5 Great Challenges Ahead for HR and Leaders

Whew! Glad that’s over. Now the election’s been settled businesses can go back to business, employees can get back to work and job-seekers can expect to find more open roles. Money sitting on the sidelines will come back into the economy as investment in people, training, technology and…..the real innovation starts to move forward.

Or will it? I feel as though we’ve had a Goodbye, uncertainty and Hellooo, uncertainty, moment. We’re still perched on the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff, waiting for leadership to show up. 2013 promises to be one of the most challenging years yet for Leaders and HR pros as they are forced to pick a path around healthcare regulations that haven’t been written, some level of tax reform that hasn’t been defined (er, Simpson-Bowles anyone?) and employee frustration with lack of growth, potential loss of benefits, and dimming hopes of retirement. Whatever your politics, we’re all in the same boat, and it’s listing badly. The leader’s seat is still vacant. Can you believe it?

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Take a look at this 2012 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey, Challenges Facing HR Over the Next 10 Years, and ‘developing leaders’ takes the number two spot of concerns HR must address as identified by  52 percent of respondents.  This is a big jump from the 2010 survey, in which a mere 29 percent of respondents named leadership development a pressing HR challenge. In business, as in the rest of life, leadership skills are critical now more than ever.

Taking the number one spot in the SHRM survey with 60 percent of respondents is ‘retaining and rewarding the best employees’.  This makes sense as a lead-in, since I’d argue the best employees are leaders – people leaders, management leaders, creative leaders, technical leaders or sales leaders. We need to fill the leadership gap, and fast.

Let’s look at the top five challenges to developing leaders and think a bit about how to address them. Here are five must haves for every leader – let’s start a revolution right now:

1) Invest in leadership development. Whether you believe leaders are born or made, companies still need to invest in their best employees to develop and sustain leadership qualities. We’re not talking advanced training in PowerPoint here; it’s a good tool, but at best it’s a tool. Real leadership training involves exposing your best employees to an immersive leadership environment, e.g. Harvard’s Executive Education Program or similar programs offered by MIT, the Kellogg School of Management, Wharton and other top universities. It’s a big investment, but it’s a form of long-term planning: build the best team you can, then invest to make them better. Your people will recognize the investment in them, and both the business and the individual will reap the rewards.

2) Create a culture of collaboration. Leaders are at their best when the company culture demands collaboration. Rewarding individual success is necessary but not sufficient.  Only in a culture of collaborators will organizations have developing leaders working together to bring other employees up and into the circle of leadership.

3) Develop communications skills. We may expect our leaders to be good communicators but too often it’s not the case. Communication styles vary widely; what may work for one organization may not work for another. This is part of developing a company culture: you need to set the bar high for communications skills, give people training where they come up short, and correct style mis-matches before harm is done. Good communicators build teams and trust; poor communicators create and feed uncertainty.

4) Drive and sustain real accountability. Leaders must be accountable. They can’t be like Homer Simpson (DO’H! It was like that when I got here – it ain’t my problem!); they must own the problems they need to solve and own their failures to be credible when claiming success.

5) Be human and reward emotional intelligence. Yes, I’m a huge fan of emotional intelligence; yes, it belongs on any ‘top five’ leadership traits list. As organizations work with emerging leaders HR must stay focused on helping new leaders hone their emotional intelligence. This is crucial. Leaders be human please.

Finally, Leaders and HR people must act now to advocate for employees of all levels – we too must be leaders. One way to start is to join with or support SHRM leaders when they visit Congress in DC this week to raise awareness of employer concerns about retirement security and employer-provided education assistance.  Our employees, and our developing leaders, need our support to fight against uncertainty about retirement, and they also need our support to ensure companies can help employees grow by ensuring education assistance remains available for associate, undergraduate, and graduate course work. In this new world of work employees will need to reinvent themselves over and over again; employers must be able to support them in this task.

HR and leaders alike have many responsibilities. Maybe among the most important is developing the next generation of leaders and being more innovative as times change rapidly before our eyes. Where would you start? I’d love to know.

Boomers Are Not So Anti-Social

In a recent survey it seems that the Baby Boomer Generation is the largest user of the social media sites seeking jobs. Yes, more than the Gen X & Gen Y generations. 

It is encouraging to see that the BB Generation has plugged-in and cannot be coined as luddite's. The survey which surveyed 5,268 job seekers actually found that 29% of Baby Boomers used social media compared to 27% of the Gen Xer's and 23% of the Gen Y's. 

Way to go Baby Boomers, you are not technically challenged.  

Passing the Baton: What’s So Hard About Succession Planning?

a reprint from StrategyForcusedHR.Blogspot.com

“One of the things I did best was provide a successor. Adam has the respect of the owners and the players, he has expertise in the very important areas of social media, international and television, all of which report to him.”
That was a statement this week from the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, David Stern, in announcing his retirement. Stern steps down on Feb. 1, 2014, 30 years to the day after taking charge of the league, and he will be replaced by Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver.

“I decided that things are in great shape and there’s an organization in place that will ultimately be led by Adam that is totally prepared to take it to the next level,” Stern said.

As the saying goes, “That’s what I am talking about.” I could almost see Stern’s checklist:

• Identify new skill set needed for the future;
• Hire for replacement;
• Groom/Mentor with other needed skills;
• Make the appropriate introductions as needed;
• Work side-by-side as a true partner;
• Announce retirement;
• Pass the baton.

What’s so hard about succession planning?

Analogy: The New Way to Spot Strategic Opportunities

This post had so many readers that I thought I would re-post it. There is something very interesting in thinking beyond what you as a company can be Harley-Davidson and Ducati did just that. What does your company think about itself? 

When Charlie Merrill (the Merrill in Merrill-Lynch) envisioned banks as becoming "financial supermarkets" in the 1930s, he was describing a new strategic opportunity that no one else had imagined. Using a powerful analogy not only helped Merrill think through the idea of offering a broad menu of financial services to the middle class, but also aided him in selling the idea to others.

Traditional strategy development relies on economic analysis. The problem is that this approach yields opportunities that more than likely will also be discovered by competitors. And thus the power of strategy development tied to analogy: visionaries see opportunity where no one else is looking.

Writing in the July-August Harvard Business Review, HBS professor Giovanni Gavetti calls this looking at "cognitively distant" opportunities because they require a mental leap. "This way of thinking suggests that a crucial component of strategic leadership is the mental capacity to spot opportunities that are invisible to rivals and to manage other relevant parties' perceptions to get them on board."

Harley-Davidson and Ducati envision themselves not as motorcycle manufacturers but as providers of entertainment. Google re-imagined the Internet portal business not as a media business -- the model used by rival Yahoo -- but rather as a technology business. When you re-imagine your business, new ways to compete appear.

In addition to overcoming set ways of seeing things, the visionary has another monumental task: to convince employees and other stakeholders to buy in. Gavetti writes that former Kodak CEOGeorge Fisher clearly envisioned the company's future in digital, but couldn't change the corporate DNA, which was bound to film.

Want to become a thinking-by-association leader? The article preaches the use of structured associative thinking, which is a process for recognizing and working around out our own cognitive biases.

For strategists, reading The New Psychology of Strategic Leadership could be a fruitful way to begin thinking "outside the box."

a reprint from CBS

7 Search Strategies in B2B - HR Read Up on This!!!

By Karen J. Bannan

November 5, 2012 - 6:01 am EDT - BtoBOnline.com 

The year may be almost over, but that doesn't mean marketers can't squeak out a few more good campaigns. Search, with its ability to change on a dime, is a good place to focus attention—especially since search “helps build strong brands by bettering brand-health metrics,” according to an August eMarketer report (“Search for Branding: Tools for Better Campaigns”). And there's never been a better time to jump into the fray, according to another research firm. Forrester Research's “U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 to 2016” forecast that search's share of the marketing budget will drop from 55% to 44% by 2016.

With more budgets going to mobile and social channels, marketers may continue seeing pay per click (PPC) costs drop as they have over the past four quarters. The latest Google results, for the third quarter released Oct. 18, found cost per click (CPC) dropped 15%, following 16% and 12% drops in previous quarters.

Cost doesn't matter, however, if marketers aren't executing campaigns correctly. To that end, experts suggested these seven strategies to help the b2b segment get the most out of its search efforts.

1) Don't automatically turn off PPC campaigns during the holidays. While it's true that b2b buyers are probably spending less at the end of the fourth quarter, there are still deals getting done, said Joseph Kerschbaum, VP at Clix Marketing. Many b2b buyers are starting to research purchases that they will make in the first quarter, so it's important to be out there in front of them, he said. One strategy that may help marketers get the most out of their ad dollars: Spread out your spending differently than you normally would. You might have 30 days worth of budget to spend in November but, instead of dividing it by 30, spend 80% to 90% in the three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, leaving a smaller portion for that week and the following one, Kerschbaum said. In December, spend the bulk of your campaign funds between Dec. 1 and 21, ramping up again Dec. 30 and 31. “A lot of people come back to their offices before the new year to get a jump on their work,” he said.

2) Adjust your keyword list. Most people take the “if it's not broken, don't fix it” position when it comes to adjusting keywords. However, experts said marketers should be continually analyzing and reviewing their keywords, retiring underperforming ones and adding new ones based on industry research and natural search analytics. Many marketers avoid using comparison keywords since they tend to resonate with buyers who are very early in the purchase cycle. However, these types of informational searches may fit into a company's fourth-quarter strategy.

3) Add sitelinks. This strategy works well for paid and organic search, said Dana Todd, senior VP-marketing and business development at search company Performics. Sitelinks are part of an ad extension for Google that enables marketers to show links to pages from your website, in addition to the main landing page, beneath the text of your ads. They appear in two columns and usually give searchers quick shortcuts into your site as well as giving you more real estate on the actual search page since it extends your ad further on the page. It also pushes some of the competition and natural search results to the second page. “This is especially important when it comes to mobile since sitelinks fill out half the page on a mobile device,” Todd said. A telephone number should be one of those links since, especially on mobile devices, it gives prospects a way to instantly connect.

4) Complement your paid campaign with a display campaign. “Now that Google opened up the DoubleClick exchange and other ad exchanges that are serving Google ads, display is easy to add to a campaign, too,” said Loren M. Baker, VP-business development at online marketing provider BlueGlass Interactive. The combination of search and display gives marketers the ability to retarget customers who have gone to a site by clicking on a paid link. “You can target them with a display ad that maybe has the same message and images the searcher saw when they clicked through to the site,” Baker said.

5) Bring keywords through to the landing page. This seems like a no-brainer but it's one of the biggest mistakes that marketers make, Kerschbaum said. Whatever keyword or phrase that encouraged someone to click through should be featured prominently on the landing page—and that goes for any special pricing or language as well, he said. Nothing turns a searcher off more than having to dig through navigation or a lot of text to find what he or she was looking for to begin with.

6) Rethink your mobile strategy. According to Adobe Systems' “2012 Global Digital Advertising Update and Emerging Trends” report, CPCs remained lower for mobile traffic than desktop CPCs, but conversion rates were 20% higher, as was ROI. The takeaway: Mobile strategy is imperative. It's all about context in mobile, Performics' Todd said, so ad copy should be localized whenever possible. “If it's an explicit local query such as "Chicago business insurance' make sure [the prospect] knows you're really local by adjusting the ad copy or sitelinks to include a local area code on the call number or a physical address/neighborhood reference such as "Serving the South Loop since 1979,' ” she said.

7) Forget the daily budget. Search campaigns do best when they are based on accurate bidding—not a daily spending limit, Goodman said. It's OK to raise the budget one day and scale it back the next in order to capture the winning bid for your most successful keywords—those keywords that have been proven through testing and analytics.

HR needs to also rethink their search strategies for talent. 

The CEOs Checklist

I came across this blog post (5/12) by Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, the Northern California venture capital firm. I thought it was important to get it out there so CEOs and HR leaders can see what start-up CEOs look at to generate new product development, growth, and employee engagement. I have preached these items over the years to the CEOs I have supported. Unfortunately, they do not always practice them as a daily ritual.

As a first time CEO, there were times when I would sit at my desk and think, “What should I be doing today?” This feeling was especially strong after every financing round closed. After our seed round, we had defined the product and the engineers were coding it. I didn’t code. After I hired the executive team and started delegating, most of the bases were covered.

Of course, there is always plenty to do at a start-up and the CEO is usually the head cook and dishwasher, but the question of where I should be productively spending my time continued to nag at me.

I was pretty aggressive about reaching out to other CEOs and mentors and this question was my biggest area of inquiry: “Hey, when you think back to when your company was my size, how did you spend your time?”

There were a number of suggestions that were specific to the company life-cycle stage like, “Get some alpha customers teed up” or “Get together a launch plan for Europe.” However, there were also some core, evergreen pieces of everyday advice that applied throughout the company’s growth:

Push the team

After you’ve hired rockstars in every essential VP role, it’s the CEO’s job to challenge them to do extraordinary things. Here are a few things I used to do:

• Set aggressive goals. As a company we would set three goals every quarter and then I would individually negotiate three specific and measurable goals (such as “Hire a director of X” or “Meet with 20 customers”) for each of my direct reports that supported the company goals. Everybody needed to accomplish something more than just doing his or her job.
• Give frequent feedback. In addition to giving extensive bi-annual performance reviews (see my previous post on the dysfunctional CEO), I would constantly pull VPs aside after meetings—“I like the way you handled that” or “Dude, that was a bit harsh”.  I’d keep in mind the “shit sandwich”, a piece of constructive feedback in between two specific, positive comments.
• Hold weekly staff meetings. This was not a rote set of updates but a place where arguments were had and decisions made. After every meeting we’d send out a list of decisions and discussion points to all managers.
• Schedule bi-monthly 1:1s. I’d usually spend an hour (no interruptions and paying attention!) going through progress on goals, how I could help, what’s going on within their teams, etc. The tone was positive, but I would constantly challenge them to do more with less.

Sell the vision

Shortly after our first round of funding, my co-founder, Scott Banister, turned to me and said, “I’ve heard you tell 100 different people a slightly different version of the same story. I had no idea you spend so much time selling!” He was right, I was constantly selling: soliciting investors and advisors, signing recruiters and PR firms, hiring employees, securing first customers, conducting company meetings, convincing reporters and sparring with industry analysts. They all demanded a compelling story, told with enthusiasm, and the CEO needs to be on the front line with these critical meetings that might turn into the tipping point between success and failure.

When I think about all the important things CEOs must do, succinctly and convincingly articulating “the story” is right up there. But there’s a catch: it must be told with both authenticity and passion—like it’s literally pouring out of them. We refer to the best of these entrepreneurs as “glow in the dark”.

Arbitrate disagreements

Half.com founder and CEO Josh Kopelman once told me that the thing he hated most about being CEO was when two of his smartest people would disagree and he would have to come down on one side: “These decisions were usually 51/49% and I was left having to console the ‘loser’.” He’s right. Arbitrating these disagreements is one of the hardest and most emotionally draining parts of the job, but many CEOs just avoid it and nothing breeds a horrible culture like a CEO who puts offs decisions or, worse yet, makes too many compromises.

I firmly believe that if the VPs aren’t periodically at odds with one another, then the company isn’t being nearly aggressive enough. Why can’t we get the customer feature in the next release? We should pre-announce new functionality and run under the ball! Great sales and marketing VPs constantly push the envelope with engineering, operations, finance and product.

Management By Walking Around (MBWA)

This is one of the few acronyms I retained from my undergraduate finance studies. I vividly remember reading it in some Management 101 textbook and thinking how simple and silly it seemed. Years later, I’ve come to believe that it’s a really important part of being a CEO. I probably spent three to five hours a week on MBWA and would put hour-long blocks in the calendar specifically for this purpose. Just a simple plopping down in an employee’s cube with a “Whatcha working on?” would yield so much valuable information. As the final decision-maker on so many difficult calls in a fast moving business, the CEO’s connection to the people that are actually writing code or talking to customers is critical. And you don’t get it from sitting in your office.

Talk to customers

A CEO should probably be spending about 30% of his or her time with customers, and this is especially true for an enterprise CEO. But this doesn’t mean talking with just the CIO or SVP, who most likely barely remembers signing the purchase order. However uncomfortable, I would insist on talking to the person actually using our product. I want to speak with the guy in the bowels of the data center, the one who probably comes into work without having showered and with bedhead. With just a slight prompting of, “Hey, I know you like the product but how can we improve it?”, he would unroll his manifesto of feature requests, bugs and other stuff to think about. Some of our best product ideas came on the plane ride home stitching together all the feedback.

Now, there are certainly a ton of other important activities—like raising money, setting a culture and hiring executives—that fall primarily on the CEO’s shoulders, but the aforementioned list includes the “responsibilities” I would hold myself to every single week.

7 Changes For Higher Productivity

Keeping your focus can be quite the task and as much as you don’t want to admit it, you love distractions. It turns out there really aren’t any secret tricks to staying more focused, but it’s certainly easier said than done.

I spoke with Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt and an expert in keeping people on task, so I thought he would be a good person to ask for some tips on staying productive. 

Here are a few of his tips for staying productive:

1. Work backwards. When you break down work into smaller chunks it makes it easier to designate the specific tasks necessary to complete the overall goal. Simply writing down “launch the company website” on your to-do list isn’t the most effective strategy. 

2. Stop multi-tasking. Switching quickly from task to task does not work. Studies shows that changing tasks quickly makes you dumber than being stoned. This means that your IQ drops by five points. Your IQ while multitasking could even drop 10 points, 15 for men, five for women. This means that men are three times as bad at multi-tasking than women.

3. Eliminate distractions. Make a point to shut out whatever it takes to get you to focus. This means locking your door, shutting off your phone, or even turning off the Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and remain there until your task is complete. 

4. Check your email on a schedule.  Checking your email constantly only lowers productivity. Set two or three times during the day that you plan to check and send emails.

5. Use the phone. Email conversations seem to slowly be eliminating the normality of a phone call. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead. 

6. Create an agenda. Most people dive head-first into their day, which often leads to panicking as they read through their emails. This accomplishes nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day. 

7. Work in intervals. It’s important to recharge throughout the day. Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. 

10 Ways Intelligent Job Seekers Blow Their Interviews

By Todd Moster, Special to CareerBuilder

The job interview is one of the most crucial components of a job search. In these lean economic times of long-term unemployment and sparse interview opportunities, it can be a make-or-break situation.

With so much at stake, you'd think job seekers would be at their best when they get that rare chance to meet a prospective employer. But many intelligent job seekers don't know, or don't think they need to know, the most basic rules of good interviewing, leading to unnecessary disasters. 

One job applicant's blunder, however, is another's opportunity. Job interviewing may not be easy, but it's also not rocket science. It requires a combination of preparation and common sense. Just knowing the 10 most common ways intelligent job seekers blow their interviews will give you a step up in this ultracompetitive job market:

1. Plan?  What plan? Many job seekers begin a job search without much advance thought, perhaps due to a recent unpleasant workplace event or a desire to make more money. The absence of a clear-cut professional career plan will be apparent to an alert employer, however, who will judge you as lacking commitment or as simply unsuitable. Even worse, a less observant employer may hire you for the position, which may lead to your entering the wrong next chapter of your career. Know yourself and your fundamental goals before even thinking about a job search.

2. Research is for wimps: Not all companies are alike, and even when they are, employers prefer to believe they're different and special. In fact, many will ask you what you know about the company and the position for which you're interviewing. Try to bluff your way through that question and the interview will be over, even if you haven't realized it yet. You can avoid that dilemma by thoroughly researching the company and job responsibilities ahead of time. That will ensure your ability to come up with a unique and convincing answer.

3. Preparation, schmeparation: You're a bright person and fast on your feet, right? And who knows about your experience better than you, right?  So why prepare? Because if you don't, you're going to blow it. There's a difference between knowing something and being able to articulate that information in a concise and engaging manner. Even experienced attorneys who know their cases inside and out will rehearse before they make a final argument to a jury. Smart politicians who know their positions cold will nevertheless prepare for important appearances. Your career -- and your future -- is worth the same amount of effort.

4. Dress for failure: Dress codes in the workplace have taken a dramatic turn toward the informal. That has prompted many a job seeker to assume that "business casual" attire will be just fine for an interview. An employer who pays undue attention to superficial matters such as dress doesn't deserve you anyway, right? Wrong. Dress for an interview as you would for an important meeting, which translates into a suit or jacket and tie for men and the equivalent for women. Even if your interviewer is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and teases you about your attire, he will understand that you suited up as a gesture of respect and are someone who values the opinion of others. In other words, it doesn't hurt to overdress.   

5. Busy people are fashionably late:  Many otherwise smart job candidates make the mistake of viewing an interview as just another appointment. That mindset tempts them to take the last-minute phone call or gamble that the traffic won't be any heavier than usual. And if you're just a few minutes late, what's the big deal, because it shows you're a busy, important person, right? Wrong. Lack of punctuality is almost always fatal to a candidate's prospects, however qualified she may be and however compelling her excuse for being late. If you're more than one minute late to an interview, you will probably not get the job. The lesson: Plan your commute so that you arrive in the reception area seven to 10 minutes before the interview.    

6. Be loud and obnoxious in the reception area: All job interviews start in the reception area. Receptionists serve as the eyes and ears of the employer. In fact, they're often sought out by the interviewers after the candidate has left to learn how he behaved before the meeting. So feel free to be rude to the receptionist. Have that nasty cellphone conversation with the client who isn't paying you. Catch up on your dental flossing while you're waiting. Just don't plan on returning.

7. Find out how much they're willing to pay you: Compensation is almost always one of the key factors an employer or job seeker considers in deciding whether to extend or accept a job offer. So it seems perfectly logical to ask the interviewer how much the position pays. After all, why waste everyone's time if you and the employer are in completely different ballparks? Unfortunately, there are some aspects of job interviews in which social convention trumps common sense, and salary is one of them. A job applicant's question about compensation is one of the reasons most frequently cited by employers for rejecting candidates. So keep your curiosity in check until you get a job offer. 

8. Don't ask questions during the interview: There's one thing worse than asking bad questions during an interview: not asking any questions. Many otherwise intelligent job seekers opt not to ask questions during a job interview, even when invited to do so. Ask them why, and they'll tell you they wanted to make a good impression by showing respect for the interviewer and her time. The result, unfortunately, will be exactly the opposite. Employers view job seekers who fail to ask any or more than a few perfunctory questions as lacking interest, enthusiasm or intellectual curiosity. Do your preparation, and walk into the interview with at least 10 open-ended, substantive questions about the company and position.   

9. Be spontaneous when answering questions: Job interviews can be as unique as the people and opportunities involved. Still, certain difficult questions come up often. They vary from the straightforward, such as why you're seeking to leave your current job and how much money you're seeking, to the annoying, such as what your weaknesses are, to the truly challenging, such as to describe a recent disagreement you had with a supervisor or co-worker and how you resolved it. You may be the glibbest individual to walk the face of the earth, but fail to plan your answers to the most common and challenging interview questions and you will blow your opportunity. Savvy, intelligent job candidates may in fact need less preparation than their competitors but will prepare twice as hard.

10. Tell amusing war stories: In the classic comedy movie "Airplane," the movie's hero, an airplane passenger on a long flight, insists on telling his long and boring life story to his seatmate. When we next see his companion, she is a skeleton. That's a good image to keep in mind when you go on a job interview. One of the key characteristics of successful people in today's busy, short-attention-span world is the ability to communicate in a clear and crisp manner. Insist on telling war stories or giving super-detailed answers to simple questions, and you may find yourself talking to a skeleton. Opt instead to bone up on your communication skills so that you'll be prepared to answer any question, however complex, in 40 to 60 seconds.

What are your thoughts on this MSN-Careerbuilder posting? 

Why Real-Time Technology Matters to Human Capital

The Real-Time Imperative

Posted by Joseph Fung on Mon, Oct 22, 2012

The business environment is no longer a closed, easily controllable ecosystem. For the first time in history, we have four generations in the workplace at the same time. Many of these workers make a habit of publicly sharing personal information in ways that have never previously been possible. And most employees are connected to friends, family, co-workers, and the world, 24 hours a day

Creating a high-performance culture amid such complexity and connectivity requires new tools and new approaches that work in harmony with this new fluid environment. Not only will compliance, control and enforcement fail to produce the exceptional culture you need to remain competitive, they simply don’t work in today’s workplaces.

Don't waste time! The real-time imperative demands that you act on what you learn from feedback as quickly as possible. Photo by Ben Dodson.

This is what we call the Real-Time Imperative.

Competing in Real-Time

Change is happening now, not later: If things are not going well in your organization, your employees are searching for the next opportunity as you read this article; When your company makes a mistake with a customer, she is telling the world about it within seconds; An awesome product you sent back for further review is about to be pre-empted by one that was quicker to market. Building a high-performance culture today means embracing and competing in real-time.

Your competitors can duplicate just about any advantage you have. They can poach your people, reverse engineer your products, dispute your patents in court, and beat your price. The one thing they can never replicate is the high-performance culture that enables your sustained competitive advantage.
At the same time, employees won’t buy into a culture that endorses outmoded methods, superfluous structures, slow response times, lengthy review cycles, and cumbersome procedures. High-performance cultures in today’s organizations are user- friendly, dynamic, agile, and open to feedback.

Real-Time Feedback

One of the most effective changes a company can make to foster a high-performance culture is to open the doors to feedback while shortening the feedback loop. Receiving and giving real-time feedback at all critical junctures is the ultimate goal; it means immediate, relevant feedback is continually offered in response to specific actions and circumstances that directly impact organizational performance.

How you implement real-time feedback will vary depending on your job role, but some tools that are available to you include:

• Comment Boxes
• Surveys
• Focus Groups and Group Discussions
• Interviews and Other Conversations 

Leadership Lost & Found

By Joel Koblentz on October 17, 2012

George Bernard Shaw once said, “"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

Yet, there is a time for CEOs to recognize that it is time to reflect and recognize their own leadership limitations. Self-reflections are always difficult.

Even so, too often, even before it is evident to his/her stakeholders, leaders fail to admit and conclude it’s time to exit. Many fight it. These CEOs stonewall progress and the best interest of the company that they lead. If a CEO leads a public entity, it places the board in a position of conflict and with it, no winners likely emerge.

The poster child for these observations are public company Founder-CEOs who too often have their ego tied up into the business (it’s my baby) and believe that no one can run the business the way that they can. Certainly, many CEOs whether founders or hired professionals, also are challenged by ego and a will to win.

Clearly, CEOs are not best suited for every leadership challenge. The mélange of gearing, competences, experiences and emotional intelligence are unique to every leader. To effectively lead a company today means that the leader must possess the “right” blend of targeted skills, experience and competences to be applied at the “right” time to address the challenge of creating value at each cyclical inflection point.

Where many leaders fail is in assuming that they are the best to lead under any circumstances and thereby don’t fully recognize their own shortcomings. And, too frequently, their boards, while recognizing the issue, fail to be proactive in addressing the need for change.

We believe the best CEOs are emotionally secure, confident without being ego centered, and understand their role as a liaison to value creation while constructing a solid bridge to the next generation of leadership. They know that among their principal priorities is to create value in the present and prepare the company for success in the future, departing with their company in a better situation then when they arrived.

To be effective, these leaders are keenly aware of their limitations and recognize that their specific strengths are right for a point and period of time, but not for all times. Sometimes, even the best of CEOs get caught between knowing that it’s time to depart and meeting their commitment to finish what they were recruited to do.

In these circumstances, beyond “coaching the CEO,” the board has a responsibility to the shareholders and to the broader community of stakeholders to assess the company’s state and determine whether their CEO is qualified to soldier on. This is tough duty for Directors especially if, as a board, they are not prepared to address succession.

Clearly, we live in a world of decisions at accelerating velocity. Markets are unforgiving.

If you are a CEO, we recommend being honest with yourself.

If you are a director, we suggest that very candid conversations are held regularly with your CEO about the leadership required and the depth and the development of the leadership team necessary to assure continuity to meet challenges going forward.

Clearly, there is “a time” for the CEO to exit. While painful, it is inevitable. None of us are leaders for all seasons. The sooner that a CEO recognizes and addresses that his/her time is running out, the less disruption the company and its board will face.

In our view, the CEO owes an honest assessment of fitness to lead. Those CEOs that are honest with themselves and forthright with their board are, by definition, true and selfless leaders.  

When it is time, depart work with your board to provide an orderly transition. Don't hang on! Let your success be your legacy!

Too Big To Fail?

The phrase "to big to fail" I think is overused today but the underused phrase is " OK to fail". As HR leaders we should be encouraging our employee base to innovate and create. Along the way people may fail at something never achieving their objective and we should say to them, "that's ok". 

So what I am really saying is that we should be creating a culture of innovation and providing leadership and incentives not just to complete an innovative project or task but to conceive one. This is a sea change from the past. As HR leaders we need to get out from under past practices and as I said last week blow our thought process up and start from scratch with today's thinking not adding to yesterdays.  Strip it down from beginning to end on your processes. 

So take a look at your incentive packages and/or talk to your local representative from SuccesFactors or whomever you utilize for incentive rewards. 

Check out the latest issue of Human Resource Executive®

Don't Retool HR, Blow It Up and Rebuild It !!

I was on vacation in Europe for 2 weeks and had a lot of time to think, design, evaluate, and reset my HR thought process. During that time here is what I came up with, and guess what so did the HR Executive.

Hr has been denigrated, criticized, scoffed at, laughed at, bureaucratically maligned organization since the 1950's. My guess is that if the current practitioners do not see the writing on the wall they will at some point be out of a job and scratching their heads asking why. Well, let me tell you now that I have an outside view looking into organizations. The have the following key flaws:

• they take time away from business from line managers and employees
• they still do not understand the business from the inside but try to use business speak as their entry into it
• there is really not a clear mission for the group and how it ties to the business
• expectations are impossible to say the least
• people really do not know what HR people do
• the systems and programs that they establish or use are counter to business  productivity
• people in general do not trust HR people (you know that drill - when they see an Hr person milling around all they can think of is bad news is coming)
• employees do not think HR is objective - only a management speaker
• what managers and supervisors don't want to handle they send to HR - sound familiar?

I can go on and on but those are some of the salient points I wanted to make. So as I was sailing in the Mediterranean this all came into real focus and I had that "a ha moment". Blow it up and start over in 2012 terms not what has been built up over the last 50+ years and multiple retooling that really did not fix the core problem.  

So I will reiterate what Jac Fitz-Enz said in the September issue of HR Executive. Solution, break up HR and restart with four distinct groups: 

1. Governance - this should fall under the CLO
2. Record Keeping ( Administration) - this should fall under the CFO 
3. Employee Relations - this should fall under the COO or Operations 
4. Strategic Development - this should report to the CEO 

From there you that the specialty functions and fit them where they best belong ( comp under the CFO, staffing under the COO etc). In today's real world business environment I feel this is what we should do with HR. I know a lot of you will not agree with this approach since it puts your job in jeopardy but if you really think about it this is a 21st century strategic approach and that is what this blog is all about. 

Why Burnout Should Alarm Executive Leaders

Guest Post by Ben Fanning, the Burnout Specialist:

Let me share with you what happened when I started my job at the largest sporting goods retailer in theworld.

I took over a supply chain team just a few months before the largest sales day of the year…Black Friday.

It’s called Black Friday because it’s traditionally the day that stores move into the “Black” and become profitable for the year.

But if you’ve worked for a retailer, you know it as Black Friday because of all the pressure and late nights that result.

The team I took over had been through the Black Friday cycle for years and hated it.

In fact they were all burned out in their careers--- fried, fizzled, and done.

You could see the burnout signs within the group:

• Sharon was listening to praise music and praying at every break.

• Susan was lashing out at anybody that questioned her knowledge.

• John was crouched over his computer at his desk with shoulders slumped forward.

The team burnout was obvious and couldn’t be denied.

I knew if I didn’t do something quickly to help the situation that I’d be lucky to keep them even a few more weeks.

My leadership capabilities would be pushed to the brink.

Our survival as a team would be tested.

Burnout is Impacting Your Team and Costing You Money Right Now

Based on statistics you’re leading a team that’s burned out.

The workplace is filled with burned out employees and as far back as 2000, 1 in 3 employees expect to burnout on the job.

That makes job burnout more common than getting the flu (with much longer term effects).

With the pressures of the job mounting and the digital stress of computers, phones, and blackberries; it’s just getting worse.

This doesn’t even take into account the hit on your employees’ personal lives.

Imagine your employees falling asleep in their recliner every night instead of playing with their kids; and how they’re yawning their way through another date night for the 3rd month in a row.

It’s just not healthy.

Moreover, burnout is also showing up in the bottom line of the company and having a shocking impact.

Work stress cost businesses $300 billion per year in absenteeism, loss of talented employees, health costs, and programs to reduce stress.

Sounds like someone should do something and fast!

Burned Out Teams Equal Burned Out Leaders

When it’s your team that’s burned out, it’s has extremely negative consequences on you and your career.

You’re responsible for the cumulative goals of your team, and you’re under pressure to deliver.

It’s one thing to have a team that can’t perform but when your team is burned out, it actually “can” but just “won’t”. 

This leads to a huge amount of leadership frustration.

You might even experience guilt that you’re not able to do more for your employees.

As their leader, you feel responsible for their work day experience.

If they’re leaving work resentful, it can make it difficult for you to sleep at night knowing that your employees are likely taking home the stress with them.

The frustration, pressure, and guilt can leave you feeling sad and even defeated at the end of your work day.

That’s not sustainable for your career over long haul, and it’s surely no way to get to the next level.

Team Burnout can Transform You into a Better Leader

The good news is that job burnout does not have to hang over you and your team like a black cloud.

In fact, burnout can be your leadership crucible that forms you into a stronger, wiser leader.

It can also be an experience that connects your team on a much deeper level and ultimately leads to a more cohesive team that delivers big results.

Here are 7 Keys to Helping your Team Reignite from Burnout

1. Build Awareness – When you see the signs of burnout in your team, call it out. They may not be familiar with it and it makes a difference to let them know what they’re experiencing is common but doesn’t have to stay that way.

2. Clarify Why – Connect your team to the big picture. Just “making money “is not an adequate reason to sustain a career for the long haul. Help your team get in touch with why they’re working in the first place. What are their big goals both professionally and personally? How can they look at their current role as part of their future career path?

3. Amp up Communication – Find ways to open communication on a routine basis. This gives a daily forum for your team to share new ideas and also bring up what’s not working to the group. Limit them to 15 minutes though. You’ll be amazed how efficient these meetings can be when you have them. You’ll find if they can count on this on a daily basis the team will be more connected and focused on results. Plus you’ll get a lot less interruptions yourself.

4. Forget the Butts in the Seat Mentality– Very few jobs these days actually require you to be in a desk chair 9-5. Consider adding some flexibility to their schedule. Have an overlap or work time by a few hours but see how you can adjust to accommodate a better lifestyle.

5. Encourage a Social Director – It’s not always easy for the boss to plan a social outing. Encourage someone to step up and plan lunch out for a break. As the boss, offer to pick up the bill.

6. Teach your Team to Disconnect – If you’re on your work email at night and weekends, then it’s likely that your team will be too. Model behavior that you’d like your team to emulate versus “do as I say, not as I do”.

7. Define a Simple Process – Find a coach or mentor that offer an outside perspective. Learn from them and deconstruct their process. Take what you learn and build out a simple operating plan for your team. It’s huge stress relief when you realize that you’re not along and you don’t have to recreate the wheel. 

Bonus Tip: Celebrate the Small Wins – Find something to celebrate with your team every day. Even the smallest of wins can help build momentum to achieve bigger goals.

Ben Fanning is a burnout specialist that helps frustrated executives and teams rekindle their passion for the job and get to the next level in their careers. He burned himself out working in several Fortune 500 companies, and now’s leading the movement against career burnout. He's reignited his own career, and you can now apply his wisdom to your own by clicking here.