Why You Need a Talent Strategy

-by Development Network-  ************************************************** Talent leaders can't change global work trends or today's economic reality, but they can change people strategies to respond to those trends and position a company to gear up for growth.   Led by the senior leadership team, organizations must apply the same rigor they use to create an overall business strategy to create  workforce strategy - not just a workforce plan. This strategy requires a comprehensive understanding of how complex trends and shifting business realities will impact business now and in the future. The resulting strategic blueprint provides line of sight into the talent choices available today that impact an organization's ability to deliver on objectives.   The talent organization has emerged as the single most important element of sustainable differentiation. An organization's products, services, business model and marketing campaigns all can be replicated quickly by any competitor, which leaves an organization's talent and talent potential as the last true differentiator. Further, to ensure growth and competitiveness companies must invest specifically in leadership talent.   A new era is upon business: the human age. Previous eras were defined first by the raw materials that transformed them: stone, iron and bronze. Then they were characterized by the domains people conquered with technology: industry, space and information. Now, human potential will be the catalyst for change and the global force driving economic, political and social developments. Talentism is the new capitalism.   Workforce demands and composition are shifting in response to economic, social and demographic trends. The need for more specific skills is creating a growing talent mismatch and scarcity of leadership talent. Multiple generations and cultures in the workplace have resulted in changes in motivations and preferences, which impact individual choice. Technological developments allow new ways of getting work done. These trends have created workforce and workplace dynamics that make it more challenging to identify, access and manage talent.   Despite their varied implications, these trends revolve around one central theme - the need to empower the right people, in the right places, in the right ways to create business impact. This requires a sustained commitment to, and a strategic investment in, talent, and an alignment of talent strategy with business goals. Talent is the No. 1 impediment to or success factor in executing the business plan. Led by the CEO, a talent strategy must:   1. Articulate  comprehensive vision of where the company wants to go, what unique value it delivers and what effects it wants to have.   2. Organize work structures to unleash the knowledge, innovation and creativity of every employee to achieve that vision.   3. Examine, understand and deliver what employees want from their employer and work environment.   There are many options for talent acquisition, retention, development, redeployment and transition. The key is to align the right talent approaches specifically for the business strategy. What follows are five practical components of an integrated talent management plan that will help build the workforce needed to execute on business strategy.   Components of an Integrated Talent Management Plan   When implemented rigorously, each of the following five integrated components will drive a comprehensive approach to talent management.   1. Assess talent. The workforce is critical to deliver and sustain competitive advantage. The ability to strategically assess talent available now - and the talent needed in the future - underpins the talent leaders' ability to meet and exceed the organization's goals. With the right workforce in place, brand building is more effective, goal achievement is more consistent and delivery of higher competitive value to customers and stakeholders is sustained.   From a CEO's perspective, it is important to assess the organizational state today as well as the desired future state before starting to build the bridge between the talent strategy and the business strategy. Assessing talent can provide a gap analysis that roadmaps how to source, on-board, develop and accelerate talent, and align performance with business direction.   Assessing talent includes a number of different components:   a) Competency modeling identifies the knowledge, skills, abilities, experiences, motivations and personality traits an organization's workforce must develop to realize present and future strategic goals and enhance company agility, innovation, engagement and retention. Well-designed competency models provide organizations with accurate criteria to optimize performance management as well as talent assessment, hiring, development, redeployment, succession management and promotion systems.   b) Organizational, individual and team assessments provide a clear understanding of how factors such as an organization's strategy, communications, leadership skills, employee processes, engagement levels, retention rates and cultural alignment drive productivity and evaluate the capabilities of individuals, teams and their potential fit within the organizational culture and climate.   2. Develop leaders. To build global leadership capacity that is deep and wide, one must continually identify, develop, nurture and retain leaders as part of an ongoing talent development strategy. Building a pipeline creates the bench strength to fill leadership positions throughout the organization. Development is the first step to ensure a steady flow of leaders will be available to grow the company over time.   Coaching as part of leadership development is essential. The best coaching integrates the unique needs of the leader, his or her manager or sponsor and the organization to achieve the desired performance outcomes. Coaching can accelerate leader development and deliver performance improvements that lift the entire organization.   Consider, for example, a U.S. sales and distribution division of a global automotive company that is concerned about sustainability and effectiveness of its leadership development initiatives. With 30,000 employees and a competitive marketplace, the company needs to identify and develop near-future leaders at a faster rate to outpace the competition. The firm invests in leadership coaching, and this enables nearly 40 percent of program participants to be promoted at or near the end of the program. Further, more than 70 percent of participants achieve or exceed their individual goals, and the return on investment is estimated to exceed five to one.   3. Implement and align strategy. Winning organizations create sustainable competitive advantage by aligning the workforce with business strategies. These companies pursue a well-articulated strategic direction in terms of execution, performance and workforce management. Having a strategy is only half the challenge: Strategy implementation requires a sustainable, proactive process to effect a smooth transition that will ensure employees understand and execute strategic imperatives and have operational support when doing their jobs.   There are three main components to implement and align a workforce with the organization's strategy:   a) Implement strategy effectively by first understanding the complexities of change and issues, analyze root causes of performance inhibitors and identify capability gaps. Once strategy has been clearly articulated and agreed upon, clarify fit-for-purpose structures and roles, deploy people systems and processes, communicate with authenticity and regularity and assign capable leadership at all levels.   b) Put strategy to work by identifying employee and workforce issues impeding strategy implementation. Prioritize workforce management strategies and align them with broader strategic goals. Use diagnostic tools to build executive team alignment around the organization's greatest strengths and needs. Identify top priorities, gain team consensus around priorities, analyze gaps between the organization's current state and the state of benchmark organizations, and build collaborative approaches with the workforce to get the job done.   c) Manage change effectively by having talent managers and leaders take a greater role to ensure change is communicated and implemented effectively. Communicate openly and honestly, keep employees informed, solicit feedback from those impacted by change, and commit to meeting expectations. From the senior leader on down, the messaging must be consistent.   4. Engage employees. Talent managers can play a role by clearly and effectively articulating the business strategy, vision, mission and purpose to the entire workforce.   First, create a communications plan. A workforce that understands the strategy is better able to execute it. Equip senior leaders and managers to convey clear, consistent messaging that links every employee to strategy and drives engagement, productivity and success.   Invest in methods to engage and retain the workforce. Employees need to feel they have a stake in the company's success. Help employees understand the significance of their role and how they directly participate in achieving the company's business objectives and performance goals today and in the future. In a competitive environment, engagement can make the difference between an organization that thrives and one that barely survives.   5. Align the workforce with business needs. Competitive market conditions and changing business objectives often require talent leaders to reassess workforce needs. It is about strategically mobilizing and sizing the workforce to meet business needs, minimize turnover and maintain employee productivity. Assisting employees affected by organizational change to make the transition to a successful career outcome also delivers real business value. Provide outplacement support to departing employees. Organizations offering effective outplacement support solidify their reputation for valuing employees and enhance the morale, engagement and productivity of employees who remain.   Also consider redeployment before executing layoffs. Sooner or later, every business has to reinvent itself. Consequently, every workforce has to adapt. Organizations that manage workforce transition successfully retain top talent, sustain productivity and employee engagement, and align workforce competencies with new organizational needs. Redeployment contributes to successful transitions by helping talent managers identify and reassign talented individuals to new roles or departments.   Invest in ongoing career development. Encourage employees to develop skills and competencies aligned with organizational needs. Provide assessments and coaching to help employees create a detailed career map and action plan to take control of their careers. Helping high-potential employees develop their careers offers the organization a powerful engine to drive workforce engagement, retention and productivity.   Global workforce and workplace trends have forced organizations to conceive competitive advantage more in terms of the talent they can identify, develop and retain and less in terms of what used to create a more traditional competitive advantage. The organizations that proactively align talent with business strategy by creating and implementing a workforce strategy will be the winners.   Many options for talent acquisition, retention, development, redeployment and transition exist. To promote a culture of success, the key is to align the right talent management approaches with the business strategy and create a continuing advantage by linking the workforce strategy to the business planning cycle.     [About the Author: Michael Haid is senior vice president of talent management for Right Management, the workforce solutions group within Manpower Group.]   For more Articles and Information:   http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Learn From Failure

-By Development Network-   The practice of learning from failure is deeply engrained in the human experience. For instance, when learning to walk, children fall, and fail, many times before those mini failures translate into success. Children might prop themselves up and fall; do it again, take one step, and fall; try one more time, take two steps, and fall again. They try. They fail. They learn. They succeed.   In business, the practice of learning from failure is not as straightforward, but it is equally vital. While many organizations say they spend copious amounts of time and effort learning from the successes and failures of their people, businesses and practices, many learning practitioners and management academics say there is still much progress to be made.   Aside from the psychological distaste associated with human failure, one of the larger barriers keeping more corporations from embracing it as an engine for learning is rooted in organizational culture. Creating a culture where failure isn't the goal but is treated as a learning driver remains an uphill battle for many, said Amy C. Edmondson, professor of leadership and management at the Harvard Business School. The most frequent gaffe organizations make is equating perfection with good performance.   "The biggest mistake we make is thinking we're not supposed to make mistakes," said Edmondson, who wrote an April 2011 research article on the topic for the Harvard Business Review.   In an era where innovation - a growth driver largely founded on experimentation and failure - is an organization's biggest tool for growth, believing failures are always bad would be a mistake.   Instead, learning leaders should look for areas where calculated failures will bear dividends - both individually, in terms of leadership development, and organizationally - as a means to spark innovation, growth and organizational performance. Further, organizations and learning leaders need to learn to cultivate a more sophisticated understanding of failure's uses and contexts; doing so will help avoid what Edmondson called the "Blame Game," where organizations inaccurately assess failures, and therefore improperly assign blame.   The real challenge is how to strike that cultural balance where failure is viewed as a necessary learning tool, but not one where individuals constantly veer into reckless, anything-goes behavior. Accountability, on all levels, remains important.   "The most successful executives will say that it's dealing with tough challenges and falling down and getting back up again [that makes them successful]," said Kurt Metzger, vice president and senior consultant at financial services firm Prudential Financial Inc. "It's the old what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."   Embrace Strategic Failures   Creating this type of culture, however, isn't necessarily a task the CLO can own exclusively. An organization that deals with and values failure as part of its growth process must create that environment at the C-suite level, said Erv Lessel, director of human capital at Deloitte Consulting LLP and a former major general in the U.S. Air Force. There are areas where the CLO can provide influence to help lay a framework for a less conservative, more innovation-driven learning environment down the road.   Training, education and experiential learning programs all have the potential to serve as breeding grounds for mini, or "cheap," failures, each of which promote growth, take chances, but don't kill the business, Lessel said. For example, the CLO can leverage leadership development efforts that seek to instill competencies and experiences that will open up future leaders to the idea of embracing a culture where cheap failures, or failures by experimentation, aren't avoided but valued instead. They also can provide executive insight into specialty areas such as crisis and risk management initiatives when major failures occur.   Creating a culture of calculated risks and failures has its limits, however. "What you don't want is a 'failure culture,'" said Sim B. Sitkin, professor of management and faculty director for the Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. "What you do want is a learning culture. There is a difference." There are instances when embracing failure as a learning tool might be inappropriate. "In the short run, when you're dealing with an absolute crisis, you can't afford it," Sitkin said.   Sitkin said failure is never the goal; it is simply the means to get to a goal. Organizations should view certain failures as strategic; rather than focusing on "the impossible ideal of learning by avoidance, it is more fruitful for both theory and practice to ask how organizations might more effectively pursue learning by experimentation." Companies such as Google, Facebook or even Eli Lilly & Co. exemplify this - all have been known to turn what may have been a failure in one area into a success in another.   Perception  Matters   The depth to which failures are accepted as a development and innovation driver also will vary by industry. According to Prudential Financial's Metzger, who's heavily involved in the company's leadership development efforts, failure cannot operate to the same degree across different organizations. Learning leaders need to recognize how and if failure as a learning tool will align with an organization's business strategy and industry. The ways in which certain failures are accepted in this vein likely will be different for every company.   "There are businesses like Facebook that can afford to move fast and break things and just recover quickly," Metzger said. "So, if that's OK for your industry, that's a way to go." That is not always the case for a firm like Prudential, which prior to the financial crises and ensuing recession sought to develop a new leadership competency around innovation. The genesis of the competency stemmed from the company's desire to promote growth and alter the perception that it had grown too stodgy and boring, dull and dependable.   Prudential wanted to develop a competency in its leaders so they would take more risks to help grow the business over the long term. "There was a feeling that we really needed to get out there and think more broadly and make some mistakes and slip and fall and learn from that," Metzger said.   Then the financial crisis hit. And for a company whose business is rooted in managing people's financial lives, Metzger said dull and dependable didn't seem so bad after all. Prudential scrapped developing the innovation initiative, though it still established a similar leadership competency. "We've scaled back our thinking from innovation to intelligent risk," Metzger said.   Define Success   Driving a culture where innovation spurred by failures is a prominent part of the learning process is useless if there is no clear vision of success to begin with. Rose Gailey, a consultant at Chicago-based organizational performance and strategy firm Gagen MacDonald, said leaders must establish a clear definition of success to properly measure or evaluate what's to be learned - both when success or failure occurs. Doing so allows leaders to more accurately evaluate opportunities for lessons learned, she said, and is best accomplished when feedback and reviews are on a constant loop.   "If we're going to pick up on failure, and we're going to tackle each failure, but we don't have a clear understanding of the path - where we're going and what the outcomes are - it can be a really huge hindrance," Gailey said.   Some organizations use a method derived from the military called after-action reviews to evaluate potential lessons. In these reviews key stakeholders meet to review what went right or wrong in a given project.   Metzger said Prudential took a liking to the method a few years ago; the company also trained a cadre of people to run the sessions. The after-action reviews started on major company projects, but are now used to reflect on smaller projects and have been integrated into some day-to-day meetings.   Yet after-action reviews, while prudent in some respects, are only effective learning tools when followed up with more action, an area where some organizations may falter.   Deloitte's Lessel said not taking action could be detrimental to this type of improvement process. "Unless you make changes based on those observed lessons, then they aren't truly lessons learned."   When embracing failure as a learning tool, the process is often more valuable than the outcome.   "As long as you did the right thing to get there, and you learned what it was that caused the failure, you're OK," said Larry Israelite, vice president and manager of human resources development at Liberty Mutual Group. "When you don't do the right legwork and you don't do the right analysis, and you make an arbitrary decision and you fail, then your failure wasn't in the outcome you achieved; [it] was in the process you went through that led you to that failure."   Harvard's Edmondson has a similar view. She said there are a variety of reasons people fail that are worthy of either blame or praise. The level of a failure is rooted not in the outcome, but the process.   William Kline, an HR consultant and former vice president of HR and chief learning officer at Delta Air Lines, said as long as the learning is properly assessed and captured, failure is still most likely the best learning tool CLOs have at their fingertips - if it's not detrimental to the organization's business.   Making sure those failures are measured, and not reckless, is the real challenge.   "For me, that's the essence of learning," Kline said. "I know that sounds trite, but I really do believe that."     [About the Author: Frank Kalman is an associate editor of Chief Learning Officer magazine.] -For more Articles and Information:  http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

The Changing Face of Leadership

-By Development Network- Social and economic circumstances in today's business environment have redefined what it takes to lead and who is considered a leader. These often opposing forces are disrupting organizations at all levels and are challenging the established roles, responsibilities and competencies leaders require. Empowered by technology, employees have changed the traditional corporate workflow. Now individuals are free to structure their work around their lives rather than the other way around. According to the 2011 "Cisco Connected World Technology Report," 56 percent of workers feel most productive away from their office. While three out of 10 college students view working remotely as a right rather than a privilege, this newfound freedom may not really be free. Trust is earned, not given. If learning leaders ask managers of mobile workers off the record whether they believe their employees are actually working eight hours a day, they will likely get a few blank stares. The mobile workforce is just one example of a growing gap between workers' expectations and organizational requirements, and this impacts leadership and leadership development. Front-line leaders' competencies are changing. According to the same Cisco study, cyber-security is another growing gap between younger and older workers. Three out of five young professionals surveyed claimed they do not consider themselves responsible for protecting corporate information and devices. Front-line leaders are caught in the middle of this growing divide and will need skills and support to reconcile the imbalance. Social media also may have a role in driving a wedge between the manager and his or her team. Though it has not necessarily found a home in corporate boardrooms, social media is influencing how workers think about involvement. Social technologies have given the individual a voice, allowing thoughts and ideas to flow without qualification or restriction. In the traditional workplace, opinions were tapered, but the expectations of social-savvy workers may not be. Front-line leaders will be asked to balance the competing expectations of their teams and the business. Learning leaders have to equip them to meet the challenge, and this is central to the competency discussion moving forward. Use collaboration to align team expectations and organizational requirements. Coaching and collaboration are key tools to engage social-savvy workers, according to Hallie Janssen, CEO of Anvil Media, a social media marketing firm. "Leading social-savvy workers is about creating appropriate expectations and establishing boundaries," she said. "Front-line leaders need to help employees translate their expectations from their online interactions into the workplace." Janssen recommends that managers use the collaborative process to help workers understand their span of credibility and get to the right result. "Validation in the social media world occurs through the recognition of peers. A blog post, for example, is validated when it is shared, liked or retweeted." In social media, interactions and opinions are shaped through the informal peer-review process. Janssen suggests using the same technique at work to engage ideas, validate opinions and vet solutions. Use focused response to meet market demands. Changing social expectations, however, is not confined to workers; expectations extend to the marketplace as well. Consumers are at home and at work, and they expect immediate, direct and appropriate responses to their needs. The market is engaged in dialogue. Customers and would-be buyers have infinite opportunity to rate products and services, blog their opinions or seek advice from peers as they engage in the buying process. Consequently, market expectations are growing, and customer-facing teams and their managers must be prepared to respond. So how do organizations cultivate front-line leaders who can meet expectations? The answer lies in the timing and training, according to Sharon Daniels, CEO of AchieveGlobal, a leadership, sales and service development firm. "The key for highly effective sales and service associates is to have them uncover and meet customers' needs at crucial defining moments, the times when a current customer or prospective buyer has the opportunity to judge an organization," Daniels said. "Activities that lead to successful service outcomes involve both strategy and skills that add value at every defining moment. This takes a focus on leadership." Daniels said that front-line leaders should be developed through coaching and training programs that elevate skills from transaction-based client interactions to experience-focused service. Informal leaders are important. Just as prevailing social forces have expanded the expectations for both worker and customer, the harsh economic realities of scarcity may make them equal. Time will tell whether the worst has passed, but either way it is unlikely that corporate coffers will open anytime soon. Many leaders are just getting comfortable with the new economic reality and starting to understand how it affects the organization and how they need to adapt their business strategy accordingly. Layers tend to fall off of organization charts during lean times. That affects how work gets done and how teams are managed. For instance, managers will have a greater span of control, and consequently, so do those beneath them. Informal leaders, who lack the title but shoulder the responsibility, spring up to meet the challenge, but they may not be prepared. Since they lead by default rather than selection, informal leaders are often overlooked and don't receive training and coaching commensurate with their responsibilities. Skills training in business acumen, problem-solving and negotiation as well as learning to work and communicate in a matrix environment are recommended to ensure informal leaders can face, and meet, challenges. "We should avoid the inevitable trial-by-fire and understand their strengths, weaknesses and career goals before we dump authority on them," said Maggie Walsh, vice president of leadership practice at The Forum Corp., a learning and strategic business firm. "The ability of an individual to step up and take on the characteristics of a leader is not merely an issue of will and skill; success depends on the commitment of their manager," she said. "Managers need to coach informal leaders through the process. They need to be clear about expectations, let them know that they don't have to be perfect, and most importantly guide them through any performance challenges they might encounter." In flattened organizational structures, roles and responsibilities tend to overlap as resources are load-balanced and matrix teams emerge. Walsh said communication is the key to avoid duplication of work and the friction that occurs when responsibilities blur. "Managers must help formal and informal leaders understand how to communicate more effectively in a matrix environment," she said. "Peers need to know how to contract with colleagues to clearly establish and communicate the alignment of terms, roles and responsibilities, and decision rights. Ambiguity creates friction and so formal, as well as informal, leaders need to invest in communication early and often." Commit senior management to efficiency. "When resources and work don't reconcile, then something has got to give," said J. LeRoy Ward, executive vice president of product strategy and management at ESI International, a project-focused training organization. Ward said efficient business processes and strong project and portfolio methodology are good places for senior managers to start. "With limited resources, business leaders cannot afford to continue performing the same functions in the same way if they are going to survive in an environment of scarcity," he said. "They must be able to discern what is core to the needs of the business, what is secondary and what is non-essential, then redesign functional responsibilities and business processes accordingly." A focus on efficiency and steady-state processes is important - status quo does not tend to advance the organization. As marketplace complexity grows due to globalization and highly integrated solutions, today's organizations are increasingly propelled forward by projects. "Research for a new product, development of a game-changing software application or construction of enabling infrastructure all require projects to make them happen, and business leaders have an important role to play," Ward said. Project sponsorship and portfolio management are two of the primary functions senior managers fulfill in the process, according to Ward. "As a project sponsor, leaders ensure that their projects are delivering on their stated objectives, and that project management best practices are being utilized from project planning to project closeout. As portfolio managers, senior leaders rank and prioritize projects based on the firm's objectives and then ensure that resources are allocated accordingly." Therefore, understanding and utilizing best practices in these areas is a critical competency for senior managers in today's environment. The L&D Response Leaders at all levels are walking a thin line as they struggle to balance employees' and customers' growing expectations with the realities of constricted resources. Many of these challenges are not new to the organization, but they are often new to the leaders facing them. Learning and development organizations will play a critical role in supporting all levels of management as roles, responsibilities and competency requirements shift to meet these evolving challenges. L&D leaders need to assess their workforces more often and adapt their learning and development strategies to meet the changing requirements. Front-line leaders are caught in the middle of competing expectations and need strong business acumen, communication skills and a collaborative mindset to understand organizational goals, communicate effectively with their teams and navigate expectations to reach desired business outcomes. Increasing market demands mean that client-facing teams and their front-line leaders will need to be situationally aware and capable of uncovering and meeting customer needs at the critical points of impact. Informal leaders perhaps represent the greatest opportunity for L&D engagement. They often go unrecognized and are subjected to trial-by-fire development. Given their neglect and their growing importance in the organization, many will require foundational leadership development, a better understanding of how to communicate in a matrix environment and a broader understanding of the business. Out of necessity, senior leaders are recommitting themselves to efficiency, and in many cases are revisiting their skill sets. Though leaders at this level tend to have strong business acumen and communication skills, many lack some of the higher-function competencies in process improvement, systems thinking and project and portfolio management. These areas represent a great opportunity for the L&D organization to re-engage with its senior leadership. [About the Author: Mark Bashrum is vice president of corporate marketing and strategic intelligence at ESI International.]

10 Body Language Tips

-By Development Network- EYE  contact is one of the most important aspects of dealing with others, especially people we've just met. Maintaining good eye contact shows respect and interest in what they have to say. Here in the UK we tend to keep eye contact around 60-70% of the time. (However, there are wide cultural differences, so be careful in other countries) By doing this you won't make the other people feel self conscious, like they've got a bit of vegetable stuck between their teeth or a dew drop hanging from the nose. . Instead, it will give them a feeling of comfort and genuine warmth in your company, any more eye contact than this and you can be too intense, any less and you give off a signal that you are lacking interest in them or their conversation. POSTURE  is the next thing to master, get your posture right and you'll automatically start feeling better, as it makes you feel good almost instantly. Next time you notice you're feeling a bit down, take a look at how your standing or sitting. Chances are you'll be slouched over with your shoulders drooping down and inward. This collapses the chest and inhibits good breathing, which in turn can help make you feel nervous or uncomfortable. HEAD  position is a great one to play around with, with yourself and others. When you want to feel confident and self assured keep your head level both horizontally and vertically. You can also use this straight head position when you want to be authoritative and what you're saying to be taken seriously. Conversely, when you want to be friendly and in the listening, receptive mode, tilt your head just a little to one side or other. You can shift the tilt from left to right at different points in the conversation. ARMS  give away the clues as to how open and receptive we are to everyone we meet and interact with, so keep your arms out to the side of your body or behind your back. This shows you are not scared to take on whatever comes your way and you meet things "full frontal". In general terms the more outgoing you are as a person, the more you tend to use your arms with big movements. The quieter you are the less you move your arms away from your body. So, try to strike a natural balance and keep your arm movements midway. When you want to come across in the best possible light, crossing the arms is a no, no in front of others. Obviously if someone says something that gets your goat, then by all means show your disapproval by crossing them ! LEGS  are the furthest point away from the brain, consequently they're the hardest bits of our bodies to consciously control. They tend move around a lot more than normal when we are nervous, stressed or being deceptive. So best to keep them as still as possible in most situations, especially at interviews or work meetings. Be careful too in the way you cross your legs. Do you cross at the knees, ankles or bring your leg up to rest on the knee of the other? This is more a question of comfort than anything else. Just be aware that the last position mentioned is known as the "Figure Four" and is generally perceived as the most defensive leg cross, especially if it happens as someone tells a you something that might be of a slightly dubious nature, or moments after. (As always, look for a sequence) ANGLE OF THE BODY  in relation to others gives an indication of our attitudes and feelings towards them. We angle toward people we find attractive, friendly and interesting and angle ourselves away from those we don't, it's that simple! Angles includes leaning in or away from people, as we often just tilt from the pelvis and lean sideways to someone to share a bit of conversation. For example, we are not in complete control of our angle at the cinema because of the seating nor at a concert when we stand shoulder to shoulder and are packed in like sardines. In these situations we tend to lean over towards the other person. HAND  gestures are so numerous it's hard to give a brief guide but here goes. Palms slightly up and outward is seen as open and friendly. Palm down gestures are generally seen as dominant, emphasizing and possibly aggressive, especially when there is no movement or bending between the wrist and the forearm. This palm up, palm down is very important when it comes to handshaking and where appropriate we suggest you always offer a handshake upright and vertical, which should convey equality. DiSTANCE FROM OTHERS  is crucial if you want to give off the right signals. Stand too close and you'll be marked as "Pushy" or "In your face". Stand or sit too far away and you'll be "Keeping your distance" or "Stand offish". Neither are what we want, so observe if in a group situation how close are all the other people to each other. Also notice if you move closer to someone and they back away, you're probably just a tiny bit too much in their personal space, their comfort zone. "You've overstepped the mark" and should pull back a little. EARS , yes your ears play a vital role in communication with others, even though general terms most people can't move them much, if at all. However, you've got two ears and only one mouth, so try to use them in that order. If you listen twice as much as you talk you come across as a good communicator who knows how to strike up a balanced a conversation without being me, me, me or the wallflower. MOUTH  movements can give away all sorts of clues. We purse our lips and sometimes twist them to the side when we're thinking. Another occasion we might use this movement is to hold back an angry comment we don't wish to reveal. Nevertheless, it will probably be spotted by other people and although they may not know the comment, they will get a feeling you were not to pleased. There are also different types of SMiLES and each gives off a corresponding feeling to its recipient which we'll cover next time. With Best Regards, V Chacko Jacob -For more Articles and Information:   http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

Action Learning for Teams

-by Development Network-   Action learning programs provide multiple beneficial outcomes, including:   a) Team effectiveness. b) Analysis of the leadership capabilities of individual team members. c) Individual leadership development. d) Problem-solving and planning on a real-time business issue.   Offsite team building programs are increasingly unpopular with many business leaders who want to spend their team's time on more immediate work matters. Employees seem to agree: A recent study by mobile phone company Vodafone UK and market research company YouGov found most employees believe that team-building exercises are a waste of time and involve embarrassing exercises that fail to build morale and engagement.   In the past, team building experiences were often scheduled activities using simulation, game play and immersion experiences to help a team develop awareness and better communication and partnering skills. Many learning leaders encouraged these activities believing they would jump-start success in the office. But the days of "trust falls" and multiple-day adventures in the wild are over.   Andrea Weinzimer, vice president of human resources at publishing company Hachette Book Group, said, "there is not enough long-term benefit to justify the financial spend. It's hard to measure its success and correlate it to the business."   "Today's context requires that the business see more immediate and tangible value from an offsite [event]," said Judy Jackson, chief talent officer of Digitas, an integrated brand agency. "We need to remove all the clutter and show the ROI of the efforts."   Further, only including a portion of the workforce can hurt engagement for employees not involved. It also sends a poor message when a few employees get to go on expensive retreats and the workforce is dealing with declining salary increases.   Instead of pulling a team out of work to build collaborative skills, leaders can use offsite meetings to do real work on strategic planning, problem-solving or other long-term needs that require in-depth thinking.   Action learning provides an opportunity to combine the real work objectives of an important offsite event with the beneficial outcomes of a reflective team-building experience. Many companies such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, IBM and GE also use action learning for high-potential employees as part of leadership development initiatives which include other elements such as 360s, executive coaching and MBA programs. This high potential-focused action learning also may include real-time project assignments focused on company business with time built in for reflection on how the participants perform as leaders in high-pressure, problem-solving environments.   Jackson employs action learning for high potentials at Digitas to "give them an opportunity to influence and have their voices heard on something important to the business, while building a community of partners in the learning process."   How to Conduct Action Learning for Teams   Action learning for teams can be especially effective if a team's leader is looking for multiple outcomes from an offsite meeting beyond the defined business goals. These might include better team communication, more effective partnerships between team members, more team synergy and agreement between members in conflict.   If key business challenges are the focus - such as realigning a sales process, integrating a new acquisition or fixing a client service problem - the core business goals which precipitated the need for an offsite meeting become the central problem-solving element of the action learning process.   In this context, the team is taught to approach the work assignment differently. For instance, most teams will move quickly into a brainstorming process when an issue is presented. When brainstorming, individuals drive forward with a degree of certainty negotiating their perspective. With action learning, the team moves forward with curiosity, wanting to uncover the best approach by asking great questions. The question before statements approach of action learning can drive higher-level strategic work.   Lynn Pinkus Lewis, executive vice president and global managing partner at Universal McCann, an advertising agency, used action learning for an important offsite event focused on planning a client initiative. "We accomplished very strategic work at a higher level than anyone anticipated," she said.   The question-based approach to problem solving invites participants to probe deeper and ensures that they think through the implications of their decisions. Bill Guerin, senior vice president of sales, marketing and strategy at Prudential Group Insurance, used action learning as a management consultant. "[It] gets people to think differently and break old habits by forcing them to look at an issue from many new perspectives. This helps to reinforce trust within the group because a participant sees the other members of the team stretching themselves. This gives him or her permission to stretch too."   Through this process, team members learn to communicate their individual perspectives to the other participants and build on their partners' ideas. The work process includes reflection on the quality of their communication, questions and listening while evaluating the work process. The team also analyzes how well members are partnering as a team and fixes gaps as the work continues.   This reflection occurs during the process, providing more meaning to each participant since the feedback from peers and a coach is in close proximity to the expressed behavior. Individuals learn and grow in self-awareness while the team develops techniques to improve its effectiveness.   Building an action learning team typically involves the following steps:   1. Set the team challenge: The team leader designs an opening question or problem statement for the team's action learning process. The challenge should be a real business issue that impacts the participants so they feel engaged and concerned about the outcomes. It is important that contextual analysis occurs so the facilitator understands the organization's strategy, culture and leadership gaps.   2. Conduct pre-session learning planning and assessment: Each person participates in an assessment process, typically through psychometric tools, and meets with the facilitator to discuss individual learning plans. This orients participants to reflect upon their style vis-a-vis the team. At the same time, the facilitator gathers information about the team's effectiveness to prepare a team assessment report to be shared at the meeting. This team analysis will include specific development goals for the session, and it should help to expose any team issues.   3. Create an action learning program: The process typically is managed in two days broken into specific steps. The steps include:   a) Restate the problem statement. The team vets the presented challenge for relevance, importance and accuracy. This principle here is to ask the right question to get the right answer. Guerin said, "This process moves away from a typical deterministic view that occurs at offsites. It offers a place for innovation and helps people confront areas of personal weakness."   b) Determine assumptions behind the issue. The team outlines the assumptions behind the challenge to determine if there are any hidden risks that need to be exposed and considered before moving forward.   c) Set goals that would solve the issue at hand. Learning how to create goals is a key dimension to the action learning process. The goals provide an opportunity to identify the desired end state.   d) Set specific tasks to realize the goals. The team identifies specific, clear tasks needed to be accomplished to reach the desired end state.   e) Create an accountability matrix. The list of tasks is placed into an accountability matrix, which includes enumeration of each task's owner, partner, resource, next step, date for next step and date for total completion of the task. Then the team is given clear assignments, which include sub-teams partnering to drive the group forward to the desired end state.   f) Offer post-action learning feedback: Once the program is completed, each participant should sit with the facilitator or coach for feedback. This in-depth feedback reveals potential blind spots and offers coaching on how to better interact with this team and in team settings in general.   4. The team leader should participate in the entire process: Unlike action learning for high potentials where an executive sponsor delivers the assignment at the beginning and receives a presentation on the team's work at the end, the leader of the intact team stays engaged as a total team member from start to finish.   Leadership development consultant Peter Prichard shared an experience where action learning benefited a team leader who habitually rescued his team in challenging times. "In this process, he learned how to not step in and save the group when they were struggling with the exercise," Prichard said. "This forced him to be comfortable with silence and learn to trust that the team could end up delivering the output together. He stepped back, and they were able to step up."   At the end of the process, the team leader takes ownership of the accountability matrix, making sure the team's activities are well managed and completed in light of agreements made at the offsite event. All of the follow-up steps can be measured by the leader who can clearly determine if the offsite event delivered positive outcomes. The leader also receives post-session aggregate analysis from the facilitator about the team's needs and how the leader can best manage each member. This additional information creates opportunities for the team leader to act as a coach.   5. Sustainability is the key to this learning process: Because active reflection continues throughout the process, which takes about two full days, the team learns how to perfect its working relationship, which can be used when members return to their offices or gather again for significant decision-making moments.   With action learning, busy teams that cannot step away for team building interventions can still produce multiple ROIs from one offsite program.     [About the Author: Paul Gorrell is founding principal of Progressive Talent Partners LLC, an executive coaching, team effectiveness and leadership development firm based in New York City.] -For more Articles and Information:  http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/

6 Ways Your Business Is Underachieving and How to Fix Them!

-By Development Network- Many companies who have good people working for them fail every year. Take a look at this list of the 6 Most Common Ways that a perfectly viable business on paper, underachieves in reality. 1. Strategy No matter how great your strategy is at the executive level, if you don't communicate a clear vision supported by the companies mission with departmental goals and objectives clearly defined right down the line they won't be implemented! It is a myth that all leaders are born, not made and adult learning is a crucial component in training your managers in how to motivate the staff through good communication and effective management strategies. A short course of thought mapping for Employee Leadership Training will bring permanent benefits and ensure that your managers have the skills to implement the corporate strategy on which your business success depends. 2. Tactics Strategy and tactics are constantly confused and this may cause friction and poor performance from good employees who feel frustrated by the poor organization of these important functions. Mind Mapping brain-based education allows employers to get to grips with organizational problems and streamline their whole operation through a series of steps and participatory exercises aimed at drawing upon the experiential knowledge the employees already posses. 3. Decision making During plenary sessions, it is obvious that many companies have not carefully thought out a rational basis for decision-making. Brain based education and concept mapping brings all of these types of problems out into the open and provide training on how to develop a common process upon which to base all important decisions. This can make a huge difference to annual profits, as costly mistakes cease to drain away money. Concept mapping teaches executives and managers the importance of basing their decisions on solid market research, customer feedback and the opinions of the shop-floor/office workers. 4. Creativity Do you really know how much hidden creativity there is within your organization's pool of personnel? (This resource of knowledge is also referred to intellectual capital.) Well, you should find out because if you have people on your payroll who are not given a chance to contribute to the business unit within which they work and or the overall operation and development of innovative new products you are just wasting their talent and your investment in them on all levels. The idea that only a few special people can be creative is misleading. The multitude of special points of view that your whole staff can offer should all go into the mix, because innovation demands novel ideas. Concept mapping focuses on showing all workers how to develop their creativity and contribute to the overall success of their organization. Progress happens because people want to find ways of solving problems and most professional inventors may think of hundreds of impractical ideas before they hit on a solid solution. Therefore, logic dictates that the more different, divergent and creative ideas that come from a wider variety of perspectives, this will lead to more alternative solutions to any project or initiative under consideration. People from different cultures, traditions and countries may well be able to approach a production or design problem with just the right idea that sparks the development of a highly profitable innovation. 5. Underachieving staff If your staff is underachieving don't accept the situation - change it! Poor staff retention costs U.S. industry millions of dollars each year. Education should not suddenly stop in our twenties and leave adults to deal with everything that life and work throw at them. Mind Mapping sessions for personnel have been tremendously successful in recent years as an aid to stimulating personal development and self-awareness. Self-awareness encourages people to seek ways to change behavior that brings negative outcomes while applying creative solutions to any given issue. Thought mapping sessions provide a non-judgmental and safe environment for any problems to be discussed openly. This is vital to the success of any business, because if problems are not shared they cannot be resolved. Problem solving strategies can be introduced into the general workplace through brain-based education applications, which employees appreciate for the improvement it brings in their working atmosphere and subsequent morale rises. 6. Accountability When things are not being done because clear accountability has not been established or the wrong people are getting the rewards, or punishments - performance, production and morale all suffer. Leaders must lead from the front by example and enforce with accountability via rewards and innovative strategies that Mind Mapping can bring to your business will emphasize your full support for your employees! Trusting that this message reaches you in good health Ronald M Allen Author Speaker Consultant http://www.ronaldmallen.com http://ronaldmallen.com/daily-thoughts/ For More Articles and Information:  http://www.developmentnetwork.co.nr/