Punit RenjenCulture of Purpose

10.2013Essentials of leadership

development, managerial effectiveness,

and organizational productivity

Vol.30 No. 10

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

0807 Leaders Must Get Real

By Margie WarrellFive ways to unlock authentic leadership.

Culture of Collabration By eric MosleyWhat does crowdsourc-ing mean for HR?

Key to Engagement By Razor SulemanLeaders and employees working together.

Impostor SyndromeBy joyce M. RochéStep into compassionate leadership.

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10.2013Essentials of leadership

development, managerial effectiveness,

and organizational productivity

Vol.30 No. 10

The Standard of Global Leadership Development

Presented By

4 Great Leaders Think Differently Ken Shelton

5 Leading Innovation Chip R. Bell

6 Killing Stupid rules Lisa Bodell

7 Leaders Must Get Real Margie Warrell

8 Key to Engagement Razor Suleman

9 Culture of Collabration eric Mosley

10 Keys to Great Collaboration judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller

12 Motivational Focus Heidi Grant Halvorson and e. tory Higgins

13 Sustainable Workforce Kate Donovan

15 Impostor Syndrome joyce M. Roché

16 Why Powerful People Fall Steven Mundahl

17 Leadership Contract Vince Molinaro

18 Neuroscience of Talent Karen Cvitkovich

21 Smart Networking Sallie Krawcheck

22 Culture of Purpose Punit Renjen

23 Strengths and Fatal Flaws joe Folkman

24 Decide to Be Excellent nick tasler

25 Positive Deviants Gary Hamel

26 Strategy Execution Fredrick Schuller

27 The Practical Drucker William A. Cohen

3

0807 Leaders Must Get Real

By Margie WarrellFive ways to unlock authentic leadership.

Culture of Collabration By eric MosleyWhat does crowdsourc-ing mean for HR?

Key to Engagement By Razor SulemanLeaders and employees working together.

Impostor SyndromeBy joyce M. RochéStep into compassionate leadership.

1509

$9.99 a month

As the authors to this stellar edition of Leadership Excellence attest, great leaders think and act differently.

Along with many leaders, I know the price one pays for nonconformity—for thinking, talking, acting and writing differently. Alas, in many organizations and societies, non-conformity is mistaken for disobedience or subversion, often resulting in a showdown between the peon and the powers that be. That’s when you learn the street version of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold, rules (or, at least, makes and enforces the rules in a way that ensures He always wins). When I was writing books and articles for Stephen R. Covey, famous for his 7 Habits, I often remarked that the street version of Habit 4—Win-Win or No Deal—is when two or more people of the opposing party win, at your expense (they still consider it to be a win-win deal).

Great leaders often see the inverse, the opposite, the flip side, the upside, the new “opportunity” in disaster, the innovation in the R&D experimenta-tion. Yes, it helps to be street wise but not pound foolish (as in, He who is good with a hammer sees everything and everybody as a nail).

Poet Ezra Pound said: “I’ve never known anyone worth a damn who wasn’t irascible.” He also said: “When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.” Yes, but then the irascible and disagreeable tend to get pounded or impounded—unless they can outlast oppo-nents by passing the stern test of time.

Notes Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. “It’s time that beliefs and theories about business catch up with the way great companies operate. Great leaders work to make money, of course, but in their choices of how to do so, they think about building enduring institutions. They invest in the future while being aware of the need to build people and society.”

The alarming need for innovative thinking is evident in the many studies and surveys that have crossed my desk in recent weeks:

Workers confide feeling trapped in job: 84% concede that they feel trapped in their job and want to find a new position elsewhere. “We view job satisfaction and wanting to get another job as indicators of engagement,” said Ron Sims, Talent Management Practice Leader at Right Management. “The workplace mood is still sullen. Management’s job is more difficult when em-ployees are disaffected and distracted—as this harms performance, engagement, productivity, recruitment and retention. Managers must en-

courage employees to take charge of their own development and also provide development to grow and broaden their capabilities.”

Many employees try to pass the buck. Many workers today appear risk-averse and seek to avoid their responsibilities and pass the buck. On average, 25% of workers avoid responsibil-ity on the job and duck any blame for a failure, says Jennifer Jones, Director at AMA Enterprise. “Evading responsibility or playing it safe may be part of human nature, but worker are more hunkered down. There’s less job mobility and less risk taking overall. This hinders workers are innovation and creativity. Leader is now defined more broadly. More

than half of global companies define leaders not by their authority or position on the org chart but by their influence, performance, and impact in their role. “We’re reaching a tipping point where pace-setting companies now recognize that the term leader applies to a far broader group than just those at the top,” said Jennifer Jones. “Indi-viduals realize the need for leadership skills while collaborating with colleagues, sharing expertise with peers in different locations or working on ad-hoc projects. The leadership challenge is to master interpersonal communication and col-laboration skills. Interpersonal skills are moving to the center of more leadership development.”

American executives get fewer international assignments in their leadership development programs than those in Europe or Asia, notes Ric Roi, Head of the Global Center of Excellence for Talent Management at Right Management. “International assignments introduce up-and-coming managers to the demands and intricacies of global business. They learn to navigate unfa-miliar settings, cultures and politics to meet their objectives. It’s action learning on an international scale. Nothing can take the place of managing in situ in a foreign region, culture and work setting. This is how global leadership skills are forged.” Roi reports that spending on leadership programs is expected to rise. “This will mean an increased investment in talent development initia-tives—from coaching to social learning to action learning—at a time when so many organizations struggle to maintain an ample pipeline of ready now candidates to move up into positions of greater responsibility and scope.”

The clarion call is for leaders of innovative thinking and action.

They seek to build enduring organizations. By Ken Shelton

leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.20134

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Great Leaders Think Differently

Ken SheltonEditor since 1984

editors note

By Chip R. Bell

Try leading the Swamp Fox way.

Leading Innovation Interactive

5leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Few war heroes capture the imagination like General Francis Marion. Marion was physically unattractive, stood only five feet tall, and walked with a limp. But, two qualities made him a major con-tributor to the defeat of the British in the Revolutionary War: coura-geous leadership and ingenuity (earning him the name the swamp fox).

Colonel Marion’s hotly pursued Marion’s Brigade often embarrassed the British through bold tactics that altered how battles were fought. The British soldiers fought with order, precision and methodical planning; Marion from trees and bushes. The British wore bright red uniforms; Marion’s Brigade donned camouflage. Creatively engineered guerrilla tactics enabled his small, under-resourced unit to take on a well-supplied enemy with many more troops. In one decisive victory Marion was out-numbered 20-1 and his soldiers had only three bullets each with no artillery. It was guerrilla warfare at its finest.

The Road Less Traveled Like guerrilla warfare, innovation is unconventional, maverick, and

unexpected. It requires a leader with courage enough to take The Road Less Traveled—to lead from a solid grounding and purpose, and with collaboration and passion.

1. Lead from a solid grounding. Francis Marion grew up in the coastal town of Georgetown, SC and spent his childhood learning the ways of the swamp. By the time his family moved to a newer planta-tion, Francis was 15 and an expert on the wild. When he formed Marion’s Brigade, he made his headquarters deep in the swamp near the Pee Dee River. The unit’s expertise with terrain strange to the British soldiers bolstered their courage to play “David and Goliath.”

The COO of a client asked me the names of the best service providers. “We need our leaders go visit Zappos, USAA, and a Ritz-Carlton,” he said. “They will learn best practices to bring back and implement.” His concept was that once leaders from the top witnessed the best of the best, they would disperse their new-found brilliance to all their underlings. When I asked what would happen if he skipped the visits and gathered a group of front-line employees to brainstorm new ap-proaches that would rival the best, he reacted as if the idea had never occurred to him.

The part of his answer that worried me most was his interest in witnessing the best. It reminded me of a scene from the movie, Men in Black. When NYPD detective Jay Edwards (Will Smith) came late to the examination for a new candidate for the MIB force, he

asked the examiner (Rip Torn), “Exactly why are we here?” Another candidate raises his hand to answer the question and jumped to his feet. “Second lieutenant Jake Jenson, West Point with honors. We are here because you are looking for the best of the best of the best....sir!”

Edwards is noticeably amused. The examiner asks, “Why are you laughing, Edwards?” His answer spotlights the ambiguity of the scene. “Your boy, Captain America over here...Best of the best of the best, SIR...with honors,” says Edwards. “He’s just real excited, and he has no clue why we’re here.”

Pursuit of the best of the best of the best needs a plan and grounding. It means starting with knowing who and where you are before reach-ing for who you want to be. I once had a client who owned a chain of hardware stores. After seeing the piano player in a Nordstrom, he wanted to put one in every hardware store!

2. Lead from purpose. A British officer was invited to visit Marion’s swamp camp under a flag of truce. Marion offered his visitor a sweet potato baked on a campfire and served on a slab of pine bark. “Surely this cannot be your usual food,” said the British officer. “Actually,” replied General Marion, “because you are our visitor we are fortunate to have more than our usual amount.” When the British officer re-turned to the British unit’s headquarters in Georgetown, his colonel asked why he looked so somber. “I have seen an American general and his officers, without pay, and almost without clothes, living on roots in the swamp; and all for the quest of liberty! What chances have we against such men?”

Stoking the flames of boldness starts with a wide-eyed focus on a dream rather than squint-eyed look at the tasks. Caution and hesitance can come from being mired in the day-to-day activity. As one loses touch with the forest vista because there are too many trees to view, one is soon left blind to aspirations. Daring without recklessness requires an awareness of a vision and a desire to move in the direction of that vision. Innovation leaders have a valued purpose that serves as the compass and inspiration for their courage.

3. Lead with collaboration. Marion viewed his men as partners, not subordinates. In most army units, commanders lived much better than their troops. This was not Marion’s style. With his troops he slept on the ground wrapped in a blanket. He deliberated on tactics with privates, not just sergeants. Shared hardship served to galvanize the zeal of the brigade drawing their bravery from Marion’s spirit and example. “Authority is the last resort of the inept …and frustrated,” goes the adage. When rank becomes the primary means of ensuring compliance, one has long lost the battle to effectively influence.

It is challenging for leaders, often affirmed for being visionary and charged with “charting the course,” to embrace the egalitarian concept of a truly shared vision. Shared vision typically implies “you share my vision as being your vision.” A shared vision is one crafted collectively. It entails creating contexts in which everyone enters the dialogue about direction. It involves getting every person impacted by the vision to have an honest, non-pressured say in what it looks like.

4. Lead with passion. Francis Marion was not a romantic in search of a hero’s funeral. He hurt when he was wounded; felt remorse when he wronged another. In their book, The Life of General Francis Marion, authors Peter Horry and Mason Weems write, “The Tories murdered

Video

Chip’s article Customer Forensics

Change This: Why a Corrupted Service Covenant Has Made...

6 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

several prisoners in cold blood. They said that Marion, at sight of such horrid scenes, appeared much shocked and seeing among them a man who had often been entertained at his uncle’s table, he flew to him for protection, and threw himself into his arms.” Marion was a leader with passion, not just of person of reason.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin in boldness,” wrote Philosopher Goethe. “Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Scottish explorer W.H. Murray echoed the same sentiment when he wrote, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. …the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.”

Innovation is counter cultural, against the grain, and unconventional. It is sometimes cut of unfamiliar cloth. And, while the specific act of innovation might not be that controversial, it springs from a place that is. It is that place—that restless, unsettled place--leaders must

occupy if they are to model the pursuit of ingenuity. It is the habitat of ground-breaking pioneers and norm-breaking entrepreneurs. Helen Keller wrote, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing!”

Innovation is all about a journey to become remarkable. “Remark-able takes originality, passion, guts and daring,” wrote Seth Godin in his best-selling book Purple Cow. “Not just because going through life with passion and guts beats the alternative (which it does), but because it is the only way to be successful. Today, the one sure way to fail is to be boring. Your one chance for success is to be remarkable.” LE

Chip R. Bell is a customer loyalty consultant and the author of several best-selling books. His newest book is The 9½ Principles of Innovative Service.visit www.simpletruths.com or www.chipbell.com

By Lisa Bodell

Engaging staff to kill complexity.Killing Stupid Rules

Right now, somewhere in your company, some employee is rolling his eyes over a policy or rule that leadership created. The eye-roll—and the defeated shrug—are the silent protests of people in every department. If you want to know the true source and depth of their frustration, invite them to a brainstorming meeting. Everybody loves those.

However, this time try something different. Once you have gathered your teams together, provide blank sticky notes and ask everyone to pair up. Now, present this ques-tion: “If you could kill or change all the stupid rules that get in the way of doing your work or better servicing our clients, what would they be?”

They might stare back in stunned silence, so push them by adding, “Ten minutes! Go!” After 10 minutes, people will likely ask for more time—because there are so many stupid rules. Don’t interrupt their catharsis. After all, how often do you see your em-ployees so engaged? Remind them, however, that government regu-lations are red rules—illegal to change—but everything else is a green rule and thus, fair game.

When the pairs finish listing stupid rules, ask each person to take a sticky note and write the one rule she hates the most. Create a 2x2 grid on a whiteboard or flipchart.

Axis Y represents how easy or difficult the rule is to kill, and Axis X represents the business impact (low-to-high) of killing the rule. Invite employees to place their rule in the most fitting quad-rant and let them know there’s no right or wrong placement as each person defines what goes where according to their unique perspec-tive in the company. If they believe it’s easy to kill the rule and the effect is high impact, it belongs on the top right quadrant. If they believe it’s difficult to destroy—or it won’t impact the entire busi-ness—put it on the bottom left.

At this point, you have a visual cluster of rules that your employees want to eliminate. Look for themes in the rules (is there a particular policy or rule that you keep seeing on the sticky notes?). If so, it’s proof that certain rules need to be re-evaluated.

Also, rules in the right quadrant of easy-to-implement and high-impact indicate your immediate targets—your quick wins. As you open up discussion about the rules, listen objectively about where change is needed and resist the urge to be defensive. Most companies find that their most vilified rules aren’t really rules at all. Instead, they are annoying procedures—like ongoing meetings or conference calls, unnecessary reports, or layers of sign-offs.

Now it’s time for the moment of truth—and action. Among these rules, have the employees take a vote on which one should be killed. Then do it, right on the spot. If possible, kill more than one. (Or do the next best thing: do a pilot test by killing the rule for a few months and promise that if no one misses it, the change will be permanent.) Your staff will likely be shocked and ecstatic. Moreover, this exer-

cise sends a powerful message that you’re listening and committed to improving their work lives.

When used correctly, processes should standardize and simplify necessary tasks to keep business running smoothly. But excess procedures suffocate the sparks that drive innovation—a common reality today. Even-tually, meetings seem to stand in for mile-stones, time-

consuming email threads are used to justify decisions, and reports end up requiring more time than the initiatives they outline. If you have adopted complex and tedious procedures in the name of ef-ficiency, rule-killing offers you a simple solution.

The exercise has the power to engage employees and open up positive dialogue within the company. Leaders get a strong pulse on where change is most needed and people are encouraged to con-tribute ideas. As teams free themselves from unnecessary low value tasks—the rules that they kill—they have more time to tackle big-picture projects that can measurably grow your business. As you move forward, Kill a Stupid Rule can either serve as the pivotal moment when things began to change—or better, as a quarterly ritual that actually inspires employee excitement with zero eye-rolling. LE

Interactive

Leading Innovation

Lisa Bodell is the CEO of futurethink and author of Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution.Email innovate@futurethink.com.

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Download “Kill the Company” book chapter

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7leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

By Margie Warrell

Five ways to unlock authentic leadership.

Leaders Must Get Real Interactive

Leadership is far less about what you are doing, than about who you are being.  If you think about the people who have influenced you most over your career and life, it’s likely that what impacted you most was not what they did, but about who they were being while doing it: genuine, honest, courageous, resilient, real.

Engaging authentically with people is the first task of genuine leadership—daring people to work, live and lead more courageously. In today’s culture, where so much emphasis is placed on the superficial, people crave authenticity. They are hungry for real what-you-see-is-what-you-get leadership. The most inspiring and influential leaders don’t lead because of what they do (although they do plenty), but because of who they are. Too often leaders—and those who aspire to be leaders—forget that fact.

When you connect authentically with people, you become more approachable, trusted, and influential. Here are five ways leaders can unlock the power of authenticity:

1. Share authentically—Unlock the power of vulnerability. Sharing ourselves authentically often goes against our instincts for self-preservation. It explains why, when we anticipate finding ourselves in a vulnerable predicament, our automatic reaction is to protect ourselves: pull out of the launch, cancel the meeting, step back from the relationship, or retreat from centre stage. Yet it’s through becom-ing vulnerable that we can connect most deeply. While researching Stop Playing Safe, James Strong, former CEO of Qantas, shared with me, “You have to put yourself at risk in the way you communicate and interact with employees.” We trust people who don’t need to prove their superiority, success, or significance—who can connect from a place of being human a bit better than the rest of us. When people can relate to you as a fellow human being—rather than as someone with the power to cut your budget or outsource your job—you can build engagement and lift performance beyond anything unreal leaders ever can. As Shawn Achor wrote in The Happiness Advantage, ‘The more genuinely expressive someone is, the more their mindset and feelings spread.’

2.  Express EXPR +3.01% authentically—Unlock the power of individuality. Margaret Thatcher once said, “You cannot lead from the crowd.” While sometimes leadership entails confronting powerful forces of opposition, as Thatcher did with single-minded determina-tion, more often it requires standing firm against the powerful inner forces that drive us to conform and vanilla down that which makes us different. When all we do is try to fit in, we negate the difference our difference makes. Owning what makes you different enables you to differentiate yourself and build a unique brand in your work and career marketplace. Yes, you need to be mindful about how others perceive you, but when you allow what you think that they might think determine who you will be, you sell out to conformity and deprive them of the unique contribution you have to make.

3. Listen authentically—Unlock the power of presence. Listening is the most powerful yet poorly practiced of all leadership skills. Authentic listening is done with the intention to see the world through another’s eyes, not to have them see it through yours.  Listening authentically enables you to break down the barriers that cause people to withhold

trust, and it fosters collaboration. Unlocking the profound power of presence takes not more than putting your agenda aside and allowing yourself to be fully present to the person you are being with—opening yourself to see what they see and feel what they feel. If you haven’t tried it for a while, do so today. The impact you can make—both on yourself and the other person--can be profound.

4.  Acknowledge authentically—Unlock the power of appreciation. It’s easy to criticize. Many people are exceptionally good at it. But while constructive criticism—delivered in the right way at the right time—is crucial to strong leadership, its effectiveness increases when balanced with praise, appreciation, and acknowledgement. Since, according to Gallup, two-thirds of employees worldwide feel that their efforts aren’t fully recognized, and only one-third are engaged in their jobs, one of the best ways a leader can boost engagement is to help employees know their strengths—and that starts by acknowledging them. Don’t be limited to a result achieved. Focus on the virtues they brought to the task at hand: perseverance, collaboration, humor, tenacity, resilience, creativity, assertiveness, flexibility, a strong work ethic. Often we assume that others don’t need our affirmation to know they’ve done a good job, but I’ve yet to see a word of gratitude go unappreciated.

5.  Serve authentically—Unlock the power of other-centeredness. Ultimately leaders aren’t judged so much by how well they lead, but by how well they serve.  No carrot or stick of any size will ever trump

the effect you have on those around you when you engage with them from a place of genuine service. As Bill Treasurer points out in Leaders Open Doors, people will move mountains for you if they know that you genuinely care about them, not just the results you want them to achieve. Leadership isn’t about the leader—it’s about those being led. Treasurer writes, “When you care about

people, you take an interest in their career aspirations. You seek and value their opinion and treat people as more important than results.” Serving authentically is about focusing on what you can contribute to the longer-term prosperity of many people versus what you can gain in the short-term for yourself.  The more you engage with people from a place of service, the more effective you’ll be at harnessing their talents—and the stronger the results you will achieve through them.

When you engage in each of these five practices, you will grow into a leader others will connect to more easily, follow more readily, and put themselves on the line for again and again. In the end, there is no greater test of leadership than to inspire greater authenticity and courage in those you lead. LE

Video

Margie Warrell is the bestselling author of Stop Playing Safe (Wiley) and Find Your Courage (McGraw-Hill), leadership coach, and keynote speaker.Visit www.margiewarrell.com

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Find Your Courage Book Club Discussion Guide

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8 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

By Razor Suleman

Leaders and employees working together.Key to Engagement Interactive

When we partnered with the Human Capital Institute (HCI) to study the three sources of employee engagement—employees, managers, and senior leaders—we discovered that independent of one another, none of these groups can sustain employee engagement: all three groups must work together.

Why care about engagement? When an organization experiences high engagement, it can expect increased performance, dedication, and productivity. Happy employees who feel their efforts are ap-preciated and who recognize how their position affects the success of the business are more likely to go above and beyond: they put forth discretionary effort, provide better customer service, and sincerely care about the success of their companies. Ultimately, engaged employees are more likely to be long-term, valued members who actively and consistently contributes to business success.

An engaged workforce results in higher retention rates, improved product quality, higher safety ratings, higher revenues, and greater efficiency and productivity. Gallup reports, “Business units that score in the top half in employee engagement have nearly double the odds of success (based on a composite of financial, customer, retention, safety, quality, shrinkage, and absenteeism metrics) when compared with those in the bottom half.” Nearly double the odds!

Again, senior leaders, managers, and employees are the key to engagement. Clearly, businesses need to engage their employees. But individuals can’t simply choose to be engaged. If their immediate su-pervisor or manager does nothing to affirm the quality of work they do, if the organization does nothing to communicate how their work contributes to the success of the business, or they are told to act one way and then see managers and senior leaders acting another, their engagement will evaporate. The entire organization—senior leaders, managers, and employees—must work together.Role Responsibilities

So what are the role responsibilities of senior leaders, managers, and employees?

Leaders set the tone. They create the vision and their actions must be consistent with that message. In their role as stewards, senior leaders set the vision, values, and mission that inform all other actions. Our respondents rated several aspects of senior leader performance. Low engaged (LE) employees gave lower scores to their leaders in every category, such as “keeping open lines of communication” and “provid-ing a forum for the exchange of ideas.” But the widest gulf appeared in their assessment of their leaders’ ability to model values. In fact, more than twice as many High Engaged (HE) employees (83 versus 38 percent) indicated that their senior leaders effectively walk the talk. Senior leaders with LE employees need to address this perceived lack of credibility. For example, if a company’s mission statement values collaboration, senior executives must actively participate in collaborative processes and behave in accordance with the ideals they assert. This is the first step in establishing credibility and trust. If the leaders are adhering to the values set forth, other employees are more likely to follow.

Managers lead by example. They have a huge impact on the work environment, and are responsible for effectively deploying employees and developing skills according to the needs of the individual and

company. When asked to rate their managers, highly engaged employees are more likely to agree that their managers value their employees’ skills and live the values of the organization. Because managers and supervisors have much more personal relationships with employees than senior leaders do, they need to focus on the basics: to support, recognize, and value the strengths that employees offer. Recognizing employee contributions is a low-risk, high-reward skill for managers to learn. Some industry insiders even recommend limiting performance review processes in lieu of more substantive recognition and rewards programs that publicly acknowledge employee contributions to their organizations. Employee recognition and performance management software can help companies integrate recognition programs into HRIS and LMS platforms so management is held more accountable to this practice. For most employees, their managers are the gateway to success and advancement, and as such, building personal relation-ships with their team members is critical. Employees want to be valued for what they bring to the table, and managers need to align individuals to the projects that best leverage their specific skills and reward outstanding work.

Employees invest emotionally in their work, and are open to engagement efforts by the organization. The biggest differences we identified between individual employee behavior among HE and LE employees pertain their emotional investment in the organization. HEs feel empowered, which stems from their clear understanding of how their work contributes to the company mission and business results. More than twice as many HEs feel emotionally attached to their organizations, understand their roles and how they impact the business strategy, and work in an environment of mutual respect and open exchange of ideas. Also of note: 24 percent more HEs than LEs are provided development opportunities by their organizations. No wonder they’re more engaged!

While the responsibilities of the senior leaders and managers should not be underestimated, ultimately individuals bear primary responsi-bility for engaging in their organization and role. Leaders provide the framework for engagement, but employees must be present, attentive, and open to embracing these ideas and opportunities. Individual employees need to see how their roles contribute to the bigger picture and capitalize on advancement and development opportunities. Also, they need to support a mutual exchange of ideas among colleagues, managers, and senior leaders.

Employees, managers, and leaders can’t practice these behaviors without the support of each other. For example, managers can’t offer training and development opportunities to their teams if the senior leaders don’t see the value and won’t sign off on the expense. Individual employees can’t clearly recognize their roles in achieving business success if their managers are underutilizing them and failing to send those messages. And why should senior leaders bother to set goals and values if their employees won’t commit to making them work?For engagement to take root, leaders need to send clear and consistent messaging about the value and purpose of every role and live those values. Managers must understand, develop, and deploy employees in a way that best utilizes their skills and ambitions. Employees should never miss a chance to capitalize on development opportunities and

The Trifecta of Engagement: The Organization, the Manager, and the Employee

The Leadership Excellence Learning Module on Engagement

9leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Key to Engagement

Razor Suleman is founder/chairman of Achievers, a SaaS company, producer of engagement and performance management tools, a top employer, and fastest-growing company.Email CatieF@achievers.com

engagement drivers. Organizations should provide challenging and exciting work in a safe and respectful environment that supports the exchange of ideas.

To create a highly engaged culture, review the employee experience by asking three questions: 1) Is on-boarding an effective experience that lays the foundation for engagement? 2) What are the skill-sets of employees, and how do these skills relate to the work they do? Are there any mismatches that would result in individuals being assigned work that is not challenging or interesting to them? 3) Does the behavior of senior leaders and managers contradict their messages?Beyond assessing and implementing engagement initiatives, recognize that the engagement process is never complete. As employee motiva-tions and backgrounds change, you need to monitor engagement and update tactics. What is compelling and relevant for employees will likely change as future generations enter the workforce.

Fostering employee engagement can yield extensive benefits, but the process needs to be pursued with dedication and energy. Embracing this initiative is a cause worth pursuing to capitalize on your greatest asset—your people. LE

By Eric Mosley

What does crowdsourcing mean for HR?

Culture of Collaboration

Today, we’re on the leading edge of a major change in how companies are managed. Strategic leaders are talking about social hierarchies and social, community-based styles of collaboration and goal-setting. Companies are engaging their internal information markets (private information of their employees) in grassroots versions of management, as opposed to purely executive-driven, inflexible, hierarchical management.

Great managers know that knowledge is more valuable than facts alone. At work, knowledge is not simply memorizing facts but also manipulating facts, experience, intuition, understanding, insight, memories, impressions, and feelings. Knowledge is shared by social contact and is manifest in behaviors, not just in words.

In practice, social recognition means that peers are in-spired to publicly recognize each other’s accomplishments on an ongoing basis. Good performance, large and small, inspires peers to publicly approve and broadcast the behavior while recognizing the person responsible. Performance is ex-plicitly linked to job goals and company values, and that link is based on all the components of knowledge (experience, intuition, and insight)—not on rigid, preconceived scenarios.Each recognition insight benefits the employee and his or her manager. Over time, the collective insights of the crowd create incredible value for the organization.

With a mechanism to harness the wisdom of crowds, a large amount of new data about individual behaviors, on a number of dimensions, becomes available for performance reviews. And for HR, those data can be collated and analyzed for multiple purposes, for example, creating work teams including skills and experience, and also temperamental factors like willingness to share informa-tion or tendency toward initiative. Today’s HR executive looks to assessment testing and the observations of managers (as well as work results) to gain this information. Adding a wisdom-of-crowds system that creates a mosaic of every employee gives HR and the managers it advises more data.

HR values that all these data about individuals are based on observed behaviors and on facts, not opinions. This is reminiscent of behavior-based interviewing, familiar to every HR manager, which

suggests that past work behaviors are the best predictors of future behaviors. Behavior-based interviewing has earned the respect of a generation of HR executives, and crowdsourced performance assess-ment is built on the same logic.

The bigger changes brought on by crowdsourcing performance management are cultural. True collaboration is characterized by trust, positivity, and shared responsibility. This is the cultural opposite of a traditional, top-down performance review regimen. It is also a good aspirational definition of a 21st century workplace, not because everybody has to feel good but because trust, positivity, and shared responsibility are foundations of fast-moving, creative, and energetic business cultures.

The pace of change is argument enough that a culture of collabo-ration is needed for organizations to compete. The crowd-sourced performance review re-imagines the performance review system by adding cultural practices and habits that keep pace with the changes in business thinking and technology. Performance management using the wisdom of crowds requires a cultural bias toward collaboration.

For millennial employees, this is a natural extension of social media and social work habits. Others will have to change their habits.

In practice, everyone involved has to offer his or her positive opinion about performance. Social recognition aggregates the opinions and thoughts of many individu-als to arrive at a richer, more accurate conclusion than

one person alone could attain. The key is to reach a critical mass of employees participating by offering star rankings of others’ performance in a managed system. Participation should be at least 80 percent for the system to reach maximum effectiveness.

Workers who fear personal risk in offering their opinion of others might be less inclined to participate; this is one reason why a social recognition system is based on positive reaction. But reassuring the timid is not enough for most workplaces, and people who are not used to sharing openly need to acquire the habit of observing and noting good performance in others.

A culture of collaboration also means that no single person comes up with the ultimate, definitive assessment of someone’s performance. This is anathema to old-fashioned executives and micromanagers. Their resistance is based on a misperception that using the wisdom of crowds robs them of authority and accountability. That’s not the case. Managers are charged with achieving work goals through others. They need to realize that the added information created by a social recognition system empowers them to make wiser decisions about performance—decisions that range beyond the old pigeonholes of

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A, B, C ratings and offer a nuanced and actionable narrative of each employee’s behavior.

Collaboration is a business process movement much larger than HR or performance management. As we’ve seen, it is a set of enabling technologies and habits that extend the manager’s ability to make the right decisions.

You might think of social recognition as a healthy-living routine for company culture. It promotes only desired behaviors and discour-ages superfluous or unhealthy behaviors. It finds positive culture clues in work behaviors large and small. Properly implemented, it also differentiates among efforts, distributing rewards for behaviors proportionate to their impact.

At its core, social recognition democratizes performance man-agement. In a company, 90 percent of activities have eyewitnesses who see successful work because it affects them, but too often the manager hasn’t seen it and the eyewitnesses don’t have management responsibility or accountability to reward or recognize that behavior. To democratize performance recognition is to give everyone an incentive

to improve performance across the board—to give everyone access to catch someone doing something good.

But first we must ask, what might motivate people to collaborate in business? What might allow people to perform at higher levels? In an information economy, what is the juice that unleashes higher levels of creativity and innovation? Financial reward? Prestige? Ego? The answer is even more basic—the answer is happiness. LE

Eric Mosley is CEO/cofounder of Globforce—the innovator in the employee recognition industry—and is author of The Crowdsourced Performance Review.Visit www.globoforce.comEmail lori.ames@finnpartners.com

Crowdsource Your Performance Reviews

Case Study

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By Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller

Change the interactions to change the result.

Keys to Great Collaboration

Leaders have known the value of collaboration for years. They talk about the need for cross-functional teams to solve complex problems and to break down silos across the enterprise. However, many find that this level of collaboration—in which people quickly come together to create an environment of trust and safety, where people can share their different perspectives and create breakthroughs—is not the norm.You can make it the new norm by focusing on the interactions between people. Organizations are only as effective as the interactions between the people who work there. Enhancing the quality of interactions could help people collaborate more readily, communicate with clarity, build trust more quickly, and eliminate the waste that comes with misunderstandings. Yet even as technology to enhance interaction evolves faster, human interaction appears to be progressing slower at a pace we can no longer afford.

In recent years, we’ve seen organizations transformed—accelerating results, achieving higher performance, facilitating breakthroughs—through one foundational choice and four simple practices. These 4 Keys eliminate waste in interactions and provide a common language that enables people to be clear as they collaborate.The Choice to Join

All too often, people approach one another in a judging mode. They may be wary of individuals from another department or function and wonder whether it is safe to collaborate with them. They might be reluctant to share information or engage others for the common good. This judging mode creates distance and erects barriers, which slows us down and prevents us from collaborating effectively.

In joining, we approach others with openness and support rather than caution and defensiveness. We begin with the assumption that we are going to connect—that each of us has a perspective with value. People who join seek out areas of agreement and find ways to link to others. Joining, in short, is the foundation of better interactions and an important first step in fostering collaboration.

Note the difference between judging people and evaluating their

performance or ideas. Leaders need to assess the value of ideas and the performance of individuals. The question becomes, how do we engage with the other person during and after such an evaluation? Do we place blame? Just reinforce what is wrong? Or do we share ideas of how to address the situation as allies? Joining can create a path for development from an experience that often causes misunderstanding, hard feelings, and apprehension.

4 Keys Change EverythingOnce individuals and teams have decided to join, how do they

proceed? This is where the 4 Keys come in: they both enhance in-teractions and provide a common language for interactions—which results in greater collaboration.

1. Lean into discomfort. Everything new feels uncomfortable at first, and working with unfamiliar people is no exception. Many people will wait until they are comfortable with others before trusting them enough to collaborate. Leaning into discomfort enables trust to grow quickly, as we position ourselves to engage faster than if we waited for our comfort levels to catch up. Trust is built rapidly as individuals and teams have the honest conversations needed to join one another to deliver results together. As we all lean into discomfort, we create an environment of safety—an environment where we can trust that others have our back rather than stabbing us in the back. We create an environment in which trust and collaboration thrive.

2. Listen as an ally. Collaboration requires the belief that “we are all in this together.” In many organizations, however, the sense of we is too narrow. The challenge is to extend that we, to see all others as partners and allies. And one step to seeing people as allies is to listen as

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an ally. In listening as an ally, rather than trying to find flaws in what others are saying, we work together—partnering to get underneath our assumptions, link to one another’s ideas, and resolve conflicts. We assume good intent, listen from a learning posture, start by assuming that we can connect, and seek out those points of connection. We can also challenge as allies, offering alternatives in the spirit of adding value from another perspective. Allies are willing to work harder to hear, understand, appreciate, and build on others’ ideas. Listening as an ally opens doors for collaboration.

3. State your intent and intensity. We can’t tell exactly how others are interpreting our words and ideas. Sometimes this leads to tremen-dous waste—as when a senior leader casually tossed out an idea for consideration during a cross-functional team meeting, and the team changed its direction as a result. Disclosing our intent and intensity enables others to avoid this waste. They know how much to invest in a discussion, when to contribute ideas, and when to move to action. The use of a common language to clarify intent and intensity greatly reduces misinterpretations and missteps. We encourage leaders to share whether what they say is a: 1) Notion: a casual idea, mentioned as an invitation for further discussion. 2) Stake: you have some commitment to the idea but offer it as something for consideration. 3) Boulder: an item requiring action, with little room for negotiation. 4) Tombstone: a nonnegotiable position, usually related to values.

4. Share your street corner. A key benefit of collaboration is the gathering of many perspectives to resolve challenges (on the theory that none of us individually is as smart as all of us together). If we want to make sure we are getting the complete picture on these chal-

lenges, the first thing to do is make sure we hear from all relevant perspectives, or street corners (as in “the view from my street corner”).We need to assume that there is a bigger picture and that therefore it is vital to get input from everyone with a street corner on the issue. As we do this—asking who else needs to be included, sharing our street corners, hearing those of others—we eliminate the waste that occurs when an important perspective is missed, which necessitates additional meetings and rework.

Amid more change, greater complexity, and ever-increasing speed, leaders must leverage every tool at their disposal to achieve high performance. That calls for a focus on collaboration—and the inter-actions that make it work. These 4 Keys will enhance collaboration and accelerate results. LE

Keys to Great Collaboration

Book

Opening Doors to Teamwork and Collaboration: 4 Keys That Change Everything

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Checklist for Opening Doors to Teamwork and Collaboration

Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller are authors of Opening Doors to Teamwork & Collaboration: 4 Keys That Change EVERYTHING (Berrett-Koehler).Visit openingdoors4keys.comEmail ksheehan@bkpub.com

12 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Motivational FocusIs it about promotion or prevention?

One-size-fits-all principles of management don’t work. The strate-gies that help you excel may not help your colleagues or employees; what works for your boss or your mentor doesn’t always work for you. Personality matters. In particular, the way you tend to think about the goals you pursue matters.

Promotion-focused people see their goals as leading to gain or advancement and concentrate on the benefits and rewards that will accrue when they achieve them. They are eager and play to win. They are comfortable taking chances, like to work quickly, dream big, think creatively, and generate lots of ideas, good and bad. Unfortunately, all this makes them more prone to error, less likely to think things through, and unprepared with a Plan B if things go wrong. That’s a price they’ll pay, because for them, the worst thing is a chance not taken, a reward unearned, a failure to advance.

Prevention-focused people see their goals as responsibilities, and focus on staying safe. They worry about what might go wrong if they don’t work hard or aren’t careful. They are vigilant and play to not lose, to hang on to what they have, to maintain the status quo. They are often more risk-averse, but their work is also more thorough, ac-curate, and planned. To succeed, they work slowly and meticulously. They aren’t the most creative thinkers, but they may have excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.

Although everyone is concerned at times with both promotion and prevention, most of us have a dominant motivational focus that we use to approach life’s challenges and demands. It affects what we pay attention to, what we value, and how we feel when we succeed or fail. It determines our strengths and weaknesses, both personally and professionally. And it’s why the decisions and preferences of our differently focused colleagues can seem so odd at times.Here are some signs of focus to look for in yourself or your colleagues:

Promotion-focused people: work quickly, consider alternatives and are brainstormers, are open to new opportunities, are optimists, plan only for best-case scenarios, seek positive feedback and lose steam without it, and feel dejected or depressed when things go wrong. Prevention-focused people: work slowly and deliberately, tend to be accurate, are prepared for the worst, are stressed by short deadlines, stick to tried-and-true ways of doing things, are uncomfortable with praise or optimism, and feel worried when things go wrong.

Creating a Good FitOnce you know your focus, you can choose role models, frame

goals, seek or give feedback, and provide incentives that will strengthen motivation. Motivational fit enhances and sustains the eagerness of the promotion-minded and the vigilance of the prevention-minded, making our work seem more valuable and boosting both performance and enjoyment. When our motivational strategies don’t align with our dominant focus, we’re less likely to achieve goals.

Choose role models. Storytelling is touted as a motivational tool, but different types of people need certain stories. The promotion-focused are more engaged when they hear about an inspirational role model, such as a high-performing salesperson or a uniquely effective team leader. The prevention-focused, in contrast, are impressed by a strong cautionary tale about someone whose path they can try to avoid, because thinking about avoiding mistakes feels right to them. You naturally pay attention to the kind of story that resonates most with you. As a leader, think about whether the stories you share with others are motivational for them.

Promotion-minded people thrive under transformational leaders, who support creative solutions, have a long-term vision, and look for ways to shake things up. Prevention-focused people do best under transactional leaders, who emphasize rules and standards, protect the status quo, tend to micromanage, discourage errors, and focus on effectively reaching more-immediate goals. When people work for a leader who fits, they value their work more and are less likely to want to leave. When employees and bosses are mismatched, enjoyment of and commitment to work declines. If no one counteracts the tension, serious problems can arise.

Frame goals. Even minor tweaks in how you think about a goal or the language you use to describe it can make a difference. For example, in Germany, coaches in a top semipro soccer league were told to prep their players for high-pressure penalty kicks with one of two statements: “You are going to shoot five penalties. Your aspiration is to score at least three times.” Or “You are going to shoot five penal-ties. Your obligation is to not miss more than twice.” You wouldn’t expect a small change in wording to affect these highly practiced, highly motivated players, but it had a big impact. Players did much better when the instructions were framed to match their dominant motivational focus (previously measured)—especially the prevention-minded players, who scored nearly twice as often when they received the don’t-miss instructions.

Seek or give feedback. Once goals are set in a way that creates motivational fit, seek (or give) the right kind of feedback. Promotion-focused people tend to increase their effort when a supervisor offers them praise for excellent work, whereas prevention-focused people are more responsive to criticism and the looming possibility of failure. For instance, in one study the promotion-focused were more motivated and tried harder in a task when assured that they were on target to reach a goal, as opposed to when they were told that they were below target but could catch up. For prevention-focused people, the reverse was true: They tried harder when told they weren’t on target; in fact, being assured of success undermined their motivation.

As a leader, always give honest feedback, but adjust your emphasis to maximize motivation. Don’t be overly effusive when praising the

By Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins

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13leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

prevention-focused, and don’t gloss over mistakes they’ve made or areas that need improvement. Meanwhile, don’t be overly critical when delivering bad news to the promotion-focused—they need reassurance that you have confidence in their ability and recognize their good work.

Provide incentives. Tangible incentives can also sustain motivational fit. However, not all rewards are motivating, since incentives vary ac-cording to personality type. You can create your own incentives (“If I finish this project by Friday, I’ll treat myself to a spa day,” or “If I don’t finish this project by Friday, I’ll spend the weekend cleaning out the garage”) and you can make sure your employees’ incentives create fit. Avoid incentives that misalign with focus—they can be de-motivating. For example, after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the PR disaster it created for BP, the new CEO, Bob Dudley, changed the rules governing employee bonuses: Increasing safety would be the sole criterion on which they were calculated. One shortcoming of this approach is that it can lead to underreporting of problems rather than to increasing safety; and rewarding people for safety (a prevention concern) is a poor motivational fit for promotion-focused people—the thought of a bonus makes them eager to take chances. In contrast,

for prevention-minded people, penalties (such as taking bonus money away) for not meeting new safety standards would provide the right motivational fit.

Both promotion-focused and prevention-focused people are crucial for success. Businesses (and teams) need to excel at innovation and at maintaining what works, at speed and at accuracy. The key is to understand and embrace our personality types and our colleagues’, and to bring out the best of our disparate strengths. LE

Motivational Focus

Heidi Grant Halvorson is Assoc. Director of Columbia Business School’s Motivation Science Center (MSC) and author of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently (HBR Press). E. Tory Higgins is a professor of psychology and management, and Director of the MSC. They are authors of Focus (Hudson Street Press).Email heidi.grant.halvorson@gmail.com

By Kate Donovan

Here’s how you can you build one.

Sustainable Workforce

One-third of employers globally are experiencing difficulty finding talent (per ManpowerGroup’s 2013 Talent Shortage survey).  This is exacerbated in countries undergoing major demographic shifts—with either a surge in youth or a rapidly aging population. In Japan, the country with the oldest median age group, 85% of em-ployers can’t find the talent they need. In India, which is experienc-ing unprecedented population growth, 61% of employers struggle to find talent. In Brazil, where the fertility rate has dropped from six births per woman to two in less than two generations, the talent shortage rate is 68%.

No region or country is exempt from the demographic trends that guarantee a talent shortage is here to stay. In parallel, global youth unemployment is at an all-time high. High and sustained youth un-employment is a dangerous trend for many political and economic

reasons. It is virtually impossible for a generation impacted by high youth unemployment to regain lost earning potential, and a genera-tion left behind has long lasting business and societal impact.

Forward-thinking employers can benefit from an untapped source of talent—the current junior-level workers who will become our future leaders. As a talent segment, young people are largely being ignored. This is short-sighted. Those who make the most of unem-ployed youth today will win the talent war tomorrow. HR leaders have the power to create a win for their company and for the greater societal good—simply through creative workforce planning.  How We Got Here

Shrinking fertility rates, longer life expectancies and social poli-cies have led to rapid population aging in some wealthier, developed nations. For example, Japan’s proportion of citizens over 65 is the highest in the world, while Canada expects retirees to outnumber youth for the first time in 2013. Globally, the number elderly as a share of the working population is expected to double this year, to more than 25 percent.

One might think aging populations would translate to more op-portunities for youth employment, but this isn’t the case. In Japan, young people are unemployed at almost twice the rate of adults. In Canada, the percentage is greater than 50%. This is not a matter of resource availability, but it is a problem of resource readiness.

Conversely, in some countries (sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Middle East), there is a youth bulge—the share of 15 to 24 year-olds is increasing faster than other age groups.

This so-called demographic dividend (when the working popu-lation outnumbers the dependent population of children and the elderly) was once thought to set the stage for economic progress. Indeed, East Asia’s massive economic growth in the 1990s is largely attributed to this dividend. But in today’s economy, a rising youth population is not so easy to capitalize upon. For example, India will soon have 1/5 of the world’s working age population. However, there is widespread concern that India is unprepared to deploy this talent. Some of this relates to the availability of meaningful work, but it also relates to education, and the capability of existing infrastructure to

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support a growing economy. The net result is more young without work and businesses unable to take advantage of this resource.Youth Unemployment Conundrum

Employers report that lack of technical skills, little experience, and dearth of candidates are three top reasons they can’t fill positions. An alarming number of youth are unemployed; in fact, young people were unemployed at nearly three times the rate of the total global labor force in 2012. That translates to 74 million youth or 12.6% of the youth labor force. Since this is a measure of unemployment—meaning those without a job who are actively seeking employment —it doesn’t paint the whole picture. In actuality, a full 66 percent of youth worldwide are without a job. While some of these jobless youth are in school or training for future employment, many are not. Knowing that school dropout rates are upward of 30% in some wealthy countries and 80% in poorer ones, we clearly see that an alarming number of young people are inactive.

The problem is most acute in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where youth are unemployed at five times the rate of older workers. The ratio is 3.8 in the Middle East, where nearly 28% of young people are unemployed.

High rates of youth unemployment lead to an oversupply of available labor, which depresses wages, impacting the economy as a whole. Young people may never regain what they’ve lost. For example, a young person who is unemployed for six months will earn $22,000 less over the next 10 years. Youth unemployment is always been linked to political and social instability—and the threats from this issue have increased in severity.

In business, we see this playing out in real time. In the past 30 years, employers have virtually abandoned training programs for new entrants, and in difficult times, tend to eliminate training and devel-opment investments for existing employees. We are at a point where we can see the impact of these business decisions on entire industries.

For example, when the North American energy industry tanked in the 80s and 90s, training programs were scaled back or eliminated and hiring stalled. Now the industry is booming, thanks to tech-nological innovations. However, energy employers predict that half of their current workforce will retire in the coming years, and there is no talent pipeline to backfill. Could a moderate investment in workforce planning have been afforded in the short-term?

Energy leaders aren’t the only ones in this position. When global

markets collapsed, many financial services firms stopped hiring junior-level employees. Now, these companies are seeing a dearth of mid-level managers because those leaders were once cultivated from within.

HR leaders can make an impact for the future benefit of their employer and local communities. High quality, work-ready talent is no longer available on demand. To create a sustainable workforce, employers need to put the same effort into gaining the right human resources as they do their financial resources.  Recruit for Potential

For positions that are available in some quantity, employers can pursue a teachable fit strategy.  Manpower Group has pioneered this recruiting method, which emphasizes soft skills and cultural fit in cases where the necessary hard skills can be reasonably taught.

When we look at large and systemic talent gaps, HR profes-sionals may need to do some pioneering—and think through the benefits of three-way partnerships between educational institutions, local government and employers. The teachable fit model (analytical framework) helps predict if a candidate’s skills gap can be closed. It organizes the capabilities required for a given role into four cat-egories: knowledge, skills, values/ mindset, and personality/ intel-ligence. Each of these categories is weighted on two scales: Is it im-portant? and Is it teachable?

The answers can greatly expand the pool of potential candidates and your future leaders. By hiring for potential, and training for skills, employers can bring a new generation of youth into the work-force and engender loyalty. Knowing the what, why and how of it all, HR leaders need to embrace their role as change agents and the challenge of doing well by doing good. LE

Sustainable Workforce

Kate Donovan is the President of Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing at ManpowerGroup Solutions.Visit www.manpowergroupsolutions.comEmail jeanne@devonpr.com

2013 Talent Shortage Survey Global Results

Teachable Fit: A New Approach for Easing the Talent Mismatch

15leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

By Joyce M. Roché

Step into compassionate leadership.

Impostor Syndrome Interactive

As I walked into my boss’s office, my heart was racing with a mixture of excitement and fear. I had worked long and hard for this moment, and now I was about to become the first African American woman to be named an officer of Avon Products.

“Well, it’s official,” Jim Preston, the President of the U.S. business, said before I had even sat down. “You are now VP of Marketing and Purchasing for Gifts and Jewelry. Congratulations.”

I managed to say “Thank you” and to give him an appreciative smile, but my head was swimming, and I had trouble staying in the moment.Jim looked at me quizzically and said, “Look Joyce, I know you. You’re going to worry about what happens to other women and African Americans coming up behind you if you mess up. My advice is, just don’t take that on.”

I was a little taken aback that Jim saw so clearly into what was in my heart. But it was good advice. I was, of course, elated to have gotten to this place—one I had worked so hard to reach. At the same time, I was scared to death. I had put myself out there, had said that I wanted this role and that I deserved it. Now, I was filled with doubt about my ability to cut it. All the hard work that had come before didn’t seem to count for much, and I was consumed with worries about whether I was good enough to manage this job.

It was wonderful to get all the congratulations from friends and family, and it made me that much more concerned about falling on my face. All I could hear in my mind was, “Oh my goodness, if I fail at this, it is going to be a huge failure.”

Although I did not know the term at the time, this new success had brought the impostor syndrome I had experienced throughout most of my life to a new height. I could picture the epic failure very clearly. My business does not perform, and I am fired from the company. At this stage, the failure would be complete, and public. I would be exposed as an impostor. What would the headlines be then? It was awful to think about giving ammunition to people who insisted that people who looked like me were inherently unsuited for leadership.

At the very heart of this fear was the knowledge that I couldn’t work any harder than I already was. I had always responded to new challenges by working more, putting in extra hours, doing additional prep. In this new position, I was going to be managing many more people, overseeing units I knew nothing about, and functioning in a peer group that had never included anyone like me. And I was terrified that I didn’t have enough of the smarts to succeed in this bigger role.

One of the major dangers the impostor syndrome poses for those of us who experience it is the isolation it imposes on us. I felt that if I admitted that there were things I didn’t know, people would question whether I deserved the job. And now the fear was magnified, because if I showed weakness, “they” might say, “We knew she couldn’t cut it.” So I worked twice as hard to project an aura of confidence, all the while questioning my ability to handle the pressure.

The terrible irony of the impostor syndrome is that it drives those of who suffer from it to reach for bigger and bigger successes to satisfy our boundless need for external validation only to make us question our own abilities and worth the moment we succeed. To find relief from this terrible burden, you need learn to use external validation to build your ability to validate yourself. Another way of thinking

about this is that you have to provide leadership in your own life.

The strategy I developed was to rely on the analytical tools I used to make business decisions. The next time I felt like an impostor—it happened after I received a particularly positive review from my boss—I sat myself down with a pad of paper and, in side-by-side columns, wrote out the facts about the situation and my feelings about it. I had launched a new product to rave reviews and great initial sales and had surpassed all projections for the year. In the feelings column, I wrote: “got lucky;” “the numbers won’t hold up;” “won’t be able to do it again.” But when I looked at the objective data, the facts, it was hard to argue with the success. I had to accept the possibility that maybe I did know what I was doing, that I did earn this success. It wasn’t easy, but I even allowed myself a few minutes to enjoy the feeling.

As we enter into positions of leadership, it is essential that we learn to manage our own impostor fears—not only for the sake of enjoying our success but also to offer empathetic guidance and support to the people we lead. The impostor syndrome, because it is essentially a form of social anxiety, often narrows our vision, driving us to see others through our own sense of inadequacy. To lead suc-cessfully, we have to hone our ability to see people as they really are.

“What I always looked for was folks’ ability to be comfortable in people situations,” says Ed Whitacre, Jr., former Chairman/CEO of GM and of AT&T. “That’s what I think makes a leader. And that’s what I would always reinforce. We all have days, minutes, hours, where you feel totally lost. But if you know how to treat people, they will relate to you and they will show you what you need to know.”

I once heard Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ, say, “You’ve got to metabolize your blessings.” To lead, we have learn to metabo-lize our blessings so we can bestow the blessings of compassion and understanding on others. LE

Interview with Joyce Roche

Joyce Roche is author of The Empress Has No Clothes. (Berrett-Koehler). Email ksheehan@bkpub.com

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16 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

By Steven Mundahl

I see seven clear reasons—and solutions. Why Powerful People Fall Interactive

Why do so many influential leaders engage in risky behavior that causes them to plummet from positions of power? Consider the cases of NYC mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner, Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, and hedge fund manager Steven Cohen.

Why do such powerful people make such poor decisions? Be-havioral scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists have identified attitudes, beliefs, and other factors that contribute to risky behavior. Here are seven of them.

1. They don’t know about hedonic adaptation. The term hedonic adaptation describes the pleasure and excitement of something new wearing off. For example, a leader starts to feel a loss of interest in his spouse, and the wife seems unhappy and dissatisfied as well. He starts to resent coming home, and opts instead to stay at work in the company of a playful and attractive staff member. But if that leader acquired the scientific awareness that the normal high in any relation-ship lasts for two years, he might instead look within his marriage for new activities, spiritual time together, and honest communication to keep the intimacy alive.

2. They have unchecked self-importance. One reason people engage in destructive behavior such as overspending, overeating, shoplifting, smoking, pornography, abusing alcohol or drugs, gambling, embez-zling, and infidelity is because they have an attitude of entitlement. They may believe that they deserve forbidden treats because they work hard, they’re smarter than others, or their status places them above the law. They believe they have the right to act without consequences and enjoy the risk-taking high. Working on self-awareness is the only way out of this trap.

3. They aren’t tuned in to their vibrational gap. Picture a gap that widens if something in your life is pulling your emotional state downward. I call this a vibrational gap. Signs that your gap is widening include depression; a desire to get high with alcohol, gambling, or an affair; or a simple desire to leave the office a few hours early. Those intuitive signals are meant to lead us to take action to close the gap instead of filling it with destructive short-term highs. Leaders need to continually monitor their vibrational levels, overcome blocks to resolution, and take corrective action—aligning with their purpose, securing true satisfaction in relationships, and building a spiritual inner life, for example—instead of succumbing to the pull of nega-tive behaviors.

4. They don’t weigh the reward. Leaders who pursue behaviors that make them feel good for a moment forget to ask, What is the greatest reward I could receive from taking this risk? What is my greatest fear? These two questions, if asked, would eliminate most impulsive and risky behaviors. The reality is people are internally outed the minute they perform the risky or addictive behavior. Guilt, shame, embar-rassment, self-talk, remorse—these are all internal reminders that we’re not living in accordance with our true values. It’s our conscience on one side vs. the immediate gratification on the other. We have to learn how to weigh them.

5. They experience amygdala hijack. Author Daniel Goleman coined the term amygdala hijack, which describes how brains under stress are not properly equipped for self-control. The amygdala is the part of the brain that triggers the parasympathetic nervous system

(fight, flight, or freeze), which takes over for the thinking parts of the brain, in the neocortex, which are responsible for rational decision making. Leaders need to learn ways to manage stress, because if they don’t, they’re liable to make poor choices at work and in their personal lives. One quick strategy is to take deep breaths, which slows down the heart rate and enables the prefrontal cortex to regain control.

6. They have weak will power. Some neuroscientists say our inner voice that seeks immediate gratification is akin to having a second self living inside us. One version of us acts on impulse; the other version controls our impulses to protect our long-term goals. We switch back and forth between these two selves. These two opposing parts can and do work together. If what we desire comes with a big negative such as a high price tag or big danger, our more primitive instinct, or “gut reaction,” can agree with our wiser self, which is already saying no. The will-powered self can only be operational if one handles stress throughout the day. Ensure your brain has plenty of sleep, good food, proper exercise, and ongoing stress reduction each day to act on those values.

7. They tumble from the “domino effect.” When one poor decision is made in a distracted or unaware moment, a door to an unsavory path opens for us to walk through. An example would be choosing to stay up late to watch a TV show. The next morning you’re under-slept, so you skip the gym. You feel grumpy and depleted, so you grab a donut someone brought to work. And the repetitive tumble continues. If you’re feeling bad about a mistake, it can lead to other bad decisions. With your brain now under stress, you may say what the heck and keep going down the self-destructive path.

No leadership sphere is free of fallen heroes, whether it’s in busi-ness, the government arena, the entertainment world, athletics, or religion. The salient point is to make sure you are not one of them. LE

Steven Mundahl is a leadership scholar, professor, president/CEO of Good-will Industries and author of The Alchemy of Authentic Leadership. Visit www.alchemyofauthenticleadership.com

Steven’s article Become the Leader of Your Own

Steven’s article It’s Your Higher Self Calling

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Collaboration Survey

Leadership ContractBe clear about your obligations.

By Vince Molinaro

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17leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

In 1907, an American engineer named Theodore Cooper was leading a project to build the Quebec Bridge. Once complete, it would be one of the largest and longest structures ever built, spanning the St. Lawrence River. It would provide an economic boost to the region, enabling goods to be shipped more easily by rail between the American New England states and the Canadian province of Quebec.

Cooper was chosen because of his stellar reputation, illustrious career, and deep expertise in bridge building. His 1884 book, General Specifications for Iron Railroad Bridges and Viaducts, was the textbook for other bridge design engineers at the time.

But on a hot day in August of that year, tragedy struck. Near the end of the workday, a worker was driving rivets into the southern span of the bridge. He noticed that the rivets he had driven in an hour before had snapped in two. As he was about to report his concerns to his foreman, the air filled with the deafening sound of grinding metal.The worker looked up and saw the bridge begin to fall into the water, creating a force like nothing he had ever seen before. The sound carried for miles. People in nearby Quebec City felt an earthquake-like tremor.

Most of the 85 men working on the bridge were cata-pulted hundreds of feet into the air as the bridge fell beneath their feet. They died the second they hit the water. Others were crushed or dragged underwater by the weight of the bridge. Some died on shore because rescuers couldn’t free them from the twisted metal debris. And when the tide came in that night, these workers drowned. 75 men lost their lives that day.

A Royal Commission investigating the tragic event found that the bridge had collapsed under its own weight. Design errors and miscal-culations of the load that the structure would bear were the root of the problem. But the issues went far beyond technical errors. The commission criticized Cooper and the bridge company for putting profit before the safety of the public.

Cooper came under fire because, although he was an expert in bridge design, he had never personally designed a bridge as large as the Quebec Bridge. The commission also concluded that political and economic pressure had influenced his judgment. Finally, Cooper’s arrogance kept him from heeding the many warning signs regarding the weight of the bridge and quality of materials that emerged during the construction.

It would take a full two years for all the metal debris to be cleared from the river. But even then the story of the Quebec Bridge wasn’t over. In 1916, a second attempt at building the bridge ended in another collapse—13 more lives were lost. The two tragedies clearly showed that the engineering profession needed to change.

In 1918, reforms put the engineering profession on a stronger foundation. Professional engineers would have to be licensed, and designs for public infrastructure projects would need to be approved by a licensed engineer. Then in 1925, a group of Canadian engineers established the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. They aimed to make graduating engineers aware of the obligations of their profession. In 1970, U.S. engineers began observing a similar ceremony, called the Order of the Engineer, to foster a spirit of pride and responsibility in the profession, to bridge the gap between training and experience,

and to present to the public a visible symbol identifying the engineer.Over my career, I have worked with many technical organizations

and engineers. I respect and admire the care and concern they have for safety in the work that they do. They carry the weight of their obligations front and center in their minds every day.

I believe too many leaders in business today lack this sense of obligation. When people first take on leadership roles, nobody teaches them that leadership is an obligation. We only need to look at the leaders at the center of scandals and corporate corruption. It’s clear that many of them have lost their way. They have either forgotten or were never aware of the obligations that come with being a leader.

As a leader, you need to feel the weight of your leadership obliga-tions. If you don’t, you run the risk of not living up to them, and we have all seen what happens then. The consequences will go beyond you and end up affecting your customers, your organization, your employees, and your communities.

When you become a leader, you need to realize is that it’s not all about you. When you work with leaders who are driven by personal gain—the money, titles, stock options, company cars, perks, and power—you sense that they have lost their way.

I work with executive teams in two-day off-sites to discuss strategy or the future leadership, and I can always

tell how wired they are by what they talk about during their dinners together. Some teams continue the discussion from the day’s meeting. Others talk about their personal lives. And then from time to time, you get the team that talks only about what’s in it for them; hours of discussion about who is getting a new BMW or Audi as their company car or other perks being handed out. I believe these leaders are missing the mark. If their employees could hear these conversations, they’d be very disappointed.

I believe this partly explains the low level of trust and confidence in senior leadership. Employees see leaders primarily motivated by personal gain. I suspect that if you asked, employees would say, “I see what’s in it for you, but I don’t see what’s in it for me and the rest of us.”I invite you to reflect on the obligations of leadership. If you make it all about you, you won’t be successful because you will be leading for the wrong reasons. You will be letting down everyone who is counting on you. Your true colors will shine through when your leadership is tested. As a leader you must be clear about your obligation to your customers, employees, organization, and the communities in which you do business.

As leaders we need to learn from engineers and put our leadership obligations front and center in how we lead every day. LE

Vince Molinaro Ph.D., is a keynote speaker and New York Times Best Selling author of The Leadership Contract. He is also the Managing Director of Leadership Solutions at Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions. He’s also the author of Leadership Solutions, and The Leadership Gap.Email vmolinaro@knightsbridge.com

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18 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Neuroscience of TalentNeuroscience of Talent.

By Karen Cvitkovich

Interactive

How effectively and accurately do you assess talent when you conduct job interviews and when you judge their abilities and make decisions about their careers? I find that two behaviors impede the ability to effectively recruit and hire global talent—interview bias and inaccurate talent assessments.

Interview bias is the erroneous perception of a candidate by the interviewer that results in overestimating or underestimating the candidate’s ability and qualifications. Such bias can also impact as-sessments of current employees and their potential. Inaccurate talent assessments can result in bad hiring decisions that can add huge costs and an unfair situation for the candidate.

Recruiting, developing, and retaining the best talent is vital for growth. Unconscious bias impacts assessing talent accurately. To ensure we are assessing talent accurately, we can look to the field of cultural neuroscience. This field uses cultural psychology, brain imaging technology, and genetics to measure how cultural values and practices shape thinking and behavior. Bias in Action

Over 15 years, I’ve facilitated hundreds of groups exploring cultural differences and their impact on perceptions. A key framework for these sessions is cultural dimensions—continuums of difference across cultures. They give individuals a common language to explore some of the similarities and differences they may experience.

In a popular exercise, we define one of many cultural dimen-sions as risk and restraint. Some individuals and cultures tend to be risk-oriented—they prefer rapid decision-making and quick results, value flexibility and initiative, and value speed over thoroughness. In contrast restraint-oriented individuals spend time on background research, establish proper procedures before starting a project, and value thoroughness over speed. In this exercise,individuals are asked to place themselves on a line, one end representing risk and the other restraint, either based on where they fall on a cultural assessment tool (such as GlobeSmart®) or based on their self-perceptions. Individuals on each end of the spectrum are given a scenario to consider in which they have been put in charge of a very important project. They have been assigned members of the project team to manage—as opposed to being able to choose the members themselves—and as they work with these team members, they realize that they are the opposite style to themselves. Each group—the risk-oriented and restraint-oriented—is asked to prepare a list of adjectives describing these team members.

As a second step, each group is asked to write adjectives that describe themselves. People tend to describe individuals who are different from themselves with negative adjectives and themselves with positive words. This is often called the mirror exercise since the words we use to describe others who we view as different is often the mirror image of how we describe ourselves. Why? And what implications does this have on assessing global talent accurately? Potential Causes of Interview Bias

This bias is not because we are bad people or intentionally make negative judgments about people who are different than ourselves. This is a result of how our brains are wired. In her research, Kathy Bobula describes the concept of implicit or unconscious bias (This is Your Brain on Bias…or, The Neuroscience of Bias). It is processed at

an unconscious level without our awareness that the bias even exists, let alone influences our behavior. Implicit bias is activated automati-cally and includes emotions or feelings about the target. The implicit stereotypes that people have “are category associations that become activated” without the person’s intention or awareness when he or she interacts with a person different than themselves. For example, an employer who, having several equally qualified job applicants, chooses the one who is a member of his/her in group, citing that the applicant would fit in better with co-workers. In conditions of stress, multi-tasking, or need for closure, this bias becomes more pronounced and can lead to an unearned advantage or disadvantage.

In his writings about the SCARF Model, David Rock cites research on how our brain functions, leveraging the work of fellow neurosci-entist, Evian Gordan. (SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating with and Influencing Others.) When we meet a new person in an interview or casually, the brain is programmed to minimize danger and maximize reward. According to Gordon’s Integrate Model, five times each second the brain non-consciously determines what is dangerous and positive and the strongest responses are to avoid what is perceived as different or dangerous, especially in five social situations: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness (SCARF). (An ‘Integrative Neuroscience’ Platform: Application to Profiles of Negativity and Positivity Bias). When we sense a drop in any of these areas, our brains perceive danger, and unconsciously, we try to avoid it.

The decision that someone is a friend or a foe happens quickly and impacts brain functioning. Information from people perceived as like us is processed using similar brain circuits for thinking one’s own thoughts. When someone is perceived as a foe, different circuits are used. Meeting someone unknown tends to generate an automatic threat response. Therefore, this quick evaluation of “friend or foe” when assessing talent impacts a person’s filter of that individual and even on the part of the brain used to process data or responses from a candidate.

As organizations globalize, managers and leaders must evaluate the skills and talent of individuals from different countries. “Col-laboration between people from different cultures, who are unlikely to meet in person, can be hard work,” asserts Rock. This is confirmed by Bopula: “Under stress and pressure, we tend to default to implicit associations. Cross-cultural interactions use more energy. When we are stressed, we have less energy available. Implicit prejudice and ste-reotypes are most likely to be expressed under these circumstances.”

Our tendency to make negative assessments of different people causes us to make inaccurate talent assessments, and prevents us from seeing and leveraging the business value of diverse teams (diverse teams in which the leader acknowledges and supports individual differences and sees those differences as an asset versus an obstacle to overcome tend to perform better than homogeneous teams whose members resemble the leader). What Can We Do About This?

The more we know ourselves, how our brain works, and the impact of our bias, the more we can self-regulate, question our assumptions, and make more accurate assessments of talent. Aperian Global’s study of What’s Different about Global Leadership provides strategies for minimizing interview bias and making accurate talent

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21leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

assessments. In this research, 10 key behaviors differentiate successful global leaders, and of these, two help minimize interview bias:

• Cultural self-awareness: Seeing our own leadership practices are shaped by a particular cultural environment and realizing that there are other viable ways of getting things done. The more that people assessing talent have a sense of their own culture and style, the more easily they can use this self-awareness to minimize potential biases.

• Frame-shifting: Shifting communication style, leadership methods, and strategy to fit different contexts—moving skillfully back and forth between different business environments and seeing the benefits of different approaches, even when they are unfamiliar. The more people assessing talent have a true appreciation of the value of different styles, the better they can acknowledge the value different approaches they may have, in spite of their brain telling them that a different person poses a threat. Tool for Accurate Talent Assessment

The more you can make an unconscious process conscious, the easier it is to minimize bias. To minimize interview bias and to assess and evaluate talent more accurately, I suggest four actions: 1 ) List the main elements of a job or position, based on the job description; 2) identify the competencies of an ideal candidate—what is needed to be successful and what do you value in a candidate?; 3) Identify potential biases that you need to be aware of as you assess the can-didate—based on your cultural self-awareness what are qualities or

attributes that you favor that are not relevant to the success of the candidate for this position? And 4) Identify what questions you can ask that enable you to accurately assess if the person has the needed competencies and will minimize your potential biases—ensure that all questions pass the legal criteria and accurately assess the competency.

Recruiting, developing, and retaining the best global talent is critical to growth. When assessing talent, be aware of our unconscious bias rooted in the functioning of the brain, and how it can be an obstacle to assessing talent accurately and fairly. By developing our cultural self-awareness and ability to frame-shift and utilizing a more conscious process in assessing global talent, we can minimize interview bias and make more accurate assessments of talent. LE

Karen Cvitkovich is Managing Director, Aperian Global, a consulting, train-ing and talent development firm.Visit www.Aperian.comEmail bcassidy@aperianglobal.com

Read - SCARF: A Brain-based Model for Collaborating with and Influencing Others

Read - “This is Your Brain on Bias or, The Neuroscienc e of Bias

Book

Download a chapter from Karen’s - What is Global Leadership? Assessment

Take The GlobeSmart® Assessment Profile

Neuroscience of Talent

By Sallie Krawcheck

I have only three simple rules.

Smart Networking

I don’t have to convince you of the power of a creating and maintaining a professional network, do I? Or that networking should be done not only inside your current company but also outside of its walls? Or that networking is often listed as one of the most important unwritten rules of success in business? And that research shows that your next business opportunity (and often, your next job) is more likely to come from a loose connection in your network than from a friend or close colleague?

But networks are like any good investment. The great ones can have an extremely high return on investment (ROI)—but not right away, and often not from the sources that you might expect.Practice Three Simple Rules

I have only three simple rules of networking:1. Try to meet at least one new person in my area of interest every

month, or significantly deepen one existing relationship. I find that meeting at least one new person in my area of interest every month, or significantly deepening an existing relationship every month keeps me connected and relevant.

2. Do something nice for someone in my network every week. Yes, I do something nice for someone in my network every week. This doesn’t have to be a big favor like finding someone a job, but instead can be connecting two people who should know each other, sharing research or information that someone you know may find useful, or posting a LinkedIn recommendation on a colleague. True, these favors likely won’t find you a new job or get you a big deal next week. (I almost don’t know how to reply to the email sitting in my in-box from someone who says that she keeps trying to sell things to

new people in her network, but some of them won’t buy….or reply.) But over time, these two very simple rules are small seeds that youplant, any one of which can one day provide a strong return. And in the meantime, they’ll give you a lot of joy.

3. Make sure that I am spending time with professionals who are different from me. At an extreme, if my network is made up solely of female financial services profes-sionals of my generation, who all hail from the south, I will likely feel very comfortable with them. And I will likely enjoy my time

with them. And I will no doubt learn from them. But at some point, this will become an echo chamber of similar-enough experiences and perspectives. Some of my most meaningful new connections over the past few years have been with professionals from different industries and different parts of the country from me. And my most valuable connections may have been with entrepreneurs who are a couple of decades younger than me, who possess a significantly dif-ferent perspective.

We are all most comfortable networking with (living with and working with) people who are like us. But just as the most successful management and leadership teams bring complementary strengths to the table, so the most meaningful professional networks do as well—even if it takes a bit more effort. LE

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Sallie Krawcheck is past Head of Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney....Investor....Board Member...Crazed UNC Basketball Fan....Mom.

Sallie’s Professional Women’s Network blog

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22 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Culture of Purpose Four ways to create and sustain one.

By Punit Renjen

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The past few years have seen troubling disconnects in the work-place. One recent study found that employee engagement—the emo-tional commitment of workers to the organization and its goals—is a meager 40 percent. Another study found trust in leaders in even greater disrepair. The expectation that business leaders will tell the truth when confronted with a difficult issue is less than 20 percent.

Yet there is cause for hope. Findings from the annual Deloitte Core Beliefs & Culture Survey indicate some common ground shared by employees and executives—and suggest that establishing a culture of purpose can help executives close the divide while helping their business and people excel.

Specifically, 91% of employees and executives who said their company has a strong sense of purpose also said their company has a history of strong financial performance. This finding strikes me as a narrative about corporate exceptionalism. The iconic businesses of our time have a culture of purpose that is clearly articulated, propagated, and embedded into their business strategy—and they align their culture with execution far better than their competitors.

For others, however, there’s work to do. Two-thirds of employees and executives believe that “businesses are not doing enough to instill in their culture a sense of purpose aimed at making a positive impact on all stakeholders.”Take Four Actions

How can your business create and sustain a culture of purpose? Here’s a four-step process that I’ve learned from working with exceptional clients – and from my own experience in sustaining our culture of purpose at Deloitte:

Articulate. This means to capture exactly who you are, in language that’s specific and clear. There’s no one person who is responsible for defining what makes your organization unique. Instead, it takes a process of socialization in which you seek input on the values and beliefs that resonate as unmistakably true among your people. We went through that process at my firm to articulate our core beliefs – and then we refined them, vetted them, previewed them. Our litmus test for moving forward? When we were confident that our people would say, “Yes, that’s true. That’s who we are.” Exceptional companies know very clearly who they are—and so do all of their stakeholders. Two lines from Apple’s recent advertising stand out: “We spend a lot of time on a few great things. Until every idea we touch enhances every life it touches.” Amazon.com seeks to “be Earth’s most customer-centric company.” For exceptional companies, profit doesn’t come first. Impact does – followed by profits and other positive outcomes.

2. Propagate. This means to communicate and illustrate your identity and purpose. Not through a big-splash, one-off corporate program that’s the flavor of the month, but subtly and steadily over time. From the vantage points of board rooms and C-suites, leaders may see how a culture of purpose permeates the organization. However, employees may have less context. For example, only 59 percent of employees—compared with 73 percent of executives—said that pro-viding products and services benefiting society was completely or very integrated into their business strategy. This disconnect suggests that employees need a better understanding of how their efforts make a difference. At Deloitte, for example, we feature Issue to Impact stories

to recognize individuals and teams that tackle challenging client situ-ations and create positive impact—for clients and society.

3. Embed. This means to create the framework of programs and operations that gives your people a way to live your culture of purpose. Consider 3M. Its culture of purpose is innovation. Since 1948, 3M has encouraged its employees to use 15 percent of their time to explore new ideas. The outcome—revolutionary products, including 3M’s ubiquitous invention, the Post-it®note. At Deloitte, we provide op-portunities for practitioners to volunteer—applying their skills pro bono—which creates experiences far more fulfilling than financial contributions. Making meaningful impact is a need increasingly voiced, especially by Millennials. Companies can best address this need – and attract these talented people—by becoming highly visible as agents of social change. Opportunities abound: 46 percent of employees and 60 percent of executives strongly agree that government cannot reach its full potential without help from the business community. Virtu-ally identical percentages of employees and executives felt the same way about the need for the business community to help nonprofits reach their full potential. Enabling our people to better serve others heightens engagement and pride. It also transforms their daily work into their life’s work – an important distinction.

4. Live. A culture of purpose can look impressive on paper. But it becomes powerful and sustainable when the behavior of leaders and employees alike aligns with “who you are” and “what you say you’re going to do.” How to get there? Executives can measure the extent to which a culture of purpose is lived through evaluations that focus on such key behaviors as: What impact have you generated for the clients and customers you serve? Who are you mentoring or developing as an apprentice? How are you contributing your time and skills to make your community or our society stronger? How do you live your core beliefs and serve as a steward of its brand and resources?

Providing positive, meaningful societal impact isn’t just the right thing to do—it is the right thing to do for your business. By establishing and sustaining a culture of purpose, executives can change the con-versation—and reorient their businesses toward a more meaningful, sustainable, and rewarding future. LE

Punit’s article Lead or Be Left Behind

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Results of Deloitte’s Core Beliefs and Culture

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Punit Renjen is chairman of the board, Deloitte LLP.Visit www.Deloitte.comEmail cruffini@mww.com

23leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Strengths and Fatal Flaws The yin and yang of leader development.

By Joe Folkman

Interactive

When Jack Zenger and I discovered that what makes leaders great is the presence of strengths, not the absence of weaknesses, we shifted our view about how leaders can best improve. And when we teach people about building on strengths, many have an ah-ha experience that reinforces their intuition that our strengths make us successful.

What makes a leader indispensable is not being good at many things but being uniquely outstanding at a few things that correlate with the needs of the organization.

Of course, great leaders are not perfect. They do have weakness, but no fatal flaws. The weaknesses don’t hurt them because their strengths are so profound. For many people who go through our Extraordinary Leader training, the principle of building on strengths—once you fix a fatal flaw has the most impact. We define a fatal flaw as a competency in which you receive strong negative feedback and poor performance reviews or a below-average capability in an area that is mission critical to your job.

Being below average, compared to our global norm, could mean that you perform this competency fairly well, and may not even consider it a weakness. However, when that poor competency becomes the centerpiece of a new job, it can become a fatal flaw.

If you have a fatal flaw, you should fix it first. Fatal flaws always take priority. When we review the 16 differentiating competencies of leaders, we reinforce that with only three strengths a leader’s leadership effectiveness rating goes to the 81st percentile, but with one or more fatal flaws, it falls to the 18th percentile. The more research we do, the more the impact of fatal flaws becomes evident. So, build on strengths and beware of fatal flaws. Focus on building strengths—once you fix a fatal flaw.

You might assume that fatal flaws occur only when leaders are young and inexperienced. However, we find that leaders often get moved or promoted into a new job where a competency that was not critical in the past becomes essential in the new position. A leader can have a fatal flaw at any point—and when a competency is mission critical, average performance is never good enough. 

Yes, our strengths set you apart and make you distinctive as a leader. But, don’t try to apply your strengths to fixing every problem. Some problems require a different tool.  So, take regular assessment of your abilities—both strengths and weaknesses—and improve accordingly. Build Strengths by Cross-Training

Doing more of what you already do well yields only incremental improvement. To make major progress, you need to work on comple-mentary skills (cross-training).

Learn more about developing your strengths with this slideshow.In cross-training, the combination of two activities produces a

synergistic effect—greater than either one can produce on its own. For example, we find that 16 differentiating leadership competencies correlate strongly with positive business outcomes. We also find that certain competency companions produce synergistic effects. So, if one of your main strengths is displays honesty and integrity, you might practice the competency-companion of assertiveness. You are then more likely to speak up and act with the courage of your convictions. If you are technically strong, you might improve your communication. If you are innovative, you might learn how to champion change. To engage in cross training, take four steps:

1. Identify your strengths. Your view of your strengths is less important than other people’s view, since leadership is all about your influence on others. We start with a 360 in which you and your direct reports, peers, and bosses anonymously rank your leadership attributes on a quantitative scale. You and they should also answer some qualitative, open-ended questions concerning your strengths and your fatal flaws (potential derailers). To help them be honest, ensure the feedback is anonymous.

2. Choose a strength to focus on. Focus on a competency that matters to the organization and about which you feel some passion. For each strength, answer these questions: Do I look for ways to enhance this skill and use it? Am I energized, not exhausted, when I use it? Do I pursue projects in which I can apply this strength? Would I devote time to improving it and enjoy getting better at it? Focus on a strength—like inspires and motivates others—where your skills, passions, and the organization’s needs or priorities dovetail.

3. Select a complementary behavior. People who motivate and influence others excel at persuading them to take action and inspiring them to go the extra mile. If you already do those things well, select one of 10 competency companions: Connects emotionally with others, sets stretch goals, exhibits clear vision and direction, com-municates powerfully and broadly, develops others, collaborates and fosters teamwork, nurtures innovation, takes initiative, champions change, is a strong role model. Also consider your lower scores (like communication skills) since raising them can make a big difference.

4. Develop it in a linear way. Having settled on a competency com-panion, work at directly improving in that area. Strong communicators speak concisely and deliver effective presentations; their instructions are clear; they write well; they explain new concepts clearly; they help people understand how their work contributes to business objectives; and they can translate terms used by people in different functions.

If you see lots of room for improvement here, look for opportuni-ties, inside and outside work, to improve your communication. You could take a course in business writing, practice with friends and family, volunteer to make presentations or to help high school students write college application essays. You could videotape yourself making speeches or join a local Toastmasters club.

Expect to see evidence of improvement within 60 days. If you don’t, what you’re doing is not working. Complementary behaviors improve steadily with practice—so keep at it. Improve another competency companion or two until you become expert at inspiring others. Then you can start the process again with another strength and its

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complements to start making a uniquely valuable contribution to the company.

What skills will magnify your strengths? The 16 differentiating competencies fall into five categories: character, personal capability, getting results, interpersonal skills, and leading change. If you have many strengths, consider how they are distributed across those cat-egories and focus improvement efforts on an underrepresented one. Developing competency companions makes you a more effective leader precisely because, rather than simply doing more of the same, you enhance how you already behave with new ways of working and interacting that make that behavior more effective.

Developing a few strengths can make a big difference, and yet fewer

than 10% of the executives we work with have any plan to do so. Why? The problem is less a matter of conviction than of execution. Executives need a path to enhancing their strengths that is as clear as the one to fixing their weaknesses. Cross-training enables you to use the linear improvement techniques you know to produce a distinctive, extraordinary strength. LE

Joe Folkman is president Zenger Folkman.Visit www.zengerfolkman.com

By Nick Tasler

Moving ahead, know what you’ll leave behind.

Decide to Be Excellent

Decisions are the most basic building blocks of successful change in our organizations, teams, and careers. The faster and more stra-tegically we stack those blocks, the faster and more successfully we achieve change. Yet, change efforts often stall precisely because those decisions don’t happen. The question is why?

Avoid changing by addition. The Latin root of the word decide is caidere, meaning to kill or to cut (think homicide, suicide, genocide), Technically, deciding to do something new without killing some-thing old is not a decision at all—it is merely an addition. When an executive announces that her business will change to become a luxury service provider, technically it is not a decision until she also states that they will not provide low cost services to price-sensitive customers anymore. When a sales manager declares that his strategy this quarter will require his salespeople to spend more time strength-ening existing customer relationships, he has only made an addition until he also declares that they should spend less time on hunting for new prospects.

Your palms might be sweating at the mere thought of telling your team to ignore some group of paying customers or to not spend time hunting for new business, even if you really want to see the change happen. Making tradeoffs is so mentally exhausting that most people try to avoid them whenever possible. That’s why a manager who is no stranger to long hours and hard work will escape the discomfort simply by piling on new change objectives without killing any of the current priorities. But this change-by-addition approach can be a death blow.

Avoid trickle-down tradeoffs. When team leaders fail to decide which old directions are going to be sacrificed in service of the new direction, the tradeoff doesn’t magically disappear. It simply slides down the ladder. Instead of the team leader leaning into the discom-fort and deciding once that the team will spend this quarter strength-ening existing customer relationships, and not actively hunting for new prospects, each team member now has to decide for themselves whether to call on an existing customer or go find a new one every time they pick up the phone, open their email, or hop in the car.

Trickle-down tradeoffs create two major problems for change efforts. First, they undermine team alignment toward the change. It is highly unlikely that each team member will independently arrive

at the same conclusion about what to do and what not to do. Part of the team will choose to move in one direction while the other part moves in another direction—the very definition of misaligned.

Second, making tradeoffs depletes our mental capacity and causes us to make poorer judgments in unrelated situations. This phenomenon is why otherwise healthy eaters end a long afternoon at the mall of choosing between stylish shoes and comfortable shoes by feasting on a hearty dinner of French fries and Cinnabons. They have no mental energy left to make good dieting decisions. Similarly, when your team has to spend a long morning making tradeoffs it leads to long afternoons of either staring at the wall and web-surfing, or making poor choices for their customers, their workloads, and their budgets.

To lead is to decide. Making change decisions is a cognitively and emotionally taxing activity that the average person will go to great lengths to avoid. While I have discovered some techniques for increasing the consistency and reliability of our decisions, there is no proven way of completely eliminating the discomfort of making tradeoffs. That might be a key element of what makes great leaders great. Great leaders and change agents have come in all shapes, sizes, colors, genders, and personality types. But the one thing they all seem to have in common—the one thing that distinguishes them from ordinary people—is their willingness to decide when others could not. LE

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Nick Tasler is CEO of Decision Pulse, a global consulting and training company, and author of Why Quitters Win: Decide to Be Excellent.Email Nick.Tasler@decisionpulse.com

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25leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Positive DeviantsTheir management model is unique.

By Gary Hamel

Interactive

We are all prisoners of the familiar. Many things—the first iPhone, J.K. Rowling’s wizardly world, Lady Gaga’s sirloin gown—were difficult to envision until we encountered them. So it is with organizations. It’s tough to imagine a company where no one has a boss; employees negotiate responsibilities with their peers; everyone can spend the company’s money; each individual is responsible for acquiring the tools needed to do his or her work; there are no titles, managers, or promotions; compensation decisions are peer-based; employees (col-leagues) are ridiculously empowered; and yet all work together like members of a carefully choreographed dance troupe.

This may sound impossible, but it’s not. These are the signature characteristics of at least one positive deviant—Morning Star Com-pany—a large, capital-intensive corporation whose plants devour tons of raw materials every hour, where dozens of processes have to be kept within tight tolerances, and where 400 full-time employees produce over $700 million a year in revenues.

This probably stretches your credulity—as it did mine. That’s why I visited one of its plants in California. Morning Star is the world’s largest tomato processor. Founded in 1970 as a tomato trucking op-eration by Chris Rufer, then an MBA student at UCLA, who is still its president, Morning Star now has three large plants. Over the past 20 years, its volumes, revenues, and profits have grown at a double-digit clip (industry growth has averaged 1% a year). The company has funded virtually all its growth from internal sources, suggesting it is robustly profitable.

I believe Morning Star’s model could work in companies of any size—as long as all divisions share its management philosophy. The real question is not whether the model can be scaled up but whether it can be adopted by traditional hierarchies. I believe the answer is yes, but the metamorphosis will take time, energy, and passion. Why Reinvent Management?

Management is the least efficient activity in your organization. Think of the countless hours that team leaders, department heads, and VPs devote to supervising the work of others. Most managers are hard-working; the problem doesn’t lie with them. The inefficiency stems from a top-heavy, cumbersome, and costly management model.

A hierarchy of managers exacts a hefty tax. This levy comes in four forms.

1. Managers add overhead, and as an organization grows, the costs of management rise. A small firm may have one manager and 10 employees; one with 100,000 employees and the same 1:10 span of control will have 11,111 managers, since an additional 1,111 managers will be needed to manage the managers. And, there will be hundreds of employees in management-related functions (finance, HR, planning) to keep the organization from collapsing under the weight of its own complexity. If each manager earns three times the average salary of a first-level employee, direct management costs would account for 33% of payroll. Any way you cut it, management is expensive.

2. The typical management hierarchy increases the risk of large, calamitous decisions. As decisions get bigger, the ranks of those able to challenge decision-makers get smaller. Hubris, myopia, and naïveté can lead to bad judgment at any level, but the danger is great-est when the decision-maker’s power is uncontestable. Give someone monarch-like authority, and soon there will be a royal screw-up. The most powerful managers are the ones furthest from front-line reali-ties. All too often, decisions made on an Olympian peak prove to be unworkable on the ground.

3. A multi-tiered management structure means more approval layers and slower responses. In their eagerness to exercise authority, managers often impede, rather than expedite, decision making. Bias is another tax. In a hierarchy the power to kill or modify a new idea is often vested in one person whose parochial interests may skew decisions.

4. Tyranny is costly. The problem isn’t the occasional control freak; it’s the hierarchical structure that systematically disempowers people. For example, as a consumer, you have the freedom to spend $25,000 on a new car, but as an employee you don’t have the authority to requisition a $500 office chair. Narrow an individual’s scope of author-ity, and you shrink the incentive to dream, imagine, and contribute. Wouldn’t it be great if we could achieve high coordination without a supervisory superstructure? Wouldn’t it be terrific if we could get the freedom and flexibility of an open market with the control and coordination of a tightly knit hierarchy? If only we could manage without managers!

Is there no way to buy coordination and control tax-free? Are we then stuck with trade-offs? It might seem so, since most us have never come across a company, like Morning Star, that’s both highly decentralized and precisely synchronized. By digging into the principles and practices that underpin Morning Star’s unique management model, we can learn how it might be possible to escape—or reduce—the management tax.

Whatever the uncertainties, Morning Star’s example makes it clear that, with a bit of imagination, it’s possible to transcend the seemingly intractable trade-offs, such as freedom versus control, that have long bedeviled management. We don’t have to be starry-eyed romantics to dream of organizations where managing is no longer the right of a vaunted few but the responsibility of all. LE

Gary Hamel is a visiting professor at London Business School and director of the Management Innovation eXchange, author of seven books, including What Matters Now (Jossey-Bass).Visit www.GaryHamel.com

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26 leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

Strategy ExecutionIs your organization sabotaging it?

By Fredrick Schuller

Interactive

What is the definition and purpose of strategy? One of the three principles of strategic positioning, according to Michael Porter, a leading authority on competitive strategy, is to create unique and valuable positioning in the marketplace—involving a different set of activities or the same activities performed different from competitors.

The key words are different and unique. But in a world where bench-marking and best practices flourish, it’s difficult to remain unique. Methods most companies use to shape leaders can backfire and destroy uniqueness, differentiation and ability to execute.  

Current leadership models set organizations up for failure. Best-in-class competencies and leadership expectation models are often so general that they apply to everyone but are useful to no one. This is opposite of what you need to do to be unique.

For example, the president of an Asian business unit of a global oil and gas company—operating in the country for a century—was interested in looking at their five to ten year strategy and defining the leadership capabilities that would be required for their top 100 leaders to meet their business objectives. Leases for some of their large producing fields were expiring in the next five-to-ten years and the National Oil Company wanted to take over the leases for produc-tion. There are many complexities working in the country including a mandate of 80% of employees and leaders needing to be nationals of the country, and maintain impeccable environmental performance. To succeed, the company must ensure its region leaders have the right skills and capabilities.

How would traditional competency models be used in this case? Competencies would be selected from a library. You might think communication and stakeholder management would be two natural competencies to choose in this case. Stock behaviors would likely be:  “Engages with external stakeholders to find win-win solutions” and “Communicates the company’s value proposition to partners and customers”

The problem is that we don’t even touch the complexity of what we need from the leaders. For example, to renew the leases: 1)   \Leaders will need to anticipate changes in power on a local and federal gov-ernment level and build relationships with people in power as well as with people coming to power in the future. 2)   Everyone interact-ing with officials also needs to be aligned on messaging and have a

common voice clearly articulating how company operations benefit the government and people of the country.

One example of a specific behavior might be:  Networks with government officials, parliament members, local, and community leaders regularly to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones to leverage in the future. In utilizing the behaviors and strategy in this example, the company’s strategic differentiation is its safety and environmental stewardship, relationships with the local and federal governments, and technology that helps get more of the resources out of the ground.

To define and hold leaders accountable for behaviors, organiza-tions need to tie them to the execution of the strategy and define the behaviors specific to their role that ensure strategic differentiation. Leaders who can draw a line of sight between the strategic goals of the organization, the objectives of the target leadership role, and the high-impact behaviors that represent the foundation for achieving those results will find the key to effective strategy execution.  

Here are eight ways to connect impact profiles to strategy execu-tion: 1. Conduct leader interviews to uncover the three-to-five year strategy and identify the high-leverage behaviors that are unique to execution (executives always have a great perspective on what behaviors are required for strategy execution). 2. Let the leaders own the execu-tion factors and behaviors by having them be the steering committee. 3. Analyze and assess the organization to uncover the critical gaps. 4. Connect and hardwire the refined list of high leverage behaviors directly to key business metrics and outcomes. 5. Create a high-impact learning and execution journey to build execution capability. Make sure intentionality, support and accountability is built into the process. 6. Embed behaviors and business metrics into selections, promotions, performance management reviews and compensation systems. 7. As the strategy evolves, refine and update. 8. Always focus on what drives differentiation for the company.

Now, here’s your exercise: Align your company’s strategic goals with the goals of leader role and identify high-impact behaviors to achieve those results. LE

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Frederick Schuller is VP of BTS, the global leader in strategy execution. Call 203-391-5224Visit www.BTS.com

27leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 10.2013

The Practical DruckerPut timeless principles in practice.

By William A. Cohen

Interactive

Some 34 years ago, I last sat in Peter Drucker’s class at then Claremont Graduate School and heard him lecture on management. Living only 30 miles from him in Pasadena, California our relationship continued after I graduated with my PhD. So while my studies are over and Peter has left us, I continue to learn from him as I evaluate his ideas and what they mean for us.

When I was interviewed about my fourth book on Drucker’s ideas (The Practical Drucker), I was asked, “Does this mean that Drucker was impractical in what he recommended?” This introduces a challenge: How can you best apply Drucker’s wisdom to your daily business? Even a Chinese executive who flew to the U.S. annually to consult Drucker said, “He never gave me specific advice on what to do in my business.” Another client wrote, “His methodology was to ask us questions, rather than to answer questions we asked.” When pushed, Drucker would turn the question to the client: “Okay, so you’re in trouble: What are you going to do about it?”

Everyone understands Einstein’s Relativity equation—or at least, what the letters e = mc2 stand for: the energy produced is equal to the mass of the body times the speed of light squared. Find a way to release that energy and you can build an atomic bomb to destroy a city, or develop a nuclear power plant to power one. Many find applying Drucker far more complex than applying Einstein’s theory. Some don’t even buy into Drucker’s ideas since he was not a scientist, and his conclusions were not based on the scientific method.

When I first interviewed for a teaching position after acquiring my PhD, one interviewer at a major university who noted my having been taught by Drucker volunteered: “If Drucker applied here for a position, we would not make him an offer.” Many academics resented his emphasis on qualitative observation and reasoning. But Drucker’s concepts, usually explained without numbers, are proved by their remarkable effects in practice. Drucker in Practice

Some focus on Drucker’s Management by Objectives as a concept unproven by scientific methods and unworkable in practice due to the context of its employment—from the resources available to the commitment of senior managers. However, context is always impor-tant, no matter the methodology. For example, Einstein claimed that he developed his theory of relativity and the famous equation that evolved from it merely by imagining himself sitting on the leading edge of a beam of light traveling through space.

Drucker wrote an early article which explained why marketing and selling were only not the same, but could even be adversarial. He applauded the idea of changing the title of a VP of sales to VP of marketing—if the executive also had his responsibilities altered. “If we call an undertaker a mortician to make him sound more important, he’s still only a graver digger,” he said. Drucker’s work caused even Professor Philip Kotler, known as the “the father of modern market-ing” to write that “if I am the father of marketing, than Peter Drucker is the grandfather.”

Some felt that Peter, being foreign born and speaking with a heavy Viennese accent, just didn’t know how to write clearly in English. Since Drucker made his living primarily from popular writing as a

journalist, first in German, and later in England and the United States, in the language of the land of his adoption, this is highly unlikely. In the 1940s and 50s, he was a frequent contributor to magazines, and his first book in English, The End of Economic Man, was reviewed favorably by Winston Churchill. No, Drucker knew how to write clearly in English.

What then, is the problem? When I wrote my first book about Drucker I participated in a panel discussion at the University of Rosario in Borgata, Colombia. More than 300 people filled the room. The Universidad del Rosario was founded by Catholic Friars in 1653. Today the institution is based on secular ideas, but it is still influential in Colombian culture and public life. Indeed, 28 of Colombia’s presi-dents have been University of Rosario students. The panel attracted some high-powered participants. One panelist, a wealthy Colombian businessman had read my book in Spanish and commented, “I’ve read Drucker for years, but reading Dr. Cohen’s book was the first the time that I felt that I understood what Drucker was talking about.”

This executive’s difficulty in understanding Drucker was simple. Drucker’s genius resulted in many important insights and innovative ideas, all of which he explained and supported through reasoning and historical facts, some going back several thousand years. However, Drucker rarely told us how to do anything. Drucker usually told his readers what they should do. In my book, I took Drucker’s examples of what to do and turned them into actions required for implementa-tion. Explaining how to do things is what I seem to do best.Secret of Drucker’s Consulting Success

Drucker’s consulting provides a good example. In one class, a student asked him how he could have such extensive knowledge about so much and to be in demand as a consultant. Drucker replied that he didn’t bring or rely on prior knowledge in his consulting, but rather his ignorance. I realized that Drucker had a method or investigative template which he used in his consulting, but he did not explain how to do this.

I began to investigate effective problem-solving methodologies. One involves defining the problem, deciding on the relevant information bearing on the problem situation, developing potential alternative solu-tions to the problem along with their advantages and disadvantages, analyzing these alternatives, developing solutions from this analysis, and finally making the decision or recommendations. Something along these lines was Drucker’s consulting template.

At first I used this process only in written form. However, over time, I started applying the process mentally with little conscious effort (the more you use the template, the more automatic it becomes). Most of my analysis was done almost without conscious thought.

I continue to review Drucker’s insights and to make Drucker prac-tical by discovering how to use and apply his remarkable ideas and concepts. LE

William A. Cohen is president of the California Institute of Advanced Man-agement, a new graduate school offering an MBA based on Drucker’s methods and the author of The Practical Drucker (AMACOM).Email william.cohen@gociam.org

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28leadership excellence essentials presented by HR.com | 09.2013

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