The Missing Half of Leadership Training

It is unsettling to me that companies are still looking to capture the perfect leadership competency model. The expectation is that the right skills can be developed for the right situation. Many people are operating under the belief that the right skills help leaders execute the plan. But, there are contradictions for every situation. A move that was logical yesterday, might be illogical today as a result of rapid change. Consistent business practices are only valuable in a consistent business climate, which is virtually nonexistent today.

For today’s leaders, mindset development must come before skill-set development. For instance, it is hard to become a better listener without developing curiosity first. Learning to look people in the eye, fight distractions, and ask appropriate questions are important, but they are simply mechanical skills. Being open to new ideas and processes, and remaining inclusive of others lets you really hear what’s being said – and put it to good use. This is what I mean by mindset. Mechanics can be applied and developed universally. Mindset is individual. Mindset is the true separator of talent, not technique.

Our leaders do not know how to manage the paradox between the need to be strong-willed and sensitive to the needs of the team. They struggle with balancing command and control and remaining collaborative. They struggle balancing between having the right answers and forming the right questions. Today’s leaders do not know how to manage the paradox that exists in protecting organizational heritage and tenets while driving change, or making the tough call while trying to create an inclusive working environment.

Leadership development must look beyond simple skill-set development and focus more on helping leaders navigate the paradoxes by helping them form the proper leadership mindset.

10 ways to know if you’re teaching mindset in your organization:

1. Are you teaching mechanics or principles? Teaching mindset is principle based. If you understand the principles, you’ll embrace the mechanics.
2. Are judgment and paradox involved in what’s being taught? Teaching mindset prioritizes judgment and introduces paradox. Judgment helps leaders navigate through change and develop adaptability.
3. Are debate and collaboration part of the learning process? Teaching mindset opens up valuable debate. Diverse opinions matter for teaching mindset.
4. Does your teaching emphasize compliance or progress – acknowledging that these aren’t mutually exclusive? Teaching mindset will emphasize progress as the priority. Progress is the reason for compliance, but progress sometimes requires a leader to improvise.
5. Is there a social component to your teaching where participants are asked to react according to their observations of others? Social interactions and reactions are important for mindset development.
6. Is your teaching pushing transactional or transformational outcomes? Teaching mindset helps leaders move beyond transactional thinking and bring valuable ideas and innovations to the table.
7. Do you emphasize personal values over conformity in your teaching? Teaching mindset invites participants to bring their own personal values to the training, allowing diverse ideas and solutions to emerge.
8. Is your teaching focused only on the present circumstances or are future needs and opportunities contemplated? Teaching mindset asks participants to anticipate future needs and opportunities as well as deliver results in the business today.
9. Do you value imagination in your teaching and training? Teaching mindset asks participants to be imaginative. Teaching mindset shouldn’t answer every question for participants.
10. Does your teaching encourage rote repetition or routine versus creativity? Teaching mindset demands significant creative thinking.

Five concepts to teach mindset:

1. Teach systems thinking.
2. Teach creative thinking.
3. Teach principles and values.
4. Teach judgment for paradox.
5. Teach transformational ideation. i

Leaders cannot be successful with skills alone. Organizations that recognize the importance of developing an innovative and adaptable mindset in their leaders are the ones that will experience the greatest success in the face of ever-increasing change.

Onward!

Tags: development, Leadership, mindset, skill, skills, skillset, Training

Social Technology is Not the Enemy of HR

Here’s the understatement of the year…we live in a digital world. This digital world connects everyone who wishes to participate. And if you’re not participating, then you’re not contributing to the progression of society.

For quite sometime, I’ve bashed my own industry for not participating. HR has been a late adopter of innovative technologies that build learning communities and create valuable connections. But it seems the tide is turning, and finally, HR is starting to build a digital prowess beyond pure compliance and benefits applications. Now, it seems, HR is finally starting to see the value of these online learning communities and integrated employee life-cycle solutions.While I commend our industry for its recent progress, we’re still so 2006. Check out this article.

For HR, the digital awareness and knowledge gap still exists and it’s significant. It seems the big digital dilemma now is in employee value vs. productivity loss brought about by social technologies. Social technologies scare HR. Why? Because since the beginning, HR operates under control and comply policy and HR loses control in these social environments. So Facebook, Twitter and other social technologies get turned off for concerned, conservative, traditional companies.

But through these social technologies HR has a tremendous opportunity to become more valuable than your PR department, your marketing team, and even your sales team by making a fundamental shift from control and comply to connect and engage. This shift will elevate HR’s impact by making it more relevant to the bottom line than ever before. Let me explain.

Today, everyone is the media. Every one of your employees has a voice, and that single voice can be carbon copied around the world within seconds – your PR department wishes it had such power. You can choose to use this to your advantage or to your detriment.

Your sales team can work relentlessly to build customer relationships. Your marketing team can spend lots of money building your brand. Your PR team can work tirelessly trying to protect your reputation. And all of their efforts can be destroyed overnight by one disgruntled employee who will share her experience with the world whether you control social technologies or not. HR’s focus should not be on trying to limit the voice of your employees (impossible), but rather, to create engaged employees who love their organization and share it with the world. Social technologies allow engaged employees to carry the company banner to everyone they are connected to.

Your employees are the one’s building brand loyalty with consumers today. Advocate groups aren’t limited to consumers anymore. Now advocate groups include producers (employees) and consumers conversing together in real time. In these social communities of producers and consumers, authentic conversations happen, feedback is quickly shared, and so are solutions. Customer service reaches an all-time high because consumers have a direct line of communication with the producers. When the direct line exists, trust exists and a competitive advantage of speed can be captured because the producer-consumer conversation is happening dynamically. Consumer-producer connections create better companies, better products.

It’s time for our industry to embrace today’s open and collaborative global business environment by enabling engaged producers to participate with consumers through social technologies. Below are a few points to consider.

1. Value: Engage your employees – connect with each employee as an individual by understanding their strengths, their dreams and their unique value.
2. Fit: Connect your employees to your mission – align the dreams and unique skills and experiences of each employee with your mission.
3. Benefit: Build a community of consumer-producer advocates – open social technology tools for engaged employees to build trust with your customers.

Onward!

Tags: community, connecting, consumers, facebook, HR, human, innovation, resources, social, stakeholders, twitter

9 Leadership Blogs You Need to Be Reading

People with theories about leadership are a dime a dozen it seems, and everyone has an opinion.  Yet, when you search the Internet for solid, consistent leadership content it is surprisingly hard to find.  That is why we have scoured the Internet, and sought out some opinions to create this list of 9 solid blogs that we believe that you should add to your reading list.  Though we would love it if you made the Organizational Champion’s blog your first stop, we know there is more time in the day and there is definitely some great content out there that is worth your time.

Not all of these blogs are strictly about leadership.  What fun would that be?  But, they all have content that the well rounded leader ought to consider  Also, these blogs are listed in no certain order.  The best blog could be the first one we list, the last one, or one lost somewhere in the middle.  Let’s get started.

The Leadership Almanac by Gary Winters

We might be breaking our one and only rule about not putting this list in any certain order because there is a reason why we are listing this blog first.  If you had to choose one blog to read out of this list, this one wouldn’t be a bad choice.  Gary is always insightful, and his advice is earthy and useful.  Regardless of how strategic and “high altitude” our role becomes, being an incredible manager who makes real connections with our people is always of top importance.

The Corporate Curmudgeon by Dale Dauten

The Corporate Curmudgeon blog is a worthwhile read. Dauten’s articles tend to be a bit longer than other blogs in this list which makes it a good candidate for the times in your day when you need to step back from your job for a moment and take a break.  We put this blog in the list because Dauten is a source of original thought.  This blog isn’t merely a reverberation of the echo chamber.

Umair Haque

Haque isn’t specifically a leadership writer, in fact I don’t know if he has ever written specifically about leadership. He is an economist. But, before you roll your eyes and move on, you need to give this blog a chance. Haque has the unique ability to see beyond the horizon and connect the dots for his readers. He will challenge you to think beyond the status quo and he will change the way you lead your business. The economy is changing. Consumers are changing. If your business isn’t also changing, you might find yourself brushing up your resume.

Leadership Unleashed by David Peck

The Leadership Unleashed blog is updated regularly with good, quick-hit, thought provoking content.  David covers a wide spectrum of topics.

Leading Answers

This blog is focused on helping you become an agile leader. It’s machine gun approach to posting seeks to give you bite sized content that hones your leadership and management skills.

Positive Sharing

Some of the most admired companies create an atmosphere of creativity and fun.  This blog talks about the value of bringing happiness back into the workplace.

Practically Radical by Bill Taylor

Bill does a fantastic job of taking today’s headlines and giving keen insight and analysis that will help you sift through the noise.

Lead On Purpose by Michael Ray Hopkin

Lead On Purpose is directed mostly toward product managers. However, it isn’t hard to pick out useful insights regardless of your job description. Product managers find themselves in an interesting predicament. They have to influence others in the organization without having direct authority to do so. Michael takes general leadership principles and applies them to product managers.

Leading Blog by Michael McKinney

McKinney pulls out an eclectic mix of topics and provides helpful reviews from the world of leadership and gives thoughtful analysis in his blog. McKinney endeavors to challenge and stretch our understanding of leadership.

If the fact that this “top 9″ list is not a “top 10″ list bothers you then help us find another blogger with something interesting to say about leadership.  We want to find more good content.  If you know of another must-read champion blogger out there, please post a link in the comments.  Also, if you write for any one of these blogs, we would love to hear from you.

Onward!

Tags: blog, blogs, Leadership, read, recommendation

Jim Stengel’s Final Words as P&G’s Chief Marketer

Kim Partoll of AOL is a cutting edge, high performance champion.  She sharpens and inspires me. She’s also a tremendous source of knowledge for me as I write The Organizational Champion. She forwarded me this final speech from Jim Stengel – and wow! does he get it. Jim has brought himself personally to his amazing career and he sees the significant worth of living with a strong sense of purpose. Jim’s comments are below:

Jim Stengel’s presentation at Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference in Orlando, Fla., on Friday was also his last as CMO at Procter & Gamble. He took the podium to look back at a company he joined in 1983 as a brand assistant, and to delineate the five lessons he’s learned about brand building.

“We were a company with $11 billion in sales, and now are one with $83.5 million in sales and 24 $1 billion brands. So it’s steady and sustainable and remarkable growth journey.” He says it’s also all about growth in terms of what the company stands for. “We have a tendency to over complicate things. The simpler the better, the simpler the more profound.”

Five lessons he’s learned: why five? “It’s my favorite number. I was born on 5/5/55.”

Lesson One: Put people at the center of all you do. Treat your people the way you would want your customers treated. “We too often forget brands are people. It’s the collective intent of people behind them,” he says.

“I have learned in my career that the most important legacy is the impact you will have with the people you work with. We all have rough months, rough years, which blend together, but what you will remember is relationships and people.”

Lesson Two: Engage your heart and mind in everything you do. Says Stengel, “We need balance. Too often as an industry we approach everything with head, not heart. We often talk within P&G of personal relationship as a metaphor for marketing. How many of us internalize that and apply it to how we approach business and customers?”

Stengel brought in audience participation: What’s characteristic of great relationships? He asked. Trust, respect, love, humor were some of the responses. “If we thought about everything we do in marketing, if they all tried to emanate from this idea of great relationship we would do and measure things differently.”

He offered brands other than P&G’s as examples: Apple, Southwest Airlines, online shoe company Zappos, and Amazon.com. “What we find with the strongest brands is they have strength and competitive advantage in emotional areas that drive brand,” he said.

Lesson Three: Results. “In our industry we tend to make things complicated, focusing on activities that don’t drive brand,” said Stengel. “Why are CMO tenures short? Look at organization designs across companies; they are all over the place Too much spend goes to short term and tactical that doesn’t build loyalty and relationship with consumers.”

He asked, rhetorically, why many CEO’s and CFO’s don’t value marketing. “Because too much we focus on a bustle of activities, not the few things that drive growth of brand. Sales are important but if you don’t look at other measures of brand health, you are being short sighted.”

Lesson Four: Creativity is about solving problems. We too often have the wrong discussion with agencies. We talk fees, etc, short term stuff, not how to come together about how to create a powerful brand.”

The last lesson led into a preview of what Stengel plans next: have a purpose. “I am devoting the next chapter of my life to this mission. He cautioned that, by purpose, he doesn’t mean cause-based marketing, but an inspirational, motivational reason for being. “For example, Nike’s purpose is to build self esteem, to be an inspiration for athletes around the world.”

The purpose of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish? “To bring optimism to children. Old Spice? To help guys navigate the seas of manhood,” he said.

Next he will form a new venture called Jim Stengel, whose mission, he said, “is to be catalyst and change agent globally to lift marketing to a higher level of purpose and performance,” he said. He said he is writing a book, Package Good, which he says builds a business case for purpose marketing.

Stengel’s last public statement as a P&G employee, at least at the ANA: “If you have been inspired by these lessons, make a personal commitment to try to bring some of this to life in your organization. We have so much talent, we spend so much money,” he said. “We can lift this to a higher level together if you take this back and make some personal commitments.”

reference: by Karl Greenberg / Karl Greenberg can be reached at karl@mediapost.com

Tags: AOL, brand, career, champion, inspire, jim, Leadership, marketing, organizational, P&G, purpose, stengel

The Four Types of Employees

Over the next few blog posts I am going to be building the groundwork towards an article that is bouncing around in my head. There are some things that we need to go over first.

Companies have employees in every shape, background, personality type and, well this list could go on and on. The point is, as managers we have to evaluate a multitude of employees to find the next generation of leaders. This is a daunting task that I would never dream of diminishing, but the truth is we have to evaluate and know our teams in order to be successful.

In the same vein, we have to evaluate our own careers and career paths. Checking the gauges every once in a while is necessary and important. The hard decision to go somewhere else may need to be made.

There is an illustration that we use at SVI to better understand our employees, our team, and our selves called The Four Types of Employees.

In this illustration employees are measured along two spectra. The first spectrum measures productivity, and the question is simple. Are we productive or not in our role?

The other spectrum runs vertically and it measures how inspired or engaged we are.

When we lay these spectra over one another we get a matrix that helps to illuminate and describe our current job situation or state of mind. It looks like this:

The Mole

Here is how it works. Let’s start in the bottom left corner. This is someone who is neither productive nor inspired. We have all encountered these people. They tend to suck the energy out of everything they touch. They are energy vampires. In most organizations, if there aren’t extenuating circumstances, they aren’t long for the world. They tend to move on to another job or are asked to leave.

The Worker

If we move to the right, we see the worker. The worker is productive and very capable. She has more than likely been at her position for a long time. There is nothing in her day that really challenges her because by this time she has it all figured out.

As managers, we tend to like workers. They get their job done with little to no supervision or complaining. However, there is a problem. Workers don’t tend to stay workers for long. They either lose interest and become moles or they leave for greener pastures.

The Dreamer

This that guy with all the plans and schemes who never seems to do any of them. He talks a big game and his energy can be quite infectious, but has little or no track record. The people are fun to be around. Their energy can be intoxicating, but be careful and don’t be fooled. Dreamers are dangerous if left unchecked. Dreamers can leave teams frustrated and confused because they are constantly casting new and sometimes conflicting visions of the future. Dreamers rip teams apart.

When the day is done, if you will pardon the expression, the proof is in the pudding. In spite of all the glossy team-building/leadership-building/leadersoftomorrow mumbo jumbo, it is still about getting your job done, hitting your marks, and being excellent in what you do. The trick is to be extraordinary. The trick is to be a game changer. The trick is to be transformational not transactional. That brings us to the final corner…

The Champion

This person is both inspired and productive. This person plays at the next level. This person stands out in a crowd. She is a maverick, but not at cost of the company. She isn’t afraid to attack problems when they arise even when it leads to a course of action that isn’t popular.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Gil Bailie

This quote by Gil Bailie captures the heartbeat of what it takes and what it means to be a champion. On its face, the quote seems to be counterintuitive. It seems to prompt us to go against what we have been trained to do our whole lives and become selfish or self-indulgent. However, upon further examination it starts to make more and more sense.

Imagine a team of people who are inspired and productive, and who do it from a drive that lies within each of the team members. Who wouldn’t want to be on that team?

Are you a champion? Do you want to be a champion? These questions are the very bedrock on which this blog is built. We have to build the foundation in order to proceed.

Tags: employee, evaluate, evaluating, Leadership, planning, succession, Training

What is Wrong with Retention Rate?

In my previous entry (Is HR Using the Wrong Numbers?), I challenged the HR industry to rethink the numbers it uses to show its value to the board room. Over the course of the last several months I, along with members of my company, have become convinced that HR is using the wrong measures to evaluate its success within companies. This is why, when the going gets tough, HR budgets get slashed.

Now before I go any further, let me attest to the following: I solemnly swear that I am a devoted member of the HR industry. I promise that, while I think that HR is a bit…misguided today, I truly believe that it can provide significant value to companies across the land.

With that out of the way, I will now draw my bead on the first sacred cow. For the weak at heart, let me warn you that what follows will be seen as heresy in the HR industry.

“Retention Rate” is a red herring.

I will pause and allow those who have fainted to wake up…

For far too long, HR has shouted at the top of its lungs that turnover costs money in terms of replacement recruiting and training costs. Members of HR (including me) have used this measure as an argument for increasing our training budgets.

After spending significant time researching and thinking about retention, I no longer believe a low retention rate necessarily correlates to organizational success. More importantly, I am convinced that executive level management doesn’t care a bit about retention. Executive level management is concerned about this: profit and bottom line results.

Below are three reasons why I no longer believe retention rate is a serious argument for HR budget increases or a serious defense against HR cuts:

1. Executives are not in favor of completely reducing turnover. In fact, some turnover is good in that it injects new ideas and energy into the organization. If you post turnover as a key metric and say that success means lowering turnover, then you are saying that zero turnover is good. I just don’t think executive-level management will agree.
2. Some people are not good (or are not willing to be good) at their jobs no matter how much training you throw at them. The cost of retaining them far outweighs the costs associated with their replacement. Retention rate hardly ever distinguishes between top talent that you want to keep and that talent that you don’t want to keep.
3. (Note: this is the big one) The remedies for resolving turnover (i.e. training, development, team-building activities, etc) are disconnected from bottom line results (i.e. profit, sales growth, market share, etc). This means that, for stockholders and executives, turnover is irrelevant. In other words:

On the other hand:

So here is where I wind up. At the end of the day, turnover can matter but it doesn’t matter when it includes everyone and is disconnected from the bottom line. For turnover to be a key indicator that matters in budget arguments it must:

1. Be directly correlated with operational metrics. That means hard core numbers that the operations divisions are accountable to. In other words, operations defines the operational metrics, not HR.
2. The remedies (training, development, etc) that are meant to address turnover must be clearly shown to reduce turnover among top performers. Not everyone, just top performers.

In the next post, I will take on “completion rate”.

Tags: development, HR, hr value proposition, retention, retention rate, team building, Training, turnover, value proposition

Is HR Using the Wrong Numbers?

HR has a problem. When the economy goes south, certain HR activities and budgets are generally the first on the chopping block. Training and development, for instance, are considered luxury items in today’s struggling economy. Yes, they are seen as providing benefit to the company, but they are not seen as required.

Cashiers scanning product is required. Trucks moving merchandise is required. Accountants counting is required. Training cashiers, truck drivers, and accountants? Beyond complying with law, it is not seen as required.

And yet, for years company after company has conceded that training and leadership development does have a positive impact. How many companies, for instance, claim that there number one resource is people. Unfortunately when the people in charge of people development (HR) come to the board room, the door is firmly closed.

Are executives within these companies being disingenuous? Are they simply choosing between the lesser of two evils? Whose fault is this?

Today, I began reading an article on effective onboarding strategies. As any good research paper should do, the authors of the paper initially defined the performance criteria (i.e. metrics) that they chose to distinguish best-in-class onboarding from the rest. I have to tell you that I was immediately struck (and not in a good way) by the metrics that they chose. Here they are:

1. Retention rate of new-hires
2. Completion rate for onboarding tasks/activities
3. Time-to-productivity (as in, time it takes to get through the onboarding process)

In my opinion, these metrics are just plain wrong and the HR industries insistence on keeping them (and measures like them) near and dear is why HR is seen as a luxury item and not a necessary value-add to the organization.

In other words, we in HR, are to blame for our predicament.

The reason why I say that is that none of these numbers have anything to do with what matters most to those who control the purse strings – bottom line results. The only way that HR will be viewed as a necessity is if they start using numbers, accepted by executive-level management, that show the impact of HR activities on the organization’s profit, growth and value.

If you believe that retention rate, onboarding completion rate and onboard completion time is connected to bottom line results, stay tuned. Over the course of the next few blogs, I will address each measure individually and attempt to show to you that they are not the right numbers for HR.

Tags: capital, HR, hr value proposition, human, onboarding, payout, resources, scorecard, turnover

HR…Necessary Evil?

HR is often wrongly perceived as a necessary evil. Very little innovation comes from HR for several reasons.

First, little authority is given to HR managers and leaders. Rarely is the HR leader of an organization invited to the board room discussions. The reason is that CEOs have placed a very low value on HR’s capabilities to the organization. And in many cases, we, the HR leaders, are to blame: we have been terrible at quantifying our results. Sales, operations, safety and marketing have all quantified their value. Why haven’t we?

Second, we are not known for our innovation. Let’s face it: the biggest HR innovation in the last 20 years has been e-learning, which has seen limited success. As an industry, we’ve been conducting e-learning efforts for years – and the jury is still out. Many people don’t believe in it. Why? We haven’t connected the results to the income statement.

Third, we haven’t attracted the top talent to our industry. The best people flock to the best opportunities, so our industry is led by mid-level leaders that are limited in the corporate structure. And on we go with future mid-level leaders in a somewhat valued industry. This vicious cycle is not about to turn around anytime soon.

Now the good news. Most people realize the value of their people. As companies become more global, the need to develop complex human capital strategies that address global diversity will increase. We are positioned to meet significantly growing needs, but we have to change the way we behave and perform as HR leaders.

First, we have to shift our perspective. We’ve got to go beyond technical training and compliance and set our sights on creating extraordinary people. We’ve got to create holistic people strategies, not segmented, non-integrated training. We’ve got to be about people, not programs and products.

Second, we have got to get more comfortable with risk and innovation. No great thing in this world started without risk. As HR leaders, we must develop courage and push new, even untested ideas. We’ve got to develop stronger personalities and develop bigger visions for ourselves and our companies. Become a maverick. There are too few of us.

Third, we must quantify our results. The only way we’ll get to the board room is to deliver quantifiable results that truly impact organizational and financial goals. I’m shocked every time I hear someone say we can’t quantify organizational development. With today’s technologies, this is easy to capture. As an HR leader, you need to understand organizational strategies and goals at every level, across every division. Meet the business needs first and let the HR administrator take care of the training requests. I dream of the day when Wall Street adjusts a stock price because an HR leader changed companies.

Finally, we need to act with confidence. HR leaders should be perceived as the heroes of companies. If people strategies are critical to organizational success, then let’s act like the quarterback, not the punter. We have tremendous influence whether we’re in the boardroom or not. If we’re successful and admired, the boardroom will come.

By the way, in China, CEO’s come through the HR ranks. Hmmmm.