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

Developing Disney’s Leaders: A Podcast with Dr. David Yudis – OC Podcast 015

 

 Developing Disney's Leaders: A Podcast with Dr. David Yudis - OC Podcast 015: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Don’t miss our conversation with Dr. David Yudis of Disney.  We had a great discussion about where Disney is headed as a company and how it goes about developing its leaders.

Get this episode of The Organizational Champion Podcast as well as all our past episodes at podcast.organizationalchampions.com.

If you would like to automatically receive all future episodes of The Organizational Champion Podcast, subscribe in iTunes. You will receive each episode as soon as it is released.

Tags: conversation, development, Disney, kingdom, Leadership, magic, Podcast, webcast

Enlightenment is the Key Differentiator of Extraordinary People

Becoming enlightened is the first step toward becoming an organizational champion because the process starts with you. Living enlightened means living true to yourself and your unique design – authentically, genuinely, consistently. Naturally living out your core propensity is necessary for personal efficiency and effectiveness. Don’t diminish the importance of personal growth and improvement, however. But realize that your best improvement will grow from your core sense of self. If you’re an introvert, you’ll likely never be a natural extrovert—but you might learn to communicate better. If you’re an academic, you might not be an artist (though these aren’t mutually exclusive)—but you might learn to think more creatively.

Those who fail to understand who they are often fail to lead naturally, always trying to fit into someone else’s leadership mold. This only leads to frustration and inefficiency. Through perspective and understanding, embrace who you are naturally—pursue growth from your core, and unleash your unique and valuable gifts.

• Discovering yourself gives you a new found significance and sense of purpose.
• Discovering yourself gives you more freedom to move through life and run wild as you’ve defined your own playing field.
• Discovering yourself gives you new energy and passion that allow you to bring your best to any situation.

The road to enlightenment begins with self-discovery. And the road to self-discovery isn’t always easy. In fact, many people find it a very difficult trek. But by accepting the difficulty—even embracing it—we discover ourselves, and through that discovery we can enlarge ourselves and our impact.

Tags: book, champion, development, enlighten, enlightened, leader, Leadership, organizational, theorganizationalchampion

All This Talk About Creativity

I’ve been impressed lately by the play creativity has been getting from business writers. Fast Company has really highlighted the topic and has featured a number of articles that show how creativity helps leaders and their businesses get ahead. Check out the October edition of Fast Company - page 56.

This brief highlights the book Iconoclast by Gregory Berns. The brief and the book present how our brains are lazy and our creative or imaginative process defaults to what we already know. The brief goes on to suggest that creativity and imagination happen most often in new environments or with new experiences.

Next time you want to get creative or imaginative, take on a new experience – bust out of the conference or leave the seminar, and go find a mountaintop, a shaded tree, or a roller coaster. Your mind needs a little right brain action. You and your business will benefit.

Tags: berns, business, champion, champions, championship, company, creativity, development, Fast, gregory, Iconoclast, imagination, Leadership, mike, organizational, thompson, Training

Gravity Busting Companies

Thinking about the definition of a Champion a lot lately has continuously led me to the same question: How can a Champion truly be a Champion? Are there some characteristics that companies we effectively release champions have in common?

Organizational Champions, the upcoming book, calls these companies “gravity-busting” companies. Companies that can be grounded by the natural path of gravity, yes, but that are not necessarily bound by it. There are many examples of a company that was too bound by gravity until the market passed them by, but surely there are some common characteristics of companies that feel good about allowing their Champions to bust out of the gravity when necessary.

IBM was synonymous with typewriters. In the early 1980’s, the world stopped needing typewriters; they shifted to personal computers. IBM created the original PC that started the revolution. Fast forward to the mid-1990’s and now low-cost providers had removed all the margins from PC sales. IBM had to make a major shift in their business model again. Now, they have transformed their model into a company that provides solutions.

They have leveraged their understanding and the tools from the IT industry to provide answers to companies and people around the world. They saw the change was necessary and the leadership of IBM made the change happen. Obviously, like many other companies that shall remain nameless, IBM could have followed the path of gravity and rolled with the tide. They could have held tightly to a business model that no longer existed, made some money for the short term, but then would have inevitably met a failing business. What was it about this company, and many others, that made it a gravity-busting company?

1. Investment in Development: In the article The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies…and How to Break Them by Harvard Business Review, many former executives of once successful companies that recently failed were interviewed about why their companies had failed. Many of the findings centered on the leadership and being able to equip these leaders to successfully manage and maneuver through change. They cited development as a key for future success. For the company who doesn’t see leadership development as a direct impact of the bottom-line, they may want to hold on tight for they could face the risk of not sustaining their impact and success for long.

In our research, when we asked 360 groups of potential Champions to answer a set of questions, “seeking ways to improve him/herself on a regular basis” showed a 69% correlation with a Champions overall performance versus non-Champions. Champions are finding ways to improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities on a regular basis….and the company they are a part of heavily supports this.

Interestingly, Champions are encouraged to not only develop themselves but others around them. Remember, an essential characteristic of a champion is promoting and seeking the “win-win” for the team. “championing individuals on the team to promote their success” had a 78% correlation to their overall performance.

2. Clear Cut and Deeply-Felt Vision and Mission: Many companies are great at their business, but there is not clear reason why they are doing their business. For what? For Champions to see the possibilities, for them to relentlessly pursue the dreams that ultimately drive the company further, the people need to know what they are championing…or fighting for. I imagine Walmart doesn’t expect their people to change the face of business by not knowing why they are in business. They save money to live better. Simply put. It is known by every Associate at Walmart and known by every consumer of Walmart.

Again in our research, there was a 75% correlation for Champions and their leadership performance and how well they “demonstrated a clear vision for the organization”. They cannot demonstrate this vision without a clear and deeply felt vision and mission from the overall company.

3. Culture: Over the years, it has absolutely amazed me what a culture can do, or suppress, in leaders and champions. When a company shows true commitment from the very top person(s) around taking smart risk, reaching across and outside the organization to build relationships, tomorrow’s strategy, and properly developing leaders to be able to handle all of the above, change can happen and is much more sustainable. Getting caught in the gravity of “earning profit for stakeholders” doesn’t allow a Champion to think beyond immediate stakeholders and focus on the real stakeholders of business today: the employees, the environment, the economy, everything. Having a culture that promotes this type of thinking and leadership can allow a Champion to have the freedom to bust through the gravity when it makes sense to do so.

4. Out-front and Collaborative Leadership Practices: Collaboration and interdependence are two key ingredients to business today. Building relationships not only with people inside your department and team, but focusing on the company as a whole and the entire outside world, for that matter, is necessary.

“One of the things we found was that best practice companies – vigilant companies who see opportunities sooner – are led by people who are very networked and very curious. Because they’re inquisitive about what is really going on, they ask really good questions,” quoted by George Day, consultant to companies like IBM, GE and Marriott.

Another HBR article titled Match your Innovation Strategies to your Innovation Ecosystem highlights the necessity of connecting and engaging customers and stakeholders through collaboration, relationships and not hiding behind the technologies that enable us to work faster today. As they say, “When [innovation ecosystems] work, ecosystems allow firms to create value that no single firm could have created alone. The benefits of these systems – discussed under such labels as platform leadership, keystone strategies, open innovation, value networks, and hyperlinked organizations–are real and well publicized.” The ability for the leaders of a company to live out these practices and push this throughout the organization helps to enable others to see this value and do the same.

Research isn’t in yet for what exactly is required of a company to properly support and enable Champions to do their thing, but from best practices and our research, here are some essential building blocks for a company.

Tags: champions, change, corporate, culture, development, IBM, innovation, Leadership, management, network, organizational, practices, relationships

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