Read on for some helpful insights into how the older work force can work alongside and / or manage the younger generation. Author Bruce Tulgan explains why the intergenerational workplace is so challenging and how to succeed within it…
Read More at Fins.com
This piece by Anne Fisher turns a long held assumption on its head. According to a new study, graduating from a top university and climbing the corporate ladder do not necessarily translate into a long and happy life. There’s alot to be said for having balance in one’s life and not leading a life pre-scripted by society or other conventional norms.
Read More at Fortune.com
Read More at Bloomberg.com
According to New York City think tank – The Ethisphere Institute, the 2011 list of the world’s most ethical companies is the largest since the inception of the award in 2007. Is that because companies are just learning about it or is it a growing sign of companies’ desire to be acknowledged for high ethical standards? What do you think?
Read More at Forbes.com
Cindy McCauley from the Center for Creative Leadership hits the nail on the head
when we she answers the question “How does leadership happen?” She has a way of simplifying the concept leadership
and the attributes that are apparent when leadership is present. Without any of the three important outcomes
she speaks of below, leadership just ain’t gonna happen!
In some of my successful assignments in Latin America (Mexico and Puerto
Rico), I may not have realized it, but I was constantly trying to make things
happen. I realized that we needed
purpose, consistency and commitment to succeed.
Cindy puts another and, I’ll admit, more concise way. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.
The list of “what makes a good leader” is a long one. “It’s
as if we’ve taken every positive human quality and made it into a requirement
for effective leaders,” says Cindy McCauley.
“It’s time to step back and take a different approach,” McCauley
asserts in Making
Leadership Happen, a new CCL white paper.
Instead of focusing only on individual leaders and their capabilities, we
need to examine how the whole system is involved in making leadership happen.
We need to look at dynamics like the exchanges between managers and employees,
the interactions among team members, the quality of relationships throughout
the organization and the enactment of organizational processes.
How would you know if leadership is happening in a team, in a workgroup, on
a task force, or across the organization? Look for three important outcomes:
direction, alignment and commitment (DAC).
Direction is agreement on what the group is trying to achieve
together. Alignment is effective coordination and integration of the
different aspects of the work so that it fits together in service of the shared
direction. Commitment is when people are making the success of the
collective (not just their individual success) a personal priority.
“We think the only way to know if leadership has happened is to look
for the presence of these three outcomes,” McCauley explains.
So how do you, a manager, make leadership happen in your organization? Here
are three important strategies:
Pay attention to whether leadership is happening. Start
looking for evidence of DAC. By paying attention to outcomes, you will not only
begin to discern where more leadership is needed, but will also start to see
the kinds of processes and interactions that are producing the desired levels
of direction, alignment and commitment.
Make more leadership happen. First, when you notice that
there aren’t many leadership processes in place, create them. For example, do
you need to meet more regularly with your peers to prioritize work in a
matrixed organization (to create more alignment)?
Second, when there are useful leadership processes in place, make sure
people have the skills to participate in them effectively. When a new strategic
initiative is being launched, will your staff be able to take part in (not just
show up to) the town meetings the CEO is holding (to create more shared
direction)?
And finally, when existing leadership processes no longer seem to be
producing the needed direction, alignment and commitment, explore new ones.
Does a more diverse group of people need to be involved (to create more
direction)? Are more honest conversations about proposed changes needed (to
create more commitment)? Are clearer accountabilities needed (to create more
alignment)?
Improve your own ability to participate in the making of leadership.
Back to those long lists of leader capabilities. It is useful to continue to
deepen and broaden your individual skills and abilities. With a broader
repertoire of capabilities you’ll be able to participate more effectively in a
wide range of leadership processes. Often the difficult question is “Where
should I focus my development efforts?”
One lens for examining this question is DAC. If there was one place in your
organization where you would desperately like to see more DAC, where would that
be? Then what would you need to get better at so that more leadership happens
in that setting?
Finally, don’t undertake these three strategies alone! Talk to people about
where DAC is happening and where it’s not; enlist others in your experiments
with new leadership processes; seek input on how to improve your own
capabilities. Leadership is shared work – at the end of the day, you can only
make it happen with others.
The recent very public resignation of Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs provides some pertinent insights in poor resignation etiquette. Read Lesli Kwoh’s take on what many people would undoubtedly be tempted to do at some point in their careers…
Read More at Fins.com
Have you ever been assigned to a team and thought it was a waste of your
time? Or been named “team leader,” but unsure where to start? Or
found yourself on a team that’s floundering or falling apart, unable to work
together? We’ve all been there and done
that. It’s time to go back to basics.
It may seem impractical in some work settings, but the best thing you can do
is take time to create a team charter. The
process of talking through the team’s purpose, context, roles and how people
will work together will boost your efficiency in the long run.
A team retreat may feel like a relic from the past in some companies, but
it’s important to set aside several large blocks of time for the team to work
on the charter. During your planning sessions you, or another team leader, will
want to walk members through key questions, capturing responses on flip chart
paper or other visible way. Consider rotating the facilitation and note-taking
roles as team members discuss:
Once you’ve tackled the topics above, have a person or subgroup combine the
team’s agreements into a single document. A written team charter can be
creatively displayed in your team’s work area, posted electronically and
referred to in meetings and discussions.
Periodically, the team will want to go back to the charter and consider
these questions:
I risk overstating the obvious in this posting, but sometimes going back to
basics makes sense. I think of resources
on teams as sharp arrows. They may be
the best at what they do, but if they’re pointed in multiple directions instead
of at the target, our chances of success diminish dramatically.
Coaching others isn’t always easy. Daily pressures and demands often
overtake our work, leaving limited time and energy to focus on coaching direct
reports. Listening, believe it or not,
is the most important part of the Coach’s job.
Without good listening skills, a leader loses the chance to help others
either get the message or drive willingly to accomplish the task at hand. Try this.
Go through one day and listen as intently as you can to all that speak
to you – you’ll finish the day exhausted.
So, obviously we have to choose the best times to really “dial in” and actively
listen.
While formal coaching sessions may be few, you can fit in coaching
conversations and coaching moments. The Center for Creative Leadership defines
coaching as “formal or informal conversations between a leader coach (you)
and a learner (someone else) intended to produce positive changes in workplace
behaviors.”
To increase your opportunities for coaching, pay attention to the cues
others are sending. If someone is upset, not ready to talk or needing to vent,
then just hear them out. They need a safe place to air thoughts and emotions
but aren’t ready for a coaching conversation.
Coaches use active listening techniques when people are ready to identify
problems and find solutions. Cues that someone is open to coaching include,
“Can you help me think things through?” “I’d like to bounce some
ideas off of you.” “Could you give me a reality check?” “I
need some help.”
In these moments, seven active listening skills can help turn a typical
conversation into a coaching opportunity.
Once the situation has been talked through in this way, both you and the coachee
have a good picture of where things stand. From this point, the conversation
can shift into problem-solving. What hasn’t been tried? What don’t we know?
What new approaches could be taken?
As the coach, continue to query, guide and offer, but don’t dictate a
solution. Your coachee will feel more confident and eager if he or she thinks
through the options and owns the solution.
When reflecting on one’s career, we believe every working executive should consider themselves a stand alone business with a need to maximize ROI for their experience, education and time invested in their roles as experts or leaders. This Forbes article provides more insight into what we’ve been saying for a long time…Forbes.com
Being “great on the job” has more to do with communication than just about anything
else. Well, maybe a few engineers would
argue that point. But I would say that
even an engineer has to state their case.
Technical prowess goes unnoticed unless the engineer can explain the
value of his work. Great communication
can move things forward, heal the inevitable wounds and build an environment of
trust and confidence. Take a look at the
below book summary and you’ll get the picture of how Jodi Gluckman sees the
importance communication in the work place.
Jodi Glickman, communications consultant and author of Great on
the Job, once applied to Cornell’s Park Leadership
Fellowship program, a $72,000 two-year scholarship for Cornell’s Johnson
Graduate School of Management. Glickman was not
offered the scholarship. Undeterred, she phoned the director of the program to
lobby for the award; the next day the program director personally called her to
offer her the fellowship.
Glickman’s life story, which includes time spent as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile and as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs,
is filled with many remarkable triumphs of communication (including ranking
first out of more than 300 Goldman Sachs associates in communication). With
straightforward two- or three-step strategies, Glickman tries to share the
fundamental secrets of her extraordinary communication skills.
For example, Glickman offers the following three-step strategy for managing
expectations:
Step one: Ask for timing/expectation. Get the details, ask for time to
think about it, then either confirm the assignment with the manager or move to
step two.
Step two: Be transparent about your workload. If the timing or
parameters aren’t doable, explain what’s on your plate and ask for time to come
up with an alternate timeline. Don’t accept an unrealistic deadline.
Step three: After serious consideration, present a detailed timeline and
action plan for completing the project.
Many of Glickman’s strategies include “example language” —
hypothetical conversations illustrating the strategy at work. For example, the
following dialogue illustrates the three strategies (shown in brackets) for
asking for time off at a particularly inopportune time:
Susan, I’d like to talk to
you about taking the weekend of July 4th off. My closest friend is getting
married in Maine. [Highlight the Issue]
I wanted to let you know
early so that we can plan accordingly. I will take care of everything I need to
in advance, and I’ll make sure that the team knows exactly where all of my
pages stand. [Cover Your Bases]
Do you think that will be
a problem or can we make it work? Is there anything else you’d like me to take
care of in advance? [Get Buy-in]
The G-I-F-T
Four themes run throughout the book that, according to Glickman, are key to
effective communication. These four themes are summarized in the acronym GIFT:
Generosity. Sharing information, sharing credit, and keeping others’
agendas and schedules in mind will go a long way toward smooth communication
and cooperation.
Initiative. Asking, “How can I help?” is not actually all that
helpful, Glickman argues. Give people choices so that they don’t have to dream
up answers on their own.
Forward Momentum. This is Glickman’s phrase for nurturing and
maintaining relationships that may prove to be vital in the future.
Transparency. More than just a question of honesty, transparency means
volunteering difficult information, whether it’s alerting people to problems
and mess-ups or acknowledging when you don’t know something, writes Glickman.
Be Strategically
Proactive
Transparency is key in many of the strategies in Great
on the Job. It’s also vital to be strategically proactive,
Glickman writes. Excelling at the work you are given is not enough to advance.
Success depends on proactively learning new skills, assisting others and
knowing how to diplomatically redirect unwanted tasks (by accepting the task,
but emphasizing that you are interested in more challenging or valuable
assignments).
In the second part of the book, readers learn how to “move up the learning
curve” by managing expectations, and knowing how to ask for help and
feedback. “Stay out of Trouble” is the third part of the book, and
includes advice on how to raise a red flag and manage a crisis.
The final chapter is on selling yourself. And there is perhaps no better person
to give advice on selling yourself than an author who only needed a casual
conversation to vault over 10 competing classmates and land a prized
internship.
Our Canadian partner in IRC Global Executive Search was founded in 1994 and was featured in Business Week's Most Influential Headhunters in the World List!
Our Brazilian partner in IRC Global Executive Search was founded in 2001. DRH is led by Hamilton Teixeira, a former C-level executive of Kellogg, Bausch & Lomb, Timex, and Rayovac.
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