I remember while reading the autobiography of Lee Iaccoca one aspect of his story that made a lot of sense to me. Lee said that his career as an executive began when on the first day working for Walter Chrysler, Iaccoca found himself working on the factory floor. Walter Chrysler believed that in order for his leaders to fully appreciate and understand the breadth of his organization, each member needed to first understand each and every aspect of the manufacturing process. The same holds true for any leader or future leader. In other words, before one could lead, they must first know how to follow. The best way to go about this is to be a member of a team.
Team building and team membership are two of the most critical stages in leadership development. Once a leader become entrenched in his or her position, they often forget what organization looks like from the employee's perspective. Team membership is complicated. When you first enter the team there is an assimilation period, a meet and greet if you will. Trust has to be built and if the person is successful, creditability will follow. In many instances, the existing group will test the waters with the new member by seeing how far they can push the person, before the person pushes back. There are also other complex issues. For instance, in the case of new organizations, business still has to be done even when the team is brand new. it is not unusual for members to jockey for position, hold back key information in order to look good to the leadership, or simply engaging the art of political positioning. However, before we discuss the negative side of team membership, let's discuss the positive side.
You can consider team membership very much like family membership. There is usually someone that is in charge, one or people who support the leader, the defiant brother or sister, and that peculiar uncle which no seems to speak to or talk talk about much. Now take a moment to consider of of the people who are part of your workplace team. As you can see there are direct connections between these two groups. Maybe the largest difference between these types of teams is that in the case of your natural family, there are many years to become familiar with the members, to assimilate to the environment, and to come to the realization that you really can't change your family and have to deal with each member's eccentricity. But what about the team that you work with everyday. This is voluntary membership given the fact that you have to work and provide for yourself and your family. The work family (team) in many instances is not as forgiving and in many instances could be quite complex and problematic. In this instance there is a definable difference that will require you to engage a special "relationship" toolkit in order to be successful.
The reality is, the ultimate goal of any team is to reach one or more goals set forth by the organization. When a team is assembled, whether short or long-term, the group is responsible for producing a work product, service, or function defined by the system the groups serves. Members have to find a workable relationship to fulfill this requirement. However, there are many factors that can and do in many instances affect performance and ultimately, work output. Issues such as interfering outside forces, egos, and accountability rank at the top of the non-performing team list. Another issue is the fact that not ever member is motivated to succeed or lack commitment to the project, organization, or the rest of the team. The question then must be, how can we get the group to be productive, to care for its members, and reach the assigned goals? Rest easy reader, there are processes and mechanisms that can be set into motion to address these complexities.
To be continued...
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Delegation...Unlock the Chains that Bind
What a busy day I have! I have a report that is due for Mr. Johnson, the PowerPoint presentation has to be completed for Sam, these files have to find their way back into the file cabinate, and I have to meet with each one of the staff to complete their annual performance appraisals. What's wrong with this picture? In reality, supervisors spend much too much time doing things that have nothing to do with supervising. Many in the field of development argue that in many instances, supervisor just won't let go. They insist on trying to do everything themselves, ususally with far than steller results. The irony is, that supervisors who are paid a salary, often find themselves taking work home or at the very least, work far more hours and much harder then their employees.
There are many reasons for this. Primarily, supervisors feel that the work-product being generated by the department or division is the only thing that the supervisor is judged and measured on. This could not be any further from the truth. It is important to keep in mind that the supervisor's primary function is to supervise. With this said, then the true measurement of a supervisor's success is predicated on the supervisor's ability to lead, to develop, and to increase the performance of others and not themselves. When I entered the field of leadership and professional development, I was surprised to see how many people at all levels, are simply doing the wrong thing. It is if the person understood what his or her job function was, but simply decided to do what he or she liked to do, what the person was good at, or what the person had mastered. For example, in a reasonably staffed department, there is no reason why the supervisor is picking-up customer service calls unless the customer issue is leading into a recovery situation, or unless the customer requests to speak with a supervisor. To further expand on this example, many departments do not have an establish "phone chain" that designates in what order phone calls will be answered and by who. In this example, it is the customer who suffers and make no doubt about it, when poor customer service floats up to the organization's leadership, the organization will have something to on the supervisor.
The topic of delegation goes far beyond the discuss of customer service. In reality, customer service issues are part of a much larger dynamic that takes place in many office settings. In other words, if customer are suffering it is critical to find out why, ultimately, it is the supervisor and not his staff that is responsible. However, it is important to note, that delegation is only but one tool is the supervisor's tool belt; but this is one of the most important tools. Delegating is a skill most can master and what do not realize, is that delegation is not only a process, it is behavior-driven as well. On the behavioral side of delegating lies trust, buy-in to the process by not only the supervisor, but the employees as well, and credibility. I mention these three social driven characteristics because delegation cannot occur unless all three of these aspects are woven into the process. Let's start with trust. Trust takes place at two levels. The first is the supervisor having trust in the employee's ability to perform the task or assignment. The second is the employee's trust in his or her leader that the work being delegated is not simply things that are being dumped onto the person because the supervisor is too busy or simply does not want to perform the task. The second aspect focuses on buy-in. I consider buy-in the pinnacle of performance enhancement meaning, that unless your team see you the supervisor modeling the behavior you seek (i.e. your buy-in, enthusiasm, and commitment) there can be no buy-in, no employee moving to the next level, and most importantly, you will never see the employee move from compliance to commitment to either you or the organization. Finally, there is the topic of creditability. In sum, creditability is like earning respect instead of commanding it or, better put, creditability is never having anyone question why you decided to do something a certain way, assign a task to a particular person, or why one person will be considered for a promotion while another was not. Creditability is based by your past performance as well as your current and future good decision-making skills.
With the social-behavioral issues assign let's look the actual process of delegating. First there are some basic ground rules. The first is the biggest, never dump work on people that you are unwilling to do yourself. Secondly, every task or assignment is a learning opportunity, be prepared to have a dialog with the employee to discuss how they are going to plan and engage the assignment that you have assigned. In addition, on larger projects schedule time to meet with the person to discuss the progress of the project, and obstacles that are keeping the person from reaching the next level of the project, and most importantly, such meetings create the opportunity to coach and give valuable feedback throughout the project. The third rule is not to micro-manage. If the project has been identified as a learning experience, then let the person learn. Sometimes learning means that the person is going to fail or not go about completing the task as you would have done it. You see, sometimes the employee is not the only person who is learning. Supervisors have to get past the notion that they are expected to know everything or, have an answer for every question; after all, we are all human and new knowledge gets to us through the strangest mediums...even from a $6.00 per employee. In other words, judge the information not by the source by by its quality. The last golden rule is simple but the hardest to abide by. Stop giving them the answers and the solutions. A good supervisor-coach poses inquiring questions like "Why did you decide to go about this in this manor?" Or, "Have you considered the outcomes if you stay on this course of action?" Develop the talent of getting them to do what you want or go in the direction you want by their hand.
The last aspect of the delegation process is the process itself. It starts with identifying the right person for the right job. This statement represents the hardest part of the process. How do I know who is qualified to perform this task, who shall I assign this important project to? Believe it or not the answers are quite simple. Let's start with the first source, the employee's resume. There had to be some reason why you hired them but it has been so long since the first meeting that you have forgotten the special skills and talents that moved you to hire the person. The second suggestion is the employee themselves. create a 10 question survey that quarries the person about his or likes and dislikes, hobbies, and things that they feel they are competent to perform in the office. However, the greatest way to gather information is directly from the horses mouth. Get in the habit of asking these types of questions when you meet with the employee for his or her weekly one-on-one meeting. What! you don't meet on a regular basis with each of your employees one-on-one?...SHAME ON YOU! But this is a topic for another day.
The last of the delegation process has a number of critical aspects. I recommend that as you gather the data set forth in the past section, you create a log that outline the talents and abilities that have been identified. keep in mind that not every task or assignment is a production number. Sometimes, people simply have to do what is expect of them, or thing that you really need done. With this said, let's focus on an assignment that has some meat on it. Remember some of the earlier rules, the assignment must create one or a number of learnable aspects. The assignment requires the employee to have to use his or critical thinking skills. The way the person goes about the project must be by his or her own design. You as supervisor must assume the role of coach providing direction and feedback. As coach, you must a time frame for the project identifying time intervals to meet with the employee to discuss the project, issues, and aspects that were not organaly anticipated. Above all else, don't solve the problem, challenge the person to generate their own solutions.
Finally, I want to talk about letting go. Delegating is much like that group project assigned to you in middle school. The tendency is to assume the entire responcibility because you feared that the team would not carry their own weight. Things are different for you now. Your not a file clerk, you are a leader. Good leaders know how to let go, create opportunities for others, coach, and teach others. You already know how to create a PowerPoint presentation, you know how to input data into an excel spreadsheet, you know how to conduct a team meeting...let's now teach others these talents. The next time you are thinking of cheating an employee out of time that could be invested in employee development to crunch data, consider the true cost to the organization, you, and most importantly the employee. Remember, when people are not challenged, given an opportunity to learn new things, or feel that the job he or she holds is not career-centered, they will look for other opportunities.
There are many reasons for this. Primarily, supervisors feel that the work-product being generated by the department or division is the only thing that the supervisor is judged and measured on. This could not be any further from the truth. It is important to keep in mind that the supervisor's primary function is to supervise. With this said, then the true measurement of a supervisor's success is predicated on the supervisor's ability to lead, to develop, and to increase the performance of others and not themselves. When I entered the field of leadership and professional development, I was surprised to see how many people at all levels, are simply doing the wrong thing. It is if the person understood what his or her job function was, but simply decided to do what he or she liked to do, what the person was good at, or what the person had mastered. For example, in a reasonably staffed department, there is no reason why the supervisor is picking-up customer service calls unless the customer issue is leading into a recovery situation, or unless the customer requests to speak with a supervisor. To further expand on this example, many departments do not have an establish "phone chain" that designates in what order phone calls will be answered and by who. In this example, it is the customer who suffers and make no doubt about it, when poor customer service floats up to the organization's leadership, the organization will have something to on the supervisor.
The topic of delegation goes far beyond the discuss of customer service. In reality, customer service issues are part of a much larger dynamic that takes place in many office settings. In other words, if customer are suffering it is critical to find out why, ultimately, it is the supervisor and not his staff that is responsible. However, it is important to note, that delegation is only but one tool is the supervisor's tool belt; but this is one of the most important tools. Delegating is a skill most can master and what do not realize, is that delegation is not only a process, it is behavior-driven as well. On the behavioral side of delegating lies trust, buy-in to the process by not only the supervisor, but the employees as well, and credibility. I mention these three social driven characteristics because delegation cannot occur unless all three of these aspects are woven into the process. Let's start with trust. Trust takes place at two levels. The first is the supervisor having trust in the employee's ability to perform the task or assignment. The second is the employee's trust in his or her leader that the work being delegated is not simply things that are being dumped onto the person because the supervisor is too busy or simply does not want to perform the task. The second aspect focuses on buy-in. I consider buy-in the pinnacle of performance enhancement meaning, that unless your team see you the supervisor modeling the behavior you seek (i.e. your buy-in, enthusiasm, and commitment) there can be no buy-in, no employee moving to the next level, and most importantly, you will never see the employee move from compliance to commitment to either you or the organization. Finally, there is the topic of creditability. In sum, creditability is like earning respect instead of commanding it or, better put, creditability is never having anyone question why you decided to do something a certain way, assign a task to a particular person, or why one person will be considered for a promotion while another was not. Creditability is based by your past performance as well as your current and future good decision-making skills.
With the social-behavioral issues assign let's look the actual process of delegating. First there are some basic ground rules. The first is the biggest, never dump work on people that you are unwilling to do yourself. Secondly, every task or assignment is a learning opportunity, be prepared to have a dialog with the employee to discuss how they are going to plan and engage the assignment that you have assigned. In addition, on larger projects schedule time to meet with the person to discuss the progress of the project, and obstacles that are keeping the person from reaching the next level of the project, and most importantly, such meetings create the opportunity to coach and give valuable feedback throughout the project. The third rule is not to micro-manage. If the project has been identified as a learning experience, then let the person learn. Sometimes learning means that the person is going to fail or not go about completing the task as you would have done it. You see, sometimes the employee is not the only person who is learning. Supervisors have to get past the notion that they are expected to know everything or, have an answer for every question; after all, we are all human and new knowledge gets to us through the strangest mediums...even from a $6.00 per employee. In other words, judge the information not by the source by by its quality. The last golden rule is simple but the hardest to abide by. Stop giving them the answers and the solutions. A good supervisor-coach poses inquiring questions like "Why did you decide to go about this in this manor?" Or, "Have you considered the outcomes if you stay on this course of action?" Develop the talent of getting them to do what you want or go in the direction you want by their hand.
The last aspect of the delegation process is the process itself. It starts with identifying the right person for the right job. This statement represents the hardest part of the process. How do I know who is qualified to perform this task, who shall I assign this important project to? Believe it or not the answers are quite simple. Let's start with the first source, the employee's resume. There had to be some reason why you hired them but it has been so long since the first meeting that you have forgotten the special skills and talents that moved you to hire the person. The second suggestion is the employee themselves. create a 10 question survey that quarries the person about his or likes and dislikes, hobbies, and things that they feel they are competent to perform in the office. However, the greatest way to gather information is directly from the horses mouth. Get in the habit of asking these types of questions when you meet with the employee for his or her weekly one-on-one meeting. What! you don't meet on a regular basis with each of your employees one-on-one?...SHAME ON YOU! But this is a topic for another day.
The last of the delegation process has a number of critical aspects. I recommend that as you gather the data set forth in the past section, you create a log that outline the talents and abilities that have been identified. keep in mind that not every task or assignment is a production number. Sometimes, people simply have to do what is expect of them, or thing that you really need done. With this said, let's focus on an assignment that has some meat on it. Remember some of the earlier rules, the assignment must create one or a number of learnable aspects. The assignment requires the employee to have to use his or critical thinking skills. The way the person goes about the project must be by his or her own design. You as supervisor must assume the role of coach providing direction and feedback. As coach, you must a time frame for the project identifying time intervals to meet with the employee to discuss the project, issues, and aspects that were not organaly anticipated. Above all else, don't solve the problem, challenge the person to generate their own solutions.
Finally, I want to talk about letting go. Delegating is much like that group project assigned to you in middle school. The tendency is to assume the entire responcibility because you feared that the team would not carry their own weight. Things are different for you now. Your not a file clerk, you are a leader. Good leaders know how to let go, create opportunities for others, coach, and teach others. You already know how to create a PowerPoint presentation, you know how to input data into an excel spreadsheet, you know how to conduct a team meeting...let's now teach others these talents. The next time you are thinking of cheating an employee out of time that could be invested in employee development to crunch data, consider the true cost to the organization, you, and most importantly the employee. Remember, when people are not challenged, given an opportunity to learn new things, or feel that the job he or she holds is not career-centered, they will look for other opportunities.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Leading in the Face of Change
I decided to start this blog as a way to reach other people like myself who develop people with the mission of empowering the entire organization. What better way to start than to talk about change. It is no secret that people like us who are in T & D are faced with a number of new challenges. Primarily, most organizations are experiencing hiring freezes and sadly layoffs. Leaders are now faced with a very harsh reality regarding having to take strategic measures to stabilize and retain their existing workforce. To further compound the situation, many companies do the stupidest thing in poor economic times, they cutback or eliminate the training and development division. So, if we take a moment to look at this situation from a systems thinking perspective, the larger cost may very well be paid when we actually come out of this crisis. The price we will pay will be that of large personnel gaps in the organizations we serve. Even larger than that will be even larger gaps in the skills needed to bring these organizations back up to speed.
One solution must be a true succession mechanism woven into the company's strategic plan. Many consider this problematic because if T & D departments are being reduced or eliminated, who is going to training, develop, and mentor this next generation of leaders. The truth is, business in general will lose many top leaders over the next two years. In fact, after speaking with an HR colleague this week, there are companies that are running with virtually no senior leadership at all. This is a large issue because in this instance, middle managers are running the show. I am not suggesting that this group of leaders are not capable of stepping up to the place, what I am suggesting is that many of these middle managers have skill-gaps that can only be filled with time, experience, and leaving a little skin at the ball field.
One of the greatest misnomers I encounter in my line of work is the misconception that succession development is limited to the "up-and-comer," this could not be any further from the truth. True succession is a continuum of development that starts with the hourly employee who needs immediate skill development to perform his or her job function through the senior leadership of the organization. In this instance, the discussion is not about embracing organizational culture but rather, it is all about development as the driver of that culture. Therefore, it is important to understand that development on a continuum means that the organization identifies skill gaps globally but train at each level of the organization's leadership change. For example, the communication set needed at the emerging leader level is quite different than the type of communication that takes place at the senior level. The same holds true for understanding change. In this respect, where senior leaders create the change, the front-line supervisor is charged with both the communication of the change at a very localized level, but supporting his or her employees through the anxiety that is associated with that change as well. One could argue that at the end of the day, it is the Front-line supervisor's ability to support the employee through dramatic changes in policy that drives retention and continued employee support and buy in to the company's mission. i will go even one step further and state that it is the emerging leader's ability to support his or her lateral colleagues through turmoil that positions the Front-line supervisor to be successful in his or her ability to keep the department stable.
How then does the organizational leader lead in the face of change? one may say by the seat of his pants. Wiser leaders would say by having a solid plan that not only addresses the organization's current needs, but the tomorrow's needs as well. The biggest issue the organizational sector is facing is retention issues driven by instability. Good leadership realizes the domino effect that is inherent to all organizations that are forced to layoff its people. Although it could be argued that in this market no one is going no where, the reality is, no matter how much you need the job, if you are pushed to a very high level of anxiety and in some cases depression, people will leave. Even if means takes a lower position and less pay. People need a sense of security in their lives and they will make sacrifices to have it. When this level of change occurs, leaders have to be fully committed to the transformational style of leadership. In other words, support and promote what the person does best, communicate constantly, and support and secure the entire organization by developing the remaining membership for tomorrow. If you are a member of a small to medium-sized company who does not have an in-house training department you must face the reality that you will have to spend dollars that you may not have to ensure that you are ready for the end of this economic crises.
Understand this, anyone can manage when things are stable and there is a lot of money floating around but true leadership occurs when thing are not so good and hard decisions have to be made to ensure that the organization will be here in the future. Remember, the future begins with developing your people today.
One solution must be a true succession mechanism woven into the company's strategic plan. Many consider this problematic because if T & D departments are being reduced or eliminated, who is going to training, develop, and mentor this next generation of leaders. The truth is, business in general will lose many top leaders over the next two years. In fact, after speaking with an HR colleague this week, there are companies that are running with virtually no senior leadership at all. This is a large issue because in this instance, middle managers are running the show. I am not suggesting that this group of leaders are not capable of stepping up to the place, what I am suggesting is that many of these middle managers have skill-gaps that can only be filled with time, experience, and leaving a little skin at the ball field.
One of the greatest misnomers I encounter in my line of work is the misconception that succession development is limited to the "up-and-comer," this could not be any further from the truth. True succession is a continuum of development that starts with the hourly employee who needs immediate skill development to perform his or her job function through the senior leadership of the organization. In this instance, the discussion is not about embracing organizational culture but rather, it is all about development as the driver of that culture. Therefore, it is important to understand that development on a continuum means that the organization identifies skill gaps globally but train at each level of the organization's leadership change. For example, the communication set needed at the emerging leader level is quite different than the type of communication that takes place at the senior level. The same holds true for understanding change. In this respect, where senior leaders create the change, the front-line supervisor is charged with both the communication of the change at a very localized level, but supporting his or her employees through the anxiety that is associated with that change as well. One could argue that at the end of the day, it is the Front-line supervisor's ability to support the employee through dramatic changes in policy that drives retention and continued employee support and buy in to the company's mission. i will go even one step further and state that it is the emerging leader's ability to support his or her lateral colleagues through turmoil that positions the Front-line supervisor to be successful in his or her ability to keep the department stable.
How then does the organizational leader lead in the face of change? one may say by the seat of his pants. Wiser leaders would say by having a solid plan that not only addresses the organization's current needs, but the tomorrow's needs as well. The biggest issue the organizational sector is facing is retention issues driven by instability. Good leadership realizes the domino effect that is inherent to all organizations that are forced to layoff its people. Although it could be argued that in this market no one is going no where, the reality is, no matter how much you need the job, if you are pushed to a very high level of anxiety and in some cases depression, people will leave. Even if means takes a lower position and less pay. People need a sense of security in their lives and they will make sacrifices to have it. When this level of change occurs, leaders have to be fully committed to the transformational style of leadership. In other words, support and promote what the person does best, communicate constantly, and support and secure the entire organization by developing the remaining membership for tomorrow. If you are a member of a small to medium-sized company who does not have an in-house training department you must face the reality that you will have to spend dollars that you may not have to ensure that you are ready for the end of this economic crises.
Understand this, anyone can manage when things are stable and there is a lot of money floating around but true leadership occurs when thing are not so good and hard decisions have to be made to ensure that the organization will be here in the future. Remember, the future begins with developing your people today.
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