keynote speaking | The trU Group

20JunMarch 23, 2016

Development Tips: Communication that Creates Momentum

This week I will be publishing a review of the book Great on the Job by Jodi Glickman. One request I get often is for ideas for helping develop the skills/capabilities of people. This book provides an opportunity for some great conversations around communication and initiative.

Here are 4 ways Great on the Job could be used as a development tool for people on your team. Each is a 30-60 minute conversation, that could go longer depending on how much actual skill practice you do. Always ask for a commitment to use it on the job and plan a time to debrief/share at the next team meeting.

1. Calling people they do not know: Sounds simple, but in the world of texting you will be hiring people that are used to providing sound-bits and not professional introductions. This book has a great chapter that will help people get to the point on a phone call with a busy client/customer. It is very applicable advice for friends doing a job or to build communication skills/professionalism of your team. Here is a sample outline of what learning time is with an individual/team:

Provide them with a scenario that requires them to call someone they do not know with a request.
Give them 5 minutes to craft a 30 second message they would leave.
Ask them to share their message. Do very little editing/correction.
Follow-up questions. What was the biggest challenge of this assignment? Who gave the most effective message in your opinion? Why was it so effective? (write answers on the board for comparing to GOTJ content later.
Review Chapter 1 with them in the book.
Give them 3 minutes to rewrite their introduction.
Go around the room sharing revised introductions.
Go around the room and ask for each person to make a commitment on how they will use it in the next week. Some examples – “I commit to posting this on my phone and tracking how many times I use it this week . . ” “I commit to meeting with ____ for 30 minutes and practicing it.”
Spend 10 minutes at next staff meeting reviewing commitments and learnings.

2. Interacting with Executives/Leaders: The #1 question asked at work to start conversations is – How is it going? It is a crappy question, but it happens and it does provide an opportunity for people to give a BRIEF update on one thing they are focused on. Here is an example of how this could be used with a group of high potentials or new hires:

Put people in groups of 3 and give them a scenario that you run into the CFO in the elevator and he/she asks “How is it going?” Craft a great answer. Craft a terrible answer.
Go around the room asking for both to be shared. (this should generate laughter . . . )
Debrief: What is the difference between a great answer and a poor answer? Which was easier? (write answers on a white board)
Review the GOTJ chapter for Status Update and Outstanding Answer. Give half the groups the class of doing a Status Update answer and half to do an Outstanding Answer update.
Go around and ask for both to be shared.
Assignment: Ask groups of 3 to be learning partners and test each other randomly, either face to face or during the work day until the individual provides a solid response. (ie: When your learning partner asks How is it going? – answer them as if they were the CFO.
Set 30 minutes to get back together in a week to review commitments and debrief the practice.

3. What to say when you are asked something that you do not know: Job scopes generally change before people get hired, and after they start there will be continuous creep into areas where they are not experts. The formula presented in the book is simple: Here is what I know / Here is what I do not know / Here’s how I’ll figure it out. Here is how this would fit into an onboarding session for new employees:

Day 1 with new employee, share your support for them and acknowledge that you will be asking them questions they do not know the answers to.
Share the GOTJ methodology.
Ask them a question they do not know the answer to – and have them use the GOTJ method to answer it.
Commit, as their leader, to help them by being willing to pause a conversation where they are rambling and asking each one of these questions to lead them through an answer.

4. Asking for feedback: Leave the “millennials need more feedback” excuse behind. Everyone needs to know how they are doing, and yet asking for that feedback is tricky. GOTJ offers some great advice for how to ask in such a way that it is easy for people to give you feedback. Here is how a work team could use this:

Ask everyone to read Chapter 6: Ask for Feedback. Set the expectation that you will spend 30 minutes on the topic at the next meeting.
Facilitate a discussion around feedback: How do you feel about getting feedback? How do you like to receive feedback? Share a time when you received some great feedback/poor feedback?
Focus on how it works today: What are ways you receive feedback today? What are two parts of your job that would be easy/beneficial for others to give you feedback?
Using the Chapter 6 material in GOTJ, what is one commitment you make for gather feedback this week? (What feedback will you ask for? How will you ask for it (script). Which teammate will help you? When will it be done?)
Practice your response when people give you great feedback – Thank you. 🙂
Go around the room and ask everyone to share their commitment for the week on using this material.
Set 10 minutes at the next staff meeting to revisit commitments and talk about next steps.

90% of development/learning happens outside of the classroom. Any of these activities is 30-60 minutes of focused time spent on skills that can help people of any age/experience levels. If people are just afraid or nervous to speak, one year in a Toastmasters group is still the best option, but as a leader this book can be used to empower and refine the skills of your team. The result, they will become better at communicating to each other and you – which will make your life as a leader easier.

Talent management is about great conversations. Go have one.

18JunMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

Listening – Add This 360 Habit

Recently a leader asked me a question: How can I know what my people think about how I am leading?

My response – ask. Then I filled in the blanks.

This leader had a very strong habit of weekly one on ones with their team (the 2nd question on the Talent Scorecard). Building off that habit, at the end of each conversation ask the question: What is one thing that I can do (or stop doing) that would help you the most?

First, deal with the actions associated with the answer. Secondly, write down what people share in a single place – and make it a personal habit review the list every couple of months, maybe in your own one on one with your leader. Here is an example of how this would work.

If your recent input is centered around comments like: “Give me a heads up when a leadership change is happening in another group. I have been surprised lately and received some questions from my own team that caught me off guard.” or “Let me know what you are thinking. You have seemed distracted lately and I often wonder what I can do to help.” Action plan – Need to focus/refocus on communication with your team and keeping them in the loop. Maybe add weekly phone call/stand-up on Monday am for 5-7 minutes to check-in or carve out a 3 minute update from you at your team meetings.

Talent management is about great conversations. We use 360 evaluations as a tool to help leaders get feedback from others on what they could do to be more effective. Making this one question a habit integrates the 360 process into your conversations.

08JunMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

Rethinking The Leadership Book Club – 3 Tips To Increase The Impact

I can remember two instances in the past year where peers have shared the ‘exciting’ news of how their organization was doing a book club for leadership development, and internally I was thinking it was a dumb idea. My belief was if studying a book together was leadership development then you were in trouble. I am not sure where that idea started, but it was there.

I was wrong.

More recently I interacted with several small companies and heard stories of how transformational the experience was for leaders hungry for learning and support. I was reminded how people getting in a room voluntarily because of their desire to grow is ALWAYS a good thing.

Here are 3 ideas to make sure your book club has the desired impact.

Get CEO/Senior Leader involved: Half the benefit (or more) is having different levels of the organization involved and getting to know each other.
Rotate leadership: Ask others to lead the discussion and coach/mentor where needed to help them prepare and reflect after it is done.
Focus on self-observation and action: Have people apply ideas by first watching how the they/the organization/others do certain things today. Share the observations, then focus on one or two things to go apply after the book is done. A good move is to brainstorm “How can we apply this?” and have people vote for a couple favorite ideas. CEO – leave the voting to the team.

Any other ideas? I would love to hear/share them.

Here is a link to my top shelf of books that, if my office caught on fire, I would grab and let the others burn. (fyi – this is my tribute to Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury – who died this week at 91.)

24MayMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

Process vs Solution – What does my focus say?

If relationships matter, then the process trumps the solution.

These words were spoken by Greg McCann, an expert in helping families come together and work through passing the business on to the next generation. It is brilliant, because it is simple and gives you a choice. Do you allow for time to have a process, or do you drive the perfect outcome?

Too often we focus on the outcome, and the process just becomes something we have to do to get there.

Talent management is about relationships and trust. Trust is built by focusing on the process, not necessarily the outcome. I often share with leaders that true Talent Management is like cooking with a crockpot, not a microwave. It just take time, and the end is not an exact time, but a time of day.

Outcome minded leaders like the microwave because it is exact, predictable, and efficient.

If you are a microwave person put the quote above on a post-it and put it up as a reminder for yourself.

What if – – – we worried more about getting people involved in solving the problem?
What if – – – we worried more about asking what other people think, giving them a little extra time, letting them fight a little, and accepted non-powerpoint answers that got most of the way there?
What if – – – we focused on the customer in front of us and not the 9 more we knew we had to talk with?
What if – – – we stopped filling the one on one agenda and gave that off to our people to make it THEIR time?

But, business results are critical and accountability is synonomous with goal achievement and a clear process for getting there! Enjoy your microwave . . . .

21MayMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

Leadership – Keeping it Simple

I started a session with a leadership team by asking them the first four questions on the Talent Scorecard. The results were less than impressive for questions 1, 3, and 4, but everyone nailed question #2 – I have one on ones with my people at least once a month. Their question for me was: Is this good?

My answer: Remember the perfect balance of talent management conversations is 30-30-40 (30% focus on past, 30% focus on present, 40% on the future). Regular conversations with your people makes up for lots of deficiencies. I believe the performance conversation once a year is critical to help establish goals, document/revise career plans, and help cascade organizational strategies throughout the ranks of leadership. So missing/being late is not positive, but if I was given a choice of being late for those or missing one on ones, I would rather see people struggle with timely yearly performance conversations.

No group has ever asked me that question or had those specific results. It was a great conversation and I left it feeling wiser. I hope they had the same experience. 🙂

Talent management is about great conversations, and seeing a score on the habits that create the conversations is eye opening. The great thing about critiquing ourselves is the action plan is built into the answer. If you are not doing it, then do it. Within the conversations, the improvement plan is as simple. First, share with your team member your goal of having a 30-30-40 balance in terms of focus and their ownership of the agenda -then work towards those goals. Secondly, at the end of each conversation ask – “What are you thoughts on what we can do to make this more valuable for you?” Over the course of 3-6 months it will just get better.

I will leave you with Ken Blanchard’s definition of leadership – “Leadership is an influence process. It is about working with people to accomplish their goals and the goals of the organization.” With is only possible if there is a conversation – with equal parts of listening and talking.

Wonder how your habits are promoting great talent management on your team? The scorecard is free – here is the link.

10MayMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

The Hidden(and not so hidden) Impact Of A Question

A recent WSJ article highlighted the impact on the brain of being able to talk about ourselves. Talking about ourselves (which we spend 40% of our conversations doing) triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money. It is a great article – here is the link.

Talent management is about having great conversations. Sure the processes (interview/selection, onboarding, performance, succession planning, one on ones, etc) are important, but the impact of being present in that time and having both parties open to sharing, questioning, and listening makes the biggest impact. I like this article because it provides some science behind what we know – it is healthy for us if someone is there to listen.

So what to do with this? Here are two ways to enable more listening as a leader and one as a follower:

For the leader:

Make the one on one the responsibility of the your team member. Their agenda (with imput from you) to cover what they need to and what they want to. (Here is a link to a template and calendar for this) There should be a time limit – but let them talk, and you listen.
Make a habit to get groups of employees together monthly to celebrate something (birthdays, employment anniversaries, etc.) and listen.

For the Follower:

When your leader comes around or asks “Are their any questions?”, be ready to ask. Here are two to keep around: What is one thing that has been keeping you up at night lately? What have you learned lately?

In the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam he makes the case that if someone is a smoker and a loner it will have a greater impact on their life expectancy if they kept smoking and found some friends. It is healthy to be listened to, and we need to remember to return the favor.

04MayMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

Talent Wars – How to not fight them

I am not much for going through walls, I usually look for a way around them.

It a recent study released by the Northern California Human Resource Association, the following statistics were shared:

93% believe there is now or will soon be a talent shortage

44% report full leadership support for the New Reality

78% said retention is a high priority this year

When I hear the words high priority this year, I automatically think initiative. I can hear the front-line business leaders now – “HR wants us to do something new this year . . . “.

So a slew of new priorities and initiatives are happening to deal with the talent shortage and make retention a high priority. We get in the talent wars because we join the same battle everyone else is fighting – post the job, recruit for the job, hope they can do the job, hope they stay, hope the skilled people mentor the new people effectively, and hope people tell us when they want to do more. Here are some questions to help you think about how you are fighting this war:

Do you have a list of key jobs and are you adding names to it every couple months that you would hire today if you had an opening?
Is every candidate greeted by the nicest person in the company?
Do you allow yourself to smile during the interview?
Do you always respond to interviewees in a timely manner?
Do you(manager) send a present/personal note to people when they accept an offer?
Do you(manager) personally call people back when you want to have another interview with them?
Do you(manager) personally call people back after interviewing them and deciding not to continue the process with them?
Do you share with people as part of the interview how important this role is to the strategy of the team/organization and take five minutes to share with them why you love to work here?
Do you tell them the truth without prefacing it with “Let me be completely honest with you” or “I am going to be 100% truthful on this one”.
Do you(manager) map out a path to success for new people(onboarding) and spend extra time with them over the first 3-6 months?
When they say No to your offer do you(manager) personally call them to learn more about their Yes to someone else and No to you – then wish them great success. Do you then invite them to connect on LinkedIn so you can stay in touch?

Talent wars are real in areas where skills are scarce, but they are also about every employer being equal in the eyes of the people looking for work.

What if you were so good at telling your story and matching passions/talents with your needs that people could not imagine going anywhere else when you offered them a job? What if your people were recruiting for you because they were so passionate about your organization?

Don’t have time to worry about these little things? Wars are expensive, but good luck fighting it.

Personally, I would try and position myself so everyone else is fighting over the people I passed on.

30AprMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

8 Questions To Ask Before Starting Succession Planning

Succession planning is a great conversation.

For the organization, it puts plans in place to be used in case of a sudden departure of a key person. It also identifies talent gaps that can be discussed and dealt with before they become emergencies.

For your best people, it creates a vision of the future for them and identifies ways to challenge/develop them over the coming years.

Then there is you, the executive. Maybe not such a great process. You are putting plans in place for after you are gone. You are sharing the talent you have worked hard to hire and develop with the rest of the organization by allowing them to be considered for key roles in other areas. Do we avoid these conversations? The numbers would say yes. First number – only 35% of the CEO’s in the United States have succession plans. Second number – personally only 45% of us have wills.

Talent management is about great conversations. Here are eight questions to ask a leader before starting a succession planning effort:

I am excited about this process.
I think this is an important process to do each year.
I have talked to all my direct reports about what they want to do in the future.
I have done this before and I feel comfortable/skilled at the process.
I will make the time (10-20 hrs) to do this work over the next 2 months.
I am willing to accept input from other peers on my succession list . . . and I will use it.
I am willing to allow key players from my team to be on succession plans for other groups.
I feel good about setting up my groups/the organization to be successful after I move on.

Here is a link to this form with a number scale attached.

By naming our reasons for being reluctant, we can at least talk about them. By letting those reason stay hidden there is very real potential to erode trust on the team and leave great talent(people!) unchallenged and unclear about what opportunities exist for them in the future.

I would opt for the great talent management/succession planning conversation started by these 8 questions.

26AprMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

3 Simple Habits To Help Strengthen Teams

Are there things about you that people do not know? We all know the answer to that question – but is anything on that list that others need to know? Maybe you love to problem solve. Maybe you led a team of 20 people at one point in your career. Maybe there is some part of the business you want to learn more about. Maybe you get 150 emails a day and prefer phone calls.

Are there things about you that others see and you do not?

Several years ago a friend shared some feedback with me that we still laugh about. He told me that whenever he told a story, I usually followed up with a better one. I did not realize it – but watched myself for a few days and there it was – the proof. It was funny, and I was unaware of it. In JoHari Window language, it was a BLIND SPOT.

If you are not familiar with it, here is a link to a short YouTube video that explains it.

Talent management is about having great conversations. When we talk, we develop relationships with the people around us, and at the core of those relationships is knowledge that we bring to every interaction.

Here are 3 tips to continually develop your team and teamwork.

TIP 1: As part of any team meeting spend 5 minutes asking/answering these questions:

This week – What are two wins? What is keeping me up at night?

These questions are almost guaranteed to keep a steady flow of HIDDEN items that will be valuable for the team to know.

TIP 2: When you have an off-site and you are looking for ways to get people sharing/laughing – have everyone answer the following questions for themselves and their teammates. Next, go around the room and have others share first, seeing if they matched answers with the individual.

What is one thing I am really good at doing?
How do you know I am having a good day?
How do you know when I am stressed?
How do you know I am listening / not listening?

After this, watch the JoHari Window video and ask the questions: What came out in our last discussion that could be considered HIDDEN? A BLIND SPOT? What is the impact of having that information in the OPEN area for you? For this team? What is one way we can be more purposeful about these conversations?

TIP 3: I often use a tool called the Team Member Fact Sheet to get people talking. Using it as a tool to get to know new teammates or test the knowledge of existing teams.

Talent management is about great conversations. Go have one!

19AprMarch 23, 2016

By Scott

Succession Planning: Why We Don’t / 3 Reasons We Should

“I can do succession planning, but I am not going anywhere.” These words were spoken to me by a senior leader 4 years ago. A year after he said these words his job changed and he switched divisions. More recently he left the organization for another role. He was good with numbers, but not great at predicting the future. Then again, who really is?

I added succession planning to the Talent Scorecard because it is a critical area to address in a talent management strategy within an organization. However, it is not as important as performance conversations / one on ones / development plans. Here is a link to trU Tips #11 where I introduced the scorecard and the online version I created for people to evaluate their own situation.

Single biggest barrier to succession planning: Our discomfort with the question “What is the plan after I am gone?”. Talking about our mortality is uncomfortable and avoided. Want proof? How about the number only 45% of Americans have a will – which is the succession plan for an individual. As it turns out, corporate succession plans must be more uncomfortable because only 35% of organization have a succession plan for their CEO.

Succession planning is not about us (ie: Our ego, power, wealth) – it is about others. So here are three reasons to do it:

It is part of being a leader: The ability to face a difficult situations and help a team work through it is a critical part of leadership. Succession planning is about leadership.
It says “You are more important than me” – the ultimate trust building action: Does this need more explanation? Look at Jim Collins level 5 leader description in Good to Great. There are lots of benefits for people feeling and SEEING this – email me if you want a list.
It builds the same courage in others: What CEO would argue that it is not important to have plans for the most critical people and most critical roles in their organization? The CEO going first removes one BIG excuse from the list other leaders will have not wanting to do it.

Much of talent management and the activities/processes that go with it fall under the description of simple, but not easy.

A parenting expert once gave me a line in response to a child telling me something is too hard. The response. Yes, it is hard. But we can do hard. I think that same line fits with succession planning. If we want people around us that do not shrink away from hard, then we need to be willing to go first.

What are some barriers you have experienced or compelling reasons you have used that you would add to this list?