Brent was a successful senior executive working for a large manufacturing company. He was the person that you wanted to have when things did not go well. Everybody loved him for his enthusiasm, never-ending motivation and his vision of taking the organization to the next level. About one year after this bright star was brought in and produced so well he started getting frustrated due to the fact that his boss was not spending any time to groom him and was not receiving any recognition or bonuses for the work he was doing. When he accepted an offer at another firm nobody could believe it. His boss did not understand his reasons, his team was disappointed, and his peers simply didn’t get it. Brent never told anyone what he was going through. But everyone knew he was a top performer who everyone expected to run the company one day soon.
It is a difficult event for an organization when a star employee leaves, ripping a hole in the organization. Most managers are aware of the 80-20 rule that states that “80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people.” Whether this is fact or fiction, few managers would disagree that the bulk of the work is done by a few key staff.
Ask a manager where they spend the bulk of their time, and most will say that it is spent with underperformers in an attempt to raise the overall level of the team. Most people don’t spend a lot of time trying to identify their best producers.
I came across an article recently from World at Work that reported an alarming 47% of high performing employees are actively looking for another job. In many cases stars are only identified long after they have left.
Star Performers Are:
· Known within the team, but may not be known to management
· Not clock watchers starting to pack their bag at 4:58.
· Usually approached when something important needs to be done
· Stars don't think of networking as something to do with other people. For stars, it's a constant. Nothing is a complete waste of time because you can always meet someone, talk to someone, or help someone. That last piece is important – stars know that networking is as much giving as taking. And there is an inherent humility in this way of life; stars know they can't get what they want by acting alone.
· Stars exceed expectations. Just doing your job is not enough. Stars do their own job well and then perform well in areas that exceed the job description. Generally star initiative includes helping people, taking risks and seeing a project through to the end – all in arenas that go beyond their job duties
Star performers are usually not the ones flapping around and spending time each day telling others how busy they are. They may be easy to spot in areas such as sales, because it is a numbers game.
Not only are star performers a dumping ground for additional work and some say they are often a victim of their own success.
What Drives Star Performers Away?
• Lack of recognition or feedback with respect to performance
• Internal promotions that are not based on performance
• Others taking credit for their work
It does not matter what profession you are in, the following is a formula to use to identify your star performers.
1. Look at the people in your organization, and then inventory their skills.
2. Compare those skills to what’s hot in the open job market.
3. Compile a list of people that have extremely valuable skills.
High performers are usually people who need a different form of motivation in order to stay passionate about their jobs. Stars thrive on executing results. Seldom do they sit down and reflect on the things that “just happen.”
Most of us can divide the people in our organizations into three categories: Star performers, moderate performers and substandard performers. Suppose you have 100 employees. In a typical work force, that would probably mean 15 star performers, 83 moderate performers and two substandard performers. . A study of computer programmers at Bell Laboratories showed that the star performers outperformed moderate performers by a margin of 8-1.
Retain Your Star Performers
· Work with star performers to set realistic performance targets.
· Give them more of your time than underperformers. Meet with them on a weekly basis for an informal catch-up. They are the backbone of your company, so why spend all your time with staff that are not producing the results?
· They want to be in the limelight. They want to make decisions. They want to shine. Be sure to create an environment where they can do just that.
One of the best ways to get what you want is to be an extraordinary performer at work. The interesting thing about star performance at work is that it actually demands that you be the person you want to be anyway. Being a good person, seeking self-knowledge, and taking responsibility for where you're going are probably key pieces of your core belief system. So you truly do not need to stray from your idea of a good life in order to be wildly successful in your career.
For a 30 minute complimentary session to see how we can help you for the leadership skills you may be seeking, please contact us at 602-405-2540, or email nburgis@successful-solutions.com
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Leadership Action to Move Forward
Leadership is not something you “do”…it is a quality of who you “are”
What are you willing to take action on, whether you feel like it or not, in order to help you drop the old way and empower the new way? One of the prime differences between leaders and followers is that leaders go out and make something happen, while followers wait for something to happen. In fact, there are three kinds of people in business. See which you most resemble:
1. Those who make things happen.
2. Those who wait for something to happen.
3. Those who wonder, “What happened?”
While leaders have numerous qualities, the following helps you start to move forward as a leader.
Leaders Focus on Strengths
Besides assessing and identifying your own strengths, as a leader you need to focus on the strengths of your employees and of the organization. Leaders know that by focusing on and developing strengths, they gain momentum and can become exceptional in an area(s). Leaders focus on strengths because they know it takes more time and energy to go from miserable to mediocre than it does to go from good to great and great people make an organization great and great people and organizations make things happen!
Leaders Set the Tone and Climate for their Workplace Each Day
Effective leaders are the ones who make the work environment a place in which employees: (a) want to show up for work and (b) want to follow the leaders.
Leading by example is the best way many employees view of their top company execs are doing and especially of how they feel about the company they lead. Many employees like to wait and see how their leaders handle various types of situations before believing they are doing well for the company. Other employees go along with the flow and perceive their leaders at the moment of what they say and how they present to employees their vision, expectations, etc.
Be Forward Looking
The whole point of leadership is figuring out where to go from where you are now. For leaders to be able to look ahead in the present context means that they need to be able and willing to stay informed continuously about developments.
Leaders are charged with taking organizations forward, and rely on information systems to see what’s coming ahead.
Forward looking leaders need to know when to take a few steps back to see what is in front of them and how to solve the challenge(s) they face. Some leaders know that it is hard to see the bigger picture when you're inside the frame. That's why they regularly step back to see themselves, their team, or their organization through the eyes of others.
Optimism
There are some who are naturally pessimistic, while others are naturally optimistic. Successful leaders are part of the second group. They know that they cannot control every eventuality but they can control how they respond. They focus on solutions, not problems. Optimistic leadership help you not just look for the positives, but gives you energy that inspires others.
Sometimes leaders need to look at things from an open perspective. “The mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work unless it’s open.” -Unknown Author
Be Decisive
A leader who does not make decisions, who waffles, gets his management team into a position of standing still — ‘If s/he’s not going to make a decision, I’m not going to make a decision because I don’t want to go out on a limb.’
When you start getting that groupthink of, ‘Inaction is what he or she wants,’ then you develop a company that is focused on inaction. Then you have your customer facing managers who need something to happen and confused about what corporate is doing. Then the frustration starts to build, customers start to feel it, and your business starts to go sideways.
Leaders Plan for Success
In planning for success, leaders encourage their employees to take risks, and look for breakthroughs by empowering employees to complete tasks/projects/assignments by using their thinking skills. Asking questions to get people to think more critically helps them solve challenges and helps them improve their self-confidence.
It is now time to take action.
"We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals." - Gen William T. Sherman
For a 30 minute complimentary session to see how we can help you, please contact us at 602-405-2540, or email nburgis@successful-solutions.com
What are you willing to take action on, whether you feel like it or not, in order to help you drop the old way and empower the new way? One of the prime differences between leaders and followers is that leaders go out and make something happen, while followers wait for something to happen. In fact, there are three kinds of people in business. See which you most resemble:
1. Those who make things happen.
2. Those who wait for something to happen.
3. Those who wonder, “What happened?”
While leaders have numerous qualities, the following helps you start to move forward as a leader.
Leaders Focus on Strengths
Besides assessing and identifying your own strengths, as a leader you need to focus on the strengths of your employees and of the organization. Leaders know that by focusing on and developing strengths, they gain momentum and can become exceptional in an area(s). Leaders focus on strengths because they know it takes more time and energy to go from miserable to mediocre than it does to go from good to great and great people make an organization great and great people and organizations make things happen!
Leaders Set the Tone and Climate for their Workplace Each Day
Effective leaders are the ones who make the work environment a place in which employees: (a) want to show up for work and (b) want to follow the leaders.
Leading by example is the best way many employees view of their top company execs are doing and especially of how they feel about the company they lead. Many employees like to wait and see how their leaders handle various types of situations before believing they are doing well for the company. Other employees go along with the flow and perceive their leaders at the moment of what they say and how they present to employees their vision, expectations, etc.
Be Forward Looking
The whole point of leadership is figuring out where to go from where you are now. For leaders to be able to look ahead in the present context means that they need to be able and willing to stay informed continuously about developments.
Leaders are charged with taking organizations forward, and rely on information systems to see what’s coming ahead.
Forward looking leaders need to know when to take a few steps back to see what is in front of them and how to solve the challenge(s) they face. Some leaders know that it is hard to see the bigger picture when you're inside the frame. That's why they regularly step back to see themselves, their team, or their organization through the eyes of others.
Optimism
There are some who are naturally pessimistic, while others are naturally optimistic. Successful leaders are part of the second group. They know that they cannot control every eventuality but they can control how they respond. They focus on solutions, not problems. Optimistic leadership help you not just look for the positives, but gives you energy that inspires others.
Sometimes leaders need to look at things from an open perspective. “The mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work unless it’s open.” -Unknown Author
Be Decisive
A leader who does not make decisions, who waffles, gets his management team into a position of standing still — ‘If s/he’s not going to make a decision, I’m not going to make a decision because I don’t want to go out on a limb.’
When you start getting that groupthink of, ‘Inaction is what he or she wants,’ then you develop a company that is focused on inaction. Then you have your customer facing managers who need something to happen and confused about what corporate is doing. Then the frustration starts to build, customers start to feel it, and your business starts to go sideways.
Leaders Plan for Success
In planning for success, leaders encourage their employees to take risks, and look for breakthroughs by empowering employees to complete tasks/projects/assignments by using their thinking skills. Asking questions to get people to think more critically helps them solve challenges and helps them improve their self-confidence.
It is now time to take action.
"We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals." - Gen William T. Sherman
For a 30 minute complimentary session to see how we can help you, please contact us at 602-405-2540, or email nburgis@successful-solutions.com
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Looking Down from the Balcony to Lead on the Dance Floor
So much has changed in the past few years. The best ways of running a sustainable business has also changed. Successfully managing change will be your competitive advantage. Every bookstore or library shelf has an abundant number of leadership from the theoretical to the practical and everything in between. Find a book on leadership shifting gears slightly about how to lead from a different perspective. This will help you immensely especially if you are thinking about moving your organization to be more efficient and effective, but not know where or how to start.
While not everyone is cut out to be a leader, not everyone can or wants to be a follower all the time, also. It is often the mix of the smartest, most effective and efficient way to build and sustain your business, team and productivity. Orchestrating your leadership and how your employees go about completing their day work, may need some
Leaders need to identify if a change they are introducing requires primarily technical expertise, or represents a deeper, adaptive challenge. The key to success is to correctly identify which type of challenge leaders are facing and then proceed to orchestrate the change based on whether the type of change they are facing is a technical or an adaptive challenge.
Ron Heifetz, professor at Harvard University and author of Leadership Without Easy Answers (1998), makes the point that leaders periodically need to get off the dance floor and get up on the balcony. By doing so, you can see the patterns and the flow of your employees working better than when they are right in front of you.
Heifetz believes that leaders need to regularly “get up in the balcony” and get a different perspective of everything that is going on. You also can see who is dancing well and who is struggling.
In their book, “Leadership on the Line”, authors Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky offer a practical solution of “getting off the dance floor (daily operations) and up in the balcony.
When growing or leading your business, it is important to regularly make the time to consider where you want to be and what is changing around you rather than always being bogged down in (with) the details. Applying the “getting off the dance floor” metaphor, spending less time dancing and more time looking down from the balcony at the dancers to assess whether there is better way to do things. On the Dance Floor, you can find yourself in action, consumed in the day to day running of your business. On the “Balcony”, you can take a step back from the details and take a clearer, more strategic view of what is going on in your business. Spending regular time in the Balcony is important for you to see what you need to do in order to grow or lead your business.
Return to the dance if you want to affect what is happening. Staying on the balcony for short periods of time to give you a different perspective is great.
Position your people to be able to provide feedback, opinions and suggestions without fear of intimidation or being ignored. Provide regular opportunities to hear what they are thinking, feeling, and how they respond to current trends and issues affecting their work.
Many leaders modify their behaviors according to their responses from their employees. A masterful leader understands that their leadership is a work in progress and that their ability to manage and lead depends on many factors and situations. Continuous monitoring and confirming with observations and feelings of others is a good barometer for leaders.
Leaders that develop and practice emotional intelligence seek feedback when it comes to behaviors and attitudes may find they actually get it if they are responsive to improvement(s).
The notion that leadership means “I know where we are going just follow me”; or “I’ll bring in the best experts and then follow me” is clearly inappropriate to adaptive contexts and puts enormous pressure on people in authority to fake it and provide quick technical fixes that tend to avoid the more significant questions.
Taking a balcony perspective is difficult especially when you have been leading from down below. When you break away, step back and you will see the big picture. Sometimes it is complicated by several factors.
For a 30 minute complimentary session to see how we can help you, please contact us at 602-405-2540, or email nburgis@successful-solutions.com.
While not everyone is cut out to be a leader, not everyone can or wants to be a follower all the time, also. It is often the mix of the smartest, most effective and efficient way to build and sustain your business, team and productivity. Orchestrating your leadership and how your employees go about completing their day work, may need some
Leaders need to identify if a change they are introducing requires primarily technical expertise, or represents a deeper, adaptive challenge. The key to success is to correctly identify which type of challenge leaders are facing and then proceed to orchestrate the change based on whether the type of change they are facing is a technical or an adaptive challenge.
Ron Heifetz, professor at Harvard University and author of Leadership Without Easy Answers (1998), makes the point that leaders periodically need to get off the dance floor and get up on the balcony. By doing so, you can see the patterns and the flow of your employees working better than when they are right in front of you.
Heifetz believes that leaders need to regularly “get up in the balcony” and get a different perspective of everything that is going on. You also can see who is dancing well and who is struggling.
In their book, “Leadership on the Line”, authors Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky offer a practical solution of “getting off the dance floor (daily operations) and up in the balcony.
When growing or leading your business, it is important to regularly make the time to consider where you want to be and what is changing around you rather than always being bogged down in (with) the details. Applying the “getting off the dance floor” metaphor, spending less time dancing and more time looking down from the balcony at the dancers to assess whether there is better way to do things. On the Dance Floor, you can find yourself in action, consumed in the day to day running of your business. On the “Balcony”, you can take a step back from the details and take a clearer, more strategic view of what is going on in your business. Spending regular time in the Balcony is important for you to see what you need to do in order to grow or lead your business.
Return to the dance if you want to affect what is happening. Staying on the balcony for short periods of time to give you a different perspective is great.
Position your people to be able to provide feedback, opinions and suggestions without fear of intimidation or being ignored. Provide regular opportunities to hear what they are thinking, feeling, and how they respond to current trends and issues affecting their work.
Many leaders modify their behaviors according to their responses from their employees. A masterful leader understands that their leadership is a work in progress and that their ability to manage and lead depends on many factors and situations. Continuous monitoring and confirming with observations and feelings of others is a good barometer for leaders.
Leaders that develop and practice emotional intelligence seek feedback when it comes to behaviors and attitudes may find they actually get it if they are responsive to improvement(s).
The notion that leadership means “I know where we are going just follow me”; or “I’ll bring in the best experts and then follow me” is clearly inappropriate to adaptive contexts and puts enormous pressure on people in authority to fake it and provide quick technical fixes that tend to avoid the more significant questions.
Taking a balcony perspective is difficult especially when you have been leading from down below. When you break away, step back and you will see the big picture. Sometimes it is complicated by several factors.
For a 30 minute complimentary session to see how we can help you, please contact us at 602-405-2540, or email nburgis@successful-solutions.com.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Characteristics of Inspiring Leaders
A survey of more than one and a half thousand managers, people were asked what they would most like to see in their leaders. the most popular answer, mentioned by 55% , was "Inspiration". When asked if they would describe their current leader as "inspiring", only 11% said yes.
An inspired and motivated workforce is essential for any business that stays ahead of their competition. Ann Clarke Judd, the chief executive officer of the American red Cross National Testing Laboratory in Charlotte, N.C., "Inspiring leaders under the consequences of their decisions, are trustworthy, presevere, and plan carefully."
An Inspiring Leader is an authentic individual who demonstrates the following characteristics.
1. Is open to change and is always looking for better and easier ways of doing things.
An inspired and motivated workforce is essential for any business that stays ahead of their competition. Ann Clarke Judd, the chief executive officer of the American red Cross National Testing Laboratory in Charlotte, N.C., "Inspiring leaders under the consequences of their decisions, are trustworthy, presevere, and plan carefully."
An Inspiring Leader is an authentic individual who demonstrates the following characteristics.
1. Is open to change and is always looking for better and easier ways of doing things.
2. Their decisions are based on the greater good of all and not solely on one individual.
3. Is flexible, responsive, and adaptable.
4. Are "Big Picture" vision thinkers.
5. Not threatened or intimidated by others.
6. Accepts 100% responsiblity for their leadership style and not only admits but apologizes when they are wrong.
7. Knows who they are and acknowledges their strengths and weaknesses. they surround themselves with people that complement their weaknesses and capitalize on their own stengths.
8. Is solution focused.
9. Always gives credit to those who the work or idea belongs to.
10. Builds people up, empowers them as the leader provides direction, guidance and encourages others to believe in themselves.
11. Create an open forum for ideas to flow freely from everyone and encourage others to express their ideas.
12. Involves people in decision making on every important issue. (Seeking the opinions of others communicates that leaders respect and appreciate them).
13. Listens well and gives others the courtesy of their full attention.
14. Delivers extraordinary results.
15. Articulates compelling course of action. (Inspiring leaders craft and deliver specific,, consistent and memorable vision).
16. Reinforces an Optimistic Outlook. Speaks in positive, optimistic language. (Extraordinary leaders throughout history have been more optimistic than the average person).
The inspirational leader feels passionately about the vision and mission of the organization. They share their passion with others.
The ability to inspire people to reach great heights of performance and success is a skill that leaders need. Passion, purpose, listening and meaning help make a leader inspirational. The ability to communicate that passion, purpose and meaning to others helps establish the inspirational culture of your organization. These points will tell you how to enable inspiration and motivation in the people you lead.
For a 30 minute complimentary session to see how we can help you, please contact us at 602-405-2540, or email nburgis@successful-solutions.com.
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