Get the Right People on the Bus - Without Crashing

“What was the last book you read?”

What?!  I thought. I was a member of a panel interview and a colleague from another department asked the candidate that question. I was caught off guard by this left-field question, but the interviewee handled it with aplomb. I don’t remember her answer, but I remember wondering that since the last book I had read was a fantasy novel, would I share that or tell them about a weightier tome I had recently finished? And then I thought, if I considered fudging that question, how would we ever know if our candidate did too?

Most of all I wondered: Why did my colleague waste our time by asking that question? What does that question have to do with her ability to handle the position we are hiring for? And since it has nothing to do with the job, what will the candidate think of us for asking that question?

And then I thought, we should have prepared better. And since the new hire would be working directly for me, I blamed myself for not prepping the members of our panel on the questions and information that were most important for us to discuss.

Luckily that was the only inappropriate question asked at that interview. I’ve learned a lot about interviewing since then, from both sides of the table. And I know that a lot of hiring managers are not well-prepared to conduct interviews.

I recently heard from a client that was experiencing a panel interview that the interview was delayed fifteen minutes since one of the crucial panel members (a senior manager whose okay was required for the hire) got lost trying to find the conference room. Once there, he was woefully unprepared, not having taken the time to review my client’s resume. Needless to say, my client was not impressed with the organization and was not surprised by long delays in the hiring process. He decided to look at other opportunities which were available to him.

Please, hiring managers, present yourself and your organization in a good light by preparing well for the hiring process. Preparing thoroughly will help prevent poor hires too. Those are the people who make managing difficult, who don’t deliver as promised, and who may leave before you’ve reaped your initial investment and now have to go through the hiring process all over again.

As Jim Collins says, “If you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.”

And not insignificantly, hiring mistakes are costly; I’ve seen estimates from twice to fifteen times the person’s salary. Calculate the cost of a hiring error in your organization with this  "Sales Hiring Mistake Calculator" .

These are common hiring pitfalls that not only present a poor impression to your candidates but will increase the odds of a making a bad hire:

1. Not knowing clearly what you want or need. What are the results you expect from someone in this position? Based on the results you want, what are the competencies and attributes that you require? Think through the scope of the position thoroughly. If some skills and attributes are more important than others, be prepared to prioritize your interview questions and weigh them differently. Don’t change your requirements in mid-hiring; as in any project changes are costly and cause delays. Of course things in your organization change constantly, but don’t try to hire someone for every eventuality. Know what you need most and prepare your interview questions around those requirements.

2. Asking interview questions that don’t pertain to the job description.  Ask questions that help you determine if the candidate has the experience, knowledge, attributes, and skills necessary for the job. All other questions are a waste of time. A Kansas State University study determined that behavioral-based questions are five times more accurate than a more traditional interviewing style for choosing the right candidates. Those are the questions that insist on the candidate drawing from past experience to tell a story and usually start with “Tell me about a time when…” or “Describe a situation in which you…”

3. Not preparing adequately for the interview. Did you study the candidate’s resume and prepare some questions specifically for them? Do you have insightful behavior-based questions all ready with follow-up questions to help you probe in more depth? Do you have your business cards with you? Do you have paper for taking lots of notes? Do you know how to answer the questions that the candidate will ask you? Have you made arrangements not to be interrupted? Do you know where the interview room is?

4. Falling into the trap of hiring people just like you. It’s natural to feel most comfortable with people who look like us, talk like us, and act like us. Be aware of your behavior style and be on the lookout for your unconscious discriminations to play out. We all have them and you are not exempt. But if you are aware of them, you can re-focus yourself on their suitability for the job, and not whether they are too young or too old, too thin or too heavy, too fast- or too slow-talking, or whatever. Be careful of your “gut feelings” as research shows hiring based on that and first impressions can have a 50% failure rate. Use the data and analyze your candidates - many interviewers create a “scorecard” using the positions’ competencies.

5. No follow-up. No doubt at the end of the interview you told the candidate what the next steps are in the process, and gave them a timeframe. I’ve never known anyone to keep to the timeframe, however it is just good manners to let the candidate know what is happening and where they fall in the process, especially if there is a delay. It’s fine to delegate this to other personnel, but please do let them know in a timely manner. How one is treated during the hiring process is an indication to the potential employee of how the company treats it’s employees in general.

When constructing interview questions, be wary of treading in the danger field of not only inappropriateness, but illegalities. In addition to the opening question in this blog post, here are some more examples of inappropriate interview questions:

What kind of activities do you do in your spare time?
How would your family feel about relocating?
How are you involved in the community?
You have an unusual last name. Is it Polish?
What year did you graduate from college?
You mentioned you are pregnant. How much time are you planning to take off after the delivery?
If you were an animal, which one would you be and why?  (Really?)

Remember, all questions must be job-related and relevant to the goals and responsibilities of the position. In the United States, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (http://www.eeoc.gov) “it is illegal to discriminate against someone (applicant or employee) because of that person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.” So interview questions and job postings must be screened so that there is no indication that there could be a legal violation.

Since I do quite a bit of career coaching, I coach my job-seekers on how to be prepared for poor interviewers. There are certainly a lot of them out there. It makes sense to treat hiring just like any other project you manage. Be methodical and plan well. If you are haphazard in your hiring, it shows poor project management skills. And unfortunately, like any project poorly managed, you will pay for it.

So what’s the last book you read? If you are planning on doing some hiring soon, I recommend it be Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams by Lou Adler. As the author states: “There is nothing more important - to your personal and company success - than hiring great people.”

Andy's Interview
The Devil Wears Prada — MOVIECLIPS.com

First Impression
The Pursuit of Happyness at MOVIECLIPS.com

Create a Best in Class Company with These Benchmarks

What does it take to become a top performing company in a given industry? Maximizing individual employee performance would seem to be obvious. Yet in case after case it seems that leaders tend to overlook substantiated evidence on what actions to take that will yield the best from their employees.

Employee engagement ranks as having the highest impact on employee performance – in one study organizations with engaged employees were found to be up to 43% more productive.

Yet another study on employee engagement has been published and this one has come up with some benchmarking metrics that can be used across industries. Maybe this will be the one that will convince any holdouts of the benefits of investing in employee engagement strategies.

A July 2011 study from the Aberdeen Group surveyed and interviewed leaders from 248 diverse organizations on their employee performance and engagement practices. They were able to isolate key metrics that separate the top performing companies – the “best in class” – from the average and bottom rung – the “laggard” companies. Here are a few of those metrics; see how your company measures up:

     Percentage of employees who rated themselves as “highly engaged”:

     Best in class companies: 62%     Average companies: 35%     Laggard companies: 13%

     Percentage of employees who received “exceeds expectations” on latest performance reviews:  

     Best in class: 71%                       Average: 20%                        Laggard: 13%

     Degree of improvement in employee retention over the previous year:

     Best in class: 11%                        Average: 2%                         Laggard: 7% worse

Those are benchmarking metrics to strive for. The Aberdeen study also offers specific actions to take to help reach those goals.   

An engaged employee is first of all, in the right position. The Aberdeen study doesn’t mention this vital fact, but if an employee’s strengths and interests are not being utilized, they will not experience success and logically won’t feel very engaged. Managers need to know how to hire well, and to assign roles and responsibilities commensurate with an employee’s strengths and limitations. Or if necessary, move them to a role or team (or as a last resort, out the door) where they can experience success.

Assuming the individual is in the right role, “engaging” them will yield the highest performance results. Aberdeen reports that the following should be in place:

     1. A culture of alignment and ongoing communication.
     2. Tools and practices that provide visibility and transparency into individual and organizational      goals and progress.
     3. Full accountability among individuals and managers for business results.

Highly engaged employees need to know and understand exactly how their individual and team goals are aligned with the strategic plan of the company. Employees are crystal clear about their own performance expectations and can gauge how they are doing by looking at key performance metrics that are easily accessible. They are not overlooked by their managers, but given feedback and recognition on an ongoing basis. If they are high performers, they know it, and everyone else does too. They receive the recognition and corresponding development opportunities. If they are mediocre performers, they know exactly what they need to do to raise their performance.

It all seems pretty clear cut, doesn’t it? However, as we know, the ability to communicate well with direct reports – defining expectations, giving feedback, coaching, reiterating core values and strategic plans, etc.– does not come naturally to every manager. Tools such as wizards that aid in filling out reviews and appraisal forms, and in creating individual development plans can be provided. Training and coaching in communications and leadership skills should be required and reinforced for every leader. There are many methods and tools to provide assistance for leaders to help create an engaged workforce.

But the crucial sticking point is that senior leadership needs to be on board. In best-in-class organizations, 74% of senior leaders bought in and supported efforts aimed at increasing employee performance and 70% supported efforts at increasing employee engagement. Laggard companies were at 58% and 28%, respectively. That implies that it is still a struggle for many human resource leaders to establish the foundation to implement what is necessary to bring an organization to the top of their industry.

It seems obvious that performance improves when an employee feels totally engaged in their work. Now we have some metrics to strive for and proven actions that support what it takes to engage an employee. Numbers can make a good case when HR buzzwords (like “employee engagement”) don’t.

This fellow is definitely not engaged at work.

The Impact of Leaders Listening - or Not

My last post created some discussion on a LinkedIn group about what actually was the most overlooked leadership skill. Some said strategic thinking, some said project thinking, and some swerved over into the realm of qualities and mentioned humility and integrity. But the most often cited skill that was extremely important but often lacking was listening.

When I think back on bosses I’ve had, I can think of only one who was an exceptional listener. He would listen so intently to what you had to say that some people were a little uncomfortable with the quiet space he left after they finished speaking. People are used to others jumping in right after (or even before) they’ve finished talking so having even five seconds of silence while he waited to make sure you were finished speaking was unnerving for some. Like most people though, I appreciated it, and felt that I had his full attention and what I had to say was important to him.

What’s the impact when leaders don’t listen? I have some personal examples, as I am sure you do, too:

A quite common occurrence is the boss I had who would continue to do email while I spoke with him, even if it was a scheduled meeting. I’d usually ask “Is this still a good time?” and he would always say “Yes, yes, go on”. Of course, I never really felt like he was listening to me, but I would try to take advantage of that one-to-one time as best I could.

Another experience quite vivid in my memory was when, after delivering a workshop where I had received the same piece of feedback about it for the third time, I decided to convey that to the person who had created the workshop and had the most experience in it – the President of our company. My intent was just to share the comment and see if he had heard it before. It was a neutral piece of feedback, neither a criticism nor a rave, but I thought it was interesting that three separate people had brought it up.

His immediate response to me was “You should tell them that…..” and proceeded to tell me how I should handle it when I received such feedback. I felt diminished by his reaction because it seemed that he didn’t have the faith in me to know how to properly respond. I had thought we would have a bit of an interesting conversation about the whole thing and share other comments and feedback we’d received. Instead, his responses reduced me from senior consultant and colleague to novice facilitator and I just clammed up.

I wasn’t sure if he really felt that I didn’t know how to handle such circumstances (which was depressing to think) or if he was just not listening very well since he had a lot going on (as most people, especially leaders do) and so gave me the immediate response that came to his mind. In any case, the result was that I didn’t feel drawn to be quite so open about workshop experiences with him again, which was too bad because that meant that both of us missed enrichment opportunities, which naturally extended to our workshop participants missing out too. All unknowingly, of course.

These examples show the impact on just one person – or in the case of workshop participants, a small number of people. But sometimes the impact of poor listening is detrimental to the entire organization and perhaps their shareholders too.

In one company I worked the executive leadership team ignored the advice of two outside consultants and an internal team convened to specifically research opening a store overseas. The C-suite decided to overrule recommendations to begin with a small store in a specific urban neighborhood and instead went all out to build a multi-million dollar free-standing retail complex in an out-of-the-way location outside the city. In less than a year, the store failed miserably, was closed, and the company experienced it’s first losses ever. The leadership team never seriously listened to the team members or consultants, being driven by their own egos: a common mistake in listening.

This may be a good illustration of why humility was also cited as one of the most overlooked qualities of a good leader.

The reaction that sharers most often receive from their listeners is “let me help you fix it”. It’s the customer service representative reaction! Leaders are not customer service reps. They don’t and shouldn’t jump in to fix things. That leads to dependent folks who aren’t confident in their own abilities. Are those the kinds of employees you want?

Instead of jumping in eagerly to help, the listener should pause and really listen to what the other person is saying. Are they explaining a situation? Are they venting? Are they reporting important information? Are they just making conversation? Did they ask for help??? If you don’t know, ask them.

The very act of listening attentively is so rare that the person on the receiving end will feel important and recognized. What a simple and effective way to appreciate someone!

Now listening is not just a leadership skill, but a great skill for everyone to develop.

Leaders, (and Moms, Dads, spouses, friends…) don’t quash their sharing. Don’t diminish their power. Take the time to listen. Before saying anything else, ask a question. Ask questions that help you understand them and their situation better, and questions that help them understand themselves and their situation better. Whenever you do that, you will be increasing their personal power and helping them grow stronger, more confident, and more knowledgeable. And that’s what a great leader does.

Sometimes it's so hard to stay quiet!

But staying quiet can reap unexpected rewards!

The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill-?

One leadership skill that always seems to be overlooked is leading meetings. How many meetings have you been to where one or two people were allowed to dominate the conversation, or where the topics seemed to drag on and on without resolution? How many meetings have you been to where you felt that your time could have been better spent somewhere else, doing something else?

Facilitating meetings well is a skill that is rarely taught, and difficult to do by oneself. Good meetings are the result of all the participants understanding the purpose and the process for the meeting. Everyone knows how the meeting should be conducted and takes the initiative to conduct themselves accordingly.

The foundation of effective meetings is having a set of ground rules that are agreed upon by all the participants.

Ground rules are essentially codes of conduct that participants agree will help keep the meeting civil, effective and efficient. Although most people assume that everyone knows how to do this without going the extra step to spell out the rules, that’s just not so.

Let’s start with one simple ground rule as an example: when the meeting starts. When I worked at Wizards of the Coast, we had what was referred to as “WotC time”. Meetings didn’t start until ten after the hour. No one even arrived in the room until about then, so sometimes meetings didn’t start until quarter after. I was informed of WotC time as soon as I started working there. So, although someone would set a meeting for 10am, everyone knew it would begin at 10:10am. Meetings would usually last just 50 minutes, giving attendees enough time to prepare for the next meeting if they had one.

Contrast this practice with Wally time, which was what meeting times were sometimes called at REI, where I worked before Wizards. Named after the then-CEO, Wally Smith, it meant that every meeting started exactly on the hour. It was not unusual for people to arrive up to five minutes early so they wouldn’t be late for the meeting.

These types of unwritten rules are part of the culture of an organization. But as a leader, you can create your own culture starting with the expectations you set around meetings. In fact, once the CEOs of Wizards of the Coast and REI changed, those meeting start times changed too (along with some other aspects of the organizational culture).

Take control of the culture you want to foster in your area by taking control of how meetings are held. Put together a list of ground rules you’d like to see in place, bring it to a meeting for discussion, and as a group, decide on the final ground rules that everyone agrees to abide by. Everyone expects some type of code of conduct, and formally establishing one emphasizes that an environment of respect, collaboration, and efficiency are priorities. It gives participants a sense of safety as well, as they know what is expected of them. Ground rules may look something like this:

1. Meetings will start on time, and participants will be on time.
2. No texting, emailing or phone calls during the meeting.
3. Participants will come prepared to participate.
4. Everyone will be heard; no floor-hogging.

Of course your group's rules will reflect what you and your team decide are the most important meeting behaviors.  It’s best to keep the rules short and simple, and to review them as a group from time to time to see if any changes or additions should be made. It also helps to copy them along with every agenda so they can be a reminder for everyone at each meeting.

You may want to impose penalties for violating the rules. The first time someone violates the rules it could just be called out to them – keeping people accountable to agreed-upon rules is all important or otherwise no one will take them seriously. For the second offense you could impose a penalty – maybe a contribution to a change jar to be used for cookies for the meeting, or even buying the whole group muffins for the next meeting.

Once you have some ground rules, you have others to help with the facilitation. For example, if someone starts monopolizing the conversation it shouldn’t only be the meeting leader who calls them out. Anyone should feel comfortable enough to say something like, “Janet, Rule #4. I know you have a lot to say about this, but it’s time to hear from someone else.”

Meeting facilitation lies somewhere between a skill and an art. An active group with a large agenda can be quite challenging to facilitate. Running meetings smoothly requires more than just a good set of ground rules. Here are a few helpful techniques:

--At the beginning of the meeting state the purpose of the meeting, even if everyone knows or should know. The purpose should be crystal clear to everyone.

--Briefly go through all the agenda items to see if there are any changes or corrections to it.

--Put a few short agenda items at the beginning to get off to a good start.

--Be alert to participants’ facial expressions and body language: are they engaged, confused? If confused, you may be going too fast. If they are not engaged, you may be going too slow.

--Draw out quiet ones without putting them on the spot. Before the meeting, make sure everyone knows what agenda items they will be expected to contribute to. If they don’t speak up, ask them. Sometimes that’s all they are waiting for.

--Evaluate the meeting at the end. Leave a couple minutes to ask “How was the pace of this meeting?” “What do you wish we had done differently in this meeting?” “What went well in this meeting?”

--Thank everyone for their participation and for honoring the ground rules.

There are many more excellent techniques for facilitating meetings. Since you know your group better than anyone, you can customize your facilitation methods to foment participation and keep them engaged. And since meeting facilitation is a skill that is best honed by practice, rotating that responsibility among others is a great way to develop your employees.

Violating the ground rules gets you kicked out of meetings on The Office.

The purpose is stated clearly! Just about everyone seems prepared to give an opinion…and he keeps everyone on task, allowing everyone a chance to speak.

Are You Investing in Yourself?

I’m back! Happy New Year!

Besides being distracted with the holidays, I have been working about three jobs at once and so the blog, one of my favorite things to do, fell away. I’ve missed it. So one of my New Year’s resolutions is to post at least once a month. The past two years I wrote close to once a week, but as I am doing a lot more writing now, I have to be realistic about how to spend my writing time.

We all want to make the new year better than the one before. Sometimes, though, it seems like things are out of our control. However one thing we can always control is our own attitude. My number one resolution is to weather all the inevitable bumps and storms in our lives with more grace. We will always have recessions and wars, difficult people to deal with, and bouts with sadness and anger. Handling these expected parts of life with grace, understanding, and good humor is a lifelong pursuit which I plan to put more focus and awareness toward in 2012.

Although I would love to spread more cheer with my writing, I am not going to change this to a humor blog. I am afraid I can’t become a humor columnist because as a leadership coach and trainer, we are a serious bunch dealing with a serious issue. I mean, look around. Our leaders have led us into quite a few pickles what with the huge government debts, foreign entanglements, and struggling economy.

I can guarantee you that no leader that I have coached ever contributed to these global problems. And it’s not just because I haven’t coached any high level politicians or military leaders. Well, not the only reason. I have had the good fortune to attract clients who have more than their own egos to develop. Clients who are earnest about professional and personal development, which means that they stay true to their values and priorities, and work to clarify and strengthen them.

Which leads me to the real topic of this blog: you! I think you should make a resolution to invest in yourself this year. Not just putting away savings, like your financial advisor says. Not just spending some “you time” at the spa or on vacation. All good goals, sure, but I am talking about your personal and professional development.

The best leaders are continuous learners. I’ve advised “investing in your best” before, and now I want to extend that to investing in you, so you can be one of the best yourself.

Yesterday I spoke with a client who told me that his organization had identified eight main competencies that everyone needed to have. Every employee rated their own level of expertise on each competency, and then picked two to work on for the year. They didn’t have to be the competencies they were weakest in, they could even be the ones they were strongest in, but they had to pick two that would make up their 2012 development plan. (Interestingly, conflict management was the top pick across the company.)

I encourage you to do something similar. You might look at the competencies in your profession. Or the competencies required by good leadership. And you may want to take a look at personal areas that you’ve always wanted to improve. Public speaking?  Golfing?  Parenting?  Bridge?

My suggestion is to pick one from each list: one professional area to develop and one personal area. They may overlap, which is all the better. Once you decide, look up classes, books, blogs, and who is the best in those areas. For this year, resolve to do what you can to get better in those two areas. At the end of the year, I bet you will have had a very productive year.

So yes, I am going to take control of my attitude more. I want to be able to weather all the ups and downs with more grace, and to experience more joy. That’s my personal goal which I think will definitely spill over into my professional life. I will have to see what webinars are out there for that.  There is plenty written about controlling one’s attitude but not so specific about how to weather the storms with grace and still spread joy. Maybe I will have to write something…which leads me to my professional goal:

Professionally, I am going to concentrate on developing not only my writing skills, but learning more about the process of writing and publishing. Now that I have a writing coach, I have found out that there is so much more to it than just the actual writing part! At the end of the year, I hope to have finished a book.

Happy New Year to all, and best wishes for a year full of joy-filled growth!

Happy Thanksgiving!

You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy. ~ Buddha

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States, one of my favorite holidays. I really enjoy the spirit of the holiday. No gifts are necessary, just cooking and eating delicious food. It’s a day to enjoy some relaxing time with friends and family, and to appreciate all your blessings.

There seems to be a lot of fear out there in the world right now. Fear that we aren't getting our fair share and that opportunities are slim. Certainly among my own friends and family, many of us have been laid off, are underemployed, or still unemployed. So it's even more important to realize how much we do have, and to enjoy and appreciate it all.

Here are a few of the work-related things I am grateful for:

I am thankful for my clients, for without you I have no income and no purpose. (And not much to write about.)

I am thankful for my blog readers. I know you are out there, even if you are really, really quiet. Without you, I have no one to write to. And I like to write.

I am thankful for my writing coach. She is supporting my efforts to write a book. So, faithful (or not-so-faithful) blog readers, I will be posting less often as most of my writing time will go toward my book.

I am thankful for my colleagues. Yes, I work solo out of my home, but I have a network of colleagues through my membership in professional associations, past employers, friends, and LinkedIn. You spark my ideas, support my plans, give me feedback and provide camaraderie. And sometimes, you provide me with some business!

I am thankful for my past employers, for you gave me tons of experience (both good and bad) which helps me in my current work and also gives me fodder for writing. Some of you also paid me handsomely which is very helpful when times are hard because I have that cushion that I built from back when I had a steady corporate job.

I am thankful for my equipment and software! What would I do without my computers, printers, scanner, copier, and telephone? Thank you to the inventors, engineers, project managers who created them, and to my boyfriend for providing (most of) them and keeping them up to date!

For your Thanksgiving enjoyment, here are a few of the gratitude quotations I've collected:

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. ~ William Faulkner

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy--they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~ Marcel Proust

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. ~ Buddha

Whenever we are appreciative, we are filled with a sense of well-being and swept up by the feeling of joy. ~ M.J. Ryan

To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Happy Thanksgiving!


The annual presidential turkey-pardoning, a strange American Thanksgiving ritual.

Is Your Workplace a Learning Environment?

“Leadership and learning are indispensible of one another.” - John F. Kennedy

As a leadership coach and workplace learning professional, of course I heartily agree with President Kennedy’s quote. I wouldn’t do what I do if I didn’t love learning and helping others’ learn. In fact one of my top four personal values is learning/teaching. I put them together as one value because they reinforce each other and to me, are just two sides of the same coin.

John Maxwell says in his book Leadership Gold, “If you want to lead you must learn. If you want to continue to lead, you must continue to learn.” He states that in his experience people fall into one of three categories:

The Challenge Zone: “I attempt to do what I haven’t done before."
The Comfort Zone: “I do what I already know I can do.”
The Coasting Zone: “I don’t even do what I’ve done before.”

As babies, we all start out in the challenge zone. But there comes a time in our lives when we no longer have to continue to try new things. That’s when people subconsciously decide which zone they will live in. Those who choose to remain in the comfort or coasting zones miss out on discovering and sharing things with others. They lose a part of themselves which they never truly get to know.

Smart leaders hire those who enjoy the challenge zone because they know those are the kind of people who help a company excel.  To keep these valuable employees working at their best, leaders must foster a learning and growth environment where employees feel comfortable offering new ideas, discussing new concepts and challenging each other. Interactions in such a culture spark the company’s growth as well as the individual's. Dynamic work environments like those often buck the status quo, and successfully so. One current example is Amazon.com which has, to Wall Street's chagrin, eschewed short-term profits for long-term success.  (Read more about that here.)

As a leader, you understand the value of continuous learning and the benefits it provides you, your employees and your organization. How do you ensure that your working environment is fostering growth and learning for your employees?

Maxwell says you can identify a growth environment because the following ten things are in place:

1. Others are ahead of you.
2. You are continually challenged.
3. Your focus is forward.
4. The atmosphere is affirming.
5. You are often out of your comfort zone.
6. You wake up excited.
7. Failure is not your enemy.
8. Others are growing.
9. People desire change.
10. Growth is modeled and expected.

How does your organization rate? If you can confidently say you foster those characteristics in your office, then you probably have a top-notch team and others who are lining up at your door to work there.

Stimulating Innovation
Charlie's Angels at MOVIECLIPS.com

Out of their comfort zone and being challenged!