Your next Leadership Role

I have always referred clients in new leadership roles to 2 great books, 'Right from the Start' and 'The First 90 Days', both written by Harvard Business School author Professor Michael Watkins. He has just released his latest book, 'Your Next Move', which explores career transitions specifically from the perspective of the 8 most common hurdles.
I found the Watkins Transitions Assessment Tool on the book's website below a particularly useful tool for assessing career transitions and strongly urge anyone embarking upon or considering a transition to use the tool.

www.yournextmove.net

KPI's Vs Critical Drivers

Most people know about Key Performance Indicators (KPI's), but what is a 'Critical Driver'?
The problem is that most people are so caught up with bottom line retrospective KPI's, such as quaterly Sales revenue that they miss the 'Critical Drivers' (or prospective KPI's).
A useful analogy to use when differentiating these terms is to ask yourself, "Do I want to know why someone died 90 days after onset of illness, or would it be useful to find out on day 1 that their vital signs, Critical Drivers of life such as Heart rate and Blood Pressure, are trending towards unhealthy levels, so I have time to help them survive before its too late. Now hopefully your business wont die in 90 days if your last quater results were breakeven or above, but why not focus on daily improvement of the steps that lead to sales, like conversion rate and number of qualified prospects met, as the critical driver to look to for lifting the final KPI.
The more often critical drivers are looked at the better the chance for improvement. The more often the leader looks at the Critical Drivers, the more often the team will look at them. If your team know you take these figures seriously by constantly reviewing them without getting distracted away by new ideas every month then they too will sustain their focus on them.

Another example is employee performance review cycles. If you sit down with an employee today and ask them to improve in an area without reviewing it again with them for another 365 days, who do you have to blame for the opportunity cost of a year without improvement? You could try to blame them for not following your advice but how can they deem it important if you are only prepared to spend a couple of minutes per year discussing it.

Seinfeld Method

When trying to establish a daily habit, why not use the simple method Jerry Seinfeld used daily for writing the scripts used in his record breaking sitcom. He put up a 12 month Wall Planner in his home and extended an unbroken ink line through every day he worked on his scripts. It became harder and harder to put off script writing each day the line got longer, until it was an ingrained habit.

Considerations, Fears & Roadblocks

Jack Canfield discusses Considerations, Fears & Roadblocks as the 3 obstacles to goal achievement in his book ‘The Success Principles’.
Considerations are thoughts like “this is going to be hard work”, “I have never done this before”, “the market is already saturated”….etc….etc. Confronting these thoughts is a good thing, because they have been stopping you subconsciously attaining or attempting the goal. Once they are brought into the conscious domain they can be dealt with so you can move past them.
Fears on the other hand are feelings. Fear of rejection, failure and loss are common blocks to achieving goals. To conquer fears you must:-
1- Acknowledge the fear
2- Attempt to understand why is exists.
3- Seek counsel about the fear
4- Look the fear in the eye and take the courage to obliterate it. Try to remember the other fears you have broken through in the past that no longer concern you.
Roadblocks are external circumstances, beyond just thoughts and feelings in your head. Not having enough money to start the project is a common roadblock, yet if you can convey your passion, you can recruit investors to help overcome this obstacle. “Where there’s a will there’s a way”. Some roadblocks, like changing legislation, can seem insurmountable but again your ability to persuade others is down to the power of your own belief in the need for change.

How does Coaching help?

As an Executive & Business Coach, people I met often ask "How does coaching help executives & business owners?". The detail I give them depends on how much time they have. As I always say, "Systemise the routine, Humanise the exception", so I have decided to systemise my initial answer to this FAQ(Fequently Asked Question) on this Blog. I can "Humanise" any "exceptional" enquiries you may have by contacting me directly.

Here are the 20 most common areas my coaching has helped clients. There are many other areas I have assisted clients with their individual needs, which are too numerous to list here.

1 –Uncover and then deal with blindspots.
2- Crush excuses.
3- Coach leaders to lead others to change the way they work and sustain the changes.
4- Keep clients on track with goals despite competing workplace distractions.
5- Revitalise and maintain motivation.
6- Maintain Accountability to do what you know needs doing.
7- Sounding board for finding solutions.
8- Leverage current skills, experience and resources for strong leadership.
9-Coach teams to deliver more with less.
10-Link performance to key metrics on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.
11-Strategic and tactical problem solving.
12-Highlight why some employees aren’t held accountable for results and how to fix it.
13-Coach how to spend less time on "fires" and more time setting direction for the company.
14-Coach how to make a quick transition in a new role.
15-Coach how to recruit, retain, and develop top talent.
16-Coach how to get your people thinking more like owners so they will go the "extra mile".
17- Coach how to think more strategically and how to act more like an entrepreneur.
18- Coach conflict resolution & reduction.
19-Help develop high ROI initiatives – and kill activities that waste time and money.
20- Develop self-reflection to ensure high-level performance continues well after coaching ends.

Success Formula

What factors can you increase to improve your chances of succeeding with a particular project?

Success Formula = Desire x Belief x Talent

Talent = Natural Aptitude x Training

Desire = Passion (strong feeling or emotion) for the project x Need (a state requiring supply or relief).

Belief = (Optimism from knowing it can be done) x (Confidence from past successes)

Natural aptitude may be fixed like IQ, but the other variables can be increased. If you cant lift these variables, maybe this is the wrong project for you to pursue.

Deal with 'Poor Performers' A.S.A.P

In a Cause-and-effect Universe, there is no such thing as an employee performing poorly without others paying for it. Poor performers reduce the morale of better performers, who either drop back their own performance and/or leave. Poor performance grows like a cancer and needs excising ASAP. The reason managers avoid dealing with this issue is because their fear of confronting the situation is greater than the problem. What about the fear of losing business and star employees? Fears of challenging others blind managers from thinking about what will happen if they don't prevent things sliding further downhill. I challenge you to challenge your fears on this subject and open your eyes to the actions you need to take to get people back on track.
On the positive side, let’s look at the benefits of dealing with the poor performer:-
1 – The ‘poor performer’ improves or they make way for somebody else that is willing to perform at the required level.
2- You get increased respect of your leadership coming from all 360 degrees of your work environment.
3- The rest of the team lifts their performance, knowing that the standards are real.
4- Your own confidence grows because you have broken through a fear, making it easier to do next time. This also has a kick-on effect for challenging your other fears.
5- You become a role model for your direct reports to follow suit with their poorly performing staff.
If the ‘poor performer’ leaves, don’t worry about covering the gap because the team will pull together to keep things moving, knowing the future will be brighter with a new person pulling their weight.

Be Sure

"People respond well to those who are sure of what they want"
- Anna Wintour's answer to a reporter asking how she has remained at the helm of U.S. Vogue Magazine for 20 years with an assertive management style that made Meryl Streep's character in 'Devil Wears Prada' look meek by comparison.

"If you want to succeed selling pots & pans, make sure you own a set yourself "
-Zig Ziglar, Sales Guru and author

We convey non-verbal clues that give away our inner thoughts when attempting to persuade others, so don't waste your time with on-selling products or ideas unless you've bought it first.

No more "Shoulds"

Should is a negative word. "I should have done that", is a regret. Regrets are for avoiding, not dwelling upon. "I should do this or that", weakens your resolve to do it. You either choose to do it or you choose not to do it. Choices are yours to make. Even when you choose to follow somebody else's directive, like an employer's request in return for a salary, you still have a choice. No Shoulds, no regrets, just choices.

Simple.ology

Just finished the best personal development book I have read in a long time.
Titled "Simple.ology - The Simple Science of Getting What You Want" by Mark Joyner.
In the spirit of the book I will simply state "Read this book, log onto the website and complete the online course to embed it's simple but valuable information into your daily habits.

Stop Procrastinating

Here are some simple tips to get you going.
1- Stop over-planning and get started. Plan about 80% of what you need to do and perfect the remaining 20% after you have started.
2- Go and do 5-10 minutes on it now. You were probably going to waste a least a few minutes fretting about it, so you may as well make a start. You'll be suprised how often you'll keep going beyond 10 minutes. If you do stop, at least you have done something.
3-Find an accountability partner to check your progress and keep you on track. We often find it harder to justify procrastination to others than ourselves.
4-Plan progress rewards for completing stages to build momentum.
5- Plan a time to work on it everyday to keep momentum.

There are plenty more tips you can find on the web, but looking for them is just another form of procrastination, so log off and do something now!

Change Management Success

Why is it so difficult to motivate frontline workers to change they way they work, after managment make the changes mandatory? Well most would declare that the anwser is as enigmatic as the meaning of life. A recent article in the Mckinsey Quarterly, 'The irrational side of change management' by Aiken and Keller, explains a number reasons and provides some hopeful solutions. Below is a brief outline of the 9 areas covered in the article, plus my own 10th point at the end.

1- What motivates you doesn't motivate your employees.
Zohar '97 demonstrated 5 areas of impact which motivate managers and employees.
(a) Impact on society
(b) Impact on the customer
(c) Impact on company/shareholders
(d) Impact on the working team
(e) Impact on "me" personally.
The issue is that leaders end up pitching a message that is skewed towards 80% of the areas of impact important to the leader and not 80% of the worker's primary motivators.

2- You're better off letting them write their own story.

People are more likely to believe in ideas they have produced than one force-fed to them. They are also more likely to implement their own ideas with passion. Get the workers to design the change program themselves. It takes longer but has better traction and is longer lasting.

3- It takes a story with both positve and negative elements to create real energy.

As humans we are more willing to take risks to avoid losing what we've got than we are to gain something more. Jack Welch used to say "What's wrong here", followed by "imagine what might be"

4- Leaders believe mistakenly that they already " are the change".

How many leaders bang on to workers about being customer focused, yet don't demonstrate how they themsleves are focused on their own internal customers.

5- "Influence leaders" arent a panacea for making change happen.

While persuasive idea champions help, many organisations make the mistake of relying soley on these passionate leaders when success depends more on how receptive the targets are than these influencial proponents.

6- Money is the most expensive way to motivate people.

Many studies have found that satisfaction = perception - expectation. Unexpected rewards have a disproportionate effects on employee's satisfaction with a change program.

7- The process and the outcome have got to be fair.

Employees will go against their own slef-interest if the situation violates other notions they have of fairness and justice.

8- Employees are what they think, feel and believe in.

You can't motivate customer-shy employees to spend more time with customers just by reducing their non-customer activities.

9- Good intentions aren't enough.

Workers may intend to implement changes, but if they return to the 'coal-face' without space to practice the changes on the job, they will revert to old habbits. There needs to be daily feedback of change metrics for more than a month. It takes at least 21 consecutive days to make or break a habbit. As most workers dont work 21 days in a row, initiatives need longer than a month to gain traction. One inservice meeting without adequete no follow-up, just wont cut it.

10 -Dont ignore behavioural preferences (my own point not in the Mckinsey article)

It is easy to understand the mismatch between managements desire for change and resistance at the frontline when looking at the situatuion through the basic psychometric behavioural preference tool - DISC, created by Marston in the 1920's. Most managers who embrace change have high D and/or I profiles and make decisions quickly, while most coal-face workers who resist it have high S and/or C profiles and prefer to make decisions slowly. The problems occur when the D/I managers get fed up with the slow traction of their initiatives and rush to new ones with the hope of better success, while S/C frontline staff are still trying to learn the last change initiative. It then becomes a case of 'the boy who cried wolf', when staff who have witnessed a number of these change cycles give up even attempting the latest initiative, because they view it as "management's latest flavour of the month......soon to be replaced with next month's flavour"

Please feel free to post your workplace experiences here. I'd post my hospital experiences both as a coal face clinician and a manager, but I'm keeping my mouth shut while the State Government hands out my department's budget this month. I'm then going to spend the few roubles they give us as efficiently as i can using the principles above.

JUGGLING TASKS

Here is a simple visual metaphor for Juggling tasks.
It is called "Rubber Balls & Glass Balls".
When juggling multiple tasks, we (& colleagues) often fall into the trap of focusing on the tasks we prefer rather then in order of importance.
If you catagorise a task as a 'Glass Ball' then it won't bounce if dropped like the other 'Rubber Ball' tasks. This is useful for sorting tasks for the day rather than big projects. You say to yourself "Which tasks must I complete (or must my team complete) by the end of the day before they smash like a glass ball"
Remember that if you let the Rubber Balls bounce for too many days they will stop bouncing, so you need to re-classify them as Glass Balls on the day they are due. I have found this metaphor very helpful for staff who say "I'm so busy I didn't get a chance to complete that task". Now I help them sort out the Glass from the Rubber balls, so they dont get distracted by catching the more enjoyable Rubber Ball tasks first.

STRENGTHS FOCUS

Just read Marcus Buckingham's latest book "The Truth About You" and watched the associated video's. He's taken 2 decades of interviewing leaders on behalf of Gallup.com, combined with research from his previous 4 books and synthesised the information into this simple DVD-Book kit.

This kit is powerful for 2 reasons. Firstly the message of 'Playing to Strengths' is backed up with robust Gallup.com data and secondly it is delivered with such passion and simplicity, that even the most disengaged employee or 'old school' manager couldn't help but follow Buckingham's advice. I've been coaching others to focus on their strengths for years, but have not found a book that delivers the message as clearly as this book does.

Check out the links below, read the book, get your team to read it and tell me about your thoughts and successes.

http://www.marcusbuckingham.com/ & www.tmbc.com/truth

www.marcusbuckingham.com/site/why_strengths/video.php

www.marcusbuckingham.com/site/resources/videos.php

For 5 more videos, click on the title of this blog 'Strengths Focus' above.

GOAL PLANNING

Click on the Weblink below to watch a short video on how to use my Clock-Face Goal Planning Tool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZEZ5QB9FY&ap=%2526fmt%3D22

I used 'Mind Manager' from http://www.mindjet.com/ to construct the Mind-Map.
Send me an email if you would like to receive the Clock Plan Mind-Map.

I used 'Jing' from http://www.jingproject.com/ to record the MPEG-4 video before uploading to YouTube.

Let me know how you get on with my Clock-Face Goal Planner.

5 Time Management Tips

1- Use the 4 D's of email inbox management.
(a) Delete
(b) Delegate
(c) Do Now, if it only needs 2minutes spent on a reply.
(d) Do later and flick off to a 'Later file' for coming back to when priorities have been resolved.

2 - Turn off your mobile voicemail and divert to a paging service for the following reasons.
(a) if its important they'll leave a message and if its not they wont.
(b) the instant text message from the operator saves having to call voicemail back.
(c) the text message comes with a reply phone number and saves fossicking for a pen while checking voicemail on the hop.
(d) the operator and can ask preset questions from certain categories of callers
(e) the operator can give preset information to certain categories of callers.

3 - Consider spending a minimum of 4hrs a week mentoring staff, as you'll be amazed at the time you'll save by delegating more and more than you ever imagined possible.

4- Train staff to write emails which only need a yes/no from you. If a challenge arises, they should ideally come up with at least 2 options requiring you to simply pick one.

5- Listen to audio education on the way into work and return calls on the way home. As Brian Tracy says, "When you are at work, WORK."

Welcome

Welcome to my new Blog.

Please feel free to post comments +/- questions.