Developing Direct Reports - what’s the point?

While Jane and Bob can get caught up in the everyday job of running their department and making sure their team is suited for the tasks they’ve been assigned, they also have to make sure they are developing those people who work under them to be the best employees they can be. Jane and Bob’s work doesn’t just stop with getting a project completed on time and under budget; they’re also responsible for the well-being of their direct reports.

Developing direct reports is more than simply creating performance objectives; it’s about creating development objectives for each employee. Performance objectives simply describe what an employee must achieve or deliver for the company. Development objectives for an employee describe what an employee should learn to help them achieve their performance objectives and other objectives such as career growth and team productivity. It’s about learning to coach your subordinates.

Okay, now I understand what development objectives are. Now what?

First, Jane and Bob must understand the difference between what they expect from an employee and this employee is currently delivering. These differences, what’s expected versus what’s actually delivered, will most definitely impact the development objectives they create.

Managers often think they have to create the development plan for their employees, but the goal is to have the manager motivate and guide the employees to create their own development plan. The development plan is the personal growth and maturity of the employee, not the company (that would be company objectives). The employees will be happier, and more productive, if they not only have a say in their personal development but even more if they design the objectives themselves. Jane and Bob’s role in this process is to critique, support, track the successful implementation, and provide recognition and encouragement.

There must be agreement, however.

Managers and employees must agree on the objectives, time frames, and the metrics for success.

The steps must include

1. talking with employee about creating a development plan

2. discussing options to include in the development plan

3. the employee creating a rough draft of plan

4. manager and employee discussing the draft, tweaking, and fine tuning

5. manager tracking and guiding the employee.

When the employees take responsibility for creating the plan, they also take responsibility for reporting their status to you. Your time commitment is minimal, and you’re helping develop a growing, happily satisfied direct report.

Now, Jane and Bob have to figure when they’ll create a development plan for themselves!

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Linda Finkle, CEO of INCEDO GROUP, works with innovative leaders around the world who understand that business needs a new organizational growth style. These innovative leaders know that powerful cross-functional communication is the highest priority and the strongest strategy for building organizational effectiveness. To find out more, visit: http://www.IncedoGroup.com

Popularity: 100% [?]

Marry Individual Perfection to Organizational Flawlessness for the Greatest Breakthroughs

What do you get when you marry individual perfection and organizational flawlessness? It’s a marriage made in heaven for making the greatest breakthroughs in performance improvements.

Capture this perspective and you’ll soon be accomplishing beyond your wildest dreams . . . while working less.

Let me put this message in context: It’s an important lesson for those who want to make lots of 2,000 percent solutions (ways of accomplishing 20 times more with the same time, effort, and resources).

The steps for creating a 2,000 percent solution are listed here:

1. Understand the importance of measuring performance.

2. Decide what to measure.

3. Identify the future best practice and measure it.

4. Implement beyond the future best practice.

5. Identify the ideal best practice.

6. Pursue the ideal best practice.

7. Select the right people and provide the right motivation.

8. Repeat the first seven steps.

This article looks at practicing to become more effective in accomplishing step five.

Combine Perspectives from Individual and Organizational Ideal Best Practices in New Ways

Of all the approaches to identifying ideal best practices, this one is the most powerful because it allows you to build on individual strengths in nearing perfection to create new dimensions of group strengths. You’ll be delighted with what this perspective can help you accomplish.

Here’s an example to explain what I mean: Individuals are very good at remembering to put fuel into their vehicles. Rarely will you see a vehicle stranded for lack of fuel. Why? If you run out of fuel far away from a fueling station where there’s no cellular telephone reception, you may have a long walk to fill and carry back a heavy container. The process may waste an hour or more. Also, if you run out of fuel when it’s very cold, this exposure can be dangerous. Some people are probably worried about being robbed while going to and from the station. Most vehicles have fuel gauges that are reasonably accurate in letting drivers know when more fuel is needed. As a result, there’s not much reason to run out of fuel.

Groups are exceptionally good about using up supplies that their organization provides. Why? There’s no barrier. If you need it, you take it. There’s no cost to you. Groups may not be nearly as good about remembering to order more when supplies dwindle.

Let’s assume now that you want to lower costs more rapidly in your organization. How might these two principles be combined? Let’s start with the individual tendency to want to have enough. You might appeal to that instinct by tying salary and wage increases to achieving cost improvements above a certain target and letting everyone know on a daily basis how cost reductions are going. Those who want to be sure to have a decent income increase will be monitoring the information and taking action.

There’s a problem though. Many people may not feel like they have the knowledge or time to work on faster cost reductions. You could provide free breakfasts and lunches to those who were willing to attend training sessions to learn more about creating and implementing better cost reductions. Your organization could also provide a hotline people could call to get advice on how to develop their cost-reduction ideas. The tendency for organizations to use free resources would accelerate learning.

By comparison, most organizations disqualify almost everyone in the organization from being able to work on cost reductions. Only managers, supervisors, and engineers may be given the leeway. Yet the best ideas often come from outside those perspectives. Cost reduction is clearly one of those places where more heads work better, but the task has to engage everyone in helpful ways.

For better results, you can combine even more near-perfection perspectives. You might use four individual and three group principles to identify the potential for an astonishing breakthrough practice.

To provide further opportunity, build a list of 100 individual and 100 group instances of near perfection. With experience, you’ll locate even more helpful perspectives that can be applied to achieving breakthroughs.

Spread the Word

Share your ideas about how to combine individual perfection and organizational flawlessness with members of your family and people at work. Tell them what you have learned. Coach them in how to devise their own solutions.

The following questions will help you focus on the right steps:

• How can you interest others in pursuing ideal best practices by sharing your experience in intriguing ways?

• How can you help other people work through the process of identifying ideal best practices?

• How can the value of this new way of thinking be spread even further by encouraging those you’ve helped to coach others?

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

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Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is coauthor of six books including The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, and The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook. You can find free tips for accomplishing 20 times more by registering at:
=========> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Popularity: 98% [?]

Organizational Communication: The “Trickle-Down” Effect of Management Behavior

Companies today recognize that having a Code of Ethics is important in establishing a standard of conduct at work. What is less commonly understood is the significance of the “trickle-down” effect in implementing ethical behaviour within an organization and the value of a strong internal communication system to create a positive environment in the workplace.

In truth, ethics is all about behaviour, and creating an ethical workplace culture starts at the top. Owners and leaders in the C-suite need to be just as accountable to the code of ethics as any employee on the front line. The trickle-down influence is significant to organizational behaviour, just as a company’s dedication to holding all of its people, regardless of position, accountable for upholding those ethics is essential to internal acceptance of the set code. In the same manner that the level of ethics evident in the C-suite affects management, the level of ethical behaviour displayed by managers impacts their teams.

In light of this reality of organizational communication, today’s managers would be well-served to remember these five keys to ethical behaviour:

1. CARING ABOUT PEOPLE: A manager who truly cares is willing to express feelings of compassion, affection and kindness towards the team. Making this a part of the way you lead builds a reservoir of trust for your team to draw on when facing the inevitable ethical challenges that come up. When you actively care about your team, you’re more likely to be listening to their concerns, paying close attention to the challenges they face and being made aware of issues before they become a problem. This can only build a stronger team and a more profitable organization.

2. LEVERAGING EXPERIENCE: Every manager comes from a place of experience that gives them unique insight into any given situation. Using experience wisely means developing the ability to take information from those circumstances and translate it to something that benefits the company and its people. Sometimes it’s hard to control a ‘knee-jerk reaction’ that is based on your own personal plan or motivations. An ethical manager is capable of recognizing the difference between personal gain and organizational gain. If the gain isn’t in alignment with the organization’s best interests or the best interests of its people at large, it’s important to be able to say “no”.

3. ALIGNING WITH COMPANY VISION: When you align with the company vision, it becomes effortless to act in the best interests of the organization. It’s clear that the growth and gain of the company is also the growth and gain of its people. There are managers who are motivated primarily by self-gain and finding the path of least resistance up the corporate ladder. Such managers are usually perceived by their own teams to be arrogant, untrustworthy and unethical. Find a personal goal that is aligned with the vision and mission of your company and watch how this inspires your team to do the same.

4. BEING IN INTEGRITY: There are times and circumstances when it takes an immense amount of courage to act ethically and with integrity. An ethical manager needs to be able to draw from integrity consistently – without putting concerns of personal consequences ahead of the best interests of the team. It’s not easy to make hard decisions – especially if you know they will be unpopular with team members – however, these decisions must be made and need to be based in justice after careful deliberation.

5. REMEMBERING THE GOLDEN RULE: People in an organization develop a strong sense of loyalty when they feel they can trust the company and its leaders to be fair. Favouritism and inequitable management of resources or benefits will inevitably destroy any manager’s air of integrity. No one wants to be treated as if they’re less important than someone else. And no one appreciates their innovative idea being adopted without a nod of appreciation and recognition for their efforts. When you give your team a sense that they’re receiving a fair return for their efforts they are far more likely to have loyalty to the team, company management and the organization as a whole.

Ethical behaviour within any organization begins at the top. As surely as the behaviour from the C-suite affects management, the behaviour of management affects the teams they work with. Managers can positively impact the habit of ethical behaviour by modeling it and recognizing their influence on the standards and ethics upheld within their teams. When managers model ethical behaviour, they strengthen their relationships with individual team members; build trust in the team as a unit and effect growth of the company in its entirety.

The bottom line is that you have to be ethical to expect ethical behaviour from others and aligning strong personal values with consistent action in your own behaviour will go a long way to inspiring that same philosophy in your team.

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Margot Thompson is part of the INCEDO GROUP team. Find out how this group of executive coaches and communication experts bring dramatic changes to a company’s mind-set, leadership capabilities, and professional and personal productivity. Profitability is an inevitable side effect. => http://www.IncedoGroup.com

Popularity: 98% [?]

The Three Greatest Barriers to Organizational Change

Copyright © 2008 Gayla Hodges

The need for rapid organizational change is a fact of life in today’s business environment. While there may be a few companies whose leaders are committed to a belief that it is good for everyone to “shake things up” from time to time, most organizational change is undertaken to accomplish key strategic goals. No matter how necessary change seems to upper management, many barriers must be broken down if a planned strategic change is to be implemented successfully. The key to successful change is in the planning and the implementation. The three greatest barriers to organizational change are most often the following.

1. Inadequate Culture-shift Planning. Most companies are good at planning changes in reporting structure, work area placement, job responsibilities, and administrative structure. Organizational charts are commonly revised again and again. Timelines are established, benchmarks are set, transition teams are appointed, etc. Failure to foresee and plan for resultant cultural change, however, is also common. When the planning team is too narrowly defined or too focused on objective analysis and critical thinking, it becomes too easy to lose sight of the fact that the planned change will affect people. Even at work, people make many decisions on the basis of feelings and intuition. When the feelings of employees are overlooked, the result is often deep resentment because some unrecognized taboo or tradition has not been duly respected.

2. Lack of Employee Involvement. People have an inherent fear of change. In most strategic organizational change, at least some employees will be asked to assume different responsibilities or focus on different aspects of their knowledge or skill. The greater the change a person is asked to make, the more pervasive that person’s fear will be. There will be fear of change. More important, however, there will be fear of failure in the new role. Involving employees as soon as possible in the change effort, letting them create as much of the change as is possible and practical is key to a successful change effort. As employees understand the reasons for the change and have an opportunity to “try the change on for size” they more readily accept and support the change.

3. Flawed Communication Strategies. Ideal communication strategies in situations of significant organizational change must attend to the message, the method of delivery, the timing, and the importance of information shared with various parts of the organization. Many leaders believe that if they tell people what they (the leaders) feel they need to know about the change, then everyone will be on board and ready to move forward. In reality, people need to understand why the change is being made, but more importantly, how the change is likely to affect them. A big picture announcement from the CEO does little to help people understand and accept change. People want to hear about change from their direct supervisor. A strategy of engaging direct supervision and allowing them to manage the communication process is the key to a successful change communication plan.

There are other barriers, to be sure, but the three outlined above are extremely common and highly likely to create havoc in the organization. By planning and dealing with these three areas thoroughly, carefully, and sensitively, people will be most likely to get on board and help implement the change and adapt to organizational change far more readily and supportively.

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About Change Agents, Inc.
Change Agents, Inc. is a consulting and coaching company that uses their Natural Effectiveness Coaching™ and Teaming to help corporate team leaders achieve personal, team and corporate goals. Change Agents, Inc. specializes in developing and executing implementation strategies. For more information, visit http://www.changeagentsinc.com or call 623-362-3876.

Popularity: 98% [?]

Building Organizational Capability through Effective Teaming

Copyright © 2008 Gayla Hodges

Most of the companies I work with struggle to accomplish more with a smaller staff. This is a pervasive challenge for businesses in our day. There are, to be sure, several ways to approach this challenge. One approach, however, that is cost effective and successful is to build the capabilities of the organization through the creation of effective teams.

Too many businesses respond to the need for expanded capability by hiring an individual who is qualified and competent to meet the immediate challenge. Once the challenge has been met, however, they either have an underutilized employee on their hands or they let the individual go. This will never be cost-effective. First, the business incurs the cost (in dollars, time and investment) of defining the job, advertising it, and hiring. Second, the cost of training or on-ramping must be considered. Third, the cost of either retaining an underutilized employee or of arranging a separation agreement will be incurred.

A second response to the need for expanded capability is the use of outsourcing to contractors. While this approach eliminates some of the on-boarding cost and the layoff cost, it can result in additional unanticipated costs. First, an independent contractor does not know the company – its business or its culture. Second, an independent contractor will not have the internal ease or connections to call upon the staff for the same level of assistance or cooperation. Third, on-ramping actually takes just as long as it does with a new hire. Fourth, an independent contractor will approach the problem or the need from a single point of view. That point of view may or may not be consonant with the corporate culture or corporate values.

The response to this challenge of expanding organizational capability I have found to be most effective in a majority of cases is the creation of effective teams to accomplish certain tasks. Consider these points:

• There is no additional employee or contractor cost.

• There is no loss of time or momentum to on-boarding a new person.

• The corporate culture and values are shared by the members of the team because they are current employees.

• Current employees have communication networks throughout the company.

• Current employees are already committed to corporate goals.

• Teams are flexible – they can address a single issue or several issues

• When done well, participation on an effective team actually increases employee capability; it can then be applied in other parts of the organization

The key to building organizational capability through teaming is creating an effective team. My definition of an effective team is one that leverages the strengths of each of its members in such a way as to create more than any of the individuals could do on their own. An effective team will bring to the table a number of points of view, a variety of experiences, skill sets and knowledge bases. An effective team will not rely upon the thinking or the experience of any single individual. Rather, bringing the team together will, by virtue of the uniqueness of each individual member, provide the strength of diversity and experiential depth. It will create the kind of enthusiastic synergy and a level of buy-in that offers the best chance of identifying or creating solutions that are creative and innovative. Further, by bringing together people from various parts of the company, the news of their work and their solutions will quickly be disseminated throughout the organization, energizing others as they anticipate creative solutions that benefit the company and all employees.

If your company is faced with a need to expand the capabilities of the organization, I encourage you to take the bold step of creating a functional team gathered from across the company for their skills, insights, knowledge and experience, as well as their openness to negotiation and innovation. Once you take that bold step, I believe you will recognize a level of accomplishment that might be surprising. I am almost certain your next challenge will be met with effective teaming.

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About Gayla Hodges
Gayla Hodges is the President Change Agents, Inc., a company that specializes in energizing workforces to achieve strategic goals. She coaches executives and managers on leading corporate change, facilitating the development and implementation of organizational effectiveness strategies. For more information, visit http://www.changeagentsinc.com or call 623-362-3876.

Popularity: 98% [?]

#1 Reason 75% of Organizational Change Efforts Fail & How YOU Can Be Part of the 25% that Succeed

Copyright © 2008 Jennifer Selby Long

Have you ever tried to lead a major organizational change that failed? I did years ago, and it hurt! I still remember the sting and the embarrassment of having to retract all of my bold statements and retreat from my position.

That’s why, ever since, I’ve been an avid student of how to make organizational changes successful. Today, after leading and consulting on dozens of big organizational changes, I advise clients on how to avoid all of the mistakes I made and ensure that their changes will be smoother and more successful.

O.k., it’s time to spill the beans: The #1 reason changes fail is NOT that the change was driven by a bad business decision, although that sometimes happens. It’s not IT’s fault. People love to blame IT for failed change (”If only their technology had met our needs, we could implement a whole new way of doing business…”), but that’s rarely the reason a change fails.

No, the #1 reason organizational changes tank is this: the failure to manage the subjective human side. This includes aspects such as:

* The uncomfortable individual process of experiencing change - the loss, feelings of uncertainty, denial, and general discomfort that nearly everyone experiences to some degree, from your most seasoned director to your youngest individual contributor

* Inattention to organizational politics - the change initiative gets sabotaged, intentionally or not

* Inattention to developing the information, knowledge, skills, and capabilities needed to sustain the change

* The counteracting pressures on individuals, that you and the other leaders may not even realize you are putting on them

You CAN be successful, though, by using a structured process to manage the human aspects of implementing a complex change - in much the same way that you use a structured process to manage any other project.

Here are the key steps to make sure YOUR change is one of the 25% that succeed:

1. Widen the circle of involvement to ensure that key stakeholders are involved, not just informed, every step of the way.

2. Assemble a change leadership team. Some members of this team may be needed for just the project start-up, but others will need to stick with it through the entire change. Keep the membership flexible enough to accommodate this.

3. Choose an appropriate organizational change methodology for the scale and depth of the change. If you need to incrementally improve processes, it will require a different approach than if you want to radically alter the fundamental way you view and manage the business.

4. Regardless of the scale and depth of change, create and sustain:

– highly visible leadership

– a means to effectively develop any skills and capabilities the organization will need

– a two-way process for communication throughout the change

5. Pay attention and adjust as you receive feedback throughout the change. You can’t predict everything that will happen. There will be surprises.

Remember, failure to manage the subjective, human aspects of the change will slow your efforts and create a poor end result. Apply this process so your organization can not only survive through a big change, but thrive.

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Jennifer Selby Long, Founder and Principal of Selby Group, provides executive coaching and organizational development services. Jennifer’s knack is helping clients navigate the leadership and organizational challenges triggered by change and growth. She knows firsthand that great plans often fail because companies don’t take into account the human factors that come into play when implementing them. Visit Jennifer at: http://www.selbygroup.com

Popularity: 98% [?]

Is the Most Popular Time Management Tip Causing You to Procrastinate?

My mother is probably one of the most devoted to-do list fans. Unfortunately, she’s become a slave to the list. She agonizes over not being able to put a check mark on the tasks she hopes to do each day.

Last Saturday, right after lunch, my father finally pointed out this fact. “Honey,” he told her, “you spend way too much time making that list. You’re beginning to scare me.”

I didn’t stick around to find out what happened after that. (But I was quite relieved when my father called the next day to report that he and my mother were still sharing the same roof.)

In an article “Is the To-Do List Doing You In?,” Kathleen McGowan, explains my mother’s to-do list addiction: “Plenty of us create a to-do list to address feelings of being overwhelmed, but we rarely use these tools to their best effect. They wind up being guilt-provoking reminders of the fact that we’re ‘overcommitted’ and losing control of our priorities.”

Often, the people who have such detailed lists turn out to be “closet procrastinators.”

“Too often, the list is seen as the ‘accomplishment’ for the day, reducing the immediate guilt of not working on the tasks at hand by investing energy in the list,” observes procrastination researcher Dr. Timothy Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

So what’s the first step to kicking one’s procrastination problem?

Dr. Bill Knaus, author of The Procrastination Workbook, offers these tips:

1. Learn to prioritize.

Don’t get bogged down by tasks that could wait. Alphabetizing your DVD collection isn’t such a good idea when you have a leaky water pipe to fix.

2. Do it ASAP.

To borrow a popular tagline from a sports apparel ad: Just do it. Don’t make excuses to dawdle.

3. Resist “procrastination thinking.”

Don’t get distracted by things that suddenly come up. So, when a friend invites you to go on a road trip on the day you’re supposed to get a lot of writing done, you should resist the urge to use the romanticized adage, “Carpe diem,” to justify ditching your responsibilities.

As for my mother, I’d like to tell her that she doesn’t really need to feel guilty about not doing that much anymore. Her to-do lists were only somewhat useful when she had to manage a household that had six kids, five or so hamsters, and a couple of dogs.

It’s time to take it easy, Mom. You’ve earned the right to procrastinate.

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How can you be more productive - and less of a procrastinator - without a to-do list? Take the free course at http://www.simpleology.com/ - you’ll learn how to get more accomplished in less time every day.

Popularity: 99% [?]

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP - Understanding the influence of inspirational leaders (PART II)

THE 8 ASCENTS OF THE ULTIMATE LEADER (Continued from Part I) are the Psychological foundations of what makes a great Leader, they are…

1. Master Your Rules of Engagement

• In War, “Rules of Engagement” are what you do when you engage the enemy.

• The enemy in this case is experience of when your surroundings don’t match your perception of ‘what should be’

• Psychological “Rules of Engagement” exist as reaction responses to these surroundings and the experiences, if you become more aware of what they are, you will have a foundation to influence your actions and reactions, you will Master your Rules of Engagement

2. Increase Your Circle of Tolerance

• This is the measure of your ability to deal with things “intelligently” and without reaction. The more rules you have about the way things should be, the smaller your Circle of Tolerance

• If you have a large Circle of Tolerance, you can deal with more situations intelligently and make better decisions.

• Things that happen outside of your Circle of Tolerance usually trigger your Rules of Engagement

3. Remove Your Colored glasses

• There are 4 primary “Brain Processors” that interpret the world in very different ways. A “Colored Brain” perception is like looking though colored glasses. A leader who can remove his colored glasses, can see past his own perceptions and bring out the best in others who process differently.

• To discover what colored glasses you are wearing, take the complementary Colored Brain Communication Inventory (CBCI) at the Directive Communication website.

4. Stop Need Sucking

• When we are in charge of others (and sometimes when not), we unconsciously make decisions that leave others questioning our motives or are left unfulfilled in their jobs or tasks. This is because each person has specific emotional needs and gratifications that doing or completing a task provides. When someone takes those gratifications away (even accidently) this is “Need Sucking”

• To stop Need Sucking, leaders must take care not to take too much of the following emotional needs from a group:

i. Control or security (the less control one has, the less secure)

ii. Recognition or significance

iii. Diversity in tasks or job

iv. Sense of completion or achievement (let people finish)

• The more of these emotional gratifications a leader takes for themselves, the less there is for everyone else, translating to less fulfillment

5. Command your Leadership Postures

• Postures are the connection between Body and Mind that influence our moods. We are constantly using Postures without realizing it and they are affecting our emotions, our focus, and the type of influence we have over others.

• Controlling your primary postures: Warrior, Child, Lover, and Emperor, will allow you to command the suitable energy to affect others on an emotional level with greater effectiveness.

• Identifying postures on others will give you greater power to influence and inspire the best in them.

6. Map your world

• Each workplace has defined areas that create your “Work Process” these could be for example: Meetings, Working Alone, Working in Teams, Directing others or being Directed, Social Elements of Work

• By defining our motivations, frustrations, processes, and the importance we assign to these areas, we can clearly define our expectation and determine, by comparison to others, if they are realistic.

• When our “World of Work” is mapped, it becomes easier to navigate through the emotional turbulence of leadership to smoother sailing and greater effectiveness as an inspiring leader who is prepared for anything.

7. Align your Leadership Values to the Environment you would Create

• As an individual, you have specific values, these values are reflected in your leadership.

• Do you know what these values are? Are there any differences between your personal values and your leadership values?

• As a leader, your success will come from cultivating an environment conducive to your vision, and to inspire that environment to enthusiastically participate in that vision. To achieve this, your values as a leader MUST reflect the values of that the environment that will create the vision.

• The values aligned with the vision alone is NOT enough; identify what the diverse people in your organisation need to “FEEL” for inspiration to take place?

• What values do you need to change to make those feelings happen?

8. Cultivate your Leadership Identity

• Leaders are the greatest influence to an organization corporate culture. Leaders may not be aware of the psychology of why their “Leadership Identity” may often be an obstacle to an inspired and effective organization.

• The realizations and awareness gained through the first 7 Assents will influence decisions that affect culture. They are the essence that determines our ability to consciously decide and “Act” intelligently instead of “React” to our environment. A leader must act and create.

• To cultivate YOUR Leadership Identity. Reflect of the first 7 Assents and write a definition of Who You Need to Be as a Leader! Then live by this Leadership Identity and ascend to the level of Transformation

When a leader has mastered the 8 Assents, he can shape the structure of his/her leadership to cultivate a effective and fulfilled work environment. The next step in transforming the group’s or organisation’s culture is the development of the 5 Pillars of Transformation for his/her teams.

These are revealed in Part III of this article.

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Arthur F Carmazzi is the principal founder of the Directive Communication Psychology and a renowned Speaker and Author in the Asian Region. For more information and articles, visit the Directive Communication website at: http://directivecommunication.com
- Or Arthur Carmazzi’s personal web at: http://carmazzi.net

Popularity: 99% [?]

Goal Setting Advantage - Legend or logic? Part 1 of 4

Copyright © 2008 GainMore Advantage

For far too long, consultants, trainers, guru’s and leaders have been misleading us about goal setting. We keep hearing the same myth that people with written goals achieve greater success in life. I fell foul of this story myself - after all, it cam from the pages of a famous author and I’ve seen it repeated again and again. Most recently in an article published by the Professional Golfers Association. The trouble is that this story becomes linked with the concept of setting SMART goals, for which there is some evidence, but written goals? So, I felt that it was time to set the record a little straighter and based on just a little bit of real research… Goal-setting is one of those things that people, it seems, are near unanimous on its importance to life, career, success, achievement. And there are a great many speakers who advocate goal-setting. The latest ‘fad’ in this is The Secret - Rhonda Byrne’s now famous TV/Film Documentary which, in a nutshell, purports that people who envision what they want will attract its actualisation into their life. Now, I’m not going to detract from this appealing idea because there is something in it - but it isn’t new by any means, it’s been written in the Bible for several hundred years. There are others including Zig Ziglar and Anthony Robbins - both of whom quote an oft-used story about the effectiveness of goal-setting: This is the Yale Study of 1953 - some say it is Harvard, and some challenge the year - it matters not, since the study is an urban myth. Let me remind you of the story, you may have heard variations and the precise percentages vary: Yale researchers surveyed the graduating class of 1953 to determine how many of them has specific, written goals for their future. 3% of them had. Twenty years later, the researchers followed up with the surviving members of the class and discovered that the 3% with written goals had accumulated more personal wealth than the remaining 97% combined! I repeat - this ’study’ is an urban myth - whilst it is quoted by some ‘authorities’ and famous gurus on management and self-leadership, there is NO record of the study and NO paper on it. Yet it’s allure is understandable - it feeds beautifully into the concept that in order for you to accumulate wealth (aka be successful) not only must you have specific goals, but you must write them down. For someone selling a process on written goal setting (see Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins) it ‘proves’ the process.

So is goal-setting really important, or is it just a load of twaddle? To answer this question, rather than rely on stories of spurious origin, it’s important to have some robust research to find out if there’s anything in it. What is a goal? Hold on just a moment though, what do we mean by a ‘goal’? Everyone at some point in their life has heard that it is important for us to have goals. Goals provide you a map to your future, whether in business, life, and career or indeed sport. It seems obvious, but a football team playing without a goal to aim for is just kicking a ball around. But, other than the more obvious physical goals as the target of a particular game, what exactly is a goal? And how do you know when you have achieved it? Is it even very important to have goals? A sporting goal is a useful analogy though, here we are more interested in the non-sporting variety. The OED definition of a goal is “an aim or a desired result”. That’s useful, but I prefer the Wikipedia version which defines a goal as “a specific, intended result of strategy.” They amount, ultimately to the same thing: the intended achievement of a desired result. The dictionary definition, however, suggests that the goal exists with or without you. Why is this important? I hear some question already. Let me share an example: On the horizon is a mountain, its peak visible on this glorious day. It is your goal. You are aiming to reach the peak of this mountain. According to the dictionary the goal is the mountain peak. According to the encyclopaedia, the intended result is that you reach the mountain peak as a result of the journey (intended strategy) you are making. What’s important, the existence of the goal or the journey to its attainment? Let me refer briefly back to soccer… Is the existence of the goal at the end of the pitch the thing that makes the game, or is it the strategy (and tactics) employed by players to score (reach) the goal? The reason for being pedantic at this stage is to stress that we refer (in English) to goal as both an entity and as the intended result of our actions. For the purposes of this article, I refer to goal as both - an entity that we are able to describe in one or more of the five senses we enjoy and as a specific, intended result. I believe that it is critical that a goal can be described in one or more of our senses - otherwise we will never know what it is. “A man without a goal, you are like a ship without a rudder.” Thomas Carlyle You know people, perhaps yourself, who would be lost without a “To Do” list. Daily, weekly, monthly tasks that result in specific intended results. Many people will consider this as their goals. Indeed, you can call them ‘goals’ if you wish. But I want to distinguish this concept further. I call these daily, weekly, monthly tasks “Outcomes” - they are important steps on the way to achieving goals but they are a small part of the overall intended result. I’ll borrow from my own To Do list for today. It includes, strangely enough, writing the first three sections of this article. Now, is my goal to write three sections of an article? Is it to write an article? I can answer yes to both yet it doesn’t tell us the full story - my Goal is to develop my business and as a part of that, I want to reach a wider audience for the purpose of building my brand, building my reputation and establishing myself as a trusted expert that you will now consider to design and run a training programme or undertake coaching in your organisation. This article is just one part of that strategy, and this section, just one part of this article. The primary and secondary research I’ve undertaken to be in a position to write, I trust, knowledgeably about goal-setting has been another part… and so on. It is the goal that helps us determine the appropriate outcomes necessary to reach the goal, the specific outcomes help determine the actions we undertake to achieve them. The whole series together, makes a strategy. For ease and clarity, I consider a “Goal” to be longer-term and the intended result of a strategy. “Outcomes” are the result of the steps, milestones or activities that we achieve en-route to achieving the goal.

When I was a child, schoolteachers and relatives would often ask “And what do you want to be when you grow up?” I honestly didn’t have a clue. My friends seemed to have got the hand of this and I discovered that the expected answers seemed to be focusing around jobs or careers “I want to be a Fireman/Doctor/Train Driver”, or perhaps something bolder like “Rock Star/Famous Actor” - or around money… “I want to be a millionaire”. Apparently it didn’t matter what you wanted to be - it still required that you studied hard, preferably got all A Grades - oh and it was critically important that you “eat all your greens”. Quite how Brussels Sprouts are a necessity for success has never been answered fully to my satisfaction. By the time I was a teenager, I was at the “I dunno” stage. And by the time I was choosing my A level subjects it seemed that my options were becoming limited. Artist was ruled out on the recommendation of my delightful art teacher who claimed that my lovingly crafted painting “hurt her eyes” and Author was ruled out because I had little taste for over-analysing Jane Austin’s Northanger Abbey. To my knowledge, none of my friends answered “I wish to be a wage slave pushing paper from one side of a building to another, politically manoeuvring myself into a position of power and authority, attending useless meetings each day and commute for 4 hours” so what went wrong?

Well, perhaps it is the goal-setting process. More of this on Part 2.

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Find out more about goal setting and making a success of your life, visit us at http://www.gainmoregolf.com or http://www.gainmoreleadership.com

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Effective Leadership: 10 Timeless Principles for Managing People

In my management and effective leadership skills seminars, I often ask participants, based on their years of experience, to list their top do’s and don’ts for effectively managing people. After conducting workshops and keynotes all over the world for over 12 years, I’ve come up with ten timeless principles, or tips for managing people. Here are the top ten:

1. Set goals collaboratively with your employees. You’re more likely to get buy in from them because they were involved.

2. Follow through. Always do what you say you’re going to do. Otherwise, your credibility is destroyed. As the saying goes, they remember your last act.

3. In managing people, be empathetic and compassionate when the situation calls for it. For example, when a good employee is experiencing personal problems. Remember, your employees are your most important asset. And, you are managing people.

4. Be honest, trustworthy, fair and respectful. In managing people, if your employees don’t trust you, don’t perceive you to have integrity, they’re less likely to want to follow you.

5. Lead by example. Be a good role model. If you are honest, trustworthy, respectful, and hardworking, you’re training them to be the same.

“Effective leadership in managing people = getting along with others.”

6. Communicate clearly with your staff on a regular basis. This sounds like such common-sense, it shouldn’t need to be mentioned! But over and over, I hear about managers who don’t communicate effectively.

7. Take care of important issues. Don’t procrastinate working on projects you don’t want to do. And promptly address performance issues with a difficult employee. Otherwise, these problems only get worse.

8. Have goals and objectives clearly defined in writing for accountability. Include dates, deadlines, and numbers so it’s very clear what’s expected. For example, if someone is in customer service they are to, “Respond to all customer inquiries and complaints within 12 hours of receiving them.” This way it’s also less likely the employee can say to you, “Well, that’s just your perception. You’re just picking on me.”

9. In managing people, be available. Be approachable.

10. Empower and motivate the team not just in terms of completing tasks, but also in terms of good communication and managing conflict.

Effective leadership and managing people is all about communication and being able to successfully manage conflict. Learn to get along with others. It’s not just what you know, or who you know, but how well you get along with others.

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Colleen Kettenhofen is a motivational keynote speaker on managing people, effective leadership, difficult people and presentation skills. She is co-author of The Masters of Success, featured on NBC’s Today Show. Colleen has spoken in 47 states and six countries since 1995. For free articles, e-newsletter and video clips: http://www.ColleenSpeaks.com

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