The Role of Followers in Leadership Development

One of the most important things for leaders to possess is the belief that their strategy sets them up to win in the marketplace. Common sense would ask: How can leaders who don't believe in their own strategy possibly get their employees on board? How can leaders create active, engaged, committed followers if they, themselves, don't believe in the strategies?

Traditionally, leaders tend to fall back on the ways they were managed as they rose through the ranks - often centering around three F's; facts, fears and force:

a) Convey the facts that should motivate people to change.
b) Instill fear as a motivation tactic, which often sounds like ''get on board, or else.''
c) Flat out force people to do what needs doing.

People don't resist change, but they do resist being changed by someone else. In Alan Deutschman's book Change or Die, he poses the question, ''Could you change when your life depends on it?'' Deutschman illustrates how even people in the United States who undergo coronary bypass graft or angioplasty surgery fail to change their lifestyles afterwards. There are few crises as threatening as heart disease and few fears as intense as the fear of death, but even those things can fail to motivate people to change. According to Deutschman, people won't change because of facts, fear or force, even in the case of their own life. So, why would they at work?

Simply put, leadership means charting a course and people voluntarily deciding it's an adventure they want to go on. It's motivating and inspiring people to want to be part of something bigger than themselves, go on a journey, make a significant impact and feel a sense of belonging. Are we all so focused on leadership that we have forgotten about followership?

A New Hope

In today's fast-paced global economy, the onus is on leaders to adjust traditional tactics and focus on creating motivated, involved, fulfilled followers who can help them drive change and achieve company goals. If they don't, they risk higher turnover, lower productivity, limited or nonexistent growth and a general malaise across the organization.

Relating to how people feel is vital to inspiring change. Hope for followers lies with the realization that leaders care enough, are insightful enough and are connected enough to know what it's like to be the follower. A new sense of hope and power among followers begins with leaders listening to and showing respect for their people's opinions and feelings. This requires that leaders:

a) Empathize first; share that you know what it's like to be a follower.

b) Inspire confidence in people that they can change.

c) Create an organizational expectation that we will change.

d) Build a belief that we all have the ability to determine our own fate.

There are several ways to create effective followership in organizations. One is the use of visual sketches to achieve understanding and connection between leaders and followers. Visually presenting issues that lie at the center of what must be addressed for the organization to move forward can be groundbreaking for people at every level of the organization.

By creating a common mental model of an organization's existing state of affairs and its desired future state of affairs, managers and individual contributors alike can understand the big picture, their role in that picture, and how their work can impact the move forward. With this, people may more readily form an emotional relationship with leaders they see as having taken the time to create a new view of the organization, empowering them to see how they can contribute to that.

In the end, what employees want is basic. It's what we all want in life. And, it's what makes for the best followers, which, in return, makes the best leaders. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves; to feel a sense of belonging; to go on a meaningful journey; and to know they are making a significant impact and difference in the life of another person.

The end result of focusing on followers is that everyone is in the game and knows exactly what they have to do to win. And when leaders look in the rearview mirror, they will see dedication and enthusiasm as their team voluntarily charges on. 

By Jim Haudan | Chief Learning Officer [About the Author: Jim Haudan is CEO and chairman of consultancy Root Learning.]

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

Six keys to achieving excellence are:

1. Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus,
resilience, and perseverance.

2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and
away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found,
delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings,
before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy
and the fewest distractions.

3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than
90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the
maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any
given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice
no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

4. Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more
precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too
much feedback, too continuously can create cognitive overload, increase
anxiety, and interfere with learning.

5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only
provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed
learning. It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more
dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6. Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the
researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The
best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to build rituals — specific,
inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them
without having to squander energy thinking about them.


by Tony Schwartz

Less-Confident People Are More Successful

There is no bigger cliché in business psychology than the idea that high self-confidence is key to career success. It is time to debunk this myth. In fact, low self-confidence is more likely to make you successful.

After many years of researching and consulting on talent, I've come to the conclusion that self-confidence is only helpful when it's low. Sure, extremely low confidence is not helpful: it inhibits performance by inducing fear, worry, and stress, which may drive people to give up sooner or later. But just-low-enough confidence can help you recalibrate your goals so they are (a) more realistic and (b) attainable. Is that really a problem? Not everyone can be CEO of Coca Cola or the next Steve Jobs.

If your confidence is low, rather than extremely low, you stand a better chance of succeeding than if you have high self-confidence. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Lower self-confidence makes you pay attention to negative feedback and be self-critical:Most people get trapped in their optimistic biases, so they tend to listen to positive feedback and ignore negative feedback. Although this may help them come across as confident to others, in any area of competence (e.g., education, business, sports or performing arts) achievement is 10% performance and 90% preparation. Thus, the more aware you are of your soft spots and weaknesses, the better prepared you will be.
   Low self-confidence may turn you into a pessimist, but when pessimism teams-up with ambition it often produces outstanding performance. To be the very best at anything, you will need to be your harshest critic, and that is almost impossible when your starting point is high self-confidence. Exceptional achievers always experience low levels of confidence and self-confidence, but they train hard and practice continually until they reach an acceptable level of competence. Indeed, success is the best medicine for your insecurities.
2. Lower self-confidence can motivate you to work harder and prepare more: If you are serious about your goals, you will have more incentive to work hard when you lack confidence in your abilities. In fact, low confidence is only demotivating when you are not serious about your goals.
   Most people like the idea of being exceptional, but not enough to do what it takes to achieve it. Most people want to be slim, healthy, attractive and successful, but few people are willing to do what it takes to achieve it — which suggests that they don't really want these things as much as they think. As the legendary Paul Arden (ex creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi) noted: "I wantmeans: if I want it enough I will get it. Getting what you want means making the decisions you need to make to get what you want.". If you really want what you say you want, then, your low confidence will only make you work harder to achieve it — because it will indicate a discrepancy between your desired goal and your current state.
3. Lower self-confidence reduces the chances of coming across as arrogant or being deluded. Although we live in a world that worships those who worship themselves — from Donald Trump to Lady Gaga to the latest reality TV "star" — the consequences of hubris are now beyond debate. According to Gallup, over 60% of employees either dislike or hate their jobs, and the most common reason is that they have narcissistic bosses. If managers were less arrogant, fewer employees would be spending their working hours on Facebook, productivity rates would go up, and turnover rates would go down.
   Lower self-confidence reduces not only the chances of coming across as arrogant, but also of being deluded. Indeed, people with low self-confidence are more likely to admit their mistakes — instead of blaming others — and rarely take credit for others' accomplishments. This is arguably the most important benefit of low self-confidence because it points to the fact that low self-confidence can bring success, not just to individuals but also to organizations and society.

In brief, if you are serious about your goals, low self-confidence can be your biggest ally to accomplish them. It will motivate you to work hard, help you work on your limitations, and stop you from being a jerk, deluded, or both. It is therefore time debunk the myth: High self-confidence isn't a blessing, and low self-confidence is not a curse — in fact, it is the other way around.

By  Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

11 Essential Habits for Success

1. Identify your core values

What is important to you? Finding your core values may seem a bit off-topic when it comes to success, but creating goals that are in line with your values is key to creating intrinsic motivation. Sit and reflect on what you value most. Pick a handful of things and actually write them down. Remind yourself of your values every day, and reflect on whether you are honoring those values through your work.

2. Pick a goal (Focus)

Choose one goal to start. Something large enough that will give you a sense of accomplishment, while aligning well with your core values. Focus is key here. The more focused you are on one goal, the higher chance you have of success. If you spread yourself too thin, you might never complete your projects because they will take far too long. Believe me, multitasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

3. Set a deadline for success

Set a date for success. Identify when your hope to achieve your goal. Keep it realistic, while not giving yourself too much time. By setting a time limit, you are making the process more real. You also now have something to visualize in the next point.

4. Build the right mindset

Believe fully in your ability to achieve your goal. Visualize yourself having completed your goal in the exact time-frame you have chosen, although finishing early is also acceptable. You don’t need to consider the failures that will happen along the way. Success is inevitable. Others may think you will fail, don’t let yourself be one of them! (If you have trouble visualizing success, perhaps a fear of success is limiting you)

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.” - Henry Ford

5. Consequences for missing your deadline

Set up negative consequences for missing the deadline. Necessity is the mother of all invention. If you can manage to keep yourself intrinsically motivated, that’s great. If not, this will help kick you into gear and keep your eye on the prize.

6. Weekly and Daily Goals (Plan)

Break down goals by week and by day, setting up a plan to reach your overall objective. Keep the number of tasks per day as low as you can, and focus on completing only your planned tasks for each day. If you find yourself done, pick the next thing from your weekly list. Do the hardest things during your peak energy level, which usually means doing them first!

7. Prioritize

Prioritize the tasks you have in front of you. Don’t always do the most urgent thing first. Pick the task that’s the most important. Sometimes these overlap, which is nice. By always accomplishing what’s most important, you are making clear progress toward your goal.

Also keep in mind that completing the hardest task first is a sure-fire way of increasing your productivity. If you put it off until later in the day, your energy level is bound to drop, and finishing the hard task will seem daunting and maybe even impossible. But, if you start off with the hardest task, when your energy level is high, you will have the focus and energy required to finish it off.

8. Take risks

Push yourself. Go out of your comfort zone. This is the best way to learn, and the best way to make progress quickly. If you’re looking for new ideas, being risk averse will not help. This takes a lot of self-awareness. Try and be conscious of when you are holding yourself back out of fear. Push yourself to be courageous, and take that next step.

9. Perseverance

Failure is inevitable when you take risks, which is what you’ll be doing if you want to succeed. By its very definition, the desire to succeed at something means you are risking failure. Many people tend to give up far too early. Don’t fall into this trap! Remember your mindset earlier, and visualize your success. Know it will happen. A failure is merely you working out the details, and learning what works and what doesn’t. Use failure. Treat it as a good thing, and march on!

10. Reflect

Take time every day to sit quietly and reflect on your values, goals, and progress made so far. Where have you excelled, and where can you do better. Is everything you are doing still lining up with your core values? Always look for ways to improve.

11. Learn

Never stop learning. Know what everyone else is doing, and what everyone else has done, and how they did it. Search wide for knowledge that might help you, and any inspiration that may do the same. Never think you have nothing to learn from others.


By Ramesh A Aditya - Director, Corporate Relations at NEHRU GROUP OF INSTITUTIONS

When Remote Workers Behave Badly

Interventions to overcome these behaviors become more challenging when employees are not physically present. The following five considerations can help manage difficult behaviors in remote employees.

1. Behavioral expectations must be clearly defined.
When face-to-face interactions are rare, visual cues and reinforcements such as rolling eyes or shared glances are lost. Visual communication technology can help, but it likely won't provide the nuances of physical reactions to inappropriate behavior.

Tip:
Provide remote employees with clear, direct information on acceptable and unacceptable behavior in writing, through video training and verbal feedback. Many organizations, including the Veterans Administration, provide online materials that detail appropriate workplace behavior.

2. Remote communication may be misinterpreted.
With today's brief text messages, emails and phone calls, a sender's intentions may be unclear or misunderstood. An abrupt email may seem arrogant rather than decisive. A long list of options may seem indecisive rather than seeking team input. Humor may seem rude rather than funny.

Tip:
Provide formal training and ongoing feedback on perceptions from written and verbal comments. Teach employees to start emails with brief, explanatory introductions - "I'm preparing my expense report and need clarification on one item" - rather than just sending a question: "What is the current mileage reimbursement?" Ending the email with a friendly phrase, such as, "thanks for your help," "I appreciate your feedback," or a simple "thanks" helps the reader's mood and prevents the reader from feeling like a servant.

Help employees effectively and purposefully use voice cues - inflection, pauses, pacing, volume - and carefully select phrases. One can alter tone or pitch to match intent while balancing volume or pace. For example, urgency can be relayed with a slightly higher pitch balanced with a slower pace to retain calmness and enhance the listener's understanding. Avoid relaying intense anger, such as a loud voice or nasty tone, as the listener may become defensive and stop listening. Nurture effective writing skills with constructive feedback; recommend wording: "Your part of the project includes getting details from the customer by the end of business on Thursday," works better than "you need to get numbers from the customer now."

3. Remote employees benefit from clear, direct feedback.
Employees in independent environments are somewhat isolated. They lack direction available in onsite environments surrounded by fellow employees.

Tip:
Be direct. The voice should convey understanding, but words should be direct. Telling an employee that he or she comes across as rude and aggressive may sound rude and aggressive, but the message is clear. Describe how difficult behavior interferes with work goals; offer motivation for change. Listen. Be a role model. Use techniques that promote sharing, such as open-ended questions, reflective wording and acknowledging phrases like, "I hear you."

4. Remote employees have to get used to increased flexibility.
An open work environment can be a blessing but also overwhelming. Difficult behavior may manifest due to a lack of constraints and grow if left unchecked. For example, if occasional angry outbursts are tolerated and not addressed, the frequency and intensity can increase and alienate customers and co-workers.

Tip:
Establish required actions as part of a job. Provide clear direction about required times to be available based upon customer needs, not as convenience to a supervisor. Appreciate and acknowledge flexibility but add rigor and structure to give balance. A more stringent approach than was used in-person is needed when behaviors disrupt accomplishing the organization's goals. For example, an employee interrupting telephonic team meetings with negative comments about the client and excuses for not providing an anticipated service needs immediate feedback from the team leader during the meeting, verbal follow-up after the meeting and written follow-up with descriptions of inappropriate and correct behavior.

5. Formal assistance can be beneficial.
At times, an employee needs more guidance than is available from a supervisor or colleagues.

Tip:
Verbally and in writing, remind remote employees of available resources, such as wellness programs, employee assistance programs, professional associations and interactions with colleagues through virtual or in-person meetings.

Managing difficult behaviors in virtual employees doesn't necessarily require special treatment - only special consideration.


By Barbara DeGray

What Do You Do About Employees Who Quit But Forget to Tell You?

At a recent workshop led by my Insight team, a participant made a very insightful comment about “employees who quit but forgot to tell you.”

I’m sure we can all think of employees like this in our organization. They are at their position in body, but certainly not in spirit. Worse yet, they are earning 100 percent of their pay and benefits, but at best, giving you 50 percent effort in return (and often far less).

Recent Hay Group research on employee engagement reported in the Business News Daily shows this is only going to worsen in coming months.

“Employee restlessness is rising, according to new data from Hay Group, a global consulting firm. Last year, nearly two in five (38 percent) employees planned to leave their organization within the next five years, compared with 30 percent in 2009. In large measure, that restlessness stems from a direct result of lack of engagement, the study found.

“‘U.S. companies have experienced lower turnover rates over the past few years, largely because of the weak labor market associated with the economic downturn,’ said Mark Royal, senior principal at Hay Group Insight. ‘We’re in the eye of a turnover hurricane that has lulled many companies into complacency. In the meantime, employee frustration is rising. Organizations that fail to identify and act on issues affecting employee commitment during this break in the storm are going to find employees exiting in increasing numbers as other opportunities become more plentiful.’”

More recognition = less turnover

In fact, this is in parallel with a key finding in our own Spring 2012 Workforce Mood Tracker Report:

“Search for greener pastures of recognition fuels employee turnover. Employees are more likely to consider leaving a job for a company that recognizes their employees. In fact, most of them have done just that…

“The good news is employees with adequate recognition are less likely to abandon the company. Of those who have been recognized in the past three months, only 23 percent are considering a job change. That is versus 51 percent likelihood of jumping ship from those who have never been recognized. The bottom line: recognized employees are far more inclined to stick around.”

The solution is quite clear. Appreciate your employees for their efforts and behaviors to be sure they’re focused on the task at hand, not daydreaming about quitting and starting anew somewhere else.

By Derek Irvine is Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce

How to Inspire and Motivate High Performance Employees

To become an HPO (a High Performance Organization) it is a precondition to hire and retain the right employees. ]

These are people who have an incurable curiosity, want to be challenged, need to have responsibility and at the same time ask to be held accountable, and want to perform better — everywhere and anytime. These high performance employees perform better than the average employee, and because of that, contribute more to the effectiveness of the organization.

With this type of employees, an organization can transform into a true High Performance Organization.

But, you need to inspire them.

Higher performance through stretch goals

HPO employees want to be inspired by their managers to continuously perform better and achieve extraordinary results. They want to be kept on their toes and be challenged. They continuously want to develop themselves, to achieve the best they can, and because of this, contribute to the success of the organization.

Employees of an HPO are quite extraordinary, and it requires focused attention of managers to keep these people interested in working at the organization.

HPO managers, therefore, consciously inspire their employees by giving them interesting work, challenging tasks and increased responsibilities; and stressing that they should be proud of their own achievements and those of the organization. They stimulate self-confidence, an entrepreneurial attitude, firmness, a can-do attitude, and a winning mindset in employees.

HPO managers raise the performance of their people and themselves by setting high standards and stretch goals. They let people feel they are part of a bigger picture and inspire them to achieve greatness as part of the organization. They possess a crusading enthusiasm and take time to win people over.

Recently I did an interview with Mikael Sørensen, general manager at Svenska Handelsbanken NL. Something he said about inspiration intrigued me:

I walk the talk because that talk is what attracted new employees to the bank. When I had job interviews with people before they started at the bank and I told them how we work, then that was what interested them in the bank. So it is important that when they come in, it actually works this way. And this congruency inspires them.”

How to get started inspiring employees

There are two main ways how you can inspire your employees: by changing your own behavior to be more inspirational, and by creating conditions for your employees that increase their motivation. Below are some ideas for both techniques.

Become an inspiring person yourself by doing the following:

• Be passionate about the goals of the organization, show emotion, and generate enthusiasm for these in your employees.
• Connect with your employees by showing real interest in them and finding out what motivates and inspires them, and actively looking for their ideas and opinions.
• Be somewhat unconventional and take personal risks, by doing things differently and operating outside ‘normal’ organizational boundaries and outside your comfort zone, and letting your employees do the same.
• Make sure inspirational moments are succeeded by follow on actions, so your employees see that you act upon your inspiration.
• Be engaging and a team person, and regularly express to your employees it is all about “we” and not about “I”
• Become a “storyteller” who is able to package messages in an appealing form that captivates employees.

How to motivate employees, too

Create motivational conditions for your employees, by doing the following:

• Paint your employees an attractive picture of the future of the organization and their place in it and provide the rationale why certain goals have to be pursued.
• Give your employees interesting and meaningful work that challenges and vitalizes them. This work should require them to do things differently, with more risk and uncertainty, which gets them out of their comfort zone.
• Set stretch goals for your employees and give them more responsibilities and freedom to schedule their own work, while including the possibility of setbacks that they will have to overcome.
• Provide your employees with the possibility to get into contact with the beneficiaries of their work, i.e. the customers, so they can see the results of their work.

By André de Waal, PhD, MBA, MSc, is Academic Director of theHPO Center

The six competencies to inspire HR professionals for 2012

Modern HR must take on many roles to demonstrate competence and effectiveness, say DAVE ULRICH, JON YOUNGER, WAYNE BROCKBANK and MIKE ULRICH, who celebrate 25 years of research. Can HR turn base metal into gold? A first cut of the results... Additional interviews by DAVID WOODS

Any good HR professional wants to be better. This begins with a desire to improve, followed by a clear understanding of what it requires to improve.

As the number of global HR professionals climbs close to one million, so it becomes important for this relatively new profession to define what it means to be effective. HR effectiveness matters more than ever, because leaders of businesses and not-for-profit organisations increasingly recognise the importance of individual abilities (talent), organisation capabilities (culture) and leadership as key to their success. HR professionals should become insightful advisers and architects on these matters. In a constantly changing world, there has never been a greater need to identify what HR professionals must be, know, do and deliver to contribute more fully to their organisations.

Since 1987 - 25 years and still counting - we've chronicled what it means to be an effective HR professional. Our 2012 data set marks six waves of data collection that trace the evolution of the HR profession(see methodology).

This research is important because it defines what it means to be an effective HR professional: not just knowing the body of knowledge that defines the profession, but being able to apply that knowledge to business challenges.

In this round of research, we have identified six domains of competencies HR professionals must demonstrate to be personally effective and to have an impact on business performance. These competencies respond to a number of themes facing global business today:

• outside/in: HR must turn outside business trends and stakeholder expectations into internal actions
• business/people: HR should focus on both business results and human capital improvement
• individual/organisational: HR should target both individual ability and organisation capabilities
• event/sustainability: HR is not about an isolated activity (a training, communication, staffing, or compensation programme) but sustainable and integrated solutions
• past/future: respect HR's heritage, but shape a future
• administrative/strategic: HR must attend to both day-to-day administrative processes and long-term strategic practices.

Our research found that by upgrading their competencies in six domains, HR professionals can respond to these business themes and create sustainable value. These six HR competence domains come from assessment by HR professionals and line associates (more than 20,000 global respondents) of 139 specific competency-stated survey items.

Strategic positioner. High-performing HR professionals think and act from the outside/in. They are deeply knowledgeable about external business trends and able to translate them into internal decisions and actions. They understand the general business conditions (eg social, technological, economic, political, environmental and demographic trends) that affect their industry and geography. They target and serve key customers of their organisation by identifying customer segments, knowing customer expectations and aligning organisation actions to meet customer needs. They also co-create their organisations' strategic responses to business conditions and customer expectations by helping frame and make strategic and organisation choices.

Credible activist. Effective HR professionals are 'credible activists' because they build their personal trust through business acumen. Credibility comes when HR professionals do what they promise, build personal relationships of trust and can be relied on. It helps HR professionals have positive personal relationships. It means to communicate clear and consistent messages with integrity.

As an activist, HR professionals have a point of view, not only about HR activities, but about business demands. As activists, HR professionals learn how to influence others in a positive way through clear, consistent and high-impact communications. Some have called this 'HR with an attitude'. HR professionals who are credible but not activists are admired, but do not have much impact. Those who are activists but not credible may have good ideas, but not much attention will be given to them. To be credible activists, HR professionals need to be self-aware and committed to building their profession.

Capability builder. An effective HR professional melds individual abilities into an effective and strong organisation by helping to define and build its organisation capabilities. Organisation is not structure or process: it is a distinct set of capabilities. Capability represents what the organisation is good at and known for. HR professionals should be able to audit and invest in the creation of organisational capabilities. These capabilities outlast the behaviour or performance of any individual manager or system. Capabilities have been referred to as a company's culture, process, or identity.

HR professionals should facilitate capability audits to determine the identity of their organisations. Capabilities include: customer service, speed, quality, efficiency, innovation and collaboration. One such capability is to create an organisation where employees find meaning and purpose at work. HR professionals can help line managers create meaning, so that the capability of the organisation reflects the deeper values of the employees.

Change champion. As change champions, HR professionals make sure that isolated and independent organisational actions are integrated and sustained through disciplined change processes. HR professionals make an organisation's internal capacity for change match or lead the external pace of change. As change champions, HR professionals help change happen at institutional (changing patterns), initiative (making things happen) and individual (enabling personal change) levels. To make change happen at these three levels, HR professionals play two critical roles in the change process. First, they initiate change, which means they build a case for why change matters, overcome resistance to change, engage key stakeholders in the process of change and articulate the decisions to start change.

Second, they sustain change by institutionalising change through organisational resources, organisation structure, communication and continual learning. As change champions, HR professionals partner to create organisations that are agile, flexible, responsive and able to make transformation happen in ways that create sustainable value.

Human resource innovator and integrator. Effective HR professionals know the historical research on HR, so they can innovative and integrate HR practices into unified solutions to solve future business problems. They must know the latest insights on key HR practice areas related to human capital (talent sourcing, talent development), to performance accountability (appraisal, rewards), organisation design (teamwork, organisation development) and communication. They must also be able to turn these unique HR practice areas into integrated solutions, generally around an organisation's leadership brand. These innovative and integrated HR practices then result in a high impact on business results by ensuring that HR practices maintain their focus over the long run and do not become seduced by HR 'flavour of the month' or by another firm's 'best practices'.

Technology proponent. In recent years, technology has changed the ways in which HR people think and do their administrative and strategic work. At a basic level, HR professionals need to use technology more efficiently to deliver HR administrative systems such as benefits, payroll processing, healthcare costs and other administrative services. HR professionals also need to use technology to help people stay connected with each other. Technology plays an increasingly important role in improving communications, organising administrative work more efficiently and connecting inside employees to outside customers. An emerging technology trend is using technology as a relationship-building tool through social media. Leveraging social media enables the business to position itself for future growth. Those who understand technology will create improved organisational identity outside the company and improve social relationships inside the company. As technology exponents, HR professionals have to access, advocate, analyse and align technology for information, efficiency and relationships.

Because these six domains of HR competence respond to the external trends we identified, they have an impact on both the perception of the effectiveness of the HR professional and on business performance where the HR professional works (see Table 1 on p23).

This data shows that to be seen as personally effective, HR professionals need to be credible activists who build relationships of trust and have a strong business and HR point of view. They also have to have a mix of competencies in positioning the firm to its external environment (strategic positioner), doing organisation capability and culture audits (capability builder), making change happen (change champion), aligning and innovating HR practices (HR integrator) and understanding and using technology (technology proponent). These competencies explain 42.5% of the effectiveness of an HR professional.

We found that this same pattern of HR competencies holds true across regions of the world, across levels of HR careers, in different HR roles and in organisations of all sizes.

HR competencies also explain 8.4% of an organisation's success. But it is interesting that the competencies that predict personal effectiveness are slightly different to those that predict business success, with insights on technology, HR integration and capability building having more impact on business results. The key issue is for HR professionals and departments to work together and to mutually reinforce their efforts so they collectively achieve high performance.

These findings begin to capture what HR professionals need to know and do to be effective. Some implications of the data for HR professionals include:

• Learn to do HR from the outside/in, understand social, technological, economic, political, environmental and demographic trends facing your industry and knowing specific expectations of customers, investors, regulators and communities - then building internal HR responses that align with these external requirements
• Build a relationship of trust with your business leaders by knowing enough about business contexts and key stakeholders to fully engage in business discussions, by offering innovative, integrated HR solutions to business problems and by being able to audit and improve talent, culture and leadership. Earn trust by delivering what you promise
• Understand the key organisational capabilities required for your organisation to achieve its strategic goals and meet the expectations of customers, investors and communities. Do an organisation audit that focuses on assessing key capabilities your company requires for success and their implications for staffing, training, compensation, communication and other HR practices
• Make change happen at individual, initiative and institutional level. Help individuals learn and sustain new behaviours. Enable organisation change by applying a disciplined change process to each organisational initiative. Encourage institutional change by monitoring and adapting the culture to fit external conditions. Be able to turn isolated events into integrated and sustainable solutions.
• Innovate and integrate your HR practices. Innovation means looking forward with fresh and creative ways to design and deliver HR practices. Integrate these practices around talent, leadership and culture within your organisation, so HR offers sustainable solutions to business problems. Evolve your organisation's HR investments to solve future problems.
• Master technology, both to deliver the administrative work of HR and to connect people inside and outside to each other. Make social media a reality by using technology to share information and connect people both inside and outside your organisation.

We also found that an effective HR department has more impact on a business's performance (31%) than the skills of individual HR professionals (8%). HR professionals need to work together as a unified team to fully create business value..

Conclusion

We are optimistic about the present and future of the HR profession and we have empirical reasons for our optimism. We now have specific insights on what HR professionals need to know and do to become better and more effective at delivering value to employees, organisations, customers, investors and communities. We know the HR department should excel at helping businesses be successful.

By Dave Ulrich and colleagues

Walk Toward Wisdom With Mentoring

If you aspire to be a great leader, you need to develop wisdom.

Wisdom is the application of accumulated knowledge and experience. Contrary to what you might think, wisdom has little to do with age. We have all known younger people described as wise beyond their years, and many of us know a few old fools. The truth is, wisdom is attained bit by bit throughout our lifetime, but it must be pursued.

The following practices will accelerate your walk toward wisdom:

1. Do a self evaluation:

Look in the mirror and be truthful to yourself. Think about what's really working - and not working - in your life and career. Consider your strengths: How can you leverage them? Reflect on your weaknesses: How can you minimize them? Are you adding value to your life, your organization and the world? Self evaluation isn't easy, but it is a necessary starting point to pursue wisdom. As Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

2. Get honest feedback:

No matter how insightful we try to be during self evaluation, we all have a limited view of ourselves. To gain proper perspective, we must ask others for feedback. This can be done formally or informally. My associate Rick Tate always used to say, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." I love that! Ask friends and colleagues at every level for their honest feedback on how you have been doing. Encourage them to be frank. Ask them what you should start doing, what you should keep doing and what you should stop doing.

Keep in mind even the most straightforward people will divulge only about 90 percent of what they are thinking. Fortunately or unfortunately, I've always had several people in my life who care enough to tell me the whole truth by giving me that last 10 percent. It's important to have a handful of these truth tellers around to really keep yourself in check.

If you don't think there are many folks around you who will be completely honest, maybe you should think about how you react when you receive feedback. One of the differences between great and self-serving leaders is the way they respond to feedback. Self-serving people get defensive and will often blame the messenger. Those earnestly pursuing wisdom will simply say, "Thank you. That's really helpful. Is there anything else I should know?" or, "Tell me more."

Great leaders will encourage the other person to give that extra 10 percent of feedback. They want to be sure they get the full truth so they can learn from the experience.

3. Seek counsel from others:

Besides doing a thorough self evaluation and being open to honest feedback, seek out the counsel of those with more wisdom and experience than you. Remember: feedback is about the past and counsel is about the future. My friend Marshall Goldsmith has a great seminar exercise where he has people stand up, walk around the room and talk to each other about something they would like to accomplish that year. He has participants ask others, "Do you have any advice for me?" Everyone gets advice and counsel from 10 to 12 people.

No matter what level of leader you may be, you will benefit from working with a mentor - particularly someone who is further down the road than you are. Borrow that person's wisdom and experience. Ask profound, open-ended questions such as, "What decisions in your life have made the greatest contribution to your success?" "What books have had the greatest impact on you?" "What are the biggest lessons you've learned so far in your career?" Ask your mentors these kinds of questions and really listen to their answers. You'll be surprised what you'll learn.

4. Give it time:

Keep in mind that you won't become wise overnight. Walking toward wisdom is a lifelong journey. With every step you take, you're that much closer to leading in a way that will make a positive and profound impact on the world.

By Ken Blanchard - Chief Learning Officer of The Ken Blanchard Cos.

7 Sure Fire Ways to Fail as an HR Leader

7 things to stay away from

I get it. It’s hard being a leader in HR, that’s why I’m going to help you out and give you some tips of things to stay away from:

1. Think of yourself or your company as “the” industry leader. As soon as you do, someone will knock you off.
2. Identify so strongly with the company that you no longer have a clear boundary between your personal interests and the corporation’s interests. Yes, you should be committed, but don’t be “committed.”  Too often leaders doing this fail to differentiate between their personal agenda and the corporate agenda and start empire building.
3. Have all the answers. This is tough because it’s common leadership training that we all know – use your people, surround yourself with people better than you, make group decisions, etc. But until you put your butt in that seat you never realize how many things will come your way, where people want a decision, and, that they are unwilling to make it – so they look to you for the answer. Don’t get sucked into this trap; push back and make them bring you solutions.
4. Hunt down and kill those who don’t support you. Don’t think this happens? Look at turnover numbers of departments when a new leader takes over – they are almost always higher than those of the organization as a whole.
5. Become obsessed with the company image. Your company image is hugely important, but it is not the most important thing you have going on. Make sure your operations match the image you want to create, not the other way around.
6. Underestimate or take obstacles for granted. As a leader you want to be confident during hard and challenging times, but don’t let yourself get fooled into believing your own confidence will get you through. Having a clear understanding of the reality you are facing, and being able to communicate that without fear to your team with a plan of action, is key.
7. Stubbornly rely on what you’ve always done. “Well, when I was the leader at GE we did it this way…” Look, this isn’t the 80′s and this isn’t GE. Might it work? Sure. But be open to new ways of doing things while being confident of what you know will work. Don’t put yourself or your organization in jeopardy, but be willing to try new things when time and circumstance allow.

By Tim Sackett, MS, SPHR is Executive Vice President of HRU Technical Resources 

7 Secrets That Only HR Knows

The 7 secrets HR is keeping

The article did get me to thinking about secrets and how in HR we seem to always have a few that we are either asked to keep by others, or just the ones we share in this great fraternity of HR. Here are some of the HR secrets that I thought of:

1. Who in the organization is on the way out. (Sometimes many people know of individuals who are on the way out, but usually HR has a good pulse on everyone).
2. Who in the organization is probably on the way up, and not because they deserve it. (Every leader has an attraction to an employee or two, for a number of reasons, and those folks usually find their way into roles that they don’t deserve.)
3. How much money you’ll get on your next raise. (Oh, yes we do know. But keep working hard anyway; we don’t want it to seem like it’s predetermined.)
4. The information behind why certain departments tend to get more (resources, staff, etc.) than others – but we can’t you – it would cause organizational chaos! (I hate to tell you this, but it usually has nothing to do with department performance and everything to do with your departmental leader – or should I say, lack thereof.)
5. What you’re going to get for your annual bonus – usually 6 to 12 months before you get it. (hey, this stuff has to be budgeted)
6. What changes will happen to your benefits – again – usually 4-8 months before it hits you.
7. Who in your company is most likely to go postal on you. (But we can’t tell you for HIPAA reasons – sorry – but if you sit next to Ted you might want to invest in a bulletproof vest.)

Secrets, yes; specifics, no

I’m sure there are a number of others, but many aren’t unique to just HR.

I was thinking of putting down: We cook the books on our metrics, but guess what? So does every other department! Let’s face it, in a political corporate structure that relies on metrics to obtain budgeted resources, the numbers aren’t always going to be clean!

I like HR because we tend to have “big” secrets and are called upon to keep those secrets. It’s probably the biggest failure I see with new HR pros – they tend to try and create organizational friendships by sharing “the secrets,” and it always ends up blowing up on them.

By Tim Sackett, MS, SPHR is Executive Vice President of HRU Technical Resources

11 Good Reasons Why 360 Degree Feedback Simply Doesn’t Work

11 critical issues with 360 degree feedback

1. 360 feedback is silly — Think about it: If you want to get information about your performance, why send a questionnaire to people who don’t know you, don’t care, or don’t see your performance? Isn’t it better to ask customers about customer behavior, subordinates about subordinate behavior, peers about peer behavior, and so forth? You will get better data using a few narrow surveys designed for targeted audiences than one great big one-size-fits-all survey.
2. Too much, too fast — Ask anyone who ever received a 360 report and they will probably tell you the amount of data was so overwhelming it took a half-day workshop to explain. Changing behavior is difficult. We might want to change ourselves, but everyone else wants us to stay the same. In addition, have you ever tried to develop more than one or two behaviors at a time? Keep it simple.
3. It’s irrelevant — Why ask someone to rate things that have nothing to do with job performance? If being inquisitive is not important to job performance, then leave it off the survey. The surest way to confuse employees is to ask questions and give feedback about silly items. Base survey items exclusively on job specifics.
4. Guestimates — This part is really irresponsible survey design. Some surveys suggest not rating items that don’t apply to the job or about which the rater is unsure. So far, so good — but what about rater subjectivity? Do we need to statistically analyze data for agreement between raters? Calculate meaningless averages? Asking for survey items that cannot be seen or heard on a frequent basis is error filled.
5. Reward and punish — Now, here’s a great way to torpedo feedback. As soon as people learn feedback is used to either punish or reward, the system is toast. Keep feedback on a developmental level. Reward and punish based job performance. Treat feedback as the road to performance and rate them separately. Your 360 will either be dead in the water, or, encourage vicious infighting if your organization cannot separate the two.
6. Organizational bias — External consultant are not experts in any single organization. On the other hand, multiple organization experience allows them to recognize strengths, weaknesses, and differences. The trend I see most is “no one here is below average” or, just as silly, “everyone here is seriously lacking.” This is management craziness. In every organization, people range from the top of the food chain to the bottom. Useful feedback is honest, objective and free of organizational dogma.
7.  Not job related — What do you think happens when people are asked a lot of questions unrelated to someone’s job performance? Right — you get a lot of answers unrelated to doing the job. The result encourages confusion, frustration, and a bunch of ticked-off people. This a great outcome if you planned to waste someone’s money and time answering surveys. If you want to avoid that problem, either do a formal job analysis to identify specific competencies, or at least talk to the subordinate and his/her manager to get some ideas of what to survey.
8. Poor planning — It’s simple: Never ask a question if you are unprepared for the answer. Know ahead of time what developmental plans apply to each survey item. Don’t plan? Then don’t ask. And, don’t think recommending a list of books and resources will suffice. It takes an unusual person to engage in self-development. It’s much easier to bury bad news in the bottom drawer and hope it goes away.
9. Crummy items — Asking questions about someone’s cognitive ability is sure to yield worthless results. Are you asking about intelligence? Accommodation to external factors? Based on what alternatives? Who is best positioned to evaluate the quality? Get the picture? As a general trend, you cannot go wrong designing items following theS.M.A.R.T. goal setting principles. If it’s not specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, then it’s D.U.M.B.
10. No involvement — I know this is a radical idea, but management is more than a title. It’s a responsibility that involves guiding, coaching, and developing subordinates. Any 360 should be a joint activity between coach and subject, again, using the S.M.A.R.T. principles. Your feedback program is short-lived if the people who benefit most are not involved.
11. Uncoordinated — Which do you think works better? An organization-wide initiative to accomplish a single goal or one encouraging everyone to do their own thing? I suggest choosing some kind of common goal such as teamwork, better problem solving, initiative, creativity, goal setting, and so forth. It really doesn’t make a difference just as long as everyone is in it together. Within the umbrella item (e.g., teamwork) each individual employee gets to choose those job-specific teamwork elements making the greatest difference to him/her, and for forth. Group involvement is a great way to encourage group development — and it makes life much easier for the training department.

From a great idea to life support

Let’s summarize: Common sense and best-practices require shared group support; manager and subordinate to working together; isolating a specific area that affects a specific audience; developing a few critical S.M.A.R.T. items; gathering honest and unbiased feedback; using the data to support planned development activities; developing the skills; and, follow-up surveys to check for progress.

Too much work? Management would resist it? You always have a fallback position.

Buy a great big survey with fuzzy generic items that apply to everyone; deliver it up, down, and sideways; summarize the results in a huge report; send subordinate back home with a page of developmental resources; and misuse results in performance reviews. The first year it will be hailed as a great idea.

The second year, however, it will be on life support. In three years it will be dead, and you will have wasted tens of thousands of dollars, managers and subordinates will be thoroughly irritated with you, and your professional reputation will get another hit.

By R. Wendell Williams, Ph.D., is Managing Director of ScientificSelection.com