Category: Leadership Transitions

By Scott

Leadership Journey – Strengths to overused Strengths

They were a year into their first leadership role and the feedback was You do not care.  How could that be – because I do! was the defense.  The proof to the contrary was two valuable people leaving the organization and the final expert doing everything they could to help the leader fail.

A universal truth of most people that write about competencies or personality profiles is the simple fact that if we have a strength (example:  getting work done) and if that strength is overused, it becomes a weakness (example:  so task focused that people do not care).  This is and should be one of the number one focuses of developing leaders, and if you look at a leadership program that is laced with classroom time and lite on self awareness/feedback – run.

If you need a second opinion and are not afraid of a 200+ page business book, read Flip Side by Flip Flippen. The Flip Side: Break Free of the Behaviors That Hold You Back

If you are a coach, and you want this conversation in the voice of a coach – read What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

If I had you at hello with this conversation and you want to jump in and try to avoid the mistake again, here is a simple way to start that conversation and get to an action plan:

  1. What are the reasons you got this leadership role? (list as many as you would like, pick the top 3)  *as their leader, feel free to correct their list after they have created it.
  2. How are these reasons (actually they are strengths) going to help you in this leadership role?
  3. How are these same reasons going to get in the way of your success?  What actions do you need to take to be successful and how can I best support you in this transition? (fyi . . if they don’t ask for help, so at a minimum meet with them weekly for the first 3 months)

The other solution is to speed past this conversation, let the situation play itself out, and try and fix it later.

fyi – Michael Watkins found that 40% of outside leaders hired into an organization fail in the first 18 months.  Brad Smart contends that a bad leadership hire takes 18 months to fire and the cost is 14.6x their base compensation.

Hmmm . . . .

By Scott

Listen: If you hear any of these 3 things you/we have a problem

Leading people is hard.  It is even harder when leaders are in a mode of talking more than they listen.  When you lead knowledge workers, remember that when you are doing most of the talking their brain is focused on processing what you tell them and reacting to it versus using their own brain to think what they want to do and what questions they need to have answered.

I always promote more conversations – which means two people in direct contact with each other sharing the burden of talking and listening.

As I coach leaders and teams through the transition of having more purposeful conversations, here are things I hear that alert me that someone is not being honest or they are stuck in a place that will keep great conversations for ever happening unless they make a choice to move forward.

  1. It is someone else’s fault: It might be, and if we are talking about what help you need to get to a different level of performance, identify a target job for yourself, or maybe to find more joy/commitment in your work . . . . does it really matter whose fault it is?  If this becomes the primary focus there is a problem.  If accountability is the ultimate goal, then making fixing the problem the priority will make it easier to have the conversation of – What can we do to make sure this never happens again?
  2. I cannot do ANYTHING until you do your job: Really? I used to do a junior achievement activity around production. Each person had a job to do in assembling an item, and there was always one person who could not work fast enough.  Sometimes, people just stood and watched the person struggle.  In other groups, the people around this individual helped out so that the bottleneck went away.  If you choose to watch or chose to say no to any offers of help, then you are really the problem.
  3. I am too busy to have this conversation: Okay, if you are too busy now when would be a good time? This is a flag for me that something else is going on. Imagine not wanting to have a discussion about what we can do to make your job better, to improve the support I provide you as your leader, or to make career plans for you?  Too busy? Hmmm . . . .

It is messy to start the habit of more conversations with your people.  If you are a leader that has not made a habit of slowing down to listen to what your people need, it will be a hard change.  If people are used to you telling them what to do and not listening to their ideas, or not always explaining your decisions, then it will be hard for them to make the shift to owning things that are hard – like offering their own ideas and fixing their own mistakes.

If you work for someone trying to make a shift in their leadership style and you give one of these responses, then you are effectively saying “I do not support the change you are trying to make and I would like to work towards you staying the same”.  Really?

If you are a leader trying to improve the conversations you have with your people, here are some templates that might help you get started.

 

By Scott

Make Good Decisions Dad

As I was preparing for a board meeting my 9 year old daughter asked me what I was doing.  She had just told me about her first student council meeting, so I told her about my meeting and that we were going to be approving a budget for the year.  She thought for a second and said in a very matter of fact tone, “Make good decisions Dad.”

Sometimes we forget the basics, and if we are listening there are reminders all around us about what those are.  We just need to stop, listen, understand, and reset our perspective.

Here was my reset based on the wisdom that she shared with me:

  • Goal of a leader:  Make sure the best decisions get made more than not.
  • Development goal #1 of a leader:  Continue to learn and grow so the definition of best for yourself and your team is always being redefined in a positive direction.
  • Development goal #2 for a leader:  Challenge your team to embrace the same goal.

Maybe a good goal today is lead with the eyes and heart of a 9 year old.

 

By Scott

Performance plan = Coaching? 2 Arguments for NO

This leader has been underperforming and we have put a plan together to guide their efforts to climb back to a level of performance that will allow him/her to stay.

Have you ever been part of this conversation?  Every been the individual talked about in this conversation?

Personally, I can answer yes to both of the above questions.  Drawing on that experience, I have learned to ask two questions when I enter as the coach/consultant:

  1. Why do you want to keep them?
  2. How bad do you want to keep them?

I ask these questions mainly to listen for words of duty or passion.  To help a leader get back to a better place takes hard work.  To have that resolve, passion always trumps duty.  Duty to try because it is the ‘right thing to do’ will fail.  If the real passion of the leader is to look compassionate, then duty is the driver. Passion for helping this individual find success somewhere in the organization because the organization/team needs them results in a different level of resolve.  It is that resolve that comes through in the difficult conversations, and people will feel that.

I also log what I hear because it will need to be shared with the individual on the plan.  They may not believe it, which is their choice, but they at least need to hear it.  Too often these positive/supportive comments are the first they have heard in a while.

Now to the point of this whole post – Should coaching and performance plan be used in the same sentence? My advice is No, and here are two reasons.

1. Coaching should be a reward: Everyone is watching AND listening. By using the word coach people are now making the connection between I am in trouble and Coaching.  The reality of performance plans is most result in either the person being let go or them leaving for another job.  It is the right thing to give them a chance, both for the individual and for the culture of the organization – just call any effort to help or hire help what it is – performance consultant, advisor, or management.  Connecting Coaching with Reward will get you a greater return on your investment.

2.  It is really more telling than coaching: Coaching is about helping the individual craft a desired future and then working with them to move towards it.  Once a performance plan happens the panic button has been hit and the goal of the of individual is survival – whether that is leaving or doing whatever is on the list.  In this state, people need direction, will likely agree to anything, and will hide the most important information – which is how they are feeling.  Trust and truth is hard to share after the panic button is hit, and any talent management process without these is painful.

Talent management is about great conversations that lead to a higher level of performance.  Coaching can be a great tool for helping achieve this end, and the term should be reserved for people/situations where moving past good to excellent is the performance goal.

What is your experience?

By Scott

Rule 2 – Individual (not leader) owns the agenda

(This is the second blog in a series outlining the key rules for making one on ones work.  Here is a link to the first:  Rule 1 – Be in the same room together)

I stood in front of a group of human resource professionals and asked them Whats the #1 reason leaders would resist a regular one on one schedule? Their answer – Time.  It is a reality that another commitment, especially one that takes preparation, is going to be an issue.  This is one of the key reasons that Rule #2 exists.  While this time together requires presence from the leader, it requires only minimal preparation because the agenda is 100% driven by the individual.  Here are two reasons why.

First, the number one need for people at work is knowing what is expected of them. Gallup created a twelve question survey they could use to assess employee engagement at work.  They called it the Q12, and the very first and most important question was I know what is expected of me at work. Each day, new problems or opportunities arise in a business, and with each comes an event that could change the nature of the work that someone has to do. The key to a one on one is doing the five R’s around work duties:  refine, revise, reorder, reinforce, or remove.  Since it is a fundamental need for every person to have some level of focus in their work, they will have the strongest desire to own any activity that helps them achieve that.  The one on one is that activity.

Secondly, it addresses one of the top issues with any leader, the ability to effectively delegate work. The #2 best-selling Harvard Business Review article of all time is Management Time:  Who’s Got the Monkey? Leaders have long struggled with taking on too much work from their people.  The inherent question from the leader in the one on one conversation is –What do you need from me? There are four basic needs a leader has to be ready to address.  The need for . . .

  • A listening year
  • Encouragement to overcome a frustration
  • Coaching to see/define other options for getting through a barrier
  • Help prioritizing/re-framing an overbooked to do list

Notice your work is not on the list.  There will likely be some commitments for a leader after a one on one, but most should revolve around working with other leaders to deal with competing organizational priorities.  There is a natural need for leaders to take on the work of their people (for that perspective read the article).  The one on one all about helping the individual achieve a state of 3 Mores/1 less:  MORE focused, MORE autonomous, MORE  successful, and LESS stressed.  In that state, everybody wins, especially the leader.

More to come on one on ones.  If you are interested, here is a sample template for getting started.

By Scott

Everyone needs a Target. Everyone!

Great leaders paint their own destiny

Great leaders live/lead through ambiguity

All of these statement are true, and yet in the details of all of these statements is work.  Inherent in this work is the simple question of What is the work?

One of the core beliefs I have is that everyone needs a target. The details will vary based on the individual, their drive, experiences, self-confidence, etc.   That data that supports this is Gallup’s Q12 and the most critical question to measure employee engagement – I know what’s expected of me at work. There is no exception in the research saying This does not apply to executives.

Yesterday I saw some great training that a start-up organization had put together to help their new leaders understand the culture and expectations they were stepping into – and see the target.  I know it will make a difference as they grow, especially if their leaders provide the conversations to support the learning and build the bridge to performance.  This is the hidden ingredient to clear expectations – an ongoing conversation about wins, losses, and just being lost. This is called leadership.

When I sit down with leaders to create the one on one sheet, I am amazed at the conversation that often ensues.  Sometimes it is laced with frustration, but more often it is about relief because expectations are clear.

Everyone needs a target.  Everyone.

 

By Scott

Can the CEO Coach? 2 Myths that get in the way

I learned by diving in – Why can’t they?

This statement was not meant to be mean or pass the buck, it was born from the frustration of seeing senior level leaders not rising to the occassion after being given significantly more responsibility.  I see it happen too often.  It is a painful scenario, and it is one that can be avoided.

When the focus is put on answering the question – How did we get here?, the root cause ends up being some attitudes/assumptions that started the motion down the wrong path.  Here are the top two:

Myth #1 – I did it all on my own, why can’t they. Really?  As a parent, many times a day the thought creeps into my head “When I was little I had the same challenge, and I just figured it out .”  Nobody ascends on their own.  Whether its a spouse, mentor, friend, or some other significant person – someone stepped in hand helped you through rough spots.  Solution: Commit 30 minutes a week to review goals, review progress, and answer questions (called a one on one)  Here is a link to a template if you need one.

Myth #2 – It is okay to lose some of  my money while they learn.  Why do they not feel safe? Have you ever had the angst of telling your parents that you had an accident with their car?  It was one of those conversations that teens through the ages have crafted countless schemes to avoid.  We grow up, get a job, and all of the sudden we make a mistake that costs our organization thousands of dollars, and it is like we were a teenager again.  Solution: Make it okay to make a mistake, provided you own it and have a plan to fix it.

When people become leaders of leaders, they realize how difficult it is to work through others to get results, and sometimes the default is to either leave them alone to figure it out, or step into their lives and help manage the details.  Ken Blanchard called this Seagull Management.  Fly in, dump, then leave.

Find an answer somewhere in the middle.  Don’t be a Seagull.

By Scott

What is your learning BRAND?

There are two questions I love to ask people to get a sense for how they learn.

1. Where do you get your learning?

2. What is your favorite TED video?

These two questions help me understand their brand as a learner.  It helps me see how the trends in information flow and the tools that have emerged to create communities around topics have been absorbed into their lives.  For example, if I hear the standard – I am a reader, then I know they prepared for the interview, but question if they are prepared to help my business hit our 2020 goals.   If I hear the talk about a website I have never heard of, discuss what they learned on LinkedIn last week, or try to convince me to drop Business Week in favor of Inc or Wired, then I know I have someone that is hungry and resourceful.

So why TED? Over the past 12 months I have been blessed to be part of a program called Shifting Gears in Michigan, and it has exposed me to individuals in transition that have 15-20+ years of work experience.  When I ask the question, who watches TED videos, <25% of hands go up.  TED is free, it is thought provoking, and it is mostly normal people sharing amazing passion/knowledge for a topic.   It is also not new, and if you are not familiar with it or not plugged into it I will venture a guess that you are not a real active, self-driven learner.  It makes me smile to think of the Shifting Gears participants who begin to own their learning.  Your learning Brand is not about age, it is about attitude and energy.

Elliott Masie, a learning futurist, is having his annual conference this fall and will be talking about how learners want things customized just for them.  He is right (by the way – the answer is called Google or LinkedIn Groups and it is not in the future).  The good news for small businesses is that if you have Google and spend time with your people talking about what they need to learn or what they have learned and used at their job (fyi – development plan) – then customized learning can be mostly free.

Ask the questions.  Listen well to the answers.  For job seekers, work to make your answers compelling and authentic.  Help me get excited about your learning Brand.

By Scott

3 Things To Give Development Plans Momentum

As I work with organizations and leaders to create development plans, the challenge every time is How do I measure this? We all know that what is measured gets done AND some outcomes are difficult to measure.

Here are three things I preach to help create momentum for the process:

  1. It does not have to be perfect: When we invoke the success or failure mantra, we too often forget about the journey.  I offer my mantra:  Start somewhere / Keep improving / Move towards a desired outcome.  My mantra would make a terrible bumper sticker, but good ideas do not have to all fit on a bumper sticker.
  2. Use a business measure: I encourage leaders to use a number being produced today, mainly because most businesses do not need more metrics and most development goals should be tied to a business outcome.  It also helps leaders see the gaps they might have in planning and reporting.  If a goal is to increase sales in a region, and that number does not exist – then start there.
  3. When in doubt – start with measuring activities: It is okay to start with a quantitative or activity measure, so long as you are certain that activity, done regularly, will move you towards your desired outcome.  Here is an example.  One area many leaders struggle with is being seen as caring and respectful by their teams.  This is impossible to measure, but one activity that has been proven to impact this is focused one on one time with each person. Set a key measure of 30 minutes of one on one time with each person per month.  If you do this religiously for 12 months – it will make an impact.  At the end of 12 months – ask the next question:  What activity or input would help me gauge the quality of this time?

I have shared several resources for people to use that will help get them started, one being a development plan and the other being a talent calendar.  Here is the page containing all of these resources.

The last thing that has helped over 150 leaders evaluate where they are today is the Talent Scorecard.  Here is a link, it is free, and it will help at least measure your key habits around talent management and set goals that will impact your people AND your business.

 

By Scott

How to get feedback as a leader? 5 Steps to get more of it.

The leader looked at me after an hour of talking through their development plan and asked one last question – “How do I get feedback from my people about how I am doing?”

I pondered some options for a few moments and then delivered the answer – ASK.

It is not that simple, and it is that simple.  Talent management is about great conversations.  Within a great conversation are some key questions and the ability to listen to the answer.  What made it simpler for this leader is their demonstrated commitment to weekly one one one time with each leader on their team.

Here are the 5 steps to having a good ASK: (if you do not have regular one on one time with each leader individually – make that a priority – here is a template)

  1. At the end of each one on one ask the question “What can I be doing more of / less of to make your life easier / make your team more productive / etc.?”
  2. Next time you have a team meeting with your group, share with them – I want more feedback from you as a team on how I am doing/being perceived as a leader, which is one reason that you are asking the question.  So if there is something you all want me to hear, feel free to collaborate and all give me the same answer – I promise to listen. (smile) I also ask for patience because change takes time (21 days to a new habit) and I may need some help.
  3. Listen – for 3-6 months.  It might take them that long for them to get comfortable answering the question.
  4. Always – say thank you.  Never – give an instant excuse.  Always – commit to an action plan (even if it is just self observation on your part and commitment to talk about it at the next one on one).
  5. Keep track of their answers over time, and make a habit out of looking at the list occassionally to see which answers keep popping up, which ones have disappeared, and how ‘risky’ the criticism is.  Risky answers are things that hurt a little, which means that your people are trusting you more and more.

Feedback is hard to give and to get, and by making a practice of asking, listening, and acting – momentum towards the right outcome will happen.