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Archive for February, 2012
What does my leader do . . .
A leader I respect recently shared a frustration – “My people don’t think I do anything.” In the ensuing conversation we explored the silent things they do to help their team stay focused, and different ways to help them see the investment being made in their success. Leadership behind closed doors too often leads to communication gaps that are filled with opinions.
I am in the middle of a family project to document some letters my Grandpa received during his service in Europe during WWI as a leader of an artillery battery. The follow letter (unedited by me) came addressed simply to the Commanding Officer, Battery A. 123rd Field Artillery. It is dated December 16th, 1918 – Delton, Michigan.
Dear Sir,
Will you please inform about Private Henry C. Akers. The report came in to Carthage, Ill that Henry and his brother was both killed and his brother is not, and I haven’t heard from Henry since the 28 of July 1918 and I am so worry over him. Will you please be so kind and look it up as soon as possible and let me know. I wrote the war department at Washington D.C. and they said no report of any kind of mishap had reach thems but theys refer me to write to you.
Will you please tell me if the Battery A 123 F.A. is going to come across to U.S.A soon or when? Will thank you ever so much for your trouble.
Florence M – , Delton, Michigan
My guess is this an example of a ’Do things as assigned’ activity from the job description of a leader. I don’t know my Grandpa’s response, but based on my time with him I am sure he dealt with it quickly and without a lot of fanfare. This 94 year old letter is also a testament that leadership has not changed all that much. There are some things you just have to get involved in as a leader that the rest of the world cannot see, or are just to busy to really notice.
Leaders – A good parallel to an open door policy is a transparency policy. A seasoned leader once shared with me a habit where they shared their personal list of problems they were trying to solve at their monthly staff meeting. They also asked for input/help from their team. Suprisingly (or not) over time they often received some very creative ideas and help
Followers – Why not ask your leader to share the top five three things that are consuming their mind/time right now?
Assessments: 4 Traps and 1 Truth
This is a series of extra discussions around an upcoming trU Tips related to using assessments in your business. It will come out next week. If you are interested in receiving this special trU Tips, please sign up for the mailing list here.
I am a big fan of using assessments (personality profiles like DiSC, Myers-Briggs, Birkman Method, etc.) in business. In working in and around dozens of start-ups/growth organizations, I see the pace and amount of work hindering the time needed to really get to know someone through a selection process. Assessments do not replace that time, but help to start meaningful conversations around cultural fit, manageability, and onboarding that will be valuable.
There is the trap of being sold a solution vs making a good buying decision based on your situation and resources, so here are some things I have learned about the use of assessments in business.
Trap 1: It will fix your selection issues: By nature, leaders want things fixed yesterday. The biggest fix you can apply to your selection process is time and purposeful discussion to make sure you are getting the right person and actually leading the process as the hiring manager. Assessments, used consistently for a period of time (6 months) will start to help, but it is not a quick fix. It is an expensive band aid for a leader being too busy to talk to new people.
Trap 2: Eventually you can do it yourself and you will not need me: True about 10% of the time. For a very simple tool like DiSC yes, but plan on paying training $ every 1-2 years as your expert moves to other roles or gets busy. Remember that to become an expert it takes 30+ assessments and doing them regularly (5-10 a month). Much of the ‘expertise’ is also built from watching people work over a 1-2 year period after taking the assessment. Some tools are so complex that it probably takes longer/more frequent work to be an expert.
Trap 3: Ours is the best: It is important to believe that to sell things, and you will hear lots of great reasons to buy any tool. In trU Tips #18 I will address ways to be a great buyer vs being sold on a solution that does not work. If you are feeling the pain of a weak selection process, it is easy to buy the confidence of a good salesperson.
Trap 4: You can also use it to help teams, leaders in transition, and other high risk/value (ROI) situations: Kind of true, but see Trap 2. To make any action plan stick, will take outside coaching/consulting for 3-6 months after any session. Probably worth it for leadership groups, but those costs should be part of the ROI discussion from the beginning. The second mini-trap is thinking the HR leader can be this person. They are too busy, too close to these people, and often not wired for this kind of work.
Truth: It is better than nothing: This will not be part of a sales pitch, and since Brad Smart in his book Topgrading put the cost of a bad leadership hire at 14.6x annual earnings, making one better choice will probably help. This will likely not appear in the sales presentation you receive (Imagine the tag line: Your hiring process will suck less if you use this assessment 
), but it is the truth.
Do you have any other traps or tips to add based on your experience?
Choices. (career and talent management)
Choices.
It is the word that sums up the goal for our own career development and what every person (young or old) works for. It is also the goal of helping people find success in their role (called talent management) and in our organizations. When I sit down with clients or friends to talk through development of leaders or managing a change initiative (especially when jobs are going to change) – my mind and questions wander back to the lens I always use to analyze their talent management habits or change plans: How effectively is their plan creating a conversation?
Ultimately for people to buy into and successfully help your organization get to a different place, there are four questions they(we) need to bring to the conversation. This is what makes talent management / change management personal.
- What do I know about me? (here is a link to my model for this – trUYou™)
- How do my talents, skills, experience and needs match my role and the roles I am looking at?
- Can I work for the person leading this group? How do I feel about the list of tasks I am being asked to ship?
- Am I willing to help them be successful, regardless of my answer to question 3?
This Friday I am doing a key note address for a Junior Achievement Job Shadow Day. I use 3 different size bikes (that students will ride) and cash to drive home a point – you have choices to make. It is not always an easy journey, but it has some great rewards. Here are videos I posted of one of my presentations. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Funny thing – if I were to stand up in front of a bunch of seasoned professionals, I would give the same speech. It is one of those messages that needs to be learned/relearned throughout our professional lives.
Choices are good.
A great question to end your week (or your meeting)
It was a situation I had been in many times before. Presenting to a group (this being a group of students at Grand Valley State University) and enjoying the interaction. I was talking about my business/journey, talent management, and connecting back to their topics of diversity and ethics. I did what every speaker does during a session, I paused and asked “Are there any questions?”. Quickly a hand shot up in the back from a student who had been engaged all night. Then he changed my week with one question:
“Through all of your startup, What are you most proud of?”
Know that my week had not started well, and I had been second guessing this commitment to speak. My mind quickly went to the faces of a team I had just been talking with that were bringing a different level of energy to their leadership. I thought of a friend who had recently shared he was adding a one on one with his regimen and using my scorecard. I thought of the energy my family had put into helping me get started. I am not sure what I shared, but it was only a portion of the great thoughts that entered my head.
The trajectory of my week changed at that moment.
I love this question. It makes people think of successes, of relationships they cherish, and of things in their lives that went right.
Try this at a meeting or offsite somtime with your team. I have even seen it done where people are asked before to bring in an artifact (picture, items, etc.) that identifies something they are proud of. It will lead to smiles and intimate knowledge of what makes people tick.
So as you end your week, take a couple of minutes to ponder and answer the question “What am I most proud of?”
Onboarding Equation . . and 4 Ways to Influence it
I am reading a book called Emotional Equations by Chip Conley. As a recovering engineer, I am still attracted to simple ways to understand a complex event – and for anyone who has spent time in a science class, that is what an equation represents.
So here is an equation: Disappointment = Expectations – Reality
The fundamental event of hiring and effectively onboarding a new person is captured in this equation. It is no wonder that 40% of leaders from outside organizations fail within 18 months (Watkins – The First 90 Days). We all have stories of experiencing or observing the moment when the This is not what I signed up for panic hits.
A key part of managing talent coming into your organization or transitioning into a new role is managing this equation. Here are two ways to better manage this equation for new people:
- Name it in orientation: EVERYONE will feel this at some point, so openly talk about it and have a few people share when it happened for them AND how they worked through it. (great reason to have a panel discussion of newer employees at some point)
- Make connections for them Day 1 so they do not feel alone: Assign someone in the department or another department as a mentor and guide (someone who can empathize with this person). It takes 6-12 months to become comfortable/productive in a new role, so this person should stick around (especially if the leader is not good at this).
For a person transitioning into a new role:
- Create a plan for success: On day 1, use a development plan template to talk about why they got the role (their talents/successes), what success looks like, and what they need to be successful. This provides the individual with a target, some encouragement, and a framework for revisiting the how is it going question and make adjustments as necessary.
- Assign a friend/mentor: For individual contributors or managers give them a mentor (or the leader should do weekly one on ones for 6 months). For an executive get them a coach. The ROI for a coach is in avoiding the cost of a bad transition (team turnover, mismanaged budget, etc.). It will pay for itself, and there is plenty of research to back that up.
Talent management is about great conversations. Talking about this equation is a great conversation for a person in transition.
A Hmmm # for leaders – What’s in your mail?
From a USA Today article on February 8th breaking down what comes in someone’s mail.
- 22% Standard mail (mostly advertising)
- 17% Fliers and circulars
- 8% Catalogs
- 5% Financial statements
- 5% First class advertising
- 4% Periodicals (newspapers, magazines)
- 3% Greeting cards
- .7% Personal Letters
- etc
Imagine how you could stand out as a leader sending a personal note to someone on your team? A whole lot less competition than email. Here is a link to the cards I use to say thank you or congratulations. Having them handy makes it easy to write a quick note.
Email is better than nothing – if you want to measure yourself against nothing.
Time – How to have this discussion
I am working with two teams right now trying to manage explosive growth (50+%) and all of the challenges that go with it. One theme that ALWAYS comes up is time. Here is what it sounds like:
- I want my work week to go from 70 hours to 50 hours
- I am working hard, and yet I am still not getting it done
- My family has not seen me at a meal in weeks
- My email is overflowing and people have expressed frustrations with my ability to complete things
- There are not enough hours in the day
- I will make time for woodworking when I retire
Time is always an issue, and in the age of “customer focused” and “collaboration” saying NO is not an option — if it is there has to be some reasoning to it and people want to hear options.
Here is a hint, if teams are struggling with that or you have a person on your team struggling with it, dust off a copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, turn to the time management matrix on page 151, do this:
Covey's Time Management Matrix
- Introduce this as a way to sort through our to do lists
- Draw the matrix on the wall and give everyone a stack of post-it notes
- Ask them to write their top 10 things that come up during the day (you might ask them to record some of this before the meeting, especially if they are in a customer facing role)
- Explain the matrix to them, and have them place it in a quadrant
- Talk through it. Here are some questions:
-
- What does this say about your priorities?
- What can move? (from my perspective as your leader)
- What is one change I can make that would help my ‘time issue”?
- What is one thing I can do as your leader to help?
Leadership is about great conversations, and within those conversations helping people sort through and overcome barriers. This is a great conversation around time, and many thanks to Covey for helping frame this discussion. (hint: 7 Habits is a great resource for any leadership library. )
What do you do?
I was reviewing one of my daughter’s assignments, and in it she was asked what 3 careers would she be interested in and what people do in these jobs. Here is her description of one:
I would like a career as a nurse because my Mom is one. The duties are being on time for work and willing to do anything.
When people look at our jobs, it is good to hear what others think is important to do it well. This is through the eyes of a 9 year old, but confirmed as accurate by the experts.
I have found that it is surprisingly difficult for people to identify the 5 most important things they do at their job. I once made the mistake of setting aside only 30 minutes for an exercise with a group. We needed 2+ hours. My experience has shown me that when we ask this question, the response is either a high level summary similar to what my daughter provided above, or a detailed list of 20+ items along with an eye roll that sends the message I am too busy!
This is why I incorporated this check-in for every talent management template I have published. The performance conversation questionnaire, the one on one sheet, and the development plan. In a world where resources are scarce, positions stay open for weeks/months, job absorption is very common, and people are afraid to say no . . . it is important to always be comparing perceptions.
Gallup’s #1 question for engagement – I know what is expected of me at work. Be relentless in sharing/talking about this. It will make a difference for leaders, followers, and teams.
Some of the answers might also make you smile.
trU Tips 17+ – Three comments that drove me to write it
Yesterday I published volume 17 of trU Tips - this is a follow-up post. (I introduced a tool called the Talent Calendar)
The source of my trU Tips is usually something that has been planted in my brain or belly that just bothers me. This months trU Tips came from three comments that are etched into my memory:
- “I can’t afford leadership development” (from a CEO)
- “I tell my people when they start – I am busy so you will not see me much. If you need me let me know.”
- “Should I ask my boss for an evaluation? I don’t want to get in trouble, but I would like to know how I am doing.” (from a senior leader after SIX months of thinking about it – and they were identified as a high potential by their organization)
In my almost 3 years of consulting I have worked in a half dozen different industries and companies from 20 to 80,000 employees. I get called to help leaders prepare for and manage high growth/change, and when something is broken (team, individual performance, organizational structure). In the latter my role is to help get things back on track. In both situations I use the same tools: personal perspective (what I call trUYou™) and conversation. The outcomes we work towards are at the heart of this calendar and captured in what I call trUPerformance™. I am convinced(and have seen it work over and over again) that if a leader committed to the 10 hour outlined in this calendar many of the issues I see(and they feel) around individuals and teams go away. Can they spend more time – Yes! Is there a lean calendar coming? No.
It is as simple as this calendar, and at the same time it is not easy. Within the conversations will be disagreements, mis-communication, minds that are distracted to bigger problems, feelings of mistrust, and a host of other barriers. I am an optimist, and figure that if I can get two people to quiet the world for 30 minutes/once a month, then the barriers will be overcome.
Are there any of these barriers that you see most often? What has been effective in working through them?