Posts Tagged ‘Goals’

Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of leaders many who have displayed specific leadership shortfalls, that when improved, have had a positive impact on the effectiveness and profitability of the organization. Both new and experienced manager/leaders can make these top five mistakes, which one is your Achilles heel? And what is your plan to improve?

1. Focusing on the Urgent and not the Important

How much time are you spending on activities that lead to your goals versus those that are urgent and unexpected?  You would be surprised how many leaders fall into this trap. And it is a trap. In fact, I have worked with some leaders who get their “energy” from working in crisis mode.

The key is to set aside time on the calendar that is only for the important activities, and have the activities clearly prioritized so that when an urgent item is screaming at you, you can logically decide what important task can be set aside.

We all have crises, yet more often than not we move right into crisis mode before thinking through what can be moved off our plate of “importants”. Create a process that works for you in which you can smoothly move from the urgent and then back to the important.  Don’t get stuck in the urgent.

2. Lack of Consistent Communication

As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as over communication in the work place. If I had a nickel for every time a leader said to me “I told the company our (project, goal, etc), yet two weeks later they have totally forgotten the conversation”, I’d be a very wealthy person.

In this age of information overload, employees have a lot to file away and process. Communications should be implemented frequently and consistently using a variety of methods since people have different learning styles.  With the huge menu of communication technologies available to companies, messages should be delivered in person, electronically in written, audio, and video, as well as the old fashioned way, printed hard copy. For more on this topic from Harvard Business Review http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6629.html

3. Ineffective Feedback

This is a result of providing delayed and unclear feedback. It often starts by ignoring the “small stuff” with the hope that the behavior won’t happen again. More often than not, the behavior is repeated, and becomes tolerated. And it can lead to conflict avoidance by a manager.

The best time to provide feedback is immediately after the behavior is observed. Be clear about what you observed, how it impacted you, and ask for ideas from your employee about how they could approach it in the future. And then get their commitment to make the change. This process focuses more on the future as the past can’t be changed, only the future. For more thoughts on this visit http://www.executivevelocityblog.com/feedback-is-not-a-help/

And for innovative ideas on moving away from the traditional performance review feedback, read an article from Daniel Pink http://bit.ly/lJdmJk

4. Failing to Define Clear Goals

Employees need to understand how they will be measured and evaluated. Defining clear goals provides a roadmap for the employee. And more importantly, when an employee is part of her goal setting process, she has more ownership in successfully attaining her goals. Without goals, employees will not meet your performance expectations because they don’t know what they are.

For additional information on creating clear goals visit http://www.executive-velocity.com/free-tools/

5. Misunderstanding Motivation

After reading, Daniel Pink’s recent book Drive, I am convinced that leaders really need to rethink how they operate and create an environment that provides the foundation for employees to be intrinsically motivated. Too often managers think that changing the extrinsic motivators will lead to a change in behavior, and they can.  The problem is that the change is not long term and sustainable.

Once you have met an employee’s baseline extrinsic motivators, salary and benefits, you should focus on creating a foundation that encourages, autonomy, mastery, and purpose. As Pink describes in his book, all humans are driven by these three attributes.

Autonomy is all about control of tasks, time, technique, and team. Mastery is providing an opportunity to get very good at something and to continue the process and understanding that you will never be perfect.  It is the pursuit of perfection that motivates. And finally purpose, working for some greater good and not just profit.  Profit provides a means for a company’s purpose.  It is this final attribute that is found more often in smaller, entrepreneurial companies who are lead by younger leaders.

So which of these leadership mistakes would your team members say you exhibit?  And what is your plan of action to develop a way of avoiding these mistakes in the future?

Are you preparing for your annual executive retreat? Will you get the necessary return on investment from the multiple days that you and your executive team spend huddled in a conference room?

One way to get the meeting off to a quick start is to have each participant create his or her own SWOT analysis.  This will provide a starting point for discussion and collaboration. You can download a SWOT template at http://www.executive-velocity.com/free-tools/ .

Once each team member has presented their SWOTs, you can identify duplicates and combine the lists during your strategy session.  Have a facilitator work with the group to build consensus around the combined list. Once you have your finished SWOT analysis you can begin the business planning process.

Another resource for planning that I have used comes from the book,  Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish.  Verne provides a great one page strategic planning format which you can use once you have developed your SWOT analysis. Just go to www.gazelles.com and you’ll be able to download the form for free.

The ultimate goal of the planning session is to have each participant be able to clearly articulate what they are accountable and responsible for the next year AND how their initiatives will impact the overall success of the organization.

Recently, I have had several executive coaching conversations with business leaders who have complained that they weren’t accomplishing enough.  One leader felt as if she would never get through her “to do” list. But as the conversation progressed she was able to list out many things that she had accomplished, yet an item was always followed by a “but”, totally negating the previous accomplishment in her mind.

Does this scenario sound familiar to you?  At the end of a long week, do you feel as if the week flew by and you didn’t accomplish what you had wanted?

Here are a few simple steps to break this self-defeating cycle.

1. Delegate: your list of tasks.  What HAS to be done by you and what can you delegate to those around you? Then delegate tasks.
2. Prioritize: Now look at the remaining tasks on the list.  What is really important versus what is urgent? How long has each task been on your list? Identify the important top three tasks and focus on these items first. Always tackle the important, most impactful items first.
3. Eliminate Roadblocks: If there is a task that has been on the list longer than a month, why is it still there?  What is holding you back? Who can help you get past the roadblocks?
4. Recognize Accomplishments: And finally, at the end of each week write down those accomplishments and successes, however small, that you can claim victory on. Remember that like a small stream that leads into a large river, small accomplishments lead to much larger ones!

Take some time today to incorporate this process into your week, and stop beating yourself up!

In the October 2009 edition of Chief Learning Officer, Michael D Watkins’ article The Eight Toughest Transitions for Leaders outlined the top transitions that most business leaders have to navigate through during their career. The transitions are:

• Promotion
• Leading former peers
• Diplomacy (authority versus influence)
• New organization
• International move
• Organizational turnaround
• Corporate strategy realignment
• Business portfolio change

Watkins suggests that in order for a leader to transition successfully, a leader must be competent in adapting his personal style and competencies, as well as focus on the organization’s needs to build a plan for organizational growth.

IDENTIFYING NEEDED CHANGES

This past year has brought change to a great many leaders, what changes and transitions did you make in 2009? How would you rate your ability to adapt personally and organizationally?

Looking into this coming year, here are some questions to ponder and help you with your leadership success.

1. Given your experience and leadership strengths, what do you need to do more of and less of?
2. What new skills do you need to learn? What is your plan to obtain them?
3. What adjustments do you need to make with your communications, delegation, decision making, team building, and trusted network of advisors?

The quality of the answers to these self-reflective questions is contingent on your level of self-awareness. Some of us are more self-aware of our strengths and weaknesses than others, so I always recommend that in addition to answering these questions use at least one other technique:

Leadership Assessments such as Hogan Leadership Survey, or Observational Feedback can add insight into needed changes Assessments provide an unbiased view of your behaviors while observational feedback can provide you with information on how individuals view your key competencies as a leader as compared to the organization’s leadership competency model.

PLANNING TO IMPLEMENT CHANGE

Now that you’ve identified the changes you need to make, a development plan needs to be created. Creating a solid plan with SMART goals and implementing the plan are critical to leadership because in the end, unless you actually make the necessary changes success will not be in your future.

This is often the time when I and other executive coaches are asked for assistance. Co-developing the plan with the leader and coaching the leader effectively through the necessary behavioral changes are effective to creating sustainable change. Using an internal coach is also effective.The advantage to an internal coach is their organizational knowledge while the disadvantage is the potential concern of the executive being coached of confidentiality. Whatever your choice is, internal or external, coaching will provide you with a systematic and proven method to create long term change.

CONCLUSION

So if you are like most leaders, you and your organization has to adapt to the economic changes that have occurred over the last 18 months. Adapting requires changes both personally as well as organizationally.Personal changes first need to be identified by you, others around you, and an assessment tool. Then a development plan should be created and a coach identified to work with you for sustainable change.

“This is a quick read and a great overview to coaching. It outlines a coaching model GROW that can be used by managers who want to embrace coaching to improve performance, purpose, and/or meaning of their employees. It also explores team and corporation coaching.

GROW is the acronym for Goal, Reality, Options, and What will you do? The model stresses Awareness and Responsibility as the critical factors to learning and change.”

http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Performance-People-Skills-Professionals/dp/1857883039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243802116&sr=1-1

With the world changing at a faster pace annually, there are times when many of us think and feel as if we were treading water and not learning. And when we look back at our accomplishments, we can’t clearly define what behaviors, skills, knowledge, and traits helped us to achieve our goals.

One key trait extraordinary leaders have is the desire and ability to continuously improve and learn, allowing them to adjust to the changing global economy. Learning is ongoing and incremental, with each increment often being so slight that we really have to be looking for the learning.

Why Journal?

A learning journal, when implemented on a consistent daily basis can help us to capture our learning by creating a time to be self reflective of the days’ experiences and connect them to specific learning that took place, however small and seemingly unimportant.. It can provide an awareness of our learning by knowing that at the end of a day we will be taking time and energy to add to our learning journal.

By writing and tracking our progress, we are able to review our progress at any point in time. This is a great tool when you may be questioning your progression. Journaling can also help you to focus on your strengths, and determine what limitations, you are improving that will have a positive impact on your performance. And, you will begin to see trends on how you best learn and develop so you can incorporate the right learning opportunities into your day.

As the days, weeks, and months of journaling come together you will be able to identify behaviors that work and don’t work for you as it relates to your work performance and personal life. As your capacity builds, you will be able to take on new and bigger challenges which will provide the development situations to increase your effectiveness.

How do I start?

Journaling is a commitment, a daily commitment which need not take a lot of time. And like any habit, it will take 21 days to build before it becomes a natural occurrence.

There are many methods you can use to implement the journaling process. For some of us a dedicated time each day to journal fits with our personality and preferences while for others having a small note pad or PDA to jot down thoughts and feelings around an experience immediately after it occurs will work better.. The key is to keep trying and adjusting your method of journaling until it works for you.

Tips to Journaling

Remember this journal is about you and your development, not the people around you.

Be alert to your feelings during the day. What made you excited, inspired, challenged, frustrated, fearful, angry etc? These feelings are a clue to a potential learning moment .

The journal is written for you and by you, so don’t worry about spelling, grammar, punctuation etc. As long as you can read it later to see progress and trends, as well as plan for the future, is all that counts.

Keep it short so it easy to review later

Questions to Ponder

Throughout the day and while you journal, here are some questions to help you start your learning each day:

What experience was challenging today? And what feelings did you have during the experience?
What specifically did you learn during the experience, perhaps a piece of knowledge, new skill, or technique?
Did you notice a behavior linked to your feelings either positive or negative?
If positive, how can you use this behavior more? AND if negative, how can you adjust your behavior next time?
What learning did you have today, that you want to expand upon to make you a more effective leader in the future?
What next steps do you plan to take to implement this new learning in the future?
Who can you ask for help with these next steps?

Final Words

The professionals who get ahead today are the ones who stay ahead of their competition. They take control of their own development and embrace continuous learning. Journaling your learning costs nothing to implement except time and energy.