their money on toner and ink. Understanding how the company makes money helps individuals make better decisions regarding expenditures, negotiations, investments and more.
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is a concept that every individual, at every level of an organization, should not only understand, but embrace. There is always a better way to do something and each individual should be responsible for ensuring that their job is done in the most logical, efficient, ethical manner. Continuous improvement is a structured process that helps a company make incremental improvements over time or achieve “breakthrough” improvements quickly.
Stakeholder Management
A stakeholder is someone with an interest or position on a topic. Everyone and every project has one or more stakeholders. Sometimes the stakeholders are the company’s customers or shareholders, sometimes they are the boss, and sometimes they can be the peer sitting in the next cubicle. Knowing who the stakeholders are (at the company level as well as the individual worker level) helps employees to “see the big picture” and make better decisions as a result.
These are just a few of the top skills needed in today’s fast-paced workplace. The next question is – how do we help employees acquire this kind of knowledge and skill? As most people are aware – knowing about something and being able to do something are two ends of a spectrum. It’s not enough to know your company’s competitive advantage or what continuous improvement is all about. Learning opportunities need to be structured to ensure real-world, on the job experiences.
One idea, which has been around for many decades, but which is rarely used, is job rotation. Anyone who aspires to leadership in an organization should work in at least three different areas of the business. Most importantly, they should work in an area related to the customer. This might be operations, shipping, sales, etc. Unfortunately, most companies reserve their rotational programs for people who are already identified as “high potential.” A better approach would be to create an immersion program for all employees, so that everyone has a more well-rounded view of the organization.
This not only will help in making employees more educated about the business and their role in it, but it also helps tremendously with retention. Most people who leave an organization do so because they feel there is no growth or advancement for them in their current role. But what if they were able to identify their own future role? Participating in a rotational program gives employees exposure to areas of the business they might never be a part of and could inspire them to contribute to the organization in many ways.
The focus on job-specific training is a thing of the past. Organizations must focus on developing well-rounded individuals who can take the organization into the future. The future success of our companies depends on the actions we take today to develop our future workforce.
Note: This article was originally written for, and published by, MBA World, and co-authored with Keith Plemmons.