Wish List for 2013

‘Tis the season for making lists and checking them twice, and I’m betting that one of those lists that you’ll be spending time on has to do with work and your wishes for making meaningful improvements. Am I right? Don’t we all want to make a fresh and improved start in January? Well, if you’re like me you’ll be setting goals for improving workplace productivity, relationships, and fun. Here are five tips on how to narrow down those wishes to the most important ones that will have the greatest positive impact.

1. Identify what is no longer going to be something that you do. I think this is critical. Don’t keep spending time and energy on tasks, people, customers, reports, problems, or whatever it may be, that don’t make you happy or support getting your organization to its goals. Take the time to be clear about what you should be doing, as well as what you shouldn’t, before you go any further with your list making.
2. Make this the year of the elephant. So often I see organizations tip-toe around issues, personalities, and/or problems that are obvious to everyone. No one wants to "rock the boat." But at the same time, isn’t that elephant sitting in on and disrupting every meeting, taking advantage of privileges, leading managers around by the nose, or stirring up one conflict after another? Isn’t the result of appeasing the elephant weighing down your organization’s morale, energy, leadership confidence and overall productivity? Utilizing a planned and focused organization development methodology to address and eliminate the elephant can be just the spark your organization needs to set 2013 on fire.
3. Don’t take it all so seriously. I’m not advocating you relax the quality of your work or the commitment you have to your organization. What I am suggesting is that you wish for and find a way to balance personal time with time dedicated to hard work, 24/7 expectations, and an economy that appears it will remain anemic for the next 12 months or so. Somewhere in among all the things you’re doing you need to have fun. That can be a collective fun with workplace potlucks or planning time for personal breaks, or whatever you enjoy that can recharge you. If you’re looking for a fabulous book on the importance of play and creativity don’t miss reading Play, by Dr. Stuart Brown.
4. Make learning a priority. Professional development is one of the key areas that has been cut during this recession. The sad thing about that is that we all need continuous improvement. It doesn’t matter if it’s people skills, leadership techniques, certifications, or staying up to speed on the latest technology impacting the way we work. In this global environment where the only thing we can count on is change, learning is important for sustaining a competitive advantage. In 2013, do what you can to open your organization up again to investing in the minds and spirits of your employees. You may find executive coaching is a great way to invest in development while having the least amount of disruption on productivity.
5. Play the role of reporter. So much of our focus these days is on "ME." Take 2013 to move that focus to make it all about your colleagues, co-workers, customers, family and new acquaintances. Have an inquiring mind that wants to hear their stories, ideas, opinions and experiences. Learn to use your ears more than your mouth. Value the input and feedback from others and reinforce their value and contributions to the organization. Improving communication and collaboration in the workplace is important for creating and sustaining trust, as well as motivating risk-taking and innovation.

Creating your wish list based on these ideas will go a long way toward introducing and sustaining positive change in your organization, leading to success in 2013.

Dr. Stuart Brown

This article was written by Deborah A. King, SPHR, CEO and Sr. Organizational Effectiveness Consultant with Evolution Management, Inc. Debbie and her team are energized about transforming human performance through the evolution of workplace culture. Contact EMI for more information about how we can assist your organization: www.evolutionmgt.com or 770.587.9032

Key Leadership Skills in the “Human Age”

The ManpowerGroup recently published a report on How to Navigate the Human Age. Not surprising, an incredibly important element of their findings is driven by the fact that as the world gets smaller and more integrated, our business strategies and challenges are shifting from local and domestic issues to ones influenced by global activities.

Their findings indicate the world is upside down. Things like qualified human talent, which seemed to be abundant in years past is now scarce, and information which used to be elusive is now readily available and everywhere. No wonder businesses are looking for "new models" for addressing these significant changes. What do these increasing inverted trends and influence of world events have to do with the way we lead our organizations? Here are a few key findings from their research. You can read the entire report here.

Organizations Need to be Strategic About
Emerging Markets – Not just in the neighborhood, but around the world
Impacts of Globalization – Not just in business but politics, economics and social issues
Sustaining Talent – Workforce planning, recruiting, stretching, engaging and retaining
Technology – Embrace advancements for "better mousetraps" as well as resource savings
Sustainability – Do what’s right for social, economic and environmental impacts
Data Management – Lots of data everywhere; be ready to manage it and comply with privacy regulations

Organizational Structures and Systems Need to Address
Proper Workload Balancing – Full-time, part-time, contractor, outsourced, robotics (Yes! Robots!)
Fluid Workforce Management – Grounded in proactive, innovative and flexible systems
Collaboration – Embrace horizontal work models to leverage talent and development opportunities
"Glocal" Mindset – Operate with local conscious within a structure of dispersed locations
Alliances – Partner with government and training institutions to advance curriculum and skill sets

With these shifts in organizational focus, leaders of the future will need to update their competencies to include:

• Demonstrating Adaptability – The report re-emphasizes what we’ve been saying for the past several years. Everyone, especially leaders, needs to be adaptive to the fast pace of change and the ambiguity that this speed brings. Individuals with a preference for lots of details and methodically dotting of all the "I’s" and crossing all the "T’s" may find themselves frustrated and stressed if they can’t transition their styles to accommodate the needs for faster business decision making.
• Managing and Analyzing Data – So much data is readily available; getting comfortable with the balance of how much is enough, and what to do with what you have will be critical.
• Thinking Strategically about Sustainability – Employees, candidates, vendors, customers, all organizational stakeholders are raising expectations for how "responsible" a business should be when it comes to social, economic and environmental issues. Incorporating an element of sustainability into your decision-making model is a must.
• Collaborating – Leaders will need to not only build teams internally to collaborate on innovation, but they also must have the attitude, communication and presentation skills to motivate all types of partners to work together. Leaders with a command-and-control style will be well served to work with a coach on shifting to a style that incorporates partnerships and alliances.
• Innovating and Creating – The workplace of the future needs to be built on a culture that encourages and rewards "dreaming," "playing," and occasional failures. Organizations will need to keep reinventing themselves if they are to survive – maintaining a competitive edge will be impossible without fostering new ideas.
• Mentoring – Leaders can best pass on knowledge and experiences through stories. They’ll need to connect with their leadership development programs and invest in spending time with future leaders. In addition to the capacity to mentor and coach, organizations will be well served by establishing executive coaching programs in conjunction with a leadership development curriculum, in order to nurture the professional and business development capabilities of talent in the leadership pipeline.
• Workforce Planning - More than ever, organizational leaders need to be aware of the competencies required for the future and lead efforts to develop internal talent with those skills, as well as create a pipeline (internal and external) for attracting and retaining those talents. The old cliché "organizations are only as good as their people" was never so appropriate.
• Leveraging Technology – Leaders may not have to know how all the bells and whistles work, but they do need to be able to envision how technological changes can be utilized to improve competitive advantage, save time and money, and respond to the sophistication of their customers.
• Embracing Differences – Leaders set the tone in their organizations for cultural norms and philosophies. As the workplace expands, employee expectations, traditions, religions, ages, gender identity, etc. will continue to diversify. Global leaders will need to demonstrate their commitment and dedication to respecting all kinds of differences in the workplace and weave that value into everyday expectations and practices.
• Managing Time and Stress – Since the world isn’t going to slow down, leaders need to become experts at managing time and stress. Competencies such as delegation and practices such as meditation or exercise programs promoting wellness should be encouraged to help leaders sustain their energies and capacities for the speed of business.

So What’s Next?

It’s exciting to peek into the future. The ManpowerGroup’s report offers this view by linking events around the world that impact, and will continue to influence, what happens at our business locations. From a holistic, global vantage point we can already see that individuals who have the capacity to lead others utilizing the competencies noted above will be highly sought after. In order to retain this talent, organizations will need to review and modify their practices to ensure the appropriate level of support, empowerment, and challenges are available for them

Getting your arms around the kinds of change that are on the horizon may best be accomplished by collaborating with external change experts who have an unbiased perception and the expertise to guide the exploration process to determine what is necessary to move from the current organization to the organization of the future. From a neutral position, they can assist leaders with the articulation of the future design of the structure and development and implementation of change initiatives to align the culture, practices and expectations with future success.

I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record: "Organizations cannot rely on the practices of the past to be successful in the future. Design is a signal of intention." But it’s true. It’s all going to be about change – time to get comfortable with it, in order to survive.

As always, I welcome your comments to my posting. Please click below to share your thoughts. If you found this article interesting and helpful, I’m very happy for you to pass it along to others. Have a great week.


This article was written by Deborah A. King, SPHR, CEO and Sr. Organizational Effectiveness Consultant with Evolution Management, Inc. Debbie and her team are energized about changing times and can help your organization navigate the individual, team and organizational journeys to the future. Contact us for more information; www.evolutionmgt.com or 770.587.9032.

IBM THINK: Forum on the Future of Leadership

How Do You React to Change?

Respond to this question using a scale of 1-5, with 1 being a response of ‘Avoid at all Costs – I like routine’ and 5 being ‘Energized By Change – I seek out opportunities to do something different.’

There is evidence that change and the frequency with which we must deal with it will continue to increase in our professional and personal lives. This fast-paced diet of change is going to require a stronger and stronger demonstration of skills such as adaptability and flexibility. These capabilities will be necessary in our home lives as well as in response to expectations from our employers when it comes to managing our careers. If that’s the writing on the wall, what are you doing about strengthening your skills to be ready to respond in a healthy and productive manner to the changes the world is unleashing?

Requirements of an Innovative World
In a recent article written for FedEx entitled Adjusting to a Rapidly Evolving Economy,  Catherine Bolgar, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, suggests that the traditional approach - get an education and then go get a job - may be becoming obsolete. Combining her notion with what business leaders say about the way they will fill jobs five years from now ("We haven’t developed those job requirements or titles yet") and it becomes clear that continuous learning and building a capacity to embrace and quickly react to change are skills we all need for the future. The fog isn’t completely lifted on how education and innovation will transition together, but as John Howkins, author of the book, The Creative Economy says, "When somebody stops learning now, it’s like they’ve stopped thinking, or at least being creative." Certainly you don’t want that description to apply to you, and you also don’t want any colleagues on your team who have given up their passion for learning and development. So what can you do?

Naturally our basic curriculum will remain relevant. We still need to learn math, science, and the ABC’s; but technology has changed what we do with the information we’re learning. We no longer have to memorize the answers – they are just a click away. But what’s important now is knowing how to understand and use the unlimited data available, analyze what it means through the filter of the big picture, and make recommendations of what steps are best to consider for moving forward. These are fast becoming critical skills for 21st century workers. 

I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about my experience judging at the SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) Student Conference.  In the past the SHRM student conference competitions were based on a Jeopardy! style of questioning, requiring students to memorize employment regulations, definitions, laws, etc. This year the format changed to one where students prepared a two page executive summary of a case study, including issues, possible solutions and recommendations. In addition, they gave a 30 minute presentation of the case, demonstrating analysis and problem solving logic. This format change was initiated as a result of what SHRM is hearing business leaders need from new employees coming into the workplace. Key among those abilities to be successful are the following:

• Adaptability
• Problem-solving
• Analysis and recommendations
• Collaboration
• Mentoring
• Entrepreneurship

Technology – a Big Driver of ChangeI was recently in the grocery store with a friend who was visibly upset and appalled that I had selected the "self-checkout" option. "Don’t you realize that you are taking someone’s job away by using this lane?" he demanded. My response, as heartless as it may have sounded was, "They’ve already lost that job, and it’s not coming back!" As technology helps businesses improve efficiencies and cost-savings, jobs will change. That’s how it’s always been – it just hasn’t been this fast.

I looked over at the other four check-out lanes that were still being managed by real people, and hoped they, as well as their employer, have their eyes open to the future. The ‘checkout’ position is going to become obsolete and they need to be learning a new skill to help them move on to the next job in their career. We’re already reading about the research and development of shopping carts with scanners on them; you’ll be "checking out" as you are shopping. How quick and easy will that be? There isn’t anything we can do to stop the march of technological progress. What we can manage is how we prepare and handle the on-going changes technology and globalization will bring.

So What’s Next?Individuals, as well as the business and academic communities have a responsibility to address these new skill sets. For individuals who do not like change, it’s important to take the necessary steps to get comfortable with it. Try new things to relax your preference for control and structure. Set up situations where you don’t know all the answers before the questions are asked. Put yourself in elements that you are not familiar with to strengthen your confidence that you can deal with whatever happens.

Employers can also help employees build these necessary skills. Through a variety of assessments employees can become familiar with their work style preferences and use that knowledge to modify them and grow capacity to deal with change. An assessment like the Myers Briggs Type Indicator for example, opens opportunities for dialog and discovery about how individuals deal with information, decisions and structure. What we know about preferences is that they are just that -- "preferences."  Just because someone has a strong tendency preferring a lot of structure and routine, doesn’t mean they can’t learn to embrace and deal with changing situations and less predictable work relationships in a healthy and positive manner. It just takes time to help them understand their preferences and assist them in shifting their immediate reactions. Self discovery work like this does require patience, commitment and possibly the accountability of working with a manager or external business coach to stay the course. However, the results can be very rewarding for both the individual and the company.

Establishing a mentoring relationship also has the benefit of sharing knowledge and building collaboration skills while dealing with real-time problems and situations. For mentors and mentees these relationships can lead to life long friendships, career development and often spotlight leadership potential that may not have been realized to date.

We may not know all the requirements for those jobs without titles and job descriptions that we’ll be filling four or five years from now, but we do already know some of the success factors that the employees in those positions will be measured by.

What are you doing to make sure you aren’t viewed as "behind the times" when it comes time for your next promotion or career change? What are you helping to facilitate in your organization to better align your workforce readiness preparation with the skill sets of the 21st century? 

Large and small organizations- public, private and non-profit - see the need to change their business strategies. Don’t forget the importance of aligning the people-management functions along with those business changes.

I’ve written this blog to start a conversation about skills required for the future and what we can do to develop them. What’s your advice about ways to improve flexibility and "soft skills"? What steps do you suggest to improve understanding and alignment with the changing relationship of education and business skill set needs?

I look forward to your answers to those two questions. Please click below and share.

Innovation and Creativity at Work

How do you react to change?

Developing Creative Teams - The Art of Working with Others

This ASTER image uses short wavelength
infrared bands to highlight in bright pink
the altered rocks in the Morenci pit associated
with copper mineralization.
NASA/GSFC/ERSDAC/JAROS and
U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

The importance of team work and the ability to collaborate with others continue to be strong competencies successful organizations need to nurture.  With that as a background, I’m republishing this article which I wrote last year.  It is still very relevant and hopefully will spark some ideas for you about how to foster these capabilities within your own style, as well as in the work behaviors of those who report to you.　

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

When a team works well together it’s like viewing an inspiring piece of art. Unfortunately most business leaders report that rather than a creative team working in sync to innovate solutions, they are more likely to experience a lack of agility, creativity, communications, empathy and commitment. What are we missing in preparing employees for the real-life challenges of the 21st century?

IBM’s research last year, conducted with 700 Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) from around the world, Working Beyond Borders provides some insights to the disconnects we’re experiencing between our leadership talents and the needs of the changing workplace. Based on their findings, how we train our leaders hasn’t kept up with changing global business circumstances. They suggest a more strategic and integrated business approach needs to be developed and implemented to close the gaps between where our businesses are with leadership development and the future needs of a global marketplace.

Organization development efforts need to focus on addressing an integrated plan to re-tool and educate employees, providing:

• new leadership skills and experiences, acquired and applied at a faster pace
• a restated business protocol that embraces needed workplace flexibilities to connect people to information and each other
• an updated business culture that encourages and rewards creativity and innovation vs. demonstrated performance that follows a "play it safe" status quo mentality

So how do we get there?

Strategic Challenges to Overcome
The analysis of the data collected from the CHRO’s boils down to three key strategies organizations should embrace in order to be prepared to grow and thrive along with the business trends moving us to the future:

• Organizations need to get a handle on the talents and skills they currently have and compare those to a reasonable estimate of the workforce knowledge, skills and abilities they will need in the future. (If you missed my blog last week on Preparing Workers for the Future, you may want to reference it.  Preparing this will help to clearly define how various workforce needs will be staffed, i.e., full-time, part-time, outsourced, etc. This assessment will also help identify high-potential individuals ready and capable of succeeding in a robust leadership development program.
• As the world spins faster and faster it is imperative that organizations improve the intensity and speed at which employees can develop and apply new skills in a creative manner without fearing consequences connected to failure. This paradigm shift provides an opportunity for organizations to think outside-the-box when it comes to training methods integrating dynamic on-the-job project approaches such as: job rotations, mentoring relationships, creative problem solving assignments, and job shadowing opportunities. EMI has found that programs built from a competency-based training model are much more targeted and lead to a broader integration of job responsibilities. Reward programs that motivate and acknowledge creative solutions to problems further demonstrate a culture change commitment to innovation.
• Study after study continues to point to the need to build collaboration skills within our current and future leaders. The ability of individuals to work well with diverse groups, either face-to-face or through the technology advancements that connect us, is essential. Individuals with low Emotional Intelligence (EI) and underdeveloped capabilities to empathize and communicate with others while managing their own preferences will have a role; it just won’t be as a leader. 

These challenges, deemed highly important by the CHRO’s, were also seen as ones that currently are beyond the capabilities of their firms to achieve. This acknowledgement provides a great opportunity for HR to collaborate with other C-suite leaders, as well as the business, academic, and consulting communities, to create practical solutions. Together, we can dialogue and work across silos to energize solutions that are creative and forward-thinking.

So What’s Next?
We’ve all heard the Confucius saying, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." That seems appropriate here. It can be overwhelming to think about the many changes involved with addressing the issues IBM’s research documented. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the first step -- acknowledging the need for a strategy that integrates solutions into an updated corporate culture and operational practices -- can be managed by breaking it down into workable pieces. Utilizing the skills of external expertise can allow the internal HR leader to actively participate in the collaboration and introduce an "unbiased" perspective to oversee the flow of the project.

Each section of the Insights from Global Chief Human Resource Officers Study ends with recommended questions to motivate thinking and planning. Here are a few to contemplate:

Matching resources to organizational needs:

• Which alternative work structures provide greater opportunity for efficient and more flexible deployment?
• How do you break down the organizational silos that prevent the best use of your talent?
• How can you reduce time to competence in your most critical jobs?

Cultivating creative leaders:

• How are you fostering creativity and borderless thinking among your leadership team?
• Are you radically rethinking leadership development to rapidly close the effectiveness gap?
• Do you integrate leadership development with emerging business opportunities to better prepare leaders for the future?

Fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing:

• What will you do to get multiple generations of employees to actively engage in online collaboration?
• In what ways can you explore, reward and integrate diverse and unconventional points of view?
• What novel techniques are you using to tap into the insights and ideas of employees around the world?

This is an important conversation for organizations to be having. I invite you to use this forum to share what your organization is doing to address these issues. Do you even see these as issues? How does creativity and workforce planning fit into your strategies going forward – or are you focused on something else?

Please click below and offer your comments. Also, if you found this blog sparked your creativity and interest to explore answers, please forward it to engage others who can partner with you. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Leadership Lessons