Leadership Flagship

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.~ John Quincy Adams

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  • 4 WAYS TO REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

    4 WAYS TO REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

    by Chris Rhatigan on Nov 9, 2016 11:00:00 AM

    Here are four ways you can update your decision-making process to harness your team’s power:

    01. Transparency

    At the heart of democracy is transparency — providing open systems and meaningful data that everyone can access. If decisions at your company are made by a small group of people behind closed doors, then you’re not doing enough to include employees.

    Inclusive companies encourage employees to be involved in big decisions. This may be through full team forums in which leaders and employees discuss issues. This may be through task forces that tackle specific workplace problems and devise solutions. When decisions are simply made and communicated to employees after the fact, no one feels valued or appreciated.

    02. Real-time feedback

    The occasional survey dropped in employee email boxes isn’t going to do the trick. With tools such as pulsing surveys, you get instant feedback. This way you can respond to employee concerns right away. If you wait too long, employees will think that you’ve forgotten about their interests. And they might be right!

    03. Voting

    Fortunately, we’re not talking about going to the polls in November. We’re talking about employees deciding which ideas and suggestions are best. Sometimes it’s easiest to address what a particularly vocal employee brings up again and again.

    But by crowdsourcing ideas — throwing the ideas out to the entire team — you can see which ones sink and which ones swim. Better yet, when employees ask why the company has or hasn’t done something, you can point to the data showing that a majority of employees approved or rejected the idea.

    04. Connections

    In a democracy, citizens are connected by their shared goals. Even though they may disagree about how to reach those goals, they have the same basic objectives in mind. Same goes for your business. Everyone wants the business to grow.

    Providing ways for employees to interact and debate the company’s issues of the day will increase connections among employees. Social-media-like tools can help in this endeavor by encouraging employees to interact with each other.

    Companies that include employees in decision-making processes won’t just reduce turnover and attract more talent, they’ll also make better decisions. Research has shown that when employees buy in, they’re less likely to drag their feet when it comes to implementation.

  • The Toxic Side Of Collaboration

    The Toxic Side Of Collaboration

    kristine-widfeldt

     

    by  KRISTINE WIDTFELDT

    Collaboration isn’t just good. It’s cool. Hip. All the smart companies, with their low walls and open conference spaces, are doing it. It generates ideas, brings people together, enhances engagement … all good things we want in our workplace.

    However, collaboration isn’t always healthy. In fact, it can be toxic.

    When used as a code word to mask detrimental behaviors, hide weaknesses, or avoid tough conversations, your team suffers. It happens more often than you think—maybe even in your own office. Check out the following list of 3 classic collaboration gaffes, as well as how you can remedy them:

    TOXIC COLLABORATION MOVE #1: “The Shield”

    Manager thinks: “I’m not sure how to have this tough conversation with you, so we’ll call a meeting and maybe the group will do it for me.” Collaboration isn’t a shield to hide behind. And it isn’t a place to pounce on someone whose idea you disagree with.

    While you may not seek confrontation, great leaders are willing to have alignment conversations one-on-one and they know how to engage an individual with respect but with firmness. If you need to align a team member to a goal, don’t invite a group to be part of the discussion. Instead, be sincere in your care for the person, open to options that achieve the goal, while being candid and clear about expectations.

    TOXIC COLLABORATION MOVE #2: “The Crutch”

    Abundant collaboration sessions don’t foster creativity, they stifle it. An HBR study showed that “time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more.” Worse, those who are most collaborative get punished by it—invited to more and more meetings. The study showed that 20-35% of value-added collaboration came from just 3-5% of the employees.

    Kick out the crutch by structuring meetings so all participate and have assignments, not just those “top collaborators.” Keep meetings brief, and defer to individual follow-up conversations rather than calling the entire group together for each new update.

    TOXIC COLLABORATION MOVE #3: “The Wedge”

    If you’re regularly pushing a team member to get more collaboration on projects in progress, what you may be unintentionally communicating is “I don’t trust you.” This is particularly true if added collaborators don’t have knowledge of the project.

    Phrases like “getting buy in” and “socializing the idea” are legitimate and have their place. But if every project or deliverable needs to be passed from the mailroom to the boardroom for “collaboration purposes,” you may be creating a wedge between you and your direct report.

    Use collaboration at key points in a project, and invite the right people to participate. But recognize that not everyone’s opinion is needed. Create a plan, then let that smart and talented individual do her thing.

  • Fake Positivity Can be Toxic to the Workplace

    Fake Positivity Can be Toxic to the Workplace

    WHY FALSE-POSITIVE EMPLOYEES ARE THE MOST HARMFUL

    by Justin Reynolds on Nov 1, 2016 8:00:00 AM

    In a perfect world, all of your employees would be thrilled to show up to work each morning. They’d thoroughly love their jobs, and they’d strive to increase their productivity every day. Everyone would get along, and you wouldn’t have to worry about micromanaging employees or dealing with two team members who hate each other. You could sit back with your feet on your desk and brainstorm ways to grow your business.

    How does that sound?

    Unfortunately, managing a team is never that easy — it’s a lot more nuanced. Not only are managers charged with maximizing team productivity, they also need to make sure that morale stays strong and employees get along with one another.

    While it’s safe to say managers are well aware of what we can consider “problem employees” — those who are more adversarial than the average worker and don’t listen to directions too well — there’s another kind of worker who may be bringing down the team without you even realizing it. Let’s call this worker the false-positive employee, the person who is all smiles on the surface but is constantly seeking approval and validation from their peers and superiors.

    Why Are These Kinds of Employees So Toxic?

    For starters, studies show that forcing yourself to smile when you’re not happy can actually lead to “emotional exhaustion and withdrawal” from your work, according to a recent DailyMail article.

    What’s more, as the Wall Street Journal notes, workers are much more likely to fake being happy when they’re in the company of their superiors. Rather than paying attention to what’s going on, employees who act unnaturally upbeat are simply unable to invest enough of their brainpower on what’s actually being discussed in a meeting. They’re more concerned with their boss noticing how positive they appear to be.

    On the other hand, when workers meet with their peers or subordinates, they’re much less likely to fake positivity — which encourages them to take risks and think outside the box. While a false-positive employee might keep ideas close to the chest for fear of disapproval, those who wear their true emotions on their sleeves are more eager to share their thoughts — no matter how they’re received.

    Maintaining a facade of positivity makes employees less happy. The constant need for validation also holds employees back in a variety of ways. For example, workers who fake smiles every day spend too much time wondering what their bosses and coworkers think of them. This holds them back by distracting them from their work and absorbing time that could be otherwise spent brainstorming new ideas, learning new things, or helping coworkers out.

    How to Fix the Problem

    No realistic manager expects their employees to be completely happy at work 100% of the time. We all have stressful days. We all wake up on the wrong side of the bed every now and again. Sometimes, customers overreact and act unprofessionally. Can you reasonably expect workers to be viciously berated and respond with a smile every single time it happens?

    Wearing a fake smile does not cause negative thoughts or emotions to disappear automatically. The good news is that if you think you’re dealing with a false-positive employee, there are a number of things you can do to improve their mood and, by extension, the morale of your entire team, including:

    01. Communicate regularly

    Employees don’t want to be kept in the dark about what’s going on with their company or what’s expected of them at work. The easiest way to make sure that everyone is on the same page is by making it a priority to communicate with each of your employees on a regular basis. Hold a 1:1 meeting — on occasion or once a week — so that you can sync up and let your workers know exactly where things stand. That way, there shouldn’t be any confusion about what’s expected to be done.

    02. Be reasonable

    Have your employees’ backs. While you should expect your workers to maintain a professional demeanor at all times, there may be exceptions to the rule (to a certain extent). If a customer is making unreasonable demands on your employee or treating them with lots of hostility, don’t flip out if they are unable to remain in a perfectly happy mood. They’re human, after all. So long as they’re not doing anything egregious, don’t hold it against them if they’re upset by mistreatment every now and again.

    03. Offer flexible working arrangements

    Studies have shown that employees who are able to work from home or are offered flexible schedules are happier than their peers who are required to show up at the office every day during the same hours. If your company has a strict in-the-office policy, reconsider whether it makes sense to offer flexible working arrangements. A day at home each week could do wonders for your false-positive employee’s attitude.

    04. Distribute work evenly

    According to our Employee Engagement Report, 70% of workers feel as though there simply isn’t enough time in the week to take care of all of their job responsibilities. There’s a chance that one of your false-positive employees is behaving that way because they feel as though they’re overworked and they want to remain in good standing. Take a look around your office at the workloads you’ve given your staff. Make sure they’re manageable and fair for all workers.

    05. Utilize anonymous pulse surveys

    Even if you schedule regular 1:1 meetings with each of your employees, depending on their personalities, some may be reluctant to share their true feelings with you for fear of backlash. That being the case, you may want to give anonymous pulse surveys a try. These surveys — which can be given on a weekly or monthly basis — allow employees to share what’s on their mind without worrying about making their bosses upset. Armed with that data, you’re able to make the adjustments and improvements your employees want.

    Don’t let a false-positive employee get under the skin of the rest of your team. If you want to take your business to the next level, your staff needs to be honest with themselves and the rest of the team. By constantly asking your employees what they’re thinking about, being flexible, and not playing any favorites, odds are you won’t have to deal with a false-positive employee — making your job a whole lot easier and your team that much stronger.

  • How to Communicate from the Other Person’s Point of View

    How to Communicate from the Other Person’s Point of View

    ry November 3, 2016 by Jay Sullivan

    It’s Not All About You

    To communicate more effectively, and distinguish yourself from those around you, try communicating from the other person’s point of view.

    We’re all basically wrapped up in our own stuff. That’s not selfish or Machiavellian; it’s just a fact. Our human nature is to be self-absorbed. It’s part of our survival instinct. As a result, most people communicate from their own perspective instead of the other person’s, and that’s the leading cause of poor communication. If you want to communicate more effectively, and distinguish yourself from those around you, communicate from the other person’s point of view.

    As you prepare for your meeting or conference call think about what you want to get from the meeting. The most effective way to get what you want from others it to give them what they need. Sometimes they need a quick answer. Sometimes they need a great deal of detail. Often they need to know that you have confidence in your own ideas. Sometimes, they just need to know you care about them and their ideas. Therefore, if you want to communicate more effectively, ask yourself:

    • “Why is this person reading my email?”
    • “What is she trying to learn from my presentation?”
    • “Why is he attending my meeting?”

    If you ask yourself what the other person is trying to get out of the exchange, you will be more likely to:

    • Select the right information to share based on what you think the person needs,
    • Drill down to the right level of detail based on what the audience needs to do with the information, and
    • Share it in a way that allows the person to access the information easily, meaning you will eliminate your jargon.

    Sharing information from the other person’s perspective also means flipping the pronouns around from “I” to “you.”

    As a learning leader, you help professionals progress in their careers by focusing on where they are now and what skills they need to develop get to the next level. Often career advancement means taking on more of a leadership role, whether that’s chairing a committee, managing a division or stepping into the C-suite.

    A leader takes his or her followers on a journey. How do you describe what you stand for in a manner that makes your audience want to join you on that trek? There are two steps you must consider when explaining to others the development journey on which you want them to embark. First, the message must be about how your values impact your audience, rather than you. Second, the language you use must be effortless for your audience to understand, meaning, no jargon. Simple ideas beat big words any day.

    Whether your statement of values focuses on integrity, valor, street smarts or anything else, you must be able to phrase your values as being about others. Below are some common attributes of a leader, explained to an audience using both leader-centered language and audience-centered language. For politicians, the difference might sound like this:

    Leader-centered language:

    “I stand for integrity.”
    “I want the world to be a better place.”
    “I believe in hard work.”

    vs.

    Audience-centered language:

    • “You deserve someone you can trust.”
    • “Your children deserve a more just society.”
    • “You want a leader who works as hard as you do.”

    Unlike political leaders who deal with matters of widespread impact, most business leaders don’t have the opportunity or need to discuss ourselves or our plans on a philosophical basis. Most of our days are less “rendezvous with destiny,” and more “committee meeting at 3 p.m.” Nevertheless, our message about ourselves remains important.

    Leader-centered language:

    • “I want a better work environment.”
    • “I believe in work-life balance.”
    • “I want us to be known as the best structured finance team in the country.”

    vs.

    Audience-centered language:

    • “You deserve a civil, open workplace.”
    • “You want to see your kids on more than just the weekends.”
    • “You want to be part of a nationally recognized and respected team.”

    In each case, by phrasing the content from the audience’s perspective, you as a leader will have a better chance to connect with your audience members and encourage them to join in the development journey.

    Because we are all focused on ourselves, someone who speaks to us from our perspective rather than theirs is automatically more attractive, and we’re more likely to want to listen to their ideas. Focusing on the other person won’t always win their approval. They need to like the idea as well. But by starting from the audience’s perspective you have a better chance to be heard.

    Jay Sullivan is the managing partner at Exec|Comm LLC and author of “SIMPLY SAID: Communicating Better at Work and Beyond.” To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

  • Integrating the Learning Function in the Workplace Culture

    Integrating the Learning Function in the Workplace Culture

    The Learning Function Has Become Invisible

    Invisible learning leaders focus more on curation and context, building an always-on learning environment, and becoming experts at embedding learning into work.

    November 3, 2016  by Josh Bersin

    Over the past few decades the world of corporate training has radically changed.

    In the 1920s and 1930s, we put training in the managers’ hands. This meant managers had to roll up their sleeves, show people how to do their jobs, and give them ongoing support.

    During World War II, the need to recruit millions of people into the U.S. Army led to the growth of skills testing, competency evaluation, and later formal instructional design. In 1954 B.F. Skinner wrote some of the first books on training, promoting the idea of small learning steps, questions and answers, and the ADDIE model to build high-fidelity training programs.

    During the 1980s and 1990s, as conglomerates grew, corporate universities became popular, driven by the desire to industrialize and standardize skills. When I went to work at IBM in 1982, I had the opportunity to go through an entire year of training on all areas of technology, software, business and sales. Companies built industrial-strength learning departments, staffed by professional designers and instructors around the world. We took learning “out of work” and put it into a professional function in business.

    In the early 2000s this was suddenly disrupted. E-learning began, and the L&D profession spent a decade trying to replace instructor-led training with a variety of online programs. This shift created the emergence of a $4 billion-plus LMS market, development of tens of thousands of online courses, content development tool growth, and the emergence of blended learning models, social learning models, and tools for simulations, virtual classrooms and learning analytics. The L&D profession became even more professionalized, and we all became web-based instructional designers and experts in learning solution design.

    Over the past decade another disruption has occurred. As search engines and the internet grew in power, people realized they could search on the internet for the help they needed, and we suddenly realized that high fidelity instruction was not always what people wanted. Online video growth exploded, and we found that employees could bypass the L&D team and find some amazingly useful videos authored by global experts. L&D became nervous, but we pushed ahead and tried to build better content to keep people interested in our programs.

    Today the shift toward employee-centric learning is exploding. MOOCs, video learning platforms, online university degrees, and thousands of consumer learning offerings give people the ability to find high-fidelity learning all over the internet, raising employee expectations for the learning experience.

    While this evolution has occurred, companies have grown more concerned about the rapid skills obsolescence in their workforce.

    We all know the shelf-life for skills is shortening and increasingly large companies are helping employees invest in a continuous learning environment. Employees now demand skills development at work because they know that the learning curve is the earning curve. Responding to this need, companies are trying to give employees curated content libraries, buying new tools for curation and content recommendation, and using design thinking to embed learning into the work flow.

    This has been hard on the L&D profession. Our research shows that traditional L&D organizations are 400 percent “less capable” of meeting their companies needs than they were in 2014, leading us to seriously ask: What in the world is happening to L&D?

    After decades building L&D into a professional function to develop learning, L&D is becoming invisible. By invisible we don’t mean it’s going away, in fact quite the opposite. L&D is becoming ever more important, not as a place to go but as a service behind the scenes.

    As Dani Johnson describes in her blog, invisible L&D focuses more on curation and context, building an always-on learning environment in the organization, and becoming experts at embedding learning into work.

    Specifically, it means moving from creating to enabling learning, from programmatic to systemic learning, and from event-based to in-the-flow-of-work learning. Instructional design has not gone away, but the way we deliver our solutions has changed.

    The world of corporate learning is a dynamic, technology-driven place. In the new world of “always learning,” video and instant access to content, we should think about ourselves as invisible but always present, helping everyone learn every day.

    Josh Bersin is founder of Bersin, now known as Bersin by Deloitte, and a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

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