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Great Managers Do This Better

What makes a great manager?  There is no shortage of perspectives on the topic.  Some based on research, others more on gut instinct.  One of the more intriguing studies on the subject, Google’s Project Oxygen, began as a research project over five years ago.  While many theories remain as such, Google’s findings and follow-on program implementation have produced measureable success.  More on that later.

If you are not familiar with Google’s Project Oxygen, it was an internally conducted study, initially launched to explore the question, “do managers matter?” After gathering more than 10,000 observations across 100 plus variables about managers at the company, the research team analyzed the data to identify patterns to test further through an extensive interview process.   The Project Oxygen team found data that indicated a significant difference between high and low scoring managers on employee performance, job satisfaction, and retention.  The question “do managers matter” at Google now had an answer-yes.

The team next went on to find out what the best managers were doing.  With additional research, the study produced a rank ordered list of 8 actionable behaviors describing what a good Google manager does.  The findings were less than surprising to some.  But to many, the lowest rated behavior of the 8 –   “Has key technical skills that help him/her advise the team” – was something of a mind shift change from what many assumed as more important at Google.  The top three behaviors in order:

1. Is a good coach
2. Empowers the team and does not micromanage
3. Expresses interest/concern for team members’ success and well being

Google took the findings and launched a highly successful change plan including communications, organizational processes, training, measurement, and feedback.  While the 8 attributes program continues to be measured and evaluated, 2010-2012 results evidenced an overall improvement in manager favorable rating scores from 83% to 88%.

You may be thinking your business is nothing like Google’s.  After all, Google has a strong culture largely made up of highly educated, high achieving, millennial generation software engineers.  More “A” players than you may think are employed at many firms.  If so, what’s the potential application of this research for you and your organization?  Google was interested in driving performance, engagement, and retention.  Assuming you are as well, the employees you most likely want to engage and retain to support organizational performance are the ones who are high achieving, educated learners, and a strong cultural fit – your “A” players.  If you are skeptical, you can begin your own research version of “Project Oxygen”.  Or you can consider how the learnings from Google’s study might apply to you and your organization.

So what do great managers do better – they coach.  Look at the top three rated behaviors.  All three relate to coaching and developing people.  So quite simply if you are going to focus your efforts to become a great manager, start with coaching.

Here are three things you can begin doing to become a good coach:

Understand what coaching is and isn’t.  I have worked with a number of managers and executives who believed “coaching” meant leveraging their technical knowledge and skills. It is not surprising that coaching is at the opposite end of the list from technical skills.  If you are using your technical knowledge and experience you may be mentoring, but you are not coaching.  Coaching is not mentoring.  Nor is it simply discussing careers at the annual performance review.  Coaching is supporting associates in their own growth and development.  It is focused on working with your team member on her agenda, helping her find a path forward, and challenging her to achievement.

Get coaching skills training (or provide to others if you are in a position to do so).  Keep it simple. This is not about becoming an executive coach, but learning and applying skills and techniques for more effective listening, asking questions, providing feedback, and helping others frame goals and opportunities.  If enough managers request such training, you may gain support to hold an in-house sponsored coaching skills training program.  If not, check out external providers for options.  The program should provide a simple framework and focus on skills practice and feedback.  Look for facilitators with both coaching skills and general management experience to ensure a pragmatic approach.

Apply coaching skills frequently.  Listen more. Ask more questions.   Practice these skills regularly.  Read books on coaching.  Get a peer coach and seek feedback.

Is Your Team Avoiding These 3 Key Behaviors?

You’ve seen it before. I know I have.  I find it obvious when I sit in a team meeting.  Team culture, the norms or behaviors by which a team operates, can be particularly visible.  These norms significantly influence how the team performs.  When the team culture effectively optimizes positive and productive behavioral expectations, the team is enabled to become high performing.  When either relationship or productivity behaviors are lacking, the team’s potential is diminished, sometimes significantly.  When that happens, the results are noticeable:  projects miss cost, quality and/or delivery targets; innovation and creativity is marginalized; conflict, often in the form of passive-aggressive behavior, becomes frequent; and team members burn-out and/or leave.

An underperforming team may be in that situation for a variety of reasons beyond its direct control, such as limited resources. More often than not, its culture is such that the team avoids some behaviors essential to sustaining high performance success.  Why?  Some teams are fearful that acting or behaving in these ways will adversely affect relationships and the ability to smoothly work together.  Others see these behaviors as ones that should largely be self-managing and not something team members need to or even should address.  Others lack the will or skill to embrace these behaviors.

Here are three behaviors essential to high performing teaming, but frequently avoided by teams:

Giving timely, behavior-specific feedback

Many professionals find peer to peer feedback particularly challenging. In giving feedback to a subordinate, the professional feels authorized to speak with the support of organizational rank.  In a strong relationship with one’s manager, the professional feels comfortable with the two-way flow of feedback.  With peers on a team, many professionals feel less confident about the “right” to give feedback.  Typically, I hear the following from peers on team:  “If she wants feedback she’ll ask for it.  Even then, she probably wants appreciative feedback like ‘great job’ more than anything else.”

When a team fails to embrace giving feedback as a cultural norm, openness and transparency are marginalized. Trust, respect, comraderie, and the ability to work through conflict are affected.  Delivered effectively and received graciously, feedback can positively contribute to building trust and helping team members and even the entire team grow.

Challenging flawed decision-making

We’ve all heard of “groupthink”.   Some teams see their ability to quickly make decisions as a sign of a high productivity culture.  These teams seem to say “why spend a lot of time talking about a problem and options when it is clear that we have a good solution?”  Other teams have a conflict-avoidant culture and will do anything to quickly achieve consensus on team decisions in an effort to bypass difficult conversations.

Teams need a clear process to first diagnose and define problems and develop options before choosing the right solution. Yet, even teams with processes can prematurely converge on a solution well before the team has clearly defined the problem and/or explored a number of solution alternatives if no one steps in to challenge what is occurring. High performing teams encourage team members to challenge flawed decision-making and embrace this behavior as important to team culture.

Holding team members (including self) accountable

This behavior is clearly related to giving timely, behavior-based feedback, but it’s more than that. High performing teams are effective at building a performance oriented process.  They set clear goals or outcomes, effectively define roles and responsibilities, prepare action plans, and create mileposts or progress checkpoints for meaningful evaluation.

Some teams fail to consistently follow their defined performance process. Why?  A common explanation goes something like this:  “I have to continue to work with the other people on the team. I’m not going to say something to them if they miss a deadline.  It could be me next time.  Besides, it’s a lot of work to be consistently diligent in reviewing progress and making changes to goals, expectations, and timeframes when circumstances evolve.”

High performing teams are committed to the discipline needed to accomplish their mission and goals and embrace a willingness to hold members accountable to assigned tasks and responsibilities. They do so constructively and proactively.

What about your team? How well does it consistently demonstrate these three behaviors?

Building leaders? Think sustainability.

Two weeks ago, my son returned to college, though far from the traditional campus setting. Beginning his third year as an architecture major, his “campus” this fall is rural, impoverished Hale County, Alabama. Rural Studio, Auburn University School of Architecture’s award-winning design build program, has been located there for twenty years, creating a unique educational experience for a generation of architects.

While the location and rambling facilities suggest an obvious “we’re not in Kansas anymore” experience for students, several foundational elements of the program have caught my attention. One element in particular should be a consideration for how we in business build leaders and support organizational initiatives.

After a day in the community evaluating projects completed by previous student cohorts, the 15 students begin “neck down” week, a term coined by the late Samuel Mockbee, founder of the program. From early morning until dinner, students and faculty work about the community doing volunteer work -repairing, tearing out, and cleaning up. While the primary aim of the dirty work is to build connection with the community, there is more. Students begin to develop a sense of craft and gain first hand an understanding of the ease or complexity of structural repair. In this design build experience, one important priority is to design energy-conscious, easily maintained structures which can be repaired by people with limited skills and resources.

Leadership development program design can benefit from a similar approach. Programs that demand more time and energy from leaders than the organization will realistically embrace struggle with full engagement. In such cases, leaders are also stretched in their pre and post program work. Ironically, what may suffer the most is the energy committed to developing self and team. Similarly, it is not surprising when models, processes, tools, strategies, and initiatives rolled out to leaders as part of a development program fall short of achieving organizational goals when the skills and behaviors required for effective implementation are not quite at the level needed.

When we design strategies and programs for developing leaders, think sustainability. Consider such questions as these when designing leader development programs for sustainability:

• How much “energy” will be required by leaders in implementing the strategies, models, programs, and processes launched in a leadership development initiative?
• Is there a more “energy- efficient” design that will enable a simpler, more straightforward approach to achieving the desired outcome?
• To what extent will leaders be able to effectively meet the requirements as organizational resources and priorities shift over time? If there is risk that leaders will fall short under such circumstances, how can the program be designed for sustainability rather than fall into disrepair or fall apart altogether?

Leader skills also factor into sustainability. Designing developmental programs for sustained effectiveness calls for a reality check on the skill levels required for a successful outcome:

• To what extent do we consider existing leader skill sets when designing program models, processes, and practices?
• If new or updated practices or development programs call for new skill training, how will you ensure that the training achieves the necessary level of competency? How will you be able to sustain skill levels over time?
• Is there a simpler, more straightforward program design that builds actions toward a desired outcome in parallel with the progressive development of leader skills?

An important design consideration for a generation of Rural Studio architects is sustainability.   What about for you?

Analogous Learning: Discovering Commonalities in the Most Uncommon Places

What can an advertising executive learn from a vegetable farmer? What can a hospital administrator learn from a high tech start-up?

The answer is…more than you might expect!

I was recently reminded of the power of analogous learning as I accompanied a group of high potential business (city) people on an immersion experience to an organic, sustainable community farm.  At first the business leaders seemed rightly skeptical about the value of spending a day with farmers. However, within one hour of beginning the experience, it became clear the many connections that they shared — managing interdependencies of resources, communicating across teams, maintaining customer focus, and creating environments where ideas are nurtured and things (read: products and services) thrive.

Analogous learning is, quite simply, learning from situations and people that are different from your own but share similar attributes.  It entails exploring uncommon places for best practices, finding new ways of looking at the paradoxes of management and, most importantly, reinvigorating leaders.   The boundaries of analogous learning are set only by the degree of one’s openness and curiosity.

Like weaving a calico quilt, analogous learning involves linking individuals from vastly different industries in deep conversations about their common pursuits around growth, innovation, change, operational excellence and, ultimately, leadership. I am consistently inspired by the quality of dialogue that occurs when thoughtful leaders from different industries and settings are put together. Unscripted and genuine, these conversations quite often reveal essential truths and insights around leading organizations and teams that are agnostic of industry, geography or market maturity.

How is your organization leveraging analogous learning in developing leaders?

When the Headhunter Calls – Will Your Top Talent Answer?

With an improving economy, headhunters are out in force trying to pick off your most promising talent for new opportunities elsewhere.  Keeping high potentials engaged (or re-engaging them) is the single most powerful lever to retention that is in your control.   

Only a few years ago high potential employees were specifically cited as a segment of the workforce increasingly disengaged in their jobs and with their employers.  So much so that in a widely discussed report by the Corporate Executive Board, some 25 percent of high potentials said that they planned to leave their current employers in the next year and about 1 in 5 identified themselves as “highly disengaged.”

More pay, better benefits, more desirable work location, greater flexibility – are all objective factors of a job.  These are the tangibles.  You may have all the tangibles right – above average pay and benefits, flexible schedules, etc but these alone do not inoculate your company from the threat of losing top talent.

As or more important are the intangibles that increase engagement and commitment of high potentials:

• Challenging work – work that is stimulating and has clear purpose and meaning.  The work has some element of stakes to it.  Leaders care if the work is done well or not, and leaders are close enough to know the difference.
• Recognition – through higher and differentiated compensation, more job opportunities, participation in development programs and through direct feedback from business leaders.
• Inclusion – feeling that their input is sought and valued  from executive leaders and other decision-makers and stakeholders; being placed in positions where new capabilities are demanded; exposure to business leaders that creates a feeling of being “in the know.”
• Autonomy – having the freedom to act and feeling that they have been empowered to make decisions;  being made accountable for objectives that are meaningful to the business.

How are you keeping your top talent engaged?  Is the senior leadership in your organization acting with purpose to engage and retain top talent by addressing both tangibles and intangibles?

Watch for Part II – When the Headhunter Calls.

We Don’t Develop Our Talent!

What organization or its leaders would express such a people strategy? Talent development strategies are sometimes communicated this time of year when annual performance and talent reviews are conducted in many organizations. Most companies express a commitment to developing people as essential to building employee engagement, securing a competitive workforce, and growing a pipeline of future leaders. Investing time in talent strategy meetings, management processes, and tracking systems are evidence of this commitment. Yet, the intention to develop people and the actions taken by leaders don’t always line up. While few, if any, leaders would purposely not develop people, any number of actions will adversely affect the impact of talent development strategies. These breakdowns in developing people happen when, as leaders, we…

• Limit conversation about development to once a year, typically in conjunction with an annual performance review.
• Avoid  challenging people. We know they have a lot on the plate already, so let’s make the development goal a “slam-dunk” success.
• Don’t hold people accountable. Everyone knows job results come first. Missing a development goal because of other business priorities is not a problem.
• Send an employee off to a course and never follow-up by asking, “How can you apply what you learned?” (And mean it!).
• Dismiss your own development because you are too busy; don’t want to take scarce budget resources or admit you have areas for development yourself.
• Pull people out of internal development programs because a fire needs to be put out.
• Postpone development initiatives because other priorities are more important (year after year).
• Don’t connect development to your business context.
• Micro-manage to the point where the development plan is yours not theirs.
• Don’t  differentiate talent –one size fits all development. Everyone should get an equal share of development resources –regardless of performance or potential.

It is putting together the day-to-day actions of leaders that ultimately translate talent development strategies into reality. Great leaders are always focused on developing talent.

Announcing Blue Key Partners

New Firm Delivers Customized Solutions for Growing Workforce Capabilities

November 6, 2013…The Learning Point, Inc and Talent Effects, Inc are pleased to announce the establishment and launch of their strategic alliance, Blue Key Partners, LLC. Atlanta-based Blue Key Partners serves its clients with customized leadership development and learning design services and solutions.

Blue Key Partners Co-Founder Don Lang has been serving chief executives and senior leaders with specialized talent acquisition, assessment and development capabilities though his consultancy, Talent Effects, since 2002. For the past ten years, Blue Key Partners Co-Founder Laura Butcher, President of The Learning Point, has provided clients with strategic learning and development consulting along with customized instructional design services.

“We’ve spent a decade or more building our respective consultancies with a common core purpose – to unlock the performance potential of individuals, teams and organizations,” said Lang. “It’s this shared purpose around which we have launched Blue Key Partners.”

“Our firms have collaborated on numerous assignments over the last seven years delivering deep expertise across the entire talent development continuum,” said Butcher. “Blue Key Partners will advance our mission to provide insightful and relevant support to our clients. From talent assessment and coaching, to customized learning and leadership development programs, we help our clients to grow workforce capabilities that are crucial for their future success.”

What a CEO Can Do to Make Talent Development a Reality

Stanford University recently surveyed more than 200 board directors, CEOs and senior executives of North American headquartered companies on coaching and the skills they have targeted for development. The results revealed a significant difference in perspective which may explain the talent gap in many organizations today.

Developing talent was the area most cited for CEO improvement by the board of directors polled in the survey. Close behind was the expressed need for CEOs to work on delegation skills.

CEOs are generally aligned with these results, ranking sharing leadership as the top development area most are working on. Developing talent was the fourth most frequently cited as a current area of development, with CEOs indicating both that it is important (23% of respondents) and that they are working on this skill area (21% of respondents).

Interestingly, at the next level of management, only 10% of the senior executives surveyed believe developing internal talent is a skill area needing development. Senior executives rate conflict management skills, planning skills, decision-making skills, motivational skills, compassion and empathy, listening skills, and persuasion skills as areas that they believe need greater personal development than developing talent.

Why “developing talent” as leadership priority progressively decline so quickly from level to level.  Does the CEO think developing talent is the responsibility of senior leaders?  And senior leaders see it as the reponsiblity of the of Human Resources? Is developing talent not seen as essential to achieving business performance results as is effective planning, decision-making, or the ability to persuade?

More than likely, senior leaders polled are employed in organizations with the tools and processes to support some measure of developing talent. In these situations, lack of resources is not the issue. Instead, it would seem that there is a gap of understanding and engagement between the CEO and senior leaders. To what extent is developing talent an expressed priority, expectation, or a bonus factor? How well does the CEO him or herself consistently make developing talent both a leadership priority?

Here are three things CEOs can do to raise the level of importance and action to develop talent in their organizations:

• Engage leaders in developing an organizational approach to developing talent

When leaders participate in a dialogue to create an overall organizational approach to developing talent, buy-in increases. Seek leader input into the design and roll-out of tools, processes and methodologies designed to support the approach. Taking these steps increases the likelihood that the approach and resources will be embraced and utilized.

• Focus leaders on developing talent rather than talent management

While a basic level of organization and structure is important to supporting talent development, too often the emphasis of talent management becomes a “check-box” activity for leaders rather than an integral part of their leadership. Focus leaders on what really matters – holding development discussions, mentoring and coaching top talent and creating developmental opportunities.

• Set expectations and metrics for developing talent

How well does a leader prepare his or her managers for new opportunities? Is the leader a “net exporter” of talent to the business? How well does the leader retain top talent in the organization? Expectations and metrics should be designed to support internal talent needs as they align with the business, not simply metrics for metrics sake.

CEO’s Advice: I should have….

The former tech company CEO, now a partner in a Silicon Valley based VC firm, was at an informal gathering of leaders from leading tech firms. Not once, but several times, he offered that if there was one thing he regretted in business it was that he took too long to remove a leader from his or her job. Sound familiar? I have had heard many executives rue their procrastination at making this tough, but necessary decision. Why the delay? Often, leaders say they want to give the individual more time to change, to fit in, or to live up to the expectations created from the interview process or from performance in another role. Sometimes the leader is self-reflective and open in sharing “I made a mistake”.

What steps can a leader and his or her organization take to mitigate the risk of taking too long to address a hire who doesn’t work out? Here are five:

1. Look forward, then backward. To get clear on the role you are hiring for, consider what needs to be accomplished in the next 12-18 months and how you will measure successful accomplishment and the obstacles or barriers both internal and external to the company standing in the way of accomplishment. Prioritize these to the few things that really need to happen. Get real here. More than four or five high priority imperatives are too many. Next, determine the key skills and behaviors necessary to accomplish these priorities in the culture and context of the organization. Lastly, look backward. If you are hiring to replace an incumbent, what behaviors or competencies did the departing manager fail to demonstrate that left you lacking the top performer you needed in the role? What behaviors never quite aligned with the leadership team or organization? Identify these behaviors or qualities and decide how important they will be in achieving the priorities you set as well as your own view of the individual and his or her performance.

2. Get to know the whole person. A series of interviews, each comprised of a couple of questions related to experiences or behaviors you have identified as important, will only scratch the surface when it comes to really getting to know a serious candidate for a job. Don’t exclusively rely on personality or intelligence assessment results. Taking this approach may reveal something about a few isolated competencies, but may not provide you with an intimate knowledge of the whole person. Instead, structure a disciplined candidate assessment process which includes a comprehensive interview with finalist candidates and thorough reference interviews. Make certain it is you, more than anyone else, who thoroughly gets to know the candidate.

3. Be open about expectations. Share your expectations for the role, not sugar-coated, but the real thing. Of course, you are selling the opportunity, but sell on real opportunity not on vague realities. The new hire should be entering the role eyes wide open. Provide opportunities for the new manager to interact with the team and the company’s products and services before making a decision to join, and certainly before the first day of work. Let the individual know what you will be expecting of them in the first week, first 30 days, 60 days, etc. Tell him or her about your communication preferences and leadership style. Be honest, not how you would like to operate, but how you actually operate.

4. Give and invite feedback. Once the new manager is on board, don’t delay in sharing feedback. Reinforce desired behaviors and actions. Offer suggestions for change to help the manager quickly calibrate with your expectations. Invite feedback. How are you doing in helping the new manager assimilate? Engage the team in doing likewise.

5.  Stand on checkpoints.  Before the interviews began, you identified important milestones for accomplishing the priority initiatives for the organization. Stay with your plan and hold regularly scheduled check-ins as you shared in the hiring process. If you find yourself postponing the check-in discussions, ask yourself why.

With clearly defined expectations, frequent feedback, and timely check-ins, you will help set the new manager up for success and enable the organization to realize critical objectives. On the other hand, if you did miss on correctly assessing the manager for the role, both of you are in a better position to move on.

Where Are Firms Investing in Leadership Development Now?

Organizations increased their investment in leadership development some 14% in 2012 over the previous year according to industry research.  This marks the most significant increase in years.  How are they allocating this investment?

Leaders at All Levels 

More investment is being directed down the management chain.  With limited investment at lower levels of leadership over the past half dozen years, many companies are recognizing a growing gap in their leadership pipeline and have begun committing or recommitting to funding developmental programs at all levels.  A key area for development is at the first level of leadership:  coaching skills.  Strong coaching skills enable these leaders to effectively engage and develop employees while driving performance.

High Potentials

An increasing number of organizations are investing a larger portion of their leadership development budget in high potentials.  These companies often develop a comprehensive architecture to connect learning and development initiatives for high potentials directly with strategic and operational business issues and opportunities.  A recent study puts the average per participant spending on high potential leaders at more than four times that of the average spent per participant for first level managers.  With this level of investment, it is important that leaders involved in identifying high potentials possess strong talent assessment skills in order to develop a “whole person” picture.  Assessment instruments measuring personality, leadership style and potential contribute to this holistic view.  With an intimate knowledge of the strengths, needs and values of candidates for high potential designation, the firm increases the likelihood it will invest in the right people. 

Globally Agile Leaders

For many firms, the increase in leadership development is being driven by global expansion.  Even companies who primarily operate domestically find that their supply chain, talent pool, business partners, and competitors are global today.  Successfully navigating across diverse cultures often requires additional leadership competencies beyond what many firms have traditionally focused upon.  Leading cross border virtual teams or leveraging entrepreneurial skills to opening a new market are but two examples.  With new global competencies models developed, firms are working to design experiential learning opportunities and assignments to enable leader agility for success in a global market.