Archive for the ‘Current Affairs’ Category

The recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has many business owners and executives extremely concerned.  Using their unchecked powers, the NLRB is requiring all businesses, starting on November 1st, to have a mandatory posting reminding employees of their right to unionize.  This posting must also appear on any inter or intranet sites if personnel rules and policies are customarily posted there.

As a founder and entrepreneur the over reaching actions of the NLRB immediately make my blood boil.  In fact, why don’t we all send engraved invitations to union organizers!  The one big enemy of unions…happy and fully engaged employees.  I can guarantee that the employees of companies known for their strong culture and employee engagement aren’t sweating over this recent ruling because their employees have no reason to want a union.

So for any of you out there who are concerned that your employees maybe calling local union organizers after November 1st, I would start making changes now.

This is a repost of a blog done a couple of years ago. enjoy!

As we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many of us will remember his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963.  This speech demonstrated two critical leadership principles: Vision and Effective Communication.

 Vision and Effective Communication

As a leader, having a vision is critical to your leadership success.  It means declaring the state of your company’s future and what will be accomplished.  In the book Good to Great by Jim Collins, Collins uses the acronym BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to refer to a vision statement.  A vision must be clear, concise, and appeal to those who are being led.  It must also define what success looks like, so when success is attained everyone knows when to celebrate.

 For Dr. King, his vision, as declared in his August 1963 speech, was powerful and clear: that all people are created equal: 

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

Effective communication is another necessary factor leading to great leadership.  Without effective communication, a vision will never have a chance to become reality.  The ability to clearly communicate the future and how it can be achieved is essential to great leadership.  Effective communication must also provide consistent messages that are repeated multiple times.  People are more likely to remember ideas they consistently are made aware of over time.

What would have happened if Dr. King chose to sit at home thinking about his vision and not sharing it with others during his many passionate speeches and writings?  Would his vision have ever been reached?  I would still like to think so.  However, Dr. King would not be remembered as the great leader that he was.

Although Dr. King was clearly a great speaker and communicator, as a successful leader you don’t have to reach the level of oratory that Dr. King had during his life.  What you do need is to be committed and passionate when you communicate, so that those who are made aware of your message believe in your ideas and vision.  The questions below will help you rate both your vision and your communications effectiveness.

Rating Your Vision

Do you have a vision, or BHAG, that includes:

1)     a clear picture of the future,

2)     a definition of success, and

3)     a rallying point for employees?

Can your employees convey your company’s vision from memory? And, do they know how the company will accomplish it?

If you are unable to answer ‘yes’ to all the questions above, you may need to revisit your company’s vision statement, and/or create a communications plan for your vision.

Rating Your Communications Effectiveness

When communicating to employees, do you:

1)     make the message relevant to the receiver (employee),

2)     ask employee(s) for their understanding of the message,

3)     communicate the same message multiple times, and

4)     deliver the same message in multiple formats: verbally (phone, face-to- face), written (hard copy, electronic copy), and visually (pictures, graphs, charts, movies)?

If you are unable to answer ‘yes’ to all the questions above, then you need to develop a concise message and determine a communications timeline for delivering your message using each of the communications formats in #4 above.  Using multiple communications methods are important because different people have different learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinetic.  The more times people receive your message, the more likely they will remember it and the more they will believe in it.

On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, celebrate his life by implementing the leadership principles of vision and effective communication that he valued and utilized into your own daily leadership practices.

A recent interview with Tiger Wood’s new coach provides smoe great tips for changing behavior.  The specifics of golf, for someone who is not a golfer, is not the important message in this article. As an executive coach to many business owners, what I found to be important in this article was the idea of keeping things simple and teaching/coaching in a minimalist way.  It also reminded me of the importance of your emotions and thoughts when dealing with change.

When trying to make adjustments to your leadership style, how are your emotions impacting your ability to make the necessary adjustments to enhance your leadership performance?

You can read the whole interview here. http://bit.ly/fQpaBi

A recent article in Talent Management Magazine reports that the number of people quitting their jobs rose to 2.1 million in April. Skilled professionals are one of the fastest growing  segments of the workforce who are quiting.

According to the article, the level of effective leadership perceived by employees can impact whether an employee would consider leaving a job or not.

http://talentmgt.com/talent.php?pt=a&aid=1280

So what are you doing to become more effective in your leadership and how is your company developing leadership talent? If you don’t have answers to these questions, you may start losing key employees. Don’t wait, have a plan.

Yes, it is a huge disaster and they have yet to find a solution but why has it taken so long? I believe it is lack of leadership. BP is a huge company with billions of dollars of resources and I am sure a huge risk management department and yet they seem to be making up solutions day to day.

As a leader what learnings can you take from their disaster which will make your company stronger and more resilient? How are decisions made in your organization? Can improvements be made to the decision making process that would eliminate the risk of potential disasters to your organization?

Somewhere along the way BP’s decision making and risk management processes failed. If you and your leadership team haven’t already analyzed these areas within your company now is the time.  Don’t wait for a disaster, plan for one, put contingency and multiple back up plans in place and be accountable for both the successes and disasters.

Here are some resources to kick start the process:

http://www.ready.gov/business/_downloads/sampleplan.pdf

http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_disprep_planningguide.pdf

As we prepare for children to show up at our front doors yelling “trick or treat”, I can’t help but think how this tradition has permeated our society. As a child, I don’t remember my parents going to Halloween parties, it was a child’s only holiday. No longer is Halloween just for children, it is for adults as well. What is it about Halloween that makes adults want to dress up as an alter ego, super hero or politician? And more importantly, does the costume a person choose give us clues about their personality and preferences in life that may help us to understand each other better?

Or am I just being over analytical? Should I just forget about trying to figure out this change in the importance of Halloween to adults and find my next costume? Or should I be worried about the costume I choose for fear that there are others like me who will try analyze my choice of costumes?

I don’t know about you but I am so weary of the acrimony in congress about the healthcare bill. Up until recently I felt like both sides were acting like children, neither party wanted to “play nice”. Then I started to think more about how our government is organized and how bills actually become law which makes me wonder if our government system is flawed.

Now I know I just angered some of you but before you start sending me hate email, please let me explain what has lead me to this thought. It all stems from the difference between compromise and collaboration. I recently read a post about the differences between compromise and collaboration http://bit.ly/4zYmWd .

After reading this, it became clear to me that our government system of having two legislative groups, the house and the senate, and the process of two different bills going through resolution is basically a form of compromise. Our laws are all about compromise and not collaboration. Compromise is when people or groups of people are working from their own set of perspectives and beliefs which leads to a solution that is less than optimal, often watered down and in some cases worse than no solution.

What would it take for congress to move to a more collaborative law making process? And is it possible with the way that our government is currently governed? I think our system gets in the way of optimal laws being passed.

It really makes me wonder how much stronger our country could be if ALL of our politicians could set aside their individual long standing beliefs by becoming aware of their filters that mold these beliefs. What would a collaborative solution to healthcare look like if each politician could step into the shoes of the opposing side and take into account multiple perspectives versus only theirs? How can they do this within the current governmental framework?

I have to believe that the solution would be a much stronger one that would solve the real problem-rising healthcare costs. None of the “solutions” on the table right now address this issue.

As a child, Labor Day always meant the end of summer and a return to school. Since moving to the south over 25 years ago, where children return to school much earlier than in New England and the heat doesn’t subside until October, the meaning has changed for me.

This got me thinking about how this holiday originally started. Below is a link to the history of the holiday and the importance it had many years ago.

http://www.dol.gov/OPA/ABOUTDOL/LABORDAY.HTM

How important is Labor Day to you compared to the individuals and groups responsible for creating the holiday? Is it just another holiday? What traditions do you have for this holiday? And, do you think that it should be revitalized so the citizens of this country fully understand its history and meaning?

As the H1N1, Swine Flu, gains momentum, the government recently launched guidelines for businesses on how to prepare as we move closer to the winter months.

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/workplaceplanning/guidance.html

As a business leader, how will you communicate your plan that will provide employees with the necessary and appropriate information? And as the flu spreads, what plans do you have to adjust and adapt your communications to maintain calm within the workforce?

How will you be perceived as a leader during the crisis and the ensuing months afterwards? Employees will be looking and listening intently to you, make sure you have a plan and be ready to adjust based on changes in the flu pandemic.

As the protests unfold in Iran, my thoughts go to the companies I have worked with over the years who have created a similar environment. Yes, you read it correctly. There are some companies who are like Iran who have penalized those who have spoken out with opinions not aligned with leadership. Now of course, no one has lost their life speaking out in a company here in the US. But they have been penalized and while they have been penalized the company penalizing them has often received payback. What kind of payback?… lack of innovation and loss of great employees

Are you leading or employed by one of these companies? And if so what was the impact on you and the organization?

What I’ve observed is companies who have not made it safe for employees to share their views, opinions, and ideas that oppose the company’s views generally lack creativity and loose many A players over time to competitors. Why? Because A players want their opinions to be heard and considered in planning and decision making and without A players’ team creativity is limited.

How not to be Iran

So if you’re experiencing Iran syndrome, what should you do? Start with open communication and admitting to your team that you want to make some changes to encourage open dialogue AND you need to be sincere and genuine in your delivery. If your employees sense a false desire in change, there will be a huge backfire. Employees need to understand that the rules have really changed Without this their open communication won’t happen.

And of course actions are stronger than words. So what you say needs to be demonstrated by actions supporting the words The next step is to ask questions and listen to employees opinions during meetings. If you should start defending your position, employees will shut down. You will have demonstrated that there no change has occurred. Also, be aware of using the “yes, but” technique which many leaders often use because, you know, they’re always right!. As Marshall Goldsmith identified in his book “What got you here, Won’t get you there” using this technique will create resentment by those receiving the response and will stifle open discussions. And without open discussions an organization will slowly die because original thought is not valued by leadership. Make sure everyone has an opportunity to speak and give their ideas. And don’t let one person dominate the conversation. Introverts need to be invited into the conversation and often provide a perspective that hasn’t been heard.

What if you think the conclusion is heading in the wrong direction? Before jumping in and sharing your opinion, and thus shutting the conversation down, ask yourself how important is the decision? Is it critical to the success of your company or the project? If the answer is yes, then start asking open ended questions to get participants to think of alternative solutions, remember that their solution may not be your solution and that another solution is okay if it provides a similar not exact result.

Continue to open your mind to alternative solutions during the process. And here is the key part of the process, when you hear an idea you like, bite your tongue and let the conversation continue. Let the team continue on to their own consensus. If they come to their own solution, they will own the solution and be more committed to making the solution a success.

In Summary

So if you want to be competitive and retain your high potential employees, create a safe environment for employee to share their own opinions, ask questions, listen, ask more questions until they come to their own solution that they will own and be committed to successfully completing.