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Why Is Great Leadership Like a Fine Watch?

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A fine mechanical watch is exquisite in its own right. But if you look closer, you’ll see more than just a special timepiece. It is also useful as a framework for leaders who want to improve the quality of their organization’s performance. What does that leadership framework look like? Here’s my perspective…

I’m continually amazed at how unrelated things in life tend to line up with almost perfect timing. Nearly a year ago, I decided I wanted to own a “real watch,” so I began researching popular brands. Around the same time, I was recruited to run Birkman International. Birkman is a 72-year-old company that provides businesses with a roadmap that helps teams work better together and drive operational performance.

These two unrelated events have allowed me to witness the elegance and intricacies that both watches and companies need to run well.

What Do Watches Teach Us About Great Leadership?

Imagine opening the case back of a mechanical watch. Inside you’ll find what seems like a highly complicated collection of gears and wheels. Most of us only open our watch when there’s a problem with its function. The same holds true for businesses — we never seem to look inside until we detect an issue.

In a properly functioning company, each individual, department, and team knows its role. They work at the right pace to accomplish their respective tasks. It is all about coming together at the right time to achieve success. Just like clockwork.

Look Inside

When you open the back of the case and look carefully, you’ll see that it is powered by a mainspring. Without it, the entire mechanism won’t work. The same is true with any company.

The mainspring of the business is the CEO who provides the power needed to drive the business forward. As the mainspring, a CEO is responsible for keeping the organization under a kind of tension that creates motivation, movement, and results over time. However, to ensure consistently high performance, this tension must be released in a regulated way.

This is where the Chief Operating Officer (COO) steps in to serve a critical function. The COO is an organization’s balance wheel. This leader is responsible for distributing the power generated by the CEO, releasing it to the rest of the organization at a steady, reliable pace, like the hands of a watch.

However, unexpected things happen sometimes. For example, what if you accidentally drop your watch? The balance wheel absorbs the shock and ensures that the movement keeps spinning at the right rate. Similarly, unexpected things will happen at work. Regardless, the COO ensures that daily business operations continue to run smoothly and reliably.

A Fine Watch at Work

Once a watch’s power is being created and released at the correct pace, it’s up to the gears and wheels to do their job. But first, these components must be positioned in all the right places. Likewise, employees must be placed in the right position before they can move your organization forward effectively.

For any watch (or any company) to perform well, the real trick is to make sure every “right wheel” works with all the other “right wheels.” This is when the elegance of a great organization reveals itself. It is also when underperforming teams require careful attention. Leaders may need to open the “case back” of their organization and diagnose issues by investigating two questions:

  1. What is stopping us from achieving the desired results?
  2. How do we get things running the way they should?

The good news is that, often, new parts aren’t required to fix a broken watch. The same is true in business. Throughout more than 30 years as an executive, I’ve found that organizational problems aren’t rooted in individual employees, but in the friction between all the moving parts. This is why great leadership can make a significant difference.

Making Everything Run Like Clockwork

If you take a watch apart, clean the pieces, reassemble it, and oil it, you end up with a wrist piece that runs properly. Likewise, if we take sufficient time and care to work with our people, we’re likely to find an effective solution to any problem.

In business, “oil” is the understanding of ourselves and others’ needs. This helps us communicate well with people so they can overcome the friction that arises from misunderstanding and mistrust. This gives us the ability to move forward in unison.

To maximize business results, leaders must take time to break down what their organizations are doing at their core. When we define our company’s purpose, bring it into focus with laser-sharp clarity, and provide a psychologically safe environment for team members to communicate, we build a foundation for truly remarkable results.

When we add oil to watch components, the mechanisms come to life. The same holds true for businesses. The latest technologies may increase efficiency, but they cannot reduce human friction within a team. Similarly, a modern smartwatch may be a reliable way to keep track of time, but it does not compare to the craftsmanship of a fine watch.

Effective Leadership Endures

The tagline of luxury watchmaker Patek Phillipe is, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.” In other words, if you properly care for one of their watches, it will last hundreds of years.

This aligns with my approach to leadership. I believe executives are merely caretakers for their successors. As the leader of a business now entering its third generation, I take heart in knowing that if we do the work to improve ourselves and better our organization, our impact on the world will be an enduring legacy.

I hope leaders everywhere share the same vision. The future of business depends on it — as does the future of work.

Why It Pays to Lead With Purpose, Especially Now

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These days, any employer that doesn’t lead with purpose is fighting an uphill battle. Why? Take a look at recent headlines. They’re filled with news about troubling workplace trends. Specifics vary, but the coverage points to a common underlying theme — hiring and retaining skilled workers continues to be a monumental challenge.

The problem stems from a confluence of factors. For example:

How can employers turn this situation around? It seems the solution begins when we focus on purpose.

Can Purpose Really Reverse Tough Work Issues?

Although the recent surge in employee resignations has cooled, workforce satisfaction and disengagement remain alarmingly high. As a result, other disturbing trends are emerging — from “quiet quitting” and “bare minimum Mondays” to “resenteeism,” and “rage applying.”

None of this reflects well on the state of today’s workforce. In fact, multiple studies indicate that more than 50% of employees are actively looking for a new position. No wonder employers are still struggling to figure out how to re-engage existing employees, attract qualified new hires, and create a work culture where people flourish and feel a sense of belonging.

To address these challenges, smart leaders are leaning into the power of purpose. This isn’t a quick or easy solution. But when business decisions reflect a genuine desire to lead with purpose, it opens the door to organizational transformation.

Today’s workforce is attracted to companies that genuinely care about tough societal issues and take action to resolve these issues. In other words, employees are interested in organizations with strategies that reach beyond revenue and productivity, alone. They want to work for companies that are committed to more meaningful metrics.

How to Lead With Purpose

What can leaders do to embed purpose into business strategies? For answers, we recently surveyed more than 1000 senior executives from U.S. companies. The findings underscore how purpose is gaining influence in The Future Workplace. Here are four key leadership recommendations:

1. Integrate Purpose With Talent Strategy

Start by prioritizing purpose in the battle for talent. Why? Our survey confirms that sustainability and purpose are top of mind for employees, with 75% of leaders agreeing that a business strategy built on purpose is essential for talent recruitment and retention. In addition, 86% of respondents say this strategy should play a central role when evaluating employee performance.

Younger people are deeply concerned about this. In fact, Deloitte research indicates that 39% of Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and 42% of Gen Z employees (born between 1997 and 2012) are prepared to leave their jobs if they aren’t satisfied with their employer’s commitment to sustainability.

To build purpose into workplace culture, it’s important to align your vision and processes with employee and stakeholder feedback, ensuring all voices are heard and everyone has a seat at the table. As a leader, you can do this by consistently focusing on these action items:

  1. Invite employees to regular meetings where business decisions are discussed, and encourage them to share concerns and ideas.
  2. Pay attention to employee feedback. Gather and analyze input from surveys and other internal forums that encourage dialogue.
  3. Develop and implement process and policy improvement plans based on employee concerns and suggestions.
  4. Host regular “town hall” meetings to share information about organizational priorities, goals, and progress, as well as the path forward. This helps ensure that all staff feel welcome to come along on the journey.

2. Put Purpose at the Heart of Value Creation

Beyond improving talent recruiting and retention, what else can you do to lead with purpose? Consider everything you do to create business value.

58% of our survey respondents say it’s essential for companies to create value in ways that benefit all stakeholders — employees, partners, customers, and communities, as well as shareholders. This extends to “earning profits in a sustainable way,” which includes minimizing any harm the business may cause to society.

Another 17% said organizations should “contribute to solutions for challenges confronting people and society as a means of earning profits and generating long-term stakeholder value.”

It should be easy for anyone to see how your business creates value and ensures sustainability across its extended ecosystem. Operational efforts that support sustainability should be clear and transparent. This includes everything from budgeting and office design to workplace culture and how you champion change.

To prioritize value creation and sustainability efforts, generate an open dialogue about how your organization can embrace a mission that puts people and the planet first. As you move forward, invite employees to assess their own societal and environmental impact. Also, be sure to ask employees and other constituents for feedback on an ongoing basis.

3. Openly Define Your Purpose

Transparency is also essential in how any organization defines and demonstrates purpose. Creating a purpose statement combines two key elements: setting goals and identifying intentions. This helps leaders and employees accomplish short-term tangible goals, while they simultaneously consider long-term aspirations and potential actions that can more broadly impact society.

Interestingly, 80% of our survey respondents say their company already has a formal statement of purpose that is “well-established and integrated with our strategies,” or they recently developed this kind of statement and they intend to use it as a guide for future culture change.

Only 1% do not have a statement of purpose beyond generating shareholder value, and they don’t expect the status quo to change.

It is also worth noting that business leaders assign real value to these statements. In fact, more than 75% told us they “strongly agree” that a statement of purpose is an effective guidepost. What’s more, a majority also strongly agree that a defined purpose is central to their business success.

4. Weave Purpose Into Your Employee Experience

Effective leaders recognize the connection between purpose and workplace dynamics. This includes supporting individuals who want to work remotely at least part of the time. After all, the future of work is not about working from home or in the office, per se. It’s about having the flexibility to work effectively wherever, whenever and however you choose.

Clearly, if employers want to remain competitive in the future, they need to offer flexible work options that align workforce preferences with business realities. Research indicates that this is especially true for employers in the tech, retail, telecom, manufacturing, and energy sectors.

That said, smart employers are moving beyond strict RTO mandates that force people to work on-site. Instead, they’re proactively making their office environment more inviting and productive. For example, 98% of our survey respondents are taking steps to improve the in-office experience. This includes adding direct rewards and benefits for on-site work, training managers in “soft skills” such as emotional intelligence, or investing in workplace diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Purpose Leads to Lasting Business Benefits

Businesses can no longer afford to discount or ignore changing workforce dynamics. As you navigate these changes, be sure to remember the increasingly pivotal role purpose plays in your company’s ability to recruit and retain talent. This includes new ways to attract and engage job candidates, as well as ways to develop and motivate people once they’re onboard.

Ultimately, this approach can create broader opportunities to strengthen and advance your organization’s position in the global marketplace. Companies that do this effectively are rewarded with improved productivity, profitability, and a brand that represents an enduring sense of purpose.

So, if you want to stay ahead of the pack in the years to come, start answering this question today: “How will we lead with purpose in the new workplace?”

Does Your HR Strategy Leverage Organizational Competencies?

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In today’s ever-shifting talent landscape, companies large and small are searching for more effective ways to attract, recognize, and retain their workforce. These opportunities come in various forms — new or improved systems, strategies, platforms, and processes. But one smart move is to double down on organizational competencies. In other words, it’s worthwhile for companies to identify, prioritize, develop, and more fully leverage their unique strengths.

What Are Core Competencies and Why Should We Care?

Organizational competencies are a combination of the essential capabilities, knowledge, and skills that create value and fuel a company’s success. They define “how” an organization accomplishes its goals.

Although core competencies are deeply rooted in an organization’s DNA, they don’t materialize on their own. Instead, they’re established and reinforced through years of business experience and cumulative institutional knowledge, along with ongoing training and development. And although competencies are fundamental, they aren’t necessarily rigid and fixed. Just as any business grows and evolves, core competencies can shift over time.

Examples of organizational competencies include:

  • Customer focus
  • Innovation
  • Integrity
  • Partnering
  • Quality
  • Resilience
  • Resourcefulness/problem-solving
  • Teamwork/collaboration

By investing in their core competencies, businesses can improve performance in ways that create and sustain a competitive advantage. In fact, recent McKinsey research concluded, “Companies that focus on their unique strengths and leverage them across the organization are more likely to outperform their peers.”

Linking Organizational Competencies With HR

The concept of leveraging core strengths is not new. However, it’s gaining renewed attention, as employers struggle to address the challenge of attracting and retaining talent in today’s post-pandemic world. In this increasingly complex, fluid global business environment, employers must find ways to differentiate themselves.

One approach is to recognize and support the symbiotic relationship between business strengths and HR. In other words, it pays to ensure that organizational competencies are an integral dimension of HR strategies and operations. For instance, a company could emphasize the importance of improving HR’s ability to:

  1. Build and expand the workforce by attracting and retaining exceptional talent
  2. Identify and address workforce challenges and opportunities
  3. Empower leaders to measure, communicate, and proactively improve staff performance
  4. Better understand, measure, and coach people based on their functional role, team mission, and broader organizational needs

By strengthening these competencies, employers can expect to see improvement in workforce performance as well as overall business outcomes. Why? Here’s what experts say…

4 Ways Organizational Competencies Elevate HR Results

1. Recruitment and Talent Attraction

One way organizations can improve HR outcomes by leading with strengths is through recruitment. Employers that clearly articulate their core competencies and differentiate themselves from competitors are better positioned to attract top talent.

According to LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner, “When companies focus on their unique strengths, they are able to attract talent that is aligned with their values and culture.” In fact, research indicates alignment with culture is one of the most powerful ways to drive retention.

2. Employee Learning

Training and development is another area where organizational competencies can help HR make a significant business impact. Companies that create a culture of continuous learning and improvement are directly shaping organizational competencies.

This kind of investment not only addresses an organization’s existing knowledge and skills gaps, but also demonstrates a long-term commitment that resonates with staff. As John Doerr, author of Measure What Matters, says, “Companies that invest in employee development are more likely to retain top talent and see a positive impact on their bottom line.”

3. Performance Management

Organizational competencies can also play an integral role in performance management. By clearly defining strengths and expectations, employers can provide people with a roadmap for success.

This also helps managers provide targeted feedback and coaching to support employees as they strive to define and achieve their goals. According to Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, “When managers are able to clearly define expectations and provide feedback that is both kind and direct, they can help employees develop their competencies and reach their full potential.”

4. Performance Support and Coaching

Finally, organizational competencies can help HR teams more effectively identify and support high performers, while also coaching up people who are not performing at their best. By relying on clearly defined competencies, HR practitioners can more confidently create a framework to evaluate performance and identify areas for improvement.

This can also help managers provide targeted coaching and support to help employees develop additional competencies and reach their full potential. As Marcus Buckingham notes in his book, First, Break All the Rules, “Companies that focus on developing employees’ strengths are more likely to see improvements in performance and engagement.”

Final Notes on Core Competencies and HR

In today’s challenging business environment, sources of competitive advantage are hard to find. This is why more employers are leveraging organizational competencies to inform and improve their strategic HR efforts. By linking their unique strengths to talent acquisition and retention, employee learning, performance management, and coaching capabilities, they’re seeing improved workforce metrics. What’s more, they’re seeing better business results, as well.

How Agile Leadership Can Fundamentally Change Work Culture

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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This quote is perhaps one of the most familiar business phrases of all time. Yet, while most leaders agree on the importance of culture, surprisingly few actually devote serious attention to shaping workplace culture. Why is this the case? What role should culture play in business success? And how does agile leadership help shape successful organizations? In this article, we’ll explore these questions in detail…

Why Smart Leaders Value Culture

Just how deeply should leaders focus on culture? Edgar Schein is widely considered the father of organizational culture. In his book, Organizational Culture and Leadership, he describes leadership and culture as two sides of the same coin.

In other words, leaders invariably shape culture for better or worse, whether they intend to or not. It starts when they establish organizational policies and practices. Then, through their daily actions, leaders demonstrate their commitment to these standards. Ultimately, they become role models for expected behaviors.

This aligns with Andrea Tomasini’s definition of culture as “the set of behaviors that are accepted and expected.”

Culture Change: A Case In Point

One example of a leadership-driven culture shift comes from a large telecom equipment provider. The company’s culture was highly hierarchical and control oriented. Employees were even forbidden from posting anything on their office walls or windows.

Although the company was a recognized market leader, it was losing market share to smaller competitors. This was when executives recognized the need to build a more innovative, collaborative culture.

Leaders visited directly with teams to ask what they needed to work in more collaborative, innovative, agile ways. They documented the various responses on sticky notes, and then posted these comments on a highly-visible wall in the building’s atrium. But the process didn’t end there.

In essence, this wall of sticky notes became a Kanban board that helped drive organizational change. Leaders started taking action on each request. They began meeting weekly at the board, where everyone would see them moving sticky notes from “To Do” to “In Progress” and eventually to the “Done” section when each action was completed.

Within months, teams began creating their own Kanban boards and collaborating daily. Sticky notes on the walls became a new cultural norm. The leadership team’s visible actions changed employee understanding of behaviors that are accepted and expected.

How Does Agile Leadership Help?

In their book Leadership Agility, Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs offer a well-researched, practical model for leadership development. Think of leadership skills as a series of vertical stages of increasing effectiveness. As leaders develop capabilities, they move from Expert to Achiever to Catalyst.

These stages are like gears in a car’s transmission, letting leaders “shift” into different speeds as needed. In fact, research shows that the most effective leaders have the agility to shift fluidly between leadership modes – as well as the awareness to know which leadership mode is most appropriate in a given situation.

The Leadership Agility Model in Agile Leadership

Most leaders start at the “Expert” stage. Experts are focused on hands-on work that leverages their functional expertise. They tend to focus on tactics and solving immediate problems. However, they tend to lack awareness of their leadership style and have low emotional and social intelligence.

At the “Achiever” stage, leaders begin to rely more on others. They are focused on results and outcomes, and are willing to delegate the “how” to others. They become more invested in influencing others to accomplish their goals. They’re also more aware that they need buy-in to achieve the best results.

When leaders reach the “Catalyst” stage, they develop a broader, more systemic perspective, long-term orientation, strong self-awareness, social awareness, and situational awareness. They realize that goal-setting, alone, isn’t enough to motivate people. Vision and purpose are also essential. And they genuinely believe people are assets — not just “resources.”

How Agile Leadership Affects Workplace Culture

Agile leaders demonstrate multiple capabilities that are vital for shaping organizational culture:

1. Situational Awareness and Balance

Agile leaders are able to shift their approach between expert, achiever, and catalyst modes, as needed. They can operate effectively at a tactical, strategic or visionary level. This means agile leaders are adept at tackling a wide range of problems. By tapping into this broad set of skills, they serve as role models to others in the organization, creating a culture that values leadership growth and development.

2. Long-Term Visionary Orientation

“Catalyst” leaders devote more of their energy to a long-term vision for their organization. They realize the key role culture plays in achieving this vision. And they realize there is no silver-bullet shortcut that creates a positive culture. This is why they move deliberately and persistently to build a better culture. As role models, they help other leaders in their orbit develop a similar visionary perspective.

3. People-Centered Leadership

Catalyst leaders have strong social intelligence and genuine empathy for people on their team. They are willing to invest time in coaching and mentoring people for personal growth. This goes beyond merely setting goals, measuring performance, or demanding results. This leadership style serves as a role model for all in an environment where people feel genuinely valued.

4. Ability to Navigate a VUCA World

Today’s fast-paced global economy is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). In this environment, agile leadership is essential. It frees leaders to let go of the illusion of control and gives them the confidence to help others do the same. Agile leaders frame complex challenges as learning opportunities rather than neatly defined execution tasks. Instead of punishing small failures, they reward learning. This kind of support encourages people to take initiative and tackle complex problems.

5. Concern for Psychological Safety

By combining two agile leadership capabilities we’ve mentioned – social intelligence and willingness to reward learning – leaders can establish a sense of psychological safety. When people feel it’s safe to participate, learn, contribute, and even challenge the status quo – innovation can flourish. By actively promoting an atmosphere of psychological safety, leaders can help their organization evolve and succeed over time.

Modeling and Shaping Culture

For leaders who want to proactively shape workplace culture, a cultural assessment model can be particularly helpful. At Agile Leadership Journey, we rely on the Competing Value Framework (CVF) by Kim S. Cameron and colleagues. This CVF model focuses on four cultural archetypes: Collaborate, Create, Compete, and Control:

Competing Values Famework in Agile Leadership

 

CVF research indicates that no singular “best” culture exists. Instead, the most successful organizations try to balance the four archetypes. CVF provides a model for assessing an organization’s culture “shape” – the relative strength of each value system and culture archetype. With this tangible assessment, leaders can make deliberate choices about actions that can shift the culture in a desired direction.

Culture Values Framework Agile Leadership

Because culture is so complex, leaders should treat these activities as experiments — assuming the outcome is uncertain, and side effects will be difficult to predict.

Our experience with CVF and culture shaping reveals that these techniques can lead to a measurable shift in culture. However, significant changes often take years to manifest fully. This means organizations need to rely on the strength of “Catalyst” leaders with the agility, wisdom and skills to persist through a complex cultural transformation.

Future Workplace Mindset: People, Technology, and Business Intersection

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As we all know, flexibility is the lifeblood of HR, especially when it comes to adopting new technologies for attracting candidates. While many are resistant to change in the working world, a willingness to adapt to whatever comes strengthens both HR and business strategies. By understanding that nothing will stay the same, and thus adopting a future workplace mindset, organizations can accept change and also thrive in it.

As technology becomes more important for keeping employees happy and productive, it’s crucial that businesses understand tech’s role in business success. And more importantly, act on this understanding.

Our Guest: Michel Visser, Unit4’s VP of People Success and Enablement

On the latest #WorkTrends podcast, I spoke with Michel Visser, Unit4’s VP of People Success and Enablement. In 2018, he joined Unit4 with the aim of attracting the best global talent. He has over a decade of experience in HR, holding various senior leadership roles. Michel teaches HR at the VU University Amsterdam and has been instrumental in developing creative and innovative strategies for attracting candidates, strengthening employee development, and generating strong engagement strategies.

I wanted to know: how does a company develop a workplace mindset for building a global identity that supports its brand and culture? According to Michel, it’s all about communicating company values. Values not only determine how a business operates, but how people interact with each other. Making values apparent allows candidates to know upfront whether they’re a good match for your organization. Sharing values throughout an organization also takes the transactional aspect out of work, and has everyone working towards a common goal. It helps employees feel like they’re doing something more than just getting a paycheck every week.

“It is absolutely critical to communicate organizational values to candidates because, without clear values, employee experience becomes transactional,” says Michel. “If you make your business’s values very clear, then you give candidates a chance to relate to your mission. You can use values as an instrument to attract and retain talent.”

And HR is fundamental in crafting these values.

“HR is now front and center when it comes to being visible and showing how employees actually deliver value to the business. It’s HR who starts formulating answers to questions like what does the business stand for? What do we value?” Michel says.

Technology’s Role in Communicating Values

Technology can play a big role in communicating values. It’s HR’s responsibility to strengthen the workplace mindset that it’s good to adapt and harness tech to keep employees engaged. And it’s vital to continuously monitor and measure that engagement.

“How do you keep track of employee engagement? If you find a proper tool to do that, how do you start acting on the insights you’ve gathered?” Michel says. “In many cases, you can’t just stop by a coffee maker and ask employees how they feel anymore. You need technology to gauge this.” 

Once tech is adopted, it’s crucial that HR plans to make sure employees engage with the tech. They also need to dive into workforce planning and understand that a two-year workforce plan makes more sense than a five- or 10-year plan. Organizations need to look at the length of time that employees stick around in the modern workforce and adjust to that. They also need to understand what skill sets employees need to thrive, how to create more engagement, and how to stay true to the values that are communicated. In other words, companies can’t just be “all talk.” Businesses have to deliver on promises if they want happy people.

“Everybody will tell you on their website that they put people first. But at the end of the day, you have to deliver and make sure people feel that the company values are true. Every HR professional should focus on putting values into place,” Michel says.

I hope you enjoy this episode of #WorkTrends, sponsored by Unit4. You can learn more about workplace mindset and adopting new technologies by connecting with Michel on LinkedIn. Also, you can learn about how people management and technology can combine to give organizations a competitive advantage by downloading this Unit4 whitepaper.

 

Image by Austin Distel

Avoid the Workplace Talent Cliff [Podcast]

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The talent cliff is a phenomenon where businesses lose employees at a rapid rate. It isn’t a new problem, but it regularly appears in times of crisis, such as the 2008 stock market crash, and of course, the 2020-2021 pandemic. Because of the present WFH lifestyle, people are reconsidering their options, keeping their eyes open for new and better career opportunities.

Meaning the talent cliff is a constant threat to business success, especially right now.

Many organizations are in a position to suffer losses of key people who fill critical roles aligned with the organization’s overall business strategy. Finding and filling these roles quickly is essential but not always possible, especially when it’s a job candidate’s market. That’s why it’s important to stay ahead of the game and focus on preventing employees from leaving, rather than scrambling to hire talent later.

Our Guest: Jennifer Thornton, Talent Strategy and Leadership Expert 

 

The special guest on this week’s episode of #WorkTrends is Jennifer Thornton, a sought-after business strategist who has clocked over two decades as an HR professional. She takes an unconventional approach to building workforce development solutions for companies, and her impressive expertise in talent strategy and leadership helped drive the rapid growth of her consulting firm, 304 Coaching.

I asked Jennifer why some businesses wind up staring over the edge of the talent cliff, while others don’t. And the heart of the matter is: Businesses who don’t value employee satisfaction will likely suffer the most.

“When a business starts to take off, they start throwing all their resources into increasing their revenue, opening up new markets,” Jennifer explains. “But what they don’t say at the same time is: What do we need to do for our talent to ensure that they can keep up the pace with our growth?”

“After a company continues to grow, the leaders usually get super directive, and the good people don’t want to work for someone highly directive. So they leave. Then the people you’re left with are the, ‘Yes sir,’ ‘Yes ma’am’ kind of folks. And they’re not telling you the truth. And then all of a sudden the productivity–it just goes straight down–off the cliff!”

How Can Businesses Avoid the Dreaded Talent Cliff?

I asked Jennifer about what leaders can do to avoid the talent cliff, or at least curb more employee losses. She explained that leaders need to provide psychological safety. They need to give employees space to honestly express ideas, and leaders need to be prepared to respond in a supportive manner.

“Psychological safety allows people in the workplace to be honest, to be truthful, to fully embrace who they are without judgment, which creates productivity and innovation,” Jennifer says. “When you open up the conversation, people feel valued … They feel like it’s safe to bring ideas to you because you don’t just shut them down.”

“I would encourage your listeners to think: How do you think about opening up that conversation so there is psychological safety and so that the business can move forward with the truth?”

The talent cliff is a threat to all businesses. But if you prioritize team needs, it will help you to retain valuable employees and amplify overall business growth.

I hope you enjoy this episode of #WorkTrends. And I hope it communicates that the key to a successful business strategy is valuing the people who are helping you to achieve it. You can learn more about this topic by connecting with our guest, Jennifer Thornton, on LinkedIn.

Photo: Ricardo Resende

Is Diversity Baked Into Your Hiring Process?

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A few years ago, we were asked to help a market leader that was intent on changing its culture to be more creative and innovative. (Sound familiar?) The company was spending a million dollars on messaging and elaborate company meetings to help “get the word out” and create excitement for this new, transformative initiative.

But even as its leaders spoke eloquently about the need for change — even hiring a guru to guide their efforts — few process changes were made, and they were hesitant to reconsider the kind of people they hired. They talked of needing people who were “cultural fits” even as they held meetings in which they touted the need for cultural change and disruption.

Why traditional hiring practices backfire

The company’s hiring practices were similar to those we see in most organizations, perhaps even your own. After candidates were identified, an internal team of “high performers,” along with HR representatives, reviewed the applicants’ résumés to ensure they had the requisite experience. Unfortunately, this meant most applicant experiences were similar. The unintended result? A candidate pool with little experiential diversity.

But it didn’t end there. After “qualified” candidates interviewed with the hiring teams, they were ranked by the group. If any members of the hiring team had a concern about a person, those concerns were noted. Strong objections by a couple of group members, as a practical matter, were enough to give a candidate the boot.

Predictably, the least objectionable candidate — who typically looked, acted, and thought like other members of the group — became the team’s preferred choice.

If we want change, we need to expect challenges

When we asked the hiring team how the hiring process supported a culture of innovation, team members told us that their hiring criteria included experience in helping organizations change.

Pushing back, we asked the team to consider which types of people would contribute different and creative ideas. What employee characteristics would help the organization change? For instance, had they valued people who were:

  • Diverse in race, ethnicity, and background?
  • Rarely satisfied with the status quo?
  • Impatient and not always willing to take “no” for an answer without significant debate?
  • Disruptive, at times disagreeable, and willing to question authority?
  • Not easily managed?
  • At times, slow and hesitant to make decisions based on what was done last year? (Creativity takes time.)
  • Unwilling to go along just to get along?

 Their response neatly framed their hiring challenges:

“Why would we hire someone who is hard to manage, never satisfied, and always questioning what we do? We’re pretty good here, you know. If we hired people who we knew would consistently challenge what we learned yesterday, we’d never get anything done.”

We say we want change, but do we?

Yes, we say we want to change. We say we want creativity. We say we need diversity, but do we honestly believe it?

The truth is, even if we’re committed to recruiting more diverse teams, we’re often painfully unaware of how our hiring processes give preference to people who are more like us. As a result, we often allow the long-term effects of our biases, knowingly or unknowingly, to be hidden in our collective consciousness, in our culture. Over time, groups that cling to such processes tend to become more homogeneous, not less.

Even when we manage to hire authentically diverse teams — composed of different backgrounds, races, genders, ages, perspectives, and beliefs — we expect everyone to come together in a fabled “kumbaya” moment.

True diversity begins with intention

Recruiting a more diverse and successful team begins with intention. The kind of intention that’s required is more than a desire or wish. It’s a conscious, mindful choice based on a belief that diversity is critical to the team’s success. It requires that we create processes that are built for diversity. Our preference for people who look and think and act like us is strong and can only be overcome with a structured commitment to embrace people who often make us uncomfortable.

So, where should we start? Here are a few ideas:

  1. Start early. It’s easier to become diverse before biases have become ingrained in our hiring practices.
  2. Be clear on the type of people you hope to hire. Do they share your values? Are they competent? Good thinkers? Willing to change? Ready to speak truth to power? Confident? Good leaders? Having clarity is a necessary first step to building a successful hiring process.
  3. Recruit blindly. Superficial aspects of a person’s bio often outweigh an applicant’s talent or potential. The fix? Implement a blind submissions process — stripping away names, ages, and gender. Create a process in which people cannot “see” the applicants when initially judging their competence.
  4. Put more diversity, of all types, on your hiring team. The research on this is clear: a diverse hiring team will recruit more diverse members.
  5. Expand your personal and professional networks. Our personal preferences are affected by our experiences. For example, research shows that fathers with daughters are more likely to hire women. Having more experience with an unrepresented group makes their inclusion more likely.
  6. Confront bias when you see it. When we tolerate bias, we teach that it’s acceptable.

Learning to appreciate our differences — and to embrace diversity — is what ultimately fuels an organization’s competitive advantage. Only when people challenge us to think and act differently can we create the remarkable. So, let’s get to it.

Photo: Meagan Carsience

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and the Bottom Line

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The events of the last few months have brought increased attention to the value that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bring to the workplace and to society at large. Increasingly, organizations are engaging in discussions around flexible working, social justice, privilege, equity, and about what this all means for the future of work. 

For those who work in the DEI space, these conversations are not new. The strong connections between workforce diversity, inclusion, and engagement have been documented for years. When organizations build diverse cultures where everyone can succeed and thrive, business results also flourish. 

A recent report from The Conference Board outlines how building a stronger connection between inclusion and engagement initiatives can help human capital leaders improve the employee experience while increasing trust and feelings of belonging. As organizations rely more heavily on team-based models, these links become crucial to driving performance and sparking innovation. 

Yet many organizations still struggle to put DEI into practice. Effective DEI strategies and initiatives often require changes in norms, talent processes, and leadership styles, all of which may encounter resistance. Change is difficult. Hence, this period of turmoil constitutes both an ideal and a challenging time for human capital leaders to take action and strengthen DEI within their organizations.  

It’s the ideal time because DEI is top of mind among leaders. There is strong executive support to create positive change that drives resilience; in many cases business leaders are reaching out to their HR teams for the first time to ask for DEI solutions. It is also a challenging time because these important conversations are happening as leaders juggle multiple considerations around the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and their business needs — and they often are doing so with fewer resources. 

What can human capital leaders do to advance DEI, build resilience, and drive positive organizational change? Building on insights from executives across industries and regions who participated in Conference Board research, we recommend the following four steps:

1. Create a common vision around what DEI means for your organization, and why it’s especially important now.

Enhance communication and encourage consistent messaging across the organization. Help leaders and colleagues understand how DEI can improve the work environment and increase resilience during times of change.

Practical tips from DEI leaders:

  • Create organization-wide definitions of DEI that align with the organization’s culture and values.
  • Identify measurable behaviors and clear expectations that help hold people accountable for those behaviors.

2. Encourage collaboration and broader participation in your DEI initiatives.

As recent events increase DEI’s visibility, they also amplify opportunities to engage employees and leaders more broadly across the organization. Now is the time to boost interest among those who typically do not participate in DEI, to create shared accountability, and to help ensure that the burden of driving change doesn’t fall solely on underrepresented groups.

Practical tips from DEI leaders:

  • Provide resources on how people can participate and take action both at work and within their broader communities.
  • Communicate and set clear expectations, which can go a long way toward people feeling supported during times of change. Encourage dialogue over conflict and make it OK to make mistakes; this will help build trust.

3. Invest in inclusive leadership skills development.

Inclusive cultures do not just happen by chance. They require intentionality and willingness to change how we work and interact with our colleagues, as well as identifying the inclusive leadership behaviors to help drive your people strategy. At times, this will require leaders to learn new skills and to “unlearn” how they manage their teams in order for them to fully integrate different perspectives. The good news: these new skills can improve both leadership effectiveness and business results.

Practical tips from DEI leaders: 

  • There are multiple models of inclusive leadership to help identify key behaviors. You don’t have to start from scratch, leverage existing models of inclusive leadership in the field.
  • Work with both formal and informal DEI champions across the organization to outline key inclusive behaviors that are meaningful to you. Some organizations may want to highlight how diversity and inclusion improve decision-making, whereas others may focus on the connection between DEI and innovation. The key is to make inclusion relevant to your business and work.

4. Enhance accountability. 

To drive effective change, holding people accountable for their role in creating a more inclusive culture is key. Accountability helps establish clear expectations about how everyone can participate, including specific behaviors (e.g., team or leadership behaviors) and, for people managers, metrics (e.g., diversity representation, engagement). Without clear accountabilities to help us keep the goals in mind, we’re all bound to go back to our “old ways” of working.

Practical tips from DEI leaders: 

  • Ask for input on your strategy from, and conduct regular follow-ups with, leaders about DEI accountabilities and progress. Having a voice helps increase ownership and buy-in.
  • Engage your human capital analytics team to identify patterns, trends, and examine the impact of your DEI efforts. Assess what is and isn’t working, such as by comparing promotion and attrition rates for employees who participate in a program or activity and those who do not.

This is the time for human capital and business leaders to drive positive organizational change, increase DEI, and create more effective ways of working across differences. Follow these guidelines to capitalize on this moment to improve workplace culture and business results.

How to Motivate Employees – The Complete Guide

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Whether you oversee a business, a project or a specific department your goal should always be growth. But, don’t forget that growth only has market value when it is consistent.

Growth is a marathon, and just like any marathonist who prepares themselves both mentally and physically, you need to be in possession of the right tools for the long run. Even though marathon runners win titles alone, the team supporting them is arguably one of the most decisive aspects for their winnings.  Within business the same happens, your employees are your team and they are the most important and decisive element on how your business is going to perform in the future.

It is essential that you understand what you need to do to keep your employees engaged and focused on the common goal. The secret to motivating employees is about knowing your team individuals and customizing the way you recognize and motivate them according to their specific preferences.

You will always need to spend at least as much time building an engaging ecosystem and improving your employee experience as you do hiring new people and motivating your staff.

  1. Stop Micromanaging

Even though people often look at you as you were Superman, it does not mean you have superpowers. Being a manager, and at the same time, an employee is something that only Clark Kent could dream of. Nonetheless, many are the managers who try to do that and end up being neither a good manager nor a good employee.

Alysa Gregory wrote a pretty insightful post on how you can effectively address this common problem with specific techniques. The problem with micromanagement is that it will make your employees too much dependent on you for direction and therefore less likely to learn, think and produce quality outcomes for themselves. Provide direction and give assistance when required but also provide freedom for employees to do things their own way and surprise you.

Salvador is a Portuguese 25 years old person that has been self-motivated to support young entrepreneurs since university. He’s helped several young entrepreneurs shaping up their business models through a youth entrepreneurship organization named Bring Entrepreneurs Together.

Now, he’s a young entrepreneur himself, specifically the CEO of Tap My Back – a software that supports companies adapting to the way millennials communicate, through instant public work appreciation and continuous feedback. Before joining Tap My Back, he did a Master’s degreeon Business Strategy at Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics.

Stop Micromanaging

  1. Give ownership

Over time workers can develop what’s called tunnel vision making them to start focusing only about their own duties and deadlines. Rather than working for the company goals, they work towards meeting their role minimum requirements.

A Forbes article recently explores the advantages in leveraging something they defined as “psychological ownership” – the extent to which an employee feels as though their organization or their job is “theirs” (i.e., “this is MY company!”) to the point that the company becomes an important part of an employee’s self-identity.

To foster this mentality across your team you should guarantee that each collaborator gets to understand how his role impacts directly the final customer as well as his colleagues.

Make sure your team feels responsible for what the customer is buying 

  1. Push employees out of the comfort zone

Even though some managers feel their staff does little further from what it is required of them, the fact is that by nature most people do get bored of being asked to do a specific task repeatedly. Besides, this demand makes people to automatize the work they do lowering the probability of contributing with out-of-scope work.

A key ingredient to make people step out of the comfort zone relies in leadership. It starts with you. Step out of your comfort zone and describe the process to your staff as well as the reasons why. Your behavior will soon resonate. Then, be ready to identify barriers and understand what motivates the individuals to guide your employee’s breakthroughs.

Staying within your comfort zone is a good way to prepare for today, but it’s a terrible way to prepare for tommorow –

David Peterson, Director, Executive Coaching & Leadership at Google –

  1. Share information constantly

When you are growing fast, assumptions and goals change in the same pace. As a business leader, you have a clearer perspective on the bigger picture than your employees do.

Spreading the intel gets everyone on the same layer as you are and at the same time strengthens the feeling among workers that they are an important part of the organization. Nowadays, you can easily share information through several different ways.

  1. Create an environment focused on the top performers

All the efforts you put into improving your team working conditions should always be focused in satisfying the top performing employees. Eitan Sharir develops a thorough analysis on the impact a team build upon an high-performance culture may generate.

Your mission is to understand the best way to motivate your most talented employees to improve their production rate. Get to know what are the roadblocks they’re hitting and make sure you clear them so that they have no barriers to get the most important work done. 

Create an environment focused on the top performers

  1. Use a simple employee recognition tool

Recent studies indicate that employees feel recognition more fulfilling than any money rewards or gifts. By recognition, I mean any type of word or behavior that indicates employees they have done a pretty good job at something or that they need to improve their work at something else.

Even though almost everyone already get this point, managers struggle to deliver constant recognition/feedback when there’s no system implemented that eases the process. Tap my Back tackles most of these challenges. It is a tool designed to facilitate both upwards and downwards recognition in a fun and frictionless way. Either for remote or local team’s recognition may be made publicly or privately to any specific worker.

A plus of using such a tool, is the fact that it provides team leaders with analytics and insights on the recognition given throughout the organization allowing them to become better and more informed managers.

  1. Fire underperformers

Even though it may seem a paradox in terms of team motivation, firing underperformers works well on motivating your best employees. When other employees see these individuals getting away with underperformance, then they feel it’s ok within the company culture to perform at lower levels. Therefore, firing—if you explain to your team why people were fired—can motivate employees to improve daily.

  1. Encourage Innovation and Creativity

As a manager, you must realize that the clear majority of innovations come from the people who are manufacturing your products, designing your services or the ones who are interacting with customers.

Fostering creativity across your team will not only bolster employee motivation but also helps creating a more flexible and comfortable working environment where creativity is much welcome.

Disruption either in terms of products, markets or processes is the common ground of every growing company

  1. Invest in staff learning opportunities

People who get the chance to grow their skills and expertise take more pride in their jobs, you should encourage employees in your organization to gain new skills. However, providing trainings and learning programs is not enough. You must ensure that employees are able to apply the knowledge gained to accomplish their work and further benefit their career utility.

You can do this in many ways, such as providing on-the-job training and other opportunities to teach your employees new skills.

  1. Do not hire Clones

It often happens that new employees dress, sound and think the same way as the one who recruited them. The last thing any entrepreneur should try is to recruit a bunch of “mini-me’s”. Rather try surrounding yourself with experts who excel in different areas and bring unique perspectives. It will create a much more exciting environment for everyone on your company.

This article was originally published on Tap My Back. To download the free guide on Best Practices to Engage Employees, please click here.

Photo Credit: brendendamo Flickr via Compfight cc

A Seat at The Table

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I started my career in HR over 17 years ago, and the questions I heard most often at all the HR conferences were “Why don’t I have a seat at the executive table?” and “How can I get the executives to take me seriously?” Well, we’re 17 years on, and in spite of all the best intentions, I still hear these two questions repeatedly. What are we doing wrong?

  1. Stop asking “what can I do for you?”Asking “what do you need me to do?” would be like a CFO asking “What financial information would you like me to report?” Ask the business what they are trying to do, and be the expert who translates their business goals into actionable human capital strategies. Would a CEO think about making a major shift in strategy without consulting the CFO to talk about the financial implications or the COO to talk about operational challenges? By showing the C-Suite that you understand their goals and can help them reach them through human capital, your CEO will be calling you to talk about the people implications of their strategies.
  2. Stop speaking HR-speak.The main focus of your business leaders is on meeting enterprise wide strategies and goals, not on the challenges of finding, developing and retaining quality talent. In your next meeting with the C-Suite, think about how you can make your words relevant to their issues. Increased revenue, decreased cost, and higher productivity are much more compelling to an executive than time to fill or number of training courses taken. In his article From HR to the C-Suite: Speaking the same language, Mike Psenka states, “Your first task is to ensure you are conversant in the lingua franca of the C-suite: money… When HR professionals can demonstrate how their operations improve the bottom line, they are able to form stronger connections with the C level executives and continue to enhance the value of the HR department to the entire company.”
  3. Don’t make yourself a victim.A common response I hear to not being at the executive table is “they never invite me to their meetings.” A sure way to keep yourself out of the executive conference room is to wait for them to invite you. Add strategic value by modeling the behaviors in 1 and 2 above (and make sure they know you have), and they won’t be able to think about having their meetings without you.

The chair is already pulled up to the executive table at your company today. If you’re not standing behind it or not even in the room, make sure you’re not exhibiting any of these success-blocking behaviors; you’ll be amazed how quickly you get to sit down.

A version of this post was first published on Black Box Consulting.

Photo Credit: Robert V. Faust II Flickr via Compfight cc

#WorkTrends Recap: Talent Strategy Alignment

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Talent acquisition is a key part of HR that needs to be aligned with overall business goals to achieve success. HR needs to be in the c-suite and have a seat at the table for talent acquisition to be a viable and well-supported aspect of an overall business strategy for all brands.

On this week’s #WorkTrends show, host Meghan M. Biro was joined by principal of Black Box Consulting Andy Rice. They discussed the critical importance of why talent acquisition and business strategies, for any brand, must be aligned to create a productive culture that will support and sustain brands in the present and for the future.

Andy shared practical advice about the importance of gaining and spreading understanding about the different parts of HR.

Here are a few other key points that Andy shared:

  • Recruiting is the action. Talent acquisition is the strategy.
  • Talent Management is a mindset, not a set of technology tools
  • Metrics and data remove the mystery from the talent equation

Did you miss the show? You can listen to the #WorkTrends podcast on our BlogTalk Radio channel here:  http://bit.ly/2nqqSKp

You can also check out the highlights of the conversation from our Storify here:

Didn’t make it to this week’s #WorkTrends show? Don’t worry, you can tune in and participate in the podcast and chat with us every Wednesday from 1-2pm ET (10-11am PT).

Remember, the TalentCulture #WorkTrends conversation continues every day across several social media channels. Stay up-to-date by following our #WorkTrends Twitter stream; pop into our LinkedIn group to interact with other members; or check out our Google+ community. Engage with us any time on our social networks, or stay current with trending World of Work topics on our website or through our weekly email newsletter.

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#WorkTrends Preview: Talent Strategy Alignment

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Simply, effective talent acquisition relies on HR functions that align with the overall business strategy, which means that not only should HR have a seat at the table, but the talent acquisition function also needs to be a viable and well-supported aspect of an overall business strategy for all brands.

Join us for #WorkTrends on Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at 1 pm ET. Andy Rice, Principal of Black Box Consulting and TalentCulture’s #WorkTrends host Meghan M. Biro, will discuss the critical importance of why talent acquisition and business strategies, for any brand, must align to create a productive culture that will support and sustain brands in the present and for the future.

Please join us for what will be a lively conversation.

Talent Strategy Alignment

#WorkTrends Logo Design

Join Andy and Meghan on our LIVE online podcast Wednesday, Mar 15 — 1 pm ET / 10 am PT.

Immediately following the podcast, the team invites the TalentCulture community over to the #WorkTrends Twitter stream to continue the discussion. We encourage everyone with a Twitter account to participate as we gather for a live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: How can talent strategy get HR a voice at the executive table? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q2: How is aligning talent to the business goals critical to planning? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q3: How can leadership support talent and business alignment? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Don’t want to wait until next Wednesday to join the conversation? You don’t have to. I invite you to check out the #WorkTrends Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and our TalentCulture G+ community. Share your questions, ideas and opinions with our awesome community any time. See you there!

Join Our Social Community & Stay Up-to-Date!

Passive-Recruiting
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Managing Your Talent and Business Alignment

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Good business leaders recognize the value in a good hire, but often times don’t appreciate that one key individual can add to or deter from a company’s overall business plan. Consider a new Chief Technology Officer versus a sales executive within the same company. Most people would immediately acknowledge the CTO’s position as being the most pivotal and in large respect, it is a critical position and one that should be occupied by someone who can elevate the company’s technical advancements. So let’s consider the sales executive’s role.

The sales executive’s role is probably one of many like it within the organization, but sales executives often times serve as the face of the company and represent the organization externally in different capacities, not all of which are sales. These individuals may be members of a local organization where they provide volunteer time and may even sit on the board of another organization. This is a very visible representation and one where the sales executive is speaking on behalf of the organization in a business capacity. Given this, would you consider this role less important than the CTO’s? Maybe or maybe not, but each position yields a different ROI, so there needs to be a different approach in regards to specific talent management practices and how they impact the company’s overall business.

Everyone is a Contributor

One thing is for certain, hiring new employees and training existing ones should be aligned closely to the business imperatives of the organization. As businesses grow, expand their services, establish a footprint in other areas around the Globe, or simply tweak their existing products and offerings because of upgrades or enhancements, due consideration of the employee population should be included in the mix of your business strategy. A hard look at your current business and what your projections for company growth and expansion of products and services will look like in five years and beyond will impact the people you hire and train today.

Understanding the impact of each division, department, team and individual should not be a siloed evaluation. All parts and pieces are links in a chain that make up your company’s foundation. When one is weak, the strength of the other links becomes compromised. It may not be apparent immediately, but over time you may experience problems in customer service, low production numbers, disconnects with prospects, high employee turnover, all of which can lead to downturns in revenue or profits. When this occurs, a prompt investigation into all aspects of your business, including who and how talent is sourced and brought into your company should be considered, as this may be where the root of the problems are based.

Being on the Same Page

There are times when leadership can be so focused on particular outcomes of their business that they fail to acknowledge other important factors, such as what recruiting tactics are used to source and qualify people to advance and align with the organization.

One overlooked item is assuming that the recruiting team is informed and up-to-date on company goals and any subsequent changes to the short-term and long-term business imperatives. Are the job descriptions indicative of what skills and experiences are needed to build the foundation for the future? Do the hiring managers understand what they need to evaluate when considering people to fit the current role and how the candidates’ skills will impact the future of the role? Is everyone aware of the company’s direction and where the company needs to be in five years? Ten years? Do they know what the success profiles are for each position? These are all questions that must be answered before they can fully execute in accordance with the company’s plans.

Employee training is another area that can be out of sync with a company’s business imperatives. Even talented contributors need training, if for no other reason, than to be kept up-to-speed with the implementation of new technologies, policies, products and services. By offering training, employers stand a much better chance to retain desirable employees, as well as determining who is open to learning and embracing the company’s evolution. Keep in mind, training is an investment into your most precious asset… your employees.

Ultimately, communication is going to drive much of what your employees know or don’t know about the company’s short- and long-term business objectives. Leadership needs to decide what kind of info will be shared, with whom and why, as well as present that info so it’s understood by all people receiving the message and resonates with each person’s level of understanding. The obvious conclusion is to assume the mission, vision and company’s values are well understood by all and are unwavering, so when making adjustments to the business plan, this understanding helps drive the point home and makes adoption of the plan easier.

Reducing Risks and Other Factors

Talent management is more than having a succession plan. It’s understanding the value each position offers and capitalizing on that value in the present with eyes towards the future. Also, external factors such as demand, the market cost to fill certain positions, the economy, geography, Visas, etc. will also impact the alignment of your talent and company-wide business strategy. Items to consider include, but are not limited to:

  • Your current employee pool… what new skills do they need and how can you get them to the skills level your business needs with a shorter time-to-productivity
  • Bringing new talent into your company… do the job descriptions fit the current need with skills to build towards the future
  • Anticipating issues with hiring the right people for the jobs your organization will need to sustain your future business
  • Ensuring everyone on the leadership team is onboard with understanding how the present and future of the business hinges on the alignment of talent to the business plan

There are many answers you need to uncover to truly understand the importance of how talent acquisition and your business strategy should be closely aligned; the list above is only a starting point. Keep in mind, the goal should always be to reduce risks and manage the factors within your control and it begins with a shared vision.

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6 Ways HR Leaders Can Help Humanize the Organization

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Historically, business strategies have focused on production and business outcomes. Human capital was considered nothing more than a means to an end. The world is changing, however, with “the growing realization that somehow amidst efficiency, productivity, and career advancement, our very humanity has lost out,” as author Tim Leberecht describes it.

Today HR leaders can help humanize the organization; leading the charge toward building a world of work that marries business-minded and relationship-oriented strategies for success.

Position HR to humanize organizations. Your employees are the most valuable assets in your organization. Without your employees driving business activities, your company cannot innovate, grow, or evolve. Your HR department is, or should be, viewed as so much more than a non-producing department, responsible for lowering risk and limiting damage.

Sadly, not unlike like legal departments, human resources departments have spent the last several years repositioning themselves in the eyes of management. HR has had to prove its worth to the C-suite, by demonstrating its ability to think like innovators, solve complex problems, and at the same time, retain keen focus on people and what they require.

With a growing global movement to support mindfulness, well-being and wellness in the workplace, today’s HR leaders are optimally positioned to demonstrate the value and business benefits of humanizing the organization.

People resources — human resources — deserve executive attention, support, and appreciation.

Create incentives by humanizing the organization.

People are not well-oiled machines. It’s time for every business leader to stop thinking of them as such. Today, people require more than financial compensation to thrive in a business setting. The top talent is looking for organizations that embrace inclusivity, collaboration, and transparency.

Humanizing an organization creates incentives for the best candidates to apply, improves employee engagement, and develops a sense of loyalty and exclusivity. These factors directly impact business outcomes including customer perceptions, profitability, and competitive standing. For organizations to thrive in the modern global marketplace, they need a balance between business and human resources.

Drive humanization within your organization.

Every step of the employee lifecycle offers an opportunity to improve the human experience in the workplace. HR leaders can lead by example and facilitate relationship-oriented interactions between colleagues and supervisors by:

1. Focusing on the details.
Something as simple as how a new employee pronounces his or her name can have a profound effect on the employee experience. Encourage staff members to welcome and support each other along the way. Teams and departments should never feel isolated or unable to speak openly and honestly during the workday.

2. Opening up communication channels.
Traditional hierarchies can close off innovative thoughts and activities. While all businesses need some level of managerial structure, consider creating more transparency within the communication process. Encourage employees to take part in decision-making processes and avoid practices that belittle or alienate an employee for speaking up. And remember, sometimes, the best ideas come out of the left field.

3. Invest in learning activities that are fun.
Few employees relish reading a long and tedious guide and taking a test. For training and ongoing education, think outside the box. Let employees take ownership in their continuing education. Pair experienced senior team members with new recruits in mentorship programs.

4. Listen actively.
Active listening is a skill that few professionals fully understand and even fewer practice, sadly. Active listening means hearing what someone is saying, acknowledging and validating a person’s perspective, and responding with a thoughtful and supportive remark that demonstrates your understanding.

5. Use data to express the value of relationships.
Every person-oriented activity that HR pursues has business value, but that value is not always easy to see or understand. Use analytics to demonstrate the value relationship-based activities have from a business perspective. Employees want to know their actions are creating something worthwhile, and executives may need to see the connection between HR and business outcomes to be able to embrace a relationship focus.

6. Balance relationships with business everyday.
Investing in people is investing in the success of an organization, and today’s global marketplace demands that investment. HR leaders can drive that point home by using recruitment strategies, training experiences, benefits packages, and other initiatives to show appreciation for hard work and encourage future success. As more organizations start to see the hard return on investment associated with humanization, they will begin to implement similar humanization practices.

A version of this post was first published on Entrepreneur.com on 05/04/2016

 Image credit: Shutterstock

Empowering Workplace Leadership Every Other Step of the Way

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“When the world is a monster
Bad to swallow you whole
Kick the clay that holds the teeth in
Throw your trolls out the door…”

—R.E.M.

Right after the early morning conference call, an instant message popped up on my laptop screen.

You all right? It read. It was from a colleague over 2,000 miles away, with the rest of our team almost another 1,000 miles away from him.

Three simple words: You all right?

They tumbled in my head like lottery ping pong balls, then lined up in different iterations:

All right you
You right all
Right you all

Another IM appeared. You seem a little edgy today.

I wrote back: Do I? Sorry, we’ve all got a lot going on and I’m a little frustrated today. Can’t stay ahead of the constant change sometimes and unclear of what we’re doing.

His answer was prompt. You and me both. No worries. We just like the ‘Mr. Upbeat, let’s make a better plan’ man. Sorry you’re edgy. We’ll get there.

I wrote back: Thanks, Brother. I’m good. I’ll get back to making better magic. I always do.

Do it, and be good. He wrote back.

Two hours later I hiked up a nearby hill for my cathartic morning workout listening to one of my favorite playlists. The R.E.M. song “Can’t Get There From Here” came on and added a few more lottery balls in my head:

(I’ve been there I know the way)
Can’t get there from here

I’ve been there, I know the way, but I do believe you can get there from anywhere, even here. Here and there both being my purpose, my vision, and my relentless pursuit of mindful presence and consistent personal leadership, to empower a better workplace.

The last part sounds like a hack product and/or service marketing message, but it’s true for me, with “workplace” being a broader metaphor for “being a better life,” and since work on many levels is a large part of life, why not make it better? I actually really believe it.

Our positive personal visions are what guide, compel and propel us. Combined, these collective building blocks can be formidable strongholds, leading to better families, communities, governments and businesses.

In the workplace, there are those storied business visions that have guided and propel and inspire, but today they seem to be few and far in between. Dr. Jesse Lyn Stoner, Founder of Seapoint Center for Collaborative Leadership and co-author with Ken Blanchard of the bestseller Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision, shared with us on the TalentCulture #TChat Show that her and Ken have interviewed thousands of people in organizations whose number one concern is lack of a shared vision.

Less than 10% of the organizations we’ve visited are led by managers who have a clear sense of where they are trying to lead people.

All right you. I’ve been there, I know the way.

According to Dr. Stoner, what’s important about vision is not only what it says, but how it’s created and how it’s lived. It’s a picture of a desirable future you intend to create that illuminates your underlying purpose and values.

And for a vision to be compelling and provide ongoing guidance, it must illuminate all three elements of a compelling (and propelling) vision:

  1. Purpose (or Mission)
  2. Values
  3. A Clear Picture of a Desirable Future

Developing sustainable business vision and strategy are difficult to execute. Most leaders default to actions steps and tactical plans and spend most of their time reacting to what needed addressing yesterday, even if they invest up front to create the vision.

For all of us moving at the mind-bending speeds today, caught in a continuous orbital loop where no one ever lands or strategically plans beyond today. Frustrated individual contributors and leaders alike must learn to break free from this heavy gravity for a desirable future, our collective futures.

Critics and cynics will say we’ll remain unhappy reactive tacticians and we’ll keep seeing the posts like “5 Reasons Your Boss Sucks” and “19 Ways Your Workplace Is Killing You,” for many of them, the self-fulfilling prophecy continues to ring true.

The workplace (and the world at large) remains a monster to many of us. Even for me – one day it’s riding on my shoulders like a playful child, and the next day it’s eating me up.

I don’t know if we need Chief Happiness Officers in the workplace, but we do need leaders around the globe who emulate the three elements above.

And that all starts with self. I know I’ll continue to be mindful of my guiding and compelling personal vision and values for a desirable future, to nurture positive can-do leadership with one realistic caveat about the monster: empowering a better workplace with leadership every other step of the way.

About the Author: Kevin W. Grossman co-founded and co-hosts the highly popular weekly TalentCulture #TChat Show with Meghan M. Biro. He’s also currently the Product Marketing Director for Total Talent Acquisition products at PeopleFluent.

photo credit: What’s eating you? via photopin (license)

 

Is Your Strategy A Compelling Story People Understand?

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Working alongside executive leadership teams at large companies, I find that one of the key opportunities for organizational growth and transformation is when leaders recognize the need to revisit, refresh or redefine the key building blocks that drive their business. When the CEO or CMO realizes it’s time to reinvigorate and reposition their brand it oftentimes highlights the need to refine or redefine their overall business strategy.

Oftentimes, there is a lack of understanding around some of the most important building blocks for change. And more often than not, there is a lack of agreement around what vision, mission and values actually mean, why they’re important and how to put them into action to drive growth.

If a team doesn’t have a clear and compelling reason to get out of bed each day, know where they’re heading, how they’re going to get there and understand the rules of the organization, they operate in a vacuum and are driving blindly. When teams realize they’re lost and doing things incorrectly, the organization usually starts to spin aimlessly until someone recognizes they need to ask for help.

For startups to successfully take off, a clear vision is key. The vision paints a succinct and competitive picture of why the brand exists. It helps illustrate how they see the future as a result of their influence on it, helping them raise money, attract talent and kick-start momentum.

As a fresh way to look at their business, leadership teams at large organizations need to think like passionate entrepreneurs. By revisiting and examining the reason their company exists and the role it plays in the world, they can reveal significant opportunities for dynamic change. It’s not about manufacturing a widget, selling a particular product or hitting a revenue target (although these are all imperative), but digging for a deeper, more meaningful reason the company exists in the world. Ensuring that each team member understands, and can clearly articulate their organization’s purpose, can unlock new momentum and help drive new focus. Brands are like people, and without purpose they can drift aimlessly.

Here are some questions to consider when refreshing and redefining your company’s brand platform and turning your strategy into a compelling story people understand.

Vision is a clear picture of the future. Do you have one? 

If your company’s vision isn’t clear, and if your team isn’t talking about the impact your brand is trying to make in the world, then it’s time to revisit it. The vision should be a clear statement that paints a picture of how you want to see the world changed based on your brand’s role in it. The vision should be big and bold. It should be a stretch, thought-provoking and inspiring. Map out the future and the role you’ve played in it thus far. A great example of a company doing this exceptionally well is FEED projects. Having a vision makes your brand’s “why” easy to define. People need a paycheck and a career path, but they also want to be a part of something bigger––have a clear vision and you will bring clarity to your brand.

Mission is how you intend to make your vision a reality. Are you on one?

A mission statement is not theoretical, but rather makes a factual declaration of your brand’s intent. Think about a mission statement much like a clearly articulated military mission. It’s definitive and directional––it maps and identifies what your brand plans to do, and how it will realize its vision.

Values are the beliefs and principles that guide your actions. Are yours clear?

Values are imperative––they are what the company believes in. They are fundamental beliefs that define the human-centered principles that guide the brand’s decision-making, debates and disagreements, and help define the character and integrity of the company. Hiring based on the company’s values is fundamental. When the values are universally understood, they help to shape the company’s authenticity and culture. If you or your team can’t remember your brand’s values or describe how to use them, then it’s time to re-examine and redefine them. Patagonia’s “Worn Wear” film is a great example of how a company’s values can create a powerful story people can connect to.

Strategy is how you get there. Have you written yours?

A well-crafted strategy is like the unfolding plot in a great story. It connects the characters, helps define their actions and compels the audience to pay attention and stay engaged. A compelling and clear strategy deliberately directs and guides the actions of your employees, ensuring they have clear focus and are directionally connected to the overall goals of the company. Strategy defines the actions that complete your brand’s mission.

Is your 3-year strategy clear?

A well-thought, data-driven strategy that is clearly defined and shared in a compelling manner creates confidence and connection among everyone responsible for driving the brand. Validating your existing strategy, or developing a new strategy based on the current or pending conditions of the business, is the responsibility of a responsive, diligent and adaptive leader. Strategy that is delivered like a compelling story helps achieve the brand mission and deliver meaningful results.

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How To Avoid The New-Idea Trap

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More technology. More suppliers. More products and services. More social media tools. More business tools.

New opportunities to improve our bottom-line performance are constantly “raining down” on us these days, making it a challenge to decide which to seriously consider and which to just let slide by.

Here are four skills that standout leaders use to successfully deal with the seemingly unlimited number of “potentially amazing” things that come their way.

1. They have a game plan for their business. Your game plan represents the CONTEXT for evaluating the new stuff that comes along. Think about your game plan as your touchstone from which you determine which new options you should consider. For example, a new digital technology will make sense to consider only if it is a better fit to achieve the revenue growth targets in your game plan than the technology you currently use.

2. They avoid “the chase” activity trap. It’s real easy to get caught up in running down every new thing that people present to you. And the chase never ends because there is ALWAYS something new being thrown at you. It’s not about what cool things the new stuff can do. It IS about how the new stuff fits your game plan and how it can better enable you to execute it. Let the dogs chase the cars. YOU thoughtfully sift through “the new” using your game plan as the criterion for applying your resources to evaluating new possibilities.

3. They set priorities for looking at “the new.” Remember, this evaluation activity will disrupt your focus on executing your game plan, so you have to be very careful not to waste precious time and effort. Pick no more than three “new” possibilities; rank them in order of positive potential impact and have a go at number one. And decide what you are going to give up if you take on something new. “Piling on” new work on top of existing work will drag you down and prevent you from achieving your goals.

4. They put the stop watch on new evaluations. If you don’t, evaluations could go on and on and on and on; “creeping incrementalism” in my words. And you may never make a decision as a result. The objective is to BE QUICK in your assessments, so you can then move on to the integration and execution phase. I have seen people on “the chase” with NO stop watch that NEVER returned to their game plan. They disappeared in “the new” analysis do-loop and never got out of it.

New stuff is potentially dangerous. It can take your eye of the ball. It can distract you from execution. And it can gobble up your precious resources of time and money.

Be disciplined in how you handle it.

You don’t have to chase everything that comes your way like many do.

It’s ok to pass up new sexy stuff that isn’t a fit for you.

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How To Create A Competitive Claim That Is More Than Hot Air

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Most companies struggle with defining what makes them unique; different from their competitors. They can’t answer the question “Why should I do business with you and NOT your competition?” in a succinct meaningful way.

There are two traps they fall into.

First, they generally speak to the internal capabilities an organization has (what leadership believes are the differentiators) rather than being explicit about how they compare to others in the market. “We provide the highest quality products.”; “Our people are our greatest asset.” They stress technology. They talk about their size and claim market leadership.

Second, most competitive advantage statements are high level and aspirational in nature. They are not precise and specific enough to communicate how an organization is special among the choices available. “We provide the best value.” “We have been in business for 100 years.” “We offer the lowest prices out there.”

The use of helium filled adjectives often abound. Overused and eye-glazing descriptors like: better, best, top, #1, excellent, great, greatest, lowest, most and so on pervade the advertising airwaves.

A competitive claim must declare the difference between your organization and your competitors AND it must be precise enough so that people can “see” the difference. You can’t see “greatest” for example and you can’t see “most”. They mean different things to different people.

As the solution, create The ONLY Statement as an element of the Strategic Game Plan

“We are the ONLY ones that…” is its form.

ONLY must be brief. If it takes you a page of narrative to define your competitive advantage, you don’t have one.

ONLY never includes the “P” word. Claiming a price advantage is a slippery slope as price can be easily copied and it says nothing about value provided. “The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about. “ – Seth Godin

A couple of ONLY examples:

“We provide the ONLY solution that permanently stops people from depositing biohazard contaminants through manhole covers”— MUG Solutions, Vancouver

“St John Ambulance is the ONLY provider of First Aid, Health & Safety Solutions Anytime, Anywhere”— St John Ambulance, Vancouver

Test ONLY with your customers to ensure it addresses something they care about, and you consistently demonstrate 24/7. The ONLY Statement works. It can be observed. It can be measured. People get it.

Start your ONLY journey today….

(About the Author:  Roy Osing (@RoyOsing) is a former executive vice-president and CMO with over 33 years of leadership experience. He is a blogger, educator, coach, adviser and the author of the book series Be Different or Be Dead.)

To discuss World of Work topics like this with the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat Events each Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome at events, or join our ongoing Twitter and G+ conversation anytime. Learn more…

TalentCulture World of Work was created for HR professionals, leadership executives, and the global workforce. Our community delves into subjects like HR technology, leadership, employee engagement, and corporate culture everyday. To get more World of Work goodness, please sign up for our newsletter, listen to our #TChat Radio Channel or sign up for our RSS feed.

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Growth From Within: 7 Ways to Compete on Employee Talent

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Does your business compete primarily on product and price?

That kind of old-school strategy may win you customers in the near term. However, competing on price or product is really just a race to the bottom.

Along the way, you’ll miss the broader opportunity — the chance to win a sustainable position of market strength.

Rethinking Business Strategy

Competing on price and product is finite. Eventually, either or both will stop yielding the desired business results. Then what can an organization do to kick-start momentum? There are several choices: 1) Retire the product, and replace it with a new one, or 2) Develop a new pricing strategy.

Either option can breathe new life into sales, right? Sure, but only for a limited time. Price and product can be duplicated or replicated. But there’s a source of competitive advantage that is nearly impossible to duplicate or replicate — and that is your workforce.

The Human Element

Does your organization compete by tapping into your people’s infinite, unique potential — their talents, skills, knowledge, experience, energy and creativity?

Access to any of these is boundless. These inherent strengths can be directed toward developing the next great product your customers need, or that pricing strategy that paves the way to increased market share. For example, think of Southwest and its refusal to charge customers for flying with luggage. Southwest was expected to earn over $200 million from baggage fees. Instead, the airline earned over $1 billion by choosing not to charge.

In the 21st century, people are celebrated as the cause for success that catapults organizations to the top. So, what does an organization do to shift its focus to compete on employee talent? Here are seven people-centric ways that signal organizational commitment that puts people first.

1) Identify how employees set your company apart

Spend time understanding how your employees’ skills, experiences, strengths can help advance your strategy. Focus on how they differentiate you from competitors. You should be able to answer this question with confidence: “How does our work environment let our employees’ talents thrive and grow?”

2) Invest in true workforce development

Don’t just send employees to compliance training. Involve them in training that elevates their skills and knowledge. At its best, workforce development makes it possible for employees to learn on-the-job skills that are crucial for their growth, and helps them contribute more effectively to your organization’s goals.

3) Adopt a customer-centric strategy

Look to build and deepen relationship with customers by transforming products, services and the customer experience. Align your employees to create solutions in each of these three areas. This work is meaningful: it helps employees see how their work ties to the bigger picture. Plus employees want to “be in” on important work.

4) Align your reward mechanisms

Are your reward programs considered irrelevant or worse? Employees should be recognized in ways that are meaningful to them. Rewards must be appropriate and timely. It’s important to motivate people with a mix of regular quick-wins and long-term incentives.

5) Modernize how and where work gets done

Mobile technology and remote work policies can transform how and where your employees get work done. They want the responsibility and flexibility to choose. It’s time to begin trusting your employees to be accountable for when, where and how they contribute. Mobile is not going away.

6) Reevaluate workload

Is there a healthy tension between employee workload and time to get it done? If expectations don’t support optimal performance, then your environment is likely creating distress. Excessive stress leads to anxiety, as people begin to feel undervalued and question their well-being. That’s the start of a long downward slide to disengagement and attrition.

7) Invest in learning employees strengths

Strengths-based leadership is about understanding the kind of work that energizes employees and leads them to perform at their peak. Just as your business must adjust to external factors, it is essential to reshuffle employee responsibilities on an ongoing basis. The more time employees spend in the zone of peak performance, the more likely you’ll see creative contributions from their efforts — and the more meaning you’ll bring to your organization’s value proposition.

Today’s topsy-turvy marketplace sometimes scares executives into behaving like cash-hoarders. But organizations that compete on employee talent position themselves to outwit, outplay, and outlast their competition.

What ideas would you add to this list? Please add your comments.

(Editor’s Note: This post is republished from SwitchandShift, with permission)

(Also Note: To discuss World of Work topics like this with the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat Events each Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome at events, or join our ongoing Twitter and G+ conversation anytime. Learn more…)

Image Credit: Pixabay

Intrapreneurs: Creating Value From Within #TChat Recap

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How can a culture of intrapreneurship help companies retain top talent, while serving customers more effectively? That was the focus of our community conversation at last week’s #TChat forums. We understand that the concept of intrapreneurship is new to some of our participants. So, let’s first look at its history and meaning, before we summarize the week’s events.

Innovation With Infrastructure

The term “intrapreneur” first appeared in a 1978 article written by organizational design experts, Gifford & Elizabeth Pinchot. A recent FastCompany article defines intrapreneurs as people who work within existing organizations to accelerate change, while simultaneously creating business value.

In another FastCompany article, Hilton Worldwide VP Jennifer Silberman takes a more expansive view, noting that intrapreneurs are integral to corporate responsibility initiatives. She says, “the intrapreneurial mindset helps drive innovation and uncover opportunities within the challenges of operating in a changing world.”

David Armano, EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman, describes intrapreneurs as people who have entrepreneurial DNA, but choose to align their talents with a large organization, rather than creating one from scratch. Of course, successful intrapreneurs are valuable employees, because they’re a source of sustainable competitive advantage.

More and more companies are leveraging intraprenuerial talent by establishing initiatives and cross-functional teams to design and launch new products, services and systems. Project leads are given autonomy and resources to generate and develop concepts. In return, they “own” their endeavor’s success or failure.

According to Douglas Brown of Post University, an intrapreneurial role can lead to greater job satisfaction, because individuals are able to perform in a leadership capacity, exercise creativity, build credibility, and make a meaningful impact on the business — all within a reasonably safe environment.

Fueling The Intrapreneurial Fire

GoGiver

Learn more about The Go-Giver

So, how can organizations nurture an intrapreneurial spirit in employees? And how can each of us tap into our “inner entrepreneur” to create business value?

Helping us explore those questions was the week’s special guest, business author and commentator, Bob Burg. Bob is widely recognized for his ability to bring complex concepts to life in ways that are entertaining and easy to understand. In this case, Bob asked us to consider behaviors that distinguish “go-getters,” “go-takers” and “go-givers.”

Go-getters are people who take action. Go-takers also take action, but feel entitled to receive without offering value in return. Meanwhile, go-givers focus on actions that continuously add value to others’ lives. Bob’s book, “The Go-Giver” outlines 5 powerful principles that contribute to success:

• The Law of Value – Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment
• The Law of Compensation – Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them
• The Law of Influence – Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first
• The Law of Authenticity – The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself
• The Law of Receptivity – The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving

This lighthearted video reveals more about the 5 “Go-Giver” laws:

Celebrating “Go-Giver” Intrapreneurs

In a recent Huffington Post article, Wharton professor Adam Grant emphasized the importance of Recognizing Go-Givers. This is just one way companies could build a culture that supports creative contributions. Our #TChat Twitter participants offered hundreds of other suggestions. (For highlights from the conversation, see the Storify slideshow below.)

Thanks to everyone in the TalentCulture community who shared opinions and ideas at this week’s #TChat events. We invite you to review the resources below, and continue this discussion about innovation from within!

#TChat Week-In-Review: Entrepreneurs In Your Organization

SAT 8/24:

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Watch the #TChat “sneak peek” video now

#TChat Preview: TalentCulture Community Manager Tim McDonald the framed the week’s topics in a preview post, featuring a “sneak peek” video with guest Bob Burg. Read: “Corporate Entrepreneurs: Best Of Both Worlds?”

SUN 8/25:

Forbes.com Post: TalentCulture CEO, Meghan M. Biro challenged business leaders to rethink the ways they engage with their most creative employees. Read: “5 Ways To Unleash The Power Of Your People.”

MON 8/26:

Related Post: Hans Balmaekers, Founder of intrapreneurial incubator sa.am, offered relevant advice to young professionals who are looking for entrepreneurial opportunities. Read: “Want To Be Your Own Boss? Try This First.”

WED 8/28:

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Listen to the #TChat Radio show now

#TChat Radio: In a thought-provoking warm-up to our community Twitter conversation, Bob Burg spoke with radio hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman about how intrapreneurs fit in today’s workplace, and how organizations can create an environment that supports those endeavors. Listen now to the radio show recording.

#TChat Twitter: Immediately following the radio show, I moderated an open discussion with Bob and our entire community on the #TChat Twitter stream. For highlights from this dynamic session, watch the Storify slideshow below:

#TChat Highlights: Entrepreneurs In Your Organization

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Closing Notes & What’s Ahead

GRATITUDE: Thanks again to Bob Burg for generously sharing your expertise about the importance of creating value in business and in life. Your practical wisdom is deeply relevant and helpful to all of us.

NOTE TO BLOGGERS: Did last week’s events prompt you to write about intrapreneurial values, behaviors and success? We’d love to share your thoughts. Post a link on Twitter (include #TChat or @TalentCulture), or insert a comment below, and we’ll pass it along.

WHAT’S AHEAD: This week, we leap into a jam-packed fall season for #TChat events, starting with the topic, “Recruiting IS Marketing” with David Bernstein and Chris Fields, It’s one week you don’t want to miss! So plan to join us, and check for more details here and on TalentCulture channels.

In the meantime, the World of Work conversation continues — even on Labor Day! So join us on the #TChat Twitter stream, on our LinkedIn discussion group. or elsewhere on social media. The lights are always on here at TalentCulture, and your ideas and opinions are always welcome.

See you on the stream!

Image Credit: Stock.xchng

Corporate Entrepreneurs: Best Of Both Worlds? #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Want to see full highlights from this week’s events, including resource links? Read the #TChat Recap: “Intrepreneurs: Creating Value From Within.”)

Earlier this month, we kick-started a community conversation with Marcia Conner about ingenuity in our personal and professional lives — looking at how each of us can benefit by channeling our inner “McGyver.” More recently, we drilled down on the concept of disruptive innovation — how radically new ideas and technologies continue to create new business opportunities.

This week, we invite you to help us connect those two dots, as we explore what’s possible when organizations actively nurture an entrepreneurial culture. So-called “intrapreneurship” isn’t a novel idea. However, at a time when employee engagement seems stuck at low ebb, a dedicated effort to drive internal innovation can help retain top talent, and simultaneously create a competitive edge. But how?

To lead this conversation, we’re excited to welcome one of my favorite business authors and commentators, Bob Burg. Bob writes extensively and speaks enthusiastically about what it takes for organizations and individuals to leverage their strengths in today’s world of work.

For a glimpse of Bob’s view of intrapreneurship, watch this brief #TChat sneak-peek Hangout:

This week’s #TChat forums promise to be dynamic and informative. So bring your best ideas, questions and concerns — and let’s continue the conversation!

#TChat Events: Entrepreneurs Inside Your Organization

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Tune-in to the #TChat Radio show

#TChat Radio — Wed, Aug 28 at 6:30pmET / 3:30pmPT

Bob joins our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman to talk about how intrapreneurs fit in today’s workplace, and how organizations can create an environment that supports those endeavors. Listen LIVE and dial-in with your questions and feedback!

#TChat Twitter — Wed, Aug 28 at 7pmET / 4pmPT

Immediately following the radio show, Bob will join us on the #TChat Twitter stream, where Dr. Nancy Rubin will moderate an open discussion with the entire TalentCulture community. Anyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we address these questions:

Q1: How can entrepreneurs find happiness in a corporate workplace culture?
Q2: What’s the difference between a “go-getter” and a “go-giver”?
Q3: How do companies attract, hire and retain “intrapreneurs”?
Q4: What can business leaders and HR gain from being intrapraneurs?
Q5: What technologies today enable intrapraneurship, and how?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep this discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!

Tech Disruption: Too Much Of A Good Thing? #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Are you looking for a full review of week’s events, including resource links? See the #TChat Recap “Quantum Change: Embracing Innovation.”)

Innovation at the speed of business.

That sounds like a tagline for countless high-tech vendors, doesn’t it?

Once upon a time, it was a strategic call-to-action for organizations seeking competitive advantage in the digital age. But what does this catchphrase imply today, for a global workplace that’s more turbo-charged than ever?

Ready Or Not — Here Comes More Change

For better or worse, disruption has become part of our lives. Technology is advancing at a feverish pace, and a new wave of digitally-savvy workers is entering the workforce in droves. Yet at the same time, employee engagement seems to remain stuck almost in neutral. This apparent disconnect raises nagging questions about how effectively innovation really drives individual and business performance.

We Have Seen the Future, And It Is Us

Most of us agree that tools, alone, have little value. It’s what we do with them that matters. So, in a world where technology is continually disrupting our organizational workflows, what lies ahead, and how can we prepare more effectively? As the rate of innovation accelerates, can adoption actually keep pace? How can we stay ahead of the learning curve? Why does it matter? And what are the human consequences — good, bad, and indifferent?

These are big questions with serious business implications. That’s why we’ve asked a workplace innovation expert to be our guest at #TChat forums this week. Jim Lundy, founder and CEO of Aragon Research has been at the forefront of enterprise collaboration and learning technology for almost 30 years — both in product marketing and sales executive roles at vendors like Saba Software and Xerox — and as an industry analyst at Gartner and now Aragon.

#TChat Events: Fusing Technology Disruption And Adoption

This week’s conversation promises to offer a fascinating peek at what’s ahead — and why that matters for all of us in the world of work. So join us as our “Summer Restart” series looks at why and how technology disruption and adoption are essential companions in business transformation. Bring your questions, concerns and ideas, and let’s talk!

#TChat Radio — Wed, Aug 14 at 6:30pmET / 3:30pmPT

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Tune-in to the #TChat Radio show

Jim Lundy joins our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman to talk about the most disruptive technologies on the horizon, and their potential impact on organizations. Listen live and dial-in with your questions and feedback!

#TChat Twitter — Wed, Aug 14 at 7pmET / 4pmPT

Immediately following the radio show, Jim follows us to the #TChat Twitter stream, as we open the discussion to the entire TalentCulture community. Anyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we explore these questions:

Q1: What are the top disruptive HR technologies today and why?
Q2: How can the enterprise leverage innovation for positive workplace outcomes?
Q3: Why disruption? Can’t we just improve the process/tech status quo?
Q4: What can leaders do to encourage employee engagement via disruption?
Q5: Has innovation flattened today’s world of work for the better?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our new LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.

We’ll see you on the stream!

Image Credit: CBS Television

When HR is About the Biz and Embraced by It: #TChat Recap

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When HR is truly about the business, embraced by the business, then they should manage all of people management, from beginning to end.

And it’s getting there for many HR executives. Yet still for others, not so much. No matter the title you give Human Resources, those “business partners” I know in the space are the ones who manage the internal talent economy.

That doesn’t mean that the HR executive does the day to day tactical of recruiting, training, reviewing and all the minutia of compliance and administrative tasks. However, to all my recruiter friends out there, no need to throw rocks; I’m not discounting recruiting to basic tactical work. But I am saying that whether you call it VP of HR, VP of Talent, Chief Human Resource Officer, Chief Talent Officer, Chief People Officer, you name it, and you work for a company of any significant size, usually over 2,500 employees, you more than likely have a specialized team working for you.

Again, when HR is truly about the business, embraced by the business, then they should manage all of people management, from beginning to end.

But as I’ve written before, if someone says “seat at the table” one more time, I’m gonna blow (and many others along with me). I’ve talked with many HR practitioners of late who are part of their company’s executive business strategy, but unfortunately the dissing “buzz” of disservice continues. The good news is that smart CEOs who want growth have strong talent management, which means they have smart people management who understand the business, what drives growth and how to keep the workforce in order to get there.

And what better way to check on the business of HR than to take the shuttle bus at SHRM 2011. On one such ride I struck up a conversation with the nice woman next to me and find out she’s VP of personnel and talent acquisition at a large company in the Midwest back from the brink of death (and yes, she used the word personnel — add that to the VP list above).

So I start asking her questions, and she tells me things like:

  • We have no mainstream HR or talent management software deployed. Our systems are home grown, tedious and temperamental. But, we have no plans to dump them any time soon because we’re just getting our life back. (But that will be on the priority list soon…)
  • We still had net employee losses last year, but this year we plan on hiring a few thousand before the end of 2011.
  • We’re in the midst of developing a broader scope succession plan that includes not only upper management but middle management and line managers as well.
  • We’re going to be cross-training management across lines of business, including those of us in personnel and HR.
  • We’re in the midst of developing a social media strategy that includes establishing employee guidelines (meaning loose ones — we want folks to participate now), employment branding, recruiting, marketing, you name it. That’s a far cry from the traditionally conservative world we’ve been living in for a long time.
  • In fact, when I came across Glassdoor.com for the first time recently I was horrified of what I saw written about us and other companies. It’s time to participate in the conversation and rebuild our brand.

Human resources and workforce management is maturing and businesses along with it. The above example is just one of many stories I’ve heard recently. Remember, we may still be on the front end of “the business of HR” mainstream, but the next 5-10 years I believe will be amazing.

You can read the #TChat preview here and here are the questions from this the big #SHRM11 #TChat:

  • Q1: What does HR do? Is that different from what they’re supposed to do?
  • Q2: Why should HR be responsible for all talent management and recruiting? Why not?
  • Q3: What are the common misperceptions other departments have about HR and why?
  • Q4: What’s HR getting right in today’s world of work and business?
  • Q5: HR pros: What can employees do differently to better partner with HR?
  • Q6: What does the future of HR look like? Does it have one?

A very special thank you @mattcharney @Monster_WORKS and @MonsterWW for all you did at #SHRM11 for #TChat. We do appreciate it!

Happy 4th of July everyone! We’ll be back on July 12 with an all new #TChat — Employer branding, Talent Acquisition and Company Culture.

And don’t forget — #TChat Radio starts on July 26! Details soon…

Some of My Best Friends are in HR, Back Off: #TChat Recap

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It’s as if HR became a simultaneous cliche and pariah that’s at least earned a seat at the kiddie table. Like geeks that keep stuff glued together and in working order so the company doesn’t get sued or lose too many good employees or has to lose employees the right way because of a downsizing.

But hey, those are my friends you’re talking about, those fine people in human resources and talent management, so back off.

About 150 of them will be gathered in Atlanta for HRevolution — the progressive people management event for human resources professionals, recruiters, and business leaders to come together and talk about the problems facing businesses today.

“This is where thought leadership and action meet. The format for HRevolution encourages interaction and every participant has the opportunity share ideas and opinions in an open manner.”

I can’t wait to go!

But if someone says “seat at the table” one more time, I’m gonna blow. I’ve talked with many HR practitioners of late who are part of their company’s executive business strategy, but unfortunately the dissing “buzz” of disservice continues. The good news is that smart CEOs who want growth have strong talent management, which means they have smart people management who understand the business, what drives growth and how to keep the workforce in order to get there.

Hey, maintaining and retaining the workforce in a complex global business world ain’t easy, but it’s being done. We’re also still on the front end of mainstream with technology, but exciting consumer-focused collaborative software abounds for HR/recruiting — and is getting better. This includes all things social, mobile, collaborative, cloud computing and analytics all baked into HR technology for the way we work today and the way we maintain the workforce. The drive to better manage across all lines of business is critical. Vacuum management silos will atrophy the business unless they’re collaborative and interconnected.

Human resources and workforce management is maturing and businesses along with it. Remember, front end of mainstream, but the next 5-10 years I believe will be amazing.

As Matt Charney so eloquently wrote in the #TChat pre-cap:

“While HR professionals are rarely understood, the truth of the matter is, they’re also not fully appreciated for doing the mission critical work they do.  It’s not an easy job, but it’s an important one, and one that touches the lives of every employee, every day. That goes for you, too.”

And you, and you, and you…

A seat at the table is poop (Thank you, Kimberly Roden). Now, get back to work. See some of you at #HRevolution this weekend.

Here were last night’s #TChat questions:

  • Q1: Employees: What does HR need to do differently to be an effective people manager and business partner?
  • Q2: HR Pros: What can employees do differently to be a better business partner and collaborator with HR?
  • Q3: Is HR finally seen as a strategic executive partner in business today?  Why or why not?
  • Q4: In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing HR today?  How can it be overcome?
  • Q5: How is technology today improving the HR and talent acquisition functions?
  • Q6: Is education and intellect enough to be a great people manager? What about emotional intelligence?
  • Q7: What’s your biggest HR pet peeve? What about your biggest HR thrill?

Thank you again everyone for joining us!