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Archive for September, 2011
Do we need a Talent Management Initiative? No . . . Part I
I created a Talent Scorecard to help leaders think through what they have been doing around connecting with their people to make sure they are focused, understanding their challenges, getting their needs met, and receiving feedback on their progress. In the human resources world we call this talent management. To most of the rest of the world this is called leadership, management, or friendship.
The first set of numbers shocked me. Here they are and remember that I asked HR leaders to fill these out as if their CEO was doing this survey. The only two measures are 100% and <100%, because those are they only two measures that matter. 100% means you are doing the right things. <100% means that there is a person out there with a name, friends, bills to pay, skills/talents, and goals . . . that is not getting their needs met. These are basic needs. Here are the numbers.
Key Habits for Managing Talent
100% <100% I delivered all of the evaluations on time. 36.7 % 63.3 % I have one-on-one discussions with each member of my staff at least once a month. 63.3 % 36.7% I have reviewed all the evaluations of my team’s staff. 51.7 % 48.3 % Each person on my team has a development plan. 27.6 % 72.4 %
Too many people are getting late evaluations and do not have any sort of development plans.
Remember the Gallup Q12? The first two questions are: I know what is expected of me at work and I have the tools I need to do my job. On-time performance conversations and frequent one on ones to hear progress, identify needs, and solve problems make these questions a reality. The development plan is critical in getting people thinking about the future and helping them grow.
Based on these numbers, it is not happening enough.
For a quick look at a performance conversation tool/development plan that works see trUTips #13.
Words that make me go Hmmmm – Hold accountable
I read a letter to the editor in our local paper this morning that included the sentence . .
I urge parents of all children in the district to be activist parents and hold their public schools accountable for the quality of services their children are receiving.
Too often I see the word accountable held up as an initiative that is, in itself, the way to fix a business. I then look for what words appear around it to suggest what else needs to be happening to build this accountability. In this sentence you will see the words activist / hold / quality. So what do you think will be the next step in the minds of the people reading this sentence?
Accountability is important in business, performance, and life – but the words around it are probably more important.
I will do more for you if I respect you and feel your commitment to helping me be successful. I will perform better for you if I get a chance to share my thoughts or if I am invited to a team to solve a problem together. Great teams have accountability, but they also have trust, a shared sense of commitment, and the willingness to listen, to forgive, and to fix.
As a coach, clients will often express the accountability they feel knowing that I will ask the question “What has happened with your commitments since the last time we talked?”, which is good. What I remind them is that there is lots of learning to happen in commitments that do not get done, and rather than feel guilty and view a coach as the accountability police, see me as a partner to explore, understand, and to solve. Great accountability also has a element of safety.
Feel free to use the word accountability as a leader, but I challenge you to examine the words around it first.
What are your Leadership Rocks?
Yesterday I was invited to take a look at a peer’s reading list an
d it overwhelmed me. I have read a lot of books, but we shared very few in common. For a moment, the thought of relearning what I believe made me kind of tired.
Then I remembered what I believe, and the thought of starting there and seeing where the new material fit and where it challenged my beliefs sounded exciting. I look forward to the cup of coffee and conversation we will share in the near future.
So what is your leadership rock? The foundation of what you believe that keeps you grounded? For me, it is a definition given by Ken Blanchard that I memorized as an instructor for his Situational Leadership II class and carried with me into my leadership roles.
Leadership is and influence process. When you work with people to accomplish their goals and the goals of the organization.
It is one of my rocks. I so enjoy sharing it and asking the question “What words jump out for you? Why?”
Rocks shift, but it takes a lot of effort to move them. We should all be ready to shift and grow, but we need our rocks. Leaders need a foundational set of beliefs to help them to stay steady.
What are the Leadership Rocks for you?
Nobody Behaves Well In The Corner
My business/mission is being a guide for people so they realize the excellence they were born to achieve and helping organizations achieve their business goals by aligning a people strategy behind them (and helping to build the strategy on occassion). In my experience walking in to unfamiliar territory, I have developed an ear for certain words. Here is a short list:
- Crazy
- Narcicist
- Unreasonable
- Abnormal
- Wierd
- Bipolar
- Nuts
Get the idea? Sometimes I wonder how many people truly have a mental disorder, because it can feel like there is an epidemic in certain corporate settings. So I googled What percent of adults have a mental disorder?. This brought me to a site that shared the information that in any one year 28-30% of adults experience mental or addictive disorder. Of that group, only 5.4% have a serious disorder that is likely to last beyond a year.
Yesterday a friend shared with me the quote Nobody behaves well in the corner. Another way I say it is that stress does things to people that often are not very positive. Dr. Roger Birkman spent decades perfecting his own assessment along these lines that has become the Birkman Method. This is a tool I use to help people name the source of their stress and the resulting behavior. The Birkman Method provides input on both usual behavior (what people see), needs(mostly hidden, but identify preferred environment; clarify motivational needs, highlight inner strengths), and stress behavior(counter productive, frustrated actions). Here is an example of what these sound like:
Area: Relating one on one with others:
- Usual Behavior: Candid and matter-of-fact, minimal self-conscious feelings, outspoken and unevasive, at ease with superiors.
- Needs: Frank and direct relationships, genuine praise free of sentiment, direct/straight forward corrections and instructions, candor from superiors and associates
- Stress Behavior (happens when needs are not met): Inconsiderate in personal relationships, downplays the importance of personal needs of others, uncomfortable when relationships require sensitive understanding
Any of these sound familiar? When we back people into a corner (low resources, threat of job loss, inconsiderate teammates, no communication, lots of long hours) some strange behavior often results. The Birkman Method has been a great tool for leaders I work with to help them see the sources of their stress and deal with it.
There are some people that genuinely need professional help to address things they are feeling. But beware of labeling without first understanding. If someone is in a corner, that COULD BE the reason for their behavior.
Breathing and Leadership
I had the opportunity this week to go through a neurofeedback process at a local organization that revealed some cool things about my brain. Here is a link if you want to know more. http://www.theneurocore.com/ 
The big takeaway, for the body and the brain to work the best we have to do a better job at breathing. Here is the sequence for Americans:
- We take more breaths (17/min) but they are shallow and quick
- The body does not get big doses of oxygen because of our breathing rate, so it has to work harder.
- The heart pumps a little harder and has to react to the oxygen flow which is a bit irratic.
- On and on and on . . . . .
Maybe a little oversimplified. The good news – there is actually an app for breathing!
My trU Tips that went out yesterday is about resilience and leaders. (here is the video)One way to look at building resilience is to learn how to breath correctly. When we get knocked off our feet by a surprise:
- A key executive quits
- Partner passes away
- Sales dip 40%
- We lose a large customer
- A tsunami hits a key supplier
We freak out. Yes – that is normal. Then we start breathing normally, think, and react. Resilience is not about getting knocked off your feet, that is called life. Resilience is about how we start breathing normally again and live into/through the challenge.
Breath.