Tag: development

By Scott

Rule 3 – NEVER cancel without rescheduling

Enough said?  You can stop here if you get it.  If you need more convincing here are 451 more words to get some clarity.

In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey said We judge ourselves based on our intentions.  We judge others based on their actions. Never is that statement more true than in the relationship between a leader and follower.  Do any of these examples ring true?

1.  A leader cancels a one on one because of a customer issue.  Does not reschedule it because he/she just talked to the person as they walked around the office yesterday.

Leader intention:  Customer is critical and everything stops when they call.  Plus we just talked yesterday and you know I care about you.

Leader action (as interpreted by follower):  Here we go again.  Your issues always trump mine and this issue could have been handled by the field service team with just a little support from us.  This is the 6th time this has happened in the last 8.5678 months (slight exaggeration on the number – but do not be surprised at the human mind to keep a key measure like this).

2.  A leader has the one on one and interrupts the conversation three times because of calls from home.

Leader intention:  Apology issued before each call, and since it was his wife on all three occasions and it was an emergency it was okay because family comes first.  Family is a core value of our organization.  (Emergency = at the mechanic with their new Audi A8 and the repairs were not going well)

Leader action (as interpreted by follower):  Would it be okay if I did this?  His/her spouse is a great person, but can’t this wait 20 minutes?  Isn’t this my time?  I will just cut my time/agenda short and let them deal with their issues.  Afterthought – A8?  I wonder why my evaluation/increase is six months overdue?

3.  Leader leads the time with two things that went wrong last week and they want to know what happened and why.

Leader intention:  Accountability.  If we cannot have the hard conversations then I am not doing my job.

Leader action (as interpreted by follower):  What a jelly fish.  There have been four days to talk about these things since they happened, plus I owned them and fixed them.  What about the bad decision he/she made yesterday that kept me here until 8pm to fix?  Can there be accountability there?

Being a leader is tough.  It is tougher when priorities are not clear and the tyranny of the urgent rules over the one on one time.  Never break this rule – and if you do point back to the last date/time/location/reason that it happened so they know you are keeping score too. 🙂

Talent management is about great conversations.  Follow these three rules for one on ones and you can have some great conversations.

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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

Rule 1 – Be in the same room together

According to a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, children 8-18 spend 7.5 hours per day using entertainment media, 4 minutes playing outside, and 3.5 minutes per day in meaningful conversation with their parents. Hmmm . . . .

I toured a company called Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor last month and was shocked to find a technology company that did not use email to communicate.  All project management was done with post-its on the wall and communication happened face to face.  When someone needed to address the group they called out the name of the team, everyone stopped their work, and communication happened.  The business has experienced solid growth and the they have enabled several product launches that prove their methods are effective.  By the way, this is also a place where all coding is done in pairs – two people sitting next to each other and working together.  You cannot work alone on anything.

In a world where everything seems to be going faster, maintaining the right pace in how we interact is still important.

Great leadership starts with purposeful facetime with people.

Step 1 – Be physically present with the people you lead.

Yes, that is impossible for people leading virtual teams.  So to you I ask – What would that presence look like for you?  How close can you come to ‘physical’ presence?

After 20 years working on corporate teams, being married, and being a parent I am passionate about enabling one single thing – great conversations. When I created this template, I thought of a meaningful 30 minutes together between a leader and follower.  If we spend 30 minutes, one on one, every two weeks with each of our people, that works out to  a guaranteed 15 minutes of purposeful conversation per week with each person, or 3 minutes a day.

Hmmm . . . still only 3 minutes a day.  Too much . . . Really?

Watch yourself this week – How is the quality conversation time looking for you?

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

It must be the shoes – Yes and No, but mostly No

First it was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, wearing the ruby red shoes.  Then Michael Jordan did a whole ad campaign that immortalized the line It must be the shoes!

Yesterday, I received my own set of special shoes – Chuck Taylor Superman Shoes.  They were a gift from a group of people in the Shifting Gears Program where we spent over 100 hours together on a career transition journey.  I was part of a great team of people that facilitated the journey, but these 21 individuals did the work.  The shoes became a symbol that we needed to remember what strengths and talent are inside of each of us.  I love the shoes.

Performance can be attributed to a lot of things, but in the end it is about confidence and commitment to learn/grow through the peaks and the dips.  It is also about being in community with people, giving to that community, and leveraging the the strength of that community to celebrate the peaks and to climb out of the dips.  For 21 people in the Shifting Gears program, it was about coming together on 13 different days, spending 80+ hours working at a real company on a real business need, spending another 100+ hours networking/rebuilding a resume/mock interviewing and other work to move towards a preferred future.

One individual shared the story – I went back to a familiar place (my old company), but as I entered I could feel that it had stayed the same and I was a different person.

Is it the shoes?  No, it is what is inside of us that we need to see AND to unleash on something that we are passionate about.

But I do love the shoes. 🙂

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

Questions to help the work get done (and the team to be built)

Seth Godin had a recent post titled Two questions behind every diagreement.  In it he shares two questions that will help move through/solve every disagreement:

  • Are we on the same team?
  • What’s the right path forward?

By definition, you cannot have a team without common goals and group decision making power, and getting there requires conflict.  These are two great questions, but let me add a few more to help you apply this in your own team and move things forward:

1. Are we on the same team? –> What is the issue?  What is the outcome we want?

2. What’s the right path forward? –> What are three steps that will move us ahead?  What 1 step will I own?  What 1 step will you own?  What 1 step will we BOTH own?  (remember 1 + 1 + 1 = 3)

If you cannot answer/agree on #1 don’t skip/move ahead to #2.  The key to #1 is addressing the issue and not the person – ie.  If the issue is someone or what someone else needs to do to make my life easier, then the whole discussion is about winning and not solving a problem.  That means you are the problem –> so step back, take a deep breath, apologize, and step back into the discussion with a different mindset.

If you get to #2, the best way to build teamwork is to own work together.  If a solution takes 20 steps and 3 months, focus on the next 3 and 48-72 hours.  Progress/success builds relationships between people and teams are created along the way.  I can hear the complaints now – – But this is a very complex problem and 3 steps is too small. My next question:  Is the issue that the problem is too complex or We are not agreeing on/owning a solution as a team?  In either case – either start moving forward or punt the problem to another team.

fyi – If anyone on the team has a goal to sit back and let someone else fail so they can either:  a) Ride in and save the day or b) Play the I told you so card – – – they should be given one chance to hit the reset button, and then removed from the team.

Thanks for planting the seed Seth.

By Scott

What do I do?

What are the top 5-7 responsibilities in my job?  The things that if I do them well will have the greatest impact on my success and the success of my team?

Can you answer this question?  This is the first question asked in the One on One form that I use with clients because it does one of two things:  1) Prioritizes a job description to a few key items that help define success in a role  2)  Creates a meaningful job description for someone that has never had one.

Ken Blanchard defines leaders as an influence process.  It is about working with people to accomplish their goals and the goals of the organization. The cornerstone of leadership is in the conversation around: What are you doing?  What should you be doing?  What can I do to help? If that conversation happens repeatedly over a 3-6 month timeframe things will get done if everyone involved makes a habit out of following through on their commitments.

Finally, here are three hints that will help guide you through this part of the job description:

  1. Don’t be too general. For example, when someone says Lead my team, it is too general.  At worst, I would plug in the Blanchard definition of leadership and make the measurement the simple activity of sitting down with each team member twice a month.
  2. Summarize repeated items. If there are 1o projects listed, that means managing projects is a core job requirement and the measure would be delivery, quality, cost, and customer satisfaction.
  3. Ask for input. Leaders, peers, customers will all have an opinion on this.  Ask them and use the input to create and clarify your list.

A study was done by the Ken Blanchard Companies and Training Magazine to define what were key motivating factors at work and who owned them?  A unique part of the survey was the ability to assign ownership to Myself, My Leader, or Senior Leadership.  In the end, the one organizational factor around motivation that was assigned to My Leader(80+% ownership) was performance expectations.

Remember to ask the question and have the patience to work towards a great answer.

 

By Scott

Building a Leadership Development Program from Scratch

I was presenting at the SHRM conference in Illinois and had a chance to sit in on a presentation by Benjamin McCall.  It was a solid and thought provoking presentation, and my big takeaway was the question How would I build a leadership development program from scratch?

It reminded me how times have changed around doing things from scratch.  A personal example for me is baking.  I grew up thinking everything – pie crusts, cakes, and even muffins were only made from scratch.  While I love to make bread, cinamon roles, and even pancakes from scratch, most of the time it is much easier to get it from a box or a store.  I started my leadership development career thinking the stuff from the box was what needed to happen.  If the name Ken Blanchard, Center for Creative Leadership, Executive MBA, University of Michigan, or Harvard was on the label then it was great.

Then I went to a small company and was asked to build one from scratch, for one person, and with a limited budget.  The other condition was that it had to work because our business growth strategy was depending on the leaders from this program to open the offices in our plan.

What I learned is that there are some core benefits that all participants in these programs takeaway, and it has very little to do with content.  I also learned that the two core benefits, self-awareness and peer communities could be provided even if it is a small company.  trU Tips 21 is coming out next week and I will provide an outline of how I would answer this question.

I still stop when I hear the words Center for Creative Leadership or Ross School of Business or Harvard, but I know now that anyone can make something  really good from scratch.

Finally – the key currency to support this being done well and on your own – time from you and the rest of the leadership team.  That is the magic ingredient.  More to come in trU Tips 21 . . . . . .

 

By Scott

What if We Called It Your Individual Development Story?

ACCOUNTABILITY. FOLLOW-THRU.

When we think of anything with the word PLAN in it, do these words quickly follow in your mind?

What if we called it something different?  For example, instead of your Individual Development Plan, what if we called it your Individual Development Story?Talent Management - Writing your story

If you think of it as a story, it would have a main character – You – in all your strengths, experiences, successes, weaknesses,  and moments of non-performance.

It would have . . .

. . . history that helps you frame your character with terms like talents, passions, rewards, and realities. (what I call your trUYou)

. . . a current story about where you are today and what might be changing for you.  It would also have some preferred future that gives us a sense of where the story might be going.

. . . ownership. It is our story and although we need to ask others for help, in the end it is ours to write and to tell.

. . . portability. Sometimes our story needs to go somewhere else to move ahead – another role, another project, and maybe another organization.

. . . help.  If we know you and understand where you desire to go, then we could choose to enter your story and join you on the journey as a mentor, a friend, a partner in accountability, or maybe even a fellow learner that desires the same journey.

If we know our journey will be challenging journey, then maybe we hire a coach.  They would help us step back and see things differently, or rewrite the journey so that the story takes us to some different places and outcomes that we might not see by ourselves.

I am thinking of renaming my template as I prepare to share it with the human resource professionals at the Illinois SHRM Conference next week.  Too many people do not have them based on the Talent Scorecards I have given leaders and too many I have seen lack the pieces that tell a great story.

I would like my story to say that I worked, with others, to change that.

It feels like a great conversation.  I love great conversations.