Is Vision Enough?

It often seems that discussions about leaders and leadership begin with a statement about vision.

• All great leaders have a vision!
• She is such a visionary leader!
• I really buy in to his vision for our future!

It’s even fair to ask, “What good is a leader without a vision?” Having a vision for a better future is critical for any leader as it provides something to focus on for the future, a goal to attain, and even hope for all who believe.

Many companies today are struggling with reduced sales, shrinking profit margins, and reduced or non-existent profits. And, most employees realize the direct correlation between sales and profitability and their ability to receive raises in their salary, or even to keep their jobs. When this happens, new leadership is often brought in, bringing with them a fresh vision and new direction for the organization. Perhaps it involves developing new products, engaging in new markets, or improving the customer experience. Whatever it is, this new vision is expected to provide guidance to the organization and put it back on the path to profitability.

While I would certainly agree that vision is an important tool for any leader, you have to wonder if having a vision for the future is enough to solve the problems that we face.

The answer is “no”. Vision is just not enough.

A vision without some type of a plan is nothing more than a pipe dream. It’s like a starving man looking at a photograph of a fantastic meal. I mean, it looks good. You can use the picture to clearly depict what you want, but if you lack the funds to purchase the food or worse, purchase the food but do not know how to prepare it, then that picture doesn’t do anyone much good. After all, for a starving man what would be more nourishing – a picture of a Thanksgiving-style feast, or a bowl of rice?

Vision is indeed one of the key responsibilities of the leader. They must have the vision, they must communicate the vision, and, most importantly, they must position the followers so that the vision can be achieved. True leaders don’t rely on a vision without a plan. Instead, they create the vision, create the plan, put the right people into place, and provide the right tools to make it all come together.

Only then can they say that they have really led.

I hope that you enjoyed this article. At ECI Learning Systems LLC we are dedicated to improving productivity and profitability by creating engaged organizations. Our unique combination of training and personalized coaching, combined with our expertise in assessments allow us to create a development plan tailored for your success.

Until next time.....

Dave Meyer

ECI Learning Systems, LLC

http://www.ECILearning.com

True or False: Most Employees want to do a good job every day.

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

We'd love to hear your thoughts.....

What if Employees Reviewed Their Managers?

Over the years I have written a lot of performance reviews, received a number of reviews, and read a lot of reviews written about my clients. Performance reviews can provide valuable feedback to an employee, identifying areas for development, supporting the employee’s strengths, and positioning the employee for future growth. Of course, some performance reviews are better than others. For every well written, informative employee review there is one with a poorly written, unclear message that is full of grammatical errors, misspelled words, and improper syntax all targeting the employee’s poor communication skills.

Or, the review might point out the lack of customer focus in the employee’s daily work, which might be meaningful if the author of the review was not well known for routinely mocking customer requests.

I could go on but I think the message is clear. In some cases the manager writing the review may not be the best person to comment on the employee’s skills. It might be because they are unqualified to comment, or it might be that the skills required are not actually being modeled by the manager. In either case, the result might be a review that is somewhat less than helpful to the employee.

But this scenario made me wonder what would happen if we allowed employees to routinely provide performance reviews to their manager. Obviously the employees would not be qualified to rate their managers in all categories, but they could certainly provide valuable insights into key indicators like “matching employee talents and skills to job requirements”, “creates a motivating environment”, and “managing the workload”.

By providing feedback to their managers on these key categories, employees could help their managers uncover the blind spots that are holding them back in their career. It would also provide a mechanism for feedback to management that is clearly lacking in today’s business world.

Imagine how those managers who today routinely abuse employees might behave differently if they knew that these same employees would be providing input that would be reviewed by their boss. Managers who routinely make rash, arbitrary decisions might be inclined to rethink their behavior knowing that these decisions would be readily reviewed.

A few companies today use 360° reviews to get input from their managers. This does provide a mechanism for employees to provide valuable feedback to the company. But most companies who perform these reviews do them only once every couple of years and they lack a clear mechanism for follow through.

So let’s ask the question: For all levels of the organization should the employees be allowed to provide input into their manager’s reviews? What do you see as the pros and cons of allowing such input?

I’ll be interested in reading your thoughts.


I hope that you enjoyed this article. At ECI Learning Systems LLC we are dedicated to improving productivity and profitability by creating engaged organizations. Our unique combination of training and personalized coaching, combined with our expertise in assessments allow us to create a development plan tailored for your success.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com

The Fallacy of Performance Appraisals: Birds Gotta Swim and Fish Gotta Sing!

During a recent radio interview I was asked about the tendency in the business world to focus on employees’ weaknesses rather than their strengths. This, of course, led to a discussion about Performance Appraisals and what their real purpose is. Most major companies today provide their employees with an annual review of their performance through a formal “Performance Review” process. This process generally involves a manager completing a highly detailed and often subjective document about each employee’s performance and display of “skills” that supposedly relate to their jobs. These forms are quite generic and the managers often receive little, if any, training as to how these reviews will actually enhance employees’ skills. The “Performance Review” is then based off of this form and, often, consists of a short discussion on what an employee has done well followed by a lengthy and well documented review of “opportunity areas” or “areas of potential development” for the employees.

The Performance Appraisal process is certainly a well intentioned one that often seems to fall short of its intended mark. Instead of helping employees grow and prosper in an organization, they often sidetrack employees from making great progress by focusing on perceived weaknesses and ignoring the employee’s strengths. This leads to an intense focus on an area where little progress can be made and ignores the employee’s greatest area of potential growth.

In this discussion I began to think of that old adage “Birds gotta sing and fish gotta swim”. I started to wonder what would happen if the animal kingdom performed Performance Appraisals the way the business world did. Picture the lion, the king of the jungle calling in the Nightingale for its annual performance appraisal.

“Overall you’ve had a pretty good year, Ms. Nightingale. Your songs are well known and appreciated by a vast audience. But, if you want to get ahead in the animal kingdom we’re going to need to spend some time on some of your other skills. For example, your hunting consists of a few small bugs and some worms. You need to think bigger. Over the next year, focus on taking down a monkey or two. That should help build your strength as a hunter and position you for future growth. Oh, and I’ve assigned the Sea Bass to help you with your aquatic skills. Learning to swim should really round you out.”

Does that sound a little silly to you? It might. But in reality, it is no sillier than taking a good accountant with no desire for leadership and assigning them the lead on some inter-departmental task force with the idea of developing their untapped skills. It’s one thing if the accountant has a desire to move up the chain and wants to stretch in new directions. It’s quite another thing if they don’t.

I once worked for an executive who was absolutely brilliant. He was a visionary with a creative mind and that rare ability to take widely disparate topics and find how they might mesh together.

But he couldn’t spell.

He couldn’t spell to save his life.

Fortunately, he was older and missed most of our well-intended but highly ineffective process of focusing on people’s weaknesses. Otherwise, I fear that his brilliance might have been overlooked and his weakness in spelling might have sidetracked his entire career.

Birds don’t have to swim to be the best bird possible. Nor do fish have to learn to sing. Before you sit down for your next set of Performance Appraisals identify whatever it is that your employees do well and figure out how to build those skills and make them more beneficial to the team.


At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees

When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com

The Top 5 Myths of Leadership

There are whole libraries full of books on leadership, as well as countless magazine articles and an increasing number of blog articles. Many of these mediums contain exactly the same message or messages, but in some rather unique ways. Some try and identify THE most important aspect of leadership, while others talk about the various components of leadership and how all are critically important. With all that has been written about leadership you would assume that most leaders, especially new leaders, would quickly come to grasp the fundamentals required to lead their teams. None the less, myths about leadership not only exist, but appear to be growing. Perhaps this is because companies have laid off experienced managers and replaced them with younger, less experienced managers in a misguided attempt to save money. Or perhaps it is a lack of good role models in leadership that fosters the myths. But in any event, myths and misconceptions about leadership abound.

Below are 5 myths about leadership that I experience most often as a coach. These top 5 do not come from a scientific survey with thousands of responses, but from my personal experience. See if these myths match up with the things that you experience most often.

1. Management is the same as leadership

Too many people (myself included) have a tendency to interchange the terms management and leadership. The result is that we are unable to distinguish between one’s ability to manage a process and their ability to lead people. Managing a process requires the intelligence and logic to understand the process, identify the shortcomings, and hopefully resolve them. The results are easily identifiable and measurable. Leading people, on the other hand, requires an ability to identify and communicate fuzzy concepts like vision and values, a willingness to live in the gray area of human values, and an understanding of the illogical nature of human beings.

These concepts could not be more different, yet the confusion remains.

2. Leadership cannot be learned 

We often hear about someone’s natural leadership abilities and how someone has been a leader their entire life. Likewise, we associate certain personality traits with leadership and believe that the lack of these traits means a lack of leadership abilities. The reality is that some people ARE natural leaders. The skills required to influence people come quite naturally to them. But the key here is that leadership is not a talent, it’s a skill. And, like any skill, it can be learned. It may not be easy for some people to learn and implement the skills of leadership, but it is not impossible. With the right guidance and assistance, any person can become a leader.

3. Leadership means controlling and manipulating others

Leadership is about influencing others and having them want to do the things you need them to do. Leaders have the ability to appeal to their followers and create a desire to achieve the common goals. It is about creating an environment of motivation and passion for the followers. Leaders create a feeling of openness and belonging. On the other hand, some people believe that leading is about making someone do what they don’t want to do. They use threats and intimidation to get things done. They believe that using their “power” is leading. But forcing someone to do something against their will is not leadership or motivation, it’s coercion. And coercion is not leadership.

4. The leader is always the smartest person in the room

There is no question that leaders tend to be intelligent people. And certainly there are times when the leader IS the smartest person in the room. But, a real leader understands their own limitations and focuses on the goals and vision of the organization. They realize that they don’t have all of the answers. And, in doing so, they routinely surround themselves with the smartest people they can find, listen to them, and meld those ideas in with their own. The only way that the leaders are the smartest people in the room is in the realization that they are NOT the smartest people in the room.

5. Titles create leaders

This may be the most common myth of leadership. And, this myth is common at all levels of the organization. But whether the title is “Team Leader” or “Sr. Vice President”, leadership cannot be bestowed through a title. The reason is quite simple. For someone to be a leader, they must have followers. And, while a Sr. Vice President might have staff below them, there is no guarantee that the staff is actually following the leader. If you want to identify the leader in any organization, simply check and see who the team turns to and who they listen to. That is your leader, regardless of their title.

There you have my “Top 5 Myths of Leadership”. I would certainly be interested in hearing your thoughts about the myths that you most commonly see.

I hope that you enjoyed this article. At ECI Learning Systems LLC we are dedicated to improving productivity and profitability by creating engaged organizations. Our unique combination of training and personalized coaching, combined with our expertise in assessments allows us to create a development plan tailored for your success.

Until next time.....

Dave Meyer

ECI Learning Systems, LLC

http://www.ecilearning.com

Where Does Engagement Come From?

Employee engagement can be a funny thing. Like motivation, you can’t cause someone else to get engaged in their job, but you can create an atmosphere that encourages and fosters engagement. Without buy-in from above, engagement rarely happens. But true employee engagement in a “make it or break it” form comes from the employee themselves and from their immediate managers.

Numerous studies on employee engagement reveal what the employees want and expect from both their managers and from the job itself. And, while employees have grown more and more cynical about their jobs over the last 20 years, they really don’t want to be that way. Like a person who has had their heart broken in love too many times, they’ve become cautious and tainted, reserving judgment about their feelings until they are sure they won’t be hurt again. Convince them that your desire for engagement is real and lasting and they will buy in. But first, you have to know what they want and be willing to demonstrate that you believe in it also.

What do employees want from their managers?

1. A relationship that goes beyond meeting the goals and objectives. Show the employees that you care about them.
2. Knowledge about the organization and where it’s headed. Let the employees know how their work supports the big picture.
3. Human skills. Most studies show that human and relationship skills are more important than technical skills.
4. Assistance in developing their career plans and help in meeting those objectives.

Managers who take this approach with their employees are creating an environment that is conducive to employee engagement. When employees recognize this they become more open to the idea of getting engaged in their work. But there are additional factors that employees want from their job as well.

What do employees want from their jobs?

1. The ability to utilize their own talents and skills on the job. And don’t forget, just because someone does something well does not mean they enjoy it.
2. The opportunity to be involved and give input. Nothing is as frustrating to your employees as having their ideas not heard, or heard but not truly appreciated.
3. The opportunity to learn and grow, both personally and professionally.
4. Clear expectations about what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it. This goes beyond the concept of departmental goals and objectives and relates to both day to day clarity and knowing how the work fits the long term goals of the organization.

As you can see, these lists are neither long nor complicated. Creating an engaging environment is not difficult but really requires some rather basic people skills that should be part of any new manager’s repertoire. Unfortunately, since most new managers receive little or no training, these basic skills are often lacking.

Ask yourself if your employees are engaged or have they all checked out? If they’ve checked out, find out why. Which of these basic elements is missing from your organization? Creating an engaged organization does not require massive amounts of time and/or money. All you really have to do is show your employees that you care.


At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees

When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com

What is two-way communication?

“Outstanding Leaders Appeal to the Hearts of their Followers, not their Minds.” ~ Source Unknown

Ask any organization about their internal communications and they will point to their intranet website, used to communicate key initiatives to their employees. They’ll talk about the quarterly CEO updates, where the top executives go “live” and stream their inspirational leadership across the company. And they’ll point to their ongoing newsletter from HR executives that brings all of the employees up to date on the latest and greatest “Human Resource” initiatives.

What is missing from these communication methods is obvious. These are one-way communication vehicles, not two-way. And, even if that quarterly CEO update includes a phone line for employees to call in on or a message function to pose questions electronically, you are still only engaging a small percentage of your employees. True two-way communication is not possible through push mediums alone.

More importantly, the key component of any real two-way communication is the clear indication that both parties are listening to each other. In all of the methods discussed above, the message is “communicated” out, but there is nothing to indicate that any message is welcomed back or that the “communicator” has any intention of truly listening.

The problem is obvious from both sides of the equation. From the executive side, how can you possibly listen to 500 - 50,000 employees with a variety of diverse ideas and thoughts? After all, even the best intentioned employees are likely to have some ideas that are so totally impractical it can be difficult not to laugh out loud. From the employee side, regardless of how you might be encouraged to communicate, do you really believe the CEO is going to listen to you?

The answer to this challenge is not nearly as difficult as it might at first seem because the employees don’t need to talk with the CEO one on one to be heard. Nor do the top executives need to react to every message sent their way. In fact, many companies have “solved” this problem through some type of formal survey process. They commission an Organizational Survey to get input from across the company. When the survey is complete, they review the results to understand the organizational concerns. They may even take action on some of those major concerns … maybe… But if they do, those actions are sometimes not obvious to the employees. As far as the employees are concerned they’ve been asked for their input, and they’ve been ignored.

Is it any wonder that most employees don’t take Organizational Surveys seriously?

Organizational Surveys can serve as a vehicle for two-way communication, but only if the employees KNOW that their responses are being taken seriously. In simple terms that means:

1. Publish the results of the survey. And not just the good parts; but the bad parts and the not-so-bad parts as well. In other words, management must be willing to “open their kimono” and share everything with the employees.
2. Actions resulting from the survey must be visible across the organization and tied directly back to the survey itself. In other words, don’t just announce a “reorganization”. Instead, be honest and announce that it is being done in response to the survey.
3. It can’t be a “one and done” arrangement. Provide regular progress reports on what is being done based on the survey and don’t let it slip away into history.
4. Measure again. At regular intervals, possibly every 2 years, repeat the survey to look for improvement or areas of decline. And, again, be honest as to why the survey is being done and be willing to share the results again as well.

This is just a start on what you need to do, but I think you get the idea. Actions that are visible and can be traced directly back to employee feedback is one of the key ways that employees feel heard. And feeling heard is a key requirement for employee engagement.

So, is that it? If I do the things mentioned in the last several blogs will I have an engaged organization?

Unfortunately, there’s still more to it. By doing the things listed you have opened the door for engagement, but as of yet, no one has walked through that door. A big part of employee engagement comes from lower levels of the organization and even from the employees themselves.

We’ll discuss some of those ideas next week.


At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees

When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com