Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Hub You - It's Not All About Cheese: The Missing Component in Employee Development (Part 2)
Business owners and managers are busier than ever. As their businesses grow and become more complex, they find that they don’t have the time to be all things to all people. In the early stages of a business, the owner or manager waits on customers, does the buying, collects past due accounts, supervises just about everyone on staff and may even stay late to stuff the monthly statements.At each stage of business growth, managers must muster the discipline to delegate more and personally perform fewer and fewer job functions to give them time to think and plan. This is not easy. After all, the business is their baby. They oftentimes gave birth to it and have nurtured it to this point, so trusting someone else to assume accountability for key jobs can often feel somewhat like separation anxiety.The problem in life is that it’s too short to be good at a lot of different things. How many things can you be really good at? If you’re great at sales, odds are you are not terrific at collecting. If you’re entrepreneurial, odds are that you’re not attentive enough to de
4. Giving Service: Beyond our practices for providing great customer service to internal and external customers is another criterion for service: developing a servant’s heart. Quality service is a great goal that improves our relationship with customers and helps them feel rewarded for doing business with you. But when you go beyond the practice and tap into the “heart” of service you develop genuine service orientation. Incorporate the ideas of reliability, credibility, responsiveness, and empathy into your training program.
5. Earned Trust: Build a program where trust is earned rather than automatically expected based on title, position, or experience. Edward Marshall, in his book “Building Trust At The Speed of Change”, identifies something called “The Transaction-Based Organization”. Within the Transaction-Based Organization, the emphasis is on fear and blame with no willingness to take risk. People are nice, but not honest. Groups of people form conflicting turfs based on their mutual struggles. Competing cultural norms are based on negative drivers like control, power, and self-promotion rather than positive drivers like openness, honesty, trust, and service. As a result, individuals create false or unclear expectations and behavior which they feel powerlessness to address. The first four components of MERGE will help you defeat the “transaction-b
If you are creating a brochure, make sure you follow these 9 steps to get best return on your investment:1 Grab Attention You need a hook that gets your audience interested. The headline or main text is your first chance to grab attention. Get the adrenaline pumping, tears flowing, or sides splitting. Spark their curiosity and they will keep reading.2 Time and Convenience Provide value by meeting time and convenience needs. Offer useful information that will be of immediate benefit to the reader, whether they buy or not. Provide welcome advice rather than untimely interruptions. Position yourself as the expert and build relationships before the sale.3 Know Your Audience It’s not about you. Your audience wants to know how they can increase their sales/efficiency. Find out what your audience needs, then offer it. Make sure you have a high You to I/We ratio.4 Know Yourself What is your product or service? Describe it in brief easy to understand language. Explain why you are a better choice than you
The Wrong Focus
It is fascinating that the first thing we do when identifying human resources needs is list the job skills for the position (cognitive and technical). But when given the choice between two equally qualified applicants we tend to choose based on their level of “personal maturity”. Traits like self-confidence and other characteristics (like guiding awareness of values, goal orientation, awareness of their strengths and weaknesses, evidence of self-development, decisiveness, etc.). We say that we choose the best fit for the team or the company culture.
What we really mean is that we found traits in that person that really appealed to us. Traits that sometimes aren’t clear or tangible. We just like them based on their personality and character. You just know that you want people like that in your department and your company. We choose our friends, softball teammates, and our mate similarly; perceiving a connection and an attitude that supports collaboration.
Incidentally, as we base our decisions to hire people solely on skill or technical competence, we also resort to the same thinking to correct unexpected behavior (diversity training, disciplinary action, and sometimes termination). Yet, fewer employees are fired for not knowing their job than for problems like: lack of trust and motivation, failure to adapt, lack of initiative in work performance, and apathy towards customers. The same can be said about thousands of failed marriages in the United States. The number of divorces filed under dissolution of marriage increases at an astonishing rate every year. And it isn’t because they lack marriage skills. The shortcomings are in their lack of personal skills; skills necessary for resolving problems.
So if the problem is so obvious; if our inability to collaborate is the result of a lack in personal and social skills, then why aren’t we addressing the problem at the source? Perhaps it is because of our insistence in applying quick intellectual fixes to our collaboration problems. One of my favorite quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky reads, "It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them—the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas." I find myself talking with clients about things like generosity, courtesy, and respect, which I know our culture promotes, but seldom ever talks about in the workplace. I emphasize that customers won’t care about web design, slogans, or product features (and employees won’t care about your tactics and business initiatives) until they are clear about your values and until they trust your character.
Teaching People to “Fake It”
We have been teaching employees for the last 20 years to fake their way through collaborating with others. We have forced them into an irrational pattern of isolating who they truly are and behaving by the law of the “corporate land”. But the idea of separating personal values from corporate behavior is hypocritical at best; irrational for sure. We do it most often by teaching “teamwork” but not the character that drives sincere collaboration; by asking employees to embrace innovation, but quenching the emotional qualities behind “being” innovative. We tell employees to “care” for customers, but do not teach them empathy. Our marketing and advertisement tells people that our company is “world-class”, while employees walk out the back door to work for the competition. We talk big, but the heart of your customer service and retention strategies is missing the same component that has been missing from the heart of your employee development strategies for a long time: heart-felt service.
Tactics, technical skills, and expertise are only a part of what will make your company succeed. Interpersonal ineptitude is killing companies (even with the best products and services in the market). It is degrading performance, it is corroding motivation and commitment, building hostility and apathy, and subsequently it is preventing us from growing as human beings.
We have created a culture where people act with the same disregard for each other as they do on the road. It is a pattern of pushing mission statements based on goals instead of on values; explaining integrity instead of exemplifying it; assigning responsibilities without promoting accountability; expecting good service instead of heart-felt, giving service; demanding trust instead of earning it.
Building a MERGE Training Program
So, if you are serious about building a training program that has a strong values framework, let me suggest that you use the Merge Point Method to create it. At a minimum, include training that addresses:
1. Mission based on Values: Individuals can build a common mission based on shared values. Even in cultures driven by conflict, values can serve as the foundation for every interaction. Working from a platform of common values is not enough, though. People should also learn to become aware of their behavior (their “driving strategies”), understanding the impact of their agreements with others, and dealing with conflict when there is a lack of alignment between values and behavior.
2. Exemplifying Integrity: Explaining integrity is different from exemplifying it. Teach people what integrity looks like and they will know the right behaviors to emulate. Integrity is living by your values and managing risk. It is demonstrating consistency of values-driven behavior and building a safe environment to practice those values. Integrity is about the agreements you make with yourself and about clearly defining the right attitudes and actions to pursue, even if you have to make personal sacrifices to behave appropriately. People who behave with integrity not only act in accordance with their values, but also communicate that they are acting according to them.
3. Responsibility with Accountability: There are two aspects of daily behavior and collaboration that need definition: responsibility and accountability. Start by ensuring that people understand their roles; your expectations for what they do and how they do it. Then teach them to develop a sense of ownership that leads to accountability. This includes understanding ownership, rewarding accountability, and describing liability for blind-spots.
4. Giving Service: Beyond our practices for providing great customer service to internal and external customers is another criterion for service: developing a servant’s heart. Quality service is a great goal that improves our relationship with customers and helps them feel rewarded for doing business with you. But when you go beyond the practice and tap into the “heart” of service you develop genuine service orientation. Incorporate the ideas of reliability, credibility, responsiveness, and empathy into your training program.
5. Earned Trust: Build a program where trust is earned rather than automatically expected based on title, position, or experience. Edward Marshall, in his book “Building Trust At The Speed of Change”, identifies something called “The Transaction-Based Organization”. Within the Transaction-Based Organization, the emphasis is on fear and blame with no willingness to take risk. People are nice, but not honest. Groups of people form conflicting turfs based on their mutual struggles. Competing cultural norms are based on negative drivers like control, power, and self-promotion rather than positive drivers like openness, honesty, trust, and service. As a result, individuals create false or unclear expectations and behavior which they feel powerlessness to address. The first four components of MERGE will help you defeat the “transaction-b
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Seneca (Roman Philosopher, Mid 1st Century A.D.)Good fortune, in some way or form, comes to us all. It is they who are prepared to receive it that notice its arrival and reap the rewards. When it comes to your job search, you should leave nothing to chance and employ as many strategies and tools as possible to ensure the best chance for success. Here are some recommendations for maintaining your work area that will make you more search efforts more efficient and effective:The Different Divisions of "Mission Control"If executed with diligence, your job search will have many facets. You will manage searches with multiple online job boards (some highly specialized), record contacts and conversations with multiple personnel from various organizations, customize resumes and related documents for each employer submission, and track your countless follow-up efforts. To ensure you stay on top of the myriad of strategies and tactics you have in place at one time, you need to establish a stand-alone control ar
So if the problem is so obvious; if our inability to collaborate is the result of a lack in personal and social skills, then why aren’t we addressing the problem at the source? Perhaps it is because of our insistence in applying quick intellectual fixes to our collaboration problems. One of my favorite quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky reads, "It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them—the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas." I find myself talking with clients about things like generosity, courtesy, and respect, which I know our culture promotes, but seldom ever talks about in the workplace. I emphasize that customers won’t care about web design, slogans, or product features (and employees won’t care about your tactics and business initiatives) until they are clear about your values and until they trust your character.
Teaching People to “Fake It”
We have been teaching employees for the last 20 years to fake their way through collaborating with others. We have forced them into an irrational pattern of isolating who they truly are and behaving by the law of the “corporate land”. But the idea of separating personal values from corporate behavior is hypocritical at best; irrational for sure. We do it most often by teaching “teamwork” but not the character that drives sincere collaboration; by asking employees to embrace innovation, but quenching the emotional qualities behind “being” innovative. We tell employees to “care” for customers, but do not teach them empathy. Our marketing and advertisement tells people that our company is “world-class”, while employees walk out the back door to work for the competition. We talk big, but the heart of your customer service and retention strategies is missing the same component that has been missing from the heart of your employee development strategies for a long time: heart-felt service.
Tactics, technical skills, and expertise are only a part of what will make your company succeed. Interpersonal ineptitude is killing companies (even with the best products and services in the market). It is degrading performance, it is corroding motivation and commitment, building hostility and apathy, and subsequently it is preventing us from growing as human beings.
We have created a culture where people act with the same disregard for each other as they do on the road. It is a pattern of pushing mission statements based on goals instead of on values; explaining integrity instead of exemplifying it; assigning responsibilities without promoting accountability; expecting good service instead of heart-felt, giving service; demanding trust instead of earning it.
Building a MERGE Training Program
So, if you are serious about building a training program that has a strong values framework, let me suggest that you use the Merge Point Method to create it. At a minimum, include training that addresses:
1. Mission based on Values: Individuals can build a common mission based on shared values. Even in cultures driven by conflict, values can serve as the foundation for every interaction. Working from a platform of common values is not enough, though. People should also learn to become aware of their behavior (their “driving strategies”), understanding the impact of their agreements with others, and dealing with conflict when there is a lack of alignment between values and behavior.
2. Exemplifying Integrity: Explaining integrity is different from exemplifying it. Teach people what integrity looks like and they will know the right behaviors to emulate. Integrity is living by your values and managing risk. It is demonstrating consistency of values-driven behavior and building a safe environment to practice those values. Integrity is about the agreements you make with yourself and about clearly defining the right attitudes and actions to pursue, even if you have to make personal sacrifices to behave appropriately. People who behave with integrity not only act in accordance with their values, but also communicate that they are acting according to them.
3. Responsibility with Accountability: There are two aspects of daily behavior and collaboration that need definition: responsibility and accountability. Start by ensuring that people understand their roles; your expectations for what they do and how they do it. Then teach them to develop a sense of ownership that leads to accountability. This includes understanding ownership, rewarding accountability, and describing liability for blind-spots.
4. Giving Service: Beyond our practices for providing great customer service to internal and external customers is another criterion for service: developing a servant’s heart. Quality service is a great goal that improves our relationship with customers and helps them feel rewarded for doing business with you. But when you go beyond the practice and tap into the “heart” of service you develop genuine service orientation. Incorporate the ideas of reliability, credibility, responsiveness, and empathy into your training program.
5. Earned Trust: Build a program where trust is earned rather than automatically expected based on title, position, or experience. Edward Marshall, in his book “Building Trust At The Speed of Change”, identifies something called “The Transaction-Based Organization”. Within the Transaction-Based Organization, the emphasis is on fear and blame with no willingness to take risk. People are nice, but not honest. Groups of people form conflicting turfs based on their mutual struggles. Competing cultural norms are based on negative drivers like control, power, and self-promotion rather than positive drivers like openness, honesty, trust, and service. As a result, individuals create false or unclear expectations and behavior which they feel powerlessness to address. The first four components of MERGE will help you defeat the “transaction-b
We hear from our clients that they “hope the candidate takes the job.” Hiring a candidate shouldn’t be a guessing game. After you interview a candidate thoroughly, and spend a great deal of time and money getting them through the process, you should not have to worry about “landing them.”Donald Trump was quoted as supporting paying full price for something important to you. Many deals, both in business and in personal situations, are lost over $5,000-10,000. $5,000 to $10,000 broken down over time is a small amount. Imagine losing your dream house over $5,000. That’s roughly $14 per month. That’s a tough loss. Again, if there is something you must have, pay full price and don’t let it slip away.We recruited for a Tier One software company where many of the candidates were also being entertained by a Big 5 consulting firm. My client was the software company and almost always we would get the candidate (even though the compensation was less and the company name wasn’t as prestigious; it was because the software company did a better job of recruiting).
Tactics, technical skills, and expertise are only a part of what will make your company succeed. Interpersonal ineptitude is killing companies (even with the best products and services in the market). It is degrading performance, it is corroding motivation and commitment, building hostility and apathy, and subsequently it is preventing us from growing as human beings.
We have created a culture where people act with the same disregard for each other as they do on the road. It is a pattern of pushing mission statements based on goals instead of on values; explaining integrity instead of exemplifying it; assigning responsibilities without promoting accountability; expecting good service instead of heart-felt, giving service; demanding trust instead of earning it.
Building a MERGE Training Program
So, if you are serious about building a training program that has a strong values framework, let me suggest that you use the Merge Point Method to create it. At a minimum, include training that addresses:
1. Mission based on Values: Individuals can build a common mission based on shared values. Even in cultures driven by conflict, values can serve as the foundation for every interaction. Working from a platform of common values is not enough, though. People should also learn to become aware of their behavior (their “driving strategies”), understanding the impact of their agreements with others, and dealing with conflict when there is a lack of alignment between values and behavior.
2. Exemplifying Integrity: Explaining integrity is different from exemplifying it. Teach people what integrity looks like and they will know the right behaviors to emulate. Integrity is living by your values and managing risk. It is demonstrating consistency of values-driven behavior and building a safe environment to practice those values. Integrity is about the agreements you make with yourself and about clearly defining the right attitudes and actions to pursue, even if you have to make personal sacrifices to behave appropriately. People who behave with integrity not only act in accordance with their values, but also communicate that they are acting according to them.
3. Responsibility with Accountability: There are two aspects of daily behavior and collaboration that need definition: responsibility and accountability. Start by ensuring that people understand their roles; your expectations for what they do and how they do it. Then teach them to develop a sense of ownership that leads to accountability. This includes understanding ownership, rewarding accountability, and describing liability for blind-spots.
4. Giving Service: Beyond our practices for providing great customer service to internal and external customers is another criterion for service: developing a servant’s heart. Quality service is a great goal that improves our relationship with customers and helps them feel rewarded for doing business with you. But when you go beyond the practice and tap into the “heart” of service you develop genuine service orientation. Incorporate the ideas of reliability, credibility, responsiveness, and empathy into your training program.
5. Earned Trust: Build a program where trust is earned rather than automatically expected based on title, position, or experience. Edward Marshall, in his book “Building Trust At The Speed of Change”, identifies something called “The Transaction-Based Organization”. Within the Transaction-Based Organization, the emphasis is on fear and blame with no willingness to take risk. People are nice, but not honest. Groups of people form conflicting turfs based on their mutual struggles. Competing cultural norms are based on negative drivers like control, power, and self-promotion rather than positive drivers like openness, honesty, trust, and service. As a result, individuals create false or unclear expectations and behavior which they feel powerlessness to address. The first four components of MERGE will help you defeat the “transaction-b
As a trainer tasked with implementing lean manufacturing in UK based manufacturing businesses I am often asked by senior managers "Where should we start? or “Which lean tool should we introduce first"? Without hesitation I always reply, "You must start by getting your people on board".I have seen more lean implementation programmes fail because of poor management and lack of people skills than for any other reason. The Introduction of Lean Manufacturing into a business which has not used these tools before can take some getting used to, particularly by managers who have always gone about their roles in a certain way.Some Managers feel threatened, intimidated and even embarrassed by their lack of knowledge about lean manufacturing which can cause them to hinder rather than promote change. In my experience the implementation of lean manufacturing never fails because of the efforts of shop floor operators but because the lack of leadership of management. So how do we set about implementing lean manufacturing?First of all the Senior Management team of
1. Mission based on Values: Individuals can build a common mission based on shared values. Even in cultures driven by conflict, values can serve as the foundation for every interaction. Working from a platform of common values is not enough, though. People should also learn to become aware of their behavior (their “driving strategies”), understanding the impact of their agreements with others, and dealing with conflict when there is a lack of alignment between values and behavior.
2. Exemplifying Integrity: Explaining integrity is different from exemplifying it. Teach people what integrity looks like and they will know the right behaviors to emulate. Integrity is living by your values and managing risk. It is demonstrating consistency of values-driven behavior and building a safe environment to practice those values. Integrity is about the agreements you make with yourself and about clearly defining the right attitudes and actions to pursue, even if you have to make personal sacrifices to behave appropriately. People who behave with integrity not only act in accordance with their values, but also communicate that they are acting according to them.
3. Responsibility with Accountability: There are two aspects of daily behavior and collaboration that need definition: responsibility and accountability. Start by ensuring that people understand their roles; your expectations for what they do and how they do it. Then teach them to develop a sense of ownership that leads to accountability. This includes understanding ownership, rewarding accountability, and describing liability for blind-spots.
4. Giving Service: Beyond our practices for providing great customer service to internal and external customers is another criterion for service: developing a servant’s heart. Quality service is a great goal that improves our relationship with customers and helps them feel rewarded for doing business with you. But when you go beyond the practice and tap into the “heart” of service you develop genuine service orientation. Incorporate the ideas of reliability, credibility, responsiveness, and empathy into your training program.
5. Earned Trust: Build a program where trust is earned rather than automatically expected based on title, position, or experience. Edward Marshall, in his book “Building Trust At The Speed of Change”, identifies something called “The Transaction-Based Organization”. Within the Transaction-Based Organization, the emphasis is on fear and blame with no willingness to take risk. People are nice, but not honest. Groups of people form conflicting turfs based on their mutual struggles. Competing cultural norms are based on negative drivers like control, power, and self-promotion rather than positive drivers like openness, honesty, trust, and service. As a result, individuals create false or unclear expectations and behavior which they feel powerlessness to address. The first four components of MERGE will help you defeat the “transaction-b
Everyone has a hobby of some kind - most people have several. There are people who collect stamps; people who make scrapbooks or create graphic designs with their digital photos; people who love horseback riding, hiking or bicycling. Maybe you do something that you don't even know is considered a "hobby". Technically, anything that you engage in for fun that is outside of your occupational activities is considered a hobby- so chances are you have lots of hobbies! Have you ever considered turning one of your hobbies into a business? You may be surprised at how virtually any hobby can be converted to profits, and without tremendous overhead or ridiculously high start up costs. What's even better, you aren't required to have a specific product to sell! In fact, you can make your knowledge your product to sell. If you participate regularly in some sort of hobby, you are bound to know quite a bit about it. If you make scrapbooks of your family and friends, then you probably have extensive knowledge about where to get the
4. Giving Service: Beyond our practices for providing great customer service to internal and external customers is another criterion for service: developing a servant’s heart. Quality service is a great goal that improves our relationship with customers and helps them feel rewarded for doing business with you. But when you go beyond the practice and tap into the “heart” of service you develop genuine service orientation. Incorporate the ideas of reliability, credibility, responsiveness, and empathy into your training program.
5. Earned Trust: Build a program where trust is earned rather than automatically expected based on title, position, or experience. Edward Marshall, in his book “Building Trust At The Speed of Change”, identifies something called “The Transaction-Based Organization”. Within the Transaction-Based Organization, the emphasis is on fear and blame with no willingness to take risk. People are nice, but not honest. Groups of people form conflicting turfs based on their mutual struggles. Competing cultural norms are based on negative drivers like control, power, and self-promotion rather than positive drivers like openness, honesty, trust, and service. As a result, individuals create false or unclear expectations and behavior which they feel powerlessness to address. The first four components of MERGE will help you defeat the “transaction-based” mentality. But you should incorporate the definition of trust and methods for gaining / regaining it into your training program.
If you strive for excellence in every aspect of your life, you are probably already practicing many of the principles taught by MERGE. The principles are nothing new. They are simply organized to give you a fresh perspective in achieving collaboration in work and personal life. You have the unique opportunity to make a difference where you live and work by practicing these principles and by training every member of your company to practice MERGE. Amidst the frustrations you experience every day, you can now make an educated decision to change the patterns that keep you from enjoying a successful life and career.
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.iadvice.info/article/24179/iadvice-Its-Not-All-About-Cheese-The-Missing-Component-in-Employee-Development-Part-2.html">It's Not All About Cheese: The Missing Component in Employee Development (Part 2)</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.iadvice.info/article/24179/iadvice-Its-Not-All-About-Cheese-The-Missing-Component-in-Employee-Development-Part-2.html]It's Not All About Cheese: The Missing Component in Employee Development (Part 2)[/url]
Related Articles:
The Lost Society II - The Plight of Low-Wage Workers
Desperate To Leave Your Job? Avoid These Fatal Mistakes
Bookmark it:
|