Invest the Time to Develop Your Direct Reports

How much time do you spend developing your direct reports? According to research by the Corporate Executive Board, managers average 21% of their time on developing direct reports. Assuming a regular forty hour work week, that is over eight hours -one day! - per week.

I don’t know how they are defining “developing direct reports” but in my experience it is the conscious effort to provide coaching, feedback, challenging assignments, mentoring, and training with the express purpose of helping the employee develop the right skills for their career advancement.

Coaching employees for development is very different from coaching them to improve their performance. Managers need to do both, but unfortunately due to time constraints or shortsightedness, they primarily coach when they see a need to correct or improve sub-par performance in order to meet expectations.

Even though developing direct reports is (or should be) one of a manager’s highest priorities, with the way managers are overloaded, this vital leadership skill often ends up getting shoved aside. I am surprised at the 21% figure. Even my coaching clients – who are coached on this skill – don’t spend that amount of time on developing employees. Nor do they need to.

Every interaction with an employee is a chance for development. It only take a few minutes to ask what they like best about their job, what they find most challenging, and where they would like to see themselves in the company. An astute manager then takes this information, combines it with their own observations of the individual, and keeps it in mind whenever they are assigning new responsibilities or pondering training opportunities for their staff. Now that they know how the employee would like to grow, they can tailor their development efforts to those areas. Each time they talk to this employee they can update them as to what they are doing on their behalf, and ask if anything has changed about the employee’s goals, strengths, or challenges.

Even if there are no obvious advancement opportunities within your department or company, managers should have a development conversation with every employee. Those star employees need even more time from you –a formal career development plan can be written out, with periodic meetings scheduled to see how things are progressing.

As a matter of fact, it is even more important to have these development meetings when there are no obvious career paths within your organization for your employee. They are more likely to jump ship if you don’t sit them down and have a serious conversation, showing your interest in them and their career. That makes it a bonus for them to stick around, because having a manager that truly cares that they grow professionally -and acts on it - is rare. Just be clear with them that you are not able to help them prepare for any specific position, but that you want them to be ready if one does arise.

One of my clients – a high-tech department manager - once told me that developing his employees was his favorite part of his job. He got the most satisfaction from doing it, and wanted to do it as well as he could. I find that most people derive a high level of fulfillment from being able to coach, mentor, and assist employees’ growth. Unfortunately, their companies don’t formally place a high priority on it.

‘Developing others’ should be on every manager’s performance review, measured in number of promotions, number of career advancement plans, and direct reports’ feedback. From the process of helping them develop their potential, you get more productive, more loyal, and happier employees. The Corporate Executive Board reports that effective managers can increase the retention level of direct reports by 40 percent and performance levels by 25 percent by giving attention to development.

Take care of those valuable human resources, develop them, and the return will be measureable, not only in profits, but in your own feelings of well-being. And honing the leadership skill of ‘developing others’ can help you in your career advancement too.

Dress for the Job You Want




Picture Perfect

— MOVIECLIPS.com

If this boss wants to engender loyalty, he's got it backwards.

Great Sites for Job-Seekers

Last week, I wrote that the ‘real’ unemployment rate was 16%. This figure, which includes the ‘discouraged’ and ‘underemployed’ is from the US Department of Labor’s May report. Officially, the U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%.

In honor of all the new graduates looking for work, and all those discouraged job-seekers, I thought I would devote some blog time to career information. I asked some of the best career coaches I know for their suggestions on helpful websites. A big thank you to Rosemary LeVasseur, Kimberly, and Cindy Haba for sharing their recommended resources!

For tips on planning and preparing for your job search, check out these comprehensive sites. You can find examples and advice on resumes, cover letters, salary negotiation, interviewing, networking, etc.

http://www.rileyguide.com/
http://www.quintcareers.com/


An efficient job search doesn't use a shotgun approach, blasting out resumes to companies that you don't know and that don't know you. You should put together a list of your top ten organizations that you would love to work for.

Researching the culture, history and stats for a company is essential. You’ve got to go beyond their websites, (which I assume you’ve perused thoroughly). Informational interviews at your target companies are invaluable. But first, explore the companies you are interested in, or find some, at these sites:

www.glassdoor.com
www.vault.com
www.careerbliss.com

Here are some other places to find companies that, after doing a little more research, you may want to add to your Top Ten list:

Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies in 2010
Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2011
Business Insider’s 25 Best Companies to Work For
Your local Business Journal’s Book of Lists

In order to line up your target companies, you need to talk to people. Through your current network, find people who work in these companies and ask for fifteen minutes of their time to pick their brains about what it’s like to work there. Don’t ask for a job. Network! Networking effectively is an essential skill for your career whether you have a job or not. It’s all about developing and maintaining relationships – finding out how you can help others and bring value to their lives. 

Most people naturally want to help others.  But if you exude an air of desperation or an attitude of entitlement or arrogance, people will be turned off.  Request just fifteen minutes for an informational interview, and use that time to ask about them and their careers. Enjoy meeting a new colleague, send thank you’s, and keep in touch.

Face-to-face networking still has the highest impact. But you can network on-line too. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and join some LinkedIn groups. Recruiters often use LinkedIn, and you can use it to make contacts-ideally at your Top Ten Organizations - through your LinkedIn connections.

Check out Twitter and Facebook, just make sure that all your on-line presences are aligned, showing the same you to the public. And make sure that anything you post anywhere is up to front-page standards: that is, no typos, with your best face forward for anyone to see.

For tips on using social media: www.socialmediaexaminer.com

You should be spending most of your job search time researching your Top Ten Organizations and building your relationships, not only within those companies, but in general. Everybody you know should know exactly what you are looking for so they can give you appropriate tips. That’s what an “elevator speech” is for, although I detest that phrase. You should be actively involved with your professional association – volunteering, not just showing up for a meeting now and then.

You’ve still got to find a job so might as well continue to look at those job sites. Here are the ones the career coaches recommend - pick 2 or 3 and stick with those, otherwise it’s just too overwhelming and you fall into the trap of over-reliance on these sites instead of focusing on your top-ten-company targeting and relationship-building strategies.

www.indeed.com
www.simplyhired.com
www.hound.com
www.linkup.com - Not to be confused with Linked In
www.theladders.com
www.craigslist.org
www.careerbuilders.com

And to target recruiters: www.myresumeagent.com
For the inside scoop on recruiters, see www.ere.net.

When it comes time to negotiate, be sure to make a list of your requirements, and then your “nice-to-haves”. Know what to trade and how. For salary information see www.salary.com  or www.payscale.com.

If you are in the Seattle area, contact me for a list of local job search and networking sites. And for those who are pondering making a total career change, there are other sites that are helpful that I can list another time.

If you are one of the underemployed, unemployed, or discouraged, just know that there is something out there for you where you can provide a lot of value, and be valued appropriately. If you have been unemployed for quite a while, you may have to change your job search strategy.  It may be worthwhile for you to get a career coach.  Meanwhile, I hope this post can help you with your search.

CEOs: Finding Talent Requires Extra Efforts

In PwC’s recently published 14th Annual Global CEO Survey of 1,201 CEOs, two-thirds anticipate difficulty in finding the right type of talent for their needs. Over half of the respondents report that they plan to hire within the next year but are concerned about finding employees with the right blend of skills, creativity, and flexibility.

Although I consistently read - and know from my own connections - that employers have a difficult time finding qualified staff, I also know that unemployment is still high and people are still frustrated with finding work. Technology jobs are booming but there is little job creation elsewhere. Although companies are experiencing record profits, ‘real’ unemployment in the US is estimated at about 16 percent and wages are stagnant.

There is a real disconnect between what companies report and current economic statistics. According to the PwC study, 54% of CEOs plan to work more closely with governments and educational institutions to develop training programs that will meet their requirements. Interestingly, the front page headline in The Seattle Times today is “Cuts hit classes that lead to jobs”. The story says due to state funding cuts, nine community college programs are being eliminated including in health care, business and manufacturing – areas where graduates are consistently in demand.

Besides working with schools and governments (although perhaps not so much in Seattle), the Global CEO Survey reports that companies are looking for new strategies to attract and keep the limited amount of talent pool that is currently available.

Poaching from competitors, an active practice, leads to soaring salaries. Not surprisingly, this occurs most often among technical positions and those with executive experience. Accountants, health care workers, and industrial jobs in manufacturing, automotive, and chemicals are also in high demand.

Besides salaries, companies are working to come up with innovative ideas to attract young talent. Studies have shown that those in the Millennial generation choose training and development as their first choice of benefit three times more than cash bonuses. Ninety-eight percent of Millennials want to work with mentors and coaches.

They also value a work-life balance more than previous generations and, as one client recently mentioned to me, her Millennial employees are not willing to put in the 60 to 80 hours per week that her generation did when first starting out. (She admired this trait, by the way, and believes that they are on the right track to developing a healthy balance between their work and personal lives.)

The culture of a company is an important consideration for potential new hires. Management must foster a learning environment where mistakes are acceptable and teamwork is supportive and creative. There must be opportunities for challenging work and career advancement.

The CEOs from the study were from 69 countries and a variety of industries and were surveyed in the fourth quarter of 2010. In answer to the question,” To what extent do you plan to change your people strategy in the following ways over the next 12 months?”, the following answers were cited most frequently:

1. Use more non-financial rewards to motivate staff
2. Deploy more staff to international assignments
3. Work with government/education systems to improve skills in the talent pool
4. Incentivise young workers differently than others
5. Change policies to attract and retain more women
6. Increasingly recruit and attempt to retain older workers
7. Set compensation limits for executive talent
8. Grow our contingent workforce faster than our full-time workforce
9. Relocate operations because of talent availability

CEOs: Step up and do what you say you are going to do. If you have record profits and your own salaries are higher than ever, what’s holding you back from instituting the practices necessary in order to provide good jobs in a motivating environment?

This is an opportunity for you to put into place new partnerships with your communities. Partnerships that generate strategic relationships that will lead to more profits and a pool of talent for you, and educational infrastructure, good jobs and a stronger economy for your communities.

And this is a chance for you to be known as an employer of choice. When you become one of the Best Companies to Work For you can be extra-choosy about who you hire, guaranteeing you have the right team to move you forward.

A New Salary




Nicholas Nickleby

— MOVIECLIPS.com

Is Oprah a Good Boss?

Admittedly, I haven’t watched the Oprah show too much. But yesterday it ended after 25 years on the air, and I did watch the finale show.

 

And I wondered what she must be like as a boss. I watched some of the Season 25: Behind the Scenes videos and learned that her schedule, and those of the hundreds of team members who supported her show, was wacko. During the production season, days could be as long as 18 hours with incredible pressure to get things right, and there are a lot of details to get right.

I have no idea whether Oprah is a good boss or not. Her vast influence qualifies her as an exceptional leader. Can someone be an exceptional leader but a poor boss? After reading about Oprah and watching her highly edited interactions with her staff, here’s what I do know:

--She is brutally honest. Oprah, in rejecting ideas at a pitch meeting, said “There is not enough money on the planet, and I mean on the planet Earth, for me to do that” and “I am never airing that show.” Shooting down people’s ideas that they are 100% passionate about (Oprah’s requirement) might have nicked some feelings, but at least they know where they stand. But, do they know what she’s looking for? I don’t know if they do. Did she make her expectations clear? If she did, why were there so many rejections of ideas?

--Oprah knows her craft. She has great instincts, great skill, and great experience when it comes to producing a TV talk show. You have to respect her for that, and her staff does.

--She sets high expectations. And her staff wanted to meet them, even go beyond them. They respected her knowledge and aspirations and were on the same page with wanting to wow Oprah’s audience.

--Oprah surrounds herself with extremely hard-working, talented people. I think she knows how to pick and keep the right people. This is a leadership skill which is not often talked about, but is essential to success.

--She fostered a culture of constant learning. Oprah says at heart she is a teacher. After every show they debriefed and determined what went well and how they could do better next time. When bad mistakes were made, Oprah, although frustrated and upset, seemed to overcome it and go on without a grudge once her dissatisfaction was aired and the person erring admitted they had learned something and they would do better next time. I am not sure how much Oprah herself is open to feedback. When her producers were remarking that Suze Orman was too hard on guest Nadia Suleiman, Oprah said “I don’t think anything is too hard if it’s the truth.”

--She is generous with recognition and rewards. I have no idea if she is consistent or fair, but from what I can tell, she gives kudos when they are due and enjoys rewarding staff with gifts. She honored her production team during this last season and allowed them some air time. She gave IPads, $10,000 checks and more to all the O Magazine staff for a 10th Anniversary and took her production staff and their families on a Mediterranean cruise.

--Oprah is passionate about her work and that is contagious. She truly wants her audiences to learn something for the better and wants to bring value to her fans. That and the fact that she knows how to do it so well attracts a team of people who want to be a part of it too. Her enthusiasm and openness are undeniable, and everyone, her fans and her employees, respond to that.

I don’t know if Oprah is an “incredible boss” as Lisa Ling (a talk show host on the Oprah Winfrey Network) says, but from what I've gleaned, I think she is a decent boss. And, according to 1,000 surveyed employees - the graph with the results is above - Oprah ranks first among celebrities respondents would like to have as a boss.

So, can someone be an exceptional leader but a poor boss? If you can surround yourself with talented folks who complement your weaknesses and if you are open to improving yourself, you wouldn’t be a poor boss for long. 

Check out Oprah at a pitch meeting here.  When was the last time you clapped when your boss walked in the room?

Lack of Interpersonal Skills is the #1 Downfall for New Leaders

The lack of interpersonal skills is the number one reason that executives in new positions don’t meet performance expectations, according to research from the Institute for Executive Development.

“Underperformance is about the lack of interpersonal and leadership skills, such as the ability to build relationships, collaborate, and influence,” states the report.

The study, undertaken in 2010, targeted how well executives performed in the first two years of a new position. Despite years of previous management experience nearly one in three externally hired executives and one in five executives transferred from within did not meet expectations. By the second year, 27% of external hires and 23% of internal hires had left the organization.

Seventy-five percent of the 320 respondents cited the lack of interpersonal skills as the primary reason for the poor performance. Other reasons given were systemic or structural problems and inconsistencies within the organization (28%), goal conflict between executives and the organization (23%), and poor selection by the organization of the executive to the new role (23%).

According to this study, it seems that at minimum, 20% of executives still need help getting along with others in order to just meet expectations. Companies may want to take a look at Google’s approach, where by applying their analytics programs to performance reviews, feedback surveys and top-manager nominations, they arrived at eight essential management behaviors ranked by importance and effectiveness.

The resulting behaviors are common enough, but by using their own “people analytics” process they reflect Google’s culture. “Be a good coach” is the number one behavior. Interestingly, the number one managerial pitfall is “Have trouble making a transition to the team”. Google recognizes what the Institute for Executive Development study revealed: many executives lack the people skills to make a successful transition to their new teams.

New leaders must build trust quickly. They should already have displayed competence in their chosen field. If not, they won’t receive respect from their employees and their attempts to lead will flounder right from the beginning. Beyond industry competence, managers must display integrity, and demonstrate support and interest in their employees. Being open, communicating often, and showing trust in their employees are essential behaviors to smooth executive on-boarding.

What happens all too often is new leaders, feeling a bit insecure in a new role-even if they are seasoned managers- think that perpetuating a “strong leader” persona is the way to go. However their interpretation of a strong leader ends up being someone who micromanages, keeps information to themselves, and doesn’t include employees in decisions or communications. This behavior is the opposite of a strong leader, because the result is poor personal and team performance.

Strong leaders know that their influence is what can make the difference between their team’s average performance and stellar performance. And positive influence only happens when trust and respect are in place. Building trust and respect, individually and at all levels, requires a complex set of people skills that need to be exercised continually. Sharpening current skills and learning new interpersonal skills is a lifelong endeavor, but one that literally pays off.

An investment in a coach to help with that lifelong pursuit will also pay off. Contact me if you’d like to try it out.

You're My New Boss




In Good Company

— MOVIECLIPS.com

For Managers: The 6 Essentials of Effective Coaching

Coaching employees is a skill that gets better with practice. When I teach coaching to managers, they appreciate having a process to follow and specific phrasing to use. However, without incorporating some foundational elements, using a management process comes across as insincere. Any influence you may have is lost, and coaching becomes ineffective.

 

The following list outlines some essentials that make all the difference when coaching your direct reports. The goal of coaching is a better outcome for everyone involved, and doing it should strengthen your relationship with your employee. If you consistently incorporate these points, following a rote process is not necessary.

Note: The following items use examples that reference coaching to correct behavior or improve performance. However, coaching for development – to ready an employee for the next level – is crucial. You can use these points for those situations as well.

Point 1. Before coaching, check your attitude. It should be one of “I want you to be successful. I am here to help. We are in this together. I know you made a mistake, but it’s not the end of the world. Together we can make it better.”

If you are thinking “Don’t you get it? You really messed up. What a problem you caused!” then you better not coach at all. Either wait till you can change your attitude, or if you can’t, you shouldn’t be the one coaching. If the employee has repeatedly made the same mistake, then it’s not a coaching situation anymore – you should have already done that a couple times. It’s a “If you can’t change, this is not the right place for you” kind of conversation, and HR’s corrective process needs to formally be put in place.

You may have hired this person, trained them, set their expectations, supervised them, and provided their necessary resources and equipment. Perhaps you have a part in their failures?

Point 2. Remember this speaker’s adage: One breath, one topic, one sentence. Keep your sentences short and to the point. Don’t use a lot of jargon, slang or multi-syllable words. Don’t ramble, and don’t get off topic – and be alert to your employee pulling you off topic.

You may think the employee understands your company or industry jargon, but you can’t make that assumption. Keep things as clear as possible by using common language.

It’s human nature to deflect in uncomfortable situations. Expect your employee to change direction in the conversation. Be alert to that, and pull them back onto topic.

Point 3. No doubt they know they made a mistake. Don’t harp on that. Many employees are harder on themselves than you would be. Make sure they understand your expectation and focus on that, and how to reach it.

Research has shown that the number one reason employees don’t do what they are expected to do is because they didn’t clearly understand the expectation. Ask your employee to tell you what they think the expectation is. That is the only way you know for sure they got it.

Point 4. Ask questions. If you are talking more than 50% of the time, you are talking too much. Ask questions and listen. Don’t assume you know the entire situation, the reason for the error, or the best solution. Ask questions for clarification, to ensure you are both on the same page, and for their ideas on how to make things better.

Point 5.  Get specifics about the solution and the changes that are going to take place as a result of the coaching. Write them down. Don’t accept a general answer like “I am going to do better.” Find out what they are going to do differently in order to do better.

Point 6. Follow up!  If you don’t follow up, the message you are sending is "it really wasn’t that important". And if that’s the case, then it’s likely that their behavior will slide back to where it was before. Since it is difficult for people to change their behavior, you may need to follow up several times. This could mean just a quick comment to them to let them know you’ve observed and approve the changes you are seeing. Or, it could be a scheduled meeting to talk about how things are going with the new ways of doing things.

Coaching is an opportunity to let your employees know you care about them and their work. It often results in the manager learning something valuable too. Processes may need to be revised or training may need to be tweaked. Come to a coaching conversation prepared, yet with an open mind.

Tactics to Use on Incessant Talkers

In the past two days, I have received estimates from four arborists on pruning my stately old Lombardy poplars. One of them gave me a competitive estimate by looking at my trees on Google Maps and emailing me. The other three stopped by in person and besides giving me a lot of information about my trees, they chatted about their hobbies and personal lives.

I learned a lot about their spiritual beliefs and recreational activities.  As a coach, I am a professional listener so maybe they were just happy to have someone listen to them. That is not uncommon. But they were acting like stay-at-home moms with a toddler who finally have a chance to spend time with other adults.

Although I no longer work in an office environment, I know that chitchatting at work can sometimes take a turn to the dark side. Either personal information becomes too personal or the chitchat can go on and on and on. The other day a friend of mine was complaining about a co-worker who spends too much time sharing her personal dramas. She said she walks a big detour around her and sits in her cubicle with her headphones on to avoid the excessive blather.

Avoidance is a viable tactic, especially since sometimes these lengthy talkers can’t take a hint. With one of the tree experts, I tried to wind up the meeting: “Thank you so much for coming by and taking the time to share your knowledge with me. I will let you know either way by the end of the week.” I walked toward his truck. He came with me but then spent at least ten more minutes talking. I learned quite a few details about his hobby of tree-climbing, about which he is extremely enthusiastic.

Now, if I had really wanted to get back inside to work on this rare Seattle sunny day, I would have had to use some more assertive tactics. The key tactic being: walking away.

Of course, one wants to be polite. But I had already said the polite stuff. I did not leave the area, which is the most important step when shutting down a big talker. When you are with someone, give them your full attention. If you are still there, they are still expecting your full attention. The only solution is to remove yourself.

At work, sometimes the offending party is in your space or is your cubicle neighbor. In these cases you will have to do something that may come across as a little rude: turn away from them. Do not look up at them again. Maybe even put in your earbuds. The bottom line is you are no longer giving them your attention.

I once had a coworker tell me when I went on a little too long about non-work subjects, “I’m feeling very task-oriented right now”, and she turned away. That’s a little too blunt for my taste, and it was a bit odd since she was the biggest talker in our group, but it certainly worked. I abruptly shut up. And it was her turning away that stopped me, practically in mid-sentence.

What you can say instead is something like “John, (use their name to get their attention), I can’t concentrate on what you’re saying right now – I have a ton of things on my mind, a big list of ‘to-do’s’. Sorry to cut you off, but I need to get back to work. Let’s catch up later.” Then turn away, withdrawing your attention.

In networking and business social situations, it’s important not to monopolize people or allow yourself to become monopolized. The whole purpose of these functions is to meet new people and get reacquainted with old contacts. After a few minutes of conversation, if you can introduce them to someone else, do so and move on. Otherwise, extricate yourself from long conversations with some finalizing statements such as “I don’t want to keep you from meeting others here. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. I hope we’ll bump into each other again.”   

If you have an employee who consistently oversteps boundaries by expounding on her personal dramas, it’s time for some coaching. How to coach employees who have bad habits (like talking too much) or are highly emotional will be the topic of an upcoming article.

For now, just remember that for those long-winded talkers, physically withdrawing your attention is the key. When they get the message that you won’t listen to their tales, they won’t bother you anymore. Your attention is valuable. That’s why you should be choosy about who and what you turn it on.

Thank you for giving me your attention!

You Talk Too Much
Witness for the Prosecution at MOVIECLIPS.com

Sometimes you just can't walk away.

Check out Run-DMC's You Talk Too Much