Balancing Top-Down and Bottom-Up Change Processes
Jim Clemmer

"Grass-roots change presents senior managers with a paradox: directing a 'nondirective' change process. The most effective senior managers in our study recognized their limited power to mandate corporate renewal from the top. Instead, they defined their roles as creating a climate for change, then spreading the lessons of both successes and failures. Put another way, they specified the general direction in which the company should move without insisting on the specific solutions." — Michael Beer, Russell Eisenstat, and Bert Spector, Why Change Programs Don't Produce Change

Organization change and improvement planning calls for systems, processes, and discipline. These are often top-down, organization-wide approaches. Developing change champions and supporting local initiatives takes leadership. Like innovation, many change and improvement paths are discovered accidentally by change champions blazing new trails (strategic opportunism).

These can then be formalized and made passable for the whole wagon train. This is an important part of organizational learning. Change and improvement processes evolve and change to fit the shifting environment and what's being learned about what works and what doesn't. Both top-down and local, or bottom-up, approaches are needed. The challenge is finding the right balance.

Managers play a pivotal role in the success or failure of any organization change or improvement effort. Their behavior is the single most important variable in the process. But among those managers working hard to visibly and actively lead their organization improvement effort, many fill only half their role. They personally signal values, plan, direct, and coordinate. That's vital.
But what most fail to do as well is follow and serve. They don't manage (or may not even have thought about) the servant-leadership change and improvement paradox.

The leadership component of the change and improvement paradox involves managing the
Context and Focus (vision, values, and purpose), identifying customers/partners and the gaps to be closed, and cultivating the environment for innovation and organization learning.
Improvement leadership means establishing goals and priorities and setting the improvement planning process and framework.

However, the service side of the paradox is about "followership." This starts with recognition that the organization is full of current or potential change champions. As members or leaders of operational and improvement teams, these people are much closer to the action than anyone in senior management. So they have a much better sense of which change and improvement tactics will work. But perhaps even more importantly, they hold the balance of implementation power. Without their commitment, the best-laid plans will fail (another major cause of "execution problems").

Think Corporately, Act Locally
Balancing top-down improvement planning with local initiatives involves identifying and supporting the change champions, innovative teams, and other efforts that are already underway. At the corporate or organization-wide level, change and improvement planning includes the establishment of strategic imperatives, improvement objectives, setting the broad improvement map (such as the infrastructure and process to be used), and developing preliminary plans.

Part of that planning entails connecting to and incorporating the existing pockets of change and improvement. These teams and champions have often gone through the innovation and organizational learning steps of exploration and experimentation. Their (often unorthodox and unofficial) approaches and experiences can be a gold mine of learning for the organization improvement process. As these early innovators are educated to the full organization improvement plan, they're shown how to adapt the new process and tools. They can use them to build on their earlier experiences and move ever closer to their change and improvement goals.
Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth.


http://www.clemmer.net/excerpts/balancing_top.shtml

A Customer Culture is Built on a Service Ethic
Jim Clemmer

"Rank is an appointed position. Authority is an earned condition. Rank is decreed from above. Authority is conferred from below. Authority vanishes the moment those who bestow it stop believing, respecting, or trusting their appointed boss, though they may defer out of fear." — Ted Levitt, Thinking About Management

There are many reasons that teams and organizations haven't developed a culture of intense focus on their customers and partners. Some are management issues — they don't have the right tools and techniques or they haven't established disciplined listening and response systems and processes. In these cases, managers don't know how to become more customer and partner-focused. They don't have the way.

But the root cause of poor or just mediocre customer service goes deeper. It has to do with will. Most managers don't focus on their customers and internal/external partners because they're too busy managing. They've become Technomanagers focused first on technology and management systems.

Technomanagers don't want to serve, they want to control. They lord over and boss people. Technomanagers act as if (their words may say something very different) people (customers, partners, and everyone in their organization) serve their technology and management systems.
Psychologist and Forbes columnist, Srully Blotnick, spent twenty-seven years following the lives of 6,981 men. In his book, Ambitious Men: Their Drives, Dreams, and Delusions, he writes, "It's difficult to say to someone, 'I am your humble servant,' and in the next breath hit them with, 'but I am also your social superior'... 45 percent of all the ambitious and talented men we studied who failed did so because of difficulties directly connected with the simultaneous pursuit of these two goals."

Effective leaders know that without disciplined management systems and leading edge technologies, outstanding service is nothing but a dream. But they act on a belief system that management systems and technology exist to serve people. This is an extension of the effective leader's personal purpose built around the key service principle that success comes through serving others.

Servant Leadership
"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know; the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve." — Albert Schweitzer
In 1977, retired AT&T Director of Management Research, Robert Greenleaf, published a philosophical leadership book that's enjoying a resurgence because the world-leading retailer Wal-Mart has used his concepts so effectively in building their service culture. His book is called Servant Leadership: A Journey Into Legitimate Power and Greatness. It's an inspiring and insightful book that points the way toward the involvement and empowerment movements we've seen in the last few years.

Greenleaf writes, "a new morale principle is emerging which holds that the only authority deserving one's allegiance is that which is freely and knowingly granted by the led to the leader in response to, and in proportion to, the clearly evident servant stature of the leader...the servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first (his emphasis). Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead."

It's another powerful paradox to be managed. On the one hand, leaders provide direction. They guide, influence, and persuade people on their team and throughout their organization. But once the cultural Context and Focus (vision, values, and mission) is clear, leaders continuously ask customers, external partners, and their internal partners how they can harness and improve the organization's core technologies, processes, and systems to meet everyone's needs. Then they put themselves in the management harness to establish goals and priorities along with the transformation and improvement plans that work to close the gaps between what is wanted and what is delivered.

Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/retreat leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer focus, culture, teams, and personal growth

"Strong leaders know that we're constantly faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems. Too often we wait for someone to open the door when the handle is actually on the inside."
- from Jim Clemmer

The Four Universal Principles That Can Bring You Uncommon Success
by Loral Langemeier

I talk a lot about having a particular mind set when working on your business. It's the same wealth mind set I learned from my mentor, Bob Proctor. Some of you have seen Bob's stick figure drawings that show how we get the results we do in our lives.

Essentially, your thoughts become an idea. That idea causes a particular emotion. The emotion alters your vibration, and the vibration is expressed through action. The actions create the results that show up in your condition, circumstance, and environment. The action in turn causes a reaction that again alters your results.

This is the same cycle we run through daily, and it's why a person stuck in poverty stays in poverty, and the person finding incredible deals keeps finding more incredible deals. The stick figure's "head" is split in two - the conscious and subconscious.

The subconscious is by far the larger of the two, and is your power center. Any thought you continuously impress upon your subconscious becomes fixed, or in the words of Michael Roach, "germinate, then expand." This is where the principles put forth by Roach really intrigue me. I see a lot of truth in these principles, and I'll explain each in my own words.

The Four Principles:

1. Whatever it is you are currently experiencing always matches the general content of thoughts that were at one time impressed upon your subconscious.

2. The strength of the original impression continuously expands in your subconscious until it flowers and forces you to have an experience that directly relates to that impression.

3. No experience of any kind ever happens unless there was an original thought that had been impressed that relates to the experience.

4. Once a thought has been impressed in the subconscious, it must lead to an experience. No impression is ever wasted.

I'll try to relate these principles to a practical application, so you can get a sense of their power.

A young girl is told repeatedly that women don't have a good mind for business. This thought is impressed upon her subconscious, and grows throughout her teens. What she sees, and the experiences she has are in alignment with this impression and cause it to grow. She goes through college, finds a job, and moves to an area that is experiencing a real estate boom. However, all the houses she finds are bad deals, or she arrives too late. Her experiences match the impression in her subconscious that she doesn't have a good mind for business.

A second young girl is told that she can do anything she wants, and that she's got a good mind for business. Her experiences serve to reinforce this impression, and by the time she moves to the same area as the first girl, she's already created several businesses for herself. She sees incredible deals all over town, and jumps on them immediately.Here we have two girls living in the same town. One sees great deals, the other gives up because she can't seem to find any decent deals. One believes she has a knack for business, and the other is convinced she's not good at business. The experiences they have and the circumstances that greet them on a daily basis match whatever has been impressed upon their subconscious minds.

How this Information can Change Your Life:First, you have to realize that whatever it is you are currently experiencing is a result of thoughts and actions from your past.

Current circumstances are no more or less than the _expression of what has been impressed upon your subconscious mind. You are simply experiencing what you have prepared yourself to experience.

I see this as very good news, and here's why. If what you're currently experiencing is a result of past thoughts and actions, then doesn't it apply that your future experiences will be a result of your present thoughts and actions? Yes it does! You may have heard me talk about the importance of being in action, and about compartmentalizing your tasks throughout the day.

That is, when it's time to do email, you do email. When it's time to work on a particular project, that's what you do. This requires diligence and sometimes a great deal of practice to stay focused.
When you act in this way, you start creating little successes in each part of your life. These successes and the focused attention create NEW impressions upon your subconscious. These new impressions will eventually surface in the form of new experiences.Think of it a different way -- and this will blow your mind.

To experience what you want in the future, all you have to do is begin impressing into your subconscious the thoughts that directly relate to that experience today, then acting according to the feelings you have when you impress those thoughts. This is how you create new experiences.

Simply figure out what you want to experience, and work your way back from the experience to determine the thoughts and actions that will create the experience. This always works, without exception. Positive thoughts get reinforced through positive action, and negative thoughts through negative action.

It's an incredibly simple concept to understand, but takes a lot of patience and persistence to get right, and you have to stick with it. Here's a practical example. Say you want to get involved in flipping real estate, but your current experience is that everyone else seems to find the good deals, and that you always get there too late. Look back at your life to examine the thoughts and actions that were impressed upon your subconscious and resulted in your current experience.

In "The Diamond Cutter", Roach goes through 46 business problems people face, and identifies the root cause and how to create new impressions. It's likely that, if you're always behind or left out, you had this image of yourself impressed upon your subconscious early in your life. Maybe your brother or sister got all the attention, or you had to wear his or her old clothes. These thoughts create feelings of inadequacy, resentment, or jealousy. Actions are then based on these feelings, and reinforce the impression of "not good enough".

You have to break the cycle and create new, positive impressions. What I like about Roach's approach is how much it requires very specific action to create a new impression in your subconscious.

People who don't take the time to do a financial baseline or forecast are fueling the impression of lack - lack of time; lack of resources; or lack of money.

To create the opposite impression in your subconscious, complete your baseline and forecast as a way of impressing the thought that "there is plenty of time to do what's needed for my business, and I believe I can make my targets." It's important to understand that the simplest tasks often create the most powerful impressions.

Knowing that you have over 60,000 thoughts in a day, what if you took actions throughout the day that required you to have mostly positive thoughts?

In the above example, the person who feels that everyone else gets the good stuff would benefit from having a mini-celebration every time she hears about another person's success. This impresses the idea that there are good deals to be had, and getting them is a very good thing. Yes, it's that subtle, and that easy to create new impressions.

Remember to give it time, though.

Creating the Impressions that Result in Building Wealth and the _Expression of Your Power:

1. Examine your current situation and understand what has been impressed upon your subconscious.

2. Create the vision of what you want to experience in the future.

3. Determine the thoughts and actions that will most likely result in those experiences.

4. Define the strategies and tactics necessary to impress the right thoughts and take the right actions.

5. Go into action. More specifically: If you haven't already created your 2006 baseline and forecast, do it as soon as possible to nurture the impressions of success.

Take the steps to protect your assets and your business. This helps to create the subconscious impression of your value and worth.

Develop real marketing plans for your business to impress upon your mind your ability to succeed.

Create or further develop your wealth team.

Surround yourself with quality people you trust, and you impress upon your subconscious the energy or idea of quality.

This results in quality experiences. Celebrate in the success of your colleagues, and learn to collaborate instead of compete.

Collaboration and celebration (and gratitude) create impressions of success in your subconscious, so that you may create future experiences in which you feel celebrated and grateful.

Summary:These are extremely powerful concepts. Yes, you absolutely need to learn about and exercise the fundamentals of wealth building.

Develop your plan and strategy.
Create your baseline and entity structuring.
But, perhaps most importantly, begin creating the kinds of impressions on your subconscious that will eventually lead you to the experiences you want to have. I am constantly working on my mental conditioning, as should you if you want to join me at the head of the table.

Loral Langemeier

War for Talent II: Seven Ways to Win

McKinsey & Co. surveyed 6,900 senior executives and young managers from 56 companies to figure out the secrets of a smart plan to win the battle for great people.

Three years ago, Fast Company reported on a breakthrough study by McKinsey & Co. that described the "war for talent" in business and the high stakes associated with how senior executives fought that war. Last summer, McKinsey released a new report on the same theme, called "War for Talent 2000." The report, which takes another in-depth look at this critical issue, is a survey of 6,900 corporate officers, top executives, and midlevel gen-X managers in 56 companies. Here is an excerpt from the report on the seven "talent imperatives" that are essential for winning the war for talent.

1. Instill a talent mindset at all levels of the organization -- beginning with senior management. A talent mindset is a deeply held belief that having high caliber people in the most value-creating jobs and having a strong bench are critical to achieving the aspirations of the company. The talent mindset must be reinforced with accountability for the strength of the talent pool at all levels.... A rigorous and candid review process is essential to identify high and low performers, outline individuals' strengths and weaknesses ... and identify specific actions to address issues around under-performers.

2. Create "extreme" employee value propositions (EVPs) that deliver on your people's dreams -- the EVP is the compelling reason why a talented person would want to work for your company. Crafted in the extreme, an EVP will enable a company to capture more than its fair share of talent. You will know that you've got the four elements of the EVP right when:

Great company: The company genuinely cares about its people and the people, in turn, truly care about the company. Trust and open communication are the fabric of each interaction. Each person is motivated by the company's mission and aspirations. There is an enormous pride in being associated with the company's success and each individual's role in it.

Great leaders: Great leaders really do treat people with trust and respect, and honor the intelligence of all who contribute to the institution. They manage to find the balance between giving people independence to accomplish great things and providing the guidance, or even the guidelines, to help them do it. Great leaders build the capacity to achieve results, knowing that they do this by unleashing the talents and work ethic of their people.... They know their people and understand their dreams.

Great job: Quite simply, people have got to like what they do and the people they do it with. A great job is demanding and stretching and full of content that the individual finds interesting and important. Much of feeling good about a job is the result of being valued for one's unique talents.
Attractive compensation: Today, money buys the house and the bacon, but it equally represents recognition and fairness. Talented people expect their contributions to be acknowledged and their compensation to reflect their impact.

3. Build a high-performance culture that combines a strong performance ethic with an open and trusting environment -- company culture is a critical element of the EVP. One of the signal insights of this survey is that the combination of a strong performance ethic (the relentless desire to outcompete the competition) and an open and trusting environment achieves the greatest satisfaction with culture. The performance ethic, which some people misconstrue as a mean-spirited management approach, not only drives satisfaction with culture ... it also drives financial performance.

4. Recruit great talent continuously -- the most aggressive companies are always on the prowl for talent. They have a keen sense of who they are looking for, and they do their looking in new ways and in new places. They bring in talent at all levels of the organization, even senior levels.

5. Develop people to their full potential -- every company leaves a tremendous amount of human potential untapped because its people are inadequately developed. Effectively conceived stretch jobs, coupled with informal feedback, coaching, and mentoring, are enormous developmental levers.

6. Make room for talent to grow -- companies suffer an enormous cost by not acting on the negative influence of under-performers. Under-performers are unable to attract top talent, do not develop the people below them, block opportunities for those around them, undermine the morale of the group they lead, and ultimately cause better performers to leave the company. The biggest obstacle to action is human nature. Moving on under-performers, whether it's to a new position or out of the company, is both a difficult task and an obligation of leaders.

7. Focus on retaining high performers -- companies must truly deliver on their EVP promises if they hope to retain talented people. Beyond the EVP, companies must demonstrate that they value and appreciate their people. Simply helping high-potential people feel connected and vital to the future of the business can be a powerful retention tactic. Let them know they are wanted!

A Belief in Talent

Talent is the most important source of competitive advantage in the new economy, and market-leading companies are struggling to realize its potential, rather than simply measure its cost. The first step is instilling the leadership belief we call a Talent Mindset.
To transform traditional management practices, leaders must understand and truly believe in the value of a new paradigm. This belief can be measured in terms of leadership behavior, cultural expectations and organizational activities. HCI's Talent Mindset can benchmark an organization's knowledge and commitment to best practices in talent acquisition, development and management.

The Talent Mindset Index
The McKinsey Organization originated the concept of a talent mindset in their 1998 report, "The War for Talent". The report suggests six action steps:

1.Establish a gold standard for talent
2.Get actively involved with people deep within the organization
3. Drive a simple, probing talent review process
4. Instill a talent mindset in all managers through out the organization
5. Invest real money in talent
6. Hold leaders accountable for the strength of the talent pools they build

While these 6 activities are a good start, they are not specific or comprehensive enough. In 2004, The Human Capital Institute identified 28 key talent practices and developed the HCI Talent Mindset Index as a fast, standard method for collecting, measuring and reporting their presence and impact across organizations and industries.

The Talent Mindset Index evaluates the implementation of talent practices from the leader's viewpoint, and is designed to survey managers, directors and executives in corporations, government agencies, non-profit and academic organizations.

Management and Employee Surveys
The Talent Mindset Index is comprised of two surveys--one for management and one for employees. The management survey includes 28 detailed questions on specific talent management practices in corporations, government agencies and non-profit organizations.
The employee survey is a ten question, five minute snapshot of how talent practices are perceived by employees. The employee and management suverys can then be compared to determine areas of consensus and discord.

Talent Demand Spurs Recruiting and Retention Focus on Employee Job Criteria

According to the recently released annual MetLife Employee Benefits Trend Study, recruiting and retention have emerged as top concerns for employers in 2006 with nearly

one-quarter (22%) of all employees changing jobs over the past eighteen months and

74% of businesses expecting competition for talent to escalate over the next 18 months.

In this increasingly competitive job market, employees report that their top consideration when deciding whether to join and/or remain with an employer is "the quality of coworker and/or customer relationships," cited by 58% of employees overall and 62% of women.

Young Baby Boomers age 41-50 (61%) and pre-retirees age 61-69 (67%) are most likely to cite relationships as a deciding factor.

Among all age groups, the opportunity for work/life balance was cited as the second most important recruitment/retention criterion.

More than half (56%) of today's employees rate work/life balance as a key job selection criterion, with a roughly equal percentage of men (56%) and women (58%) listing "balance" as critical.

Rounding out the top three criteria for recruitment/retention is

"working for an organization whose purpose/mission I agree with,"

cited by more than half (54%) of the employees surveyed.

At a time when employees are looking to create greater balance between the physical demands of work and life, many are also seeking an inner sense of balance between personal ideals and employer mission.

The survey found that traditional job selection criteria including "the opportunity for financial growth and advancement" (cited by 52% of employees), and "the opportunity for skill building and professional growth" (cited by 51% of employees) ranked as least important by the 2005-06 survey respondents.

This shift in what employees value and seek in a job puts demands on employers to create a work environment that reflects their employees' life-stage needs and values.

To retain top talent in today's competitive job market, employers need to understand what motivates and inspires loyalty among experienced high performers. The key to the executive washroom and other perks of yesteryear just don't cut it today. The opportunity to work for a company that fosters strong workplace relationships and inspires a sense of balance and/or purpose attracts top talent today.

The missing “X FACTOR” in creating a truly successful life is specialized knowledge and skill in relationships.
Michael Angier

Quick Goal Setting Tips

1. Make goals meaningful. Goal setting for the sake of goal setting almost always ends in disappointment. Goal setting is simply a tool to use in achieving a favorable outcome -- what some people call a "Dream."

2. Use positive language and the present tense when setting a goal. It is better to say "I weigh a healthy, trim and fit 185 pounds" than "I want to lose 20 pounds."

3. Always put your goals in writing. Every expert agrees that setting a goal without putting it in writing drastically reduces your chances of success.

4. Goal setting should take place in every area of your life, including Health, Relationships, Spiritual, Career and Financial.

5. Setting Life Goals will add dimension, excitement and texture to your life.

6. Failure doesn't always mean that you did something wrong in your goal setting or implementation. It may just mean that the time you allotted for success wasn't adequate. A thorough review process should be undertaken before setting the goal again.

A Coach's Playbook for Leaders
Jim Clemmer

All organizations have access to more or less the same resources. They draw from the same pool of people in their markets or geographic areas. And they can all learn about the latest tools and techniques.
Yet not all organizations perform equally. There is a huge gap between high- and low-performing organizations. What accounts for this huge gap is leadership.
Leaders develop and bring out the best in people. This dramatically expands the performance capacity of an organization. With a strong leadership foundation, management systems and processes, as well as technology and technical expertise, expand to their full potential.
That's why coaching has become such a key management development topic in so many organizations. Too many managers are bosses, technicians or even bullies. They kill team spirit, arouse mediocrity and suck the energy out of the room. The results are poor morale, loss of talented people and low performance.
Effective leaders, by contrast, develop people. Rather than running around solving problems, while overflowing e-mail and voice-mail boxes suck up huge amounts of their time and energy, strong leaders empower and enable others to solve daily operational problems.
Of course, successful leaders also direct and control when needed. But mostly they teach and engage people throughout their organization to reach ever-higher performance levels.
Strong leaders don't just see people as they are. They coach people into becoming what they can be.
Here are the best practices of leaders who provide the best coaching to the people in their organization:
Clarify roles and goals
There's an old saying that teaches, "the clearer the target, the surer the aim." It's common sense: We can't achieve top-level performance if we're not clear what it looks like.
However obvious this critical coaching strategy may seem, many managers fail to practise it. Unclear roles and goals is a primary cause of job dissatisfaction.
Effective coaches are masters at helping people set the performance bar very high by aligning organizational, customer and team needs with the individual's personal goals. While jobs may be shifting and roles evolving to meet changing conditions, a strong leader will get everyone involved in a continuing process of redefining and resetting roles and goals. Strong leaders build upon successes and string together small wins to boost confidence about what can be achieved.
Build on strengths
Abraham Lincoln once said, "It has been my experience that people who have no vices have very few virtues." Dwelling on our own or another's weaknesses rarely improves them. And it sure doesn't do much for self-confidence, passion or commitment. Like a good hockey coach who has specialty players or lines for specific situations -- such as power plays or penalty killing -- a strong leader finds people whose strengths most closely match the requirements of the role (and whose weaknesses are less important) in a given situation.
Rather than defining the ideal role and trying to find a perfect person to fit it, effective leaders find someone who meets most of the key criteria. He or she then tailors the responsibilities to align with the individual's strengths. Strong leaders give people a chance to do what they do best every day.
Confront poor performance
When performance problems arise, they need to be confronted. Like porcupines in love, such discussions can be painful for both parties. That's often why managers avoid them.
Leaders, however, know that poor performance is like a highly contagious disease. The longer it goes unchecked, the more everyone suffers.
Confronting performance problems is generally more humane than letting the individual and his or her co-workers suffer. An underperforming team member is often unhappy and likely mismatched to his or her job.
If training, developing or some of the other coaching approaches don't appreciably improve performance, helping the individual find new work inside or outside the organization will put everyone out of their misery.
Servant leadership
So much of what is done by a mediocre (or worse) manager makes it difficult for people to get their work done. "I am from head office and I am here to help you" sends the snicker meter over the red line in many organizations. Too often managers have made it harder for people on the frontlines to get their job done.
Strong coaches start by building agreement or buy-in to roles and goals. Then they flip things around and serve their teams and organizations.
In his book, The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, University of Southern California president Stephen Sample writes, "If a would-be leader wants glamour, he should try acting in the movies. However, if he in fact wants to make a consequential impact on a cause or an organization, he needs to roll up his sleeves and be prepared to perform a series of grungy chores which are putatively beneath him, and for which he'll never receive recognition or credit, but by virtue of which his lieutenants will be inspired and enabled to achieve great things."
Give good feedback
Effective leaders are effective communicators. And an essential part of this skill is the ability to deliver useful feedback.
Good feedback nourishes growth and development. Without it, the leader as coach is unable to clarify performance targets, develop skills and abilities, reinforce progress or build on strengths. Strong, relevant and useful feedback shows how much leaders care about the growth of people on their team.
A core element of corrective feedback is to objectively focus on the problem, issue or behaviour and not the person. Through guiding self-reflection or giving behavioural observations, good coaches provide balanced feedback that helps people clearly see what they should keep doing, stop doing and start doing.
Ask and listen
Asking and listening are fundamental to strong leadership. They are learnable skills. Whether we choose to develop them or not depends upon our values.
Managers will claim they care about people in their organization. But their failure to seek out and really listen to other views or ideas tells the real tale. What comes across is, "If I want any of your bright ideas, I'll give them to you."
Many managers feel that the people in their team or organization have misguided views or petty issues. "That's just their perception," is a common response to input that they don't agree with. "We need to show them the reality of the situation," they'll often counter. Attitudes are something to be adjusted rather than probed for underlying improvement opportunities. Weak managers often believe that customers' perceptions are to be changed rather than better understood and learned from. Often, internal or external partners (such as distributors, other agencies or departments and suppliers) are classified as whiners who just don't get it.
Asking probing questions and listening attentively to the answers is a key sign of a strong leader. Mediocre managers do all the talking. They would rather be wrong than be quiet.
Leaders, on the other hand, listen. They know that coaching and developing people is impossible without paying attention to others.
The old bromide, "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" illuminates the base of mutual respect so fundamental to good coaching.
Cheerlead
It has been said that there are only two types of people who thrive on being recognized for their achievements: men and woman. We have all experienced the incredible energy of getting recognition or appreciation from people whose opinions we respect. We cherish notes, cards, awards, trophies or the warm afterglow of a compliment.
A common complaint of people in low-performing organizations is that they don't get recognition and appreciation from their boss. They feel like a piece of furniture. It's a huge contributor to declining levels of morale and self-motivation. It's one of the reasons people leave an organization to work elsewhere.
Effective coaches understand the power of sincere recognition, genuine appreciation and celebration. These are what provide the atmosphere of encouragement that develops confidence and builds on strengths.
This encouragement needn't come from the leader. It can be just as meaningful coming from peers, customers, team members and other partners.
But it's the leader who sets the emotional tone and atmosphere for recognition, appreciation and celebration in his or her organization.

Growing Others into What They Could Be
Jim Clemmer

"A true Master is not the one with the most students, but one who creates the most Masters. A true leader is not the one with the most followers, but one who creates the most leaders." — Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue

I was doing fairly well in grades one to three - especially in reading. Then I hit a terrible teacher in grade four. She made school so unhappy and unappealing, she almost caused me to drop out — of course I would have waited another few years to make it official. However, in grades five and six I came under the nurturing of Mrs. Westman. I vividly remember her saying after I'd read a composition to the class; "someday I won't be surprised to see your name on a book." Her encouraging words simmered in my subconscious for years and helped me to see new possibilities for myself. Twenty years later my first book, The VIP Strategy: Leadership Skills for Exceptional Performance, was published. It was a real pleasure to present her with one of the very first copies — inscribed with a warm thank you message. Her family and the local paper ensured that she got the recognition she so richly deserved.
Most people see others as they are, a leader sees them as they could be. Leaders like Mrs. Westman see beyond the current problems and limitations to help others see their own possibilities. It's a key part of our own growth and development. We continue to grow when we help others grow and develop. That's the second half of the two part growing and developing circle. The first part is our own growth and development. We can't develop others if our own growth is stunted. The two parts of the growing and developing circle depend upon and support each other. We develop ourselves while we're developing others. By developing others, we develop ourselves further. This allows us to develop others still further — the growth circle spirals ever upward. The reverse is also true. By failing to develop myself and others, my growth and development circle spins downward.
The art of developing others is the art of assisting their self-discovery. The 15th century Italian physicist and astronomer, Galileo put it this way, "you cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself." This leads us to the developing-without-teaching paradox. The ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao-Tzu, described it like this; "superior leaders get things done with very little motion. They impart instruction not through many words, but through a few deeds. They keep informed about everything but interfere hardly at all. They are catalysts, and though things would not get done as well if they weren't there, when they succeed they take no credit. And because they take no credit, credit never leaves them."
Growing and developing others is one of management's key responsibilities. The traditional view of management is getting work done through people, but strong leaders develop people through work. As managers, team leaders, or team members, we can't be much help in developing others if we don't really know where they're trying to go. Once we understand that, we can work to align their development goals with those of the team or organization. They don't always match, but generally it's not too difficult to bring them together.
A similar approach applies to our parental leadership role with teenagers. The deepest love we can show our sons and daughters is to help them discover their unique purpose and uncover their special talents. That can be especially tough if it doesn't match the dreams we may have for them. Our leadership task is to help them all that they can be, not what we would like to be if we were in their place.

Excerpted from Jim's fourth bestseller, Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success. V
http://www.clemmer.net/excerpts/growing_others.shtml

How Leaders Build Savvy Companies:

Leaders develop thinking skills by deliberately facilitating the practices that lead to good thinking. Their people are already talking, addressing problems, coping with events, and planning next moves. The challenge for the leader is to ensure that these activities occur in a manner that not only generates the right conclusions, but that upgrades the quality of communal thinking at the same time. For a leader to facilitate how thinking is done generates absolutely no additional monetary costs for the company. The costs of not doing so can be devastating.

There are seven steps good leaders use to liberate rather than to restrict thinking. While the specifics may vary widely across companies, the fundamental practices remain the same.

The 7 Steps To Liberating A Company’s Thinking:
Keep a clear company focus
Expect rigorous thinking
Maintain openness to inquiry
Nurture conversations about ideas
Push decision-making authority down to the lowest levels of capability
Foster collaborative thinking
Demote, transfer or release people who refuse to get with the program

The 7 Steps Detailed:

1. Keep a clear company focus:
Every leader has a business idea. That is, they have their own understanding of how the business will use its resources and capabilities to create value, build customer loyalty, outwit the competition, and respond to changing circumstances. However, in order for the company, as a whole, to act intelligently upon this business idea, the leader must ensure that others develop a deep, shared understanding of it.
The better the leader can articulate this complex idea, the more likely s/he is to bring others to a common understanding of how this vision should best play out. The more others have contributed to sharpening the idea, the more robust it will be. The better people understand the assumptions that shape the business idea, the better they’re positioned to recognize when changing circumstances make one or more of those assumptions obsolete. The more intimately engaged the core team is in thinking the idea through, the better able they are to pass it on accurately and fully to others. The better everyone understands the roles that each are to play in fulfilling the business idea, the more likely it is that they’ll recognize the ramifications of their ideas and actions on others. This shared understanding creates the focus for everyone in the company to pull in the same direction.
Rick Sidorowicz, a principal with High Impact Retail, demonstrates his mastery of this practice when he discusses his leadership perspective:
As the head of retail operations for a North American specialty retailer, my job is about having conversations to ensure a common understanding. I've always operated from the position that you can unlock high performance only when you have your front line associates and all support teams clearly focused and committed, and 'on a mission'.
There are two important elements to creating this sense of mission among people, and each requires very serious 'work' to clarify, simplify and focus on what is expected and indeed, required. The first is alignment; my people should be able to say, “I fully understand the expectations, I accept my role in the fulfillment of the objectives, I want to be here and I will act to perform my role to the best of my abilities.” The second element is intensity; what I should be hearing is, “We have a mission and a keen sense of urgency - and failure is not an option.”
When a leader operates from an intuitive grasp of the business idea, rather than being able to articulate it with the clarity required for others to develop a deep, shared understanding of the business idea and their roles in making it happen, the result is a fractured focus. A fractured focus leads to personal goals and functional agendas being predominant, rather than everyone working with a shared understanding towards a common goal. When the focus is fragmented, people are likely to make the best decisions they can from their own perspectives. The parts of the organization are likely to work against each other, or simply work without regard to each other. Although all of the individual decisions may be good, when they are made without regard to a common focus, something is lost. For smart company thinking to occur, functional solutions have to fit the broader business agenda. Good business leaders make sure that their agendas are sharply defined, clearly in focus, and thoroughly disseminated.
In the final analysis, only the business leader can ensure that the business idea has been honed by all of the company’s thinkers. Only someone with ultimate responsibility can ensure that everyone’s best thinking is devoted to executing the business idea effectively. The important caveat is that while one person has to assume final responsibility, the thinking has to be done by all involved.

2. Expect rigorous thinking:
Expect rigorous thinking---from yourself and others. This doesn’t mean sitting around passively and hoping it will occur. Rather, the expectation is that rigorous thinking is necessary, and an active stance says that you won’t settle for less. Taking an active stance means communicating the importance of quality thinking as a key component of how you define business success, and demonstrating it yourself. Think about your thinking and lead your team to think about theirs. Hold people accountable for it. Respect it. Reward it.
Nicolas Estrella, president of the Estrella Insurance Group, fosters rigorous thinking in his own, unique way:
I tell my people what needs to be done. They go and do it. Then, they come back with their results. I am never satisfied with the results that they bring back the first time, so we sit down and analyze the situation. Then, I set a new goal and send them out again, to see what they can do. Sometimes they’re successful. If I’m still not satisfied, I’ll go out and get it myself. I’ll show them, after they think they’ve already experienced everything that there is always something more that you can obtain.
Respecting people isn’t some warm and fuzzy New Age management fad. At its heart, the idea is that you are respecting people enough to demand their best.
If you want to get better at expecting rigorous thinking, here are some ideas for getting started:
Institute a disciplined approach to diagnosing crises
Dig down and address the core of a problem, rather than the symptoms
Build solutions from the ideas of many---remember that no one is as smart as everyone
Foster diversity in all of its forms---make it a habit to include different people with different backgrounds from different functions with different perspectives to enrich thinking and avoid ruts
There are usually several ways to 'skin a cat' so avoid arguments over who’s right – focus on skinning the cat
Set up a process to include contrary perspectives in the councils of the business---appoint someone to champion unconventional ideas and/or play the role of Devil’s Advocate (rotate this role, so everyone learns to consider unconventional ideas)
If you lack the skills to implement these ideas or the confidence to try, get help. You can make improved thinking a goal of your leadership team and learn as you go, or get outside help to get you started.

3. Maintain openness to inquiry:
When people believe that they know the right answer, they quit thinking. They don’t seek new information. They don’t solicit input from others. They stop considering alternatives. Why should they do any of these things when they already know the answer?
The key to success isn’t an endless cycle of rumination, anymore than it is embracing an okay solution too quickly. Rather, it lies in practicing the shared discipline of not making decisions on autopilot. In our constantly changing, fluid environment, it is wise to realize that business decisions are made in a particular time, place, and within a given set of assumptions. Those factors have to be commonly understood and revalidated in the face of new questions, circumstances or information. Revalidating the key assumptions of your position is a critical component of good decision-making. It is often poor decision-making in the past that leaves business leaders too harried to think things through in the present.
You can take some simple steps to encourage liberated thinking in your company. People should be expected to do adequate research. Are they paying enough attention to data gathering? Is their thinking appropriately complex for the situation the company is addressing? Are they aware of what others are doing in the face of similar challenges? Additionally, stop people from ad-libbing in meetings when they haven’t thought an issue through. Finding fault with the ideas of others without offering an improvement that moves thinking forward should not be tolerated. Along these same lines, expect that functional presentations be in harmony with the company’s overall agenda.
As a leader, find teachable moments---good opportunities for coaching---and share your thinking. Take some time to reflect upon the data and criteria that you would look for when making a decision or setting a course of action. Learn to articulate the thinking behind your intuitions. You can set the expectation that everyone can learn from every problem, and from everyone else. If you know the answer and your people don’t, then you know what they need to learn. Pass it on. If none of you know what to do, you have the opportunity to dig in and gain an understanding. If you find yourselves stuck, and unable to find a solution, go back, question your assumptions and reframe the problem from different perspectives until new solutions emerge.
Here are two additional positions that you, as the leader, can take to support learning in your organization:
Encourage discovery – celebrate new ideas and the people who generate them
Support an ethic of enlightened common sense – that is, common sense that has been enriched by deliberate consideration and discussion

4. Nurture conversations about ideas:
Not every idea needs to be savored and discussed. Focus on the ones that are key to what you’re trying to do, and on the reasoning behind opinions, decisions and patterns. People learn best and develop shared perspectives by talking ideas through to a common understanding.
Too often we simply don’t expect workers to think beyond a very narrow range of their moment-to-moment focus. It is as if we believe that they are only competent to think about what they are doing in very simple, mechanical ways. That belief is often sustained by a lack of substantive conversations about the business between the workers and their leaders. (Tirades and inquisitions do not count as substantive conversations.) On the other hand, if your people are really limited in their ability to think about core business conditions and make corrections or improvements---teach them how or let them go.
Once again, Rick Sidorowicz’s insights are worth considering:
The serious 'work' is having conversations that engage your people in the business of the business. Please, always keep in mind that your front line associates always know more about your business than you do. Heresy you say but think about it for a minute. They deal with your customers and your products and your services and your processes and your bureaucratic mindlessness every minute of every day in real time...and they do know what great performance looks like for your customers. Their input and interest is the prerequisite for alignment and intensity, and once you have that underway, many magical things will start to happen. To do that you have to give up your exalted perspective of giving the answers - and start asking questions and engaging those who you expect to execute your strategy.
In a nutshell high performance is not about telling or selling or dictating or mandating anything. It's about clarifying, engaging and applying the talent of people. And to do that, your work has to be about having conversations about who you are, what you are up to and what you want to achieve.
Mark Steele, a vice president and managing director at Kennametal, has found that asking the right questions and listening with patience are important elements to nurturing conversations:
Great ideas start with great questions. Great leaders tend to be great teachers who are capable of heightening team member awareness of their own talents and capabilities. We all remember the teacher who put us on the spot to answer questions and led us to believe in ourselves. Likewise, we as leaders must ask the great questions and display the patience required for people to work out a correct answer or strategy. It is our duty as leaders to provoke people in ways that lead them to new heights of awareness about the possibilities.
Here are two other benchmarks you can set as reference points to measure your progress in nurturing conversations about ideas:
Have you established a focus on solutions rather than blame?
Do you support a culture of sharing information, insights and success?

5. Push decision-making authority down to the lowest levels of capability:
This is not to say that you should abdicate responsibility or stop supervising. However, you should not be doing the thinking for others or making the decisions that they are being paid to make. Far too many leaders allow their people to delegate problems upward. If this practice is allowed, in short order, leaders are overwhelmed with the work of their subordinates. They don’t have time to do the things that only the leader can do, while simultaneously, many competent people are wasting time waiting for others to tell them what to do.
Nick Estrella offers his thoughts on avoiding this pitfall by being an observant and perceptive leader, who recognizes when to step in and offer his guidance, while paying his people the respect of expecting their best, always. When talking of his agency managers, he says:
You have to know your peoples’ habits and work patterns. You watch them working to make things happen and then you can help them with what they don’t know. It is safe to need help here. I believe that the agency managers need to feel a degree of security in being in charge of their own business. I try to give them as much latitude as possible to produce in the way they best can. I want them to feel that trust and confidence. I want them to feel as secure as possible without feeling entitled. What I demand is that everyone always works hard.
It’s tempting, in the crush of daily business demands, to tell people what to do, to give a solution and move on. However, the consequence is that people won’t understand how to generate the solution the next time this problem occurs. They don’t learn how to be resourceful in addressing different, but similar, issues in the future. As people understand the context of a problem, as they recognize its dynamics at work, and as they have a clearer grasp of the criteria required for creating a good solution, they become better thinkers as well as better problem-solvers. The better they think, the more agile and adept the company becomes.

6. Foster collaborative thinking:
The right business solution seldom springs full blown from one person’s head. Complex solutions are usually built from a combination of investigation, conversation, and consideration. The idea that no one is as smart as everyone implies that good solutions are usually developed collaboratively.
Maintaining an atmosphere of collaborative thinking can be a challenge. Think about what happens in the typical business meeting. It is not uncommon for the most aggressive, facile speakers to win a debate, even if their logic is flawed. The more dominant personalities tend to champion favored positions and tolerate little challenge from others. Sometimes, the boss knows the answer s/he wants before the conversation even begins. In this case, there’s a charade of deliberation, but the true purpose of the meeting is to give people the answer, not to think it through with them. That these tendencies are not in the best interests of the company as a whole doesn’t seem to stop them from happening. They are the habits of companies with poor thinking skills.
Breaking a bad habit requires that we notice when we’re doing it and deliberately engage in activities that substitute more effective behaviors. In talking about how he fosters collaborative thinking and idea building, Jim Bruhn, president of Canfield Metal Coatings, says:
First, I like to create a learning atmosphere where people are focused on improving their business-related knowledge so they can increase their contribution to the team. Associates shouldn’t be afraid to admit that they aren’t excellent at all they do, rather that they are determined to continually improve. Recognize every new idea as having certain value – even though it may not be used in the final decision. Also, we try to raise people up for having the courage to 'borrow' ideas from others. No one has to dream up the entire thought him-or herself --- but they need to discern that it is one, which will fit well, in a particular situation.
Within a relatively short time after assuming responsibility for the leadership of this company and instituting his leadership philosophy, the results for Jim have been a significant increase in the overall thinking of his organization, and better decisions all the way around.

7. Transfer, demote or replace people who won’t get with the program:
Enlightened culling is a practice that lends integrity to all of the others. One aspect of expecting, demonstrating, respecting and rewarding rigorous, collaborative thinking is that there must be consequences to the behavior choices your people make. Many, if not most, people thrive and excel when led by good leaders. However, some people lack the will and/or the desire to continue learning. It is relatively easy to identify these people because they generally offer excuses rather than demonstrating a serious effort to engage in learning. Think about what you would do if you were dying to learn something. You would at least ask questions, to seek more information or ensure that your present understanding is correct. You would read what you could or find other input. You’d be talking about what you’re learning. You’d practice, rehearse, and test your skills and seek feedback from others who know more than you. When people are not actively engaged in these activities they are not actively committed to learning.
When people continue to 'not get it' over time, in spite of good leadership, there are three reasons that often are behind it:

People don’t have the fundamental personal competencies
People don’t want to learn
People aren’t actively committed to the cause
Their progress has to come from active thought partnerships among themselves and with the business leader. If they don’t engage they will never learn; whether they can or not becomes moot. Find people who will and move on.

In Conclusion:
Making your company smarter leads to an advantage that can’t be replicated by the competition, even if they know what you’re doing. A leader who tries to be the only thinker in the organization is destined to run a company that is seriously at-risk, or at best, not very competitive. It’s raising your company’s IQ that leads to peak performance.

Developing a Team or Organization Vision
Jim Clemmer

As Mark Twain once remarked about the weather, there's a lot of talk about vision, but very few managers really do anything about it. Visioning is sometimes an innate natural skill just like leadership sometimes is. And the moon sometimes blocks out the sun - but none occur very often. Most people have had to consciously and with great effort continually work to strengthen their visioning. Visionary leaders are seldom born that way (how many of those birth announcements have you seen lately?). Nor are they necessarily charismatic. They have had to work at making visioning habitual.

Here are a few pathways and pitfalls to organizational visioning:

You and your team need to picture and describe your preferred future as vividly as possible. One approach is to imagine it's five years from today and you're being interviewed by Fortune magazine, a leading newspaper, or an industry journalist on the phenomenal success your company or team have had. Describe the results you've achieved and perhaps the approach you've used. Speak in the present tense as if it's all happening around you right now.

Too many managers try to delegate "the vision thing" to a committee. It doesn't work. If you're a senior manager, caring for the culture and providing organization focus isn't just part of your job, it is your job.

Unless you're an exceptionally clear and inspiring writer, be very careful about drafting a "vision statement" and using that as your communications centerpiece.

Visions are about feelings, beliefs, emotions, and pictures. It's very hard to bring those across on paper (especially if the statement is developed by a committee).

Vision ideas or summaries can, and should, be committed to paper, and widely circulated - but as a "leave behind," follow-up, or reminder. Visions are the most compelling when they are delivered in person by a leader who's an effective communicator.
Powerful personal communication skills and energizing leadership are inseparable. Learn how to use "impassioned logic" by adding metaphors, stories, models, or examples to help everyone "see the big picture" and rouse their emotions to make it happen.

Your team or organization needs a shared vision, not something that only a few people own. You need to make everyone a "spiritual stakeholder." That's usually a cascading process, but it can start in any part of an organization. Ideally, the senior management team defines the broad parameters of what business you're in and which direction you're heading. They can prepare a rough vision for input and refinement or leave things wide open for the rest of the organization to fill in.

Invoke pride, stretch everyone's thinking, and stir the will-to-win emotions. Shoot to shake up the industry or change the rules of the game. Become the fastest, strongest, highest quality, most innovative, or best at something.

Vision is the critical focal point and beginning of high performance. But a vision alone won't make it happen. Unless the hard work of striving, building, and improving follows, even the most vibrant vision will remain only a dream.

Kenneth W Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann'sConflict Mode Instrument

Consider Situations in Which You Find Your Wishes Differing from Those of Another Person.

How Do You Usually Respond to Such Situations?

Because no two individuals have exactly the same expectations and desires, conflict is a natural part of our interactions with others. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument is a self-scoring exercise that takes about 15 minutes to complete. Interpretation and feedback materials help you learn about the most appropriate uses for each conflict-handling mode. It also gives suggestions for increasing your "comfort level" with your less used styles.

The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) has been the leader in conflict resolution assessment for more than 25 years. This non-restricted instrument requires no special qualifications for administration, and it is used by Human Resources (HR) and Organizational Development (OD) consultants as a catalyst to open discussions and facilitate learning about how conflict handling styles affect personal and group dynamics.

The easy to take, easy to score TKI inventory provides individual information about your conflict handling style compared to five distinct modes:

Competing: High assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The goal is to "win".
Avoiding: Low assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The goal is to "delay".
Compromising: Moderate assertiveness and moderate cooperativeness. The goal is to "find a middle ground".
Collaborating: High assertiveness and high cooperativeness. The goal is to "find a win-win situation".
Accommodating: Low assertiveness and high cooperativeness. The goal is to "yield".

Risk Inclination - How Do You Compare to Others
By Jim McCormick
Based on Proprietary Research

Copyright © Jim McCormick. All rights reserved.

Ever wonder how risk inclined you are? And how you compare to others?

As a part of my forthcoming book, Seize Opportunity - A Practical Guide to Taking Advantage of Opportunities, I conducted some research on risk inclination. The research involved people self-assessing their risk inclination in a variety of areas.

Participants were first asked to indicate their general risk inclination on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Very Risk Averse and 10 being Very Risk Inclined. They were then asked to be more specific by similarly indicating their risk inclination in the following areas.

Physical Risks - Activities that involve some risk of injury. Riding a motorcycle, river rafting, rock climbing or skydiving are some examples.

Career Risks - Risk such as job changes, taking on new responsibilities or seeking promotions.

Financial Risks - Your risk tolerance in investing, borrowing and lending money.

Social Risks - Risks like introducing yourself to someone you don't know or putting yourself in an unfamiliar social situation even at the risk of possible embarrassment.

Intellectual Risks - Things like your willingness to study a difficult topic, pursue information that challenges your convictions or read an intellectually challenging book.

Creative Risks - Risks such as painting, drawing, taking on a writing challenge or pursuing an unconventional design.

Relationship Risks - Risks such as a willingness to pursue a new relationship, spend time with someone despite an uncertain outcome or make a relationship commitment.

Emotional Risks - Willingness to be emotionally vulnerable.

Spiritual Risks - Willingness to place your trust in concepts that may be unprovable or you do not fully understand.

Having assessed their willingness to take these nine different types of risk, participants were then again asked the first question about their general risk inclination again. Here are the results of the research so far.

Averages and Ranges of Assessments
On average, people placed their Balance Point for all types of risks between 5.9 and 7.7. I find it interesting that the averages are all above the midpoint on the assessment scale. It is also of interest that the range is so relatively small with less than two points between the lower and higher averages. This seems to suggest that people, as a whole, consider themselves moderately risk inclined and they see their risk inclination in all areas as reasonably similar.

Individually, the range of risk inclination for the specific risks varied the maximum possible. Some people had self-assessed risk inclinations ranging all the way from 1 to 10.

The range of averages of all risks for men was 6.2 to 7.8. The average risk inclinations for all risks for women were lower but broader ranging from 5.0 to 7.6.

Highest Assessment
Both as a whole and when broken down by gender, respondents indicated they were most comfortable taking intellectual risks. This could be due to people seeing the downside of taking intellectual risks as more acceptable than negative outcomes from other risks such as financial, relationship or physical. Put another way, intellectual risks are private in nature and usually taken without anyone being aware of the risk except the person taking the risk. As such, a negative outcome, should it occur, is likely known only to the risk-taker.

Lowest Assessment
Overall, people identified financial risks as the ones were least comfortable taking. The average age of the respondents being in the mid-forties likely influences this result. Men assessed their risk inclination in both financial and emotional risks as their lowest. My guess is that many will not be surprised to learn that emotional risks are among the least comfortable for men. This strikes me as consistent with the way men are often socialized in our society. Women identified physical risks as the ones they were least inclined to take.

Gender Differences
Men and women's inclination to take social and creative risks was essentially identical. The greatest difference in risk inclination between men and women came in physical risks. The average inclination to take physical risks for males was 6.9. For females, it is 5.0. This range of 1.9 is the greatest difference in risk inclination that occurs when comparing results by gender.

There are two type of risks for which women indicated a greater risk inclination than men. Can you guess which ones? Women expressed a higher inclination to take both relationship and emotional risks than men.

Revised Overall Risk Inclination
One of the points of this exercise is to encourage people to look at their risk inclination more broadly. That's the reason respondents are asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination a second time after assessing their inclination to take risks in a variety of specific areas. I am pleased to report that many respondents revised their Overall Risk Inclination upward as a result of completing the survey.

Two out of five people moved their Balance Point to the right, towards more risk inclined, the second time they were asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination compared to their response to the same question when they first responded to it. That's powerful and means that simply looking at their risk profile more broadly allowed them to revise their Overall Risk Inclination upward. For women, this effect was even more dramatic. Fully half of the women taking the survey increased their Overall Risk Inclination. One in three men did the same.

Two in five taking the survey did not change their Overall Risk Inclination. For men, those with unchanged Overall Risk Inclinations were 44 percent. For women, it was 36 percent.

Some people revised their Overall Risk Inclination downward as a result of taking the survey, but only one in five. It's refreshing to see that only half as many people moved their assessment downward compared to the number who moved theirs upward. For women, only 15 percent moved their assessments downward, while 24 percent of men did the same.

So, to review, two out of five moved their assessments of their Overall Risk Inclination upward. The same proportion kept theirs the same and one in five moved theirs downward.

More Influential Risk Inclinations
I have long suspected that we allow our comfort level with certain kinds of risks to disproportionately influence our perception of our Overall Risk Inclination. One of the goals of this survey is to look for correlation between the first assessment of Overall Risk Inclination and risk inclination in the various specific areas that would provide evidence of such disproportionate influence.

Based on countless conversations, I have sensed that many people allow their comfort level with physical risks to significantly influence their perception of their Overall Risk Inclination. But I have been wary to assert this due to the fact that most of the people who have indicated this to me are aware of my inclination to take physical risks by skydiving.

Their comments often start with a statement such as, "I could never do what you do. I'm not a risk-taker." This seems like a pretty clear reference to physical risks such as skydiving. Given time, I will explore with the person making the statement areas of their life where they are more risk inclined. Once we can disconnect their perception of their Overall Risk Inclination from their comfort with physical risks, they will often revisit their initial statement. I love when that happens! They conclude the conversation feeling a bit differently about themselves.

So, how much correlation did we find between respondents first assessment of their Overall Risk Inclination and their physical risk inclination? It depends on what group of respondents you are looking at. For males, the assessments are almost identical. My suspicion was confirmed.

For females, there is a lot less correlation, so the same theory does not seem to apply to women. For women, the highest degree of correlation with the initial assessment of Overall Risk Inclination is with financial risks. For both genders combined, the highest correlation is with emotional risks. I leave it to you to discern the significance of these correlations. Nothing in particular has yet occurred to me. If something profound comes to mind, send me an e-mail and let me know.

Impact of Age
One of the questions I get most often on the topic of risk inclination is how it changes with age. Research has shown that most people become more change adverse as they age. But comfort with change is only part of the risk equation. So, what can we glean from the responses to the surveys about how risk inclination changes with age? There are some insights, but I would not consider the conclusive without a lot more data. There are, however, some interesting patterns.

My guess is that if you were asked, based solely on intuition, whether people become more or less risk inclined as they age, you would say less. I agree and think most people would say the same. But we are not necessarily correct.

The responses to the survey show that, for the population surveyed, there is not a statistically significant change in risk inclination based on age. But things change when we look at the responses by gender. Men show a reduced inclination to risk as they age, but women do not! The women in the population surveyed showed an increase inclination to risk as they age. This is a fascinating observation that bears more research.

At this point, we can only speculate as to the causes of this increased risk inclination. It could be attributable to the fact that the women I asked to respond to the survey are, by my observation, reasonably financially secure. I would be inclined to suggest that some types of risk inclination increase with financial security.

Another factor that could be contributing to this increased risk inclination with age in women is a possible latent desire to enjoy activities and take advantage of opportunities that were difficult for them to pursue earlier in their lives due to the obligations of raising a family. Some sociologists have suggested that may women spend the first half of their lives tending to the needs of others and the second half of their lives addressing more of their own needs. That concept could be related to the survey results.

Both of these possible explanations are just supposition until validated by further research. But women's increased risk inclination as they age as indicated by the survey population is still quite thought provoking.

Yours Alone
While it is interesting to know how your risk inclination compares to others, please do not let it influence you too much. How you compare to others is really not that important.

While we can learn from observing what others do well and poorly in this realm, comparing yourself to them is just not helpful. Your natural level of risk inclination - the position of your Balance Point at this moment - is a result of a multitude of factors that are unique to you. It is influenced by the person you were at birth and all your life experiences since. Like you, it's unique.

It is an interesting reference point - and possibly a starting point if you choose to set about intentionally changing it.

Copyright © Jim McCormick. All rights reserved.

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High Performance TeamsToday's competitive work environment requires collaborative efforts if leaders, boards, managers, employees and volunteers are going to work together effectively as in their teams. The Collaborative Growth team building process focuses on the six critical connections of teamwork:

· Goals
· Relationships
· Values
· Conflict Resolution
· Roles
· Accountability

Understanding and responding to organizational challenges calls for state of the art communication, business and cultural savvy. Collaborative Growth provides assessment tools and methods that assist organizations in finding and employing the new strategies necessary for peak effectiveness in today's rapidly changing environments. We guide teams to understand themselves and others, operate with all of their intelligence, and reach strategically established outcomes.

Risk Inclination - How Do You Compare to Others
By Jim McCormick
Based on Proprietary Research

Copyright © Jim McCormick. All rights reserved.

Ever wonder how risk inclined you are? And how you compare to others?

As a part of my forthcoming book, Seize Opportunity - A Practical Guide to Taking Advantage of Opportunities, I conducted some research on risk inclination. The research involved people self-assessing their risk inclination in a variety of areas.

Participants were first asked to indicate their general risk inclination on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Very Risk Averse and 10 being Very Risk Inclined. They were then asked to be more specific by similarly indicating their risk inclination in the following areas.

Physical Risks - Activities that involve some risk of injury. Riding a motorcycle, river rafting, rock climbing or skydiving are some examples.

Career Risks - Risk such as job changes, taking on new responsibilities or seeking promotions.

Financial Risks - Your risk tolerance in investing, borrowing and lending money.

Social Risks - Risks like introducing yourself to someone you don't know or putting yourself in an unfamiliar social situation even at the risk of possible embarrassment.

Intellectual Risks - Things like your willingness to study a difficult topic, pursue information that challenges your convictions or read an intellectually challenging book.

Creative Risks - Risks such as painting, drawing, taking on a writing challenge or pursuing an unconventional design.

Relationship Risks - Risks such as a willingness to pursue a new relationship, spend time with someone despite an uncertain outcome or make a relationship commitment.

Emotional Risks - Willingness to be emotionally vulnerable.

Spiritual Risks - Willingness to place your trust in concepts that may be unprovable or you do not fully understand.

Having assessed their willingness to take these nine different types of risk, participants were then again asked the first question about their general risk inclination again. Here are the results of the research so far.

Averages and Ranges of Assessments
On average, people placed their Balance Point for all types of risks between 5.9 and 7.7. I find it interesting that the averages are all above the midpoint on the assessment scale. It is also of interest that the range is so relatively small with less than two points between the lower and higher averages. This seems to suggest that people, as a whole, consider themselves moderately risk inclined and they see their risk inclination in all areas as reasonably similar.

Individually, the range of risk inclination for the specific risks varied the maximum possible. Some people had self-assessed risk inclinations ranging all the way from 1 to 10.

The range of averages of all risks for men was 6.2 to 7.8. The average risk inclinations for all risks for women were lower but broader ranging from 5.0 to 7.6.

Highest Assessment
Both as a whole and when broken down by gender, respondents indicated they were most comfortable taking intellectual risks. This could be due to people seeing the downside of taking intellectual risks as more acceptable than negative outcomes from other risks such as financial, relationship or physical. Put another way, intellectual risks are private in nature and usually taken without anyone being aware of the risk except the person taking the risk. As such, a negative outcome, should it occur, is likely known only to the risk-taker.

Lowest Assessment
Overall, people identified financial risks as the ones were least comfortable taking. The average age of the respondents being in the mid-forties likely influences this result. Men assessed their risk inclination in both financial and emotional risks as their lowest. My guess is that many will not be surprised to learn that emotional risks are among the least comfortable for men. This strikes me as consistent with the way men are often socialized in our society. Women identified physical risks as the ones they were least inclined to take.

Gender Differences
Men and women's inclination to take social and creative risks was essentially identical. The greatest difference in risk inclination between men and women came in physical risks. The average inclination to take physical risks for males was 6.9. For females, it is 5.0. This range of 1.9 is the greatest difference in risk inclination that occurs when comparing results by gender.

There are two type of risks for which women indicated a greater risk inclination than men. Can you guess which ones? Women expressed a higher inclination to take both relationship and emotional risks than men.

Revised Overall Risk Inclination
One of the points of this exercise is to encourage people to look at their risk inclination more broadly. That's the reason respondents are asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination a second time after assessing their inclination to take risks in a variety of specific areas. I am pleased to report that many respondents revised their Overall Risk Inclination upward as a result of completing the survey.

Two out of five people moved their Balance Point to the right, towards more risk inclined, the second time they were asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination compared to their response to the same question when they first responded to it. That's powerful and means that simply looking at their risk profile more broadly allowed them to revise their Overall Risk Inclination upward. For women, this effect was even more dramatic. Fully half of the women taking the survey increased their Overall Risk Inclination. One in three men did the same.

Two in five taking the survey did not change their Overall Risk Inclination. For men, those with unchanged Overall Risk Inclinations were 44 percent. For women, it was 36 percent.

Some people revised their Overall Risk Inclination downward as a result of taking the survey, but only one in five. It's refreshing to see that only half as many people moved their assessment downward compared to the number who moved theirs upward. For women, only 15 percent moved their assessments downward, while 24 percent of men did the same.

So, to review, two out of five moved their assessments of their Overall Risk Inclination upward. The same proportion kept theirs the same and one in five moved theirs downward.

More Influential Risk Inclinations
I have long suspected that we allow our comfort level with certain kinds of risks to disproportionately influence our perception of our Overall Risk Inclination. One of the goals of this survey is to look for correlation between the first assessment of Overall Risk Inclination and risk inclination in the various specific areas that would provide evidence of such disproportionate influence.

Based on countless conversations, I have sensed that many people allow their comfort level with physical risks to significantly influence their perception of their Overall Risk Inclination. But I have been wary to assert this due to the fact that most of the people who have indicated this to me are aware of my inclination to take physical risks by skydiving.

Their comments often start with a statement such as, "I could never do what you do. I'm not a risk-taker." This seems like a pretty clear reference to physical risks such as skydiving. Given time, I will explore with the person making the statement areas of their life where they are more risk inclined. Once we can disconnect their perception of their Overall Risk Inclination from their comfort with physical risks, they will often revisit their initial statement. I love when that happens! They conclude the conversation feeling a bit differently about themselves.

So, how much correlation did we find between respondents first assessment of their Overall Risk Inclination and their physical risk inclination? It depends on what group of respondents you are looking at. For males, the assessments are almost identical. My suspicion was confirmed.

For females, there is a lot less correlation, so the same theory does not seem to apply to women. For women, the highest degree of correlation with the initial assessment of Overall Risk Inclination is with financial risks. For both genders combined, the highest correlation is with emotional risks. I leave it to you to discern the significance of these correlations. Nothing in particular has yet occurred to me. If something profound comes to mind, send me an e-mail and let me know.

Impact of Age
One of the questions I get most often on the topic of risk inclination is how it changes with age. Research has shown that most people become more change adverse as they age. But comfort with change is only part of the risk equation. So, what can we glean from the responses to the surveys about how risk inclination changes with age? There are some insights, but I would not consider the conclusive without a lot more data. There are, however, some interesting patterns.

My guess is that if you were asked, based solely on intuition, whether people become more or less risk inclined as they age, you would say less. I agree and think most people would say the same. But we are not necessarily correct.

The responses to the survey show that, for the population surveyed, there is not a statistically significant change in risk inclination based on age. But things change when we look at the responses by gender. Men show a reduced inclination to risk as they age, but women do not! The women in the population surveyed showed an increase inclination to risk as they age. This is a fascinating observation that bears more research.

At this point, we can only speculate as to the causes of this increased risk inclination. It could be attributable to the fact that the women I asked to respond to the survey are, by my observation, reasonably financially secure. I would be inclined to suggest that some types of risk inclination increase with financial security.

Another factor that could be contributing to this increased risk inclination with age in women is a possible latent desire to enjoy activities and take advantage of opportunities that were difficult for them to pursue earlier in their lives due to the obligations of raising a family. Some sociologists have suggested that may women spend the first half of their lives tending to the needs of others and the second half of their lives addressing more of their own needs. That concept could be related to the survey results.

Both of these possible explanations are just supposition until validated by further research. But women's increased risk inclination as they age as indicated by the survey population is still quite thought provoking.

Yours Alone
While it is interesting to know how your risk inclination compares to others, please do not let it influence you too much. How you compare to others is really not that important.

While we can learn from observing what others do well and poorly in this realm, comparing yourself to them is just not helpful. Your natural level of risk inclination - the position of your Balance Point at this moment - is a result of a multitude of factors that are unique to you. It is influenced by the person you were at birth and all your life experiences since. Like you, it's unique.

It is an interesting reference point - and possibly a starting point if you choose to set about intentionally changing it.

Copyright © Jim McCormick. All rights reserved.

==============================================================
High Performance TeamsToday's competitive work environment requires collaborative efforts if leaders, boards, managers, employees and volunteers are going to work together effectively as in their teams. The Collaborative Growth team building process focuses on the six critical connections of teamwork:

· Goals
· Relationships
· Values
· Conflict Resolution
· Roles
· Accountability

Understanding and responding to organizational challenges calls for state of the art communication, business and cultural savvy. Collaborative Growth provides assessment tools and methods that assist organizations in finding and employing the new strategies necessary for peak effectiveness in today's rapidly changing environments. We guide teams to understand themselves and others, operate with all of their intelligence, and reach strategically established outcomes.

Risk Inclination - How Do You Compare to Others
By Jim McCormick
Based on Proprietary Research

Copyright © Jim McCormick. All rights reserved.

Ever wonder how risk inclined you are? And how you compare to others?

As a part of my forthcoming book, Seize Opportunity - A Practical Guide to Taking Advantage of Opportunities, I conducted some research on risk inclination. The research involved people self-assessing their risk inclination in a variety of areas.

Participants were first asked to indicate their general risk inclination on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being Very Risk Averse and 10 being Very Risk Inclined. They were then asked to be more specific by similarly indicating their risk inclination in the following areas.

Physical Risks - Activities that involve some risk of injury. Riding a motorcycle, river rafting, rock climbing or skydiving are some examples.

Career Risks - Risk such as job changes, taking on new responsibilities or seeking promotions.

Financial Risks - Your risk tolerance in investing, borrowing and lending money.

Social Risks - Risks like introducing yourself to someone you don't know or putting yourself in an unfamiliar social situation even at the risk of possible embarrassment.

Intellectual Risks - Things like your willingness to study a difficult topic, pursue information that challenges your convictions or read an intellectually challenging book.

Creative Risks - Risks such as painting, drawing, taking on a writing challenge or pursuing an unconventional design.

Relationship Risks - Risks such as a willingness to pursue a new relationship, spend time with someone despite an uncertain outcome or make a relationship commitment.

Emotional Risks - Willingness to be emotionally vulnerable.

Spiritual Risks - Willingness to place your trust in concepts that may be unprovable or you do not fully understand.

Having assessed their willingness to take these nine different types of risk, participants were then again asked the first question about their general risk inclination again. Here are the results of the research so far.

Averages and Ranges of Assessments
On average, people placed their Balance Point for all types of risks between 5.9 and 7.7. I find it interesting that the averages are all above the midpoint on the assessment scale. It is also of interest that the range is so relatively small with less than two points between the lower and higher averages. This seems to suggest that people, as a whole, consider themselves moderately risk inclined and they see their risk inclination in all areas as reasonably similar.

Individually, the range of risk inclination for the specific risks varied the maximum possible. Some people had self-assessed risk inclinations ranging all the way from 1 to 10.

The range of averages of all risks for men was 6.2 to 7.8. The average risk inclinations for all risks for women were lower but broader ranging from 5.0 to 7.6.

Highest Assessment
Both as a whole and when broken down by gender, respondents indicated they were most comfortable taking intellectual risks. This could be due to people seeing the downside of taking intellectual risks as more acceptable than negative outcomes from other risks such as financial, relationship or physical. Put another way, intellectual risks are private in nature and usually taken without anyone being aware of the risk except the person taking the risk. As such, a negative outcome, should it occur, is likely known only to the risk-taker.

Lowest Assessment
Overall, people identified financial risks as the ones were least comfortable taking. The average age of the respondents being in the mid-forties likely influences this result. Men assessed their risk inclination in both financial and emotional risks as their lowest. My guess is that many will not be surprised to learn that emotional risks are among the least comfortable for men. This strikes me as consistent with the way men are often socialized in our society. Women identified physical risks as the ones they were least inclined to take.

Gender Differences
Men and women's inclination to take social and creative risks was essentially identical. The greatest difference in risk inclination between men and women came in physical risks. The average inclination to take physical risks for males was 6.9. For females, it is 5.0. This range of 1.9 is the greatest difference in risk inclination that occurs when comparing results by gender.

There are two type of risks for which women indicated a greater risk inclination than men. Can you guess which ones? Women expressed a higher inclination to take both relationship and emotional risks than men.

Revised Overall Risk Inclination
One of the points of this exercise is to encourage people to look at their risk inclination more broadly. That's the reason respondents are asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination a second time after assessing their inclination to take risks in a variety of specific areas. I am pleased to report that many respondents revised their Overall Risk Inclination upward as a result of completing the survey.

Two out of five people moved their Balance Point to the right, towards more risk inclined, the second time they were asked to assess their Overall Risk Inclination compared to their response to the same question when they first responded to it. That's powerful and means that simply looking at their risk profile more broadly allowed them to revise their Overall Risk Inclination upward. For women, this effect was even more dramatic. Fully half of the women taking the survey increased their Overall Risk Inclination. One in three men did the same.

Two in five taking the survey did not change their Overall Risk Inclination. For men, those with unchanged Overall Risk Inclinations were 44 percent. For women, it was 36 percent.

Some people revised their Overall Risk Inclination downward as a result of taking the survey, but only one in five. It's refreshing to see that only half as many people moved their assessment downward compared to the number who moved theirs upward. For women, only 15 percent moved their assessments downward, while 24 percent of men did the same.

So, to review, two out of five moved their assessments of their Overall Risk Inclination upward. The same proportion kept theirs the same and one in five moved theirs downward.

More Influential Risk Inclinations
I have long suspected that we allow our comfort level with certain kinds of risks to disproportionately influence our perception of our Overall Risk Inclination. One of the goals of this survey is to look for correlation between the first assessment of Overall Risk Inclination and risk inclination in the various specific areas that would provide evidence of such disproportionate influence.

Based on countless conversations, I have sensed that many people allow their comfort level with physical risks to significantly influence their perception of their Overall Risk Inclination. But I have been wary to assert this due to the fact that most of the people who have indicated this to me are aware of my inclination to take physical risks by skydiving.

Their comments often start with a statement such as, "I could never do what you do. I'm not a risk-taker." This seems like a pretty clear reference to physical risks such as skydiving. Given time, I will explore with the person making the statement areas of their life where they are more risk inclined. Once we can disconnect their perception of their Overall Risk Inclination from their comfort with physical risks, they will often revisit their initial statement. I love when that happens! They conclude the conversation feeling a bit differently about themselves.

So, how much correlation did we find between respondents first assessment of their Overall Risk Inclination and their physical risk inclination? It depends on what group of respondents you are looking at. For males, the assessments are almost identical. My suspicion was confirmed.

For females, there is a lot less correlation, so the same theory does not seem to apply to women. For women, the highest degree of correlation with the initial assessment of Overall Risk Inclination is with financial risks. For both genders combined, the highest correlation is with emotional risks. I leave it to you to discern the significance of these correlations. Nothing in particular has yet occurred to me. If something profound comes to mind, send me an e-mail and let me know.

Impact of Age
One of the questions I get most often on the topic of risk inclination is how it changes with age. Research has shown that most people become more change adverse as they age. But comfort with change is only part of the risk equation. So, what can we glean from the responses to the surveys about how risk inclination changes with age? There are some insights, but I would not consider the conclusive without a lot more data. There are, however, some interesting patterns.

My guess is that if you were asked, based solely on intuition, whether people become more or less risk inclined as they age, you would say less. I agree and think most people would say the same. But we are not necessarily correct.

The responses to the survey show that, for the population surveyed, there is not a statistically significant change in risk inclination based on age. But things change when we look at the responses by gender. Men show a reduced inclination to risk as they age, but women do not! The women in the population surveyed showed an increase inclination to risk as they age. This is a fascinating observation that bears more research.

At this point, we can only speculate as to the causes of this increased risk inclination. It could be attributable to the fact that the women I asked to respond to the survey are, by my observation, reasonably financially secure. I would be inclined to suggest that some types of risk inclination increase with financial security.

Another factor that could be contributing to this increased risk inclination with age in women is a possible latent desire to enjoy activities and take advantage of opportunities that were difficult for them to pursue earlier in their lives due to the obligations of raising a family. Some sociologists have suggested that may women spend the first half of their lives tending to the needs of others and the second half of their lives addressing more of their own needs. That concept could be related to the survey results.

Both of these possible explanations are just supposition until validated by further research. But women's increased risk inclination as they age as indicated by the survey population is still quite thought provoking.

Yours Alone
While it is interesting to know how your risk inclination compares to others, please do not let it influence you too much. How you compare to others is really not that important.

While we can learn from observing what others do well and poorly in this realm, comparing yourself to them is just not helpful. Your natural level of risk inclination - the position of your Balance Point at this moment - is a result of a multitude of factors that are unique to you. It is influenced by the person you were at birth and all your life experiences since. Like you, it's unique.

It is an interesting reference point - and possibly a starting point if you choose to set about intentionally changing it.

Copyright © Jim McCormick. All rights reserved.

==============================================================
High Performance TeamsToday's competitive work environment requires collaborative efforts if leaders, boards, managers, employees and volunteers are going to work together effectively as in their teams. The Collaborative Growth team building process focuses on the six critical connections of teamwork:

· Goals
· Relationships
· Values
· Conflict Resolution
· Roles
· Accountability

Understanding and responding to organizational challenges calls for state of the art communication, business and cultural savvy. Collaborative Growth provides assessment tools and methods that assist organizations in finding and employing the new strategies necessary for peak effectiveness in today's rapidly changing environments. We guide teams to understand themselves and others, operate with all of their intelligence, and reach strategically established outcomes.