Tag: awareness of self

By Scott

Leadership Rounding – A great example of how leading leaders is different

Going from a Director to a Vice President is a big jump – because all of the sudden how you lead becomes different.  It is often hard to explain this to people, but at some point they feel it through critcism for Never being around, and in their frustration they say something like I was just there last week or maybe even You never invite me!

I have blogged often about followership – which is knowing the priorities/challenges of your own leader and being purposeful about meeting those as you communicate and work towards meeting your own needs/priorities.  Here is a video from Quint Studer (The Studer Group) that talks about leadership rounding in healthcare.  Most of you are not in healthcare, but it is a great example of a message that needs to be heard by the executive and the leaders that report to them.  It does an amazing job of laying out the fears/frustrations of an executive and how some simple moves by front line leaders can help maximize the impact of a visit from a senior leader and help your own people connect with them in a way that will have lasting impact on your own team.

Check it out – and schedule a viewing with some leaders.  It is a great investment of 28 minutes.  Talent management is about having great conversations – this will start a great conversation.

By Scott

Tracking My Happiness – Final Report

Several posts ago I gave an initial update on my commitment to join a happiness survey that was discussed in a recent Harvard Business Review article.  Here it the link to that post.

I have completed it after 50 entries and 17 days.  Here is what the data says:

  • Top activities for happiness:  restaurants, exercising, being with customers, vacation, parties.
  • Bottom activities for happiness: balancing checkbook, meetings, taking care of children, working alone, watching television.
  • I am 2x as happy on Saturdays vs Sunday.
  • Thursday is my top day of the week – 25% higher than Friday. (today is Thursday – so I am happy about that)
  • I am 4x happier doing activities I don’t have to do but want to do vs doing things I don’t want to do but have to do.
  • There is a direct correlation for me between high focus and high happiness.
  • There is a direct correlation for me between happiness and productivity.

Many things make me smile when I review these results – mainly because they tell a story.  For example, as a parent much of my attention (and this is MY choice) in the last 3 weeks hast focused on homework, transportation, and getting children to bed and up in the morning.  My takeaway – I need to work on my attitude – and create some fun moments for us (good timing – spring break is next week).  I can only imagine what their happiness report would say about me. 🙂  I am okay with not liking the checkbook, meetings, and working alone.  I also think I need a bigger television. 🙂

I mentioned in my first post that this would be a great activity for any company to do with high potentials or leaders.  For smaller companies it is nice because it is free (it works with straight email, but requires an iPhone for easy data collection when walking around).  I still think it is best done by groups of 3 people, and then having a general report out to the whole group.

Talent management is based on self awareness that feeds into a great conversation.  This activity has the potential to provide for both.

I will post next week on how our talent management processes (one on ones, performance conversations, etc.) actually create some of these reflective/conversation moments if done well.

If you tried this, what was your experience?  What questions would you ask me after seeing some of my results?  Here is your chance to coach me.

By Scott

Time – What does your graph look like?

When I saw the graph above(from a Seth Godin blog – here is the link) I immediately thought about my business.  How do I spend my time?  Which pieces should I spend more time on?

Several years ago I created a leadership development program to help prepare leaders to launch sales offices in other states.  As part of the program, each leader was to receive a 360 evaluation nine months after the launch.  I did this mainly because I had a feeling that bad habits were going to develop during launch because there was so much to do and resources were scarce.  When the first 360 came back – what was the message?  Time.  Spending too much on little things and not enough focused on big things (growing sales, etc.).  Even great leaders get sucked into the little things.

Are you always out of time?  Try this – spend 2-3 days tracking your time, then spend 15 minutes reviewing your results by answering three questions:

  1. What are the priorities for our business / my team?
  2. How much time am I spending on those priorities?
  3. What one change could I make to become more focused on those priorities?

Our time is something WE all control.

What are some things you have done in the past to take control of your time?

By Scott

Introversion (TED video) and trUYou

At the most recent TED conference in California there was a great presentation about introversion by Susan Cain, who recently published a book on the topic.  It has been watched 1 million+ times already and is a good message.  The title is The Power of Introverts.

I preach talent management as being a conversation, and I like this video because understanding our tendency to think more vs talk is important.  Having a conversation means two people showing up and talking/listening in equal parts.  Susan also makes the distinction that introverts can do public speaking (after all, she is presenting), but it is an activity that taps her energy stores, not fills them.  Her power is in thinking problems through by listening to others share their expertise, researching, and drawing on her own experience.  A great gift for a team, but often hard to tap into.

Here is my add-on to the video:

  • For Introverts – Speak up.  The world, your company, the planning for your neighborhood party will go on without you because you are surrounded by people that have a more natural style to talk and influence.  It is not easy, but with the world moving faster, you are at risk of being marginalized more now than 10 years ago because your leaders/peers have more noise in their lives.  Whispers do not cut it anymore – and a tweet, text, or email is too often just a whisper.
  • For leaders of introverts – How hard have you tried to listen?  To set them(introverts) up to be successful?  At any point in team discussions do you stop the free for all and just go around the room and give everyone 45 seconds of input?  Do you meet one on one with everyone regularly so listening is a habit?  Does your challenge (speak up) come with encouragement and purposeful moves to help them step out?

This is not the only thing a person needs to know about themselves, but it is a good start because how we communicate (or not) is one big measure the world will use to measure us.  Here is a link to a tool I use called my trUYou model. It is a guide for what we need to know about us.  Introversion/extroversion is one piece to us, but it is pretty important.

Want to know how introverted or extroverted you are?  Try this free Jung Typology Test (basically the same as the Myers-Briggs).

By Scott

Tracking Our Happiness – My experience + an exercise for leaders

So I am at Day 4 of measuring my happiness as I participate in the Happiness Research project of Matthew Killingsworth (my last post referenced his article in the Jan/Feb 2012 Harvard Business Review – which I will call HBR from this point on).  One of my blog readers followed suit and shared that the 3x a day reminders were making him angry – which made me smile, so the study is working for me.  I am guessing we will balance each other out in the research. 🙂

Here is what I have noticed:

  • The goal is not about being happy all the time, that is impossible.
  • When I stop to think about it, it makes a difference on how I feel.
  • I get annoyed by the emails – then I remember I asked to be part of it, so I laugh at myself and do it.

This might be a fun experience with a group of managers.

First: Present the opportunity to a group of people and ask for 3 volunteers to participate and own reporting back (sorry, they must have iphones).

Second: It is about a 15 day study, so (as the organizer) email them every 3 days and ask them to send you a quick email (1-2 minutes) answering the question “What a-ha moments have you had in the last three days being part of this study and watching your happiness?”

Third: Set aside an hour with the whole group to process the topic.  As preparation, ask the group to read the article The Science Behind the Smile from HBR Jan/Feb 2012.  For the three volunteers – ask specific questions about what were some of the things that impacted them from the outside (what they were doing? other people? events?) and how what they were doing had an impact?  The agenda might look like this:

1.  Share what you learned (3 peopole) – 15 minutes

2. Brainstorm / Discussion:  What we do as individuals to achieve more happiness today?  Draw a line and ask what we learned that we could/should do more of to increase happiness?  What jumps out at me when I look at this list? (go around the room)? – 15 minutes

3.  Brainstorm / Discussion:  What do we do as leaders do to increase the happiness in our workplace today?  What are some things we could do?  What jumps out at me when I look at this list (go around the room) – 15 minutes

4.  Wrap-up:  What is one thing I am going to do differently for myself or my team? Be specific, and partner people up as partners for success – 15 minutes

FYI – Remember talent management is about conversations, not training.  Leaders getting together to share observations/experiences, make little changes on how they manage themselves/others, and partnering to support each other is like training – but better, and less expensive. 🙂

 

By Scott

Assessments for Individuals – How they stack up

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. 

All assessments are not created equal.  Here is a document I published that summarizes my opinion of nine assessment tools that I have used or taken in my career.  Most of the big ones are covered, and I have excluded 360 tools because that is a whole different topic.  The right tool for your depends on what you want to accomplish,  your budget, and several other factors. 

Here is a summary of some of my recommendations.

Leadership Transitions?  The tool I use in my practice is the Birkman Method.  It’s unique approach for measuring differentiating between usual behaviors and needs is unique, and the stress behaviors that it identifies when needs are not met.  It is a very powerful tool for transitions and also can easily be used for performance issues and career coaching.  It is the best that I have found, but probably more important is the process involved in assessing risks and priorities.  I have recently been introduced to an onboarding assessment that looks more at organizational factors vs personal style that is very powerful.  More to come on this. . .

Team Development? I use Birkman, and as a result it is the tool that I would use with clients.  The tool that I really like in this area is the Kolbe because of how it summarizes energy for a team and presents it back.  There are many drawbacks to using the Kolbe that I highlight in my matrix, but it creates a great conversation within a team.

Fun Team Development/Team Building?  I have used StrengthsFinder with over 400 people and over a dozen teams.  It is inexpensive and can offer insight into a variety of career or job related questions.  For the money, I would recommend it or DiSC® because of the cost and ease of access to experts if there was a desire to use it across an organization.

Any opinions?  I would welcome them and sharing of tools that I might have overlooked.  trU Tips 18 will be out tomorrow focused on this issue.  Sign up here if you would like to hear more.

By Scott

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?

By Scott

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.trUYou: our model for developing self-awareness

  1. What do I know about me?  (here is a link to my model for this – trUYou™)
  2. How do my talents, skills, experience and needs match my role and the roles I am looking at?
  3. Can I work for the person leading this group?  How do I feel about the list of tasks I am being asked to ship?
  4. 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.

By Scott

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?”

By Scott

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.