Your Competitive Advantage
Not only are humans your only competitive advantage (in business) but you can't just bribe or steal them from some other company! To TRULY have an advantage, you must nurture them yourself.
One Critical Leadership Skill
Many young business people aspire to become future managersand leaders but there is often a lack of leadership development available until one is promoted to a leadershipposition. Of the myriad of skills that leaders need to master such as criticalthinking, problem solving, and working collaboratively with others, one skillcan be learned independent of a formal learning process. This skill is not onlyused daily, as a leader, but mastering it early in one’s career helps to mark oneas “leadership material.”
That is the skill of asking good questions.
If you aspire to leadership you’ll want to purposefullythink about (and practice) the way you ask questions. When most people ask aquestion they are asking for facts or details such as What happened next? Whatare my options? What would you like me to do? But a leader needs to gather critical insight through his / herquestions in order to make decisions that move the business forward. There arethree types of questions you can practice, this week, that will help you togather critical information and to be viewed as a thoughtful up-and-comingleader.
Open ended questions
Open ended questions require the other person to respondwith their thoughts or beliefs. it is a personal response rather than a factualone. A common mistake of new managers is to give an instruction or directionand then ask “Have you got that?” which only requires a short yes or noresponse and doesn’t help the manager to assess if the instructions really wereunderstood. If instead the manager were to ask “What are your thoughts onthat?” or “How can I help you with this assignment?” he / she then elicits moreinformation from the other person and learns if they are confident, concerned,or confused.
These kinds of questions can move the whole organizationforward by forestalling miscommunication and failed actions based onassumptions.
Clarifying questions
Too few individuals take the time to ensure that they trulyunderstand a speaker. I have always found that anytime I ask someone “Did youmeans this, or this?” what I hadoriginally assumed the answer to be was wrong. Clarifying questions are important for leadersto master because they can save an organization from disastrous results.
Example: Shelby, a salesperson for a media company, wasreviewing a proposal with her manager before presenting it to a new client. Atthe end of the conversation her manager said it would be OK to cut the cost ofthe proposal by 5-10%. Shelby asked, “Do you mean you want me to cut the costnow? Or to use that as a negotiation strategy?” Her manager replied, “I’m glad you clarified that! I mean to use it as anegotiation tactic, if you need to. Good luck!”
High gain questions
High gain questions are used rather rarely as they tend tostop a conversation while the respondent considers their response; however,high gain questions are the mark of a true leader in conversation. High gainquestions require the respondent(s) to apply critical thought beforeresponding.
Consider the difference between
What are the obstacles you foresee? (open ended) and
What are our two best options going forward? (high gain)
While the open ended question is good for gathering more information,the high gain question returns a carefully considered response.
Being able to utilize each of these types of questions – open ended, clarifying, and high gain – is a skill that can be practiced early in one’s career in preparation for moving into a leadership role.
Note: This article was originally published by Forbes.com
Succession Planning? Start Here.
Many organizations are facing an impending loss ofleadership as the last of the Boomers are getting ready to leave the workforce.With the start of a new decade upon us, now is the time to plan for the next generationof leaders. But where to start? If your company does not have a leadershipdevelopment program in place, or if you haven’t really given much thought to howyour company will make an orderly transfer of leadership responsibility, 2020is the year to focus on this critical planning.
Below, I’ve outlined the first three steps in successionplanning. So as not to get overwhelmed, address them slowly over the next sixto twelve months and your organization will be ready to smoothly transfer thereins of leadership as the Boomers in your company begin to retire.
Step 1 - Consider who is next in line for leadership
The outcome of this step is to determine where you want toconcentrate your leadership development efforts in order to achieve the most ROI.Do you want to concentrate your efforts on those who have been with yourorganization the longest and therefore understand its inner workings andculture? Or do you want to concentrate on younger generations who are lookingfor professional development as a primaryperk of employment and who may be with your organization longer, as aresult?
To gain better insight, take a look at who you presently employand what generational cohort they belong to. Currently there are fourgenerations in the workforce, the Boomers, Gen X, the Millennials and Gen Z whoare just entering the workforce. It is logical to assume that Gen X, being thenext generation after the Boomers, would be next in line to lead in yourorganization, but there aren’tenough of them. In addition, in a recent study conducted by TheConference Board, of data collected from over 25,000 leaders acrossindustries, it was determined that Gen X have been stymied from moving up thecorporate ladder by Boomers who have stayed on the job longer than previousgenerations. What this means is that there are a number of generations in yourworkforce who have not been indoctrinated into leadership development orleadership roles.
Determining where to apply development efforts is a criticalfirst step in determining your company’s leadership pipeline.
Step 2 - Determine What Skills Your Future Leaders Need
Once you determine who you’ll want to develop (as anaside, I advocate developing everyone as if they were going to be afuture leader; a rising tide lifts all boats, after all) you’ll need to identifywhat skills they will need to support your organization in the future.
To accomplish this, there are three sources of data you’llwant to collect and consider:
1 Look at the jobdescriptions of each of your current leadership roles to determine what skills areidentified as necessary in today’s environment. This is just a baseline, as weknow that today’s business environment is accelerating and changing at a pacenever experienced before and what your organization needs today may not be whatit needs tomorrow. Be sure to identify leadership skills and behaviors, such asmanaging a team of five or fiscal responsibility, and not job tasks such asmonthly reporting. If possible, “read between the lines.” For instance the taskof “standardize procedures to improve efficiency” really means having theleadership abilities of analyzing, forecasting, and planning.
2 Pay attention to what industry experts and yourprofessional association are doing in the realm of the “future of work” andwhat is predicted for your industry. Some of the current concerns includeartificial intelligence and robotics, consumer pressures (suchas related to the environment), and changing buying habits – all of whichwill require your company to adapt. What do you need to start training yourfuture leaders for, today?
3 Hold one-on-one interviews and ask your current leaderswhat prepared them for the role they hold today. Most often you’ll learn thatformal development is not credited as much as mentorship, on the job learning,and a wide array of experiences. Theseinsights will help you to decide the best course of leadership development, foryour organization, going forward. For example, you could put four future-leaders through an off-site leadership development program or you might chooseto institute a job rotation program for everyone at your company. The twooptions might cost the same amount, but will return vastly different results. You’ll want to thoughtfully consider howpeople truly learn leadership in your organization.
Note: Be very concerned if the majority of responsesare, “I learned it at my previous job,” because that means you are doingnothing to develop leaders in your organization and are instead relying onother companies to develop them and hoping you can then hire them away. That“strategy” puts your company in a very precarious position; the topic ofanother article entirely.
Step 3 – Consider How You Will Develop Leadership Skills
Once you have identified the skills that should be developedin your future leaders, you’ll need to determine how to get them those skills. Creating a formalized leadership developmentprogram is a time consuming and arduous process – which is why most companiesforego it and instead cross their fingers and hope their future leaders will“appear” when needed.
Sending people out for leadership development can be cost-prohibitive and because of that, the number of individuals that get developed is generally far fewer than is needed by any organization. A smart option for most companies is to mete leadership development out to everyone, through easy-to-implement activities such as reading groups or lunch-and-learns, and on-the-job projects such as a multi-discipline initiative. Over time, small and consistent development opportunities will build the leadership skills your organization needs and alleviate succession planning concerns.
Once you have considered and acted upon these first three steps in succession planning, you’ll be well on your way to ensuring that your company has a leadership pipeline capable of continuing excellent work despite a rapidly changing business environment.
Note: This article was first published by Training Industry Magazine.
Don't be a Know-it-All
Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) has said: "being alearn-it-all is better than being a know-it-all."
Unfortunately, a lot of people truly do NOT know how tolearn.
In the 21st century, people are more reactionary than thoughtful, reasoned, and contemplative. This is a "tide" that will damage business' future viability, very, very soon.
Future-Proofing Your Organization
Very few organizations are doing anything to skill-up their younger workers in leadership skills. That's going to come back and bite them in the very near future.
The Learning Leader as Change Agent
Guest post contributed by
Holly Burkett
Managing change and cultural transformation is among the top challenges facing executives and the one area in which they’re most likely to partner with learning leaders and talent managers.
Today's Leadership Challenges
More than ever before, organizations need leaders who can anticipate and react to the nature and speed of change; act decisively without always having clear direction or certainty; navigate through complexity, chaos, and confusion; and maintain effectiveness despite constant surprises and a lack of predictability. Yet few business leaders rate themselves as "highly effective" at managing change, most work for an organization with no change strategy in place, and most have no designated person to lead change efforts.
Given these challenges, how can L&D help?
Leverage leadership development. Leadership development remains a key strategy for building change capability. Developing collective change capabilities across all levels has more impact than simply focusing upon mid or senior-level managers. Effective development methods include the combined use of self-reflection exercises, coaching, mentoring, stretch assignments, action learning, and simulations in which participants are placed in real-world scenarios and roles where they must lead change. Development approaches should be contextualized and customized to fit the capabilities required of specific change roles, including:
- changesponsors (those who lead change strategy)
- changemanagers (those who facilitate change in their operational areas)
- changeproject members (those who plan, design, and implement the change plan)
- changeagents (those who advocate for change efforts, make the changes relevant to theirneeds, and contribute to successful outcomes)
Developing collective change capabilities across all levels has
more impact than simply focusing upon mid or senior-level managers.
Keep in mind that change capability is about more than stand-alone, one-and-done leadership development programs, however. It is about nurturing change responsiveness and resiliency throughout an entire organization so that it is fully embedded within an organization’s culture and DNA.
Integrate change capabilities. Effectivedevelopment includes the integrated use of tools thatassess, develop, and reward change capabilities duringrecruiting, performance management, and career development, includingsuccession planning. Other enabling mechanisms like change networks,change academies, or communities of practice can help align change-readinessand responsiveness with employees’ daily work practices.
Manage change capacity. While change capability is a skill, ability, or mindset that can be developed or improved, change capacity relates to the ability of individuals and organizations to accommodate new change demands. Change fatigue is one of the biggest barriers to employees’ overall capacity to adopt or adapt to change. Change fatigue sets in when people feel pressured to make too many transitions at once or when change initiatives have been poorly thought through, rolled out too fast, or put in place without adequate preparation. An integrated, well-planned change strategy is meaningless if an organization lacks the capacity to execute it. In reality, capacity is finite; people can only do so much and there are only so many people to do the work.
As change agents, learning leaders must sensitize senior leaders to the risk of frenetic, disorganized change that goes beyond what individuals or teams can manage. Best practices include the use of a vetting process where proposed change projects are subjected to rigorous “war room” screenings by key stakeholders and then prioritized according to their importance to business strategy, financial impact, and the probability of success.
As change agents, learning leaders must sensitize senior leaders to the risk of frenetic,
disorganized change that goes beyond what individuals or teams can manage.
Final Thoughts. The pressures for change are real, change is here to stay, and organizations are looking to L&D for help in gaining the confidence and skills needed to navigate in a business climate of constant disruption. While the effort may seem daunting, we have a responsibility to step up and embrace our role as change agents with the goal of helping an organization transform itself for the better. This means positioning learning and performance initiatives within the context of broader change. It also means integrating the discipline of change management into our own mindsets and skill-sets so that we can leverage learning as a catalyst for innovation, change, and high performance.
About the Author
Holly Burkett, PhD, SPHR is principal of Evaluation Works, a performance consultancy in Davis, CA. For over 20 years, she’s helped diverse public and private sector clients develop resilient learning and performance capabilities that create high engagement and operational excellence. Author of the award-winning book “Learning for the Long Run: 7 Practices for Sustaining a Resilient Learning Organization,” she is a sought-after speaker, coach, and workshop facilitator. Learn more at: http://hollyburkett.com/
Do your people work in silos?
One of the greatest detriments to businesses being able to function at a high level is our insistence on keeping people in silos. Start in marketing? Stay in marketing. Start in finance? Stay in finance. We need to prepare EVERYONE to lead. Right now. We have limited time remaining.
No More One-and-Done Classes
If you are ONLY holding training classes, you aren't really getting at how learning works...
Wise words from Anne Frank
Challenge for today: Ask "why" at least three times. Open up the possibilities. Don't accept the status quo. Look for what's next.
Your Most Skilled Leaders Are Leaving
For decades, companies have been able to hire leaders away from other companies; but with the Boomers leaving corporate America at a rate of 6,000 people a day... that's all about to change.
Is your company prepared? Who is in your leadership pipeline?
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.
Convenience Over Quality
We'll modify this sentiment and say "easy of use at the expense of thinking."
❔ Do you know someone who is so reliant on their GPS that they couldn't return to a destination a day or two later, without it?
❔ Do you know someone who gets their news by scrolling through Facebook, rather than reading a newspaper? (I had a conversation with someone last week who did not know what Brexit was!)
❔ What else have you observed as an example of ease-of-use vs. quality or applied thinking? Please share in comments ⬇️