Development Network

Creating a Generation of Asian Business Leaders 9by George Hallenbeck and Indranil Roy | Chief Learning Officer)

2012-01-28T05:38:00.001-08:00

-By Development Network-

The center of gravity in the global economy is rapidly shifting to Asia. The region, led by emerging market powerhouses India and China, is first out of the gate in the global recovery and building on its lead. This is more than a simple economic resurgence. A new, 21st century model for success that has the potential to endure for decades is taking shape.

With all of Asia's promise, the market also presents considerable risk. Success will come down to the quality of leadership talent, particularly local talent, in place. This talent will be different than any previously sought in Asian markets. Leaders must be more participative and less directive, more strategic and less operational.

Research data from executive recruiting firm Korn/Ferry suggests the leadership style required to meet this need is in short supply. To understand the emerging leadership and development needs in the region, the forces propelling the Asian economy forward at such a rapid pace must be examined first. There are three fundamental shifts at work:

1. The consumer shift.

This is the most critical shift under way. Asia's middle class is growing at a frenetic pace. During the next two decades, the ranks of the middle class in Asia will swell exponentially. The Brookings Institution estimates that nearly two-thirds of the world's middle class will reside in Asia in 2030, more than double today's figures. As the new middle class emerges, so will new attitudes toward consumption. A recent Credit Suisse survey of emerging consumers also indicates an increase in discretionary spending in India and China.

2. The innovation shift.

Companies such as GE and Tata recognize the need to adapt their products and services to the burgeoning middle class. This has unleashed a wave of innovation. According to its Ministry of Commerce, China is now home to more than 1,200 foreign-invested research and development centers.

3. The workforce shift.

If companies are going to succeed by creating new types of products and services for a new type of consumer, they will need a new type of employee. Asian managers have historically focused on building a low-cost, high-productivity workforce. The emphasis is now shifting to developing a creative pool of talent that can generate and implement breakthrough ideas. Singapore is noteworthy for increasing research and development spending more than 20 percent in an effort to further transition from manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy.

These shifts present companies doing business in Asia with a whole new set of challenges. No longer can strategies be replicated as companies move into new markets. Instead, new strategies are necessary to generate growth in previously under-served segments. Likewise, go-to-market methodologies need to be customized for the particular opportunities and threats inherent to a situation, and not just at the country level, but sometimes by city.

The Leadership Challenge

These shifts and the corresponding challenges culminate in the need for a new type of leader - the Asia 2.0 leader. This person doesn't automatically stick with what has worked in the past, but questions the status quo. The individual has local knowledge and savvy, but also can operate on a global stage. The person may not issue commands, but instead actively engages others' thinking and participation. This leader doesn't just set a direction and stay the course, but responds nimbly to environmental changes.

Particular aspects of Asia 2.0 leaders' style clearly differentiate them from their 1.0 predecessors. Four distinct styles emerge from 2.0 leaders. Asian 1.0 leadership relied on single-minded focus on plan, execution and task. Asia 2.0 leadership success will depend on ability to handle multiplicity, diversity and cultural differences.

Korn/Ferry analyzed the prevalent leadership styles of 100 top executives in China and 99 in India and compared them to 1,000 top-rated global executives. The picture that emerged is stark. Even as the need for Asia 2.0 leadership becomes more critical, the executor and controller styles that distinguish the classic 1.0 approach to leadership remain dominant in Chinese and Indian C-suites. The energizer and integrator styles essential to 2.0 leadership - and more common to top executives the world over - were in much shorter supply.

The findings were further validated by looking at a broader pool of candidates for executive and managerial roles in Asia. These results also confirm the pool of available talent ready to lead in the Asia 2.0 business environment is shallow.

Reviewing assessments of 1,246 executives and 642 managers who were finalists for top-level jobs, Korn/Ferry found few had the competencies needed for the future.

New Challenges, New Solutions

To build sustainable success in this rapidly growing marketplace where talent is scarce, companies need to identify individuals with the potential to lead and develop them fast. The CLO will be the catalyst. The keys to success will be accuracy in assessment and speed in development.

The principal elements to assess leadership skill are fit and agility. Fit will identify which current organizational leaders match the energizer-integrator profile and what gaps exist. The individuals most capable of closing those gaps, getting out of their comfort zone and adapting their skills to meet the demands of the Asia 2.0 environment are those high in learning agility.

Diagnosing the situation is just the beginning. An appropriate set of principles and practices needs to be in place to support and sustain a 2.0-driven learning strategy. This likely will require a significant evolution in how an organization views and invests in talent, especially with regions targeted for growth.

Shifting the organization's approach to development is likely to yield the biggest gains. The key here is speed. A lot of development needs to take place in a short amount of time. Shift the emphasis away from traditional methods such as technical training and leadership development courses. They provide essential knowledge but there is often a gap between classroom knowledge and real-world application.

Instead, use the organization as the classroom. Make sure high-potential leaders have assignments that not only stretch them, but provide the opportunity to practice and refine new skills required to lead the future organization. For example, a particular leader may need to develop customer focus, strategic agility and skill building effective teams. An assignment to lead a cross-functional team to launch a customer loyalty program or reposition a product to a new market segment might provide the right exposure and challenges to spur development in these areas.

This approach to development requires taking some risks. Success in these assignments should not be guaranteed. A certain amount of development heat needs to occur for the learning experience to leave a deep and lasting impression. Like a crucible heats up a material to such a high degree that it transforms it, an intense, on-the-job development experience can have a similar effect on an emerging leader.

Executed correctly - the right assignment to teach the right skills to the right person at the right time - this type of development can accelerate learning on a steeper path so each shift in leadership style can occur in two to three years rather than seven to nine. When mistakes and even outright failures occur, it is critical not to punish employees. Use the mistake as an opportunity to reinforce learning relevant to the skills targeted for development. Leaders typically learn much more from their shortcomings than their successes.

The Asian business landscape is full of promise and peril. Success will require courage and foresight. Organizations will need the right strategy to develop leaders who are open-minded, engaging, adaptive and creative. The CLO plays a key role in developing awareness of the type of individual needed and providing the framework and resources to identify and develop those with the potential to lead.

[About the Authors: George Hallenbeck is the vice president of intellectual property development, and Indranil Roy is the managing director of Asia Pacific for Korn/Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting.]

-For more article and information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Tapping into Employee Creativity (by Damian Killen | Human Resource Executive Online)

2012-01-21T18:18:00.001-08:00

-By Development Network-

Innovation is in every company's DNA, but awareness of the way different personality types respond to idea creation or refinement can make the difference between a team's success and failure.

Innovation is the lifeblood of survival in business, yet it is oftentimes one of the hardest things for companies to achieve. We see it all the time -- a company takes great pains to amass the industry's top talent, only to reap lackluster results from its all-star team.

For HR leaders who have the resources to hire the best in the business, it can be incredibly frustrating watching teams that look so good on paper fail to justify the time and expense of putting them together.

And if these teams can flop, imagine the struggles of HR departments that are under pressure to foster innovation from its base of workers while budgets get cut and employee pools shrink due to cost-cutting measures and layoffs driven by the sluggish economy. Add to the mix, people of many different backgrounds and cultures in an increasingly diverse and globalized workforce being asked to work together, and transformational change can set up additional barriers when talented people do not understand each other.

The good news for HR executives is that there is a way to coax teams into feeding off each other and drive ideas that ultimately transform company products, services, processes and cultures. Even better, their companies likely already have the right people under their noses.

Innovation is in every company's DNA; they just need innovation teams -- groups committed to innovation that recognize the strengths, limitations and natural biases of its members and others, and accept these differences in order to achieve together.

Misconceptions about Innovation

To understand how HR departments should facilitate the creation of innovative teams, it is good to first examine the misconceptions that can lead people astray.

In many cases, organizations have too narrow a view of innovation. They mistakenly think innovation is the creation of ideas. Although idea generation is certainly a critical part of the process, innovation is the actual implementation of ideas.

In other words, HR leaders and managers need to know how to move ideas from creation to execution.

There is also a prevailing mind-set that people are either born "creative types" or are just simply not as naturally inventive as others. While it is true that there are people for whom tapping into and expressing their creativity is very easy, everyone has something to contribute to innovation.

HR has a role to play in finding the right niche for each person.

A related fallacy is the notion that inventions, ideas and new designs are the product of a single genius in a lab or dark room (a la Thomas Edison) who can simply make magic.

In today's business world, however, game-changing electronic devices, automobiles, manufacturing-process alterations, marketing campaigns, real-estate-development projects and just about any other products or services are developed and executed by teams, which of course further puts the onus on HR to build and support the right group.

Understanding Innovation

To truly grasp innovation and discover how every individual can bring something to the innovation table, it is important to know the four main categories of ideas:

1. Efficiency

Efficiency ideas entail doing things the right way. These under-the-radar developments are less obvious to the outside world and bring incremental change. Continuous improvement processes are good examples of Efficiency ideas being used to improve a situation.

While visiting The Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif., recently, I noticed in the innovation challenge area for children, they had introduced large screens behind each activity on which other children were both explaining the activity and the science behind it. This is an Efficiency idea in practice.

2. Refining

Refining ideas are about doing something better and often making life easier. Where Efficiency ideas are more about an end result, Refining ideas focus on the process. Pillsbury's Simply brand of Cookie Dough, in which the number of ingredients are cut in half and exclude artificial colors and flavors exemplifies Refining, as does In 'N' Out Burger's simple three-item fast-food menu that limits its offerings solely to tried-and-true, highly profitable products.

3. Adopting

Adopting ideas occur when a company imports an initiative, typically from another sector, to solve a challenge or create a new product.

Optical products company Zeiss, Inc. recently melded several technologies to create a new line of glasses that plug into a DVD or Blu-ray player and allow the wearer to see visual effects on the screen to create a movie-theater-like experience.

SAS Scandinavian Airlines sent ground and cabin crews to a Formula 1 garage to see how they turned a car around in eight seconds -- not so they could learn how to turn a plane around in that time, but rather to see what they could learn that could be applied to the airline industry.

4. Different

Different ideas are the rare projects that no one else has thought of before and have few, if any, predecessors or roots to trace. These ideas often meet resistance, especially in organizations with "not-invented-here" syndrome.

The mp3 player presented an entirely new mode of consuming music, and to some degree, Apple's idea to market the device as sexy and cool, are innovations that redefined a whole industry.

Other examples of Different ideas are as grand as the Internet or as small as Hahn's marketing of yogurt cream cheese.

Personality Type and Innovation

Here is where the rubber meets the road. People with different personality-type preferences excel at identifying different classes of problems, and each of the employees on your staff and prospective employees outside of your organization are predisposed to envisioning and executing one or more of these categories of ideas.

These four idea categories are crucial to innovation -- and so is every person within an organization, provided they have opportunities and outlets for their natural innovative abilities.

Personality assessments play a critical role in providing insight into individual strengths, preferences and potential development areas.

Based on research that my colleague, Gareth Williams and I conducted into the relationship between innovation and personality type, we developed a new practical application of CPP, Inc.'s Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Using assessment tools, individuals are able to understand their innovation style -- and HR leaders have critical information about how innovation teams can successfully innovate.

With such knowledge, people can readily see why they are attracted to certain categories of ideas and why they typically act the way they do throughout the innovation process.

For example, people who have a tendency towards Sensing and Judging preferences (according to their MBTI profile) are typically attracted to Efficiency ideas and want to ensure the innovation is delivered.

Other personality types intuitively respond differently.

Some, for example, are attracted to Refining ideas and like to define the problem by clarifying issues from the outset of the project. Others are drawn to Adopting ideas, and they tend to concentrate on getting the group to act upon the right idea, while still others are attracted to Different ideas, enjoying the process of trying to discover alternative options.

The Innovation Process

Once HR understands the people with whom they have to work, the department must have the right process for utilizing its human capital. HR must convince C-level executives to go through four phases of the innovation process -- Define, Discover, Decide and Deliver -- and eschew any inclination to take shortcuts to get offerings to market quicker.

1. Define

Companies often place too much emphasis on thinking "outside of the box" and fail to do the critical legwork of "defining the box," or thoroughly assessing the true root problem. Skimp on the Define process and you may end up addressing a symptom rather than a root cause of a problem.

For example, a company that thinks it does not have a handle on its unique selling point may discover upon further examination that the real problem is that its sales team is not getting close enough to customers to understand their needs.

Companies often place too much emphasis on thinking "outside of the box" and fail to do the critical legwork.

2. Discover

This is where out-of-the-box thinking can finally shine. Quantity breeds quality of ideas. Of 100 new ideas, only two or three might ever get implemented.

Whether the new menu of ideas includes using social media or attending new conferences, innovations can come from anyone and anywhere. Thus, getting people with different personality types to collaborate in the manner they are most effective is critical.

3. Decide

Once you have narrowed down the right ideas, it is time to choose the idea or ideas that will be acted on and put the organization's money behind them.

4. Deliver

The innovation process is only complete once an idea is brought to full implementation. This entails deciding what actions are necessary to make the idea bear fruit, and assigning these tasks to team members.

The biggest challenge for HR throughout this process is to maintain the short-term focused C-level executive's patience. And failure along the way is an endemic part of innovating -- "fair early, fail often, fail cheaply" is a mantra of many of today's most innovative companies. HR executives need to convince decision-makers not to pull the plug on projects after one misstep.

Applying Personality Type to Innovation

When HR professionals understand that employees may respond differently to the innovation process, they can provide critical guidance to teams, such as:

a) Ensuring team leaders are aware they should allow the team to reach a consensus on the specific issues that need to be analyzed and solved.

b) Ensuring the ideas of all team members -- which should include those with different personality profiles -- are solicited as to ways to address the issue(s).

c) Ensuring team leaders and members are aware that energy levels will wane and rise during the innovation process.

d) Ensuring team members know there will be junctures that may be difficult or boring -- but not all team members will respond the same way at the same time. Team members should look to their colleagues who enjoy those phases to see what they can learn.

Working recently with a financial-services organization, one group -- tasked with the problem of how to encourage younger people to save -- had three of the four innovation styles on the team.

This group struggled in the early part of the innovation process: There was a feeling that one person was holding the process up unnecessarily because that individual insisted on spending more time defining the problem in detail than the rest of the group wanted.

The rest of the group's personality profiles indicated they were the types that wanted to get to the Deliver phase sooner, and this indeed turned out to be the case.

Awareness of their different innovation styles increased their tolerance of each other and reminded them to ask questions that would raise issues people with other innovation styles might want to discuss.

This group took a little longer than groups in which the majority had the same innovation style, but their ultimate output was well thought out and their idea was one of only two that ultimately made it to market.

By grasping the innovation strengths of existing and potential employees, companies ensure they make the most of their workforce. More importantly, they tap into their innovation DNA and realize their full potential.

[About the Author: Damian Killen is managing director and founder of thrive, an international human resources consultancy based in Dublin, Ireland. Killen has consulted for organizations across the globe for more than 20 years and is recognized world-wide for his work and research using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality assessment.]

For more articles and information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results(by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner | Talent Management)

2011-12-27T07:03:00.001-08:00

-By Development Network-

Conventional wisdom portrays leadership as something found mostly at the top. Myth and legend treat it as if it were the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. Nothing is further from the truth. Leadership is not a birthright.

That's the inescapable conclusion from case studies of thousands of personal best leadership experiences and several million surveys. Leadership is not about who someone is or where he or she comes from. It's about what a person does. A leader's behavior explains why people feel engaged and positive about their workplaces. Empirically, how constituents view their leaders' behaviors explains more than 100 times the amount of variance accounted for by any particular individual or organizational characteristic.

Leadership is not the exclusive blessing of a few select individuals, nor is it about position, title, power, authority, celebrity or wealth. It's not about being a CEO, president, general, prime minister or superstar. And it's most assuredly not about some charismatic gift. Ordinary people who lead others along pioneering journeys follow similar paths. Though each experience is unique in its particulars, cases often follow comparable patterns. Getting extraordinary things done means engaging in the following five leadership practices:

1. Model the way.

2. Inspire a shared vision.

3. Challenge the process.

4. Enable others to act.

5. Encourage the heart.

Leadership is an identifiable set of skills and abilities available to anyone. It can be learned, and the best leaders are the best learners.

Model the Way

Olivia Lai, senior marketing associate at Moody's Analytics in Hong Kong, said when reflecting on her personal best leadership experience she realized "that leadership is everywhere, it takes place every day, and leadership can come from anyone. It doesn't matter that you don't have the title of manager, director or CEO to go with it. It's how you behave that makes a difference."

Exemplary leaders know if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must model the behavior they expect from others. To effectively model behavior, that individual must be clear about his or her own guiding principles.

"In order for me to become a leader, it's important that I first define my values and principles. If I don't know what my own values are and determine expectations for myself, how can I set expectations for others?" Lai said.

Leaders have to find their own voice, and give voice to their values. They are expected to stand up for their beliefs, so they'd better have some beliefs to stand up for. However, eloquent speeches about common values aren't sufficient. Actions are far more important than words when constituents want to determine how serious leaders really are about what they say. Exemplary leaders set the example through their daily actions, demonstrating deep commitment to their beliefs, and ideally this should be done every day in plain view of those expected to follow the values.

Inspire a Shared Vision

People often describe their personal best leadership experiences as times when they imagined an exciting, highly attractive future for their organization. They had visions and dreams of what could be, and this became a magnetic pull to the future. Focusing on the future sets leaders apart from those who mainly focus on the present. "Vision trumps everything," said Nancy Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York.

"Organizations are most effective when a well-articulated and ambitious vision of the future exists."

But exemplary leaders know they can't command commitment; they have to inspire it by enlisting others in a common vision. Buddy Blanton, a programs manager in strategy and development at Northrop Grumman Corp., said when he wanted to learn how he could be more effective at creating a shared vision he asked his team for feedback. What they told him helped him understand that it's the process, not just the vision, that's critical to get all people on the same page. They said: "You would benefit by helping us, as a team, to understand how you got to your vision. We want to walk with you while you create the goals and vision so we all get to the end vision together," he said. Further, he said this experience helped him to realize that unity of purpose is forged by showing constituents how the dream leads to the common good.

Challenge the Process

Challenge is a crucible for greatness. At least, that's what Katherine Winkel, marketing communications coordinator at Monsanto, said she observed when discussing her peers' personal best leadership experiences. "The similarity that most stuck out in my mind was that in each story the person described having to overcome uncertainty and fear in order to achieve their best."

Most personal best leadership cases senior-level talent leaders are likely to run across involve a change from the status quo. It's highly unlikely that someone sat idly waiting for fate to smile upon them. Leaders search for opportunities to innovate, grow and improve. Innovation comes more from listening than from telling, so leaders should constantly look outside of themselves and their organizations for clues about what's new or different, and what possibilities others are not seeing. As CEO of Bay Area Credit Services, Michael Priest said he learned firsthand that leaders must look outward for fresh ideas.

"Sometimes you just can't predict where the change will come from," he said, "but you have to have your eyes wide open if you have any hope of even catching a glimpse of it." Exemplary leaders also experiment and take risks. They aren't content with the status quo. But sometimes people are reluctant to take big risks, so one way leaders deal with the potential failures of experimentation is to approach change through incremental steps, small wins and continuous learning.

When Venkat Dokiparthi was asked to lead a technical development team in India, he said he realized that "I needed to break down the task and make it simple for them to feel successful." The process of small wins can catapult leaders and their teams forward, and motivate their continued forward momentum even when times get tough. Leaders need to show others they can make something happen, and doing so often provides a great boost in their confidence.

Enable Others to Act

No leader ever got anything extraordinary done by working alone. Grand dreams don't become significant realities through a single person's actions. "No matter how capable a leader is, he or she alone won't be able to deliver a large project or program without the joint efforts and synergies that come from the team," said Eric Pan, regional head of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in South China.

Leaders foster collaboration and build trust by engaging all those who must make a project work, and in some way, all who must live with the results. That was the first order of business for Jill Cleveland when she became finance manager at Apple Inc. "I had to learn how to trust my employees," she said. "I understood that in order for my employees, and thus myself, to be successful I needed to learn to develop a cohesive and collaborative team, beginning with trust as the framework." Cleveland said she realized when people are trusted and have more discretion, more authority and more information, they're much more likely to use their energies to produce extraordinary results.

Encourage the Heart

In climbing to the top people can become exhausted, frustrated and disenchanted, and are often tempted to give up. Genuine acts of caring uplift the spirits to carry on and draw people forward. Hilary Hall, pricing and sales finance manager at Bloomberg, said a "great leader has to work to maintain a high-performing environment and celebrate employees' contributions and achievements." Further, she said an essential component of building such an environment "is developing a robust rewards and recognition program that motivates employees and - most importantly - builds a community of trust that will be the foundation for future organizational successes."

Recognizing contributions can be done one-to-one or with many people. It can come from dramatic gestures or simple actions. Jason Cha, from Tyco Electronics, said "Recognizing and rewarding individual contributions was one of the most effective ways to keep people focused and to foster innovation. Team members feel appreciated, and being recognized raises [an] individual's commitment to excellence because his or her name is associated with a given project. It also creates a sense of community in that people feel they are part of a winning team."

Leaders show appreciation for people's contributions and create a culture that celebrates both values and victories. Celebrations and rituals, when done with authenticity and from the heart, can build a strong sense of collective identity and community spirit that can carry a group through tough times.

When everyday leaders are doing their best they model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart. Further, the more they engage in these practices the more likely it is that they will get extraordinary things done on a regular basis.

[About the Authors: James M. Kouzes is the Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, and Barry Z.Posner is the Accolti Professor of Leadership in the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. They are co-authors of The Leadership Challenge.]

-For more articles and information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Building Stronger Teams by Facing Your Differences

2011-12-25T21:18:00.001-08:00

-By Development Network-

Conflict can be pretty much inevitable when you work with others. People have different viewpoints and under the right set of circumstances, those differences escalate to conflict. How you handle that conflict determines whether it works to the team's advantage or contributes to its demise.

You can choose to ignore it, complain about it, blame someone for it, or try to deal with it through hints and suggestions; or you can be direct, clarify what is going on, and attempt to reach a resolution through common techniques like negotiation or compromise. It's clear that conflict has to be dealt with, but the question is how: It has to be dealt with constructively and with a plan, otherwise it's too easy to get pulled into the argument and create an even larger mess.

Conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Healthy and constructive conflict is a component of high functioning teams. Conflict arises from differences between people; the same differences that often make diverse teams more effective than those made up of people with similar experience. When people with varying viewpoints, experiences, skills, and opinions are tasked with a project or challenge, the combined effort can far surpass what any group of similar individual could achieve. Team members must be open to these differences and not let them rise into full-blown disputes.

Understanding and appreciating the various viewpoints involved in conflict are key factors in its resolution. These are key skills for all team members to develop. The important thing is to maintain a healthy balance of constructive difference of opinion, and avoid negative conflict that's destructive and disruptive.

Getting to, and maintaining, that balance requires well-developed team skills, particularly the ability to resolve conflict when it does happens, and the ability to keep it healthy and avoid conflict in the day-to-day course of team working. Let's look at conflict resolution first, then at preventing it.

Resolving Conflict

When a team oversteps the mark of healthy difference of opinion, resolving conflict requires respect and patience. The human experience of conflict involves our emotions, perceptions, and actions; we experience it on all three levels, and we need to address all three levels to resolve it. We must replace the negative experiences with positive ones.

The three-stage process below is a form of mediation process, which helps team members to do this:

Step 1: Prepare for resolution

Acknowledge the conflict â€" The conflict has to be acknowledged before it can be managed and resolved. The tendency is for people to ignore the first signs of conflict, perhaps as it seems trivial, or is difficult to differentiate from the normal, healthy debate that teams can thrive on. If you are concerned about the conflict in your team, discuss it with other members. Once the team recognizes the issue, it can start the process of resolution.
Discuss the impact â€" As a team, discuss the impact the conflict is having on team dynamics and performance.
Agree to a cooperative process â€" Everyone involved must agree to cooperate in to resolve the conflict. This means putting the team first, and may involve setting aside your opinion or ideas for the time being. If someone wants to win more than he or she wants to resolve the conflict, you may find yourself at a stalemate.
Agree to communicate â€" The most important thing throughout the resolution process is for everyone to keep communications open. The people involved need to talk about the issue and discuss their strong feelings. Active listening is essential here because to move on you need to really understand where the other person is coming from.

Step 2: Understand the Situation

Once the team is ready to resolve the conflict, the next stage is to understand the situation, and each team member's point of view. Take time to make sure that each person's position is heard and understood. Remember that strong emotions are at work here so you have to get through the emotion and reveal the true nature of the conflict.

Clarify positions â€" Whatever the conflict or disagreement, it's important to clarify people's positions. Whether there are obvious factions within the team who support a particular option, approach or idea, or each team member holds their own unique view, each position needs to be clearly identified and articulated by those involved.
This step alone can go a long way to resolve the conflict, as it helps the team see the facts more objectively and with less emotion.

Sally and Tom believe the best way to market the new product is through a TV campaign. Mary and Beth are adamant that internet advertising is the way to go; whilst Josh supports a store-lead campaign.

List facts, assumptions and beliefs underlying each position â€" What does each group or person believe? What do they value? What information are they using as a basis for these beliefs? What decision-making criteria and processes have they employed?

Sally and Tom believe that TV advertising is best because it has worked very well in the past. They are motivated by the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Mary and Beth are very tuned-in to the latest in technology and believe that to stay ahead in the market, the company has to continue to try new things. They seek challenges and find change exhilarating and motivating. Josh believes a store-lead campaign is the most cost-effective. He's cautious, and feels this is the best way to test the market at launch, before committing the marketing spend.

Analyze in smaller groups â€" Break the team into smaller groups, separating people who are in alliance. In these smaller groups, analyze and dissect each position, and the associated facts, assumptions and beliefs.
Which facts and assumptions are true? Which are the more important to the outcome? Is there additional, objective information that needs to be brought into the discussion to clarify points of uncertainly or contention? Is additional analysis or evaluation required?

Consider using formal evaluation and decision-making processes where appropriate. Techniques such as PMI, Forcefield Analysis, Paired Comparison Analysis and Cost/Benefit Analysis are among those that could help.

If such techniques have not been used already, they may help make a much more objective decision or evaluation. Gain agreement within the team about which techniques to use, and how to go about the further analysis and evaluation.

By considering the facts, assumptions, beliefs and decision making that lead to other people's positions, the group will gain a better understanding of those positions. Not only can this reveal new areas of agreement, it can also reveal new ideas and solutions that make the best of each position and perspective.
Take care to remain open, rather than criticize or judge the perceptions and assumptions of other people. Listen to all solutions and ideas presented by the various sides of the conflict. Everyone needs to feel heard and acknowledged if a workable solution is to be reached.

Convene back as a team â€" After the group dialogue, each side is likely to be much closer to reaching agreement. The process of uncovering facts and assumptions allows people to step away from their emotional attachments and see the issue more objectively. When you separate alliances, the fire of conflict can burn out quickly, and it is much easier to see the issue and facts laid bare.

Step 3: Reach agreement

Now that all parties understand the others' positions, the team must decide what decision or course of action to take. With the facts and assumptions considered, it's easier to see the best of action and reach agreement.

In our example, the team agrees that TV advertising is the best approach. It has had undeniably great results in the past and there is no data to show that will change. The message of the advertising will promote the website and direct consumers there. This meets Mary and Beth's concern about using the website for promotions: they assumed that TV advertising would disregard it.

If further analysis and evaluation is required, agree what needs to be done, by when and by whom, and so plan to reach agreement within a particular timescale. If appropriate, define which decision making and evaluation tools are to be employed.

If such additional work is required, the agreement at this stage is to the approach itself: Make sure the team is committed to work with the outcome of the proposed analysis and evaluation.

If the team is still not able to reach agreement, you may need to use a techniques like Win-Win Negotiation, Nominal Group Technique or Multi-Voting to find a solution that everyone is happy to move the team ahead.

When conflict is resolved take time to celebrate and acknowledge the contributions everyone made toward reaching a solution. This can build team cohesion and confidence in their problem solving skills, and can help avert further conflict.

This three-step process can help solve team conflict efficiently and effectively. The basis of the approach is gaining understanding of the different perspectives and using that understanding to expand your own thoughts and beliefs about the issue.

Preventing Conflict

As well as being able to handle conflict when it arises, teams need to develop ways of preventing conflict from becoming damaging. Team members can learn skills and behavior to help this. Here are some of the key ones to work on:

Dealing with conflict immediately â€" avoid the temptation to ignore it.
Being open â€" if people have issues, they need to be expressed immediately and not allowed to fester.
Practicing clear communication â€" articulate thoughts and ideas clearly.
Practicing active listening â€" paraphrasing, clarifying, questioning.
Practicing identifying assumptions â€" asking yourself "why" on a regular basis.
Not letting conflict get personal â€" stick to facts and issues, not personalities.
Focusing on actionable solutions â€" don't belabor what can't be changed.
Encouraging different points of view â€" insist on honest dialogue and expressing feelings.
Not looking for blame â€" encourage ownership of the problem and solution.
Demonstrating respect â€" if the situation escalates, take a break and wait for emotions to subside.
Keeping team issues within the team â€" talking outside allows conflict to build and fester, without being dealt with directly.

To explore the process of conflict resolution in more depth, take our Bite-Sized Training session on Dealing with Conflict.

Key Points

Conflict can be constructive as long as it is managed and dealt with directly and quickly. By respecting differences between people, being able to resolve conflict when it does happen, and also working to prevent it, you will be able to maintain a healthy and creative team atmosphere. The key is to remain open to other people's ideas, beliefs, and assumptions. When team members learn to see issues from the other side, it opens up new ways of thinking, which can lead to new and innovative solutions, and healthy team performance.

Thanks to MindTools / Mind Tools Ltd

-For more articles and information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

How to Promote Behavioral Change (by David Maxfield | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-11-18T06:18:00.001-08:00

-By Development Network-

Changing behavior is a great challenge for a chief learning officer, yet it is often necessary for organizations to increase productivity and reduce costs. Now is the perfect time to address a tough finding: performance reviews, with their careful improvement plans, aren't sufficient to change behavior.

Year after year, managers tell employees what they need to do to succeed and advance, and at the outset, many employees buy into these plans, but few ever change. Managers hope telling an employee what needs to be altered and giving incentives to do so is enough, but it's not. Incentives are just one component of a multifaceted approach necessary for true behavior change to occur.

The following findings come from VitalSmarts' 2009 Lake Wobegon at Work study and this year's Career-Limiting Habits study.

a) Most employees have unrealistically high opinions of their performance, are surprised by negative feedback, don't believe they get clear feedback on what they should do, and believe their boss is holding them back. In fact, 87 percent of the employees surveyed said they have bosses who have prevented them from getting the pay, promotions or other opportunities they wanted because of a performance concern.

b) More than half of the managers surveyed said they have employees who are stuck at performance levels below their potential.

c) Most employees think their bosses are primarily concerned with their technical skills. However, 46 percent of bosses reported that addressing employees' bad habits is three times more important than increasing their technical skills.

d) Employees' top five career-limiting habits (CLHs) are unreliability, "it's not my job," procrastination, resistance to change and negative attitude. Other CLHs include disrespect, short-term focus, selfishness, passive aggressiveness and risk aversion.

e) Seventy percent of employees who are aware their boss is unhappy with their performance can't verbalize what they are doing wrong or how they are going to change.

Let's say in 2006 Geoff, a graphic designer who supports marketing, sales and other teams, receives some startling news during his performance review when his new manager announces that most of his colleagues hate working with him. He's well-liked, but behind his back, Geoff's co-workers said unless they lit a fire under him he never delivered the goods, though he always promised everything. He was so congenial for six years no one, not even his boss, had directly told him the depth of their frustration.

When Geoff's former boss moved to a new assignment, his new boss was immediately inundated with complaints about his unreliability. So, in his next review, she told him his performance was unacceptable and put him on a performance improvement plan. In spite of Geoff's initial effort, his improvement over time was spotty. So, at the end of 2007, his manager placed him on probation and told him he had one year to improve or he was out. In 2008, as worldwide unemployment soared, Geoff was shown the door.

Behaviors That Drive Career Success

According to cumulative VitalSmarts research, as tragic as Geoff's story is, employees' inability to change following poor reviews is commonplace. However, analyzing data on top performers to determine what they do differently to make them stand above the rest revealed there is a small set of employees who know how to take input from their managers and turn it into career success. These employees know the necessary behaviors to keep their careers on course and how to encourage themselves to execute on those behaviors.

During the past two decades, VitalSmarts studied the most influential and respected employees in more than 50 companies and dozens of industries. Using an opinion-leader methodology, managers and employees were asked to identify the top three "go to" people in their organization. This data produced a power curve, where approximately half of the people in the workforce weren't named by anyone, but about 8 percent were named by as many as half of their peers. The researchers then observed the behaviors of these top performers, looked for actions they took that resulted in their success, and identified behaviors they had in common.

The top performers consistently demonstrated the following:

1. They know their stuff.

Top performers put regular effort into ensuring they are good at the technical aspects of their jobs. They work hard at honing their craft.

2. They focus on the right stuff.

In addition to performing their craft well, top performers contribute to tasks that are essential to the organization's success. Top performers work on their skill set and access to critical tasks the company values.

3. They build a reputation for being helpful.

Top employees are widely known and respected by others not because of their frequent contact, charm or likability, but because they help others solve their problems.

Employees performing below their potential can become highly valued employees by tailoring these three behaviors to their career circumstances. Learning leaders should encourage employees to measure themselves against these behaviors and meet with their managers to discuss which behaviors will help them contribute.

Consider Melanie, a hard-working tax accountant who believed she was one of the smartest people on her team. Six years into her career she was passed over for a key assignment for the second time. She measured herself against the behaviors of top performers by conducting informal interviews with her manager and co-workers and discovered the following:

1. She no longer "knew her stuff" well enough. She needed to skill up on tax law.

2. She hadn't been working on the right stuff. She needed to boost her billable hours.

3. She wasn't viewed as being helpful on tough jobs because she had never been assigned to a major account. She needed to prove herself with a demanding client.

Once employees identify specific behaviors, as Melanie did, learning leaders can help influence behavioral change by aiding their employees in creating and implementing tailored performance improvement plans patterned after the strategies top performers use to drive behavior change.

How to Influence Change

The next step of VitalSmarts' research was to uncover how top performers adopt the right behaviors. The most important discovery was that they don't rely on willpower alone. Rather, they step back and create influence strategies to keep themselves on course. They act as both scientist and subject by designing their personal, social and structural environments to support these behaviors.

These encouraging and enabling influences can be grouped into six discrete sources. Below are examples of how learning leaders can help underachieving employees develop a change plan targeting each one.

1. Personal motivation.

Help employees flash forward to their future. The best motivation is to help employees visit their default future - the life they'll have if they are repeatedly passed up for promotion. Help them visualize the money they'll lose and opportunities they'll miss. Specifically, VitalSmarts' research shows if a 30-year-old employee earning $60,000 is passed up for a promotion with a 2 percent raise, they'll incur a loss of $59,780 over their career.

2. Personal ability.

Invest in professional development. New habits always require new skills. Help employees develop the skills they'll need to be viewed as a top performer through training, workshops or books that focus on the behaviors they are working to develop. Then encourage them to apply their new skills and seek feedback from an expert. This expert could be a peer on their team who embodies the skills they are working to develop.

3. Social motivation.

Encourage employees to hang with the hard workers. The bad attitudes and habits that hold people back are likely enabled, tolerated or encouraged by others. Encourage struggling employees to associate with hard-working colleagues who share similar career goals and to distance themselves from slackers and water cooler conversations.

4. Social ability.

Match employees with a mentor. Changing habits requires help. Help struggling employees find a mentor who will encourage their progression and navigate career development opportunities within the organization.

5. Structural motivation.

Help employees put skin in the game. Reward employees for reaching short-term goals by placing money at risk. For example, tie small bonuses, rewards or incentives to their ability to meet their goals in time for their next performance review.

6. Structural ability.

Help employees control their workspace. Make employees' new habits easier by boosting the power of their surroundings. If they'd benefit from close association with another team, relocate their office space.

VitalSmarts' How to Have Influence study, published in 2008 by MIT Sloan Management Review, shows that employees who focus on just a few behaviors and then use all six sources of influence in combination increase their chances of success tenfold.

In contrast to many behavior change research studies that show modest differences of 10 to 20 percent when using various interventions, when a behavior change strategy is informed by good science, the differences in effectiveness are not incremental, they are exponential. Learning leaders have the ability to encourage and enable lasting behavior change by spreading these strategies across the workforce. This can be done by creating a performance improvement plan composed of the following steps.

a) Have employees who receive a poor performance review measure themselves against the three common behaviors from top performers and tailor the behaviors to their specific career circumstances.

b) Ask employees to meet with their managers and co-workers to discover where they are lacking and what development or behaviors they need to be seen as a top performer.

c) Once employees have finalized the behaviors they will improve, have them create tactics within each of the six sources to drive behavior change.

d) Finally, leaders can work with employees to ensure they create a six-source change plan and help them implement tactics as needed.

As learning leaders help struggling employees focus on top performers' behaviors and build robust change plans, employees' engagement, success and productivity will increase dramatically.

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Upside-Down Pyramid(by Ken Blanchard | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-11-14T06:48:00.001-08:00

-By Development Network-

Leaders in today's organizations continuously need to balance expectations from shareholders, customers and employees. How these three groups are ranked largely will determine an organization's culture. For instance, a shareholder-first organization focused on short-term profits will have a different culture than one that puts its employees first or that focuses on long-term business results and customer satisfaction.

Chief learning officers should determine who is their No. 1 customer or target audience, and then identify how that person or group impacts the organization's return on learning and development investments, service levels and employee engagement levels within the company. Several companies are adopting an employee-first approach that delivers results in all three areas.

At Southwest Airlines, putting employees first has been a rule since the airline's beginnings 40 years ago. The results have been impressive. In an industry notorious for losing money, Southwest has generated a profit for 38 consecutive years. "It sounded like heresy when we first said it, but we don't make any bones about it," said Colleen Barrett, president emeritus of Southwest. "Our pyramid is upside down from most companies. We clearly and proudly proclaim that our employees are our first customer in terms of priority, our passengers are our second customer and our shareholders are our third customer."

The same is true at Fortune 500 IT services company HCL Technologies, where CEO Vineet Nayar said, "Today's hierarchical pyramid isn't equipped to tackle tomorrow's challenges. Instead, we need organizations where trust, based on transparency, creates a culture of constant innovation; where managers are as accountable to their employees as employees are to their bosses."

In both of these organizations and in dozens more like them in different industries - such as Chick-fil-A in quick service restaurants, Wegman's in grocery, Synovus in financial services, WD-40 in manufacturing, Nordstrom's in retail and Ritz-Carlton in hospitality and lodging - leaders put their employees first to drive innovation at the bottom of the pyramid.

Leaders in these organizations are expected to turn the traditional pyramid upside down so the customer-contact people are at the top of the organization's concerns. In this scenario, leaders need to understand that part of their job is to take care of the people who take care of their customers. In other words, leaders work for the people who report to them. A lot of leaders don't see it this way, but this mindset is vital to empower people to serve customers at a high level. Elements of this mindset create a high-investment, high-expectation environment that supports an engaging environment for employees who in turn deliver superior experiences for customers:

1. Start with leaders.

These organizations know they have to set the example. Leaders have to walk the talk because employees model the behavior they see. "You have to have a 100 percent commitment from everyone that you are going to do this together and you are going to hold each other accountable," Barrett said.

Garry Ridge, CEO of household-products manufacturer WD-40, goes so far as to remind managers of their mutual accountability to employees at performance review meetings. If a manager recommends that a person be let go - or "shared with the competition," as WD-40 calls it - the first question asked of the manager is: "What have you done to help your direct report succeed?" If the manager can't show he or she has coached and supported the direct report, the manager - not the direct report - might be shared with the competition.

This approach to mutual accountability gives leaders permission to step in when tough love is called for. "We are very clear in telling our people what our expectations are," Barrett said. "We hold them and ourselves accountable for meeting those expectations every day. Sometimes this means having a real heart-to-heart with people and reminding them what your values are. If you have been intentional and firm in explaining what your expectations are, that gives you the opportunity to point to specific examples where they haven't exhibited the required behaviors."

2. Empower employees.

Leaders need to be supportive and directive at the same time. When people know leadership not only expects the best from them, but also will back them up with the tools, resources and training they need, they feel comfortable and prepared to make decisions on their own.

"A lot of leaders use the word empowerment too often," Barrett said. "They say they empower their people, but they really don't - they've got so many rules and procedures and all. But at Southwest, we make it clear to our employees at every level that they are empowered when it come to customer-service decisions."

That's the beauty of the system originally established by Nordstrom. For many years, new employees were given a copy of the famous Nordstrom Employee Handbook - a single 5-by-8-inch card containing 75 words:

"Welcome to Nordstrom. We're glad to have you with our company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time."

Ritz-Carlton Hotels is another organization that focuses on employee empowerment. Its motto, "ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen," represents more than just words. In fact, during the reign of co-founder Horst Schulze, every employee was given a $2,000 discretionary fund he or she could use to solve a customer problem without checking with anyone. The hotel treats its employees right but also expects the respect and caring to be mutual.

3. Become a caring and candid organization.

When employees are trained, empowered and also know the organization will back them up when they make decisions, wonderful things can happen. For example, recently a story circulated at Southwest when a pilot personally held an airplane for 12 minutes to wait for a grandfather to make the flight. This was a big decision for the pilot because on-time performance is the be-all, end-all in the airlines business. All airlines, including Southwest, teach their employees to not hold a plane for anyone. When it is time to go, it's time to go because if the plane is not on time, all the down-line cities are affected and it can harm the company's reputation.

In this situation, the employee closing the door on the airplane, the ticket agent getting people on the plane, the flight attendant who makes sure everyone is seated and everything is stored properly, and the captain of the aircraft all know the plane must leave on time. But all of these people decided to make an exception when an online reservation agent got a call from a grandfather asking for help. The man was away from home in an unfamiliar city when he learned his grandson was dying and only had a couple of hours to live. The grandfather was desperately trying to be there.

"Without any managerial intervention, our online reservation agent directs the grandfather to head to the airport while she starts working to clear obstacles from her end," Barrett said. "She calls the ground ops station at the local airport, gets hold of a ticket agent, explains what the situation is and works together with the ticket agent to have a ticket, boarding pass and someone prepared to walk the grandfather through security. Then the ticket agent buys the grandfather a ticket out of her own pocket and goes to the TSA checkpoint and tells them that she will be escorting a passenger that has to make a flight. She then contacts the gate and explains the situation. The gate attendant, in turn, notifies the captain on the flight.

"When it's time to push back, the pilot asks the ticket agent how close the grandfather is to arriving. He finds out that the grandfather is still about 10 minutes away. The captain thinks about it for a moment, gets out of the cockpit, goes to the front of the airplane and explains the situation to the passengers. He says, 'We are going to wait for this gentleman. I think it is the right thing to do.' After listening to the captain's explanation for the delay, the passengers break into applause. When the grandfather arrives 10 minutes later, he cannot believe that the captain has held the plane for him. The captain's response is, 'Sir, this airplane wasn't going anyplace without me - and I wasn't going anyplace without you.'"

4. Create a win, win, win.

If leaders do things that make sense and show they care about their employees, employees will care about customers and about the company being financially sound. It's a win, win, win. It is the only way to get great performance and great employee satisfaction at the same time.

Servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and live according to their organization's vision. Rather than wanting people to please their bosses, servant leaders want to make a difference in their employees' lives and in their organizations. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their employees and showing they truly care about them, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.

The process begins with leaders asking themselves one important question: Am I here to serve, or to be served? If the answer is that they are here to serve, the next step is to align policies and practices so they are taking care of the people who are taking care of customers. This is a high-investment approach to talent management that is designed to bring out the best in everyone.

-For more articles and Information: http:www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Your question

2011-11-03T14:43:00.001-07:00

Whats up
whats up
no longer worry about all of your economic problems any longer it is the solution
http://sylfan.cba.pl/LeeHarrison25.html
bye

Snaptu: Case Study: How Brian stopped thinking about making money on the side and actually earned $1,300

2011-10-28T20:57:00.001-07:00

It's always funny when I ask people what they want me to write about, and they'll say something like "How about how to earn more money?" or "Something about getting started investing!" First, I contemplate homicide. Then suicide. Then I delete their…

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

Build Your Brand Step by Step by Sharon Birkman Fink | Talent Management

2011-10-04T06:55:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

In today's technologically savvy world, and given the infiltration of social media, an employer's brand can be built or torn down with even a single tweet gone awry. Building a positive brand is crucial for employers who seek to effectively recruit and retain the best employees, and forward-thinking companies strive to brand themselves as a good place to work in the minds of employees, potential job candidates, clients, customers and the business media.

A company's brand reflects far more than just a pay and benefits package. It is a promise that delivers career advancement, learning opportunities and personal respect. This brand shines when there's adequate focus on talent manager-employee relationship and among teams. An organization promoting itself as a "best place to work" when it's anything but will soon discover that reality trumps image.

If you think you can create a positive brand with lofty mission or values statements, think again. A positive brand is grown one relationship at a time. Engagement between talent managers and employees is not a communication objective - it comes from understanding and satisfying workplace needs, creating a passion for excellence among people who want their organization to succeed because they feel emotionally connected to it.

1. Create trust and communication.

Employees care about more than career development and compensation. They are more likely to exit because of a bad manager than a bad company. They want good relationships with peers, and to be respected and treated as individuals with unique needs and aspirations. Employees are more likely to improve their performance when they are engaged with their jobs, co-workers and managers. Trust is the foundation for such an employment relationship, and managers can build trust in their interpersonal relationships through open communication, collaboration and prioritizing the needs of others as they reflect diverse styles and expectations.

Clear expectations are also essential to communication and trust, and expectations must be a two-way street. Supervisors should not just tell employees what is expected of them; instead, they need to initiate dialogue about how employees see their roles in a particular project, how they would do it differently or what they would suggest to meet a difficult commitment to a customer. Where there is such dialogue, a manager's behavior must be authentic to engage trust. If he or she emphasizes that diligence and detailed planning are essential to getting the job done, but in reality operates using whim and indecision, no one will be fooled. The gap between words and actions will erode trust in the manager, and thus erode the employer brand.

2. Don't neglect insight and self-awareness.

It cannot just be assumed that talent managers will automatically recognize what they should do and how they might fall short. A consistent training effort is necessary to help build the kind of supervisory skills that enable them to communicate with and build trust among employees with a broad array of personality types. Different organizations, or different areas within the same organization, require different types of supervision. What motivates a sales team or a manufacturing department is very different from what motivates accounting or IT. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Self-awareness is the initial step for talent leaders who want to increase their range of skills so they can effectively motivate a broad array of personality types.

3. Identify motivators.

Talent managers can only understand the motivation of others if they understand their own motivational drivers and how they may be different from those of other individuals. Personality assessment tools used in a structured management development program can accelerate this learning and provide reliable, non-judgmental information for opening authentic communication. When assessments help talent managers see what motivates themselves as well as their employees, they can be more effective at actions that motivate employees - this supports the employer brand.

4. Encourage team building.

Talent managers with the right insight can help employees understand the importance of their contributions to the success of the organization. Newsletters and memos cannot match the motivational power of personal communication among managers and employees in a team context.

Improved relationships and communications within teams have significant impact on employee engagement, by building trust and goodwill. The long-term benefit of the branding and team-building process is that it creates new ways for an employer to stand out in the minds of the top performers who possess the skills that are most in demand in a competitive business environment.

[About the Author: Sharon Birkman Fink is president and CEO of Birkman International Inc., developer of The Birkman Method leadership and team development tool.]

-For more Articles and Information http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Value of Green Recruiting (by Lizz Pellet | Talent Management)

2011-08-30T07:40:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

We've all heard that green is the new black. In the '90s, organizational culture was touted as essential for business success, and social responsibility seems to have taken its place. A lot of companies are finding it's good to be green as they integrate environmentalism and sustainability into their corporate cultures. Not only is corporate sustainability good for the community and the planet - it also can help employees reduce waste and operate more efficiently. Companies share their environmental initiatives in annual reports, core values and community activities. Yet many fail to leverage their environmental efforts in one key area, and that's recruiting. Many companies are missing a key opportunity here because a commitment to sustainability can be a factor the most desirable candidates consider when choosing an employer.

Green Is Red Hot

There are three main drivers for talent managers to consider as they determine if their organizations should increase sustainability efforts: importance, cost savings and congruence. First, determine whether social responsibility really matters to the organization and its potential employment candidates. Since green recruiting is such a new idea, there is conflicting information available. Talent leaders must determine whether social responsibility is important enough to the top talent they seek before making the effort to go green to attract and retain them.

The second driver for many organizations to create a green recruiting function is the significant cost savings associated with green solutions. Some talent leaders may disagree and say this should be the No. 1 driver, but as the economy regains strength and companies begin to hire at their pre-recession levels, the focus will be on finding the best qualified candidate and the right cultural fit.

The third driver is congruence. If the organizational culture boasts an environmentally friendly mission or emphasizes sustainability in its consumer advertising, then that company should certainly have a sustainable HR function. Some companies may make a halfhearted attempt at "greenwashing," but today's savvy job seekers can detect incongruence in words and actions from a mile away.

Is there a business case for going green? Absolutely. A finding from i4cp's 2010 Major Issues Study revealed that more than three-quarters of responding business professionals projected there would be more green business initiatives in the coming year. Additional data suggested that professionals view the green issue as vital to business success. If an organization has not researched the business case for or evaluated its commitment to sustainability, it's time to broach the subject.

There are definitely benefits to this kind of activity. In April 2010, U.S. Airways Magazine was dedicated to going green and highlighted 10 businesses that bloomed and then boomed by leveraging sustainability. The list held an interesting mix of industries and supports the idea that talent leaders can get into the green game, save money and increase profits. The 10 featured organizations were Amazon.com. New Belgium Brewing, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Starbucks, Patagonia, The Ritz-Carlton, the University of New Hampshire, Wynn Las Vegas, Dell and the city of Greensburg, Kan. A few months later, in November, Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft, wrote an article for Forbes on how cloud computing can greatly reduce the net energy use of business computing. Apparently even the clouds are green these days.

The aforementioned organizations demonstrate their green commitment in many ways, but one thing they all have in common is how they have rolled sustainability into their values. This is where the third driver to go green - congruence - comes into play. If an organization sees the value of embracing sustainability, then it must become a value.

Note: The "please consider the environment before printing" footer on e-mails is not enough to send the sustainability message to the marketplace. Commitment in actions and stated values is far more effective.

In a 2010 HRPS People & Strategy journal article, "Transitioning to the Green Economy," Jeana Wirtenberg, senior advisor at the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, offered talent managers some sound advice.

"Sustainability represents a huge opportunity for HR to play a more strategic role in their organizations, something HR had been aiming at for years," Wirtenberg said. "In many ways, it falls right in HR's sweet spot. Under the right circumstances, HR professionals can help infuse sustainability into talent management systems, but they have to build up their own competencies in this area." Over the years talent leaders have been asked to continue to build competencies and move from a tactical function to a more strategic business partner, so it comes as no surprise that, given its implications for talent and the bottom line, they will need to build knowledge around sustainability.

Planting Green Seeds

So where should organizations start? There are many opportunities to go green in every step of the employee life cycle, from candidate search to retirement benefits, but the largest area of impact may be right at the beginning: recruitment.

Let's start with social networking. Gone are the days of calling up the local newspaper and placing an ad. That was replaced by job boards, and now job boards are in trouble and losing market share to organizations that are doing their own candidate searches. We all know these mediums help talent leaders recruit better, but they are also a greener practice than what has been done in the past. Organizations are seeking and finding passive candidates on LinkedIn, posting jobs on LinkedIn subgroups, tweeting jobs on Twitter and building professional Facebook pages that work well to attract quality candidates. Additionally, these recruiting methods are free, so companies are saving real green.

In line with these next generation talent acquisition approaches will be the way talent managers look at career fairs. If an organization hosts or attends career fairs regularly, it should consider the materials it provides to prospective candidates. Are they double-sided and printed on recycled material? If not, they should be. This may seem like a minor detail, but discerning candidates are looking at things like this. Another way to get attention is to distribute company information on a USB thumb drive, or better yet, given the proliferation of smart phones, create an app. That move is the epitome of reduce, reuse, recycle and will surely leave a lasting impression on the most desirable talent. Much like employment branding, organizations need to offer something their competitors don't in order to differentiate themselves and look more attractive to talent. Everyone offers benefits, so organizations must be bold and go down a different path to give candidates a different, memorable experience.

Next, talent leaders can evaluate their organization's interview process. Does it rely on the same old telephone screening process? That may have been the standard for years, but it's not anymore. Live virtual or video interviewing is becoming a popular approach. Futurist John Sullivan stated in an ERE.net blog post in June 2009 that the "interview from anywhere" would become the standard practice for all but the final interview.

Live virtual interviews not only cut candidate travel costs by up to 75 percent; they significantly reduce talent management's carbon footprint. Solution providers handle everything from webcam fulfillment and technology support to candidate coaching so companies can have successful virtual interviews. Companies using this approach are already making headlines. At the Global Onrec Expo in September 2010, Baptist Health System in San Antonio, Texas, won the Best Candidate Experience award in its physician recruitment function, and the Innovation in Recruitment award was presented to communications and engineering solutions provider ARINC. Both of these companies used the live virtual GreenJobInterview.com platform as an integral piece of their recruitment practice.

Some of the other companies that provide similar services include HireVue, Interview Studio and Interview Stream. Before choosing a provider, talent leaders should be sure to include IT and legal departments in the conversation. Some providers require organizations to purchase their software or store the recorded interviews for two years. Any provider chosen will depend on an organization's budget, internal bench strength, legal implications and ultimately its corporate culture and values.

Some companies are using platforms such as Skype to conduct virtual interviews. A word of caution here: There are certainly legal implications if an organization decides to go this route. Some interview candidates may not have access to the necessary equipment, and there can be no taint of discrimination without an organization opening itself to potential liability. Further, the quality of a Skype meeting may not be appropriate for a professional interview. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and Skype is free.

Using any of these solutions will significantly cut travel expenditures as well as support an organization's sustainability efforts. In an ERE.net blog, Gerry Crispin of Career Crossroads used CarbonFootprint.com to make some calculations based on a mythical firm of 1,000 employees that hired a mix of 240 applicants. He calculated that this company produced about 1.25 tons of carbon dioxide per hire. Imagine how much that could be reduced by implementing just one green solution into the talent management process, such as virtual interviews.

What if an organization made a real commitment to sustainability and looked at every touchpoint along the employee life cycle? Think about the huge impact it could have, not just from a sustainability perspective, but also from a cost-savings perspective. Sometimes the bottom line is the bottom line, and by making talent management more eco-friendly, an organization can add meaningful value to its brand and its wallet.

[About the Author: Lizz Pellet is the chief cultural officer for Emerge International and author of The Cultural Fit Factor: Creating an Employment Brand That Attracts, Retains and Repels the Right Employees.]

-For more Articles and Information http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Snaptu: KENYA: Experts call for long term solutions to drought

2011-08-25T00:11:00.001-07:00

Local and international agricultural experts have stressed the need for long-term measures to avoid a repetition of the life threatening drought currently hitting the Horn of Africa. The situation has left 12 million people hungry. In Kenya, whose…

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

Perfecting Performance Management (by Marc Effron | Talent Management)

2011-08-20T23:02:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Few talent processes are as powerful or as widely despised as performance management. The steps to align employees with corporate goals, coach them to higher performance and assess their accomplishments often elicit an unending stream of complaints from managers and employees alike. Talent managers should ignore the siren's calls to eliminate the performance review, and instead create a process that's guided by science, easy to use and features clear accountability.

Thanks to 60 years of psychology research, we have information to set goals that create higher motivation and drive performance. Science tells us that:

1. More difficult goals produce higher performance:

We increase our effort as a goal becomes more challenging. The old performance management maxim of "three regular goals and a stretch goal" doesn't cut it. Today it should be four stretch goals.

2. Goals motivate better when they coincide with self-interest:

When we believe a goal can help us earn, learn or realize other personal objectives, we'll be more motivated to complete it. This doesn't mean employees should set their own goals. In fact, allowing them to do so can easily reduce the power of the first point.

3. Fewer goals are better than many:

The more goals we have, the less effort we can give to each. Science doesn't tell us the right number of goals, but my experience is few of us have more than five truly important goals in any given year.

Many parts of the typical performance management system add complexity to the manager's life without adding value. You can eliminate many traditional bells and whistles to make your process easier and more efficient for your managers.

4. Encourage a one-page goal setting and review form:

We can all agree it's not about the form, but a complex, difficult-to-use form can poison the process for both managers and employees. The only form elements supported by science are a goal statement, metrics and a section to evaluate results. Anything else you want to include should be considered guilty until you prove it innocent.

5. Kill the labels:

Fancy classifications such as "valued contributor" or "star performer" complicate the message you're trying to send to employees. Simply tell them they exceeded, met or partially met their goals last year.

6. Precision does not equal accuracy:

Especially popular in scientific and engineering cultures, the precise, formulaic calculation of a performance score gives managers comfort but adds absolutely no value. It is impossible for a manager to accurately measure the difference between a 3.7 and a 3.8 performer. Eliminate the calculation, and force managers to consider the totality of accomplishments and assign a rating.

Even the most well-intentioned manager might not always complete performance management in the time and fashion you require. Two powerful levers can help.

a) Time-bomb communication:

We can help managers do the right thing by making our expectations visible. At key points in your process - goal setting, coaching, reviews - have your CEO or HR leader send a message to every employee covered by performance management detailing the process and expectation.

The message should describe the process, timing, what employees should expect from their manager and what managers should expect from employees. You've handed the manager a ticking time bomb and given him or her easy instructions to defuse it.

b) Forcing/guiding/managing a distribution:

Highly controversial but increasingly popular, providing strong guidance for performance distribution is a response to the chronic inflation of ratings seen in most companies. If properly challenging goals are set, a reasonable distribution should be achieved. But until managers are fully competent at this activity, the training wheels provided by managed distributions are a helpful tool.

Spend one hour today thinking about how you could decrease complexity, increase transparency or drive more accountability in your performance management process. You don't need to redesign the entire process; simply chip away factors that are causing the most pain. It's the most powerful thing you can do to improve your company's performance.

[About the Author: Marc Effron is president of The Talent Strategy Group and author of One Page Talent Management.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

With Pennies a Week, African Women Are Saving for Their Future (www.care.org)

2011-08-14T08:59:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

CARE works with both domestic and international leaders at many levels - from U.S. members of Congress to village elders - to bring about meaningful changes in communities worldwide. Together, we seek the positive changes needed to create lasting victories over poverty.

http://www.care.org/getinvolved/advocacy/access-africa/index.asp?s_src=SOS2011&s_subsrc=ShortURL

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Snaptu: Crop Yield Raises Risk to Food Cost

2011-08-11T23:02:00.001-07:00

Commodities experts said that the increases would ultimately lead to higher prices for staples like vegetable oil, pasta and meat

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

R&D without public money : a prospective answer. Posted (by: Maikeru Roran CARE INTERNATIONAL)

2011-08-09T23:03:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Historical Entrepreneurial Science is a research field dedicated to the social and mitigational development of the entrepreneurial capital of human societies. The entrepreneurial capital encompasses all the cognitive and technical assets that have been in use since the dawn of Mankind. Experimental History and Archaeology illustrate a nice manner to consider the past and address its assets.
The empirical world and history are an abiding source of cognitive resources and complex systems. We therefore suggest being the architects of such resources and systems, outside of any space or time limit but only depending on needs, to associate knowledge and know-how in a similar way as the banking sector associates the holder of a capital with the holder of a project. Developing knowledge and the know-how of human societies may only be possible through social benefit and mitigation. This added value will be dedicated to attracting the investors who wish to perpetuate it.
Historical Entrepreneurial Science aims to meet contemporary social needs through the use of empirical and historical assets in three phases.
A. Identification of the social needs locally. The socialization of mankind is mainly dedicated to security reasons. Consequently, social problems are most often related to medical, energy, food, economic or political insecurity.
B. Assessment of assets from the past. "If you don't know where you are going, look at where you come from". This African proverb illustrates with a noble sense of pragmatism the significance of the past in the construction of a society on a daily basis. While socio-cultural differences are strong in the oecumene, the fundamental human needs, emotions and cognitive skills are universal. And similarities in the history of techniques and breakthroughs between two ethnic groups located very far away geographically from each other undoubtedly come from the cognitive ability to provide a same answer to an identical problem.
C. Value added creation. The basis of the economic system lies on the association of Capital and Know-How. Wealth is the ability to use the resources we have at our disposal. There is no natural resource, but ways to work our environment. This wealth is dynamic, not hoarded. If each individual, group, company, community can provide added value to somebody or something, it de facto creates a CAPITAL – KNOW-HOW dynamics which will inevitably attract an investor whose interest will be to preserve the system so created... The aim of Historical Entrepreneurial Science is therefore to create a durable social benefit. Financing research by investment differs from the current objective-based financing which subjects researchers to political and economic will...
Historical Entrepreneurial Science is built around the concept of Kyuuninkai旧忍会, in turn built around the kanjis 旧(Kyuu) , which means ancient, past, in the past; 忍 (Nin), related to survival, endurance but also secret, and Kai (会) which means meeting, as exchange is at the basis of wealth generation.

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Snaptu: Why successful people don’t want to mentor you

2011-08-09T19:20:00.001-07:00

Successful people are constantly sought out as mentors. Sadly, most people do a terrible job of asking for mentoring. They come off as desperate, awkward, and irritating.But busy people LOVE helping others who take action, so there is good news: As…

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

The Top 10 Ways to be Effectively Assertive!!! [By Robert G. Jerus (MBA, APC, MA)]

2011-08-07T22:30:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

There's a fine balance when dealing with people between the arrogant, aggressive, offensive style and the timid, submissive doormat method. The balance is in being confident enough to be assertive of personal rights and boundaries while respectful of others.

1. Know the distinction between being assertive versus being aggressive or arrogant

Assertive people promote their rights rather than stepping on those of others.

2. Have clear boundaries when dealing with others.

If you're clear where the limits are, others know as well.

3. Politely but directly, let people know your position.

Don't allow your position, point of view and feelings to be ignored. Your needs are important.

4. Affirm yourself and your good qualities.

Develop self-confidence and positive self-esteem.

5. Know what you want.

There is a time and a place to go along with others but there is also a time to reach for your own dreams.

6. Avoid being timid.

While aggressiveness steps on the rights of others, being overly timid sacrifices your own rights. Don't let others steamroller you.

7. Be willing to clearly say either yes or no and to stand by your answer.

Allow yourself to develop opinions and maintain them.

8. Avoid arrogance.

Dominance and controlling tendencies impinge on others being themselves.

9. When opinions are in question, give yourself permission to self-disclose.

Let others know your viewpoint and recognize that it is significant.

10. Take responsibility for yourself.

Don't make many excuses. Require that friends and associates take responsibility for themselves and their actions. Avoid being co-dependent; be careful not to dominate quieter spirits.

With Best Regards,

V Chacko Jacob

Manager - Training

Springboards Leadership & Talent Management

TPL House, 3, Cenotaph Road, Teynampet, Chennai 600018

Mobile : +91 9840539064; Phone : +91 44 2431 0181

www.springboards.in

For more Aticles and Information: http:www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

How To Assess Leaders For Strategic Aptitude[ by Steve Krupp, Samantha Howland & Paul J.H. Schoemaker | Chief Learning Officer]

2011-08-03T22:18:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Traditional models of leadership tend to emphasize individualism and top-down command. Picture the classic image of Gen. George Patton leading Allied forces into World War II: a solitary visionary atop a white horse, pointing ahead with his outstretched finger. This heroic model served us well when the world was reasonably predictable. The current business environment demands something new. As uncertainty increases, humility, shared decision making and flexibility are even more crucial than the ability to rally the troops. Strategic thinking, however, may be the single most critical leadership capability needed in today's organizations.

When pressed, however, CLOs struggle to articulate what being strategic means. Let's use the following definition for strategic aptitude: leaders who succeed in today's uncertain terrain due to their ability to anticipate, think critically, interpret, decide, align and learn.

1. Anticipate:

Most leaders focus on what's directly ahead. Leaders who anticipate look for game-changing information at the periphery, search beyond current boundaries and build wide networks to help them scan the horizon.

2. Think critically:

Convenient wisdom is tempting, but woe to the leader who swallows every myth and opinion at face value. Critical thinkers question everything. They tend to reframe problems to understand root causes, challenge current beliefs and mindsets, and uncover hypocrisy, manipulation and bias.

3. Interpret:

Ambiguity is unsettling. Faced with it, many leaders rush to judgment. The strategic leader holds steady, synthesizing information from many sources before developing a viewpoint. Savvy sense makers seek to understand patterns from multiple data points, engage others to weigh, filter and develop insights, question prevailing assumptions and test multiple hypotheses.

4. Decide:

Many leaders fall prey to analysis paralysis. Strategic leaders use process and discipline to arrive at a good enough position. They tend to carefully frame the decision and approach, balance speed, rigor, quality and agility, and take courageous stands even with incomplete information.

5. Align:

Perfect consensus is rare. A strategic leader must foster open dialogue and engage key stakeholders, especially when views diverge. An alignment-focused leader can understand what is hidden, ensure tough issues surface to pinpoint misalignment, and assess risk tolerance and follow-through support.

6. Learn:

Strategic leaders embrace and encourage feedback, viewing success and failure as sources of critical insight. Learning leaders encourage and exemplify transparent, rigorous debriefs, stay agile and course-correct quickly if off track, and celebrate success and the right kind of failures.

The assessment instruments most CLOs use evaluate style, personality and emotional intelligence. They lack a robust approach to bridge the critical leadership gap around strategic acumen. A strategic aptitude (SA) assessment can pinpoint traits that comprise strategic agility and identify precise development priorities.

SA assessment can help organizations undergo powerful, self-reinforcing transformations. Leaders can build capability and confidence. Armed with tools such as scenario planning, critical thinking and peripheral vision, they can tackle the challenges of an increasingly uncertain world.

CLOs can lead the charge to enhance the strategic aptitude of their organizations, even amid the ongoing challenges of upheaval and global turmoil. Learning leaders must make use of every tool at their disposal to adapt and succeed. They must embrace navigational tools such as strategic aptitude assessments, build a finely trained crew and learn how to change course midstream.

[About the Authors: Steve Krupp is CEO of Decision Strategies International Inc. (DSI). Samantha Howland is a partner and Paul J.H. Schoemaker is founder and chairman.]

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Scenario Planning the Future ( by Daniel W. Rasmus | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-08-02T05:15:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Scenario planning explores the implications of how uncertain forces critical to a business' country, region or constituency will play out under a wide range of social, technological, environmental, economic and political (STEEP) circumstances. It has been used for decades as a tool to make better strategic choices, but in this time of turbulence, it also has proven to be a powerful learning tool.

Scenario planning starts with uncertainties and develops a set of narratives to convey stories about plausible futures. Unlike speculation or science fiction, scenario planning pursues rigorous dialogue to ensure the stories don't break the laws of physics, jump to irrational conclusions or otherwise suggest circumstances not in play within the event horizon. But scenarios do posit the unthinkable or the unimaginable. Something unimaginable may be so for cultural or psychological reasons, but being unimaginable is not the same as being implausible.

Scenario planning offers three primary learning opportunities. First, naming uncertainty provides a way to confront issues that are unconscious or uncomfortable. Second, scenarios provide new context to understand internal and external business dynamics. And finally, scenarios offer a unique way to inform action and a framework for feedback once action has been taken.

Learning From Uncertainty

The starting point for learning begins with naming uncertainty. Many organizations focus their strategies exclusively on things they can control. They then execute plans to manipulate those factors into more favorable futures. Organizations often miss their objectives not because efforts to control the forces acting on them fail, but because they didn't recognize forces over which they had little or no control and discounted strong influences that could make or break their plans.

Consider a classic example from the oil industry where a tool manufacturer thought its future was tied to the price of oil. As long as that stayed stable or went up, the future would be assured. Company plans reflected a plus-or-minus percentage based on fluctuations in oil prices. When President Regan was elected, one of his first acts was tax simplification. One item in the 1986 Tax Reform Act came to be known in some circles as the Dentists Tax Incentive. Essentially, people with disposable income could shelter some of that money by financing oil exploration. Tax simplification eliminated that deduction, and along with it a sub-industry of oil exploration. Rather than a future tied to oil price, the industry discovered its future was tied to the tax code. It had ignored a force acting on the industry and thus failed to understand the impact of tax reform.

As organizations engage in strategic dialogue in an open and honest way, they start to build a repository of influences, uncertainties and factors that companies should plan for, but may not be paying much attention to. Lawrence Wilkinson, chairman of Heminge & Condell and founder of the Global Business Network, said the exploration of uncertainty, regardless of its use in scenarios, can lead to "collaborative alignment and mutual understanding of the business context." Wilkinson said that North American companies that remain provincial in their strategy despite the overwhelming evidence of globalization prove indignant in naming what they don't know about markets and end up with "incomplete and unbalanced assumptions."

Rebecca Wayland, managing director of Competitive Paradigms, said that clients new to scenario planning often "yes" their advisers to death, saying, 'Yes, we have already considered that' to every item discovered." Thus, the biggest impediment to serious strategic planning is the willingness to admit there are things one may not know.

Learning From Context

Once uncertainties have a name, they need to be considered - not in isolation, but in how they play out against each other as well as against more stable forces, such as demographics. The narratives that evolve from the intermingling of uncertainties become scenarios.

To expand on his examination of North American businesses, Wilkinson said that scenarios help organizations "appreciate the global markets in different ways - seeing their different competing complexions, recognizing what is inconsistent with their models. Uncertainty only helps organizations recognize new sets of muscles. Scenarios help them learn how to flex them."

Organizations that incorporate STEEP forces reduce the risk of missing something, such as the impact of a local culture or tax code, that may profoundly challenge their assumptions. They create a more expansive context for considering the world and for incorporating factors that deepen their understanding of markets and customers.

For instance, multiple industries have faced uncertainty thanks to digital technology, which creates a new context and has created a more intimate relationship with customers. This happened in photography when digital media challenged assumptions at Polaroid and Kodak. It also happened at every music publisher and in every movie studio. Apple used this shift to create a new model and has taken the abstraction of consumption charts and made them personal. The company knows not just what the world is buying, but what each consumer is buying, and therefore it can target those consumers for additional sales. Wilkinson said that after the digital revolution many firms found they could "no longer sell what they thought they sold. The process or the relationship becomes the product. The game changes completely."

Wayland said contextual learning is a way of framing current struggles. "A scenario session brought in executives from all over the world. They found that each region existed in a different scenario. That quickly highlighted the reasons for the dissonance between corporate direction and regional acceptance of the direction. The divisions were literally living in different worlds, but until they had the scenarios to ground them, they had no way of talking about the issue." This learning can transform the fundamental ways an organization can approach strategy and internal communications and can help divisions bring "credibility to their observations and forge deeper relationships."

Essentially, new context creates new opportunities to frame issues, which leads to learning about the business, the market, the leadership and the culture in ways that may have been either too difficult or too vague without illustrative scenarios.

Action Learning

Once an organization identifies the uncertainties and forces that act on it, it need to consider how to monitor the unfolding of events. Microsoft used a cork board to track current events against scenario stories. The mass of evidence there demonstrated uncertainty as events unfolded along multiple vectors.

But again, just because something is uncertain does not mean it cannot be influenced. In fact, identification of uncertainty implies a watchful, often active engagement. In banking, regulation would be an uncertainty crucial to strategy. Banks do not sit around waiting to see what regulators will do. Naming an uncertainty means it should be monitored and engaged. Newly published regulations call for internal navigation, while regulatory debate in state and federal forums calls for lobbying. Scenarios help organizations imagine how various proposals will play out while keeping an eye on circumstances that converge on the best future and can determine which position to take. Further, scenarios deepen with time; feedback from engagement helps refine and even challenge assumptions as scenarios are employed.

Scenarios also help identify synergies between certain efforts. In the automobile industry, energy prices, consumer desires and government intervention are leading toward a confluence of more efficient vehicles, but some scenarios shows a disconnect between the reality of energy, government direction and consumer desires. Thus, an automobile manufacturer may want to create a marketing program to present new designs that appeal to all constituencies with an emphasis on educating the consumer, for instance, on how cool and sporty an energy-efficient vehicle can be.

But a confluence of events isn't the only way to learn from the future. The highest value for scenarios is a combination of action learning and anticipation. Scenarios help organizations practice and better prepare for the future, or parts of it, in case they become reality. Some companies place bets, complete with sealed envelopes in locked safes, in anticipation of an industry shift. Early warning signals prompt a dusting off of the plan - the offer to be put on the street - much to the scratching heads of less imaginative competitors. Months later, the sale of a business unit or a foray into a new market looks like genius. The genius lies in inquisitiveness; a desire to learn from forces that play against each other; the perseverance to monitor those forces once the strategic planning effort is over; and the courage to act on incomplete information, intuition and foresight rather than wait for the uncertain to become certain and the opportunity to be lost.

Learning From the Future

In 2004, Microsoft developed a program called the Information Worker Board of the Future. These young people, ambassadors from every part of the globe, were brought together to help the company understand how the future might unfold for the new, young, global workforce.

Learning from representatives of the future is quite different from reading reports and analyzing study data. Dialogue revealed that key principles from scenario planning hold true: The future hasn't happened, so one can still influence it, or at least a company's reaction to it, regardless of the current trajectory of events. That is the heart of scenario planning: learning enough from the future so that today's plans are better, more robust and more resilient than they would be otherwise.

Many forecast 17 to 20 jobs for millennials over their lifetimes. Little work has been done to understand the underpinnings of these proclivities, but outsourcing, offshoring, layoffs and downsizing likely are key factors. Creating attractive environments for millennials will be a competitive advantage to those facing knowledge continuity issues as they look toward the departure of their baby boomers.

Further, millennials may be more interested in learning because they have not experienced many slow marches, only quick shifts, during their lives. Two concepts - just-in-time learning and reciprocal mentoring - rise as potential discussion points. The first is as a way to talk about the value of social media to enterprise learning. The other is a way to partner young people with older employees, recognizing that both bring unique skills and knowledge to the relationship, providing an opportunity for both to learn.

In this time of economic upheaval, of markets that refuse to behave according to old rules, of emerging cultures and ever-evolving technology, scenarios offer a way to learn from the future by actively engaging in its dynamics. If learning leaders don't confront the future, it will confront them, and isn't it always better to learn ahead of a need and leverage a crisis rather than to learn in the middle of one?

Eight Rules of Engagement

To successfully use scenarios to inform organization learning, consider the following rules of thumb.

1. Don't incorporate scenario planning into other activities to start with. Go offsite so the day-to-day doesn't intrude on the process of cultivating the possible.

2. Hire consultants who can help challenge assumptions about process and domain knowledge.

3. Include outsiders in the process: customers, industry analysis, industry naysayers, politicians or others who connect deeply and broadly with the topic under consideration.

4. Include internal influencers. Scenario planning can be effective in the middle of an organization, but it is often most effective when considering strategic positioning. It's not that the best learning or strategy comes from the top, but if the highest levels of the organization aren't open to learning, the chances of lower-level learning being adopted diminish.

5. Select a question to solve that is extremely focused and specific, such as: How will sovereign wealth affect financial markets? Or, what will women buy in 2020?

6. Put a learning model in place early. As soon uncertainties are identified, start locating information about those uncertainties that demonstrates multiple vectors. Real events create a learning dialogue around why one item has so many outcomes and which outcomes are best for the firm to align with, compete against or absorb.

7. Don't just adopt scenario planning, adopt storytelling. Storytelling is crucial to ensure people perceive the credibility of future narratives. Narratives need to be plausible, consumable and credible. People need to be able to see themselves in the alternative futures and to believe they are possible. Only then will they permit themselves to learn from the ideas they play with in the stories.

8. Finally, don't let learning go. The learning from one set of meetings may be eye-opening, but as soon as that meeting is over, subtle shifts start to erode the value of any conclusions made. As the world evolves, organizations need to be open to continuous learning and re-evaluation to ensure they don't just periodically leap reactively from one place to another, but instead adapt constantly to the forces around them and to the needs of their customers and markets.

[About the Author: Daniel W. Rasmus is an independent strategist and author of Management by Design.]

For more Information and Articles: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Snaptu: What about my fears?

2011-07-29T08:45:00.001-07:00

We all have ridiculous things we used to believe (I outlined many of them in Why Do Delusional People Think Their Spending Will Be Different Than Other People's?) Stupidly, I genuinely used to think that "fear" was a physical feeling. So when people…

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

The 'New Normal' of Talent Management (by Jason Averbook | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-07-24T22:30:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

HR executives -- and their C-suite leadership -- must act now to deal with the
"new normal" of talent management. A global recession, a lack in needed skill
sets, an aging workforce and disconnected talent strategies are combining to
create corporate crisis.

It is impossible to tune into any form of media these days without hearing about
job creation: Where will jobs be created? When they will return? How can
governments around the world support job growth?

This topic will dominate discussions for the foreseeable future, but I think a
better question that will rise to the forefront will be: Where are the skills?

The global recession of 2008-2009 brought to light a worldwide unemployment
epidemic. With unemployment rates running at an all-time high, according to the
United Nations Labour Agency, countries around the world are counting on both
the public and private sectors to assist in solving the problem.

While global unemployment is important, perhaps an even more important issue to
HR leaders is how to gain an understanding of what skills exist inside their
organizations, what skills they will need in the future and how they will build
talent strategies that align to those skills.

Better visibility into the skills that are needed versus the gaps that exist
will help organizations realize that this issue is less about new job creation
than about new skill development.

In most crises of supply and demand, we can manufacture a new supply. Whether it
is oil, consumer goods or even money, ways are found to create more. However,
when it comes to individual skill sets, solving the supply and demand crisis is
not as simple.

And without visibility into what we already have, what we need, and where and
when we will need it in the future, it's virtually impossible.

This lack of visibility is a nearly unanimous area of deficiency I find as I
travel around the world to meet with our customers.

Unfortunately, at the same time, I witness the depressingly familiar reactive
approach from HR leaders to solving the problem. Many HR leaders combine their
lack of clarity into the skill sets and motivations of the workforce with the
ongoing, long-time struggle to tie their organizations' talent strategy to
current and emerging business needs.

Frustrated by the current state of the organizations' talent-strategy approach,
some individual business units have taken matters into their own hands --
building their own talent inventory processes and systems that are separate from
the rest of the organization.

While this approach temporarily works on a unit-by-unit basis, talent and skills
eventually bleed out of these worldwide organizations because of this
decentralized effort.

When we add the problems of disconnected talent strategies and supply-and-demand
talent issues to high global unemployment of "lesser-skilled" workers and an
aging workforce, you have an explosive situation.

While this sounds dramatic, demographics underscore that skill sets leaving the
workforce outpace skill sets entering the workforce. We cannot simply create an
extra group of 18-to-20-year-old individuals already prepared to enter the
workforce with the skills needed by businesses today.

Combining that situation with the demand for new skills and the lack of clarity
for future needs and we find ourselves in the "new normal" of talent. This "new
normal" will be one of the largest crises we face during our lives.

So, how does this relate to HR technology?

That relationship became intensely clear to me after a recent conversation with
a CIO. He asked me: "Now that we are not hiring, I assume that you would agree
with me that we do not need to spend on talent-management technology, correct?"

It literally felt like a punch to the gut when I sat back and thought about it.
Candidly, there couldn't be a more false assumption to make than this. Honestly,
it's tragic.

Talent-management technologies are not only more important than ever, but they
should be the No. 1 driver of every HR organization and business leader
worldwide. In a world where everything becomes a commodity in a matter of weeks,
the only long-term differentiator is talent: buying, building, retaining and
mobilizing talent.

In the past, talent-management spend has been measured predominantly by how much
organizations spent on new recruiting technologies. Consequently, the thought
that "jobs are not coming back" has created a perception that investments in
talent-management technology are no longer needed.

But talent management is more than recruiting. HR must know the business
strategy, understand the organization's current depth of skills, and know when,
how and where the business will either grow or acquire additional skills.

HR leaders need to be able to visualize changes in talent supply and demand, and
proactively capture needed talent before the business even requires it. The only
way HR can accomplish this is through the use of talent-management technology.

The definition -- and legacy -- of HR in the future is talent management.

And technologies such as workforce planning, and proactive talent acquisition
through candidate-relationship management and talent communities will help
induce clarity as well as drive the overall talent supply.

So, too, will the use of skills inventory through technologies -- such as a
basic talent profile, deep succession management on critical jobs, and
enterprisewide social-collaboration tools -- help organizations manage talent.

Technology that supports the development of skills that align with business
strategy -- such as ongoing performance management and proactive re-skilling
through learning and career planning -- also help organizations optimize
existing talent, retain it and realize its true value.

Finally, technologies that support compensation management and employee
engagement are required to ensure the workforce is invested in both its future
-- and the future of the enterprise -- and is rewarded for its impact on the
business strategy.

So ... is this the time to invest in an upgrade without talent management
embedded? No! Is this the time to stop investing in talent-management
technologies and invest in "more business-critical" tools? No!

Human resource leaders worldwide need to lead the way in solving the
supply-and-demand talent crisis. They must build talent strategies that tie
their agendas to that of the business and the CEO.

Once those strategies are linked, the business case for HR technology is a "no
brainer," the concept of "business critical" tools shifts back to a focus on
talent, and the HR function shows its impact on driving business outcomes.

Is this the time to stop investing in talent management? No! Quite the opposite,
this is the exact time to invest more, and organizations that don't will be left
with a serious competitive disadvantage.

[About the Author: Jason Averbook is co-founder and CEO of Knowledge Infusion in
Minneapolis, a full-service HR and talent-management consulting firm that
creates talent strategies and then works with organizations to select and deploy
technologies to drive strategic outcomes.]

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Human Energy Crisis (by Mike Prokopeak | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-07-17T22:38:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

There's an energy crisis facing our organizations. But this crisis can't be
solved by switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs or simply turning up the
air conditioning a degree or two. This crisis goes deep into the core of our
personal and professional habits, and the resulting fatigue is putting all of us
at risk.

"When [individuals and organizations] struggle for energy, they struggle to have
life, and if you're unable to generate the energy that is necessary to meet
those demands, some ball is going to drop," said Jim Loehr, chairman and
co-founder of the Human Performance Institute and author of 15 books, including
The Power of Full Engagement.

Think of the nurse at the end of a 12-hour shift who faces an emergency
situation that requires rapid diagnosis and makes a careless mistake, or the
air-traffic controller who nods off while monitoring incoming flights. Physical
fatigue creates a risk that directly affects our safety and well-being.

Fatigue also has implications beyond our ability to physically perform on the
job. It makes it difficult to connect with and care about others and leads us to
be more impatient and detached. It diminishes our ability to focus, be creative
and develop innovative and original ideas. It even plays a role in ethical
lapses.

"When people are tired [and] they're in an energy crisis, they don't hold the
line like they should," Loehr said. "They're much more easily coerced - maybe
just a little or maybe a lot - to the dark side."

Based on research with high-performing athletes, Loehr and colleagues at the
Human Performance Institute have developed recommendations for delivering high
performance in the business world. It starts with recognition that human energy,
or the lack thereof, has far-reaching implications.

"Take energy out of the equation in business [and] nothing happens," he said.
"Nothing happens until your energy causes something to move."

While organizations have a number of often expensive programs and incentives
aimed at developing technical and leadership skills, they pay comparatively
little attention to employees' energy and health, usually leaving it up to the
individual to manage in their personal time. That approach focuses too heavily
on the demands made by the organization and too little on how energy is supplied
by the individual, with potentially debilitating results.

"We know what we want to spend our energy on but we don't look to how we renew
energy," Loehr said. "As soon as energy is reduced in any significant way,
learning comes to a complete stop, engagement begins to fall immediately. You
don't have the discretionary effort to put into the job or mission or task, and
it places into jeopardy all the things we want to accomplish."

Energy has never been viewed as a resource that needs to be managed in the same
concentrated, coordinated way that we manage any other corporate resource, Loehr
said. That lack of focus has resulted in a relatively unsophisticated approach
that often confuses effort with energy.

"Effort simply refers to the volume of energy, the quantity that you have to
spend," Loehr said. "But you can spend large quantities of energy that's very
scattered, unfocused [and] has very poor quality in the sense that it's negative
and sarcastic."

To tackle the energy crisis, organizations need to begin with the fundamental
understanding that energy operates in an oscillatory fashion, meaning people
continually expend and recover energy. Without some infusion of energy and time
to recover, it quickly becomes unsustainable.

CLOs can play a role by including personal and organizational energy management
in leadership development programs. Beyond training to develop rituals that
generate energy, such as getting enough sleep and exercising regularly, CLOs can
help leaders learn how to apply and focus individual and organizational energy.
People can be trained to be more positive with their energy, strengthen their
focus and boost engagement, Loehr said.

Some organizations, such as hospitals and the military are actively managing
energy because there are direct consequences to failure to do so. The broader
business world is just beginning to get it, looking up from the bottom line just
in time to see the energy crisis looming.

"We have never really viewed this as being central to the bottom line and it
really is," Loehr said. "The only thing that makes everything happen is your
energy, and when your energy is no longer available, all that brilliance is
stalled."

[About the Author: Mike Prokopeak is editorial director at Chief Learning
Officer magazine.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Risk in the Real World (by Orlando D. Ashford | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-07-14T02:56:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Marsh & McLennan Cos.' CHRO tells how a keen focus on the varieties of human
capital risk -- employee engagement, talent management and an aging workforce --
are necessary for the success and survival of today's HR executives, but
especially important is the risk of CEO succession.

For many human resource executives, the shift to a global, knowledge-based
economy has changed the game when it comes to identifying the real drivers of
corporate success. We no longer view workers as interchangeable cogs in a matrix
of assets, defined by the fixed capital of property, machines and their tangible
products.

Instead, we recognize human capital as our primary asset, and we require a clear
picture of how our workforces' capabilities, performance and culture correlate
to the bottom line. By now, we know that managing human capital risk -- or any
risk, for that matter -- means identifying what is predictable and being able to
respond quickly and effectively to what is unpredictable.

It's a matter of having nimble structures and strategic vision, so we can cope
with the threat or probability that an action or event will affect our
organization's ability to achieve our objectives. For HR leaders, that's
anything that threatens a firm's ability to attract, develop and retain the key
talent that drives business value.

Human capital, of course, is crucially different from structural capital in that
it is owned by the individual -- that is, individuals who can walk out the door
and take their unique capital with them, unless their competencies, knowledge
and skills are either tangibly recorded or somehow incorporated into an
organization's procedures and structures.

That's a primary example of human capital risk -- loss of key talent -- but
consider some others that often fly under the radar of human resource executive
thinking:

1. Employee engagement.
The risk of insufficiently or poorly engaged employees can yield a direct hit to
the bottom lines of organizations, taking a toll in terms of turnover,
productivity and the company's internal and external brands. Companies that fail
to survey their human capital regularly, respond to substantial issues revealed
by survey research and communicate effectively to the workforce are playing
Russian roulette with their long-term success.

2. Hiring practices and talent management.
The risk of ineffective hiring practices, in which the right talent may be
overlooked while the wrong talent takes its place, can be a major drain on
corporate success. It can also have complicated sources -- from outmoded or
insufficient job descriptions to less-than-rigorous interviewing and
background-screening processes.

Beyond hiring, talent-management failures -- ranging from weak onboarding
practices to poor training, limited development opportunities, stale performance
management and a lack of mentoring -- can compound the risk.

3. An aging workforce.
The risk of an aging workforce has become a global issue, as demographic
realities in some of the most dynamic societies of the east and west --
including those of the United States, Europe, China and India -- point to an
increasing dearth of younger workers to take the place of retiring employees
whose experience and skill levels may be a key factor in driving business
results.

As challenging and as variable as these risks can be, let's also focus on a key
human capital risk factor faced by virtually every organization: CEO succession.

Indeed, from personal experience as a human resource executive and in light of
some recent research on the subject, I feel strongly that mitigating the risk
posed by CEO-succession issues is a key component of sound HR strategy.

Inside CEO Succession

For example, the 2010 Survey on CEO Succession Planning, conducted by Stanford
University, notes that the boards of most of the surveyed organizations agree
that their single-most-important task is choosing the next CEO -- but, on
average, they spend only two hours per year on succession planning.

Furthermore, 69 percent of the 140 survey respondents think that a CEO successor
needs to be "ready now," but only 54 percent of them are grooming an executive
for the position, while 39 percent say they have "zero" viable internal
candidates.

And, not surprisingly, statistics tell us that only 50 percent of CEO
successions are planned at all.

If we agree that CEO selection can have a profound impact on shareholder value,
it's clear that this is one of the most important -- and least managed -- of
human capital risks.

Writing in a December 2008 Chief Executive magazine article entitled "The Cost
of CEO Failures," Nat Stoddard, chairman of Crenshaw Associates, a New
York-based consulting firm specializing in career and transition management for
senior executives, and Claire Wyckoff, a writer and editor who has held
executive positions in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors, estimate the
total cost of such failures -- in terms of cash, inefficiencies and
opportunities lost -- is approximately $14 billion annually.

They write: "Leadership failure at the CEO level plays out in many directions:
There are direct costs related to the individual's compensation ... [and]
indirect costs, which result from errors in judgment, bad strategies, poor
execution, opportunities foregone and the disruption to the organization caused
by inconsistencies, lack of direction and, worst of all, loss of trust."

Indeed, CEO succession has become a vital aspect of corporate governance -- and
thus a key focus of my role as chief human resource executive -- at my
organization, which is itself largely focused on both risk and human capital.

Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. is a global professional-services firm, the parent
company of a number of the world's leading risk experts and specialty
consultants: risk and insurance services provider Marsh; risk and reinsurance
intermediary Guy Carpenter; Mercer, the provider of HR consulting, investments
and outsourcing services; and management consultancy Oliver Wyman. Together, we
employ some 51,000 people worldwide, with annual revenues in excess of $10
billion.

As Marsh & McLennan has evolved over the decades, so has its commitment to a
robust CEO succession plan, especially in the face of the inevitable challenges
and changes that large, global companies must face.

As we began to understand the true costs of CEO turnover -- in terms of hard
costs, and the less quantifiable but very real impact "CEO churn" has on
corporate culture and employee engagement -- it became clear that we needed to
take a more active approach to mitigating this key element of our human capital
risk (indeed, through our work with clients, we had witnessed firsthand
the negative impact of CEO and C-suite churn).

Since I joined the organization in 2008, one of our priorities has been to work
closely with President and CEO Brian Duperreault and the board of directors to
codify our approach to CEO succession.

From our perspective, nothing less than proactive management of CEO-succession
risk would do, and so, through regular consultations with our CEO and board, the
new Guidelines of Corporate Governance were adopted in September of 2010,
spelling out the board's belief that planning for CEO succession is one of its
most important responsibilities.

The board is now required to approve and maintain a succession plan for the CEO,
taking into account the recommendations of the directors and governance
committee. This means that, at least annually, the CEO meets with the
non-executive directors to discuss his or her potential successors and related
issues. Afterward, the board may update its CEO succession plan as appropriate.

In addition, the CEO keeps in place, at all times, a confidential procedure for
the timely and efficient transfer of his or her responsibilities in the event of
an emergency or his or her sudden incapacitation or departure.

The CEO also periodically reviews with the non-executive directors the
performance of other key members of the firm's senior management, as well as any
succession issues relating to those individuals. The board is responsible for
determining that a satisfactory system is in place with regard to the education,
development and orderly succession of senior management throughout the
organization.

Risk Factors and HR's Role

Given the direct and indirect correlation of CEO succession to shareholder value
and costs, succession planning should be at the top of the enterprise-risk
agenda. The role of the senior HR executive in this process is threefold,
requiring:

1. A thorough, objective understanding of the company's current CEO-succession
plan; the CHRO should be analyzing and discussing the process with the CEO and,
directly or indirectly, with the board of directors.

2. A clearly defined set of core CEO competencies against which to measure
potential CEO candidates, and a one-, three- and five-year plan for developing
internal talent. This is, of course, a basic tenet of talent management;
however, the skills and accountabilities required of a CEO are vastly different
than any other senior-leadership position at the firm.

3. HR's championing of the notion of human capital risk -- and CEO-succession
planning, in particular -- as fundamental to the overall
enterprise-risk-management strategy of the firm.

The stakes are simply too high to treat CEO-succession planning as anything less
than a strategic imperative.

As Marsh & McLennan Vice Chairman David Nadler, an expert on CEO succession and
board planning, says, "A constant, collaborative process is crucial to ensuring
a successful transition -- and it must begin the first day a new CEO takes the
helm."

These prescriptions make such sense that we might expect them to exist within
every large organization, yet it's apparent that many companies do not face the
risk of CEO succession with a proactive management approach.

And while managing CEO succession is something that must be driven from the top
of any organization -- there's a distinct line of sight from the board to the
C-suite, after all -- not all examples of human capital risk management are as
clearly defined.

Let's consider another example of human capital risk, that of a technology
manufacturing organization, a client of ours, that faced dramatic changes in its
business environment.

In this case, the risk factors involved burgeoning competition from Asia and the
seismic shift from the analog basis of the company's products to digital
technology.

Senior management recognized the need to change its organizational structure, so
it created new units to sell new products and be more competitive with Asia and
the world in general.

But management was slower to consider the workforce aspects of these changes --
i.e., that a different business strategy required a different human capital
strategy, especially considering that the future of its business was going to be
digital, yet thousands of its workers still possessed only "analog" skills.

The company's human capital risk was compounded by a compensation structure that
tended to reward low performers in the older, analog lines of business.

And, not surprisingly, the company's stock price had declined some 90 percent
over a two-year period, as the market recognized the competitive disadvantage
the company was at. Restoring the company to competitive health, therefore,
required a keen focus on its human capital aspects.

The solution included an emphasis on compensation -- analyzing reward practices,
restructuring the compensation system to pay for performance and shifting the
bulk of reward compensation to employees with proven positive impact on the
company's bottom line.

In hand with that, performance evaluations and metrics were changed to reflect
the firm's new business goals. This meant that, in addition to having to meet
team goals, even low performers on high-performing teams had to meet individual
goals as well. Finally, new training programs were instituted to migrate,
wherever possible, employees with older, analog skills into digital skill sets.

The larger point of all this is that quantifying human capital risk and its
business impact remains a challenge for many organizations, especially in an age
of global business and increasing complexity.

It calls for a new mind-set, in which companies not only recognize the singular
importance of human capital to business performance, but aggressively
incorporate human capital risk as part of enterprise-risk management,
correlating workforce performance with the bottom line through more rigorous
data, analytics and metrics -- such as internal-labor-market statistics and HR
dashboards that enable management in new ways.

And, in the case of CEO succession, it's vital that such a primary
risk-management function be embedded in the corporate-governance structure
itself.

For HR, the challenge is to make these correlations between human capital
performance and business impact through education, effectiveness and evidence.
It's vital for HR leaders to carry the message that, in a global knowledge
economy, human capital risk has emerged as one of the biggest potential threats
to the value of the enterprise.

Just as the "war for talent" characterized previous decades of HR action, HR's
critical capability and value creator for the next decade will be managing the
risks of global talent.

[About the Author: Orlando D. Ashford is senior vice president and chief HR and
communications officer of New York-based Marsh and McLennan Cos. Inc. He serves
as the lead employee advocate for 50,000 employees in more than 100 countries.]

Regards,
Harvinder

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwor.co.nr/

Customer's Choice (by Kellye Whitney | Talent Management)

2011-07-02T01:51:00.000-07:00

-By Development Network-

Leaders at BMO Financial Group believe there is a strong relationship between
the strength and diversity of the company's talent pool and organizational
performance. They have taken an equally strong stance on talent management to
boost employee engagement for 37,500-plus employees internationally as well as
customer satisfaction and the organization's bottom line. Based in Toronto,
Ontario, Mona Malone, vice president of human resources, is responsible for
BMO's personal and commercial bank, which has 17,000 employees. She took time to
share with Talent Management how BMO has become a leading example for the bank's
customers as well as its employees.

TM: How would you characterize BMO's approach to talent management?

Malone: Our approach to talent management is threefold. We put a lot of emphasis
on selection, development and assessment of people based on their potential and
point-in-time performance. We focus on selecting individuals who are the right
fit for our culture so they're aligned with the organization's customer
service-based, collaboration-based values. We also have a tremendous focus and
spend resources on developing people. Our commitment is to help every employee
achieve their highest performance. We have formalized development programs
whether you're a customer service rep, a bank branch manager or a first-time
leader to ensure you understand the expectations for that role, and you've had
an opportunity for training and development to achieve your highest potential.

On the assessment side we do two levels, based on potential and performance.
Twice a year you're formally evaluated on how you're doing against hard business
results and how you're doing in your leadership practices. We also conduct
talent roundtables where we talk about all levels of leadership from the CEO
down. We look at a leader's potential to grow into more senior roles: their
ability to deal with change, their adaptability, their customer service, their
business acumen.

TM: How is BMO's performance linked to strategic business objectives?

Malone: For the personal and commercial banking group, our business goals are
very much around revenue growth and customer experience. Our vision is to be the
bank that defines great customer experience, which is pretty bold because when
people think about a great customer experience, banking is not usually what they
think of. Customers are frustrated by experiences they get with banks. How that
translates in terms of performance management success is around two metrics held
in equal weighting: revenue growth and what we call a net promoter score - a
metric we use to determine the loyalty of our customer base.

It's very important that you're growing the business in a way that is a very
positive customer experience. How we articulate our business, strategy and the
alignment people see in how they're measured and rewarded has helped us in terms
of business success over the last three years. In our case, if you have a very
customer- and growth-oriented agenda, the way you evaluate individual
performance should align to that.

TM: What challenges impact talent management in your organization?

Malone: The unfortunate situation I would describe is when you're talking about
an individual for a promotion opportunity, if the discussion starts with "If
only a couple of years ago we'd thought of giving them this experience," or "If
only they had different experiences in different geographies before we put them
into this situation." If you wish you'd done things earlier and that people
would have had more opportunities to compete for different opportunities, that's
a challenge. When we're doing succession planning, we use "if only" as a gauge
that we need to focus earlier on career moves for people.

The other challenge is continuing to push tough talent calls. If the individual
isn't a great fit for their role - make a decisive call about moving them up,
out, into another job or exiting them - but do not let a bad fit go on for too
long.

The third challenge would be really feeling confident in the assessment you're
making of a leader's capabilities.

TM: Tell us about your succession planning strategies.

Malone: It starts with defining what it means to be a leader in our company. We
articulate it in nine leadership capabilities. We're clear on what the values of
the company are, what the capabilities are to be successful in a leadership role
- that's step one. The second big investment, and this isn't new for us, is
around leadership development.

We invest over $65 million dollars a year in employee development. We've
developed three core leadership programs. Leadership Essentials is for the
first-time manager of people. We don't assume you'll just learn that on the job.
When we put you in a role as a people manager, there are high expectations. The
actions you take impact a lot of people around you.

The other key development focus area is when you become a manager of managers or
a senior manager. We call that our senior leader development program. Our last
one is called Advanced Leadership Program, and that is for executives from new
vice presidents up to our CEO's direct reports. Our CEO teaches in that program.
This program is focused on those who take a broader, strategic leadership role.
Every one of our management committee has been through this program, as have 90
percent or more of our officers. Leadership is something you're constantly
honing and refining; it doesn't mean just because you're senior that you have to
stop enhancing your leadership skills. We place a huge importance on developing
leadership capability no matter where you are in your career.

The third area is around assessment, and this gets into succession. The first
element is how we assess leaders. As a result of those assessments we think
through succession in terms of your career plan in the organization and what
roles would be good fits. We call it being on the succession slate. We assess
that through our talent roundtable process. It's an absolutely huge investment,
not just in terms of dollars but in time: our CEO's time in terms of being in
every one of those advanced leadership programs, our senior officer's time
attending leadership programs and senior folks' time at these roundtables
talking about talent. We deeply believe that the strength of the talent pool
drives organizational success and performance, and the way you strengthen a
talent pool is by focusing on selection, development and assessment.

TM: What metrics have you gathered to prove ROI?

Malone: You can track shifts in people's leadership capability scores over time;
the ultimate measure is looking at business performance over time. But you have
to fundamentally believe that a focus on talent is connected with business
results. You can spend a lot of time measuring the component bits and still not
have a lot of impact. In this organization we have very strong leadership
competence focusing on the development and assessment of people. It drives
business performance, and not just from a metric perspective but from a values
perspective.

How do you determine that you are actually strengthening your talent base
through all of these practices? The ultimate measure is that your business
performance has improved, and when we look at ours over the last three years, it
has been incredibly strong. We have moved from single-digit net income growth
numbers to double digits. We have moved from being a laggard in terms of
customer experience to second in the market and closing that gap on the number
one competitor. We have significantly moved the dials in terms of the business
metrics you would look at, and we're looking at more leading indicators such as,
have we shifted the 360 scores of leaders, are we strengthening leadership
capabilities, are we able to promote people more internally versus externally.

TM: What processes or programs have you established to recruit and retain top
talent?

Malone: It's interesting because the Canadian economy has not been hit as hard
as the U.S. economy, so I still see retaining top talent as a significant issue,
especially when you think about a global marketplace for talent. How do we focus
on retaining our best? One, they should really have a clear sense of how the
organization perceives their potential. They should have a clear view to career
opportunities available. They should have mentoring and connection points with
many senior individuals in the organization.

When you're attracting talent, there are all the usual things - how you
compensate people and the exciting assignments that are created - but the
biggest attraction right now is we have a pretty compelling story. We've moved
from being a middle-of the-pack bank to being one of the fastest growing North
American financial institutions. The performance results we've had are really
impressive, but it's more than the financial aspect. We're carving out a vision
in a category that hasn't historically been known for customer experience and
have some really great proof points that we're achieving that vision. We attract
people that like ambitious change and being almost an underdog that is achieving
great results.

TM: What's next for your organization in terms of talent management?

Malone: There are two areas that we continue to focus on around talent
development. We don't see ourselves at end of job, so continuing to focus on
talent development in both the formal and informal ways and thinking about what
kind of development - whether it's coaching, feedback, job assignments that
individuals need to move to the next level of capability - is an area of
importance to us. Connected to that would be continuing to strengthen succession
planning for key roles and ensuring that we have the absolute best and the most
diverse talent considered.

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Building Effective Global Teams( by Imaad Mahfooz | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-06-30T05:23:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Managing in today's complex world has been made even more challenging due to
global unrest and continuing economic uncertainty. In building and aligning
successful cross-functional and multicultural teams on global projects,
senior-level HR leaders must take a custom-tailored and nuanced approach.

The ongoing social and political upheaval presently underway in the Middle East
is beginning to have an impact on the global economy. Since January of this
year, when demonstrations began in Egypt, oil prices have been steadily
increasing in worldwide markets.

That turbulence adds to the previous three years, which have brought
unprecedented change to the global economy. Anxious and troubled capital
markets, rising energy and raw material prices and sharp declines in land,
housing and fixed-asset values all indicate the importance of multinational
organizations utilizing the key factor of production (their human resources)
that they are perhaps best able to manage.

In addition, sweeping changes in new business models, powerful multinational
companies from emerging markets and changes in employee demographics and
workforce mobility are prompting senior HR executives to deal with some very
pressing concerns. These include global abundance with locally scarce talent, an
aging workforce, rising demand for new skill sets, more diverse and distributed
workforces and flexible-work arrangements.

Together, these developments are creating workforces and work environments that
are as diverse and geographically dispersed as the businesses themselves. For
senior HR executives of international companies, this transformation of business
and human resources presents new challenges when:

a) Building a cross-functional and multicultural team for a critical global
project;

b) Aligning cross-functional teams in a time-challenged M&A or restructuring
environment; and/or

c) Improving organizational team effectiveness for high-priority,
enterprise-level global initiatives, such as business transformation and ERP
implementation.

These situations present important business challenges to senior HR and C-level
executives of organizations involved in managing cross-functional and
multicultural global teams that must work together to achieve organizational
objectives.

Fortunately, there are some proven best practices that can assist HR leadership
in building top-notch, cross-functional global teams.

Well-calibrated and trained teams comprised of local and expatriate resources
with a shared vision and purpose can generate short-, mid- and long-term
competitive advantages for senior HR executives looking to improve corporate
performance, while strengthening their human resources capabilities.

A Nuanced Approach

Cross-functional global projects in business and technology are especially in
need of a nuanced and custom-tailored approach, since managing cross-functional
and multicultural teams in disparate locations presents unique business and
social challenges. Our experience shows that managing and aligning a global team
operating in Mexico, the Netherlands and the United States, for example, is
quite different than managing one based primarily in the United States.

A cross-functional team can be defined as a group of employees from different
functions within an organization, such as human resources, information
technology, marketing and finance, who are all focusing on a specific objective
and have the responsibility to work as a team to achieve desired goals.

Multicultural teams, on the other hand, are made up of people from different
social and professional cultures who work together for a common goal. Managing
cross-functional teams is a complex endeavor by itself, but it becomes even more
challenging when the multicultural component is added to the mix.

In addition to sorting through cross-functional challenges, intercultural
differences can present serious obstacles to teams charged with achieving
international results. In fact, in today's global and knowledge-oriented
environment, the alignment and utilization of human resources is just as
important as raw materials, production and marketing.

Food is a personal passion of mine, and I see parallels between preparing an
elaborate meal and pulling together a cohesive team to accomplish important
business initiatives. Just as a capable chef is able to combine different
ingredients and resources into a memorable meal, today's senior HR executives
must harness the power of tangible and intangible resources and disparate
functions to achieve desired business objectives.

At one global manufacturing organization operating in North America, plans were
made to move production and sourcing of select products from Poland to China,
but tight timelines and difficulties in collaboration on the three continents
resulted in quality-control issues and cost over-runs.

A project-performance assessment pointed to problems with people issues -- such
as cross-cultural communication and timely follow-up on production deadlines --
that were making matters worse.

In response, HR leadership identified within the organization a manager with
international experience who was then trained in cross-cultural team-building
concepts.

In recognizing the different communication and team-behavior styles of teams
operating in North America, Poland and China, a cohesive "one team, one company"
strategy was implemented. By determining areas of expertise necessary for
different portions of the project, tasks and related timelines were distributed
accordingly, with each regional team sharing responsibility for their piece of
the project, with the result that the $42 million project was completed on
budget.

Managing cross-functional global projects can be even more difficult in business
environments coping with organizational change, business and technology
transformation, mergers and acquisitions, or when integrating different systems
and organizations.

Add time pressure and the situation becomes even more complex, such as the
situation faced by a global energy company, which had acquired another worldwide
company as part of a complex merger.

The two companies had different ERP systems and different HR procedures, which
had to be reviewed and sorted out in a compressed time frame; this major
corporate transition required that years of deployment decisions be made in a
matter of weeks.

The larger company had spent decades building firm-specific human capital --
bringing people in at lower levels and promoting them from within -- while the
smaller company had a more open-door policy for employees. Somehow, crucial
human resources and payroll components from both companies had to be integrated,
while one ERP solution had to be selected that could help align people,
processes and technology in achieving organizational goals.

A joint steering committee of managers from both organizations was put into
place by senior HR and technology executives to identify crucial processes
required for the merger and to select the ERP platform best able to sustain
them.

Using a rapid and succinct project-goal-alignment process, the steering
committee identified key HR-process value drivers relating to talent management,
succession planning and payroll, and aligned critical HR and ERP
interdependencies. A new SAP ERP-oriented HR payroll mechanism was installed,
which streamlined the payroll function across the organization, while lowering
HR man hours through process automation and self-service.

In working together toward a common goal, the steering committee was able to
improve the HR function, align it with technology and redeploy the HR workforce.

When chief human resource officers are faced with such challenges, it's
important to create teams with a common sense of purpose and a shared commitment
to action that can generate desired results, while also cultivating future
leaders within the organization. Successful team building requires strategic and
holistic talent utilization as well as a shared vision for achieving desired
business and project goals. In my experience in managing and aligning on-site
and off-site teams on various global HR and business-transformation projects, I
have found the following six factors to be the key components for building
cross-functional and multicultural global teams:

1. Agreement on project goals, project plan and project scope definition.
It is advisable to have the company, management, team and project manager agree
on a clear understanding of project goals, including outlining the business
objectives, setting a time frame in which they are to be accomplished, and
spelling out why they are necessary.

The scope of this understanding -- including requirements and specification --
should be encapsulated in a project plan so the team can measure progress during
the project. The plan should include both a cohesive description of the overall
strategy as well as sufficient details to show clear tactical responsibilities
and specific accomplishments.

A controlled project scope ensures there are clear agreements on the project's
objectives. Any proposed changes should be carefully evaluated for their impact
on cost and schedule, and all relevant changes should be approved before work is
started on them.

2. Review of team composition and working styles.
An assessment should be conducted on team composition (different corporate
functions represented) and how members interact, process information, make
decisions and organize themselves, in order to optimize cross-functional
expertise and determine individual preferences in working together.

It is sensible to consider the following when building global team initiatives:

a) Enterprise-level initiatives such as business transformation and ERP require
the calibration of cross-functional components (e.g. HR, finance, procurement,
IT, etc.).

b) The use of human resource outsourcing, shared-services centers and offshore
workforces is expanding significantly to include small and mid-sized
organizations. These mechanisms will likely grow as globalization continues
throughout the world.

c) A significant portion of recent globalization of the labor force has been
enabled by Internet technology and driven by the desire to control costs.

d) Previously, a large number of traditional multinational companies and new
international players have operated with double standards regarding workforces
in the developed and developing world.

e) Fast-changing economic power and global demographics are prompting growing
economic powers, such as China and India, to re-examine HR procedures in order
to compete globally.

f) Improving standards of living and education in emerging countries, coupled
with new technology tools facilitating mobile and virtual workforces, are
prompting a reassessment of the old expatriate-focused model for managing global
projects.

3. Team cohesion.
Once the review of team working styles is complete, it is advisable to design a
"team map." This can be done by examining the team's different functional
strengths and weaknesses in performing the top three to four tasks needed for
producing the desired end-product or solution.

This valuable exercise identifies individual work preferences, promotes unity of
vision and purpose, enhances cross-functional team alignment and fosters a sense
of teamwork focused on common goals.

When faced with project log-jams, it is better for HR leaders to avoid
intervening directly with the team. In instances when direct involvement is
needed, it is better to have minimal involvement with day-to-day team functions,
as inordinate involvement can prevent team members from solving problems
themselves and learning from that process.

A more prudent approach involves encouraging team members to adapt to each
other's work styles by acknowledging cultural differences and working
accordingly. If there are still issues, members can be counseled and/or
reassigned to reduce interpersonal friction.

4. Cross-functional and multicultural communication issues.
Managing cross-functional and multicultural teams requires keen insight and
planning, as cultural differences can aggravate issues when it comes to team
performance. The following cultural components can lead to potential
conflicts and reduced performance:

a) Direct and indirect communication:
Some team members (e.g. from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany) use
direct, explicit communication in asking questions and identifying problems,
while others (e.g., from China, Japan and Malaysia) are indirect in asking and
responding.

b) Language fluency and speaking accents:
Members who are not fluent in the team's dominant language may have difficulty
communicating their knowledge. This can prevent the team from using that
person's expertise, creating frustration or perceptions of incompetence.

c) Dissimilar hierarchical attitudes:
Team members from strong hierarchical cultures, such as Japan, expect to be
treated differently, according to their status in the organization. Members from
egalitarian cultures, such as the United States and UK, do not. The failure of
some members to honor those expectations can cause humiliation or loss of
stature and credibility, which can affect overall project performance.

d) Contradictory decision-making styles:
Members differ in how quickly they make decisions and in how much analysis they
require beforehand. In some cultures, a seat-of-the-pants approach may be seen
as being proactive, while it may be viewed as rash and ill-thought-out in other
cultures. Someone who prefers making decisions quickly may grow frustrated with
those who need more time.

5. Acceptable behavior.
Once the team has defined and agreed upon new, non-negotiable behaviors for the
team, this information can be documented for future behavioral reference and
application.

6. Management support.
Despite their best intentions, global project teams and project managers do not
always have enough authority to make all the decisions necessary to accomplish
project goals. This is where timely and substantive support from senior
executives can make a huge difference in a project's results. Timely decisions
and sufficient resources are two very important examples of key management
support.

With cooperative, involved management from senior HR executives, global teams
can gain the knowledge and confidence to collaborate effectively within a new
environment through the self-creation of shared and actionable project plans.

Even while managing in a complex global environment, HR executives can help
their organizations prosper by understanding the importance of best practices in
forming and utilizing global teams.

This can be a win-win strategy in two important ways. First, the organization
benefits by successful on-going business operations and timely, cost-conscious
completion of projects. Secondly, potential new leaders can be identified from
within the organization.

For more Articles and Information : http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Managing the 'Difficult' Employee (by Peter Cappelli | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-06-24T06:48:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

A new study finds that about one in five workers have a personality disorder
that negatively impacts their career. Disorders had a more negative effect on
workplace outcomes for women than for men. Also, dysfunctional personalities
were substantially higher for those with more education and were twice as high
for those living in the South as opposed to the Northeast.

In every office and workgroup, it seems that there is at least one employee who
seems to be at the center of most of the problems.

We've all heard the anecdote that 20 percent of workers account for 80 percent
of the supervisory concerns, and while it's hard to find hard evidence to
support that figure, it persists because it seems to align with most everyone's
experience.

Even when the issues and context change, the difficult employee continues to be
at the center of conflicts and problem.

Is it really the person who is the problem? A new study based on survey data
from the U.S. Census and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
suggests that, yes, it probably is.

In "Does Having a Dysfunctional Personality Hurt Your Career," which was
published this year in Industrial Relations journal, the researchers found that
18 percent of adult men and 16 percent of adult women have personality
disorders.

Such disorders are a form of mental illness defined as "pervasive patterns of
enduring cognition and behavior" (i.e., how you think and act) that deviate from
expectations in society and that cause difficulty and distress when dealing with
others.

Deviation from expectations means that they interpret memos in distorting ways,
seeing conspiracies that don't exist; they interpret innocent comments as
personal slights; and they refuse to accept simple changes in procedures.
Personality disorders are less serious forms of mental illness than "clinical"
illnesses such as bipolar disorder or depression, but they nevertheless cause
real problems for the individuals and those around them.

The study by Susan L. Ettner, Joanna Catherine MacLean and Michael T. French
assessed these disorders in face-to-face interviews using standard diagnostic
tests, although for a variety of reasons, the results probably understate the
true incidents of these problems.

The most common of the personality disorders is obsessive-compulsive behavior,
followed by more general antisocial behavior and paranoia. For reasons that
aren't clear, the incidence of personality disorder seemed to be substantially
higher for those with more education and was twice as high for those living in
the South as opposed to the Northeast. In the context of the workplace, the rate
at which those with personality disorders lost their jobs was roughly double
that of those without disorders, while the incidence of having serious problems
with bosses or other employees in the workplace was three times as high.

When controlling for other factors associated with these disorders, the negative
effects of the disorders themselves on labor-market outcomes and workplace
issues were smaller but still significant statistically and meaningful in terms
of their size.

These disorders had a more negative effect on workplace outcomes for women than
for men. Is that because we expect better social skills from women? That men
cover up problems better? Or is it that the jobs at which women
disproportionately work require more social interaction? Hard to say.

One might imagine that individuals who are anti-social - willing to lie, cheat
and violate social norms -- would have the most problems. But it turns out that
having obsessive-compulsive behavior is associated with the most negative
workplace outcomes.

Perhaps the anti-social people are more skilled at covering up their problems or
at smoothing them over. It might also be that OCB is particularly disruptive in
the modern office because change is constant and individuals rarely have control
over how they do their work.

OK, so what do we do with this information?

I suppose it is some comfort to supervisors to know that at least some of the
difficulties they have with "problem" employees may be related to these
disorders and that inadequate supervision is not the main reason for the
conflicts and disruptions.

No doubt these findings will also be used to support the "War for Talent" notion
that there are "A" players, who are just good performers no matter what, and "C"
players, who are always causing problems, and that the goal is to sort them out
before hiring.

Before we draw that conclusion, though, it is worth remembering that no one
chooses to have a personality disorder. Once they are diagnosed, personality
disorders are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and other
state-level legislation, and most of these disorders are treatable, some more
easily than others.

Screening applicants for medical conditions will also be a full employment plan
for your legal department.

In addition, many individuals with these disorders may be terrifically effective
performers, especially in tasks where they work independently.

So, supervisors are likely to be on the hook for managing the one-in-five or so
adults who have these personality disorders for the foreseeable future.

What does that mean in practice?

Maybe it means making new and different use of employee-assistance programs to
help these individuals identify their problems and seek treatment. Maybe it
means helping to redesign their tasks and jobs to find those that truly "fit"
what they are capable of doing. And it still means holding them accountable for
dealing with others in ways that meet the norms and expectations of your
organization. Some part of that may ultimately mean meeting with your legal
department to decide how much variation you can live with.

[About the Author: Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of
Management and director of the Center for Human Resources at The Wharton School.
His latest book, with Bill Novelli, is Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare
for the New Organizational Order.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Leadership Challenges for Women at Work (by Colleen O'Neill and Stacey Boyle | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-06-21T03:58:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Organizations around the world have made commitments to develop future leaders
and enhance diversity in order to achieve better results for customers,
stakeholders and employees. However, there is a marked lack of emphasis on
leadership development for women, the largest of all diversity-targeted groups
in any geography.

This disconnect poses a tough challenge for learning leaders, whose programs and
initiatives for leadership education must overcome this organizational inertia
in order to develop more women for top executive roles.

The solutions may not come easily or soon, but facts are emerging to sharply
outline the problem. According to the 2011 Women's Leadership Development survey
conducted by Mercer in conjunction with the Human Capital Media Advisory Group,
the research arm of Chief Learning Officer magazine, 71 percent of global
organizations do not have a clearly defined strategy or philosophy to develop
women for leadership roles.

These findings underscore a Harvard Business Review research report released in
January 2011, titled "The Sponsor Effect: Breaking Through the Last Glass
Ceiling," which stated: Women occupy 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions, are
outnumbered four to one in the C-suite, comprise less than 16 percent of all
corporate officers and occupy only 7.6 percent of Fortune 500 top-earner
positions.

The Mercer survey included responses from more than 1,800 human resources,
talent management and diversity leaders at organizations throughout North
America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. A broad cross-section
of industries took part, with for-profits, high-tech/telecommunications,
financial/banking and durable manufacturing organizations representing the
largest segments. Responses, which addressed current commitment and support for
women's leadership, plans for the future and obstacles to success, were fairly
consistent across regions.

Survey data reveals 47 percent of employers surveyed globally indicate their
organizations do not offer any activities or programs targeted to meet women
leaders' development needs. While 21 percent of organizations said they offer
some activities or programs, only 6 percent said they are planning to add
programs and activities in the future.

Global Differences, Top Programs

It appears while many multinational organizations value gender diversity in
leadership, they are focused on broader diversity objectives and not
specifically on accelerating the development and pipeline of qualified women
leaders. As a result of not having a clearly defined strategy, the climate of
support for developing women leaders is mixed.

Of survey respondents, 44 percent said their organizations support development
of women leaders to a moderate extent, while just 19 percent said their
organizations support women's leadership development to a great extent.
Organizations in the U.S. and Asia Pacific showed a higher than average
response, with 27 percent supporting the development of women to a great extent,
while organizations in EMEA were below average at 14 percent.

This affirms that gender diversity in leadership can be a complex issue. While
some organizations don't recognize the unique attributes women leaders bring to
the table, others don't believe women should be treated differently than men.
Even organizations committed to having a more diverse leadership team may not be
making the kind of progress necessary to achieve their goals.

This lack of progress might be attributed to a flawed perception of what's
valuable to women's leadership development. For example, according to the
survey, the top solutions listed by organizations worldwide specifically
targeting women leaders' needs were flexible work arrangements, 66 percent;
followed by diversity sourcing and recruiting, 44 percent; coaching, 44 percent;
and mentoring, 43 percent.

These same four programs also were identified as the most effective in
developing women leaders. The emphasis on flexible work arrangements is an
important acknowledgement of a work-life issue that traditionally has been
associated with working women. But executive sponsorship and programs such as
coaching and mentoring may be more valuable for leadership skills development
even though survey respondents viewed these solutions as having less of an
impact than flexible work arrangements.

In the U.S. and Asia Pacific regions, organizations showed a higher than average
response of 69 percent that provide flexible work arrangements, while Canadian
organizations showed a lower response, 60 percent. More U.S. and Asia Pacific
organizations also provide coaching, 51 and 45 percent respectively, compared to
42 percent of organizations in EMEA and 37 percent in Canada.

Levels of Concern, Limiting Factors

What's worrisome is where there is inconsistency of a lack of targeted
strategies for developing women leaders, organizations do not appear to be
overly concerned. When asked about their level of concern regarding various
aspects of women in leadership, the top three issues ranked "very concerned"
were having enough women in the leadership pipeline, 21 percent; retaining women
once they reach leadership levels, 20 percent; and having women develop the full
range skills necessary for a senior leadership position, 19 percent. These
relatively low levels of concern don't square with organizations' overall
strategies around diversity and leadership.

That said, the top three factors preventing women in leadership talent pools
from advancing to the next level in their organizations were work-life balance
and lack of an executive sponsor, which were nearly tied at about 42 percent,
and insufficient breadth of experience, 29 percent. Organizations in Asia
Pacific and EMEA also listed willingness to relocate as a leading factor
preventing advancement, 36 percent and 27 percent respectively.

Similarly, survey respondents said the biggest challenges women face in their
development as leaders pertains to work-life balance, lack of role models, lack
of opportunities for career advancement and a lack of support from upper
management. And while their organizations may not have expressed significant
concern about women's leadership development, many survey respondents indicated
their own desire to improve their program's effectiveness by instituting formal
coaching and mentoring programs, promoting development for all potential
leaders, emphasizing younger-generation leaders and launching affinity groups.

When it comes to offering programs to help women advance as leaders, the
solutions being provided by organizations don't always address the issue.
Leadership development is a multiphase process that goes beyond flexible work
schedules and basic coaching; it must include opportunities to obtain leadership
experience, and more importantly, it must have support from senior management.

Many organizations have talented women in their leadership pipelines, but to
successfully advance them into leadership roles, they need a strategy. In
addition to plans and programs to develop women, this strategy should outline
how to change the organization's corporate culture to recognize the business
value inherent to diverse leadership.

Learning Implications

Learning leaders have an opportunity to frame the issue as a strategic
imperative and to advance the science and practice of women's leadership
development. Most companies still rely on traditional approaches such as
offering flexible schedules rather than taking a more systematic and integrated
approach. Accelerating the development of women leaders will require coordinated
individual and companywide change efforts. The problem should be attacked on two
fronts: helping women build and demonstrate their leadership skills while
simultaneously changing the organizational culture.

Further, the lack of executive sponsors and an insufficient breadth of
experience were cited among the top factors preventing women in their
organization's leadership talent pool from advancing to the next level. This
calls for an exploration of exactly how executive sponsorship can drive career
advancement, and what touchstones may be required for it to work effectively. Is
it necessary, for example, for an executive sponsor or mentor to have had
diversity training and specific capabilities to effectively mentor women
executives? What must women bring to the task of partnering with male executives
in terms of shared vision and career growth?

Leadership in today's global business world is about creating and sustaining
cultures of risk taking and innovation, and unleashing new ideas and fresh
approaches in order to drive business results. Despite the thin ranks of women
in the C-suites, there's ample evidence that high-profile women CEOs and
executives have been among the most aggressively innovative and fresh thinking
on a global scale. Programs and initiatives that can develop and reinforce
techniques to promote business innovation and creativity will be vital for
tomorrow's women leaders.

However, embracing these goals and strategies isn't going to change the
long-standing leadership paradigm overnight. Among the comments made by
respondents to the Mercer survey, there were frequent references to the
predominance of "old boys' clubs," inflexible corporate cultures and
male-dominated leadership teams that do not support or enable women to move into
comparable leadership roles.

Further, there are some real development challenges ahead for women. Survey
respondents cited women's "struggle to be able to relocate or work on a
long-term global assignment due to spouse work commitments and inability to
travel." Others said there was not enough recognition of the need for targeted
development, noting a lack of leadership support, while still others opined that
"Women don't ask for the promotion. Men do and get it, whereas women wait to be
recognized for all their hard work, and it never comes."

Chief learning officers can play a major role in ensuring women and minorities
have the experiences and leadership development opportunities they need to be
successful. After all, who could deny that true leadership diversity is a
fundamental element of a global talent management strategy and a bottom-line
necessity for global business in the 21st century?

[About the Authors: Colleen O'Neill is a senior partner in Mercer's human
capital business. Stacey Boyle is vice president of the Human Capital Media
Advisory Group.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.conr/

Who Are Your Pivotal Leaders?(by Stuart Crandell, Ph.D. | Talent Management)

2011-06-20T07:30:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

There's more to organizational success than simply surviving. Now that the
economy has begun its slow ascent from the ashes of the Great Recession, leaders
are turning their attention to excelling, which requires the most pivotal talent
available.

Now more than ever, organizational leaders realize that the right talent in the
right roles will lead to operational and business success. Since resources are
still constrained, talent managers are focusing their development spending on
high-potential talent. A recent PDI Ninth House study found that nearly
two-thirds of global organizations planned high-potential programs in 2010,
which makes sense considering that high-potential talent pools are breeding
grounds for successful leaders.

However, talent leaders at forward-looking organizations are going a step
further. They are identifying pivotal leadership roles within their
organizations and using their high-potential and succession planning processes
to ensure the right people are deployed into these roles in order to realize
more immediate, tangible and positive results.

Pivotal leadership roles are vital to an organization's success or failure.
These roles are readily identifiable because a change in a pivotal leader's
performance will have a significant impact on an organization's performance.
Weak performance in a pivotal role can create great risk for an organization's
mission, objectives or results, whereas high performance in a pivotal role often
provides greater competitive advantage and improved operational results.

Important Roles vs. Pivotal Roles

To identify pivotal leadership roles, talent leaders must understand the
difference between important and pivotal. Important roles are necessary to carry
out key business processes or operations. Pivotal roles also are necessary, but
they are utilized specifically when performance improvements can significantly
impact a company's strategic, financial or operational results. The purpose of
identifying the most pivotal leadership roles is to understand where talent
management investments will have the greatest impact on an organization's
performance and bottom line.

To understand the difference between important and pivotal roles, managers need
to understand the company's strategy. Consider the following hypothetical
scenario involving two companies in the airline industry. The first is a
budget airline whose strategy is based on efficiently and rapidly turning planes
around in order to fly more routes per day. The second is a more traditional
full-service airline whose strategy is to control high-value, long-haul routes
across continents by locking up gates at major international hubs.

For the budget airline, the ground crew roles are likely the most pivotal, since
they are essential in getting the planes ready for the next departure as quickly
as possible. Although the ground crew roles are important for the full-service
airline, they are not pivotal. Instead, the roles involved in negotiating gate
access would be the most pivotal because this airline's strategy is based on
having more access to more gates at key hubs.

If the budget airline wants to drive overall business performance improvement,
it does not need to invest more heavily in its gate negotiators. However, if it
improves its ground crew's productivity to fly an additional route per day, it
will significantly impact its asset utilization and business performance. In
contrast, the full-service airline would benefit much less from improving its
ground crew's performance as they are not key to its primary objective.

The Powers That Be

To understand which roles are pivotal versus important, talent managers need to
examine three main drivers of pivotal roles:

1. Quality:
Organizations need to know what their strategy is, and where it will matter most
to have better leaders.

2. Quantity:
Sometimes the issue is not about quality - having leaders with sufficient
capabilities - but rather about having enough leaders to meet an identified
need.

3. Specialty roles:
Organizations should know their rare leaders, those individuals with unique
knowledge and skills, as they often are the most costly and difficult to
replace.

Although it is essential for business success to identify and leverage pivotal
roles, company executives must understand that there is significant business
risk associated with these roles. If a company loses a high-performing, pivotal
individual, it can be damaging to business performance. One way to mitigate risk
is to have a robust succession plan to ensure successors are well trained and
ready to step in when needed. To do so, organizations should develop and use a
strategic assessment management process that:

a) Determines pivotal leadership roles for current business priorities while
recognizing that these positions may change as business strategies change.

b) Assesses incumbent leaders and potential successors to gauge skills,
strengths and weaknesses.

c) Creates a succession planning process that is directly tied to pivotal roles
versus generic leadership levels.

This process looks at the skills gaps for pivotal roles and fixes them through
development activities and programs.

Creating a Pivotal Accelerator Program

As a global healthcare company in the laboratory equipment and diagnostic
testing arena, Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) focuses on growth, innovation
and talent to drive company success. However, two years ago, BD realized that
its bench strength was not as deep as it should be when it came to general
management.

Tom Ruddy, vice president of talent management, leadership and learning at BD,
knew the company needed a strategy for its pivotal general manager roles. Given
how critical these roles are to drive growth, BD had to ensure those currently
in the roles had the necessary skills and experiences to execute the growth
strategy, as well as ensure a robust pipeline of future general manager talent
in the feeder pools.

The BD talent management team established an accelerator program to develop
general manager talent. Some individuals in the program were already in general
management roles; others were selected as potential future general managers. The
program had three core elements:

1. Individuals participated in a detailed developmental assessment to determine
strengths, developmental opportunities and transition needs. Participants were
able to craft a development plan focused on the skills and experiences needed to
be successful in the general manager role.

2. After the assessment feedback, individuals were assigned mentors based on a
match between their development needs and the mentors' particular strengths and
styles.

3. Individuals were then placed on various projects and special assignments to
further their development and ensure they received exposure, experiences and
opportunities to acquire key skills required for success at the general
management level.

The accelerator program has been a quick success for BD's pivotal general
managers. Since the start of the program, 60 percent of participants have been
promoted to the general management level.

Given the encouraging results from the accelerator program for the pivotal
general manager role, BD expanded the program to other pivotal roles within the
company. To determine similar roles, the company's senior human resources team
collaborated with executives from all business segments to determine the key
roles critical to each segment's success. Leaders were asked questions such as,
"Which roles are critical to help drive business growth?" and "What are the
roles where a sub-performer could cause the most damage to your business?"

From these meetings, BD determined that a handful of pivotal role pools existed
within the organization with 327 employees currently positioned in those roles.
For BD, pivotal roles were general managers along with specific roles within
research and development and key functional areas such as finance, supply chain
and procurement.

Those 327 employee positions represent only 1 percent of BD's entire employee
base, thus illustrating how pivotal programs are highly targeted to those
individuals who truly make a difference in a company's business strategy.

Limited Resources Influence Programs

With the benefits of focusing on pivotal roles clear, the next question is: What
is the best way to fit this into a talent management strategy?

Although the economy is turning around, company executives remain financially
cautious, and most HR leaders have limited resources. Talent leaders must
therefore take a close look at their business. Where are they today? What are
the current, critical initiatives? What are the long-term strategies? What
skills and teams will be needed to ensure the organization meets its short- and
long-term initiatives? What kind of assessment processes are in place to ensure
a seamless transition of talent when needed?

Talent leaders also may wonder if they should focus on pivotal leaders or
high-potential leaders. Where will they see more financial rewards? Often
pivotal roles focus on the immediate, critical initiatives needed to execute the
strategy and drive current operational performance, whereas high potentials are,
by definition, talent assets needed to build for the future.

Both are necessary; it's not an either/or scenario. Pivotal leader and
high-potential programs should dovetail. In fact, pivotal leadership positions
often are powerful development opportunities for high-potential employees. A
talent management strategy that leverages both in a strategic, cohesive approach
will be an effective use of scarce development resources and will help to ensure
a company's success now and in the future.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Snaptu: Case Study: How Jennifer tripled her rate (working 1/3 the hours) by mastering the art of networking

2011-06-17T04:48:00.001-07:00

Most of us suck at networking. We think it's sleazy. We're not sure what to say. And even if we "believe" we should do it, we rarely do! Sounds familiar…like working out, or managing your money, or even keeping in touch with friends and family. Yet…

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

Tips to Prevent Conflict in the Workplace ( by Natalie Morera | Talent Management )

2011-06-16T01:31:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Some leaders may stand on the sidelines as workplace conflicts play out because
they think they can't make everyone get along, but ignoring clashes in the
office may have a bigger impact down the line.

"[In some organizations, this type of] behavior is tolerated and unaddressed by
people at all levels of the organization for a period, if not explicitly
encouraged," said Richard D. Hart, respectful workplace specialist at ProActive
ReSolutions, a workplace conflict resolution company. "Over time, the behavior
and related impact escalate to a point that others are finally forced to pay
attention - the proverbial last straw."

Hart typically assists leaders who are dealing with disruptive and
disrespectful employees. The scenarios are fairly similar each time: Employees
are involved in chronic, long-term, "low-level behaviors," such as failing to
respond, rolling of the eyes, avoiding eye contact, sarcasm and belittling,
Hart said.

Preventing this type of behavior requires leaders to focus on people's actions,
not their feelings, personalities, perception, beliefs, values, expectations
and other things - not because they aren't important, but because it's
difficult for an organization to change such traits, Hart said.

What matters most is how the employees work as a group. "People's behavior in a
workgroup is both the best predictor of conflict and the best indicator of
conflict," Hart said.

Once people stop communicating because conflict has occurred, an organization
can see effects on the bottom line. The company may lose employees or lose out
on productivity because certain employees don't or can't work together.

"People who don't like each other who are having difficulty and are in conflict
with each other typically aren't talking to each other," said Tim Scudder, CEO
of Personal Strengths USA, a workplace conflicts consulting company and author
of Have a Nice Conflict. "They're not sharing information. They're not
collaborating. It can start to create the silo effect where we're solving
problem[s] only for ourselves without solving problems for the broader team.
When those types of small problems become common inside an organization, it
really starts to affect the whole culture."

When it begins happening on a broader scale, the information people need to
perform their jobs effectively is not free flowing, and this can result in a
drop in productivity, retention, etc.

To avoid this, there are steps leaders can take to prevent conflict. Hart said
every organization should focus on three outcomes in the workplace. Ensure
that:

1. Everyone at all levels of the organization consistently treats others with
respect.

2. Everyone in the organization participates actively in the workplace, so
information is shared, co-workers assist each other and workers help solve
problems.

3. Everyone in the workplace speaks out to managers and colleagues about
important issues affecting them or others.

The best way to achieve these outcomes is to build capacity in three areas,
Hart said:

a) Prevent problems between people by helping them interact respectfully with
each other.

b) Repair relationships broken by conflict by bringing people together to work
through issues and get agreement on future behaviors.

c) Protect people from the harm of extreme behavior such as violence by
understanding and managing risks in specific cases.

Still, in certain cases, there's the potential to learn from conflict, so it
needn't always be avoided.

"When we avoid conflict, we miss the opportunities that are inherent in
embracing conflict," Scudder said. "When we embrace conflict, we get a chance
to learn what matters to people. People only go into conflict about things that
are important. We don't have conflict about stuff we don't care about."

Each time a conflict arises, there's an opportunity to learn the values of the
people who are in that conflict, Scudder said.

"You have a chance to learn what matters to them," Scudder said. "When you
resolve that conflict in a way that is respectful and restorative of those
values, you end up building a much stronger relationship."

Avoidance is looking away from the problem that has already arisen, he said.
But to prevent conflict, one must look at the potential for conflict and take
measures to stop it from happening.

Conflict could lead to healthy outcomes if dealt with properly, Hart said. A
conflict can be an opportunity for people to step forward, display leadership
skills and build collaborative and trusting relationships. It's up to those
involved to solve it. Making room for differences of opinion, debate and
engagement is important, and the lack thereof may be signs of an unhealthy
environment.

"Once people start to behave differently and respond to workplace difficulties
differently, there is far greater chance of the other things changing as well,"
Hart said.

[About the Author: Natalie Morera is an associate editor for Talent Management
magazine.]

-For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Why Communication From Leadership is Essential For Success [by Ladan Nikravan | Chief Learning Officer]

2011-06-04T06:48:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-
As workforces age and skills gaps widen, it's imperative for leaders to bring
together strategy deliberation and execution. According to research
commissioned by consultancies SuccessFactors and Accenture in April, 80 percent
of leaders recognize they are not doing their best to communicate strategy
through the organization. Further, according to findings from a survey of 1,400
corporate executives and employees announced in May by leadership development
and training firm Fierce Inc., more than 70 percent of respondents either agree
or strongly agree that a lack of candor impacts the company's ability to
perform optimally. As economic recovery continues and developing and
executing the organization's strategy becomes a priority, leaders should
reverse traditional information flow and facilitate a bottom-up flood of
opinions and ideas rather than one-way delegation from management.

"Conversations are the building blocks of relationships, and those
relationships either create [an] engaged or unengaged workforce - a positive or
toxic culture," said Halley Bock, CEO and president at Fierce Inc. "To nurture
cross-boundary collaboration, leaders should invite employees to be part of
executing the organization's mission and strategy. Too often, companies rely on
recognition or engagement programs to reward employees they want recognized.
The problem with that is that people don't engage with programs, they engage
with other people. The gift of your time, involving them and being specific on
how they contributed goes a lot further than leaders seem to understand."

While more than 90 percent of respondents to the Fierce survey reported
believing decision makers should seek out other opinions before making a final
decision, approximately 40 percent think leaders and decision makers
consistently fail to do so. Employers who fail to communicate their business
plans properly to their staff and dismiss their points of view are missing out
on engagement.

"Ninety-five percent of what leaders need is right there in front of their
noses," said Vivian James Rigney, president of Inside Us LLC, an executive
coaching organization. "They just need to slow down, listen and engage with
people. You get more valuable information, build bridges of trust and share
accountability much more effectively when you begin to communicate.
Organizations thrive best when there's a culture of calibrating lofty goals and
strategies with people resources and maximizing that. It's listening,
acknowledging and understanding that there's more to decision making than
listening to those at the top."

Workplace communication problems are not unique to any industry sector or rung
on the corporate ladder. Nearly 100 percent of respondents to the Fierce survey
prefer workplaces in which people identify and discuss issues truthfully and
effectively, yet less than half said their organization's tendency is to do so.
These issues are slowing down projects, productivity, employee retention and
the bottom line.

Workplaces lacking in collaboration and communication may arrive at undesirable
operational business results. According to Chieh-Wen Sheng, Yi-Fang Tian and
Ming-Chia Chen, authors of the article "Relationship among teamwork behavior,
trust, perceived team support, and team commitment" published last year in
Social Behavior & Personality, in order to cure maladies of ineffective,
closed-contact workplaces, leaders must communicate what the goals and
objectives of the organization are because employees are more apt to produce
when they are aware of what is expected. Leaders should empower employees and
involve them in the decision-making process to boost employee morale,
confidence and trust, and they should recognize, acknowledge and reward
employees who consistently demonstrate expected behaviors.

"Employees get enormous amounts of motivation from being involved," Rigney
said. "When they're part of the process, they believe they're listened to,
respected and part of something. This allows a dominant leader, an alpha
leader, to continue being the strong decision maker, but it also allows their
team to be with them and an integral part of the development of the business."

[About the Author: Ladan Nikravan is an associate editor of Chief Learning
Officer magazine.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Learning From Leadership Mistakes (by Ladan Nikravan | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-05-31T08:40:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Many leaders are afraid to fail. They worry constantly about not meeting
expectations and making a mistake. But fear of failure is a deterrent to
growth. Leaders should support their cohorts and avoid being overly critical of
procedures. However, the trick of leadership is to also maintain accountability
and monitor mistakes.

Any time leaders break new ground or implement innovative technologies, they
open up new avenues for mistakes that are inevitable with change. But sticking
to a routine doesn't necessarily decrease the likelihood of errors being made.
Oftentimes, bad business habits - the mistakes made when leaders aren't paying
attention - come naturally.

If leaders want business success, they have to look clearly at their mistakes
and stop repeating them. They need to work with their employees, not against
them, to accomplish this. Even a small mistake can have big consequences, and
repeating it can cost an employee his or her job, lose customers and kill the
company brand.

"Managers should develop a culture of seeking to prevent mistakes before they
happen or before they accumulate to a big one," said Randall W. Hatcher,
president of recruiting, staffing and outsourcing services firm MAU Workforce
Solutions and author of The Birth of a New Workforce. "They can do this with
good reporting and feedback with their individual reports. They should report
key performance indicators to the whole company - business-critical things
necessary to be successful that have consequences for everybody in the
organization. In terms of feedback, companies make mistakes when they have
minimal performance development systems or performance appraisals dedicated
toward helping employees develop their skills."

Sometimes, though, a mistake is not the employee's fault, and if a leader truly
believes he or she shares some of the blame, then the leader should act to
change procedures going forward. Without accountability, leaders run into a
mental cul-de-sac where possible actions to remediate the situation raise
difficult, uncomfortable scenarios because remedies would have made a
difference much earlier.

"Anything that isn't how we expected to be [or] that feels like it will take
value from us is viewed as a threat, and the brain reacts defensively to
warning signs of danger," said Peter Demarest, author of Answering the Central
Question, adding that most people mistakenly view these situations as time to
address weaknesses. "When people try to fix their weaknesses, they
inadvertently end up using one weakness to fix another weakness, and they're
not using their strengths. Strengths are what allow leaders to perform their
best. Focusing on strengths gives an immediate benefit of better performance."

According to Demarest, a mistake is a choice or action that didn't create the
value a leader wanted it to create or took value away. To learn from such a
mistake, engage better thinking and make better choices, leaders should ask
themselves what decisions create the greatest value.

"When we see things as opportunities, we have more reasoning ability," Demarest
said. "Otherwise, we make decisions about the mistake made that might not be as
accurate as they could have been had we used our strengths to decipher how to
learn from it."

In order to prevent mistakes, leaders should have a mistake-proofing mindset.
"Poka-yoke," a Japanese term, is any mechanism in a procedure that helps a
leader avoid mistakes and prevent defects from occurring in business processes.
Constantly looking for creative ways to minimize mistakes pushes employees to
rethink the process. It sparks innovation. It's not about fundamentally
changing mindsets and behaviors; it's about mistake-proofing the personal and
interpersonal business processes that matter.

"If you fall into a habit, you're building mistrust in your organization,"
Hatcher said. "Employees see you as inflexible - you respond the same way every
time. Hatcher recommends leaders address mistakes as follows: "Alright, we made
a mistake, what is the poka-yoke we can put in place to keep this mistake from
happening in the future."

[About the Author: Ladan Nikravan is an associate editor of Chief Learning
Officer magazine.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Learning to Be Sustainable (by Adam Werbach | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-05-25T18:58:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

With layoffs, failing companies, collapsing economies, new competitors and
emerging markets, one would have to be asleep to be unaware of the enormous
contextual changes around the world - in society, technology and natural
resources - and the challenges these present.

These challenges will only become more vexing unless learning leaders change
how they do business. Of course, business strategy always has been about
generating profits, and that cannot change. What can change is how people in an
organization go about earning those profits. They have to move beyond the
relentless pursuit of short-term gain toward long-term sustainability.

Sustainability in a business context means long-term profitability. It is not
just about being green or saving the planet: it is about enabling men and women
within an organization to create a new business strategy framework attuned to
the world around them, one that is flexible enough to respond to change and
focused on the long view. Unless companies take into account the massive
changes happening in society and on the planet, short-term profits soon will
disappear.

Organizations today have a choice: they can either innovate differently and win
or innovate narrowly and lose. Today there are many examples of industries and
organizations that did not look far enough ahead and did not innovate in a way
that truly set them apart from their competitors or prepare them for what would
come next. An organization must be built so that it is ready for change,
whatever that change may be.

That is why chief learning officers should prepare themselves to be key
candidates for the role of CEO. CLOs understand the single most important
quality of sustainable organization - engaged employees. An organization's
people are its most important renewable resource. Learning leaders can help
future proof their organizations not just by giving people the skills they need
to do jobs now but by engaging them, empowering them and giving them tools and
skills to solve the challenges ahead. If more CEOs came from a learning
background, organizations likely would look at the issue of sustainability
differently.

Today an employee might not be the CEO, but he or she can influence changes in
priorities and culture. Learning leaders can take action and jump-start small
initiatives to listen more closely to other employees, customers and their
broader networks. Further, they can educate senior leadership on what building
a sustainable organization means and why it is critical for the organization's
long-term viability. Consider the following sustainability-boosting strategies.

1. Educate and inform:
According to the World Commission on Environment and Sustainability, the narrow
definition of sustainability or sustainable development is "meeting the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs." To many, this means simply protecting the environment. But in
recent years, sustainability has been recast as a broader concept encompassing
the social, economic, environmental and cultural systems needed to sustain any
organization. A sustainable organization, and similarly a sustainable person,
is prepared to thrive today and tomorrow.

Learning professionals are well positioned to help get this message out within
their organizations. They have influence with key stakeholders, understand the
needs and preferences of the employees and have access to regular communication
vehicles and social learning tools through which to reach employees on a
consistent basis.

2. Help the organization identify its North Star goal:
Whatever stage a company is in, it needs to establish North Star goals. A North
Star goal is an optimistic, aspirational goal that ties business objectives to
a higher purpose. North Star goals have these attributes:

a) They address a global human challenge, a purpose larger than the company.
b) They can be achieved in five to 15 years.
c) They are inspirational.
d) They connect to the core of the business.
e) Every employee can act on them.

Companies as diverse as P&G, Hilton, Clorox and Starbucks have these goals.
Setting them is a crucial first step for all CEOs and CLOs. Leaders have to
project the right goals for change and development so they can help build
employees' capabilities around them - and in turn employees should be engaged
to help drive those goals.

North Star goals are not short-term propositions, nor are they easy to achieve.
But they have the potential to shape a positive leadership legacy. Learning
leaders can play an integral role in helping their organizations overcome
common hurdles that can halt execution of these goals. Consider the following
examples:

a) Toyota set a North Star goal to build a car that never crashes and clears
the air as it drives. This North Star not only helped them develop the Prius, a
category-busting innovation, it also helped them maintain internal confidence
during the 2010 recall controversy in the United States.

b) In October 2005, Walmart set three North Star goals for its global
operations: first, to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy; second, to
sell only sustainable products in its stores and third, to produce zero waste.
When the company announced these goals, critics attacked them as promising the
impossible. They still have a long way to go, but today few people are laughing
at Walmart as its sustainability efforts have filtered down through its 60,000
supplier companies.

c) Starbucks set a North Star goal in 2008 to make sure that every cup of
coffee it sells is ethically sourced and another in 2010 to ensure that 100
percent of its cups are reusable or recyclable by 2015.

The key element in these goals for each of these companies is that they connect
to the core of the business. Sustainability cannot be solely a philanthropic
exercise.

3. Push for transparency:
A company must first open itself up to greater transparency, engage all of its
employees equally and embrace its network of suppliers, customers and
community. Otherwise that company's leaders will either come up with a truly
unsustainable strategy or execute a decent strategy poorly.

For too long, weak managers have obscured information in order to maintain the
appearance of their power. By bringing actionable metrics to line employees on
issues from electricity use to waste to productivity, they can be empowered to
improve their own behavior.

True sustainability cries out for innovative leadership, and it is not all
going to come from the top. Everyone in an organization should be inspired to
seek improvements, identify creative solutions, respond to change and create
the future. Companies such as MethodHome, Patagonia and Cliff Bar have a
decentralized, bottom-up approach in which an entrepreneur created the company
to complete a "get us to the moon" mission, hired people who cared about the
mission and unleashed their talent and passion to figure out how to complete
it.

One benefit of sustainability programs is that they create horizontal and
vertical information flows, connecting employees across function and building
social relationships that allow new collaborations to occur. GE began corporate
treasure hunts in 2009, enlisting 40 to 50 GE employees to search facilities
for energy-wasting activities. These efforts have saved millions of dollars in
operating costs. GE has now taken these treasure hunts to their customers. To
date, they have helped more than 15 organizations improve their performance,
and in the process, these organizations have deepened their relationships with
GE.

4. Redefine leadership development:
A strategy for sustainability calls for a new kind of leader and corresponding
leadership. Command and control leadership over many silos, no matter how
efficient, will not work. To be profitable for the long term, a company must
develop extraordinary connections to the world outside a company. Typically
this means recognizing that natural resource strains are a looming challenge as
the world's demography evolves.

Although many core leadership capabilities certainly will remain, organizations
need to make their leadership development frameworks more flexible. For
example, organizations may need to integrate new capabilities such as cultural
awareness, how to build business in emerging markets and sustainable
development to their competency models. They also should consider introducing
tools and technologies such as social collaboration features, simulations and
embedded learning experiences at work - action learning projects - to better
engage learners and support those in new geographies and from different
cultures.

Leadership capabilities also need to be driven down deeper within
organizations. A leadership development strategy has to address senior leaders
through frontline managers in a cohesive, integrated way. As organizations
consider the leadership capabilities they need in place, learning professionals
must design programs for various levels of managers and leaders. These programs
should develop skills in ways that are most appropriate for the different
audiences. For example, executives who feel that growth in emerging markets is
key to their organization's competitive success will make capabilities related
to this a priority. At the same time, that organization's senior-level leader
responsible for business development might learn the best approaches to build
the alliances and networks needed to grow business in emerging markets, while a
mid-level manager might focus on developing skills to manage virtual teams in
those same areas. Everyone needs to be made ready for what lies ahead.

5. Start small:
Employees at Saatchi & Saatchi works to inspire people to make the best choices
for themselves and for the planet. Each person is encouraged to pursue one
thing regularly. It can be anything from cycling to work or doing laundry with
cold water. Employees call this DOT - do one thing. One person's DOT may stand
alone, but connect a billion DOTs together and a movement of change is created.
At first some employees mocked the idea as unserious, but gradually people
found that personal engagement produced corporate changes no one could have
predicted. Today Saatchi & Saatchi offices from South Africa to Australia are
attracting new clients who see the company's sustainability efforts as a core
differentiating factor.

The U.S. Census Bureau projects a world population of almost nine billion
people by the year 2050. Natural resources from the atmosphere to the oceans
are stretched thin by current consumption patterns around the globe. As
demographic and resource changes accelerate, it is only going to become more
obvious why a pursuit of sustainable business practices is necessary from every
enterprise on the planet. The role of the chief learning officer must be to
prepare employees for this changing world. Here are three things learning
leaders can do today:

a) Share the news.
Start regularly sending our articles about changes in society, technology and
resources (STAR). A monthly STAR report will engage employees in the changes
that will enter the organization.

b) Recruit volunteer leaders.
A sustainability effort is only as good as the enthusiasm behind it. Bring
together the most energized leaders in the organization for a roundtable
discussion about the current state of sustainability efforts. Invite them to
lead activities or solutions to identified needs.

c) Get the CEO to commit to a North Star goal or at least commit to begin a
process.
Without a North Star goal, any and all efforts will feel disconnected and
scattered.

The sustainability movement is just beginning. Companies, and the learning
leaders who help them run, have the chance to reinvent everything. The question
is: What will you do?

[About the Author: Adam Werbach is the chief sustainability officer for Saatchi
& Saatchi and author of Strategy for Sustainability.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Benefits of Internal Coaching (by Michael Slade | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-05-24T07:47:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Because coaching is a confidential one-on-one experience, many organizations
may be unaware of its benefits, but coaching -- particularly through internal
coaches -- can help employees at all levels successfully deal with their daily
work challenges and facilitate the accomplishment of organizational goals.

It's a shame that more organizations aren't aware of the extensive benefits of
having their staff work one-on-one with an executive coach. Executive coaching
can help anyone accomplish more, get it done faster and do so even if they feel
stuck in their current circumstances.

Until fairly recently, most coaching was conducted with C-level executives and
athletes, both at the professional and amateur levels. Even though most Fortune
500 companies have been hiring coaches for their senior staff for years, and it
is estimated that there are some 50,000 coaches worldwide, coaching is still
not well understood, even by HR professionals.

There are two primary reasons for this.

One is that coaching is a private, confidential discussion between coach and
client and little information is shared outside the coaching relationship.
Confidentiality is a key facet of coaching and critical to the client's
development.

The other is that coaching is not mass-marketed and instead is typically sold
via word-of-mouth referrals. Some better known coaches have raised awareness
about coaching, but it still remains a mystery to most.

Marshall Goldsmith, best-selling author of What Got You Here Won't Get You
There, is probably the best known executive coach, and Martha Beck, Oprah's
coach, shares some of her life-coaching techniques in her book, Searching for
Starlight.

As for some of the process and benefits, John Whitmore, in Coaching for
Performance, defines coaching as "unlocking a person's potential to maximize
their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."

Coaching, according to the International Coach Federation, offers individuals
the chance to "experience fresh perspectives on personal challenges and
opportunities, enhanced thinking and decision-making skills, enhanced
interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence in carrying out their
chosen work and life roles."

Those enhancements will result in "appreciable results in the areas of
productivity, personal satisfaction with life and work, and the achievement of
personally relevant goals," according to ICF.

So how do the companies that provide coaching for their employees utilize
executive coaches and how does the coaching process work?

The question varies, depending on the organization and its goals.

Robert W. Baird & Co., a top financial services firm, which was recognized as
one of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" -- as are all of the
companies I spoke with -- uses external and internal coaches.

External coaches are primarily used with senior staff, and the focus is on
developing leadership skills, presentation skills and personal branding, says
Lori Lorenz, Baird's director of human capital. Internal coaches focus more on
team and group effectiveness. Lorenz says Baird "take[s] very seriously who we
partner with when selecting external executive coaches," and plans to hold a
coaching summit later this year to ensure external coaches clearly understand
the work environment and company culture.

The MITRE Corp., a nonprofit research center, uses coaches as both an integral
component of their year-long leadership-development program for mid-level
leaders and for one-on-one coaching with senior leaders.

Some of the common development issues that coaches focus on for mid-level
leaders include strategic thinking, leadership presence, balancing technical
and managerial responsibilities, and delegating.

Feedback about common development issues with which coaches help senior leaders
is kept confidential between the coach and client.

MITRE's project manager for coaching determines who will be coached after
interviewing senior leaders and ascertaining the desired coaching goals. Then
two or three coaches are suggested, and the client (coachee) interviews the
coaches (both internal and external) to make a selection.

One of the challenges associated with internal coaching is that they all "have
full-time human resource jobs and don't have the bandwidth to take on too many
clients," says Stacey Zlotnick, director of the MITRE Institute. "The other
challenge is to make sure that the internal coach and client are not from the
same part of the corporation."

At Baker Donelson, the 123-year-old law firm uses executive coaching primarily
for business development and time management.

Tea Hoffman, the firm's chief business development officer, decides who will be
coached by external coaches, using her knowledge of the lawyers and their skill
levels as well as input from the department heads.

Their internal coaches utilize an application process to make the determination
who gets coached, and the program is geared to helping individuals assess their
strengths and weaknesses, help set goals and guide participants to integrate
and sustain change.

The major challenges of using internal coaches seem to be confidentiality and
time. But one of the major benefits for an organization that uses internal
coaches is engaging in transition coaching - helping managers who are being
prompted to be successful in their new roles, according to Tony Latimer, a
master certified coach.

I agree. At Eric Mower Mower and Associates, I'm just starting to work with two
of our marketing executives to help them successfully launch a new business
unit that will provide a new service for EMA's clients. The first step in the
coaching process is meeting with the executives and their manager to discuss
the desired outcomes from the coaching. While it is difficult to share specific
coaching examples for reasons of confidentiality, it is fairly easy to share
some of the areas covered in coaching.

Here are 10 of the best insights you or your staff will likely get from good
coaching.

1. Coaching is a different kind of conversation:
It's not like a chat you'd have with your boss, a trusted friend or even a
seasoned mentor. Probably the closest example is the conversation someone might
have with a therapist. A coaching discussion is about you and the possibility
and potential that might come from the coaching process.

Coaches build trust early on, so a client is comfortable opening up and can
honestly evaluate the necessary action to move them forward toward their
desired goals. One powerful example of the type of connection a coach
establishes early on with the client is the bench scene from the Oscar winning
movie, Good Will Hunting.

In the scene, the psychologist (Robin Williams) connects deeply with troubled
Will (Matt Damon) by sharing personal details of his own life through
provocative story-telling.

2. People may be lying to you:
You have blind spots that you are unaware of -- everyone does. A blind spot is
defined as information that is known to others about you, but not known to
yourself.

Others can see our shortcomings that are not as obvious to ourselves but will
rarely point them out to us.

Through various feedback methods, such as one-on-one interviews with peers or
360-degree performance assessments, coaches uncover the hidden truth. This
helpful feedback can assist in identifying an individual's coaching goals.

Goldsmith, who charges up to $200,000 per coaching engagement and only gets
paid if the results are accomplished, sums this point up nicely when he says,
"Almost everyone I meet is successful because of doing a lot right, and almost
everyone I meet is successful in spite of some behavior that doesn't make any
sense."

Goldsmith will only work with executives who are willing to examine their
behaviors and are open to change.

3. Coaches help you see your real potential clearly:
If you're like most people, you probably secretly believe you are capable of
achieving much more that you currently are.

Coaches help you examine your thinking to see where it's flawed and where there
is an opportunity to advance in the direction of your dreams.

Sometimes, all a coach needs to do is ask the right question. In fact, coaching
really is all about asking questions that perpetuate learning and exploring
what's possible for the client.

When Herb Brooks, coach of the 1980 United States hockey team, wanted the
players to examine the possibility of beating the Russians, he mentioned over
and over again, "Someone's going to beat those guys."

4. Life is just a story we tell ourselves:
People look at life through a lens that artificially distorts reality.

In their excellent book entitled The Art of Possibility, Ben and Roz Zander say
it beautifully: "Many of the circumstances that seem to block us in our daily
lives may only appear to do so based on a framework of assumptions we carry
with us. Draw a different frame around the same set of circumstances and new
pathways come to view. Find the right framework and extraordinary
accomplishment becomes everyday experience."

Coaches can examine your story and help you write a new one.

5. Your behavior may be insane:
Insanity has been called doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results.

Psychologists say that 90 percent of the thoughts you have today will be the
same as yesterday. Life is about habits and coaches can help you examine what
actions you can take tomorrow that will produce very different results than
today.

When a coach asks you in the first five seconds of the conversation, "What
would be the ideal outcome from this session?" you realize immediately that you
are going to walk away with a plan and resulting behaviors that are different
than you could come up with on your own.

6. Success in life is all about relationships:
Successful people understand that, whether you work for someone or not, you'll
only be as successful as the relationships you build.

This is not new to anyone, but I think many of us don't give enough thought to
identifying the key stakeholders who may help or hinder our success. If there
are key relationships that are causing you frustration, even if it's your boss,
a coach can help you look at different ways to address this challenge.

Coaches can help clients improve relationships by examining critical past
conversations they've had using tools such as the Ladder of Inference or Left
Hand Exercise (Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook).

These tools can help clients identify false assumptions by making some of their
thinking viable, which can then be examined. The longer we work with people,
the more we tend to distort reality by seeing them only based on our beliefs
(i.e., jumping rungs on the ladder). Coaches help individuals look at
situations more objectively.

7. A slight shift in your perspective may make a huge difference:
Wayne Dyer, a best-selling author in the field of self-development, says,
"Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change."

Sometimes the way we approach a discussion, with our intention and opinions
established beforehand, will dictate the potential outcome. Even in business
the way you measure success can make a difference.

Jack Welch changed GE's famous vision of being No. 1 or No. 2 in each of the
business units once an outsider pointed out that defining success that way
would limit growth. He later challenged his business-unit leaders to never
define their marketplace goals in such a way that GE's business would ever be
comprised of more than 10 percent of the total market.

8. You may have limiting beliefs holding you back:
Many people place a limit on what's possible for them based on past experience
and beliefs that were developed years ago during childhood. Most of the recent
self-help financial books all point out this phenomenon.

In Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Ecker calls this the "process of
manifestation." His "results formula" states that your programming (P --
experiences and limiting beliefs), lead to your thoughts (T), which lead to
your feelings (F), which lead to your actions (A), and your actions lead to
your results (R).

9. You may be a crap magnet:
The law of attraction, which has been talked about extensively for the last few
years because of books such as The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, describes this
belief. It basically says that like attracts like, and you are capable of
being, doing and having anything you desire, if you focus your attention the
right way on your desired outcome.

However you refer to this, it is hard to ignore the overwhelming use of this
process, especially in sports, where visioning the desired outcome has been
used successfully with Olympic (think gold medalist skier Lindsey Vonn at
recent Winter Games) and professional athletes for decades.

The opposite is also true: If you focus on a negative outcome, many times you
will get what you're focused on. This may be the self-fulfilling prophecy that
people refer to.

10. Coaches can provide insight:
A coach can see things that you don't. Here's an example not from a coaching
exchange, but between a Hollywood movie director and actor.

Dustin Hoffman described an acting challenge he had while filming "Rain Man" to
James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio. Apparently, Dustin was having a very
difficult time connecting to the autistic character he portrayed in the film
and was not happy with his performance at all.

He described how each time he and fellow actor Tom Cruise would go off script
and ad lib, he found it difficult to stay in character.

At one point, feeling frustrated, he just said a long drawn out "Yeah" in
response to Tom's exchange. Dustin did not even realize it until the director
pulled him behind the camera and said, "Do that."

It was like someone turned on a switch, Dustin said. Everything flowed once he
found that one insight. If you've seen the movie, you know that he used that
expression throughout the film and won an Oscar for his performance.

HR leaders looking for ways to accomplish organizational goals faster or
seeking resources for employees to deal with the inevitable work challenges
that arise on a daily basis should consider adding a coaching program.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Conservation Fellowship opportunity for leaders and scholars from indigenous and traditional communities and organizations

2011-05-14T04:19:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Conservation International and the Secretariat for the Convention of Biological
Diversity have sponsored the Indigenous and Traditional Peoples Conservation
Fellowship, which is currently open to a new round of applications. This
Fellowship was established to create opportunities for leaders and scholars from
indigenous and traditional peoples communities and organizations to explore
solutions to the impacts of climate change and the threats to ecosystems and
biodiversity that are affecting their lands, communities and livelihoods.
The program will focus on two very important areas of professional development
component for the selected candidate, including trainings, classes and
attendance at national and international meetings and support for a research
project into the contribution of traditional knowledge in adapting to climate
change and/or maintaining healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, and the linkages
between traditional knowledge and science and new technologies in order to
inform policy and action on the ground.
To apply, applicants must be a member of an indigenous or traditional community
from one of the countries specified below:
Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Columbia, Costa Rica, Democracti Republic
of Congo, Ecuador, Fiji, Guyana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, the
Philippines, New Caledonia, Panama, Paua New Guinea, Samoa, South Africa, and
Suriname.
Deadline for application is 1 July 2011. For more information, visit this:

http://www.conservation.org/discover/centers_programs/itpp/pages/indigenous_fellowship.aspx

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Hidden Language of Leaders (by Natalie Morera | Talent Management)

2011-05-14T04:12:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

When it comes to business interactions and leading a team, you'd think simple
body language - such as eye contact or the crossing of arms - bears little
significance, but the truth is these gestures can send a positive or negative
message to employees.

There are two sets of signals a person gives off, said Carol Kinsey Goman,
author of The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help - or Hurt -
How You Lead. The first sets status and authority; the next gives off warmth and
empathy.

The air of status and authority is given off by how people carry themselves,
Kinsey Goman said. Details, such as a person's height, may make them look more
powerful. Leaders can typically convey warmth and empathy by using open hand
signals, tilting their heads, nodding and making eye contact.

"There's no good or bad body language signal; it depends on what your message
is," Kinsey Goman said. "Is your body language supporting or sabotaging that
message?"

Kinsey Goman cited an instance of a presenter who she said had the crowd
mesmerized. At the conclusion of his speech, he said, "And now I'm open for
questions," then crossed his arms and stared at the crowd. Not one person asked
a question.

"No one in that audience said, 'Oh my gosh, he's crossed his arms, therefore I
cannot think of a question,'" Kinsey Goman said. However, there must have been
complete confusion in the audience's brains.

If the speaker's message was to invite questions, he needed to realize that
crossing his arms sabotaged that message; however, he was oblivious to this
contradictory movement.

Aileen Pincus, principal and CEO of the Pincus Group, a communications
consulting firm, explained that her company is usually asked to help with
delivery issues - seldom content issues - even though the two are intertwined.

"For instance, if you're hesitant about something because you're not sure what
you're saying is 100 percent accurate or whether you're behind what you're
saying 100 percent, it's going to show," Pincus said. There are times when
people who come in for training are put in positions where they must deliver
information they don't believe or are not confident about.

In order to appear confident, leaders have to believe in what they're saying.
"We have to work through those delivery issues," she said.

They also have to take into account one-on-one time with employees. If a
difficult message has to be delivered to an employee, such as needing to let
them go, it's OK for the leader to show his or her true feelings.

"If it's painful for you to have this conversation, it's fine to show it,"
Pincus said. "Why do you need to hide that? It'll make you appear more human,
more empathetic."

By showing that emotion, leaders won't come across like they're acting.

"We don't want to act our way out of a bad situation," she said. One way to
avoid acting is by taking time to prepare and anticipate reactions and questions
before delivering a message to employees.

"Executives often misunderstand how much communication is going on nonverbally,"
Pincus said. This could include tone of voice, eye contact and other body
language indicators.

We tend to trust what we see more than what we hear. If the two don't match,
communication becomes difficult.

Consider public speaking as a forum of conversations, said Matt Eventoff,
partner with Princeton Public Speaking.

"You're conversing whether people are responding to you verbally or not," he
said. "Individuals in an audience give you a reaction."

Whether the audience members nod, shake their heads in agreement or disagreement
- or even text - it's all a part of the conversation.

When it comes to communication, there's no good or bad, only what's appropriate
for the situation.

That said, there are things leaders can do to make sure they're sending a
positive message. Kinsey Goman offers the following body language tips for a
successful collaboration:

1. Check Your Expectations.
"Pygmalion in the Classroom" was a study where children were chosen at random
and identified to their teacher as high-achievers. Because the teacher expected
more of them, the students, who were never told of their high-achieving status,
had sharp increases on their IQ test scores at the end of the year. The positive
expectation was delivered nonverbally and Dov Eden, a Tel Aviv University
professor, found that if supervisors or managers hold positive expectations
about the performance of the people they lead, that performance will improve.

2. Activate Your Smile Power.
A smile can stimulate one's sense of well-being. It can also tell others how
approachable, cooperative and trustworthy a person is.

3. Use Your Head.
Kinsey Goman has found that people will speak more if the listener nods in
clusters of three at regular intervals. Tilting your head is also a signal of
being involved and interested.

4. Look at People When They Speak.
People will feel like they have your attention as long as you're making eye
contact. Avoid checking text messages, glancing at your watch or looking at
others' reactions.

5. Use the "Ultimate Connective Gesture."
When making an uplifting statement - for example, "This is a wonderful
opportunity" - Kinsey Goman suggests gesturing toward the listener with an
upward open palm and bringing the hands back to the body. According to her
example, you would start your gesture at the word "wonderful" and bring the
gesture in at "opportunity." A nonverbal, positive connection can be made this
way.

6. Remove Barriers.
Face people you are speaking with directly. Remove barriers by closing your
laptop, turning off a cellphone or putting a briefcase to the side.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Snaptu: Economix: Building Wealth Through Renting

2011-05-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

A Fed economist's study offers a rebuttal to the conventional wisdom that owning a home is building equity for your future, while renting is money wasted.

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

The Big Shift (by Mark Bennett | Talent Management)

2011-05-08T07:18:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

There is a big shift happening that will change the way companies get the
maximum value from their talent. Companies that adapt to the changes will be
stronger, more productive, more committed and more engaged than ever before.
The companies that are not preparing for this future may struggle to stay
alive.

What Is the Big Shift?

The big shift is what The Power of Pull authors John Hagel, John Seely Brown
and Lang Davison call a "recording of life, learning, socializing, playing and
working." It's driven by new technology, social media and increased performance
and digital storage capacity, as well as public policy changes such as trade
liberalization, immigration and deregulation. The authors said these drivers
have created three overlapping waves.

The first wave is evident: The evolution of a new digital infrastructure has
given unprecedented access to and distribution capabilities for information.
Simultaneously, shifts in public policy have made the movement of people,
products, money and ideas across national boundaries easier than ever. The
second wave is a movement from putting primary value on knowledge stocks, such
as intellectual property and trade secrets, to knowledge flows, where valuable
knowledge is being continuously created. We see examples of this in the ways
social networks and other collaboration tools help people find each other,
share knowledge more effectively and develop long-lasting relationships that
create even more knowledge.

Finally, organizations are beginning to develop the third wave, what the
authors describe as institutional innovations. Here, organizations foster and
participate in creation spaces, platforms people access to attract the
resources they need to improve their performance and achieve a purpose for
which they share a passion.

Most companies have created wealth the classic way, by developing a formula to
repeat a solution to a problem. This formula allows the company to efficiently
address greater and greater numbers of the problem - for example, through
manufacturing processes such as an assembly line. That in turn enables "ne plus
ultra" of profitability: economies of scale, which usually result in lower
costs due to the effect of the experience curve, and hopefully increased
barriers to entry.

How Are Companies Vulnerable?

Hagel, Brown and Davison point out a twofold problem. First, the experience
curve is one of diminishing returns on performance; it offers less value the
more organizations produce, plus it has a lower limit of zero cost. Second,
global competition and greater information available to consumers undercut
barriers to entry, making it harder for companies to push larger numbers of
their products to the market. It is becoming increasingly difficult to remain
competitive simply by becoming larger because consumers can find what they want
in ever-increasing numbers of alternative choices.

Finally, much of the push-based business thinking also was based on a accuracy
in demand forecasts. The better organizations could predict demand for a
product or service, the better they could control costs and increase profits.
But the waves of the big shift are making forecasting demand harder thanks to
the increasing rate of change in technological developments, consumer tastes
and product innovations from competitors, which can alter demand more quickly
than organizations can react.

Consider how push-based principles of business were worked out during the
height of the Industrial Age, when labor was viewed primarily as a component of
an assembly line. Much was done to create efficiencies of scale to further
reduce costs and variance in labor. Jobs were broken down into specialized
tasks to remove the inefficiencies of task switching from the production
equation. Individual performance could be measured easily and rewarded through
extrinsic means such as bonuses and pay. As Dan Ariely discusses in The Upside
of Irrationality, performance of routine tasks has been shown to respond
positively to extrinsic rewards.

This also made for a fairly predictable model upon which to plan hiring and
training programs. Further, training could be more efficient by having each
training event focused on a specialized task for as great a number of employees
as could be handled. Breaking down work into component tasks and applying
external rewards for performance served business quite well for some time.

However, knowledge workers gradually became more important to creating
corporate wealth. Knowledge workers typically do not perform routine tasks
primarily; instead they are often called upon to apply research, analysis and
critical thinking to solve problems. To management, it was logical to continue
using the carrot-and-stick approach of extrinsic reward systems as the main
motivation for performance. But Ariely cites research that indicates extrinsic
rewards can have a negative impact on the performance of tasks requiring more
cognitive effort, with distortive rewards being dangerous to the organization
as well as society. Intrinsic rewards improve knowledge worker performance
more often. In Drive, Dan Pink describes these as autonomy - the ability to
choose how to work; mastery - personal growth and fulfilling potential; and
purpose - finding meaning and relevance in work.

Ariely also said that breaking jobs into their component tasks can have
negative consequences that can outweigh efficiency gains. Many knowledge worker
jobs have been engineered to become more efficient by breaking them down into
specialized tasks. But often once this happens the worker no longer sees his or
her contribution as purposeful because the task is an anonymous piece connected
to some unseen output. Ariely shows that this destruction of meaning greatly
reduces the worker's motivation to do more of the task. Autonomy is also
reduced, since the job has become tightly defined in order to be more
efficient, with strict procedures to be followed. Opportunities for mastery
also are reduced when a job is limited in scope.

In short, current approaches to managing talent are not helping companies get
the most value from talent, and in some cases actually damage its value. The
push-oriented mindset of management, which is primarily focused on cost,
efficiency and scale, is apt to find itself running just to stay in place
because those advantages are no longer sufficient in a rapidly changing world.
There is a severe shortage of engagement, commitment and passion in talent that
could be a tremendous resource to bring new solutions to customers' needs and
companies' challenges.

To reverse this trend, The Power of Pull authors propose that the best way for
companies to survive and even thrive in the big shift is to find, attract and
participate in high-value knowledge flows. In these flows, knowledge is not
just being shared, it's being continuously created. In other words, if the
waves of the big shift are driving change, it may be best to learn how to ride
those waves.

Uncovering Passion and Purpose

To succeed at riding the waves, a company can transform from a machine whose
formula pushes training to employees to a platform that pulls resources and
then connects both talent and knowledge to achieve a particular purpose. That
shared purpose should be an initiative or difficult problem the organization is
wrestling with, which will further attract more talent that shares the same
passion for that initiative or solving that problem.

This is a different way of solving problems from the push model, which focused
on creating a repeatable process. The network effect of connecting more,
focused talent on an initiative or problem provides increasing returns on
performance - something the authors refer to as capability leverage. The
question then is: How can we ignite engagement, commitment and passion in
talent?

People sometimes have trouble determining what they are passionate about. One
place to start is with the individual's sense of identity. In The Why of
Work, Dave and Wendy Ulrich focus on employees' strengths rather than gaps.
When employees ask, "What am I known for?" they are essentially trying to find
their identity in the organization and how it provides meaning to their work.
The answer to their question often lies in discovering an employee's signature
strengths, things that make that person stand out from the rest. Passion is not
always about a particular strength; sometimes it's about the positive sense of
self-worth and meaning that exercising that strength gives. The challenges that
interest a person also can help to identify their passions.

Just as individuals have an identity, so do organizations. Each organization
has capabilities that distinguish it from others. With this information, talent
leaders can blend employees' personal strength with organizational capabilities
and help employees know how - or even if - they fit into a company.

To evaluate talent and determine whether an organization is ready for the big
shift:

1. Think about capability leverage:
How does the company measure performance? Is it only about results, or does it
include a "contributes to others" component? Are the right people connected to
one another and to the right knowledge flows?

2. Think about motivation:
How does the company reward performance? Are there only extrinsic rewards, or
are there individualized, intrinsic rewards? Do employees have a clear
communication of purpose, support for autonomy and opportunities for mastery?

3. Think about aligning purpose:
How does the organization develop talent? Does development start from the top
down and focus solely on talent gaps, or do talent managers evaluate where
talent strengths can be better utilized?

These questions are just a start, but with them and a willingness to rethink
how organizations view talent in light of the big shift, talent leaders will be
able to better prepare their companies to compete.

[About the Author: Mark Bennett is a product strategy director for Oracle
Fusion Profile Management and Network at Work.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

You have a Job to Do (By Sanjeev Himachali)

2011-05-06T04:33:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-
"You may be President or Prime Minister of a country or a C-Level Executive or
Management Expert of a company, however, you are what your position or job has
made you. You exist in a system because of your position and role and not the
vice-versa. "
In our lives, over the span of our professional phase, there comes a time when
we find ourselves at the cross-roads of our professional commitments or
limitations of our job and our ethics, principles and values. Choosing the one
becomes a compulsion, however, which one to choose becomes a ploy. Let me share
two scenarios.
During the second term of the former President of America, George W Bush, he
was disliked by not only people from the Middle-East, Arabic Countries and
others from the international community but he also faced protest and hate of
his own countrymen particularly those who were against the President's move to
initiate war against Iraq at the cost of the country's economic growth and
prospects. However, irrespective of the personal dis-pleasures, hatred and
abhorrence, the security officers always protected the President against any
possible external threat. They did not allow their personal opinion and
judgment to influence their job responsibilities and duties.
On 31st October 1984, the then Prime Minister of India Smt. Indira Gandhi was
assassinated by her own on-duty bodyguards. Someone who was entrusted to guard
the Prime Minister killed her brutally because those bodyguards were influenced
by their religious obligations and couldn't differentiate between their
professional duties and personal or religious compulsions. As a body-guard of
someone, it is the duty of an individual to protect the person he is entrusted
to guard. How can he let someone else or anything external to him, deviate
from his job responsibility or duty?
The circumstances and scenarios discussed here are two extremes, however, in
our day-to-day life, we often find ourselves in a situation where we find it
difficult to choose between professional commitments and personal choices. When
you are at work, you are definitely not the person of your own choice, rather
you are a person related to the position that you are occupying and you are
expected to honor that position and role. Whenever we take any job or get
promoted to a new position, doesn't matter if we are required to take an oath
or not, however, silently we all pledge to ourselves to be honest to the role
entrusted upon us. The pledge signifies that "I do solemnly swear that I will
use all my talent and abilities in the discharge of the responsibilities
undertaken by me. I will defend the office against all enemies, internal and
external; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; That I will
not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official
decisions; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation
or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of
the office in which I am about to enter and that I will not directly or
indirectly communicate or reveal to any person any matter which shall be
brought under my consideration or shall become known to me as may be required
for the due discharge of my duties".
Doesn't matter if you are a C-Level Executive or a lawyer or a doctor or a
management expert, your position and role is above your personal self. You may
be a driver in a bus or a gardener in a public garden; it is your duty to
ensure the safety of your passengers and to take care of the plants
respectively without being prejudice and getting influenced by opinions and
thoughts of others around you. Though it is not abnormal to find yourself at
such a cross-road, however, what we choose or the choice that we make decides
the kind of person that we are. It is very difficult not to get influenced by
the thoughts, opinions and views of people around us and not to let our
emotions control the outcome of our decision, however, the true test of a
person is to take a decision that is clear and conscience and something that
you won't regret at the later stage of your life.Kindly share your thoughts and
views on this subject. Take very good care of yourself.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

I will talk to the Boss / Boss Has Told Me… (by Sanjeev Himachali)

2011-05-06T04:18:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

"Boss has told me" or "I have spoken to the boss" are some of those phrases
that are excessively used in the corporate world.

Who usesit:This is a group of people with below average IQ level.
Predominantly, these people are immature, uninformed, less-knowledgeable,
incompetent, and usually non-performers. They are big bullies. In a common
language these people are also referred as sycophants.

Why they use it:They are attention seekers. Nothing is easier to get the
attention of your colleagues than to demonstrate your pseudo closeness with
your boss. They try to hide their incompetence and non-performance by
demonstrating unwanted and overtly care towards their reporting managers and
diverting his or her focus from the core performance issues. In an attempt to
demonstrate their closeness to the key-person(s) in the organization, they try
to create various power-centers in the organization by exuding the message,
"come to me, I will get your work done".

If we look into the behavioral psychology, these are the kind of people, when
they were growing-up they used to bully their siblings at home by saying, "I
will tell Mom" or "I will tell Father" and later in school they began to use
the phrase, "I will tell the teacher". Therefore, it is obvious that these
people when they moved to workplace, they rephrased it to "I will tell the boss
or boss has told me".

Let's discuss more about it with a few elaborations.

In an organizational setup, one gets an opportunity to see and interact with
all kinds of people. Some are attention seekers and will do anything to be
visible (sometimes even an irritating and ridiculous act); some are rebels
(they always do what they are told not to do); some are hard working and some
are hardly the working kind of people; some are calm and many are very vocal
about everything that they see, hear and feel; some always share their
problems with everyone that they meet in the office and the rest are the
frontrunners in giving free advises; so on and so forth. And then there is this
category of employees who do not miss any opportunity to flaunt their proximity
with their bosses. Every time they start a discussion; it begins with one of
the following:

"I will tell the boss",
"Boss has told me",
"I have spoken to the boss"
"I had discussion with the boss"
"Boss has asked me to get ______ from you"

In this write-up we will throw some light on "I have spoken to the boss" kind
of people. I do not remember the exact date or time, however, I believe that I
began to observe and notice this category of people in the workplace and their
behavior in the second half of last decade.

First Incident:The first time I came across such scenario was during the time
when Mr. Ashish N. was my reporting manager. Or I must say that I was reporting
to multiple heads at work location and in corporate office. Mr. Ashish has had
good rapport with many senior managers more than that of the Head of HR,
primarily because of the fact that he was one of the long-serving HR
professional in the organization. Every time we have any discussion on any
subject, he always used to begin with, "I have discussed this with the HR Head"
or "CEO Sir has asked me to get this done" or "Mr. VP Operations want you to do
this". Initially, I never countered or cross-checked and on many occasions,
during our weekly meetings he reversed his stand and put the blame on the
others. Later on I began to cross-check his every instruction with the
concerned person or department head and I realized that on many occasions,
there was a huge communication gap. His communication with that person would
always be different from his communication with me. What the other person would
like him to get it done and what he communicates to me would always be
different. On observing his behavior more closely, I realized that he has a
sense of insecurity. He was of the opinion that if he won't do what he is doing
and if he don't behave the way he does, he might lose his image. Probably he
wasn't aware that in his absence, people crib about him, bad mouth him and most
importantly use him as a tool to divide the team and the department for their
own benefit. When your seniors know that you are not a performer but rather a
sycophant they begin to treat you as one and you begin to lose your own ground.
You begin to doubt your own capabilities and skills.

Second Incident:When I met second such person, I was technically and logically
prepared to face and counter such people. He was my colleague Mr. Ashish K. I
believe it was the first time in his career, when he realized that probably, he
is dealing with a difficult HR Department Head that he cannot con, intimidate,
bully or use for his own advantage. As soon as he joined, he began to show his
colors. On first occasion, someone from his department applied for leave and he
directed that person to me. I said to that individual that as per the company
and HR policies, he can take the leave; however, HR cannot approve his leave.
His leave needs to be approved by the concerned department head, which is
responsible for his deliverables and project deadlines. Later on, Ashish came
to me to tell that he do not want to approve the leave of this person, however,
he do not want to communicate it to the concerned person but rather want HR to
communicate it to him. The reason that he gave is he does not want to spoil his
relations with his team-members. He was planning to build his own team and
inculcating team-spirit at the cost of HR. Now, because he knows that I am a
difficult HR to deal with, so, every time that he would approach me, he begins
the communication with, "I have already spoken to the CEO and CTO" or "CEO has
asked me to inform you that", etc. I told our CEO that this person is selling
your name on the floor for his own advantage and that may affect the image of
the management. Mr. CEO asked me to be careful in dealing with the requirements
of Ashish.

Shared Responsibility (To be held accountable):As I grew in the company and in
my career, I realized that the best way to handle such people is to make them
accountable for everything that they say. In pre-economic reform era, companies
have used memos to ensure proper flow of information and to enforce
accountability. In an era when emails became a major mode of communication, it
become a norm to not to accept any verbal or oral instructions or directions.
If anyone comes and says that X, Y, Z has asked him or her to get something
from you or to direct you to do some work for him or her, just ask that person
to drop-in an email with copy to the concerned person. It has been observed
that whenever you ask someone to send an email or give it in writing and make
them answerable, many of them change their mind. Most often, people want to
take a free bite and use the name of a senior and an influential person to get
their work done. They want you to do the work for them and at the same time
take the credit for the work done by you. Here, I like to share one more
example. "Manager A" asked "Employee B" to do a certain work for him. "B" tried
to do it for several days and when there was only ONE day left to submit the
report to "A", "B" asked "Employee C" to do it for her as she could not do it.
Both "B" and "C" reports to "A". "C" asked "B" to send an email to her with a
copy to "A". "B" refused to do so. It was apparent that "B" was trying to hide
her incompetence and failure by passing on the responsibility to "C".

Personality Analysis

It has been observed that those who use the name of their influential and
fearsome seniors to get their work done are usually incompetent and indecisive
people. They are non-performers and they have a sense of insecurity. They feel
insecure about their job, and losing their reputation. They do not want to be
held accountable and answerable for any of their decision or act; however, if
the act gets a favorable response, they want to take credit for their
initiatives, foresight and the success. Such people do not grow in their career
and definitely cannot be an Entrepreneur or SBU Head or Member of Board. Boards
need performers with a track record of outstanding performance, decision makers
and risk takers to head important business units and profit centers.

Corporate Analysis
Companies that inculcate and encourage such culture and do nothing to curb it
are the ones that crash-land before taking the flight. Such companies lack
proper flow of information and the channel of communication become blurred.

This write-up is based on my personal corporate experiences, observations and
research of last 10+ years. I believe that people should take responsibility
for their work and be held accountable and answerable for everything that they
take-up. Responsibility can be shared but the accountability lies with the
concerned individual.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Going Beyond Engagement (By Dr. Bea Carson)

2011-05-06T04:05:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

As CLOs have long been aware, employee engagement can make or break an
organization. And engagement is rooted in leadership development and
delegation. People are most engaged when they can trust in their organization's
future, and they feel most engaged when they are empowered to provide
extraordinary service during an ordinary day. It is this give and take on the
part of both the employer and the employee that creates the most powerful
workplaces.

"Employee engagement is the art and science of engaging people in authentic and
recognized connections to strategy, roles, performance, organization,
community, relationships, customers, development, energy and happiness to
leverage, sustain and transform work into results," said David Zinger, a
consultant specializing in employee engagement.

The message is clear. Employee engagement produces results. The Gallup
Organization echoes this, indicating that engaged employees are more
productive. According to Gallup, "They are more profitable, more
customer-focused, safer and more likely to withstand temptations to leave."

This suggests a euphoric work environment, one where work itself is exciting
and fulfilling. But a key catalyst to employee engagement is providing staff
with a great deal in the way of resources, which can be prohibitively
expensive. No modern organization's leader would ignore his or her fiscal
responsibilities in favor of engagement. So then how can organizations fully
engage their employees without breaking the bank?

The answer is stewardship. In an organizational context, stewardship refers to
management's responsibility to properly utilize and develop its resources,
including its people, property and financial assets. Leaders within
organizations need to walk the talk, showing a united front that makes it clear
that everyone's oars are in the water, rowing in the same direction and on
course.

Transparency is a key element of organizational stewardship. To be true
stewards of the organization, leaders need to communicate with employees. When
leaders of an organization avoid communicating bad news, the grapevine will
buzz constantly, and the gossip will be significantly more negative than the
truth. Communication allows for employees and employers to be curious and
discover what is truly possible for the greatest success. This curiosity allows
everyone to question and explore perceptions that open the view of the system
that makes the organization function.

A year ago, Bob Ebers, founder of the workforce development professional
association Organizational Development Network's Long Island chapter, began to
look at organizational engagement assessments and realized they only look at a
piece of the organizational puzzle. They focus on leadership skills or
engagement or some other aspect of the organization. They typically examine
this from either the executive or employee perspective.

Ebers realized there was a need for a survey that went beyond engagement, a
survey that would also look at the stewardship and service aspects of
organizations. He concluded that what was needed was a system to identify how
good an organization was to work for. The result was Workplace Stars, a
complete assessment of organizational engagement. Workplace Stars prescribes
that organizations have engaged, empowered employees who create the internal
climate necessary to unleash discretionary effort by staff that furthers the
organization's interests. Their leaders are true stewards of the organization -
leaders who do the right things to protect the long-term viability, financial
health and well-being of the organization's people. They have an authentic
commitment, cascading down from senior management to the front line, to being
safe and environmentally conscious in service to customers and each other.

The survey assesses organizations and gives them a rating from zero to five
stars. For example, a survey at a two-star company may reveal that its
employees trust the leadership but want more say in how process could be
improved, or that they understand the reasons for cutbacks but would like more
learning opportunities. Addressing these deficiencies can make such an
organization a five-star company. As another example, a three-star company may
see its locations with the highest revenue growth also showing the highest rate
of turnover and the greatest threat to retention. The survey would conclude
that management wasn't communicating enough to high-performing employees at
these locations about opportunities within the company. Implementing a
performance management and succession planning process that develops high
performers for future leadership roles would aid retention.

Organizations looking to achieve engagement need to move past seeing it from a
limited perspective. They need to look at the total picture of employee
engagement to survive and thrive.

[About the Author: Dr. Bea Carson is an author, speaker and expert in the field
of action learning.]

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Time Management Training: A Waste of Time (By: - Daniel Markovitz | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-05-05T19:27:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-
Time management classes, books, websites and tools are multiplying like rabbits
in a meadow: There's Getting Things Done, The 4-Hour Workweek, the Pomodoro
Technique, the Autofocus System and more. People devote more and more time to
training and adoption of new techniques, and in the end, they still don't get
their work done. The fact is, time management training is ineffective. If it
weren't, everyone engaging in it would be a paragon of efficiency by now. So
what's the problem?

Here's what happens: After learning the fundamental principles of time
management, participants go back to their natural habit with new tools, high
hopes and grand intentions ... and promptly get steamrolled by their e-mail.
Within days, they're back to reading and responding to e-mail as it arrives,
being reactive instead of proactive, and fighting fires instead of making time
to think, plan and solve problems. The ship of time management ideas runs
aground on the rocks of their reality. Ask any graduate of a time management
course what keeps them from implementing the concepts they learned, and they'll
likely say it's their e-mail.

Stop Focusing on the Symptom

One might think that the solution is better e-mail software. But if software
were the solution, between Xobni, Gmail's Priority Inbox, the latest
incarnation of Outlook and all the other e-mail tools on the market, no one
would complain about the deluge of e-mail, and everyone would be able to manage
their time well.

When it comes to e-mail, we focus on the symptom, not the disease. You can
organize, sort, file, color-code and prioritize your e-mail to within an inch
of your life, but if you're buried under an avalanche of incoming messages,
that's not going to help. If there's any hope for rescue from the tyranny of
the inbox, the solution will have to address the root causes.

There are three organizational root causes for the current unsustainable e-mail
situation:

1. A lack of differentiation between levels of urgency.
2. Rewarding face time over real production.
3. A lack of (or simply unrealistic) e-mail response time arrangements.

Addressing these three root causes will reduce the toll e-mail takes on workers
and enable them to spend more time focused on value-creating activities.

Where's the Batphone?

In the old Batman TV series, Commissioner Gordon had a special red Batphone
that he could use to summon the caped crusader in an emergency. Doctors carry
pagers - the real-life equivalent of Batphones - when they're on the job or on
call. The purpose, of course, is to provide a special, high-priority
communication channel for truly urgent issues. At most companies today,
however, all communication is crammed through the same communication channel.
Whether it's a crisis with a key customer or leftover birthday cake in the
breakroom, the messages all go through e-mail.

There should be an agreement about which channel to use, and for what purpose.
For example, a policy could be made that urgent issues should only be
communicated face-to-face, by phone or perhaps through text message or IM. If
people know that urgent issues aren't coming through e-mail, they don't
feel the need to check their inbox every time a new message arrives.

E-mail: the New Face Time

Many organizational cultures place a premium on face time over actual
productivity. When an organization is spread over multiple locations, face time
is most easily expressed by writing and sending e-mails at all hours and often
to people who often have no need to receive the mail. The desire to show that
one is working is what lies behind e-mails sent to large groups of people only
tangentially involved with the issue at hand. It's also behind the infuriating
"reply-to-all" emails that plague workers like electronic locusts.

What's needed is an environment that evaluates people based on their creation
of value, not their creation of e-mail. Performance evaluations, despite their
flaws, can be effective in helping people focus on what's important. With clear
measures of what's supposed to be done, workers will be liberated from the
mindless generation of pointless e-mails.

Unrealistic Expectations

Just because people can send e-mail instantly doesn't mean they ought to
respond instantly. Unfortunately, many organizations haven't set clear
expectations for response time to e-mail. Leaving workers feeling as though
they should respond to each e-mail upon arrival. The constant switching between
a task and e-mail leads to a decline in effectiveness.

The vast majority of the time, the sender of an e-mail needs a predictable
response, not an instantaneous one. (That's what the Batphone is for!)
Organizations need to set e-mail response time agreements that are sustainable
and support effective work habits.

It's Not About Time Management. It's About Culture Change

Time management training does, of course, have value. People often don't know
how to manage themselves effectively, or how to use their tools (e-mail, smart
phones, office software, etc.) effectively. Training them in basic time
management principles and advanced software functions can be helpful. However,
that training will have only limited impact unless organizations change their
own cultural norms and expectations. Without that change, time management
training really is just a waste of time.
[About the Author: Daniel Markovitz is a consultant who teaches at Stanford
University's Continuing Studies Program and the Fisher School of Business at
Ohio State University.]

For More Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

10 Ways to Identify and Understand Pivotal Roles ( by Stuart Crandell, Ph.D. | Talent Management)

2011-05-03T07:39:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Organizations must answer the following 10 questions to successfully identify
and understand how to best leverage pivotal roles as part of a talent
management strategy.

1. Where does it matter most for the organization to have better quality
leaders?

As much as talent leaders may want A players in every position, that's simply
not realistic. Not every role needs an A player, nor can every company afford
to pay for A talent for every role. Organizations should identify which roles
really need to have the best, highest quality talent.

2. Where is the organization most constrained by a lack of leaders?
Sometimes the issue may not be that an organization needs leaders with better
or different skills; it may have processes in place that work well to develop
skills. However, organizations are occasionally challenged to identify the
feeder pool or simply find enough leaders to fill pivotal positions.

3. What specific business strategies or needs does a pivotal role impact?
Organizations should identify what makes a role pivotal. What specific
strategies, process constraints, strategic resources or competitive
differentiators are at risk if the company doesn't have enough of these
leaders, or if these leaders do not perform at a high enough level?

4. How or why is one role more pivotal than other leadership positions?
Sometimes, even for roles at the same level, some positions are more pivotal.
For example, if the company's growth strategy involves expanding into specific
countries, the managers of those countries may be more pivotal than other
managers.

5. What is the expected turnover rate and headcount growth needed for pivotal
roles?

It's important to know the anticipated talent flow through pivotal roles for
workforce planning. Do people become frustrated with their roles and frequently
leave? Are they easily recruited by competitors, or do they tend to stay in
their roles for years? Answering these questions can help talent leaders
determine the extent and urgency of business risk so that they can determine
whether to build or buy the talent they need.

6. What competencies are critical for success in the pivotal role?
Knowing the specific competencies that make a role pivotal is essential to have
a laser focus on the attributes that truly drive organizational success, which
ensure more effective development, recruitment and performance management.

7. What experiences are critical for success in the pivotal role?
Organizations should detail the experiences that are essential for an
individual to be successful in a pivotal role or to transition effectively into
the role. Then programs can be created to ensure that targeted employees are
given the right assignments and projects so they can gain the experiences
needed for success.

8. How much support is required for pivotal role success?
In some cases it is essential that systems, processes and support are available
to an individual in a pivotal role in order to be successful. In other cases
success is more heavily dependent upon an individual's skills.

9. How much room is there for performance improvement?
Organizations should assess the current performance status of their employees
in pivotal roles to determine if performance is consistent or if some
individuals are performing better than others. Organizations also should assess
if most employees already are performing at a high level to determine how much
performance improvement is possible and how much should be invested in
development.

10. What is the succession plan for pivotal roles?
Organizations should develop a succession plan for pivotal roles to ensure they
have the right employees trained and ready to fill open pivotal positions when
needed. It can be costly not to have these critical positions filled with the
right people.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Make Yourself Fit to Lead (by Richard McKnight | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-04-26T03:02:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Many business leaders today are failing. This book excerpt offers some tips for
HR leaders.

This is excerpted from Leading Strategy Execution, by Richard McKnight with Tom
Kaney and Shannon Breuer:

Many business consultants, scholars, and HR professionals have pointed to
leadership as what is required to compete in today's business environment. They
note that only through highly skilled leadership can businesses maximize the
most expensive and potentially beneficial asset they have: people. As former
Herman Miller Chairman, Max DePree (2004) put it, "The signs of outstanding
leadership appear primarily among the followers."

This is an appealing formulation, but there is a problem: recent polling data
reveals that, as a class, many of today's business leaders are failing.
Consider this headline in a report from The Center for Public Leadership
(2010): "Business Leaders Are Out for Themselves, Americans say."

According to the underlying study, "In 2005 through last year, Americans'
confidence in their leaders marched steadily downward." In 2010, the report
says, "Only 10 percent of Americans believe business leaders generally work for
the greater good of society; the majority (52 percent) believe corporate bosses
work mainly to benefit themselves."

Ouch.

Clearly, if you wish to be effective as a leader of strategy execution, you
have to induce quite a different perception in the minds of those who look to
you for leadership. If there is any good news at all in this study, respondents
were speaking of business leaders in general. We know from other studies that
when people rate leaders as a group, they are more critical than when they rate
their own boss.

Still, if you wish to implement a strategy, and to the extent that your
strategy departs from the status quo, you must gain the trust of those whose
support you need. Thus, our first requirement for the personal art of strategy
execution:

1. Learn to listen and to reflect.

Most business leaders do not have to work on being more decisive. Rather,
becoming more effective entails learning to listen better, a component of trust
and respect. In our experience, the higher you go in the organizational
hierarchy, the less you're apt to find people -- either men or women -- who are
good listeners.

This is a problem for at least two reasons. For one thing, if you don't listen
well to others, you can't pick up useful clues about how to influence them. For
another, it makes learning more difficult because you overlook feedback about
the effects of your own efforts and you think you know it all.

We have stated that strategy execution requires both leading and managing. Each
involves getting groups and individuals to want to do things in a particular
way and on a given schedule, often to make sacrifices in the pursuit. The
leader/manager, therefore, must continually discern the needs of those people
and find ways to meet them, if possible, within the realities and limitations
of objectives and resources. This is impossible without careful listening.

The closer you get to the top of most organizations, the more you find the
psychological profile of a type of leader that is notably deficient at both
listening and reflecting. Psychologist David Keirsey, in his classic book,
Please Understand Me, summed up this type: "If one word were to be used to
capture this style, it would be commandant [his emphasis]. The basic driving
force and need ... is to lead, and from an early age they can be observed
taking over groups (1978, p. 178)."

Noting that this type will strive to reduce inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and
confusion, this type of leader is also quite willing to dismiss employees who
don't go along. In an update of this book 20 years after the first edition,
Keirsey (1998) did not change his view.

He said, "For [this type], there must always be a reason for doing anything,
and people's feelings usually are not sufficient reason (p. 198)." Question:
How can you win the hearts and minds of people if you are indifferent to their
feelings? Answer: You can't. (Readers who are familiar with the Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator will recognize this as the ENTJ. According to the Myers-Briggs
Foundation [2010], less than 2 percent of the general population are of this
type while 11 percent of managers, administrators and executives score this way
on the MBTI.)

Some people think that doing so is a sign of weakness, that leadership is a
matter of making bold decisions in isolation then announcing them. In fact, for
most business decisions, "two heads are better than one," i.e., the data
required for effective decision making is distributed and a variety of
perspectives are beneficial. Good listening skills enable you to get all the
data on the table.

Going along with listening, of course, is the companion habit of reflection,
i.e., turning over in your own mind what you've heard while all that listening
was going on. A reflective person not only hears, but also comprehends and
makes sense of what is heard. Reflection is a nonjudgmental process of
discernment. To discern is to derive meaning and direction through reflection.

Both listening and reflecting are most difficult when the subject matter is
your own behavior, especially when you've been told that your behavior is
slowing things down or eroding teamwork. Carefully attending to the concerns
and objections of others about you is the ultimate test of ego strength. But
the reward is learning and the greater potency that comes with it, so stick in
there.

2. Strategy execution can be hard, taxing work -- gird yourself.

The good news about having a vision is that life feels exciting, but the bad
news is that unless you do everything right, you are the only one excited by
it. Recently, a client, back in his office with us following a very successful
meeting with all of his management staff, look drained. He said, "I'm thrilled
at how this meeting went, but, my god, this is hard work."

Asked what he was referring to specifically, he said, "To effect change, you
have to do everything right and you have to be patient! You don't know how many
times I had to bite my tongue in that meeting. Holding back is not my strong
suit!"

3. Be credible and trustworthy; be worth following.

In Chapter Five, we summarized the findings of David Maister, whose research
showed the causal linkage between acting in accord with a set of values and
principles and subsequent financial success in service-delivering firms.

The title of the book we cited is, Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must
Do to Create a High Achievement Culture (Maister, 2003). The essence of his
findings was this: when managers show respect and cultivate trust, morale
ensues. And higher morale leads to greater financial performance. We urge you
to take a look at this book and learn its lessons.

Bear in mind that one of the reasons why people sometimes drag their feet at
the first sign of change is that change begins with an ending. While the
leader's own drive to make change happen can be a powerful force, there are
countervailing restraining forces. Our counsel is, "Don't be discouraged, but
do be prepared."

There are any number of excellent books available today that address the
connection between physical fitness and stamina and creativity. Get and keep
yourself in good physical shape. If you're over 50, like we are, you might
especially enjoy the wise, insightful, and funny book, Younger Next Year
(Crowley & Lodge, 2007).

For more Articles and Information : http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Ensuring Employee Development (by Ladan Nikravan | Talent Management)

2011-04-24T07:22:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

With nearly 70,000 employees serving customers in more than 170 countries,
Zurich Financial Services, headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill., is concentrated
in three core business segments around the world: general insurance, global
life and farmers. As one of the largest writers of commercial general liability
insurance in North America, 10,000 of the company's employees serve small
business, midsize markets and large corporate customers in the same market
divisions. Although the company is substantial in size and thoroughly
dispersed, each Zurich employee is treated as an individual with potential to
develop as the company continually expands.

"It's truly a people business," said Brian Little, head of human resource and
business partnership for Zurich North America. "Zurich in general, but
specifically Zurich North America, is an environment that individuals can come
into and really grow their career. Not only does our talent management strategy
allow an employee to become a niche expert in a particular field; it allows
them to completely change careers as well. That's what makes this a very
exciting place."

TM: What is Zurich North America's approach to talent management?

Little: It's driven by a global talent management center of excellence based
out of Zurich, Switzerland, that helps coordinate talent management activities
across the world. Each country or business division has a talent management
team that helps organize the work as well. From a structural perspective, it
focuses heavily on our succession management process for key positions, either
on a global or a local basis, and then looks at the talent needed to ensure
succession planning works while also focusing on good, solid development over a
long period of time.

TM: What processes or programs have you established to improve workforce
performance?

Little: We do quite a bit of internal and external benchmarking to look at how
our competency and skills align against the work that we do and against the
market. We use an internally branded program called Zurich People Power, which
ensures that we're very clear about the competencies needed for each position.
We then look to understand how that competency aligns from a job family
perspective to ensure people get the right development. That works not only
here in the United States, but across the world. We have learned that many of
the competencies that are important here are also important in quite a few
other countries we work in. So we develop programs that can address those needs
on an enterprise basis to ensure we continually develop our best people
globally.

TM: How is performance management linked to the company's strategic objectives?

Little: We are focused on creating a high-performance culture. We're
continually looking at where we are against the market in terms of our overall
company performance and making sure all of our activities and the way we drive
performance links us moving forward in terms of shareholder value, productivity
and overall profitability. We use performance management as a way of helping
employees and managers have really good discussions about the process, helping
them pinpoint where they need to improve or what they're doing well, and then
have a dialogue that takes place throughout the year about their performance
and ensure that developmental plans are put in place as part of the process. We
have something called the IDP (individual development plan) that focuses on
helping individuals not only figure out what they need to focus on in their
current job but also for jobs they would like to do in the future - which
skills they need to develop as part of that. By using the competencies and then
looking at very clear performance objectives for their specific role, we're
able to link that together and make a good development plan.

TM: How does your company work to change or create leadership and management
behaviors that lead to optimal workforce performance?

Little: We have a framework called the Zurich Leadership Model, and this
leadership model is intended to be a global leadership framework. It really
helps us compartmentalize leadership behaviors that we're looking for within
Zurich and the type of behaviors that will help us become successful as a
company. They're very easily used across different cultures, and, to a certain
degree, they're easy to understand. It gives us a very consistent way of
helping to either develop programs or continue to have meaningful dialogue with
people about their personal leadership development.

TM: How does Zurich North America develop organizational culture and employee
attitudes to optimize workforce performance?

Little: We have a global engagement survey for employee engagement. This survey
helps us understand where our culture is in terms of our aspirations, and it
helps us have a really good dialogue with people on an enterprise and team
level about what's going on in a group, how things could improve and how we can
continue to live the internal brand that we have here at Zurich. [We want to]
help employees pinpoint the cultural aspects that have the most meaning for us
and do things in a way that will help them enjoy working here and make us the
employer of choice.

TM: How does the company use learning and development to manage talent?

Little: Learning and development is critical in a business like ours because we
don't have built-in, artificial systems that a competitor could easily mimic,
change or use to quickly catch up with us. Learning and development helps us
continually stay ahead of the game. Our learning and development group focuses
on both soft and technical skills. We want our employees to learn quickly and
be sought after in the marketplace. Our example, we have an underwriting
training program; an individual could come right out of college not knowing
anything about the insurance business or underwriting, and within a year be
performing very well as an underwriter in the market. We also have what's
called a Global Associate Program, and one of the things I really like about
this is that it's intended to give people a very broad view of Zurich. Where
the underwriting program is much more specific and you quickly get to your core
job, the Global Associate Program takes almost a year to go through, and
individuals rotate through different types of positions and departments in
Zurich so they can see the entire business. They also do assignments outside of
the country, and that helps them get a broad view of how large Zurich is and
how we work together across different continents and countries. We also have
career connection programs; those are mentoring programs to help individuals
really find folks who are either inside or outside of their teams who can help
grow in their career. They have really good discussions about their current
job, their dreams and how they can reach them. Younger employees are typically
paired with fairly senior people, and it works well to build strong internal
relationships.

TM: How do you measure workforce performance?

Little: We have expectations from a metric perspective of how our business will
perform throughout the year, if not on a monthly basis, and we link back to how
well we organized around that and what's our ability to actually deliver
against that - whether it's selling insurance policies or handling customer
service inquiries. We use a variety of 360 instruments to measure our success.
We measure pretty much everything, and we continually push ourselves to do that
better. We know that getting a little bit better every day is really our secret
to success, and we continually find ways to celebrate our success as well.

TM: How do you handle succession planning at Zurich North America?

Little: It's a very structured process that's done on an annual basis. We back
it out from what's called GEC People Days, which is our global executive group.
It's a two-day session that we do annually to look at our top people across the
world, and, with that end in mind, we go through a local succession process
that's based in the business division for business units. Then we look at
regional succession planning, for example, North America, and then we look at
that along group functions like marketing, HR, and across those functions
across the world as well. Then hopefully, in that very organized way, we're
able to build succession plans that really highlight where we need to either
attract or develop talent or that we feel pretty strong about [it] and know
we're doing pretty well. It's a very deep assessment in terms of our overall
readiness, in terms of each position that we have in terms of succession, and
that has really helped drive a lot of the development activities that we have.

TM: How do you use workforce performance data to drive future initiatives?

Little: We have a strategic workforce plan that we do on a global basis as well
as on a country and business division basis. We take a look at that data in
terms of, for example, what's our average age, to where's our average
education, where do people get recruited from. We have a number of different
things that we pool to look at data on a regular basis to make an assessment
on: Is our workforce appropriate for the goals that we have? Have we attracted
the right people for us to be successful in the areas we think we can grow in?
We measure against that. From a talent management perspective, we link our
strategic workforce plan to our talent management plan, and we try to make sure
we have synergy between the two.

TM: What's next for Zurich North America in terms of talent management and
workforce performance development?

Little: We're adding much more technology to the process. Today, we still do a
lot of things via our traditional spreadsheets and browser systems, which are
good, but we want to add more science to it by taking the Zurich People Power
Process, which looks at competencies among job families, to do more predictive
modeling of what our needs will be, not only for today, but in the future. We
will be able to pinpoint the exact skills that we need to create training
programs to be more proactive than reactive.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Succession Management vs. Succession Planning (by Neil Neveras | Human Resource Executive Online)

2011-04-22T07:40:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

An expert looks at the CHRO's three critical roles in generating multiple
options for key leadership positions. Succession management is a robust process
that needs to accommodate unexpected business challenges down the road.

Succession planning -- a mainly "one-deep" exercise to ensure you are preparing
for the expected (or sometimes, unexpected) departure of a CEO or other top
executive -- is important. However, it is no longer sufficient to manage talent
risk and drive your business forward.

When I work with clients, I often start with a discussion of a broader view of
succession -- something we in our firm call succession management.

Succession management is a robust process that goes several layers deep. It
aims to generate multiple options for key positions. That's important, because
conditions change and the candidate you've planned for may not be the one you
really need.

If, for example, your company makes a major acquisition or the market for your
products and services fundamentally shifts, you may suddenly need a different
kind of leader than the one you have already lined up for the job.

Traditional succession planning cannot "flex in real time" to respond to rapid
(and often, unforeseen) changes in an organization's strategy and environment.
However, with succession management, you have a robust pipeline with multiple
options for key positions; in essence, you increase the likelihood that you
will be prepared for known and unknown leadership and business challenges down
the road.

A very public example of this was General Electric. It was widely known that
there were three strong candidates ready to replace CEO Jack Welch (rather than
one "tick-the-box" choice). However, what really makes companies like GE unique
is that they generate multiple options at many levels in the organization.

Increasingly, boards of directors are looking at this quite closely. In the
past, boards might have said to the CEO, "You've got your successor figured
out? Fine. We're covered." Now, board members are saying, "What does our
leadership pipeline look like? And are we prepared to lead multiple futures in
unknown environments?"

They are starting to see succession management as part of their fiduciary
responsibility to govern the enterprise.

The CHRO's Role

Generating multiple options for CEO succession requires an integrated system of
activities, such as coordination between those in the company responsible
talent planning, executive recruiting, leader development, performance
management and mobility. Given this level of effort and complexity, what is the
role of the chief human resource officer (and the organization) in CEO
succession?

I suggest that there are three roles:

Role No. 1: Strategic influencer.
I deliberately did not say "strategist" because it is the job of the CEO and
the executive team -- governed by the board -- to "own" succession management.

I have seen studies suggesting that CEOs should be spending 25 percent to 40
percent of their time thinking about talent, including succession. However, in
this context, the CHRO can play a critical strategic role to influence the CEO,
the executive team and the board to think about succession management in the
right way.

This might involve laying out leading practices, including a framework and
solid business case that succession management is critical to the company.

Role No. 2: Flawless integrator.
Succession management requires a robust and repeatable talent-review process --
one that works to build an organizational culture and memory around talent in
the succession pipeline. Setting up and running such a process requires
elegantly simple design and flawless execution.

In addition to talent review, companies must orchestrate "feeder" processes,
such as developmental career moves, leadership programs, coaching, peer
networks and performance management. And all of these need to be designed to
deliberately develop executives as they come up through the pipeline.

It's up to the CHRO and the HR organization to integrate all these aspects.

3. Role No. 3: Trusted confidant.
Even with an integrated set of processes in place for succession management,
you still need to foster a culture of honest dialogue about talent. Otherwise
your processes may yield suboptimal (or even risky) results.

In this context, the CHRO can serve as a "trusted confidant" when sensitive
conversations need to be had. She or he must "know" the talent really well on
multiple levels, as well as sometimes conduct additional due diligence on the
fly (i.e., when an unexpected executive departure occurs).

If the CHRO has already built trust among the executive network, he or she can
help get the dialogue to an honest place no matter what the circumstances.

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Next Generation Leaders: Small, Medium and Large (by Daniel R. Tobin | Talent Management)

2011-04-20T08:09:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

With the pending retirement of the baby boomer generation, companies of all
sizes are rightly concerned with who will fill senior executive positions and
how they can develop their next generation of company leaders.

Half a century ago, Lawrence J. Peter wrote The Peter Principle, which stated:
"In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
That is almost universally true - if we have an employee who is doing a great
job, we tend to promote him or her into management. If that employee does a
great job as a first-level manager, we promote him or her to become a manager
of managers. We keep promoting that employee until he or she reaches a level
where he or she isn't doing such a great job, and then we leave that employee
there doing a fair to poor job, or we hire him or her. The antidote to the
Peter Principle is to prepare employees for the next level of jobs, rather
than bemoan the fact that they aren't already.

Leadership development comes in all shapes and sizes, however. Associated
literature is full of program examples from large organizations. General
Electric stands out as a company with an excellent reputation for growing its
own leaders, as well as growing leaders who then leave and become CEOs at other
large companies. But few midmarket companies - with 1,000 to 5,000 employees -
have the equivalent staff or monetary resources to invest in a GE-style
leadership development program. Fortunately, the size of a company doesn't
really matter; every company can and must invest in developing its next
generation of leaders if it is to prosper, or even survive, in the near- and
long-term future.

Imitated and Duplicated

Here is a proven model for a leadership development program (LDP) that
midmarket companies can use to prepare the next generation of leaders. The
model has four components:

1. Formal education sessions of two to three days each:
These can be held once a quarter over a period of one to two years. Topics are
chosen by company executives from three basic categories: leadership skills,
business acumen and execution skills. Many companies have sent high potentials
to solid leadership development programs at well-known business schools or
other leadership education vendors only to find leadership skills alone do not
make a leader.

Along with leadership skills, companies must build business acumen in
high-potential future leaders to broaden their focus from functional or
technical specialties to a holistic understanding of the company's business.
They also need to develop high potentials' execution skills because even the
greatest vision will not benefit the company unless the company's leaders can
execute on that vision.

2. Action learning projects:
Assigned to individual participants or teams of participants, these should
follow each education session to help reinforce learning. These projects also
allow companies to test participants' skills before promoting them.

3. Individual development plans:
These focus on the unique development needs for each LDP participant beyond
what will be covered in the formal education sessions. Plans should be based on
a 360-degree assessment of each participant and written in consultation with
the participant, his or her manager and an assigned human resources staff
member.

4. Mentoring and coaching:
These programs complete the model. Mentoring is a way to transfer knowledge
from current executives to the next generation. It also allows mentors to
develop a more complete picture of each LDP participant's capabilities.
Coaching, using internal or external coaches, can fill developmental gaps in
the individual that aren't being addressed in the LDP agenda.

Not every company will be ready to invest in the full model. Due to budget
constraints, some companies may not be able to hire external coaches, others
may lack staff to support individual development planning, and others may lack
executive support for mentoring programs. While the third and fourth elements
can be valuable, the combination of education sessions and action learning
projects will get companies off to an excellent start. Other elements can be
added when funds become available or when current executives start recognizing
the value of the LDP.

Alternative Leadership Development Models

There are other LDP models. Some companies contract with a university business
school to put selected employees through an intense week of training that
covers a number of topics ranging from marketing and finance to strategic
planning and leadership skills. These programs are taught by professors and
typically include team projects that are presented to a panel of professors and
company executives at the end of a weeklong program.

There are several disadvantages to this model:

1. Information overload:
There is simply too much information being transmitted in too short a period of
time. While the topics of instruction are all worthy, there is no opportunity
to start using what is learned before being swamped by more information
on another topic. Education sessions that focus on a single topic and are
followed by an action learning project can help participants use and retain the
knowledge they receive.

2. Non-company-specific material:
Many business school professors use material from their regular classes and do
not take the time to learn about an individual company or to customize the
material for specific challenges the company faces. Further, faculty may have
no particular expertise or experience in the participants' industry, and when
case studies and examples in these programs come from companies in different
industries that have no relevance for participants, interest can be low.

When learning tools are relevant to the industry, participants can more easily
identify with the examples and start thinking immediately about how they apply
them to their own company and situations. In the LDP model, learning leaders
select faculty - business school professors, consultants, training vendors or
even a company's own executives - and can work with each faculty member to
customize material to the company's specific challenges.

3. Limited visibility:
If company executives are involved in the business school program, they
typically fly in to hear team presentations on the last day. They will not have
the time or opportunity to really get to know participants or to see them in
action. With the LDP model, company executives will have many opportunities to
interact with participants by acting as instructors, speaking at education
sessions and reviewing action learning projects. This level of executive
involvement with LDP participants provides greater visibility and motivation
for the participants and gives executives more personnel knowledge of the
company's high potentials, which will yield benefits when it comes time to do
talent reviews and succession planning.

4. Fewer opportunities to build networks:
Because the participants are working so hard during this week, they will have
few opportunities, outside of team assignments, to get to know each other and
build internal networks. These networking opportunities are valuable for
participants in their current positions, and they can prove even more valuable
when they are promoted and already have cross-functional networks in place. It
takes more than a week to build relationships. With the LDP model, participants
get to know each other, work together and build trust over a longer period of
time.

5. Expense:
A one-week business school program can be expensive. Learning organizations pay
for a professor's time as well as the business school's overhead. Often fees
charged for a one-day session at a school can be three times what it would cost
to directly hire the professor to teach in a company's LDP.

A second common alternative to the LDP model is to send a few selected
individuals to a leadership development workshop at a business school or at a
leadership education provider. This is most common in smaller companies where
the pool of high potentials is too small to justify investment in the full LDP
model.

Compared with the LDP model, there are several disadvantages to this approach:

1. No matter how good the program, one week of training does not make a leader.
Participants must use what they learn in the program to improve their current
job performance and demonstrate that they are ready for larger leadership
positions. The LDP model covers multiple topics over a period of one to two
years. The external program typically focuses on leadership skills, while the
LDP model develops business acumen and execution skills as well as leadership
skills.

2. The external program typically has no follow up or follow through.
Using the LDP model, participants start using what they learn immediately
through action learning projects.

3. The external program is likely to be generic in nature.
Because the program will include participants from many companies and
industries, it cannot be tailored to any one company's needs. With the LDP
model, all content can be focused on specific industry knowledge and company
challenges. Further, because the participant likely is attending alone, there
is no opportunity to discuss company-related ideas with fellow employees or to
build internal relationships.

While there are many excellent programs available, a company should expend the
effort to plan an appropriate LDP experience and follow up with
the participants to ensure the experience has value for both them and the
company. If leaders choose to follow this route, there are some basic steps
that can help ensure both the individuals and the company get the best value
from these programs:

1. Meet with the participants before the program to review the company's
expectations for participant learning and what changes in knowledge, skills and
behavior are expected following completion of the program.

2. Debrief the participants immediately following the program to match
expectations with the actual experience. Set up an action plan to identify what
is expected of participants now that they have completed the program.

3. Follow through on the action plan with regular reports and feedback.

For more Information and Articles: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr

Snaptu: You're the Boss: Hiring Efficiently

2011-04-16T06:39:00.001-07:00

Last month, ClassOne started asking all job candidates who make it through the resume screening to run through a sort of online questionnaire that requires a mix of video, oral and written responses.

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

Snaptu: G20 backs early-warning plan against future crises

2011-04-15T22:05:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading world economies agreed on Friday to put the policies of seven major nations under a microscope as part of a plan to prevent a repeat of the global financial crisis.

Click here to read the full story

--
This email was sent to you from Snaptu mobile application.

Helping Millennials Move Up the Corporate Ladder(by Jan Ferri-Reed | Diversity Executive )

2011-04-09T08:13:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Millennials are moving into the workforce in greater numbers. The younger
generation will soon replace many of the baby boomers expected to begin
retiring soon. They're already shaking up the workplace, and organizational
leaders must have a better understanding of this generation in order to fully
avail their talents.

Millennials often bring a different set of values and expectations to the job.
As a highly educated generational cohort, they're known to be technologically
savvy and self-confident and have learned to expect success. At the same time,
their baby boomer supervisors often criticize them for their impatience,
unrealistic expectations and hubris.

Some characteristics leaders point to when it comes to the millennial
generation include the following:

1. Unrealistic expectations:
Millennials often expect recognition and promotion after just a short time on
the job. They don't seem willing to pay their dues and show little patience for
a long climb up the corporate ladder.

2. Disengagement:
Millennials seem to become easily bored with repetitive work and seemingly
pointless tasks. They're used to a fast-paced, game like environment and lose
interest when they no longer feel challenged.

3. Feeling underappreciated:
Teachers, parents and counselors lavished praise on this generation for the
smallest of accomplishments, including just showing up. When they receive too
little praise and feedback, they lose heart.

4. Narrow job scope:
Say what you will of millennials, they like to see the big picture. They become
frustrated, demotivated and restless when they can't connect their individual
efforts to the organization's vision.

5. Challenging the status quo:
Millennials believe that work is anytime, anywhere. They challenge the
traditional eight-hour workday and lack of virtual work opportunities.
Millennials value time differently from previous generations. They live more in
the moment and resent intrusions into their personal time.

However, the truth of the matter is that when boomers begin retiring in droves,
millennials will be needed in even larger numbers to plug the gaps. But will
this generation be able to climb the corporate ladder successfully, or will
they become stuck on the bottom rungs?

They have a better chance of climbing the ladder if leaders inculcate them to
the organization's corporate culture and help them to:

1. Communicate more diplomatically:
There is a perception that the chain of command or organizational politics may
seem alien to millennials. Leaders must help them develop their political savvy
and learn to communicate appropriately while remaining candid.

2. Develop their own careers:
Millennials need to understand that to succeed they must acquire suitable
skills and experiences. Teaching them to how to network, identify available
career resources and develop mentor relationships is key.

3. Respond positively to feedback:
Leaders can show millennials how to receive constructive feedback, consider
alternate behaviors and show appreciation for feedback.

Most millennials are eager to succeed, but they may not fully understand what
they need to do or comprehend cultural subtleties. Leaders who wish to propel
them up from the bottom rungs of the career ladder will have to show them the
ropes. It isn't sufficient to assume that they will be clued in by other
employees. Leaders must make sure millennials have the necessary communication,
relationship-building and career skills to take those steps up the
organization's career ladder.

For more Information and Articles: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Request for Applications from NGOs for USAID’s Development Grants Program

2011-03-29T07:59:00.001-07:00

-- By Development Network-

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched a
Request for Applications for the Development Grants Program providing support
in the three sectors of microenterprise, water and climate change adaptation.
Applications can be submitted by indigenous, local NGOs from different
countries or private and voluntary organizations in the US.
The Development Grants Program aims to create new partnerships between USAID
and NGOs which have limited or have not been able to access prior funding
directly from the USAID. Through this program, the Agency seeks to expand its
network of NGOs and build their capacity.
The objectives of the DGP as presented in this Request for Applications are:
1. Broadened participation in USAID programs of local NGOs and U.S. PVOs with
experience and expertise relevant to priority USAID and partner country
development objectives;
2. Expanded numbers of local NGOs and U.S. PVOs with planning, management and
service delivery systems adequate to implement USAID-funded activities; and
3. Measurable contributions by LNGOs and U.S. PVOs to the achievement of the
development objectives for participating USAID Missions' country programs, in
particular as they pertain to Agency priorities and initiatives.
A list of eligible countries along with the specific funding sectors is given
in the link below. To apply to this program, concept notes have to be submitted
initially outlining the proposed project in the areas of microenterprise, water
and climate change adaptation. Detailed proposals will be requested after the
review of concept notes.
The closing date for the submission of concept notes is 25 April 2011.
For more information, visit grants.gov and search by funding opportunity number
for "M-OAA-GRO-EGAS-DGP-11-0001."

Link: http://www07.grants.gov/search/basic.do

For more Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Assessing Learning in a Post-LMS World (by Mal Poulin and Paul Bejgrowicz | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-03-28T09:14:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

Learning is on the move. Mobile, social and informal exchanges of information
are enhancing or replacing traditional training and course structures. Many new
learning modalities depend on content that is not even managed or created by a
learning and development organization. On top of all this, economic pressure is
rewarding the creative repurposing of content freely available on the Web and
from original sources.

If learning events increasingly involve assets individuals don't own or
control, how do learning leaders track and assess the effectiveness of
employees' learning? Simply stated, if it can't be put it in the LMS, is it
still learning? And if it is - in a post-LMS world - how is it assessed?

The phrase "post-LMS world" is not meant to suggest that learning management
systems are obsolete. It merely means that assessing learning utilizing an LMS
only is becoming obsolete. Like learning itself, learning assessment is also on
the move, focusing more on performance than knowledge acquisition.

The original function of the LMS was to simplify how learning was scheduled,
deployed and tracked. It was also a tool for managers to validate and report
compliance with learning obligations and to prove that specific people in
specific roles completed training. Over time, the LMS evolved to support the
creation of training plans, curricula development and the management of assets
and logistics.

With continued integration with performance management systems, LMSs do more
than track and report learning events; they are a component of a comprehensive
talent management strategy. Further, many LMSs have become quite complex in
their functionality. They provide significant capabilities for users,
administrators, learning professionals and managers, but ease of use has
plummeted, causing many companies to develop front-end websites or portals to
ease the pain.

Why Is the LMS Still Important?

If learning leaders ask employees why their LMS is important, they're likely to
receive many different responses:

a) What is an LMS?
b) Easy access to class registration.
c) Just-in-time learning.
d) Proof of completion.
e) Repeatability.
f) Integrated curriculum relevant to the job or role.

Front-line performers' responses reflect their day-to-day work and their
interest in advancement. Executives' responses to the same question typically
concern discovery, financial reporting, compliance, validation and efficiency.
Midlevel manager responses tend to relate to employee behavior changes and
performance improvement. Responses from learning professionals vary depending
on culture, environment and charter.

Despite the various ways in which learning occurs, there is still a need to
track training events, particularly in regulated industries such as
pharmaceuticals, but also for compliance with safety and HR programs. The LMS
is also critical to manage certification programs and to provide an overall
understanding of the organization's learning and development. The need to track
learning in an organization will persist. It will have varying levels of
importance based on the industry, regulatory compliance needs and the
organization's culture. Today it is not so much what gets tracked and managed,
but how, when, why and by whom.

Learning leaders may have quite different relationships with their LMSs. One
may rely on it heavily as an enterprisewide application serving the centralized
learning organization and the diverse global business units. Another, in a
company operating in 120 countries with 20 brands and more than 7,000
employees, may have no LMS at all.

In each situation, however, there is still significant tracking, reporting and
analysis conducted about learning programs and investments. So, whatever the
perspective, assessing learning is important regardless of which LMS - or no
LMS - someone has implemented.

Complexity, Diversity and Integration

The complexity of using an LMS to access training may be a blessing in
disguise. It forces learning leaders to enhance it. Many organizations are
implementing user-friendly learning portals that link to prescribed training,
allowing them to establish a learning platform designed specifically for
learners' needs. For example, the portal may integrate wiki pages to support
threaded discussions on a critical topic, link to user profiles to create
expert networks and provide access to electronic performance support to enable
just-in-time learning. The assets these portals make available to the learner
can be from any source, such as Microsoft SharePoint or any file server in a
network.

The learning platform provides the ability to store and deploy multiple
modalities, giving learning departments the flexibility to meet the needs of
today's adult workforce and to provide training in the right context at the
right time. Whether it is an e-learning module, a mobile course, a podcast, a
job aid or an instructor-led program, the learning platform supported by the
LMS affords the ability to manage content to meet users' need to reuse,
repurpose and replay it. In addition to formal learning plans, learners also
can access a full library of content on the platform to create individual,
self-guided learning plans. Note that the LMS may be at the heart of this
platform, but is not necessarily the only component.

If this article had been published five or 10 years ago, there would have been
little or no reference to other technologies to enable learning assessment. For
example, currently there are technologies to track and report employee
transactional proficiency with business software. Organizations invest millions
to implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship
management (CRM) systems and others. Along with this investment comes the
financial obligation to ensure workforce adoption, proficiency and compliance
of use. Value is not recognized by learning activities alone. It would be nice
if executives could aggregate data about learning events with transactional
performance. Actually, it would be more than nice. It would empower executives
to make rapid, targeted changes to improve adoption and performance.

Workforce planning and rationalization require a powerful inventory of
information related to employee skills, experience and knowledge. Again, the
LMS can easily provide much of this information, but not all. It would be nice
if HR managers and business stakeholders could match this data to project
resource requirements and workforce transformation plans. No, it would be more
than nice. It would empower executives to increase their competitive advantage
by rapidly matching resources to needs. By integrating the LMS with the
performance management system, they can.

Whether an organization's markets are expanding or contracting, emerging or
converging, its workforce is a key differentiator. Employee competencies
directly control an organization's ability to deliver to customers and
stakeholders. When looking over the list of competencies some learning
organizations subscribe to, there are often personal traits among them.
However, they are often mixed with skills related to producing business results
and customer engagement. Competencies that can be learned or acquired are the
focus of many learning programs, including leadership and management programs.
It would be nice if there were tight integration between the system that
manages learning and the system that manages employee competencies. Actually,
it would be more than nice. It would empower learning and HR organizations and
executives to evolve and transform the workforce to optimize performance in the
marketplace.

Assessing Learning's Effect on Business

All organizations rely on the power of converting data into information. Data
represents grains of sand. How we manipulate this sand into castles provides
the competitive advantage organizations need to survive and excel. Just as in
the scenarios already described, aggregating data related to learning with data
related to all other aspects of a business gives leaders an advantage. That
advantage enables the capability to plan and rationalize the workforce. It
enables us to match employee competencies and skills, skills and opportunities,
opportunities and growth. The system that manages learning is a powerful tool,
but its power is magnified when integrated with other business applications,
including business intelligence software. The right combination allows us to
correlate all data into one dashboard, eliminating multiples and making it
easier to lead the business.
Tracking learning events is crucial, but ultimately business managers are
interested in learning that yields behavior changes that result in business or
operational performance improvements that ultimately result in a significant
return on investment.

Operational goals vary: sales effectiveness, warehouse efficiency, back-office
proficiency, call center value, customer satisfaction. These goals all depend
on the market, organization and charter. In most cases, managers have goals
related to employee retention, knowledge and proficiency. Those goals often
have time constraints. Therefore, speed is of the essence and part of the
measurement of success. Measures of that proficiency are found in the
aforementioned examples, not just in reports of training completion. The
C-suite is concerned with speed to value.

In addition to the standard transactional monitoring and reporting inherent in
the LMS, data derived from diverse sources can be correlated for overall
business intelligence reporting. Imagine the value of assessing learning by
correlating:

a) A decrease in plant accidents with an increase in safety training.
b) An increase in sales with an increase in sales training and collaboration.
c) An increase in customer satisfaction scores with an increase in performance
support for the call center.

By integrating the LMS with the performance management system, leaders can
assess the overall competency level of individuals and departments and use the
data to develop and manage workforce planning. Whether learning is formal or
informal, putting a number or value on the benefit may not be as simple as
running a report. A learning leader may need to rely on anecdotes and stories
to demonstrate business value in diverse ways. Once again, the LMS may play a
role in this assessment of learning, but not as the only tool.

What's Right for Your Business?

Conduct a simple analysis - how robust are the organization's tracking
requirements? Does it have regulatory compliance needs? Company-imposed policy
compliance? How will learning leaders manage content? What other learning and
performance technologies are being used now? What is the road map to
incorporate emerging technologies?

Once business requirements have been determined, mapping the learning
architecture will become an exercise in innovation. Maybe a simple LMS can
manage and assess learning; maybe other internal technologies can be exploited.

There is not one-size-fits all solution. The what and how of learning
architecture need to support business objectives and be flexible to meet
business changes and employees' learning needs. The post-LMS world is not an
environment without the LMS. It is a world supported by diverse technologies
enabling the assessment and value of employee learning, whether that learning
occurs in a traditional classroom, a virtual classroom or a collaborative
forum.

For all Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Learning-Succession Connection (by Carol Morrison | Chief Learning Officer)

2011-03-22T03:42:00.001-07:00

-By Development Network-

When business leaders use the phrase "succession planning," their thoughts
probably don't fly immediately to their organizations' learning functions. But
they likely should, because effective succession planning really isn't just
about planning. It's about the successful union of planning and development.

There are multiple definitions for succession planning. Canada's HR Council for
the Nonprofit Sector takes a simple approach: Succession planning identifies and
develops individuals with a high potential to take on leadership positions. HR
expert Susan M. Heathfield expands succession planning beyond the executive
level, challenging organizations to intentionally recruit talent to be developed
for "each key role within the company." Business thought leader Marshall
Goldsmith, who takes up the cause of augmenting planning with development,
cautions organizations against regarding succession programming complete merely
because a plan has been hatched and documented. "Measure outcomes, not process,"
he said, opining that a name change "from succession planning to succession
development" might be in order.

What's the Problem?

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and the American Society for
Training & Development (ASTD) teamed up for a major research study in 2010,
"Improving Succession Plans: Harnessing the Power of Learning and Development,"
to examine the roles organizational learning functions play in the succession
planning process.

As is the case with every organizational function in this economy-traumatized
business environment, it is important to understand the relevance of succession
planning. That is, identifying the business-critical issues that succession
planning addresses and how its effective execution supports organizational
performance, now and in the future.

Companies need trained and capable leaders to fulfill their missions and succeed
over the long term. They also need qualified talent available to fill
mission-critical positions. These two objectives emphasize the future
orientation that characterizes succession planning. But the effort isn't only
about the leadership and talent needed to ensure organizational continuity.

The i4cp/ASTD study analyzed responses from 1,247 participants, representing
organizations across a wide range of industries, company sizes and structures.
When asked about their companies' reasons for adopting a formal succession
planning process, nearly 90 percent of respondents cited identification and
preparation of future leaders, while about three-quarters said they did so to
ensure business continuity. At the same time, more than half said their
organizations pursued succession planning in order to offer advancement
opportunities and to support retention efforts.

Among the concerns companies look to succession planning to address are
projected shortages of talent, replacement of pending retirees, preparation for
company growth initiatives and support for change. Together, those reasons
clearly state that succession planning isn't only about preparing tomorrow's
leaders. Rather, it's a much more organizational-pervasive undertaking.

Planning for successors - not just in the C-suite, but in all positions crucial
to an organization's ability to execute strategy - provides vital support for
overall performance. Ensuring that key positions are filled with qualified
individuals who have been properly trained and prepared to effectively handle
the duties of those jobs provides a strong foundation for organizational
productivity. Successful succession planning also makes it possible to maintain
continuity in management. In turn, a solid and dependable structure within
leadership and other essential positions adds to an organization's effort to
utilize its financial and human resources effectively. Such stability
contributes to employee engagement, retention, recruitment and many other
functions. Absent an effective succession planning program, an organization
stands to lose a great deal.

That kind of potential loss isn't just theoretical. Participants in the
i4cp/ASTD study acknowledged that they have a long way to go to master
succession planning. Only 14 percent of respondents characterized their
succession planning efforts as being effective to a high or very high
extent. Just 17 percent said their planning efforts extended far enough into
their organizations to ensure that key positions had successors in their
pipelines. More than half of the study participants said their companies didn't
have a formal succession planning process, though about half of those did say
they plan informally. When it comes to succession planning, the challenges for
today's companies are all too apparent. Opportunities are plentiful for learning
leaders to take an active role in improving succession planning programs.

The Elements of Succession Planning

The tactics companies use to execute succession planning range from the slapdash
- "hit and miss as needed" - to the constructive - "key performers are
identified and given stretch assignments" - according to participant feedback in
the i4cp/ASTD research. Certain components emerged from the study that paint a
picture of the ways higher-performing organizations structure their programs.

Responsibility for succession planning most often resides with a firm's entire
executive team, and many business leaders see this as a best practice. "Leaders
[and] managers have succession planning objectives as part of their annual
performance objectives, which drive bonuses," said a representative from one
firm. Another said that "senior leadership understands that they own the process
and are actively involved in coaching and developing high-potential leaders."
Both approaches illustrate how the company brass can be encouraged to take a
hands-on role in succession efforts.

In about 1 in 4 organizations, responsibility for succession planning falls to
the HR department. While HR involvement makes sense because of the function's
know-how in talent-related issues and programming, many sources opine it is
senior leaders' active participation that is a key underpinning for optimal
succession outcomes. Perhaps it is that mindset that drives the selection of
candidates for the succession pipeline. Nearly 3 out of 4 companies in the
i4cp/ASTD study confirm that their favored method is nomination or selection by
senior leaders. Some companies acknowledge that they automatically associate
designation as a high-potential employee with the succession pipeline, while
others say they rely on nominations made by workers' managers.

Candidate Development

Once a candidate is chosen for a succession program, the learning function
becomes central to achieve success. Learning's expertise is ideally suited to
help provide structure to the succession planning process, along with the tools
needed to facilitate candidate development. Organizational learning and
development director and study participant Lesa Becker of Idaho's Saint
Alphonsus Regional Medical Center said that her role ranges from talent-review
participation to design and delivery of learning and development plans.

Other study participants echoed Becker. More than 55 percent said their learning
function defines content for leadership development programs to a high or very
high extent. Almost half of companies look to learning for actual delivery of
training, while others seek the function's involvement in integrating succession
planning with other talent management programs and with managing succession
efforts.

Researchers from i4cp and ASTD said any involvement by organizational learning
functions correlates to succession planning success, but recommended that chief
learning officers work with other talent leaders as well as with the
organization's top executives to ensure the integration of succession planning
with other talent management programs and to align development with
organizational business strategies.

Indeed, learning leaders may welcome the interaction with other talent leaders
in order to ensure that succession programs function effectively, since multiple
obstacles can impede optimal outcomes. The most often cited barrier to
succession planning success that emerged from the i4cp/ASTD study was a lack of
sufficiently robust development plans for candidates. Certainly involving the
learning function and its capabilities in planning and delivering content can
help organizations avoid this common pitfall.

Like many talent programs, succession planning can suffer from a lack of metrics
to track results. About 1 in 4 study participants admitted problems in this
area. Other obstacles in the way of good succession planning outcomes include
budget woes, program communication issues, lack of program reach beyond
management levels, and problems tracking and sharing data about succession
candidates.

Learning professionals can prove instrumental in addressing these and other
barriers to succession planning by applying a disciplined approach to the
overall development process. As they do with other organizational learning
programs, learning professionals could begin with rigorous planning to help
define the succession process; that includes the formulation of custom
development programs for each candidate. Learning also can add its voice to
other talent leaders to encourage senior management's investment in and support
for succession planning.

When senior leaders do become involved in candidate development, learning
professionals may be called upon to help them prepare for roles as mentors and
coaches. A close alliance between leaders and the learning function can help to
ensure that candidate development activities actually address the needs
identified for each candidate and are relevant to specific business challenges
the organization faces, while also providing oversight to maintain consistency
and quality in the development process.

Put the Success in Succession Planning

Two ideas emerged as core findings in the i4cp/ASTD study: the need to make
development a more critical part of the succession planning process and the need
to integrate succession planning with other talent management programs.

Few organizations can speak to the value of integrating succession planning and
talent management as knowledgeably as McDonald's Corp. In fact, the fast food
organization built its integrated talent management programming on a foundation
of leadership development and succession planning. David Small, vice president
of McDonald's leadership institute and global talent management, described the
company's early interest in developing leadership talent as a means to
accomplish succession planning for its top management. Beginning with a focus on
a more robust performance management system, Small said the company added a
competency model to ensure that "competencies are aligned with our development
strategy."

McDonald's early succession planning efforts proved vital to company continuity
when the firm lost two CEOs within a year's time in 2004. With a process already
under way, McDonald's was able to name successors to both men within hours of
their deaths. Small said the unfortunate situation gave the company's succession
and talent programs "the firepower we needed to move forward with efforts that
might not have moved as quickly otherwise." Given that history, current
McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner's prioritizing leadership development and talent
management speaks to the company's ability to learn from, and continue to
strengthen, its succession planning experiences.

Companies can take to heart the lessons McDonald's learned and devote greater
focus to preparing viable leadership pipelines. The i4cp/ASTD study yielded a
number of recommendations to fuel such efforts. Some strategies likely to
contribute to succession planning success include:

a) Securing senior leaders' championship for succession programs, including
leaders' active participation in development activities.

b) Extending succession planning efforts deeper into the organization to address
critical roles and those for which talent may be hard to find.

c) Determining appropriate metrics to gauge program effectiveness and applying
them in a disciplined and consistent manner.

d) Honing the candidate selection process to include employees who embody high
potential for leadership and to solicit nominations from company managers.

Finally, organizations are likely to enhance their outcomes by making learning
leaders an active part of successful efforts. This is especially relevant when
it comes to shaping and delivering development programs that provide succession
candidates with meaningful and relevant content designed to prepare them for the
unique challenges that future leadership in their particular organizations will
bring.

For nore Articles and Information: http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Development Network

Creating a Generation of Asian Business Leaders 9by George Hallenbeck and Indranil Roy | Chief Learning Officer)

Tapping into Employee Creativity (by Damian Killen | Human Resource Executive Online)

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results(by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner | Talent Management)

Building Stronger Teams by Facing Your Differences

How to Promote Behavioral Change (by David Maxfield | Chief Learning Officer)

The Upside-Down Pyramid(by Ken Blanchard | Chief Learning Officer)

Your question

Snaptu: Case Study: How Brian stopped thinking about making money on the side and actually earned $1,300

Build Your Brand Step by Step by Sharon Birkman Fink | Talent Management

The Value of Green Recruiting (by Lizz Pellet | Talent Management)

Snaptu: KENYA: Experts call for long term solutions to drought

Perfecting Performance Management (by Marc Effron | Talent Management)

With Pennies a Week, African Women Are Saving for Their Future (www.care.org)

http://www.care.org/getinvolve​d/advocacy/access-africa/index​.asp?s_src=SOS2011&s_subsrc=Sh​ortURL

Snaptu: Crop Yield Raises Risk to Food Cost

R&D without public money : a prospective answer. Posted (by: Maikeru Roran CARE INTERNATIONAL)

Snaptu: Why successful people don’t want to mentor you

The Top 10 Ways to be Effectively Assertive!!! [By Robert G. Jerus (MBA, APC, MA)]

How To Assess Leaders For Strategic Aptitude[ by Steve Krupp, Samantha Howland & Paul J.H. Schoemaker | Chief Learning Officer]

Scenario Planning the Future ( by Daniel W. Rasmus | Chief Learning Officer)

Snaptu: What about my fears?

The 'New Normal' of Talent Management (by Jason Averbook | Human Resource Executive Online)

The Human Energy Crisis (by Mike Prokopeak | Chief Learning Officer)

Risk in the Real World (by Orlando D. Ashford | Human Resource Executive Online)

Customer's Choice (by Kellye Whitney | Talent Management)

Building Effective Global Teams( by Imaad Mahfooz | Human Resource Executive Online)

Managing the 'Difficult' Employee (by Peter Cappelli | Human Resource Executive Online)

Leadership Challenges for Women at Work (by Colleen O'Neill and Stacey Boyle | Chief Learning Officer)

Who Are Your Pivotal Leaders?(by Stuart Crandell, Ph.D. | Talent Management)

Snaptu: Case Study: How Jennifer tripled her rate (working 1/3 the hours) by mastering the art of networking

Tips to Prevent Conflict in the Workplace ( by Natalie Morera | Talent Management )

Why Communication From Leadership is Essential For Success [by Ladan Nikravan | Chief Learning Officer]

Learning From Leadership Mistakes (by Ladan Nikravan | Chief Learning Officer)

Learning to Be Sustainable (by Adam Werbach | Chief Learning Officer)

The Benefits of Internal Coaching (by Michael Slade | Human Resource Executive Online)

Conservation Fellowship opportunity for leaders and scholars from indigenous and traditional communities and organizations

The Hidden Language of Leaders (by Natalie Morera | Talent Management)

Snaptu: Economix: Building Wealth Through Renting

The Big Shift (by Mark Bennett | Talent Management)

You have a Job to Do (By Sanjeev Himachali)

I will talk to the Boss / Boss Has Told Me… (by Sanjeev Himachali)

Going Beyond Engagement (By Dr. Bea Carson)

Time Management Training: A Waste of Time (By: - Daniel Markovitz | Chief Learning Officer)

10 Ways to Identify and Understand Pivotal Roles ( by Stuart Crandell, Ph.D. | Talent Management)

Make Yourself Fit to Lead (by Richard McKnight | Human Resource Executive Online)

Ensuring Employee Development (by Ladan Nikravan | Talent Management)

Succession Management vs. Succession Planning (by Neil Neveras | Human Resource Executive Online)

Next Generation Leaders: Small, Medium and Large (by Daniel R. Tobin | Talent Management)

Snaptu: You're the Boss: Hiring Efficiently

Snaptu: G20 backs early-warning plan against future crises

Helping Millennials Move Up the Corporate Ladder(by Jan Ferri-Reed | Diversity Executive )

Request for Applications from NGOs for USAID’s Development Grants Program

Assessing Learning in a Post-LMS World (by Mal Poulin and Paul Bejgrowicz | Chief Learning Officer)

The Learning-Succession Connection (by Carol Morrison | Chief Learning Officer)

http://www.care.org/getinvolved/advocacy/access-africa/index.asp?s_src=SOS2011&s_subsrc=ShortURL