I Can’t Remember Making a Mistake

 There was a pause around the conference table.  One of the final candidates for the CEO position of this state wide organization had just told the search committee that he couldn’t remember ever making a mistake.

“Take your time,” I prompted.  “Even Milton Hershey went bankrupt several times before he became successful.”

“I’m very thorough and careful about everything I do,” the candidate said.  “I don’t make mistakes.”

And with that remark, he damaged his credibility so badly he eliminated himself, as every one of the senior managers around the table very clearly remembered times when he or she had stumbled.  The Board of Directors definitely did not want to hire a CEO who would conceal bad news or errors.

The candidate had completed a personality and leadership style assessment that had indicated he might have difficulty admitting his mistakes and might even try to conceal them.  The simple interview question that was asked based on the data in the assessment was, “Tell us about a time when, in hindsight, you made a mistake.”   This true story illustrates both the power of a valid and reliable assessment tool, and also how to use assessment data appropriately.  The candidate was given a fair chance and sealed his own fate by the response he made to the question.  He was not screened out based on the assessment data alone.

The best use of assessment data is to develop interview questions that probe strengths and weakness the candidate may have, confirm whether the candidate shows awareness of those traits, and when a weakness is admitted, what the individual is doing to improve.

For example, a question posed to an extroverted candidate for a Sales and Marketing Manager who an assessment indicated might not listen well to others was, “Tell me about a time when your ability to listen to a prospective customer helped you close a sale.”  The answer came quickly.  “I’m a raving extrovert, so listening is something I really have to work on.”  This was followed by a great example of showing good listening skills.  To probe some more, a follow up question was asked. “Now tell me about a time when you weren’t a good listener and lost a sale.  With a rueful smile, the candidate told a story of losing out on a big deal.  However, having convinced the business owner of successfully overcoming this hurdle, along with demonstrating many other positive traits, this person was hired and is doing well in the position.

Good assessment tools properly used can help achieve a good match of a candidate’s traits and abilities to those needed for the position.  The keys are:

Use assessment tools that are valid and reliable.

Understand the strengths and limitations of the tools you are using.

Use the tools appropriately, to better understand your candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

Everyday Ethics

Does the phrase “Business Ethics” immediately bring to mind the complicated language of Sarbanes- Oxley or some other legalistic red tape that hinders instead of helping to get things done in your organization?  That’s one way to think about ethics in business.  Here’s another:

• When one of your employees calls off sick even though he or she is really not, does that individual understand the choice as one that calls into question his or her personal integrity? Or is it just something that “everybody does?”
• Do people who spread gossip and rumors see the unfairness of their actions, or do they just see themselves as engaging in a harmless pastime?
• If employees believed that wasting supplies and materials was not good stewardship of company resources, would they be more careful?

As you can see from these examples, everyday ethics is not complicated, and there is an ROI for organizations that invest in creating a culture that raises employee awareness and reinforces making positive choices.  The key is breaking the pattern of “everybody does it” thinking that rationalizes bad behavior and replacing it with “we don’t do that here” thinking that supports good choices.  The challenge is for leaders at every level to communicate clearly and consistently and to model the behaviors they want to see employees doing. Having a set of basic principles that are easy to grasp and that everyone agrees upon helps empower consistent behavior and decision making.

As an example, let’s look at the five principles embodied in the Samaritan Center’s Ethics in Business Award, and see how they can be translated to behavior that makes a difference on the shop floor, job site, cubicle and lunch room.

Principle 1: Integrity    Persons with integrity conduct themselves in such a way that their words and actions are consistent, honest and in accordance with organization, industry and professional standards and expectations.

Principle 2: Fairness & Justice   Demonstrating equality and mutual respect by dealing fairly with coworkers, customers and suppliers.  Applying and adhering to the organization’s policies, procedures and programs in a way that is just and consistent for all concerned.

Principle 3:  Stewardship   Being careful and responsible users of resources such as time, finances, materials, supplies, energy, equipment, and tools.

Principle 4: Life –Enhancing   Conducting oneself in a way that affirms life and respects the rights of others, increases quality and value for customers, co-workers, the organization, suppliers and the community.

Principle 5:  Transparency   Being genuine, truthful, open and inclusive in communicating with others.  Demonstrating responsibility and accountability in actions, and loyalty in relationships.

These are five simple, yet powerful principles that make a difference if people practice them daily in their work.  Leaders at every level of the organization can shape the culture by keeping positive principles in the forefront, discussing them in team meetings, looking for “teachable moments’”, reinforcing them when they see an employee putting one of the principles into practice, coaching when they observe someone missing the mark, and walking the talk themselves.  This takes energy and intentionality, but the results are a stronger, healthier organization with increased productivity and profitability as well as customers and employees who are more satisfied. That’s a big win for everyone.

Hiring: Like Finding A Needle In A Haystack

“Finding good people is still like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s just that these days the haystack is bigger.” That’s how one manager describes the hunt for people who have the abilities necessary to succeed in her organization. It’s not uncommon to get over a hundred applicants for one opening. The challenge is to create a screening process that will identify candidates with the abilities, skills and traits that match the position requirements. There are a number of factors involved in developing an effective candidate screening process. We’ll take a look at three: Clearly defining the technical and behavioral competencies required for the position; developing a list of deeply probing behavior based interview questions built on the competencies needed for the position; and using valid, reliable assessment tools that accurately describe the candidate’s skills, abilities and traits.

A working definition of competencies is “A set of interrelated abilities and behaviors that empower successful performance.” As an example, teamwork is important in most positions. However, teamwork is not just one thing a person does, it’s many things. And the definition of teamwork may vary from one organization to another, depending on the work setting and culture. What are the specific behaviors that are recognized in your organization as good teamwork? The first step is to define these behaviors so you know exactly what you are looking for when you interview. Every candidate is going to assure you he is a great team player, and in his own eyes, he’s making an honest statement, but what is he really telling you? Does his idea of good teamwork match yours?

On the technical side, Troubleshooting is an example of a very complex competency. On the shop floor, troubleshooting mechanical or electrical problems requires high level abilities, as it does in IT and also in Accounting. Each one of those settings, though, requires different skill sets. The more accurately you can describe the skills needed for a position, the easier it will become to identify them in applicants you are interviewing.

If you can establish a basic set of 8 to 12 Technical and Behavioral competencies for a position, you will have a solid yardstick for your screening process, and a useful tool for coaching and evaluating performance as well. A list for a call center position might include Use of Technology, Call Reporting, Product Knowledge, Telephone Skills, Active Listening, Verbal Communication, Stress Tolerance,
Customer Focus, Handling of Difficult Calls, and Goal Achievement. The definitions of these would vary to match the organization and types of calls being handled. Each job and each organization is unique.

Once the list of basic competencies has been determined, developing behavior-based questions is fairly easy. For example, if demonstrating patience in stressful situations is one of the traits you are looking for, try a something like, “Describe a difficult situation in your last job that really tested you patience.” If the response is, “Waiting for the change machine in the lunch room,” you may not have the person you are looking for.

Properly used, assessments are a valuable component to the hiring process. Select an assessment that is well researched to validate that it actually does what it claims to. Do screening interviews and only use assessments with the final candidates for the position. Never use an assessment alone to screen out a candidate. This is unethical, and can create potential liability for the organization. Use the assessment to create a laser list of second interview questions by using the competency profile for the position as a benchmark. Review the candidate’s assessment report, compare it to the competency profile and do a gap analysis. Design your interview questions around the gaps, and listen for the candidate’s answers. The issue is not whether the candidate has some weaker areas compared to the behavioral skills you’re looking for. Of course she does, she’s human. What matters is whether she is aware of them, is working on them, and how successful she has been at improving in those areas.

Suppose a candidate for a supervisory position is predicted to have a tendency to avoid conflict and to have difficulty confronting others. Try behavior-based questions such as:

Describe a situation where you talked to an employee about a performance problem.
How long did the performance problem go on before you talked with the employee?
Why did you wait that amount of time to talk to the employee?
What was the outcome? Did the employee improve?
How would you rate your effectiveness and why?
What have you been doing to improve your effectiveness with managing performance problems?

Now you’ll have actual responses from the candidate to use when you make your decision to hire or not to hire. This is fair to the individual, creates better results in the hiring process and less risk for the organization. If you screen out the candidate, it’s not because of what the assessment said, it’s because of what the individual said.

Building your candidate screening process on a foundation of relevant competencies for each position, good behavior-based interview questions and accurate assessment tools will significantly improve your ability to find the needle in the haystack.

Newsflash: In Business, Healthy Beats Smart

Healthy companies win. This is not, however, an article about wellness or work-life balance, as important as those things are. This is about the health of the organization itself, not necessarily the people in it.

Patrick Lencioni, the consultant and author who brought us “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” recently published “The Advantage,” which has a simple message – larger, well known companies thought to be run by very smart people often get beaten by smaller rivals who posses traits which he described as critical to organizational health.

In healthy organizations, the leadership team is cohesive and works well together. They are clear regarding strategy, direction and values, and they communicate their clarity to everyone in the organization. The leaders are humble and approachable which creates an environment where there is open and often passionate discussion. This ensures that ideas and solutions are put on the table, thoroughly hashed out, and the best are chosen. When implementation begins, everyone is on board and focused on the same goal.

According to Lencioni, the companies he calls “humble underdogs” beat their larger competitors because they didn’t allow dysfunction, ego and politics to take root and derail progress. In the less successful organizations, leaders who prided themselves on their expertise and knowledge weren’t open to learning from their own people. They also weren’t willing to admit their mistakes, which blocked progress and fueled political infighting.

When the leadership team has an open and healthy dynamic, the results flow through the entire organization. People naturally take their cue from those at the top and conduct themselves accordingly. Good health is contagious. When leaders demonstrate healthy behavior, expect their employees to follow suit, and hold them accountable, counterproductive attitudes that can submarine organizational success go away. Lencioni calls on leaders to rise to the challenge of holding others accountable as a critical factor to organizational effectiveness.

As with so many simple ideas, execution is the key. What makes healthy organizations work is living it every day, staying true to core principles in good times and bad. That’s the leadership challenge. But after all, challenge is what drives leaders.

Creating a Culture of Accountability

“I was too busy.”  “Nobody ever told me.”  “The paperwork was wrong.” “That’s how we used to do it.”  “There was a lot going on.”  “I thought I remembered, so I didn’t check.” “Somebody should have caught it sooner.”

Some people seem to have an endless supply of excuses, and positive outcomes get lost in the smoke screen of denial.  On any given day, there may seem to be more finger-pointing than forward progress.  It’s frustrating to deal with and wastes a huge amount of time.  How to change it?

It’s tempting to look at chronic excuse-makers and label them as slackers, misfits or worse.  But the truth is people repeat behavior that is working for them.  The key to changing the behavior is to create a culture where individual accountability rules the day and excuse-making simply becomes something that is regarded so poorly that people actually want to avoid doing it.  Creating and sustaining a culture of accountability takes energy input and consistent behavior, starting with top leadership and cascading down to front line supervisors.  Here are some steps that are simple in practice – the key is in the execution.

1.      Drive out fear.  Paradoxically, creating a successful culture of accountability means maintaining an environment where it’s safe to take acceptable risks and make reasonable mistakes.  Accountability is not “hammering” employees when they make a mistake.  Practicing what Ken Blanchard called a “Leave Alone – Zap” style of leadership, where employees hear nothing except when something goes wrong, won’t get the accountability job done.  The resulting climate of fear leads to excuses and finger-pointing.  Shouting or making sarcastic comments and walking away is not accountability.  Avoiding getting caught becomes a survival mechanism and problem solving goes out the window. 

2.      Make talking about performance an every-day occurrence instead of an exceptional event.  In his excellent book “It’s OK To Be The Boss,” author Bruce Tulgan states that there is actually an epidemic of under management going on in American organizations.  To avoid unpleasant confrontations with employees, especially those of different generational backgrounds, many leaders stay away from frank, clear discussions regarding performance until a situation has reached a point where drastic action is called for.  By then, talking to an employee about his or her work always means a crisis situation has arisen.

Tulgan says that employees don’t need to see the boss all day, but they do need to see the boss every day.  In other words, one of the secrets to having engaged employees is to have engaged supervisors.  Effective supervisors talk like coaches.  They ask people how things are going.  They give praise and encouragement.  They correct problem behavior when they see it rather than waiting for problems to grow or hoping they will go away.  Keeping the focus on the work itself makes talking about performance something that happens as part of a normal day at work, rather than only when there is a big problem.

 3.      Set clear expectations.  Make sure that people know what the standards are for good job performance, day-to-day workplace conduct and attendance.  Don’t be vague, hesitant, or expect that “people should use common sense” or “they should know better.”  Communicate standards that are specific, measureable, achievable, relevant to the employee’s work, and have a definite time frame.

 4.      When corrective feedback is necessary, don’t sugar coat it or let a problem performer off the hook. Make sure the underperformer understands the expected performance, his actual performance, and the problems caused by the performance gap.  Get agreement to change behavior from the employee in specific terms, not a generality like “I’ll try harder.”  Then follow up and coach.  Feedback supports change; an absence of feedback encourages falling back into old habits.  And, of course, document your discussion if the situation has disciplinary overtones. 

 As stated earlier, creating a culture of accountability requires energy input and consistency from leaders at every level in the organization.  However, once it becomes a normal way of working, things go a lot more smoothly.  People become self accountable, take responsibility for their own actions, and supervising takes much less time and energy.  That’s the ROI on the investment in time and energy to make it happen.

Who Killed Problem Solving?

Recently, my wife and I went to one of our favorite breakfast spots.  We enjoy the menu, the decor, and the excellent service we always receive.  As we stepped inside the door, the sign by the cash register said, “Please seat yourself,” so we headed for an empty table near a window.  About half way across the dining room we heard a voice say, “Please wait for someone to seat you.”  I turned to see a familiar waitress motioning us back to the register area.  “Well, this is unusual,” I thought to myself, “but no big deal.  We like this place.”  I offhandedly said, “Sure.  You might want to change the sign by the register though. It says to seat yourself.”  With a perfectly straight face the waitress responded, “The hostess changes it, and she hasn’t come in yet.”

We took our seat, got our coffee, ordered, and went about eating our breakfast.  However, to the annoyance of my wife, the consultant side of my brain had kicked in, and I couldn’t help observing what was unfolding in the dining room.  Customers continued to seat themselves just as we had, and were told to please return to the register and wait.  There were five waitresses on duty, all of them young but with several months to more than a year’s experience, each chasing after customers and redirecting them rather than dealing with the root of the problem.  Finally, after 20 minutes, (yes, I was actually keeping track of the time) one waitress walked over to the sign and turned it around so it read, “Please wait to be seated.”

 Since all of the wait staff on duty appeared to be in their late teens and twenties, it would have been very easy to launch into a rant about Generation Y, and how “they” can’t think for themselves or take responsibility.  The fix was so obvious and so easy, what kept them from taking the necessary action?  As I pondered this, a few passages from John Maxwell’s book, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” popped into my head. I started wondering whether the real reason no one did anything was that they might have felt they didn’t have the authority to do a simple task that was normally assigned to someone else.

One of Maxwell’s laws is The Law of Empowerment.   Simply put, Maxwell says, “People’s capacity to achieve is determined by their leader’s ability to empower.” To illustrate his point, Maxwell tells a story about Henry Ford, the legendary industrialist who is credited with developing mass production.  Ford is often heralded as a model entrepreneur, but Maxwell reveals a lesser–known chapter of the story. 

 The Model T was a huge success, and for nearly 20 years, it was the only car the company made.  Ford had personally developed it, and he would not tolerate any to changes to his beloved creation.  However, other makers were offering new products that had features the Model T lacked. 

 Concerned about the future of the company in an increasingly competitive industry, a group of his designers built a prototype of an improved model.  This infuriated Ford, who actually destroyed the car with his bare hands.  You can rest assured that from that day on, no one offered a new idea or took any initiative. Clearly, it was only safe to do exactly what Henry Ford told you to do.  Ford Motor Company continued to lose its position as an industry leader, and by the time Henry Ford II took the reigns, not only had it not made a profit in 15 years, it was losing a million dollars a day. 

 Maxwell concludes the story by saying that Ford failed to follow the Law of Empowerment.  Rather than building people up, giving them responsibility, and turning them loose to achieve, he states that Ford undermined his best people because of his own insecurity.  His failure to trust his own employees brought the company to the brink of financial ruin.

 The remedy, says Maxwell, is this:  “[The] key to empowering others is high belief in people….The truth is that empowerment is powerful – not only for the person being developed, but also for the mentor. Enlarging others makes you larger.”

Creating An Engaged Workforce

William Kahn, one of the pioneer researchers of employee engagement, compared employees in their jobs to occupants of a house. Some invest in the property and maintain it well; others put up a mailbox but barely seem to move in let alone do any updates. While ultimately, it’s true that the employee “owner” has responsibilities for the “house”, it’s sad but true that many employers don’t do their best to help the new employee make the house that represents their job a home toward which they feel a sense of ownership and want to stay.

 Over the last several years, LMA Consulting has conducted focus groups with hundreds of employees to determine what employees value most about their employment, their supervisors and the organizations where they work. The focus group participants came from many different types of organizations in food and hard goods manufacturing, healthcare, and services. In spite of the variety of career paths and occupations, we heard many of the same themes repeated over and over again. Regardless of the type of work, clear patterns emerge that describe best practices any employer can adopt to create a more satisfied, productive and engaged workforce. Here are just a few of the factors employees told us make a difference in the level of commitment they feel towards their jobs and place of employment. These four factors emerged as keys to engagement for newly hired employees.

 Orientation Programs
New employees really do want to know what to do, and want to be able to feel confident about their ability to perform the duties of their position. A well structured orientation and training program that provides employees with the knowledge they need to perform their tasks and duties with a sense of competence is the first key to creating employee engagement. In fact, it is absolutely critical. Feeling competent goes hand-in-hand with feeling cared for and connected to the organization. Feeling incompetent leads to job dissatisfaction, disengagement, poor performance and turnover.

 Buddy Programs
A strong buddy program that partners a new employee with an experienced employee who is a positive role model, knows how to teach job skills, has a friendly and professional demeanor and has enough time to work with the new employee is a huge plus. A poorly designed buddy program is a disaster that accelerates turnover and guarantees poor morale. We heard many stories of buddies who were never trained how to teach and coach; either didn’t take the time or weren’t given the time needed to do a good job; and some that even appeared to go out of their way to avoid working with the new employee they didn’t happen to like for their own personal reasons.

 Coworkers
Two key points of connection for every new employee are their supervisor and their coworkers. Based on our focus groups, it appears that few employees invest in getting their own employees involved in the effort to create a workplace culture of engagement. An employee at a local plant of a large, nationally known organization told us, “No one talked to me until I was here past my first 90 days. They told me so many people quit during the first three months, they don’t bother anymore with new people.” Given that kind of reception, no wonder so many new employees leave this organization. How are your employees? Are they on your side in the war for talent?

 Supervisors
Time and again employees in every focus group told us about supervisors in their workplace that no one wanted to work for, and other supervisors that everyone wanted to work for. The supervisors who get the least respect are those who “kick down and kiss up” – behaving in ways that are controlling and abusive to their subordinates while being ingratiating and submissive towards senior managers. They are self centered and seek to further their own careers at the expense of their employees.

 The supervisors who were preferred were approachable and firm, but fair. They listen to employees with understanding, and show compassion, but are not wishy-washy. They are enthusiastic about the organization and the work that is done in their part of the business, and their enthusiasm is contagious. They have strong technical skills in the area they supervise, and also have strong people skills. They lead by example and are positive role models. Most important of all, they took time every day to connect with their employees, know them as individuals, provide encouragement, and clear, accurate feedback. Every dollar invested in developing strong leaders at the supervisory level pays dividends in higher productivity, product and service quality, better attendance and lower turnover.

 The lessons learned are clear – to develop employees who take ownership of their jobs, provide a workplace that helps new employees learn, coworkers who welcome them, and supervisors with strong leadership skills who form a strong connection with their people.

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Death By A Thousand Paper Cuts

There has been a lot written about the impact of change.  Mostly, the authors discuss dealing with big change – mergers, reorganizations, new technology, plant closings and other tidal wave type phenomena.  These are events that happen once, have large a impact that shakes people up, change things visibly, but then transition and leave some definable “new normal” in their wake. 

 Lately, though, we’ve heard a few comments from people that go something like this: “I can handle the big changes.  That’s something I’ve gotten used to.  What’s wearing me out is the steady stream of nagging little things that keep changing in our business.  It never stops; it keeps us just a little bit off balance and makes it hard to find solid ground to stand on.  It’s driving me crazy and there isn’t anything I can do to control it.”

 It might be a software upgrade that can’t be postponed or critical devices won’t be able to communicate with each other.  It could be a new piece of equipment that does exactly the same thing as the slightly older equipment right beside it, but has a totally different control panel that people will need to learn.  Or a new procedure a customer or supplier is putting in place.  Or continual tweaking of various regulations. Or the constant challenge of finding and hiring good people….on and on – it’s not just one thing, it’s a whole lot of things that just keep coming. 

 Change causes stress, and constant small increments of change create a gradual, cumulative stress impact.  While a certain amount of stress is healthy and keeps our systems toned and ready for activity, too much is harmful.  Creeping, incremental change can gradually raise the level of stress we’re exposed to without our being conscious of what’s happening.  Small stressors, each one a paper cut, begin to accumulate faster than they heal. Eventually, they begin to take a toll, draining away energy and creating a feeling of weariness that’s hard to cope with because there is no single, identifiable cause.

 While a single large change event can be planned for and managed, dealing with the uncontrollable stream of micro-change facing leaders and employees alike in the current and future business environment requires a different approach. We can’t plan for the many things we can’t control or foresee, but we can prepare ourselves by developing personal resilience.

 Resilience is the ability to adapt well and rebound when faced with unexpected challenges.  It may well be the critical skill set for thriving in the twenty-first century.  According to author Daryl R. Conner, resilient people have five characteristics. They are: 

 Positive and Solution Centered

Resilient people cultivate their capacity for optimism.  They tend to see life as complicated, but filled with opportunities.  Difficulties and setbacks may arise, but they are temporary and solutions can be found.  And for the perpetual pessimists, yes, optimism can be cultivated.  Check out “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life,” by Martin Seligman.

 Focused

They have a clear vision of what they want to accomplish.  They set goals, create strategies, find solutions and solve problems.

 Flexible

When faced with uncertainty, they are adaptable.  They admit and face their fears, and keep moving forward.

 Organized and Action Oriented

They have a knack for developing structured approaches that enable them to manage ambiguity. They plan, prioritize and take action.

 Proactive and Learn From Experience

Resilient people accept and engage change rather than try to defend against it.  They take calculated risks, learn as they go and apply lessons learned.

 Developing personal resilience is the key to surviving the thousand paper cuts of daily change. While these characteristics may be more natural for some people than others, they are abilities that everyone can develop and improve. It may take some time and practice, but it can be done.

How’s Your Bench Strength?

As the football season begins, many teams are taking a look at their depth charts, evaluating their chances to make a run for the play-offs and hoping that they have enough players on the bench to carry the team in case of losses due to injuries.

Similarly, as the Baby Boomer generation reaches retirement age, organizations in many industries are facing a loss of skilled and experienced employees that pundits are calling “an unprecedented brain-drain”.  According to study done jointly by AARP and the Society of Human Resource Management this spring, 72% of HR professionals believe the loss of talented older workers will be “a problem” or a “potential problem” for their organizations.

Clearly in successful organizations, leaders must manage their talent pool as proactively as they manage every other business asset.

What is Talent Management? First, what talent management isn’t: it’s not a fad or a quick fix. It’s not “something that HR does.” It involves the entire leadership team in an organization.

Talent management starts with identifying your business strategy: your vision, who you are as a company, how you are different from your competition, what your customer value proposition is, and how it differs you. It involves a systematic approach to attracting, developing and retaining qualified, engaged employees. This process ensures that the right numbers of people with the right abilities are in the right place at the right time to achieve your organization’s objectives today and meet the challenges that your leadership anticipates tomorrow.

 What does it take to Successfully Manage Talent?

• Identify your talent needs. Based on short-term projections and long-term plans and goals, determine your organization’s current and future talent needs.
• Clarify the essential competencies and organizational fit factors required for employee’s to achieve effective performance in each “key position.” (Some small and mid-sized organizations will find that all their positions are “key positions.”)
• Project your staffing needs over the next three years to meet your business goals as well as production/service/delivery requirements. Factor in estimated turnover, promotions and transfers to project your total hiring requirements.
• Develop competency profiles for all contributing positions. Use these profiles as benchmarks for future hiring, development, coaching and rewards.
• Design a process to assess external and internal candidates. Determine the assessment tools that will provide the information you need to select new employees and develop current employees. Integrate these assessments into selection and career pathing decisions for all candidates and employees.
• Create resources for individual career development. These may include on-the-job learning experiences, in-house “classroom” learning, off-site programs, certifications, vendor training, coaching and mentoring. Create a “menu” of career development options and resources.
• Prepare employee “owner’s manuals.” Based on each employee’s assessment, work experience and career goals, prepare a development plan that individuals can use as a career map. Supervisors can use this “owner’s manual” to support and coach employees, with special emphasis on high-potential workers.
• Position leaders as talent managers. Prepare supervisors and managers for their new role by providing training and tools for performance management and coaching. Make sure that talent management stays on your leadership agenda.
• Create a culture that values developing people. What do you want your company’s signature strengths and reputation to become? What do your people need to drive organizational performance? Remove any barriers that cause supervisors to resist allowing high-performing employees to move out of their departments for promotions or transfers while creating recognition and rewards for leaders who develop people.
• Transition HR from administration and compliance to talent management. To facilitate talent management, an organization’s HR focus must shift from administering transactions such as filling job openings, completing benefit enrollments or updating employee information to functioning as internal talent management consultants and members of the strategic leadership team. HR needs to understand an organization’s business issues and strategy as well as employee development and career plans to make the shift to leading talent management.

 How long does this take?
The typical transition time is 18-24 months from a traditional company model to a comprehensive approach to attracting, retaining and developing a workforce that performs at the highest level of its capacity. It takes at least this amount of time to build a culture that values and rewards developing people on a day-to-day basis.

 Career Detours
A lot of what causes people to plateau in their careers isn’t their lack of technical skill but their lack of emotional intelligence – they don’t play well with others or need to develop in a variety of different areas. They may need to become a better team member or leader, learn to be more self aware or more resilient, or manage themselves more efficiently. A mentor or coach can really help in these areas. Coaching can help people to apply skills consistently over time and in a variety of different situations – some more stressful than others. A coach or mentor can give someone honest feedback that isn’t easy or even practical for co-workers to provide.

Talent management is a best practice concept that embraces many disciplines, including leadership development, career planning and development, assessment, 360 and other forms of feedback and needs assessment. It also includes training, team building, human resources and strategic planning. Though this process is time and labor-intensive, it will impact an organization at a deep level with lasting, positive results.

Incivility: The Quiet Workplace Crisis

An employee quits. In the same department, another employee whose attendance has always been exemplary starts missing two or three days a month. Over the last quarter, department productivity has dropped, and no one seems to know why. These are all symptoms of the epidemic of incivility that is infecting many workplaces.

In their landmark study “Assessing and Attacking Workplace Incivility” (Organizational Dynamics 29, no. 2, 2000), Lynne Anderson, Christine Pearson and Christine Porath interviewed workers in a wide range of organizations including every standardized classification. They found that as a result of uncivil interactions with other employees, supervisors or managers reported:

• 22 percent of employees had intentionally decreased work efforts
• 10 percent had called in sick to avoid the instigator
• 28 percent lost productivity because they spent their time at work avoiding the instigator
• 37 percent reduced their commitment to the organization
• 12 percent had actually quit companies

Workplace incivility can be defined as behavior that violates workplace norms for mutual respect in such a way that cooperation and motivation are reduced. The behavior can be insidious and difficult to detect. One of the findings of the study was that incivility is often ambiguous. The intent to harm may not be clear, which often permits the instigator to pretend innocence or claim that the injured partly misunderstood or is too sensitive. It is often not reported because employees fear reprisals or damage to their careers. In exit interviews, incivility may not be mentioned by departing employees because they don’t want to affect future references or may blame themselves for not being able to “take it.”

Examples of workplace incivility include gossip, belittling remarks, vulgar words, conversations or gestures, leaving a mess for someone else to clean up, abusing subordinates, interrupting others and rudeness. Offenders may be male or female, supervisors or managers, young or old. Based on the research, instigators of incivility tend to be rude to coworkers, disrespectful of subordinates, and generally difficult to get along with. They are often emotionally reactive to problems and stressful situations. Some are particularly skilled at “kissing up and kicking down” – they may behave differently in the presence of someone higher up than they do with others in the organization.

Theories vary on why rudeness is on the rise. Some believe that the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior in our culture has continued to blur due to images in media and entertainment. Absentee parenting and lower standards of discipline in schools are often cited. Time pressures and increasing workloads allow less time for social niceties and also increase stress and frustration.

Whatever the causes, the results are higher turnover and lower productivity. The most effective cure for workplace incivility is to take a comprehensive approach.

 First establish clear standards for conduct and interacting with others at all levels of the organization. Many organizations make these standards explicit by publishing core values that include expectations for interpersonal conduct. Others include a policy defining standards of civility in the employee handbook.

 During the recruitment process, all those with whom candidates have contact should model high standards of personal conduct. References for candidates should be checked thoroughly regarding incidents of unacceptable behavior.

 New employee orientation should carefully communicate standards of conduct, should be knowledgeable of the organization’s expectations, and promptly address any behavior that crosses the line.

 Instigators of offensive behavior should be disciplined, not transferred to other departments or given lateral moves to get them out of the way. This only allows their demoralizing activities to infect another work group.

 Incivility has a high cost in any organization that allows it to go unaddressed. By insisting on high standards of conduct, thorough orientation and training, holding supervisors and managers accountable for their own behavior and the behavior of those they are responsible for, and encouraging employees to report occurrences, organizations can improve morale, reduce turnover, and increase productivity.

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