When SMART Goals are DUMB

According to Wikipedia, the first known use of the term “SMART Goals” occurred in the November 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran. There is some discussion over what each letter of the acronym actually stands for, but some commonly accepted terms are:

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A= Achievable
R = Realistic
T = Time Bound

By this definition, a goal qualifies as SMART if it meets these 5 criteria. For example: “We will increase our sales for X product by 200 units in the calendar year 2011” qualifies as a SMART goal because it meets the necessary criteria.

While management training has been cut significantly in the last decade or so, most managers are instructed in how to set SMART goals. In fact, SMART goals are often viewed as the panacea for organizations that lack the proper Vision and Mission. “With SMART Goals”, some people say, “everyone knows exactly what is expected of them.”

And, this is true. With goals that meet the criteria identified above, people do have concrete targets to shoot for. And the management axiom is, “what gets measured gets managed” meaning that the SMART goals will get managed by the organization.

But, it would be a mistake to assume that creating SMART goals puts the organization on concrete footing and guarantees success. As with anything else, SMART goals are only as good as the people that create them. And in my career I’ve been given a number of SMART goals that I knew I should never try and achieve.

Because sometimes SMART goals are DUMB.

D = Distorted
U = Unimportant
M = Mediocre
B = Biased

Once, I was working with my sales organization trying to improve our throughput and support to them. Over the course of the year they had seen changes in the market and were revising some of their products and implementation. We were working together to make sure we were both on the same page. This was a big exercise, and I was glad to be a part of it as I’ve longed believed that Sales and Delivery organizations should be working together closely.

In the middle of this exercise I received a package from my boss containing my goals for the upcoming year. These goals were nothing more than my current year’s goals with increased performance, and they were entirely out of sync with what my sales team needed. They DISTORTED the need for speed in delivery; focused on tasks that were UNIMPORTANT to my customers; would have led to MEDIOCRE results; and were based on the BIAS of my boss and what he believed we needed.

I was told to sign and submit them to HR within 24 hours to qualify for the bonus program for the next year.

When creating your goals, think beyond the concept of SMART and make sure that your goals will result in something meaningful to your department and your company. Find out what is really important and create goals that will serve the organization and your customers.

Just because goals are SMART doesn’t mean that they aren’t DUMB as well.


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 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

Implementing an Engaged Culture

Culture changes in an organization are never easy or quick. A company culture is the personality of the company, and just like with a human personality, deciding to change it is one thing but actually changing a personality is something entirely different. For example, every year we make New Year’s resolutions about things we are going to change. But the reality is that most resolutions quickly fall away because, while the desire to change might be strong, changing ingrained habits is a long and painful process.

Experts in the process of change will tell you that the probability of successful change can be enhanced with the proper level of support. For example, if your desire to change involves losing weight, you are encouraged to sign up for a program, start an exercise program with a friend, and even tell your spouse, family, and friends about your desire to lose weight. If they know about your weight loss goals, they can help you stay away from food that is bad for you and even help you steer clear of situations where bad food may be prevalent. This is especially true if your desire to lose weight will have a direct impact on the food that they might end up eating.

Having support for change is a critical factor in moving yourself in a new direction and is often the difference between success and failure.

The same is true when deciding to change the culture of your organization. Once you have decided that you want to make a specific change, the next thing you need to do is begin to line up support for that change. And, just like you might sign up for a well-proven diet program, your culture change should also be supported by experts – experts who understand the complexities and pitfalls of a culture change and can provide you with valuable guidance. Trying to change your culture without the assistance of an expert is like trying to do brain surgery … on yourself.

And, much like you want to inform your friends and family about your change in eating habits so that you can gain their support and let them know about the possible impact on them, you will also want to inform your employees of the desire to change the culture. After all, changing the culture of the organization will have a very direct impact on them and you will need their support and involvement to ensure your success.

For many leaders, the question of communicating desired changes to the employees represents a significant challenge. Too often, leaders fail to appreciate the level of understanding that the employees have about the current culture, or they believe they can implement culture changes through simple process or reward adjustments. Unfortunately, when employees don’t understand the culture shift being pursued, they will try and meld any new process or reward changes into the existing culture. Obviously, this can have a significant negative impact on any desired culture changes when processes intended for one culture end up being implemented in another.

For culture to truly change it must be planned from above but implemented at the lowest levels of the organization. By making the employees your partner in your cultural shift you can more readily communicate not only the “how” of the shift but also the “why”. And, if the transition is to a more employee centric culture, your employees will be delighted to assist you.


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

Are There Skeptics in Your Organization?

In our last few blogs, we’ve been talking about the concept of employee engagement. And, in last week’s post we talked about the first steps in moving your team from where they are today to being a more highly engaged team. Asking the people who deal with the problem every day how to solve that problem is a great way to begin to engage your team. Full engagement does not happen overnight or through a single exercise. But, if you engaged your team to solve the problem, you likely saw an inkling of the power that an engaged workforce brings to the organization. They say that two heads are better than one. Imagine if everyone in your organization brought their best thoughts to solving your problems. Can you imagine the power of that organization?

As I noted above, full engagement does not happen overnight. But, if you engaged your team in the problem solving exercise we discussed last week, you took the first step to engage your team. I would expect that your first attempt at employee engagement met with limited success. You probably engaged a few employees and got some excellent feedback, but you also noticed that most of your employees did not engage. Instead, they watched and observed but didn’t fully participate.

This is a natural reaction to this kind of a shift in thinking from management and demonstrates a lack of trust. They heard the words, but they weren’t sure what was going to happen next. They believed that the best thing for them to do, the safest thing for them to do, and the easiest thing for them to do, was to do nothing. By doing nothing they limit their exposure and don’t set themselves up for a major psychological letdown. In fact, I would guess that, based on the size of your organization, you found some people who were not only skeptical, but actually mocked the idea and those who participated. These people have been well trained that being disengaged and not caring is the easiest way to stay employed and out of the line of fire.

Fully engaging your team means changing the mindset and culture of the organization to one that encourages creativity, rewards risk taking, and promotes open communication. For many organizations, this represents a major cultural shift in the way that people think. That goes for changing the minds of the skeptics as well as those who fully participated. And that is why it is so important that you implemented the solution your team came up with, regardless of what you really thought of it. Failing to implement the team’s solution leaves the skeptics free to say, “I knew this was not real. Management doesn’t really care what we know or think. This is just the latest management fad of the month.” Implementing the solution from your team does not eliminate the skeptics but, rather, it begins to crack the façade that they have built up. Permanently knocking down that wall will take time and effort. And, it may even cost you a few employees along the way. But it will be worth it in the long run.

The biggest “cost” of implementing a culture that encourages employee engagement is the mental and emotional stress that it might cause you personally. We are talking about moving from a culture where you were the center of attention – the person with all the answers – to an employee-centric culture where the emphasis is on the strengths of the employees.

We’ll talk more about implementing that culture in our next issue.

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

Create Engagement Through Involvement

In our last few blogs, we’ve been talking about the concept of employee engagement and how valuable it can be to your organization. If you think back to your early years on the job, you were likely highly engaged, at least when you started out. You were eager to jump into the work, anxious to impress your new boss, and wanted to fit in with the other employees. The question becomes, how long did that eagerness last? How long was it before you realized that your eagerness was not truly appreciated by your boss or by your coworkers? How long until you placed more value on blending in than on being the best?

From my personal experience I believe that for most people disengagement, the art of not caring about your job or your company, is a learned behavior. When we first start working we really want to care, but we learn from our boss and our peers that this trait, this eagerness, is not truly appreciated in the workplace. Over time, we begin to accept this as the truth and incorporate it into our daily behaviors.

The same is true for your employees. They likely learned fairly early in their careers that the best way to get along was to go along.

Here’s the good news.

Since disengagement is a learned behavior it can be unlearned as well. The trick is in how you “teach” your employees that it is ok to be engaged.

The process of integrating engagement into your organization requires a significant amount of work for you and your leadership team. And, it starts with honesty about what you are trying to accomplish and why. You will need to build trust with your team and give them a reason to believe in you and what you are saying. To engage your team, you need to be fully committed to the concept of employee engagement. You need to be willing to encourage and accept their ideas and suggestions, be open in your communication about what is and what is not working, and, most importantly, you need to convince them that this idea is not the “leadership fad of the month” but a concept that is here for the long term.

Here is my suggestion for getting the engagement ball rolling in your organization. Start by identifying the biggest challenge that you are facing. Then, call a meeting of key people who are involved in this challenge and who should most want to see it solved. Once that team is assembled, explain the problem to them and ask them how they would solve this problem.

Isn’t that easy?

Here comes the hard part.

As the group begins to provide comments or give feedback, you need to encourage them to tell you more. You want them to believe that it is ok to be open and that their thoughts are welcome. That means putting aside your natural tendency to critique their ideas and, instead, encouraging them to expound on them. Focus on what IS possible from their suggestions and not the pitfalls. Encourage them to build upon each other’s ideas so that they build a solution together.

And then you have to implement their solution.

I told you it wouldn’t be easy.

We’ll talk more about how to build your engaged organization in future issues.

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

There Is a Better Way to Manage Your Employees

In the last few blogs, I’ve been talking about employee engagement and how valuable engaged employees can be to your organization. Study after study demonstrates how engaged employees work both harder and smarter. They provide better customer service and enhance customer satisfaction. They add directly to the bottom line through increased productivity and the reduced costs of employee turnover. Yet, these same studies show that less than one-third of US employees are fully engaged and nearly 20% are actively disengaged. The remainder are marginally engaged, but could be more fully engaged…if only someone would engage them.

For decades the belief has been that the best way to get production from your team was through the “carrot and stick” approach. People were offered a carrot to produce and if that didn’t work, we hit them with a stick. Motivation was seen as offering rewards for performance or threatening people with the loss of their jobs. Often, successful executives specialized in rants and tirades; the louder and more colorful, the better. Intimidation of employees was common and thought to be a way to gain respect. And, of course, these methods of motivation will often produce short term results.

But we are in business for the long term.

Studies of motivation, employee engagement, and emotional intelligence have proven that there are better ways to lead your team. People are inherently good and creative and are willing to work hard for what they believe in. When properly encouraged, they are anxious to demonstrate what they are capable of doing and will also work well with others.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself, “What has this guy been smoking? I’ve been leading people for years and they simply aren’t motivated. In fact, they seem to do as little as possible, usually just enough to avoid getting fired. I can’t trust them and I certainly can’t expect this team to work together unless I literally force teamwork on them.”

Unfortunately, this thought process is way too common in our world today. And it’s not that you are wrong for thinking this. It’s just that your team has developed the traits of disengagement over a long period of time; possibly before they even came to work for you. Changing their attitude and getting your team engaged is no easy task. It requires a lot of dedication and hard work on your part to change not only your perceptions of what they are capable of, but also their perceptions of what you are trying to accomplish.

Is it worth the effort?

The statistics alone make it worth while to invest in yourself and your team to try and raise their level of engagement. Even more importantly is the fact that it is just easier and more fun to lead a team of engaged employees than it is to lead a team of disengaged employees. When your team is engaged they work harder without you having to push them. They are more creative without all of the ideas having to come from you. They treat your customers better, meaning that you get more repeat business. And, you have more time to spend doing the things you want to do versus the things you believe you have to do.

We’ll talk a little bit about this transition and how to create an engaged team in upcoming segments.

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

Red Light/Green Light Hiring – Part 2

Last week I wrote about a fairly common practice among many companies that I call “Red light/Green light” hiring. Fundamentally, this is a process initiated by well intentioned, but unrealistic, executives to control hiring and headcount. This process involves turning off the spigot of hiring completely and then, when the need arises, opening that spigot back up on a short term, temporary basis.

Executives who promote this type of hiring believe that it controls headcount and rewards those managers who are willing to make quick hiring decisions. “If it takes you a month to fill one open position then that position was clearly not very important to you,” lectured one smug executive. “If it is important, you will get it done quickly.”

On the one hand, there is logic in the concept of applying full focus to something as important as filling open headcount. On the other hand, this is not really about filling open headcount but about bringing people and talent into your organization; talent that results in new ideas, improved performance, and long term savings and profitability.

Here in lies the problem.

There is no decision that a manager or leader makes that is more important than the decision of who to put on the team. A good choice gets up to speed quickly, blends in well with the team while supplementing their knowledge and expertise, and contributes ideas as well as sweat into the organization. A bad choice doesn’t just fail to contribute. A bad choice wastes time, disrupts the flow of activity, causes dissension in the organization, and costs you more time and money than having no one in the position at all. A bad choice costs you money and actually reduces the productivity of the rest of the team instead of enhancing it. In many ways, a bad employee is worse than no employee at all.

These are things that executives often overlook when, by looking at the numbers and hearing some grumbling from their teams, decide to turn on the hiring spigot for a few weeks to “relieve the pressure” of being short headcount. They look at the number of employees, the amount of headcount reduction in certain areas, measure the salary impact, and agree to some short term relief. Executives are paid to be strategic thinkers, balancing long term views with short term goals. By reducing the decision to hire new people to a simple discussion of headcount and dollars, they totally overlook the concept of putting the right people on the bus and in the right seats. This means that they are totally missing the strategic aspects of their most important assets (their people) in an attempt to control short term costs.

The solution for “Red light/Green light” hiring is really not that complicated. And here are a couple of options:

1. Good companies are always on the lookout for talent. Don’t let a hiring freeze stop you from identifying talented people.

2. Create a simple “Yellow light” where managers have the opportunity to interview people without making offers.

3. Take a long term view of your organization and reduce headcount without imposing a hiring freeze. If managers believe that removing dead weight from their organization will actually cost them headcount they will often keep bad employees on the team, just to keep their numbers up.

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/

Cost or Contributor?

I recently got a call from someone who wanted to be a client. He was having “employee issues” and he had heard that I’m really good at “fixing” those kinds of problems. His team was “unmotivated” and even “lazy.” Worse yet, he said his business was struggling and “staff costs were killing him.” As soon as our conversation started, alarms began going off in my head. The words he used bothered me, but the tone he used bothered me even more. In his business, employees were the key to his success. Yet it was clear to me that he didn’t see it that way at all.

So often in business we focus on things or tasks that need to be accomplished and, in the process of doing so, forget the people side of the business. We need a new marketing plan, we’re looking to develop new products, there are issues in the warehouse, or the production numbers are down. These are the types of items that tend to get the attention of the leadership team. They are important decisions, without doubt. But they are task based issues in a world where your biggest expense is most often your people.

Take a look at your organization’s budget. You see things like:

• Communications expense
• Advertising and Marketing
• Supplies
• Travel
• Legal expense
• Rent
• And so on…

Of course, in 90% of all organizations the biggest line item in your budget is payroll; the cost of your employees. And when you add in the cost of benefits and training, those numbers get even larger. It’s no secret to management that salary and the associated benefit costs are the biggest items in the budget. It’s the exact reason that they look at headcount first when times are lean. Logically speaking, the biggest item in your budget should get the biggest reduction when it’s time to cut costs. So they look to reduce costs by cutting people.

I mean, that just makes sense, doesn’t it?

Let me offer a different perspective on the issue of your biggest cost. Because I would tell you that, while the cost of your people is the single biggest item in your budget, it’s probably the most underutilized aspect of your budget as well.

Your purchasing department is constantly on the lookout for ways to reduce the costs of supplies and materials. They analyze where the dollars are going and check out alternative supplies, or how changing the specs might reduce your supply costs. The accountants scrutinize the travel dollars making recommendations on airlines, hotels, and rental cars. And your Real Estate department is not afraid to renegotiate a lease when there is a downturn, knowing that your landlord would rather rent to you at a lesser price than have the facility go empty.

But who is scrutinizing your people to make sure that you get the very best out of them? Who is making recommendations on how to improve their performance, increase their productivity, and maximize their value to the company?

Too often that answer is “the first line manager.” The same manager that is worried about managing the budget, researching the new product requirements, taking calls from angry customers, and attending 15 hours of meetings each week. And let’s not forget that this same manager has never been trained on how to truly develop people.

In short, the biggest and most expensive part of your company’s budget is routinely neglected or mismanaged by well intentioned, but undertrained managers. Is it any wonder that your productivity is down?

Let’s go back to this “would be” client. In our discussions it was crystal clear that he viewed his employees as a cost of doing business and not as something that contributed to the company. He wanted to “fix” his employees when they really weren’t the problem. After all, there really aren’t that many bad teams out there. But there are a lot of bad leaders.

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/

 

Who's In Charge Here? (continued.....)

In my last couple of posts, I’ve talked about how the person at the top of the organizational chart is not always the leader. Being a leader is really about influencing those around you and influence does not come automatically with a title. At first, this was a bit of a shock to me as I was convinced that since I had been given the promotion and the title, I really was the leader. But then I realized that to recognize the leader I really needed to determine who held the influence in the group.

What does influence look like in an organization?

In simple terms, when the person of influence speaks, others listen. Perhaps it shows up in a time of crisis when the entire team looks to one individual for guidance or inspiration. It can also show up in the creative process and in problem solving. There is generally someone who is the “first among equals” and who everyone wants to include in the discussion. In any event, the person with influence is fairly easy to spot. Of course, you do want to be careful to distinguish technical expertise from leadership influence, but that difference is not too difficult to spot when working with a team.

Most people overlook the fact that leadership is really bestowed on someone not by the management team, but by the team members. You’ve no doubt seen situations where someone was designated as the leader or manager only to be ignored by the rank and file. In reality, the team members are the ones who decide who they are going to follow. If it happens to be the appointed manager, that’s great. But if they don’t deem that person worthy of leading them, they won’t follow. My guess is that if you look back at your own career you can readily think of times when you ignored “the boss” and took your direction from someone else. This is a classic case of the leader and “the boss” not being the same person.

So the person who influences the team is really the leader and the one who is actually in charge. They may not have “signature authority” or the responsibility for writing performance reviews, but they are the unquestioned leader because of the way the team listens to them. They may gain their influence in a couple of different ways. Some people have influence based almost entirely on how long they have been around or because of their technical skills. Others gain influence through threats and intimidation, striking fear into the thoughts of those who dare to oppose them. The third and most powerful group gains influence because of their thoughts and ideas. I say that these are the most powerful because they are the leaders that people willingly following.

As you develop yourself as a leader, think in terms of influence. Do your thoughts and ideas make an impact on the team? Do they listen and like what you have to say? Does the team willingly follow your direction? Do people look to you for guidance and support?

If not, it’s time to give serious thought to what you can do to gain their trust, encourage them to come to you for guidance, and teach them to follow your lead in good times and bad. Remember, when you set yourself up as a person of influence within an organization, you are setting yourself up for a long-term role as their true leader.

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/

Who's In Charge Here? (continued.....)

In my last entry, I talked about the first time I discovered that the guy with the title (in this case, me) was not always the real leader. It was kind of shocking to discover this since I thought my title brought leadership with it automatically. I mean, I was on the Organizational Chart, at the top, with a fancy title. Of course I was the leader.

In reality, organizational charts, titles, and salaries have little to do with being a leader. At its simplest level, leadership is about one thing – having followers. John Maxwell likes to say, “If you think you are leading and no one is following, you’re just out taking a walk.”

As it turns out, that’s what I was doing. I was taking a walk, and no one was following me. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to follow me, they did. They liked what I had to say. They thought my ideas were inspirational and that my vision for the department was both worthy and achievable. But they lived in the real world and, in this case, the real world was controlled by the computer operator, not the guy in the office.

It took me a few weeks to realize that they weren’t following me and a little longer to figure out who they actually were following. After that, I was able to determine the source of the computer operator’s influence (intimidation) and eliminate that influence. Once I did that, the team willingly followed me and together we achieved tremendous success. But the real lesson here was that title and authority did not equate to a position as leader; influence did. From that point forward, I began to look around to see who was really in charge in a variety of different scenarios. Whether I was at work, at home, or even in public, I began to notice that the people with the most influence, the people that we were actually following, were often not the same people as those who were supposedly in charge.

As my career progressed, I found that I was increasingly called upon to turn around troubled departments or organizations. Even though I worked for a variety of different people over the years, all seemed to readily acknowledge my ability to sort through process and people issues and turn organizations around. In many ways, I found myself specializing my career not based on my technical skills but on my ability to understand what was important to an organization, to plot a clear course to achieve the right goals, and to put the right people and processes in place to move forward quickly. In short, my job was to assume leadership in a poorly run organization and turn that organization in the right direction.

But, if I was going to assume the leadership role in an organization, I needed to understand what leader I was replacing. And that was often not the person who had the job before me, or the person at the top of the organizational chart. Instead, it was often another employee or manager in the organization.

But who?

That is the ultimate question. And I’ll talk more about how I learned to identify the “real leaders” in the organization in my next entry. Until then, I encourage you to review some of our past blog entries and explore some of our offerings at ECI Learning.

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/

Who’s in Charge Here?

As a coach, I get paid to ask people questions. I don’t have to have all of the answers. But I do need to be able to identify the most important questions to ask, including the questions that the client may be avoiding answering themselves. This aspect of my job gives me a unique perspective on questions as I am always listening for good questions from others. And, I figured out long ago that the best questions are not the most complicated questions or the one’s that seem to show deep, thoughtful knowledge on a topic. The best questions are often the simplest questions.

I was recently talking about leadership with a friend and he asked me about the most important aspect of leadership. Now, that’s not really a great question for a couple of reasons. First, it’s hard to narrow down THE most important aspect. And, what I think is important may not match what someone else thinks is important for a variety of good reasons. Second, so many aspects of leadership are intertwined that trying to break them out individually and rank them in order of importance leads to circular thinking. After all, what good is being a great communicator (a must for a leader) if you have nothing worth communicating? What good is your ability to build trust and relationships if you really don’t maximize the strengths of others on your team.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

After a few minutes, my friend reworded the question. “Was there a time in your life when you believed that you were failing as a leader?”

That question made me pause and think. Certainly I had my share of leadership challenges along the way; times where I hit stumbling blocks that slowed my progress, but failure?

In 1984, I took over the MIS department for Garfinkels Department stores in Washington, DC. Garfinkels was a very high-end retailer where only the elite shopped. I was hired because of the challenges they were facing in both system development and the Computer Operations Department. And, while my passions lay in fixing and updating their systems, the more immediate problems were with Computer Operations. So I tackled those problems first; diving in from day one to identify bottlenecks, work through the processes, and move my team down the path to success.

Except for one thing.

I was alone.

No one was following me. Oh sure, I had a team of 15 people. But the truth was that they weren’t listening to me. They pretended to. They did what I told them to, sort of. But that was just on the surface. They were doing just enough to show progress and nothing more. I was a captain without a crew, a shepherd without sheep, a leader without followers. In short, I really wasn’t a leader at all because no one was following me.

It took me a few weeks of thought and insights before I realized the source of the problem. It seems that while I was the guy with the title, I was not the guy with the influence. And leadership means influence. While I had the title, there was actually a computer operator about 3 levels down the management chain that held influence over the entire organization. And she was not about to let some yuppie, college educated, suit-wearing weenie tell her or her people what to do. So, while I tried to lead the team in one direction, she silently led them in another.

This was actually a scenario that played itself out over and over again later in my career. Discovering that the person with the title was not necessarily the person with the power was a bit of a shock for me.

I’ll talk more about identifying who really has the power in the organization and how to get it back in next week’s blog.

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 More Important – Email or Employees?

I was just sitting here reading about another leader who claims that, in her organization, they really care about their employees and treat them as their biggest asset.

It made me wonder: “Why do we check email every hour or so, review our budget monthly, check our sales goals daily, review our departmental goals every quarter, but only sit down with our employees to review their performance once per year?”

If you want to know what someone THINKS is important, ask them. If you want to know what they BELIEVE is important, watch their actions.

People espouse the concept of employees being important because they are told that it’s true. They know that to be a good manager, they need to provide feedback to their employees on a regular basis. And they know that developing their team members is critical to their own success. So, when you ask them the question, they will readily tell you how important their employees are to them.

But their actions don’t match their words.

I recently worked with a client who had lost a key member of his team, sort of. I say “sort of” because, while the person was publicly acknowledged as a key member of the team, privately the client expressed doubts about this team member’s performance. In talking with the client, he expressed concerns over the quality of the work being performed, the dedication of the individual, and his ability to meet the goals laid out for him.

“Does Bob know you feel this way about his performance?” I asked.

“I’ve given him plenty of feedback,” was the reply.

Of course, when I checked in with Bob, I got a very different story.

“I haven’t had a Performance Appraisal in 3 years,” was Bob’s quick reply. “I have no idea how I’m really doing, since John doesn’t talk with me,” he said, “but I must be doing pretty well since I haven’t heard otherwise.”

Without going into details, let’s just say that there was plenty of fault on both sides. Bob was right in that he had not had a formal Performance Appraisal in 3 years. There had been a couple of informal discussions about performance that generally happened on the spur of the moment when Bob happened to be in John’s office when John had a concern. In those sessions, John had pointed out specific issues that needed to be addressed in Bob’s current work. And, it had been “assumed” that Bob understood that this was a much bigger issue.

“I really don’t like confrontation,” was John’s comment to me. “I mean, I’m not afraid of it, but I don’t like it either. So I don’t do it a lot, but when I give feedback I know I’m being clear.”

What is clear…is that whatever John’s message was to Bob, he wasn’t receiving it. I often say, “It’s not what I say that is important, it’s what you hear.” In this case, Bob wasn’t hearing the feedback at all.

Let’s return to the original question. Why do we check email every hour or so, review our budget monthly, check our sales goals daily, review our departmental goals every quarter, but only sit down with our employees to review their performance once per year?

Because providing feedback means talking to another human being and saying things that might not always be easy. Instead of dealing with what might actually be a minor issue, we hide behind impromptu meetings, negative feedback disguised as praise (and therefore confused by the recipient), and annual performance reviews that are generally too little feedback too late.

Consider this – if I knew that what I was doing wasn’t pleasing you, I would change it. But I can’t change behavior that I don’t know is wrong. Try talking with your employees as often as you check your quarterly goals, or even more often. And don’t rely on messages that you THINK are getting through. Ask the employee what message they received from your feedback. It is a great way to tell if your message is really getting through.

Your employees are certainly more important than your email. Perhaps it’s time you began to treat them that way.

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/

A Culture of Criticism – Part 3

Over the last two weeks, we have been recounting the story of a company that unwittingly underwent a culture shift, moving from a culture that respected and engaged their employees to one that was built around blame and criticism. Eventually the change in culture overwhelmed the company, shifting it from a growing company to one that was struggling for survival. Luckily the CEO recognized that something was wrong and set out to discover the source of the problem and how to get it back on track.

The source of the culture change was traced back to the influence of the newly hired CFO and his deeply ingrained belief in “accountability.” The challenge was that he believed that “accountability” and “blame” were basically the same things. And, while he constantly talked about being “accountable for our actions,” the actual result was a constant focus on blame and criticism within the organization. Employees became afraid to act for fear of being criticized and blamed if something went wrong. The company became paralyzed, all creativity was sapped from the organization, and all of the employees who had made the company great had since left for other organizations.

Now it was time to rebuild the organization and return to the culture that had made it so great in the first place. The CEO knew exactly where to start. “First,” she said, “I need to replace my CFO again. He was the source of this culture change and a tiger doesn’t change its stripes. I’ll replace him with someone who values people and will get us going in the right direction again.”

True to her word, she set off in search of a new CFO. This time her interviews included questions about values and culture, helping her identify someone who shared her same core values. Her new CFO believed strongly in empowering people and encouraged risk taking. When problems occurred, she reviewed the results to identify the problems but used the experiences as a way to learn, rather than trying to blame individuals for their failings.

Unfortunately, this was not enough to turn the business around since the new CFO was now a minority in this thought process, surrounded by people who were used to operating in the “blame” mode. Many of the organization’s employees were not aware of the prior culture and viewed the new CFO with a jaundiced eye. The culture of criticism was now firmly entrenched in the organization, and a single new hire was not going to create the kind of shift necessary to suddenly make the existing employees develop a greater level of trust in their management.

Culture change in an organization is a slow process. It took about a year for the culture to move from one of openness to one of criticism. And, it took even longer to rebuild the original culture. The entire management staff had to be retrained to focus on the employees and to learn to trust the CEO and the rest of the executive team. There is nothing easier to lose or tougher to gain than trust. The management staff could not even begin to rebuild trust with their own teams until they had learned to trust the executives.

There are several lessons that can be learned from this company. First, culture is critical to the long-term success of any organization. Second, you need to pay attention to your culture so that it doesn’t morph into something that you don’t want. Third, rebuilding trust in an organization takes much longer than destroying it.

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/

A Culture of Criticism – Part 2

In last week’s article, I told the story of a company that prided itself on being a great place to work; where employees felt valued and where the employees were encouraged to learn and grow on the job. Only something had changed. Profits were down, turnover was on the rise, and the CEO was becoming aware of a problem in the organization.

How did a really great company, one with a high level of employee engagement and a hotbed of creativity, turn into a company where employees merely put in their time each day, where criticism was the normal mode of communication, and where the employees actively avoided talking to their managers?

A few years earlier, the CEO had begun an active program to “upgrade her leadership team” and had started by hiring a new CFO from outside of the organization. He had all the skills required for the job and seemed like a good match. He quickly became a leader in the organization; not just because of his title, but because of the influence he had on all kinds of decisions being made. People knew that he had the ear of the CEO and was part of the future of the organization. When Bob spoke, people listened.

With the downturn in the economy, Bob had made “necessary” cuts to the training and development budget, just to help get through the downturn. He had convinced HR that they needed to be more concerned about legal issues and less about that “touchy feely stuff,” turning them from a “human development” organization into a legal compliance organization. And he had insisted upon accountability from all departments, which sounds good until you realize that to him “accountability” and “blame” were interchangeable.

The transformation did not happen immediately but over a period of close to a year. Of course, some of the more perceptive employees recognized the changes as soon as they began to happen and quickly, and quietly, left the organization. When these employees left, they not only took their talents and skills but also their leadership abilities, positive attitudes, and historical knowledge.

In other words, when these people left they took the foundation of the company with them. The best employees are always the first to recognize when things have changed and these employees always have options to go elsewhere.

If we pause for a moment, we might ask this simple question….

If these really were the best employees, why did they give up so easily? Why didn’t they fight to keep the organization in tact? Why didn’t they go to the CEO and let her know what was happening to her organization?

The short answer is that they did. They worked for a great company and they knew it. They did not want to let it go without a fight, but when they approached the CEO about their concerns, they were countered by the new CFO who had her ear and downplayed the loss of a few, easily replaceable staff members.

Where do we go from here? How does a once great organization reinvent itself again, regain the trust of their employees, and instill a sense of employee engagement?

We will discuss that in our 3rd installment on this issue 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, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

A Culture of Criticism

“We like and respect our employees here,” the CEO told me. “We want them to grow with the company, develop their skills, broaden their horizons and be with us for the long haul. We provide them with regular feedback, and not just at annual reviews. Our managers are constantly talking with our employees, working on overcoming any performance challenges. Whenever possible, we try and promote from within so that we can create career paths for our key employees. We are VERY employee focused.”

Of course, these words were music to my ears. Creating a growth oriented environment that provides regular feedback is a great way to engage your employees. And engaged employees are happy and productive employees. Happy and productive employees lead to happy customers, increased profits, and a growing, thriving business.

It made me wonder what I was doing here. Why call in a consultant who specializes in creating an engaged workforce when everything sounded so good?

“Our employee turnover has been on the rise for the last couple of years and it seems to be getting worse, not better,” she told me. “At first the people leaving seemed to have good reasons for going elsewhere, but I’m a numbers kind of gal and the increase in the turnover rate means that I have to wonder what is going on.”

As it turns out, she was right to be asking questions. While she had worked hard to build a positive, growth oriented culture in the organization, she had turned her attention elsewhere in the last couple of years and had let her management team run things. Then there had been a drop-off in revenues and she had focused her efforts on some new products and systems that she hoped would help turn things around. What she hadn’t done was relate a drop-off in revenues, and a corresponding drop-off in customer satisfaction, to a changing culture in her organization.

“This used to be a great place to work,” one long time employee told me. “And I have hopes that it will be again. But things have changed the last couple of years. We used to talk with our managers all the time. In fact, we looked forward to it. But now we avoid telling the managers anything. It seems like every time one of the managers talks to you now it’s to criticize you for something you did, or didn’t do. I don’t like it here now. I do what I have to, and then I go home and forget about this place.”

I heard similar stories from other employees but often without the “this used to be a great place to work” preface. For employees hired in the last couple of years, they had never viewed the organization as employee friendly or a great place to work but, instead, as a place where creative ideas were discouraged and management seemed focused on finding fault with everything that was done.

What happened here? How did this workplace change from one that seemed to work so well to one that barely functioned at all? And why was the CEO seemingly so out of the loop?

We’ll explore these questions in part II of our story 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/

The Case for Ongoing Personal Development

When we are young, we are a sponge for knowledge. We want to learn anything and everything. As children, we see the “big kids” around us playing ball, and we want to learn how. A sibling is reading a story out loud and it’s a skill we want for ourselves. A little girl goes to a dance recital and immediately wants to start taking ballet lessons.

At some point in time, perhaps when our thirst for knowledge is replaced by a structured learning environment, we lose that overwhelming desire for knowledge of any kind and find it replaced by much more discerning desires. We no longer want to know everything. In fact, many of us try and wall ourselves off from knowledge that, while useful, we see no need for. At this point in time, you are probably thinking about your teenagers. For many, High School represents a time of survival rather than real learning. We believe that we know everything and just focus on getting through each day. The point of High School appears to be about learning to take tests to prepare us for that next level - college.

For most of us college is again a time for learning. The style of teaching changes, as does our style of learning. We control our schedule of classes to an extent we never considered possible before and we find ourselves drawn to certain subjects that may appear to be the path for a future career. College is also a time for great personal growth as we learn about living life on our own, managing our personal finances, etc. College may or may not be followed by an advanced degree, depending upon our needs and desires. With our college diploma or MBA firmly in our hands we step into the business world, assured of instant success.

Or are we?

For the second time in our life, we believe that we know everything. Oh sure, it may take us a few months to get used to our new environment, but that’s just temporary. Before long we have been promoted, advanced into the world of management and conquered the business world!

Unfortunately, there is so much that we have not yet learned about business, or more importantly, about people. What college can never prepare us for is the complexity of human beings, the challenges of dealing with co-workers, and how to deal with the politics of the workplace. Working through the complex business scenarios presented to us in our class work is a breeze compared to dealing with the egos, political agendas, and hidden alliances in the office.

It’s a little bit like learning the theory of how to fly an airplane and then sitting in the cockpit and actually trying to do it. We know how things are supposed to work. But how they work in real life is often very different than we learned in our text books. On the one hand, it’s the same stuff. On the other hand, being at the controls brings in whole new levels of complications that you could only imagine while studying the theories of flight.

How does this tie back into personal development?

While we are young and adapting to our jobs, we find these human issues all around us and we learn to deal with them. But as we rise through the ranks, the issues become more complex, more subtle, and more challenging. What worked well for us as an individual contributor, does not work well when we achieve the level of Manager. What worked well for us as a Manager is not nearly as effective when we achieve the level of Sr. Manager. And the techniques we mastered at these levels are woefully inadequate for the challenges of being a Director, a Vice President, or a C-level executive. We must continue to grow our skills, specifically our people skills, as we progress through the ranks. Those who do adapt and grow find that success follows them. Those who fail to change, fail to learn, and fail to grow find that they quickly top out.

What are you doing to ensure your ongoing personal development?

And equally as important, what are you doing to ensure the ongoing personal development of your key team members? Without their continued growth, your own career may well be short-circuited.

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/

Lessons Learned – Lessons Forgotten

A few years ago I worked with a client who was looking for more from his team. They weren’t bad he had said, but they weren’t performing at the level he would have liked them to. I did a quick analysis of his team and came back with 4 factors for us to work on together.

1. Providing a vision
2. Defining roles and responsibilities
3. Creating accountability
4. Matching talents with roles

He clearly had a vision for his organization and how it fit into the overall company vision, but his employees were not aware of that vision and, therefore, could not buy into it. He thought the vision was clear, but as is often the case, it was clear only to him. Once we spent some time clarifying his vision and communicating it to his team, there was immediate improvement. Of course, having a clear vision that the team all bought into made it relatively easy to work with the team members and define their specific roles and responsibilities. While they all had their roles established before we started working together, those roles were fluid and were based on what they thought the goal was, rather than the actual goal. Once the roles were identified, we put the measurements in place to ensure that things were progressing and, last but not least, we made sure that we had a good match between the talent on the team and the jobs that needed to be done. It took us a few months to work through all of the details, but it was time well spent. Productivity increased, morale improved, and he began to feel good about his team again.

Flash forward about 3 years and I received a call from this client, again looking for my assistance. He had been promoted and was in a new role. As is often the case with any new boss, he wanted to make some changes in his organization. His vision was somewhat different from his predecessor and he was having challenges bringing it all together. He’d been with his new team for a few months and it wasn’t coming together as quickly as he would have liked.

I spent some time with his team and then sat down with him to discuss the plan for moving forward. I told him it was a 4 step plan:

1. Providing a vision
2. Defining roles and responsibilities
3. Creating accountability
4. Matching talents with roles

It only took a few minutes of discussion for him to realize that these were the exact same 4 items we had worked on together a few years earlier. These were all things that he knew were important, but that he had not taken into account in his new organization.

These were lessons that he had once learned, but somehow forgotten.

And the truth is that this happens to all of us. We learn lessons over time, but somehow forget the things that we learned. And we make the same mistakes all over again. We hire someone really smart and learn a lesson about the value of surrounding ourselves with talent, but then, for our next hire, we look for skills and forget about talent.

We spend the time to plan our project out and it turns into a major success, but then we create the plan for our next project on the back of a napkin. Or worse, the plan is only created in our minds.

We provide someone with honest feedback, presented in a way which shows that we understand them and that we want to help them succeed, and we watch them blossom. Then we turn around and give the next person feedback that hurts their feelings and creates a low sense of self-esteem. And, we watch this person fall apart in front of us.

We all learn lessons in life and yet, somehow, we all forget the lessons we’ve learned and we make the same mistakes all over again. We do it as children, we do it as young adults, and we do it as seasoned professionals. Over time, existing ideas are replaced with newer ideas, and new thoughts replace old ones. And this happens even if the old thoughts are good thoughts, relevant thoughts, important thoughts.

How do you ensure that you’re not repeating your past mistakes?

How do keep those lessons that you’ve learned fresh in your mind?

How do you continue to grow as a person and as a leader?

Often this journey is not one that we take on our own but, rather, with a trusted advisor, mentor, or coach. Having someone to assist you is one of the surest ways to ensure your own success.

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 Value of Feedback

It’s what you learn after you know it all, that counts, - John Wooden (1910 - 2010)


Most people would agree that performance feedback is an important part of the development of any individual. And while I’m not a fan of the traditional Performance Appraisal process, I’m a huge fan of ongoing, honest, growth-oriented feedback. It’s a simple fact that people improve faster with feedback than without feedback. An honest outside perspective of your performance can go a long way in identifying areas of development and improving one’s performance.

Managers and executives should routinely provide feedback to those around them as a way to further serve both the individual and the organization. As an executive, keeping my thoughts to myself on performance helps neither the individual involved, nor the organization. In fact, I would argue that failure to provide adequate constructive feedback does a grave disservice to all involved. After all, how can an individual or an organization develop without it?

Having said that, it leads to a further question that must be answered: as an executive, where do you go to get honest feedback on your performance?

Just because someone has reached the executive ranks should not imply that they are somehow perfect, without flaw or weakness, and, therefore, no longer in need of honest feedback. In fact, the exact opposite may well be true. While we received a lot of feedback earlier in our career, the nature of our jobs as executives demands that we receive more feedback than ever, while the political nature of the beast actually leads to less feedback.

Think about it. Early in our career we had a variety of bosses, and an even larger variety of peers, who were willing and even anxious to provide us with feedback. But as we progressed up the management chain, we suddenly find ourselves with a smaller variety of bosses and certainly many less peers who are willing and able to assist us in our development.

Let’s use the analogy of a golfer.

As an amateur golfer I might take some golf lessons as a way to improve my game. The instructor provides me with feedback on my swing and approach to the game. As I play more I may watch players who are better than I am to see what I can learn from them. Some, seeing promise in my swing, may even play the role of a de-facto coach to help me continue to improve. With my eye on turning pro, I may invest in a quality personal coach to further my development. By now, my major swing flaws have been identified and fixed, but there are still many subtle aspects of the game that I need to perfect to truly master the game. Finally, I turn pro and find myself winning championships!

Truly I have mastered the game.

Except that I haven’t, have I. Ask anyone who watches professional golf and they will tell you that great players, professional players, occasionally fall into bad habits, make mistakes, or forget key aspects of their game. Even the best professional golfers find that they need someone to give them an outside perspective of their game, view their stroke with a set of unbiased eyes, and make them aware of their blind spots. Without an unbiased, honest feedback mechanism even the best golfers will lose their way.

The same is true for executives. While we may have “taken the lessons” of leadership, we sometimes fall into bad habits and forget the very things that made us great. And the higher we get in our organization, the more difficult it becomes to get the feedback that we all so desperately need.

Where do you go for feedback? Who is it that helps you maintain your swing and helps you be the best executive that you can be?

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/