JDA

Employee Engagement = Competitive Edge

by Joan Cook

Employee engagement seems to be a hot topic these days (along with talent management).  To our way of thinking, employee engagement is the key to having a competitive edge.  The Gallup Q12  survey and the Marcus Buckingham book based on it, First, Break All the Rules, distill what the best managers do to create an engaged organization.  It boils down to three simple needs on the part of all employees:

1.  The need for inclusion
2.  The need for significance
3.  The need for openness

Inclusion means:  Do I belong?  Am I in or out?  Am I known?  Significance means:  Do I matter?  Do I make a difference?  Am I important?  Openness means:  Is it ok to tell the truth?  Can I be honest in front of management/my boss?

When we work with organizations on employee engagement, we oftentimes approach getting answers to these questions by asking managers to list what they think they do that demotivates employees and causes them to feel NOT included, NOT significant, and NOT able to be open. Then we talk about what they need to do to rectify the situation. 

Inclusion means communicating information, including people in planning, involving them in decision making (particularly on those decisions that directly affect them) and as a manager, being available.  Significance means appreciating people, praising them, asking them for input, paying attention to what they say (no sending emails or shuffling papers while they're talking), and getting their buy-in.  Openness is created by showing appreciation, listening (without an agenda and without thinking about what you're going to say next while they're talking!), asking for feedback, being interested in people and not reacting negatively to mistakes or bad news, but using them as learning and/or coaching opportunities.  Creating an engaged team depends a great deal on these competencies; can you imagine an organization of engaged teams, all pulling in the same direction?

There's a lot of nuance to this work and we frame it differently, with different activities, depending on who we're working with.  But the essence is the same:  engagement = competitive edge.  Smart companies invest in engagement and reap the rewards.

Teams Need Skills as well as Process

by Joan Cook

Jeff and I are working with a number of different teams in organizations around the country.  After each teambuilding experience we debrief, usually on the plane home, and we've lately had one of those "duh" moments:  although we're working for the most part in sophisticated organizations (one of them a Fortune 50 company), their people lack some of the most basic Management 101 communication skills--which of course, holds back progress toward becoming a highly effective team.  If being able to give (and receive) feedback effectively, hold fellow team members accountable, handle difficult conversations and use effective listening skills are key, our experience is that most team members shy away from using these critical skills simply because they feel they aren't very good at them--or they've never learned them in the first place.  Understandable, since a.  they aren't taught in b-school and b. most people learn them--if they learn them at all--on the fly, by imitating what they see others do.  If they're lucky, they have good models.  If they're not, they perpetuate a culture that is likely weak in supporting the use of the very tools that enable effective working relationships, and effective teaming.

So in addition to team process skills and experiential team events, we're discovering that there's a third leg to this stool:  management communication skills that enable team members to engage in effective team processes in the first place.  We're now looking at how we structure the teambuilding experience and what we may need to include, in addition to team processes, in order to equip teams to be able to make good use of those processes.

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Teambuilding, Part 2

by Joan Cook

Returning to a favorite topic, here’s a key question from a previous post:  the work we do with teams takes place in the classroom, working on the fundamentals of becoming a highly effective team.  Having participated in numerous experiential teambuilding activities over the years myself (ropes courses, games, etc.), I appreciate the strong sense of camaraderie that develops over the course of the experience.  It would seem that a combination of the two:  classroom and experiential—would be ideal.  If all a group of people ever experiences in coming together as a team is a ropes course or a game, where/how do they learn the process skills for the long haul?  Similarly, I wonder if classroom team process training should be enhanced by or integrated with experiential exercises that drive home the learning and anchor the feeling of what it means to be a team, in order to produce optimal learning. My sense is the answer is probably yes.

Unfortunately, experiential teambuilding processes such as ropes courses, kayaking, riding horses, etc. are often seen as the "kumbaya" approach to fostering skillful teamwork.  Companies invest in them but then wonder why the effects don't last. Experience is indeed a great teacher, but it's got to be backed up by a solid commitment to team process and a deep understanding of what that means.  Everyone understands the tactical (getting the work done), but few understand team process (how it gets done).  It's relatively easy to work together when there's only two people involved, but when two become 6 or 7 or 8, suddenly the rules of the game change.  Teams need to know how to build trust, engage in productive conflict, create commitment, hold each other accountable, stay focused on results, create and sustain compelling meetings, and discipline themselves to apply these principles consistently, or teamwork ain't happening, ropes course or no.

Comments are welcome.

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When an assessment isn't called for

by Joan Cook

A client of ours recently called wanting a 360 assessment done on an individual who was "having problems." 

This is a good reason NOT to do one - at least, not without more information on the situation.

Upon further questioning, it turned out that the organization had made a mistake in promoting this individual, who was now struggling in a supervisory role for which he was ill-suited mainly because he lacked the skills for it (which was all too obvious to the people he was trying to manage).  Compounding the situation was the fact that he was originally from a foreign country and didn't have the nuances of English necessary to be effective in his new position.  As an individual contributor in the field for which he had trained he would be a valuable asset to the company, and an effort is being initiated to move him into such a position.

The bottom line is that assessments - particularly 360's - should not be used as a substitute for good performance management or a means of trying to rectify errors in judgment.  If an employee needs corrective feedback and isn't getting it, it isn't just the employee who needs to be held accountable, it's their manager as well.  Assessments are developmental tools, meant to be used to provide feedback to help those who are a fit (and who have the skill and the will) for the positions they hold to determine where to apply their efforts to increase effectiveness.  They can be diagnostic tools as well, but only within the context of talent management and/or career development.  The last thing we want to do with a 360 is inadvertently use it as a weapon, or apply it in situations where it isn't called for or will do more harm than good. 

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L&D at the crossroads of today and tomorrow...

by Joan Cook

Big Question: What new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?

This month's Big Question at the Learning Circuits blog asks, "What new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?"

At the intersection of the classroom, with all its traditional tools, and the web, with its new ones, stands the learning & development professional.  In a world seemingly gone mad for social media and new brain science research, how do we know what embrace and what to let go of, or indeed, what to develop and implement in terms of tools and skills? 

I've come to admire Clive Shepherd's blog, Clive on Learning, and his take on the question is that while we still have the same overarching goal (to enhance organizational performance through employee learning and development), those who have sidestepped new media in the hope that it will all blow over have done themselves a disservice.  Too many L&D professionals, in his opinion, have fallen behind in their development in regards to the contemporary tools of their profession in ways that would have been unimagineable back in the day.  I would also suggest that from what we've seen here at JDA, a great many L&D professionals aren't proficient at presenting, either, regardless of the tools they're using.  Lots of us fell into the profession and learned on the go, and the demands being created by new media and new tools are throwing those whose training skills are lacking into sharp relief. If you've never been trained as a trainer, you need to add that to your list of things to accomplish in this brave new world as well.

We're sufficiently interested in this question here that we're exploring the idea of adding social media training to our offerings.  More later.

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How coaching should be viewed

by Joan Cook

If an Olympic figure skater doesn't take to the ice without their coach, why should a senior exec (one of the "Olympic athletes" of his/her organization), someone who's out on that figurative "ice" every day and whose performance is critical to business success?

I have a colleague who's teaching in a coaching skills certificate program at a major university in New York.  She recently told me that when she suggested to her students that they should each hire a coach so they could experience what it's like to be coached (which in my opinion is as important as being trained), the class was taken aback, with the response being,  "Why would I need a coach?"

I've become aware over the last several years that coaching is increasingly being viewed as the tool you use for "people who need help," with the obvious connotation that if you wind up working with a coach you're somehow lacking or need "fixing."  I'm not sure how we got to this perception because nothing could be further from the truth, and it's an important distinction to understand.

On “Why Teams DON’T Work” from the May 2009 HBR

by Joan Cook

Interesting article in HBR—an interview by Diane Coutu with J. Richard Hackman, a professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard and a “leading expert on teams.” The title is somewhat misleading; turns out teams DO work, as long as they adhere to a set of 5 conditions Dr. Hackman’s research revealed, most of which anyone who’s ever been on a team will recognize from experience:
1.  Teams must be real – people have to know who’s on the team and who isn’t.
2.  Teams need a compelling direction – members need to know, and agree on, what it is they’re doing together.
3.  Teams need enabling structures – the right tasks, members, norms.
4.  Teams need a supportive organization – they can’t be effective or successful if the organizational context (reward system, HR system, info systems) is organized around individuals rather than teams.
5.  Teams need expert coaching – as a group, in team processes.

Leaving a Legacy

by Joan Cook

Marshall Goldsmith’s most recent post is about dealing with being a “lame duck” in an organization—those senior, influential leaders who are either retiring or moving on. As usual, he hits the nail on the head.  Rather than holding off on announcing a senior departure until the last minute (which can be operationally unnerving and is what tends to happen in a lot of organizations), announce with plenty of time for the exec to be a “happy and productive lame duck” – making decisions, aligning people around goals, coaching their successor, etc.  I posted a comment to the effect that, having coached a couple of “lame ducks” in my time (including the executive administrator of a large hospital), I’ve found that framing the conversation about leaving around the concept of leaving a legacy has been both useful and helpful in keeping the exec on track as they move towards the exit.

I got a nice comment back from Dr. Goldsmith, and thought no more about it until I got an email from a colleague who was very much struck by the idea of “focusing on one’s legacy” (she called it an “amazing point”)—and encouraged me to blog about it.

The Susan Boyles of the world are why I coach

By Joan T. Cook

Susan Boyle, for those who may have recently returned from another planet, became an overnight YouTube sensation singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables for Simon Cowell on the TV show “Britain’s Got Talent” just recently. 

A forty-something “spinster” (as she was described by The New York Times) who lives alone with her cat in a London suburb, Ms. Boyle certainly doesn’t look like a potential pop star.  She could be described as homely, and until recently, unheralded. 

But what a talent.

A question for 2009 (... OK, so a little late)

By Joan T. Cook

“What are your Challenges, Plans and Predictions for 2009?” was a question posted at Learning Circuits earlier this year.In response, Bill Brantley from Design of Knowledge posted this: “My answer is both a challenge, plan, and prediction: To help make training an evidence-based profession so that there is no question about its value in making a difference to people and organizations.”

Funny how all these years into “corporate training” we still don’t have a lot of solid, empirical evidence that proves its effectiveness.  Anecdotal evidence, yes; “smile sheet” evidence, yes.  But what evidence do we have that points unequivocally to training as a contributor to positive organizational change, better productivity, increased bottom line results, whatever measure floats your boat (and certainly that last is one that we as training professionals would love to be able to draw a direct line to)?  Precious little, if any.  I sometimes wonder if: