All successful people are people of purpose.

"All successful people are people of purpose. They hold fast to an idea, a project, a plan and will not let it go; they cherish it, brood upon it, tend to develop it; and when assailed by difficulties, they refuse to be beguiled into surrender; indeed, the intensity of the purpose increases with the growing magnitude of the obstacles encountered."
--- James Allen

Here are The Eight Most Common Mistakes Managers Make:

1. No dependable machine for decision-making

2. Not aligning with organizational goals

3. Not working laterally, as well as vertically

4. Not working cross-functionally

5. Building a dependency culture

6. Not developing people

7. Not embracing hiring as part of the job

8. Not investing in their personal growth

Fearlessly Facing Networking

By ExecuNet Senior Editor Robyn Greenspan

Search firm recruiters and corporate human resources professionals overwhelmingly agree that successful executives have rich networks, and more candidates are found through networking than any other job-searching activity. Therefore, executives who are “out there” — visible and engaged — have a higher probability of connecting with the influential people who will not only help them land their next job, but also aid any future career advancement and business development activities.

What You Have Versus What You Want

The essence of face-to-face networking doesn’t differ much from virtual connection — both interactions broaden your relationship base and generate karmic benefits. “To get, we must first be able to give,” serves as the philosophy espoused at the New York/Tri-State area meetings co-facilitated by Nancy Hutter and Linsey Levine, as well as the underpinning to all networking success.

“One of the factors most critical to success in any kind of networking, whether for job search or business contacts, is to think about what you have to offer to others while networking,” suggests Clara Hurd Nydam, meeting facilitator in Wisconsin. “Before going to any networking meeting, whether a group event or a one-on-one meeting, you need to give serious thought to what and who you know that might be useful to others. Be prepared to share contacts and ideas. You don’t have to solve the other person’s problem, but you should walk away from the meeting with an understanding of what would be helpful to the people you talked to.”

Before walking through the door of your first facilitated event, Mark James, who runs meetings in San Diego, recommends attendees ask themselves, “HOW can I help the group or individual and HOW can the group or individual help me?”

How Face-to-Face Differs from Online

A virtual contact who conveys a professional demeanor online or in e-mails could turn out to be a walking disaster, so your reputation depends on you meeting your Internet associates before connecting them to others in your network.

“Face-to-face networking enables people to make more of a human connection, not just business related,” say Hutter and Levine. “It is easier to share personal or family interests, and get to know and like each other on a human level. In addition, just as we wouldn’t send in a candidate for a position for which we had a retained search without meeting them, we wouldn’t really be able to give our best networking contacts to someone we had never met and learned to trust. It’s about building and growing relationships.”

Networking Aids Every Career Stage

Whether happily employed, monitoring the market or in transition, relationshipbuilding plays a big role for every executive. “I think it is important to realize that one of the key aspects of any executive position is the network of relationships they have with others both inside and outside of the organization they belong to,” says Jim Clarkson, St. Louis meeting facilitator.

“While the fundamentals of targeted, focused networking are the same, the specific objectives of each individual will differ. Those who are employed may be networking to gather information, contacts and resources useful to them in their job, as well as meeting candidates who may fit on their virtual bench,” Clarkson notes.

For executives in transition who have not yet finessed the fundamental skill of networking, Clarkson says, “it is important to realize that this period is, can be and must be viewed as a developmental transition. It is a time to develop the finer points of networking effectively or to use that skill with increasing effectiveness.”

Confidentiality is particularly crucial when you are still employed, so networkers are advised to carefully assess what to divulge and to whom.

Facilitated Meetings

For the networking-shy, meetings that are structured and exclusively devoted to business relationship-building are the best place to get started. Everyone is there for the same reason — to connect with other executives and collect contact information.

ExecuNet facilitators conduct face-toface meetings all over the country, which often feel more like a fast-paced game show than a nerve-wracking event. In fact, Karen Armon, Colorado’s meeting facilitator, often holds “speed networking” sessions, where participants have a limited amount of time to rotate through “stations” until they have met everyone and filled out as much information as possible on a “networking sheet.”

“The key to ‘winning’ is to spend the time on finding a connection, then fill in the name, phone number and background information,” says Armon. “The final question on the networking sheet is to find a connection with the other person.”

Other facilitated meetings may focus on a speaker, specific industry or a problem that allows the participants to brainstorm solutions together. Nydam says that the monthly “High Tech Happy Hour” in Madison, WI, draws people at every level from the area. “If you meet senior-level people there, they will probably be involved in early stage start-ups. Even if you don’t want to work for an early stage company, the executives who you meet there will most likely have extensive contacts in the community.”

Jim Clarkson’s agenda at a recent networking event that he facilitated began with some mingling and introductions, followed by “announcements, news and offers of assistance to anyone seeking something specific to help them with their search that so far they have been unable to find.”

The group then broke into smaller committees, where they brainstormed the answers to questions that were designed to help each other’s job search and career management activities. “Each group shared their responses with the large group, and we discussed additional comments and thoughts around each area,” says Clarkson. “Through working with fellow job seekers and colleagues, the networking took place in fun ways, while tapping the knowledge and experience of the group. Participants stayed after the meeting; and when they did leave, they were enthused for their search and armed with additional insights.”

Hutter and Levine describe their meetings as part networking, part teaching and part supporting. “At each meeting, we (the whole group) become the Board of Advisors for each other, with the desire and goal being to help the others succeed! And we encourage the attendees to think like that every time they are in a networking situation.”

What to Bring to a Structured Event

Arm yourself with your PDA, Rolodex or book of contacts to share with others; but if you walk through the door with a stack of your résumés, you may not get adequate results.

“There are very few situations where you should use your résumé while networking,” says Nydam. “The résumé confuses people, because it is a job application tool. When you use the résumé to introduce yourself, the contact doesn’t hear your pitch. They are so distracted by their attempts to qualify you for any jobs that they already know about.”

Executives who are prepared with simple materials that demonstrate they are the solutions to an organization’s problems are likely to meet greater networking success. A one-page marketing profile is more readily received than a résumé, and should contain some combination of these blocks of information:

Target functions (the types of roles being considered)
Profile (a list of your strongest competencies and skills)
Areas of expertise (what you’ve done and the corresponding results)
Employer history (this information also lets others know where you may have contacts)
Ideal organization parameters (location, size, industry)
Target companies (where you would be a good fit and like to work)
Clarkson also suggests that executives come prepared with short self-introductions — or “elevator speeches” — as well as business or networking cards. “If you aren’t employed, create a card that lists your key competency beneath your name, and on the back list up to four interest areas. Exchange cards with those you meet and jot notes on the card as you share ideas,” advises Nydam.

“Be specific about how others can help you,” recommends Cincinnati meeting facilitator Louise Kursmark. “Do you need a referral to a particular company contact? Do you want feedback on your introductory speech? Are you looking for recommendations for coaching services? Do you want an introduction to a key recruiter? The more specific you are, the higher your chances of getting what you need.”

Networking at Non-Facilitated Events

Once you’ve gotten your feet wet at a structured meeting, it’s time to take your networking skills to the next level. Any event where you can potentially meet and connect with individuals who will move your career forward could be rife with opportunities. Conferences, trade shows, association meetings and professional events are all places where your next job or big deal could be waiting, but it is often more difficult to get your well-crafted networking profile in front of the right people.

A plan of “subtle purposefulness” will help you reach your networking goals at these events. “Make yourself comfortable before speaking to anyone. When you make your first move, go up to someone who appears approachable, introduce yourself in just a few words (not your life history), and encourage the other person to talk first,” advises Meg Montford, who runs networking meetings in Kansas City. “A good question to break the ice is, ‘What’s the best thing that could happen for you because you came here today?’ Be prepared to offer whatever you can to help this come true for the person you are talking with.”

“Get curious and stay curious about what bothers other people,” suggests New York City meeting facilitator Judy Rosemarin. “Act like a consultant; a solution to someone’s problems and keep the focus on them, not yourself. What do they toss-and turn-about at work or at night? What would they want if they had the resources and wherewithal to get what they want done?”

“When you are ready to move on, do so gracefully after thanking the person(s) for their time,” says Montford. “As you move around the room, have in your mind a picture of yourself when you were the most confident in yourself and what you were doing. Or, call to mind the highest recognition you have ever received in your career — this will help boost your self-confidence, too.”

Networking value is created when these events are not viewed as places to just trade business cards. “DON’T offer your business card unless it is requested and only ask for another’s card if you plan to follow-up,” Montford recommends. “Follow-up to schedule another meeting — coffee or lunch — at a mutually convenient time in the near future. This is when your most purposeful networking will occur.”

Montford reminds that most of the time networking events can seem like fishing expeditions. “You will probably have to go to the same place multiple times before any major connections happen.”

Organically Growing Connections

Networking doesn’t have to be a concerted effort that occurs at specific events but can naturally arise in your daily journeys. “Make your job search part of as many conversations as possible (don’t necessarily ask for anything, but make sure it comes up),” suggests ExecuNet member Lane Cavalier.

“One example of this is I had to learn that when someone asks how is the job search going I used to say, ‘Okay’ but I found that I could change it to, ‘Pretty good, but I’ve been trying to get a contact in XYZ company’ or ‘Nothing promising, but I’ve been thinking of what a fit I would be at XYZ company,’” says Cavalier.

“Stay in touch with at least three people with whom you have not been in contact for the past three months and watch your network come alive,” says Rosemarin. “Develop the habit of doing it, and it will become second nature to you.”

The End Is Just the Beginning

“When networkers leave our meetings, that isn’t the end of our relationship but the beginning,” say Hutter and Levine. “Follow-up is critical. They must followup with all the folks that said they had information or contacts for them. And, we, as facilitators, follow-up with them, as well. We continue to provide them with information, resources and other things they need to connect with through our network.”

“When you promise to follow-up with someone, write down exactly what you’ve promised and follow-up promptly,” Kursmark says. “Be a good networker and it will come back to reward you many times over.”


http://www.execunet.com/e_features.cfm?contid=3329

Showcasing Leadership Skills

By Marji McClure

If you think your chances of getting ahead in your current organization are slim, you’re not alone. Sixty-three percent of senior-level executives surveyed in ExecuNet’s 2005 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report reported they had little opportunity for advancement in their organization regardless of how well they performed their duties. The organizational infrastructure in which these executives, and perhaps you as well, perform has been far more focused on survival and profits than on advancing top performers up the corporate ladder.

There is a free agent culture growing in organizations today in which employees are looking for flexibility in their careers and do not feel committed to one organization, said Lauryn Franzoni, ExecuNet vice president during Developing Leadership Skills to Move to the Next Level, an audio conference produced by ExecuNet in conjunction with Leadership Strategies newsletter. “Often, it’s the individual manager who can be the biggest stumbling block to a staff member’s internal mobility,” Franzoni said.

The manager is not only preventing that employee from advancing within the organization, but also promoting unwanted attrition (especially of key employees), added Franzoni. In response, some organizations are now creating environments that specifically reward managers who motivate their staff members to advance within the company.

While managers in these particular organizations are incented to enable environments in which all staff members are encouraged to grow and thrive, there is still the natural instinct to look out for themselves first. The main reason is obvious: if they do a good job, they feel they will be rewarded — and promoted. However, noted Franzoni, that doesn’t always happen — as suggested by the ExecuNet report. “There is a real tug-ofwar going on between the manager who wants to maintain his or her own success by keeping his team in place and the company’s desire to promote retention of valued employees by offering avenues for advancement.”

Franzoni warned that middle managers often believe if they do the technical aspects of their jobs well, a promotion to the executive suite will always follow; when in fact, organizations seeking new executive hires look far beyond technical capability. “Top management tells us that the technical expertise, while important, is not nearly as important as leadership ability. But finding candidates that possess a combination of these skills has proven to be a challenge.”

Seventy-seven percent of search firm professionals recently surveyed by ExecuNet noted that there is a shortage of qualified executive talent in the market, an increase from 64 percent a year ago. It’s more important than ever to put yourself in a position to be found by displaying those key leadership-based characteristics.

Show Me the Leader: Let Everyone See Your Skills

“To compete for the best jobs in your company and to be seen as the best talent in your industry, you’ve got to demonstrate that you possess these traits and skills every day,” said Franzoni.

“Demonstrating leadership qualities every day means maintaining 100 percent integrity in everything you do. It’s knowing yourself and really being authoritative. It’s being able to clearly articulate your vision through your group, your division, your company; being able to act quickly, make decisions quickly and to show your commitment.” Franzoni added that it is important to take care of your current team: to trust the team and be trusted by it. You must show that you are a leader.

And keep in mind that leadership experience in one industry can be transferred to another. “Skills are transferable. A lot of us forget that things that make you successful as a manager don’t have as much to do with the industry in which you find yourself or the company in which you are applying those skills. It’s the skills themselves that make you successful,” commented Dave Opton, founder and CEO of ExecuNet during the program.

Executive recruiter David Perry, managing director of Perry-Martel International, concurs. “Over the course of more than two decades, I’ve observed that it’s far more important for a candidate to express specific intangible core attributes over specific industry experience,” said Perry.

Thinking Beyond Technical: The Skills That Really Matter

Profiles of successful high-performance people reveal that their most important competence had little to do with skill, brains or work experience, but rather had a big impact on their mindset, said Perry. “Companies want to attract the individuals who are confident they can, if necessary, complete a week’s worth of tasks in a day (or even a morning),” he said.

You learn about “mindset” and a candidate’s character by analyzing the major events that have shaped his or her life. Does the candidate view the glass as half empty or half full? How much integrity and credibility does the candidate have among peers? Other attributes Perry says recruiters look for in candidates include resiliency (how does a candidate respond to adversity?) and intellect. “We’re looking for someone who has an enterprising thought process. Do they come up with 100 ideas to find the two that are highly creative and are going to pull you forward?”

Other important attributes are:
market- driving ability (can the candidate capture and define a business strategy?) and
business knowledge (is there knowledge of the business or business segment; is it superficial or extensive enough to allow them to provide superior counsel to senior management and across all functional disciplines?).
Additional attributes recruiters seek include:
emotional intelligence,
persistence,
empathy and
leadership.

Are You A Leader?

Perry listed seven things recruiters look for when determining leadership qualities of a candidate. Here’s a summary of his checklist:

Proactive. Does the candidate possess a forward-thinking proactive mindset?
Entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial. Does the candidate watch dollar and time expenses like an entrepreneur would; as if he or she owned the company?
Visionary capabilities. Does the candidate have the ability to serve as a visionary for the future of the company and recognize the value of getting ahead of the curve?
Passion. Is the candidate passionate about your company or is he just looking for another job?
Stamina. Has the candidate already demonstrated an unrelenting spirit?
Focus on results. Has the candidate demonstrated an ability to recruit high quality subordinates to generate high levels of performance?
Human capital skills. Does the candidate have an ability to hire and fire quickly and effectively and blend together the intricate personalities, quirks and talents of people?
So how do recruiters evaluate you against these leadership-based attributes?

Recruiters must really listen to what a candidate says and how he says it, Perry explained. They must also analyze how insightful a candidate’s questions about a company are and if the candidate really did his homework in preparing for the interview. Also, recruiters have to determine if a candidate’s accomplishments are his own or are the result of an overenthusiastic résumé writer.

Perry also pointed out characteristics recruiters should avoid when evaluating candidates based on superficial factors, such as an outgoing personality, product knowledge and corporate pedigree. None of these characteristics ensure success. Instead, recruiters must look for more substantial qualities.

“All successful executives have a warrior- like resiliency about them which allows them to persevere no matter how difficult the task,” said Perry.
“They must have:
a superior work ethic,
extraordinary stamina, and
the ability to create an energy- charged, enthusiastic work environment.
Ultimately, they must enjoy whatever it takes to get the job done.”


http://www.execunet.com/e_features_article.cfm?contid=3170&welcome=5344

April 22, 2007
Under New Management
How Diversity Makes a Team Click
By KELLEY HOLLAND

WHEN consultants at Bain & Company are transferred to the Delhi office, they don’t pack just their BlackBerrys and toothbrushes. Each one also receives a copy of a manual written by consultants who are, or have been, posted there. It spells out in precise consultant-speak suggestions for nightclubs, gyms and Hindi teachers. But it goes beyond that, by discussing meeting protocols, dress codes and telephone etiquette.

New arrivals are advised that “with people who are more senior to you, don’t be offended if they are blunt,” that “it is acceptable for important clients to walk in and out of a meeting as it progresses” and that “there is a tendency for meetings not to start on time.”

The idea is to avoid any gaffes or missteps because of cultural differences, said Steven Tallman, a partner at Bain in charge of technology and training.

“We’re trying to build people who think globally and think like global managers,” Mr. Tallman said.

Multicultural teams have long been a presence in management consulting, where the big firms tend to be every bit as global as the clients they serve. Certainly, such teams have been a fact of life in places like the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations. But now multicultural teams are becoming increasingly common in a range of industries.

For one thing, companies now have more diverse work forces, so that even teams from a single office are more likely to include members with a range of cultural backgrounds. At the same time, companies are marketing, manufacturing and selling more products globally, and the teams in charge of those efforts are more likely to be multicultural.

A gorgeous mosaic? You bet. But multicultural teams can also be tricky to manage. Communication styles can differ from culture to culture, as can traditional views of hierarchy and decision-making processes — and, of course, there can be language barriers. The potential for misunderstanding, bungled efforts and ill will is enormous.

The key to success is understanding and accepting the differences on a multicultural team, and then using them to enhance the way the team analyzes situations and makes decisions.

Instead of simply assuming that all is well for, say, a joint Israeli-American effort because a team includes the same number of members from each country, managers on these teams need to be open to other ways of thinking, communicating and solving problems. American managers should not hesitate to use a typically Israeli decision-making process — and vice versa — if it leads to better results in a given situation..

“It’s not comfortable being on a multicultural team,” said Jeanne M. Brett, a professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. “You have to be really tolerant, not take things personally, and then try to be really creative in finding out the best way to make things work.”

In an article she wrote with two colleagues from other universities last November in the Harvard Business Review, Ms. Brett described a manager on a team that was undertaking a technology project affecting the whole company: He and a colleague from Singapore were frustrated by some Japanese team members who seemed to agree with the direction of the project in meetings but failed to follow through adequately. They considered talking to the boss of the Japanese team members but decided instead on an indirect approach: they put together a presentation on the successes of European teams in this undertaking and took it on the road to show the Japanese. The Japanese team members decided that they would like to be the focus of a future presentation, and their work picked up.

In another situation, a team with members from the United States and Latin America had to negotiate with a South Korean supplier. In meetings, the Koreans would often discuss matters among themselves, speaking in Korean. The members from the United States and Latin America responded by having discussions of their own in Spanish, with even those who didn’t speak Spanish pretending to participate — and the Koreans got the message that their exclusionary caucuses were annoying.

At some level, the challenges for multicultural teams resemble those that surfaced when women first joined the ranks of management. The white men who were there first had to adjust to colleagues who had different life experiences, communication styles and perspectives.

“Multicultural teams today are like the multigender teams of yesterday,” said Ilene H. Lang, the president of Catalyst, a research and advisory organization that aims to expand opportunities for women at work.

Catalyst often observes an evolution in companies’ approaches to diversity, from simply hiring people of diverse backgrounds — which Ms. Lang describes as “really about counting noses” — to being truly inclusive.

The challenge for business. she said, is to embrace the differences among their employees and to use those differences to make better business decisions.

Every fall, for example, new consultants from all Bain offices are flown to Cape Cod, Mass., for 10 days of training, Mr. Tallman said. Most of the time is spent analyzing cases and solving problems, as the consultants learn to work with colleagues who have different experiences and approaches.

But sometimes, he said, the consultants are intentionally grouped with others who have displayed similar traits on a standardized personality test — and they quickly realize the pitfalls of having everyone on a team think alike.

“They can get dysfunctional really quickly,” Mr. Tallman said, and the consultants then realize how important it is to encompass different perspectives.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/business/yourmoney/22mgmt.html?ei=5070&en=e0b000765f80ce1e&ex=1180152000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1180027489-DCKJHyA8vgv20pCAuHjmAg&pagewanted=print

Showcasing Leadership Skills

By Marji McClure

If you think your chances of getting ahead in your current organization are slim, you’re not alone. Sixty-three percent of senior-level executives surveyed in ExecuNet’s 2005 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report reported they had little opportunity for advancement in their organization regardless of how well they performed their duties. The organizational infrastructure in which these executives, and perhaps you as well, perform has been far more focused on survival and profits than on advancing top performers up the corporate ladder.

There is a free agent culture growing in organizations today in which employees are looking for flexibility in their careers and do not feel committed to one organization, said Lauryn Franzoni, ExecuNet vice president during Developing Leadership Skills to Move to the Next Level, an audio conference produced by ExecuNet in conjunction with Leadership Strategies newsletter. “Often, it’s the individual manager who can be the biggest stumbling block to a staff member’s internal mobility,” Franzoni said.

The manager is not only preventing that employee from advancing within the organization, but also promoting unwanted attrition (especially of key employees), added Franzoni. In response, some organizations are now creating environments that specifically reward managers who motivate their staff members to advance within the company.

While managers in these particular organizations are incented to enable environments in which all staff members are encouraged to grow and thrive, there is still the natural instinct to look out for themselves first. The main reason is obvious: if they do a good job, they feel they will be rewarded — and promoted. However, noted Franzoni, that doesn’t always happen — as suggested by the ExecuNet report. “There is a real tug-ofwar going on between the manager who wants to maintain his or her own success by keeping his team in place and the company’s desire to promote retention of valued employees by offering avenues for advancement.”

Franzoni warned that middle managers often believe if they do the technical aspects of their jobs well, a promotion to the executive suite will always follow; when in fact, organizations seeking new executive hires look far beyond technical capability. “Top management tells us that the technical expertise, while important, is not nearly as important as leadership ability. But finding candidates that possess a combination of these skills has proven to be a challenge.”

Seventy-seven percent of search firm professionals recently surveyed by ExecuNet noted that there is a shortage of qualified executive talent in the market, an increase from 64 percent a year ago. It’s more important than ever to put yourself in a position to be found by displaying those key leadership-based characteristics.

Show Me the Leader: Let Everyone See Your Skills

“To compete for the best jobs in your company and to be seen as the best talent in your industry, you’ve got to demonstrate that you possess these traits and skills every day,” said Franzoni.

“Demonstrating leadership qualities every day means maintaining 100 percent integrity in everything you do. It’s knowing yourself and really being authoritative. It’s being able to clearly articulate your vision through your group, your division, your company; being able to act quickly, make decisions quickly and to show your commitment.” Franzoni added that it is important to take care of your current team: to trust the team and be trusted by it. You must show that you are a leader.

And keep in mind that leadership experience in one industry can be transferred to another. “Skills are transferable. A lot of us forget that things that make you successful as a manager don’t have as much to do with the industry in which you find yourself or the company in which you are applying those skills. It’s the skills themselves that make you successful,” commented Dave Opton, founder and CEO of ExecuNet during the program.

Executive recruiter David Perry, managing director of Perry-Martel International, concurs. “Over the course of more than two decades, I’ve observed that it’s far more important for a candidate to express specific intangible core attributes over specific industry experience,” said Perry.

Thinking Beyond Technical: The Skills That Really Matter

Profiles of successful high-performance people reveal that their most important competence had little to do with skill, brains or work experience, but rather had a big impact on their mindset, said Perry. “Companies want to attract the individuals who are confident they can, if necessary, complete a week’s worth of tasks in a day (or even a morning),” he said.

You learn about “mindset” and a candidate’s character by analyzing the major events that have shaped his or her life. Does the candidate view the glass as half empty or half full? How much integrity and credibility does the candidate have among peers? Other attributes Perry says recruiters look for in candidates include resiliency (how does a candidate respond to adversity?) and intellect. “We’re looking for someone who has an enterprising thought process. Do they come up with 100 ideas to find the two that are highly creative and are going to pull you forward?”

Other important attributes are market- driving ability (can the candidate capture and define a business strategy?) and business knowledge (is there knowledge of the business or business segment; is it superficial or extensive enough to allow them to provide superior counsel to senior management and across all functional disciplines?). Additional attributes recruiters seek include emotional intelligence, persistence, empathy and leadership.

Are You A Leader?

Perry listed seven things recruiters look for when determining leadership qualities of a candidate. Here’s a summary of his checklist:

Proactive. Does the candidate possess a forward-thinking proactive mindset?
Entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial. Does the candidate watch dollar and time expenses like an entrepreneur would; as if he or she owned the company?
Visionary capabilities. Does the candidate have the ability to serve as a visionary for the future of the company and recognize the value of getting ahead of the curve?
Passion. Is the candidate passionate about your company or is he just looking for another job?
Stamina. Has the candidate already demonstrated an unrelenting spirit?
Focus on results. Has the candidate demonstrated an ability to recruit high quality subordinates to generate high levels of performance?
Human capital skills. Does the candidate have an ability to hire and fire quickly and effectively and blend together the intricate personalities, quirks and talents of people?

So how do recruiters evaluate you against these leadership-based attributes?

Recruiters must really listen to what a candidate says and how he says it, Perry explained. They must also analyze how insightful a candidate’s questions about a company are and if the candidate really did his homework in preparing for the interview. Also, recruiters have to determine if a candidate’s accomplishments are his own or are the result of an overenthusiastic résumé writer.

Perry also pointed out characteristics recruiters should avoid when evaluating candidates based on superficial factors, such as an outgoing personality, product knowledge and corporate pedigree. None of these characteristics ensure success. Instead, recruiters must look for more substantial qualities.

“All successful executives have a warrior- like resiliency about them which allows them to persevere no matter how difficult the task,” said Perry. “They must have a superior work ethic, extraordinary stamina, and the ability to create an energy- charged, enthusiastic work environment. Ultimately, they must enjoy whatever it takes to get the job done.”

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

From F. John Reh

How an organization defines and measures progress toward its goals
Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals.

Once an organization has analyzed its mission, identified all its stakeholders, and defined its goals, it needs a way to measure progress toward those goals. Key Performance Indicators are those measurements.

What Are Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They will differ depending on the organization. A business may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators the percentage of its income that comes from return customers. A school may focus its Key Performance Indicators on graduation rates of its students. A Customer Service Department may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators, in line with overall company KPIs, percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute. A Key Performance Indicators for a social service organization might be number of clients assisted during the year.

Whatever Key Performance Indicators are selected, they must reflect the organization's goals, they must be key to its success,and they must be quantifiable (measurable). Key Performance Indicators usually are long-term considerations. The definition of what they are and how they are measured do not change often. The goals for a particular Key Performance Indicator may change as the organizations goals change, or as it get closer to achieving a goal.

Key Performance Indicators Reflect The Organizational Goals
An organization that has as one of its goals "to be the most profitable company in our industry" will have Key Performance Indicators that measure profit and related fiscal measures. "Pre-tax Profit" and "Shareholder Equity" will be among them. However, "Percent of Profit Contributed to Community Causes" probably will not be one of its Key Performance Indicators. On the other hand, a school is not concerned with making a profit, so its Key Performance Indicators will be different. KPIs like "Graduation Rate" and "Success In Finding Employment After Graduation", though different, accurately reflect the schools mission and goals.

Key Performance Indicators Must Be Quantifiable
If a Key Performance Indicator is going to be of any value, there must be a way to accurately define and measure it. "Generate More Repeat Customers" is useless as a KPI without some way to distinguish between new and repeat customers. "Be The Most Popular Company" won't work as a KPI because there is no way to measure the company's popularity or compare it to others.

It is also important to define the Key Performance Indicators and stay with the same definition from year to year. For a KPI of "Increase Sales", you need to address considerations like whether to measure by units sold or by dollar value of sales. Will returns be deducted from sales in the month of the sale or the month of the return? Will sales be recorded for the KPI at list price or at the actual sales price?

You also need to set targets for each Key Performance Indicator. A company goal to be the employer of choice might include a KPI of "Turnover Rate". After the Key Performance Indicator has been defined as "the number of voluntary resignations and terminations for performance, divided by the total number of employees at the beginning of the period" and a way to measure it has been set up by collecting the information in an HRIS, the target has to be established. "Reduce turnover by five percent per year" is a clear target that everyone will understand and be able to take specific action to accomplish.
Key Performance Indicators Must be Key To Organizational SuccessMany things are measurable. That does not make them key to the organization's success. In selecting Key Performance Indicators, it is critical to limit them to those factors that are essential to the organization reaching its goals. It is also important to keep the number of Key Performance Indicators small just to keep everyone's attention focused on achieving the same KPIs.

That is not to say, for instance, that a company will have only three or four total KPIs in the company. Rather there will be three or four Key Performance Indicators for the company and all the units within it will have three, four, or five KPIs that support the overall company goals and can be "rolled up" into them.

If a company Key Performance Indicator is "Increased Customer Satisfaction", that KPI will be focused differently in different departments.
The Manufacturing Department may have a KPI of "Number of Units Rejected by Quality Inspection", while the Sales Department has a KPI of "Minutes A Customer Is On Hold Before A Sales Rep Answers". Success by the Sales and Manufacturing Departments in meeting their respective departmental Key Performance Indicators will help the company meet its overall KPI.

Good Key Performance Indicators vs. Bad
Bad:

Title of KPI: Increase Sales
Defined: Change in Sales volume from month to month
Measured: Total of Sales By Region for all region
Target: Increase each month
What's missing?
Does this measure increases in sales volume by dollars or units? If by dollars, does it measure list price or sales price? Are returns considered and if so do the appear as an adjustment to the KPI for the month of the sale or are they counted in the month the return happens? How do we make sure each sales office's volume numbers are counted in one region, i.e. that none are skipped or double counted? How much, by percentage or dollars or units, do we want to increase sales volumes each month?(Note: Some of these questions may be answered by standard company procedures.)

Good:
Title of KPI: Employee Turnover
Defined: The total of the number of employees who resign for whatever reason, plus the number of employees terminated for performance reasons, and that total divided by the number of employees at the beginning of the year. Employees lost due to Reductions in Force (RIF) will not be included in this calculation.

Measured: The HRIS contains records of each employee. The separation section lists reason and date of separation for each employee. Monthly, or when requested by the SVP, the HRIS group will query the database and provide Department Heads with Turnover Reports. HRIS will post graphs of each report on the Intranet.

Target: Reduce Employee Turnover by 5% per year.

What Do I Do With Key Performance Indicators?Once you have good Key Performance Indicators defined, ones that reflect your organization's goals, one that you can measure, what do you do with them? You use Key Performance Indicators as a performance management tool, but also as a carrot. KPIs give everyone in the organization a clear picture of what is important, of what they need to make happen. You use that to manage performance. You make sure that everything the people in your organization do is focused on meeting or exceeding those Key Performance Indicators. You also use the KPIs as a carrot. Post the KPIs everywhere: in the lunch room, on the walls of every conference room, on the company intranet, even on the company web site for some of them. Show what the target for each KPI is and show the progress toward that target for each of them. People will be motivated to reach those KPI targets.

What's Changed in Change-Management?
By Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of Link&Learn.



Max Ways, the former editor of Fortune magazine, predicted 40 years ago, "The main challenge to U.S. society will turn not around the production of goods, but around the difficulties and opportunities involved in a world of accelerating change and ever widening choice. So swift is the acceleration that trying to 'make sense' of change will become our basic industry."

That prediction is an apt description of our current reality. Change is no longer a force in the environment. It is the environment. Organizations around the world struggle to keep their footing in a whirlwind of technological innovation, customer demands, competitive pressures, globalization and economic volatility - knowing that any of these forces can turn a business model upside down in an instant, rendering even the best strategies obsolete.

To succeed during turbulent times, organizations and individuals must find ways to thrive - not just survive - amid complexity and uncertainty. Those enterprises that continually transform themselves in response to constantly shifting conditions gain a tremendous competitive advantage.

So what does it take to manage change today?

Managers looking to help their organizations (or teams or departments) make sense of change in the 21st century need a completely different set of skills than their counterparts in the last century. Forget about issuing orders or coercing with threats. Success in the Information Age takes employee engagement and creative collaboration. It takes guidance by managers who know how to harness the energies and talents of others while keeping their own egos in check. It takes leaders at all levels who manage by influence rather than by position.

The dictionary says that leadership means going ahead or showing the way. To lead is to help a group define and achieve a common purpose. But look carefully at that last sentence - helping a group define and achieve a purpose is not the same as setting that purpose and then "selling" it throughout the organization. Change driven from on high without significant across-the-board participation is bound to meet with workforce skepticism and resistance. On the other hand, the co-creation of purpose/vision/strategy is an inclusive process that encourages employee engagement from the very beginning.

Effective management of organization change also depends on early, comprehensive, and transparent communication. In most cases, the manner in which change is communicated is more important than the nature of that change. And don't think for one moment that speeches and articles are the only ways leaders communicate. Every action and off-the-record comment carries weight. As one insightful manager told me, "What I do in the hallways is more important than anything I say in the meetings."

Abrupt change that comes as a complete surprise is the hardest to accept. To reduce fears of the unknown and squelch fantasies of the rumor mill, leaders "set the stage" by informing people upfront about the real-life challenges and opportunities that are likely to become the future impetus for organizational transformation. They also make sure that employees have enough business acumen to make sense of financial data. The more everyone understands about the current situation, the trends and forces shaping the future, the economic realities of the business, the alternatives being considered, and the consequences of not changing - the easier it is to accept and even anticipate the need for change.

Respected change-managers are powerful communicators who don't ignore or sugarcoat negativity. Instead, they help people make sense of it. If a past change effort has failed, it's publicly acknowledged and reviewed so that everyone can extract its lessons and move forward. (Likewise, if a best practice is discovered, it's also publicly acknowledged, reviewed, and learned from.) Candid change-communication means that both positive and negative aspects are disclosed. The most motivational managers are those trusted by their team to share knowledge and "tell it like it is."

Effective managers of change are catalysts, creating synergy in their organizations. They delegate responsibility and authority. They encourage and protect their teams. They model attitudes and behaviors they want to see reflected back. Most of all, they realize that managing change today takes emotional literacy. It is no longer enough to appeal solely to people's logic. Leaders also have to touch people's hearts. And the best of today's leaders do so by revealing their own passion - for the future success of the organization and for the individuals in that organization who face the tough job of transforming themselves in order to collectively create that future.

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Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. speaks on leadership, change, and creative collaboration to association, government, and business audiences around the world. She can be reached by phone: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or through her website: www.CKG.com.

From Vision to Implementation -Instituting Your Diversity Process
By Linda Stokes

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of Link&Learn.



Scenario: You've made your case for a diversity program and gained senior management support. Vision and mission statements have been published for everyone to read. Now that expectations are raised, it's time to deliver the diversity strategies, framework and tactics that will take you from vision to implementation. How can you create robust, successful and sustainable efforts? Here are 10 tips.

1. Create the strategy to frame your process.
Make sure your strategy includes three critical elements: your workforce; your workplace, and your marketplace. In addition to the three legs of your strategy, you will realize a more comprehensive, inclusive and sustainable process by including the following components of 1) increasing representation, 2) understanding, 3)managing and 4) leveraging diversity.

Most organizations spend most of their resources on increasing representation at specific levels and job categories. Unless adequate time and resources are devoted to understanding, managing and leveraging diversity, your organization will be caught in the spin cycle - without learning to understand and work together, new recruits and existing employees will be less productive.

Managing diversity involves assessing the organization's culture and systems. This component includes identifying any barriers that may prevent success as well as aspects of the culture that enhance the organization's ability to recruit, develop and retain a diverse workforce. You may decide that changes need to be made to various practices and policies, such as employee development, performance management, work/life balance, pay equity, etc., that can be identified through assessments and focus groups. Determine whether the overall culture of the organization - "the way we do things around here" - creates an atmosphere of inclusion or exclusion.

In order to successfully leverage diversity, employees should be able to contribute their talents, thoughts, skills and abilities to meet the goals and mission of the organization. When all of these elements are included, the organization can then benefit from the diverse perspectives, backgrounds and experiences that a diverse workforce provides.

2. Link and align strategies and tactics with other functional areas and specific initiatives.
Leveraging diversity must be seen as an organizational goal. If diversity is seen as "something else to do," most will never get to it and instead, the organization will be dealing with resistance brought on by the vast amount of work attributed to yet another new program. Aligning the diversity process with quality and revenue goals and activities provide sustainability and a business focus and purpose.

3. Create critical short- and long-term tactics by conducting a gap analysis, and comparing the organization's current situation to its vision for the workforce, workplace and position in the marketplace.
The gaps identified should drive tactics. This analysis does not need to take months, but can include a discussion than enables you to explore the effectiveness of the current programs and refine them as necessary.

4. Measure and track the progress you are making in closing the gaps, with reports about every six months on the effectiveness of your plan and activities.

5. Develop a comprehensive communication plan for your overall strategy.
Diversity often is the best-kept secret. Many organizations create a diversity newsletter while others include diversity-related articles in existing communications. The communication plan, however, should consist of more than well-placed articles in the newsletter. Diversity should be part of the annual report, the board of directors' meeting, "town hall" meetings, and marketing and advertising campaigns. Focus on and describe ways that diversity is helping realize the goals of an inclusive and culturally proficient workplace.

6. Develop a structure to support and implement your plan.
Depending on your organization's complexity, consider a diversity manager or chief diversity officer, an executive steering committee and diversity councils with project teams. This ensures enough resources to accomplish the tasks and keeps people at all levels involved in the process.

7. Create a job specific, comprehensive learning strategy for all employees.
While many organizations provide sensitivity or awareness seminars, all employees at every level in the organization need new skills and tools for working productively and respectfully in an increasingly diverse workplace. For example, executives need to know how to support and advocate for building a workforce and workplace that meets their vision. In order for executives to gain confidence and competence to talk publicly about diversity with various employee groups, they should be able to articulate the business case and understand their specific roles and responsibilities in supporting the process. Managers must learn to lead diverse teams, and need to be able to interview, motivate, coach, mentor, delegate and communicate across diverse employee groups.

8. Assign accountability and responsibility for meeting the vision and specific tactics to ensure success.
Without accountability and responsibility, the diversity manager will be seen as the sole person responsible for leading the effort and will be depended upon for the overall success of the initiative. Each person within the organization should have ownership and a clearly defined role in how they help meet the needs of a diverse workforce and marketplace.

9. Develop a broad definition of diversity and an inclusive tactical focus to acknowledge and engage people across all dimensions of diversity.

10. Include the WIIFM - what's in it for me - factor.
While the case for diversity is made at the corporate level, it often fails to filter down to the department and team level - the front lines. Employees need to know that diversity and inclusion will make their jobs more rewarding, less stressful, and include new ideas and skills. Managers must see the connection between the diversity process and other performance goals. And executives must know how the diversity process will assist in meeting all of the overall business objectives - including caring for customers in a culturally appropriate manner.
By developing specific, measurable tactics tied to a comprehensive strategy, you will be able to create a diversity process that enables your staff to work together effectively to meet the goals of your organization.

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Linda H. Stokes is President and CEO of PRISM International, Inc.-A global provider of diversity management solutions. Contact her at 1.888.99.PRISM or on line at www.prism-international.com.

Assessment For Action Planning & Accountable Follow-Through

• InTheZone, Inc Approach to Customized Assessment
• Accountable "Really Do It!" Follow Through
• Assessment of Areas Critical To Individual, Team, and Organizational Success
• Unique Winner's Way AAAssessments
• InTheZone, Inc Approach to Customized Assessment

Educated Choices from an ever-growing menu. Leadership scales, "360-degree" assessments, culture climate surveys, indicators that determine your type--the market is full of assessment tools from surveys and tests to focus group formats. As a licensed psychologist, I leverage decades of experience with assessment tools and interview processes to work with you to determine the tools that fit your strategic goals. We assess your developmental needs and choose psychometrically reliable and valid measures to gather data that help clarify the direction of our work together. ITZ Assessment processes are based on client goals and needs. We bring extensive expertise, as behavioral scientists, regarding assessment tools to generate buy-in to recommendations based on valid data and client focused goals.

Accountable Customized Assessment to Foster Development, NOT One-Size-Fits-All Assessment For Its Own Sake. Assessment in and of itself is of limited value. At best, it provides lots of colorful bar charts and pie graphs. At worst, it labels people and organizations, leaving them with no clear direction or plan to make the changes that would improve performance and move them toward their desired destination.

At their most absurd, I have witnessed the overuse of assessment tools, applying one-size-fits-all assessments that are not related to the individual, team, or organizational challenges at hand. And I have even seen large-scale 360-degree assessment administered on-line that have produced beautiful 50-page reports with each participant's name emblazoned on the cover--but the recipient had never participated in the survey nor had the people who allegedly rated him or her.

From my years of experience and training in assessment and testing and over a decade of teaching assessment, diagnosis, and action planning at Dartmouth Medical School , I know that assessment and testing is only as good as the purpose for which it is intended. Furthermore, I have seen that the best assessment or diagnostic process is only as good as the recommended action plan that is generated. And the feedback process is critical for engaging hearts and minds to generate buy-in and for enlisting the physical energy and commitment for making the changes indicated in the plan. Building in accountable follow-through adds the critical piece for ensuring that you and others "Really Do It!" --turn strategic goals and plans indicated by the initial and ongoing assessment into strategic actions.

What works for you, not just what makes money for us. Licensed Psychologists have access to far more than the tools available through distributors who receive commissions from "licensed distributors" who sell their wares. As a licensed psychologist, I have access to state-of-the-art assessment tools that are not available to non-psychologists as well as to the tools available through channels of licensed distributors. I also have the expertise based on years of education and real-world experience to know that all instruments are not created equal when it comes to providing information that is valid and reliable. I can help you choose and customize, when appropriate, specific assessment tools and assessment interview processes for your particular setting.

Strategic choices of assessment methods will decrease the cost in money and time of assessment and feedback processes.


BACK TO TOP

• Accountable "Really Do It!" Follow Through


Actionable Assessment That You Can Put To Work. We approach assessment by answering YES to the following questions:

• Appropriate --does it efficiently and cost-effectively meets client needs?

• Accurate --does it measures what it proposes in a reliable manner?

• Action-oriented --Are assessment tools and processes used for developing action plans?

• Accountable follow-through --Do feedback and action plans utilize specific means, measures, and check-in processes to ensure accountable and accurate follow-through and opportunities for constructive corrective feedback?

ITZ's action-oriented, goal-directed reports and verbal feedback will provide a roadmap that describes your starting point, the desired destination, methods to get there, and checkpoints along the way to answer the age-old question of 'are we there yet?'. You will understand the significance of your color charts and have a game plan for changing them in desired directions to build individual, team and organizational performance and pride in doing so.

BACK TO TOP

• Assessment of Areas Critical To Individual, Team, and Organizational Success


Assessing Individual and Organizational Effectiveness and Enjoyment To Build Attitudes, Mindsets, Focus, and Energy of Winner's Way Systems

ITZ can provide assessment of the following factors that have been linked to individual, team and organizational productivity, ownership, and success including profitability and winning scores:

Leadership-- mindsets and behaviors across the organization

Team culture
Team membership mindsets and behaviors
Team effectiveness and Team work
Relationships within the organization and without--with customers, clients, and other external stakeholders

Communication
Effectiveness--Do people listen so others talk and so they really hear what is said? Do people talk in a way that others want to listen?
Styles and adaptability

Mission, Vision, Strategic Goals & Plans, and Core Values--In Action
Alignment of the behaviors, mindsets and communications of individuals and teams with the Mission, Vision, Values and Strategic Plans of the organization

Motivation
Intensity of inner drive and the factors that move people to action
Emotional Intelligence

BACK TO TOP

• Unique Winner's Way AAAssessments


Unique Winner's Way AAAssessments for Individuals, Teams, Organizations.

In addition, ITZ provides unique and innovative assessments of the 3 critical elements that empower people to authentically connect to a variety of situations and people.

Engagement has been correlated by Gallup researchers and others with significant improvements in workplace performance including productivity, profitability, and efficiency and with enhanced cultures where ownership is up and turnover is down (See Resources and www.gallup.com ).

With Winner's Way AAAssessments, you will get a reading on and a strategic plan to develop "the 3 A's" of The Winner's Way for the individuals and teams who build your organization's strength and resilience. The assessment and developmental plan will empower people to engage with a variety of challenges and people including colleagues, customers, clients, vendors, managers and supervisees. Engagement and flexibility will enable people to manage the stress of competition and to develop the resilience to stay at the front of competitive packs for the long run.


Attention --wide-angle or microscopic, internal or external, people or things.

• What is the primary lens that determines your reality and is relied on during stress?

• What focus drives you to distraction and detachment?

• How can you shift this lens flexibly to connect with a variety of situations and people and to see the world through a variety of perspectives, including the view of colleagues, customers, clients, and competitors


Activation --fast-forward to steady, from the top of individual and organization's heads to the tips of toes and frontlines.

• Identify activation speed and situations for which it is a good fit and those in which your typical style is a poor fit that leads to agitated outbursts or apathetic checking out.

• Identify the areas that individuals, teams, and organizations carry activation and its early warning signs to enable implementation of customized strategies for ramping it up or turning it down to engage with a variety of people and challenges.

Attitudes --attitudes as drivers that move you to action or hinder you.

• Action, accuracy, acknowledgement, affiliation--identify the drivers that move you to action and drive you to distraction.

• Attitudes as 'assumptive beliefs'-- determine the assumptive beliefs that hinder and those that enable turning visions, goals, and plans into strategic actions.

• Determine the attitudes you want to pack and those that you want to ditch to move yourself to action, including introducing health-building habits that will keep individuals, teams and organizations in it for the long run.

All Together Now --"The 3 A's" are intertwined in a systems relationship that resembles an upside-down-U .

When activation is high, attention narrows and attitudes become cast in stone creating that 'stress makes you stupid' sensation that knocks you out of "the Zone." At very low levels of activation, attention widens and the mind is so open that you may wonder if you have an attention deficit problem. Use this tool to:

• Determine where you usually ride on the curve.

• Identify and chart the curves of the situations and people that are a good fit and those that require more effort for you to join in.
Develop personalized individual, team and organization-wide strategies for tuning in and turning all "3 A's" around and methods to use any one to alter the other two for those days when merely breathing isn't enough...

http://www.inthezoneinc.com/insert/assessment.html

Strategic Planning and "Really Do It!" Implementation

Empowering Collaborations That Generate Real-world Lasting Results--Higher, Faster, Stronger....

Generating real results that last over time, including profitability and productivity, is no longer as cut and dry as slashing expenses and people. Much like a competitive athlete, individuals, teams and entire organizations are driven by real-world demands to be lean enough to move with speed, agile enough to turn on a dime, and still strong enough to get up and grow with a nanosecond's notice.

Our clients seek to enhance profitability through the most consistent resource--their people. We assist in designing consultation and educational processes that will enlist the entire individual as a contributing team member and leader. Then we take it the next step to introduce methods to enable people to "REALLY Do It!"--to turn strategy and goals into strategic action.

"Great companies make something happen above and beyond what their people contribute as individuals, just as great leaders organize people to accomplish more together than they could individually."

Rosabeth Moss Kanter in On The Frontiers of Management , p. 6.

WalkTheTalk To Turn Strategy, Vision, and Mission Plaques Into Achievements

I have witnessed the power of state-of-art strategy, meaningful mission statements, heady visions, heartfelt values, and smart goals--but their power is released only when they were backed with actions.

Otherwise, they remain great-looking plaques on the wall or fallen dreams and empty words that can sink spirits and deplete energy.

I co-labor with clients to develop compelling and meaningful strategy, mission, vision, values, and goals and to turn them into proactive individual and organization-wide strategic actions. Proactive strategic action, in the short and long run, is one of the most critical factors for ensuring that you reach your individual and organizational goals.

It takes strategic action to turn goals into achievements. We work with clients who want to move strategic plans, mission, visions and values, and goals into strategic actions .

Winner's Way methodology provides a system for developing a clear understanding of the strategic plans and changes, the reasons backing them, the implementation plans including timing and sequence, the critical role that each individual and team will take, and armed with a plan for making midstream changes if needed, clients have a vision of their desired destination and a map for moving off the starting line and maneuvering predictable detours or obstacles.

The Winner's Way system also provides them with the ability to deal effectively with unpredictable challenges that can blindside any of us. With The Winner's Way, you can prepare yourself and others to confront mistakes, and even failure, head on and to get back up and into the fray.

Strategic Planning and Facilitation That Moves People to Strategic Actions

Our clients face the challenges of competitive business in fast-forward times. They need strategies for designing and introducing strategic changes designed to achieve their goals while grounded by the core values that will keep the organization strong over the long haul. Our customized strategic planning process includes designing and maintaining an organizational structure that will be ready to forge ahead to implement strategic growth goals.

Trained as a Psychologist to mediate rugged engagements in work and family settings, I also enjoy the process of facilitating difficult discussions, negotiations, and new member selections. My work includes facilitating Board retreats where strategy, direction, and new members were under consideration.

I have worked with organizations and advised managers and Boards on strategic planning for business challenges including:

• determining and implementing strategic mergers and acquisitions including facilitating mergers of cultures,

• facilitating challenges inherent in changes including changes of leadership, processes ("the way we do things around here"), or organizational structure,

• designing creative and profitable strategies that enhance core competencies and, when appropriate, introducing and building new strategic competencies to power clients toward their strategic goals,

• introducing new Information Technology systems and readying people for the fallout inherent in such large-scale change,

• restructuring organizational design, including leadership shifts and downsizing,

• determining and implementing strategic culture change, including implementing a "team culture" where personal leadership and team membership are the norm.

I only work with associates with similar depth and breadth of experience who are expert at communication and facilitating difficult communication and negotiation and organizational development processes.

Strategic Planning Customized to Engage Hearts, Minds, and Energy Across The Organization to Move Strategy from Plans and Goals to Strategic Actions.

In The Zone Peak Performance Consulting clients strive to design competitive strategies that will power them toward their strategic goals. We believe that the best-made plans are nothing more than dreams if they are not propelled by strategic actions that can turn them into achievements. We provide our clients with a proven process for designing customized strategic plans designed to engage people so they have the desire and resources, including mindsets, to turn strategic plans into strategic actions.

To move strategy from words on a paper, rallying cries mouthed without conviction, or unfounded rumours that distract everyone, we co-labor with clients to present and implement strategic changes in a manner that enlists enthusiastic buy-in by people across the organization and even those outside of the formalized organizational structure. This includes building a culture of team with stakeholders at all levels--customers, clients, shareholders and advisory Boards.

It starts with ownership. We get to know the people and teams who make up your culture, across organizational levels and titles. Through a series of individual and, when appropriate, team meetings, customized based on the organization and its goals, we get to know what people really think. These confidential dialogues provide the information for developing the critical themes that, when addressed, will bring you and your group or organization to higher levels of achievement where you can up productivity, profitability and scores, and pride.

Questions will be customized based on initial dialogues. For example--

• What are the strengths as well as areas to develop to take this team or organization to the next level?

• Which strategies have been successful and which ones met with less than expected results?

• What are the strengths as well as areas to work on re strategy; what are the threats to any particular strategy being successful; what are the real or potential obstacles to implementing a particular strategy?

• What leadership styles work and which ones don't?

• What does 'team membership' mean on this team?

• What organizational values are critical for success? What are the behaviors that express these and what are the behaviors that are in conflict with them?

• What supports accountable follow-through and what gets in its way?

• What are you willing to do to contribute to continued growth, success, and a positive culture?

• What is important to you to do during your time in this organization? What legacy do you want to leave?

Strategic Planning Take Planning Strategically. Then we craft a plan, a customized design of events, topics, and learning experiences that address the common themes identified in the meetings. We revise the plan with the client to accommodate the group's needs and logistical issues including whether the group will be more stressed with an offsite or onsite location. We review the experiences, including the agenda and questions that the group will be posed during their strategic session. Then materials and the agenda are finalized and the doing begins.

It starts with communication . We go beyond the planning process to assist clients to develop communication plans to drive the message throughout the organization. Based on the organizational culture, we collaborate with our clients to craft messages introducing strategy and change in a variety of formats. This enables people to hear and understand the changes and plans and why their individual contributions are critical to the continued success of all individuals and to the entire organization.

It takes a village, or at least a team where everyone knows and accepts who is on first and why. We work with clients to build "team cultures" including team membership at every level. Our systems model, based on research on peak performing teams in competitive work and sport settings, enables clients to build a team culture capable of implementing the plan and dealing with challenges and recouping from unforeseen factors that can sideline, or detour, any strategic change.

Accountability is key. Even prior to communicating the plan or changes designed in the strategic planning process, our clients develop strategic goals and time frames to power them along their journey. These include accountability checks, predetermined times and means for each person to check in with the team to ensure accountable follow-through and to enlist team support for dealing with unpredictable challenges that are built in to today's ever-changing world.

Celebration is critical--and injects joy and purpose to long sieges of work and implementing new changes that can rattle even the most steady. Accountability includes high fives for milestones reached and challenges overcome. We design innovative celebrations, including the small cost-effective daily ones like a "breather" at the water cooler or today's equivalent. With goals that motivate and built-in recognition processes, our clients build cultures where achievement is the norm and working toward it is enjoyable. In doing so, they create organizations where people want to spend time, to do business as employees, customers, and vendors. And feeling good becomes an internal motivator that keeps people moving forward and coming back.

Follow-up is critical to follow-through. It is too easy to plan, feel inspired, and then get so busy with the work stuff that you "do nothing" to follow through. We prefer to design in a follow-up checkpoint to ensure accountable follow-through and we build in time to consult with individuals and teams to iron out kinks in the implementation of change or strategy or new ways of working together.
We want to see you REALLY Do It!--to turn your strategy into achievement. In the words of Gretzky the Great--" an assist is as good as a goal"--we enjoy providing the assist.


http://www.inthezoneinc.com/insert/strategic.html

The Do's and Don'ts of Executive Coaching By Richard Gauthier

Experience in organizations has taught me that leadership matters. Leaders set the course, establish values, create productive environments, build capacity and manage operations. Even the slightest improvement in strategic ability, delegation, competence or emotional intelligence has a significant impact on the results an organization achieves. The better the leadership, the better the organization.

One specifically focused way to better both is through one-on-one coaching for the development of high-potentials, influential senior managers and executives. Popularly known as executive coaching, this emerging practice has proven successful enough to attract professional management consultants, organizational development experts and internal organizational practitioners who seek validation through certification.

My firm and a number of other consulting firms specialize in executive coaching and provide certification for others after codifying what has evolved as accepted practices based on what has worked and what hasn't. The more people certified and practicing the more we share experiences that lead eventually to general practices, accepted rules, evolving methodologies and practical tools; all executed within a generally standardized cycle consisting of some variation on the phases of contracting, assessment, goal setting, action planning, coaching through execution and measurement.

My experience in this evolving profession has consisted of coaching in a variety of industries with a full caseload and certifying hundreds of independent external and internal consultants. These activities, along with considerable collaboration with my colleagues in the profession, have been formative and instructive in helping me figure out what's most effective, somewhat effective, effective, or hardly effective at all. Given my philosophy of leadership (Great leaders create leaders-not followers) and style (I guide through process-I don't direct), I think I've figured out what generally works and what doesn't for my clients. And if asked to guide an aspiring coach through what trial and error has taught me, the do's and don'ts of coaching, if you will, I'd offer the following for each phase of the coaching cycle:

Contracting

Do include in the contract discussions clarification and agreement on arrangements and confidentiality: Who will schedule? If either of you has to cancel-by when? Where you'll meet: how frequently? By when should the coaching cycle have been completed? (Six to 16 months is generally accepted depending on the complexity of the issue). Confidentiality-what does it mean to you and to the client and the terms you can both accept?

Don't hesitate to make it clear that the only time you'll break a confidentiality agreement is if you learn of actions by your client or others that would clearly result in serious physical or emotional damage to any individual, group or the organization.

Do reconsider your decision to contract with an individual if, early on, it becomes obvious that your client is suffering from severe depression or shows signs of a problem with drinking, drugs or violence. Reference your client to a social worker, psychologist or the organization's Employee Assistance Program and move on.

Don't contract to coach someone whose boss or direct report you are also coaching. You'll soon abdicate the role of coach and too easily evolve into a mediator, or worse, a broker for one side or the other.

Do avoid contracting to coach clients whose fundamental principles, values and subsequent behavior you simply can't abide. You'll want to change these clients and that's not your job. Leave that to their wives or husbands. Your job is to help them change what they want to change and make your clients better at what they do. If you can't buy into what they do and why, you don't want to make them better at it.

Don't contract to coach clients as part of an organizational documentation process for demotion or termination. If the decision has been made, coach the organization to step-up to that decision as soon as possible. Avoid the seduction to pull off "last hope" heroics-it seldom works.

Assessment

Do assess. At best, use a 360 and interviews; at least, interview. Your clients represent one point of view, and their good intentions color their perception of how they show up in organizations. Only others, who experienced your clients, can offer an accurate reflection of what they actually do and how and why it translates as effective or ineffective. Reassess informally every three to four months and formally every six to eight months.

Don't quote directly when presenting confidential interview feedback to clients. Repeated phrases, familiar comments, favorite words or expressions will identify the person interviewed and betray the process of anonymity.

Do use the following criteria when deciding with your clients whom to interview: People who experience your clients frequently, whom your clients perceive to be honest and forthright, whom your clients trust, and whose opinion your clients value.

Don't move directly into goal setting at the same meeting where you provided assessment and interview feedback. Feedback is never easy and clients need time to absorb and process the information. Give them a week or two. This reflection time is especially important if the feedback was tough and clients are in denial or see no benefit in addressing the obvious development opportunity. If clients are in the same place a week or two later, they are not, at that time, open to coaching and you must patiently bide your time. If possible, avoid talking clients into what they deny has to be done.

Do request to see your clients' prior assessment reports, no matter how dated. People change, yes, but themes will emerge and if strongly evident in former evaluations, they may still be around in varying forms. The sooner you know the better. That said-you must remain open to the possibility that the issues have been resolved and are not influencing the development opportunity you're working on.

Don't allow yourself to judge assessment information on your clients as "good" or "bad." It is for them to react to, not you. When presenting assessment data, remain neutral and objective in mind, attitude, and tone of voice.

Goal-setting and Action Planning

Do be sure that your clients choose their one or two key developmental goals, not you or the boss. Your job is to coach and guide your clients through a change they have chosen to make. Your clients own the content, you own the process. Over a sustained period of time, clients will stay the course if the goal is of their choosing and for their personal benefit.

Don't allow clients to use your coaching involvement to solve all the issues of their personal and professional lives. Given all else they have to do, one or two developmental goals relevant to their business or career objectives is reasonable and offers the best chance of success.

Do help clients frame the choice of development goal based on three criteria: their business objectives, the next step up in their career, and the feedback relevant to the former two. Ask what change can or should they make to better meet those professional and personal career objectives.

Don't just set the goal by defining the current state and the desired future state. Once the goal is defined, the key is the action plan to attain the goal. What's to be done? How will it be done? Who is needed to help? By when will it be done? And how will we measure whether or not we are on course? The best action plans outline both behaviors that have to be unlearned as well as new behaviors to adopt.

Do recognize that the key to improvement in action planning lies in "how" they're going to do the work, not the "what" they plan to do. "What" simply defines their intentions, the improvement, the work, the blueprint and guidepost for your coaching is in the "how" column. Take your time on this part of the action plan; it will keep you both focused going forward.

Don't settle for just goal-setting and action planning: complete the session with a cost/cost/benefit analysis. The repetition of "cost" is not a typo, but a reminder that cost has two parts. First, have your clients describe and record what it's going to cost them if they don't address the issues and develop according to plan. Second, have clients describe what it will cost them personally and professionally to make the changes defined by the plan. Finally, clients should describe the benefits of changing and accomplishing the desired change. Clients must do this with guidance but minimal input from the coach because when they hit the inevitable rough spots, it's their words and their thoughts on what's in it for them that will better sustain them.

Coaching

Do prepare an agenda for each session to guide the discussion, but never to direct it. Take time, after each session, to take notes on key insights and progress toward the goal. Formally document and file-but only what you'd be willing to submit to court of law.

Don't socialize with clients. You jeopardize objectivity and render yourself more accessible but less effective. Also, avoid actively probing into clients' personal life unless it has direct bearing to the developmental goal or organizational situation you are addressing. If so, explain the possible relevance and ask permission before you explore those connections.

Do build an organizational support structure of coaches and mentors for your clients. Key people within the organization, who experience your clients on a regular basis, should be invested in their transformation, supportive of the effort and willing to give feedback. Spend time with each and teach the fundamentals of constructive feedback.

Don't ever talk to one client about the issues of another without permission.

Do monitor your coaching session as the conversation develops by asking yourself if you have been talking more than your client in the past 10 minutes. If so, change the dynamic so that the answer is different 10 minutes further on.

Don't ever answer the question "What should I do?" if it relates to your clients' development objectives. Or if you find yourself in the middle of a sentence that started with, "If I were you I'd..."-cough, sputter and leave the room for a drink, but don't finish the sentence. What you, the coach, would do is not relevant. It's always about the client's ability to change in some critical area, make decisions from a shifted framework, and get on with doing things more efficiently or effectively. She must answer "What should I do?"-not the coach.

Summing up in the spirit of good coaching, I'd like to close the "do's and don'ts" on the "do" side with two positive recommendations. One is an admonition and the other a fundamental belief that has sustained me throughout my coaching experiences.

I admonish you to remain flexible and recognize that the general rules that experience teaches us do not apply in all times, with all clients, under all circumstances. The do's and don'ts that guide us should not direct us. They are guideposts that help keep us on course but we must always be willing to make an exception if something tells us that doing so will better serve our client. I recommend you do the same with my list and your own of what works and what doesn't.

Finally, coaches are in the change business and change is hard. Coaching seldom has to do with changing the people or situations our clients encounter but rather changing something within our clients relative to how they respond to people and circumstances. I'm convinced that's the essence of our work and what has sustained me in this profession is this paraphrase of a fundamental belief expressed centuries ago by Marcus Aurelius: "Man's greatest liberation is the realization that he has the ability to choose his attitude and reaction to any set of circumstances.

Do good work. Coaching matters.

Richard Gauthier is a principal consultant, executive coach, with Linkage, and he has more than 25 years of experience in organizational development, leadership, marketing and communications.

Best Practices - Use Three Power Elements By David Giber

As a leadership development consultant, I'm often asked about best practices, especially about which ones make the greatest positive impact on individuals, teams, and organizations-and which ones help turn training programs into a leadership system. Leaders want to know: Where is the biggest return on investment?

I rate the following three practices as most powerful in developing leaders:

1. Integrating classroom experiences with on-the-job application. Most firms have leadership programs that are highly rated in terms of the experience of participants but have little or no connection to rigorous application of the learning on the job.

Despite all the excitement over action learning and connecting classroom experiences to on-the-job assignments, this is still the biggest, most common gap in leadership development-often due to the difficulty of coordinating assignments and the discomfort many internal leaders feel when working as mentors and coaches. Training groups rarely determine how participation in the leadership training will integrate with larger talent and succession planning for on-the-job assignments and participation on task forces or initiatives. Even with the advent of communities of practice and electronic means of connecting globally, most leaders don't know how to build networks among those experiencing common leadership transitions and dilemmas.

The artful blending of classroom work and on-the-job assignments takes focus. At Federated Department Stores, for example, the Leadership Institute has refined the work of "step up" assignments over several years so that high-potential participants review their on-the-job application plans with their manager, their manager's manager, a group of their peers as well as a senior executive from another division. Alumni from past programs are also used to mentor and advise on these assignments. This scrutiny leads to broader, more strategic thinking and more "stretch" in the challenges participants take on. Leadership practitioners need to put as much work into determining the dynamics of on-the-job development assignments as they do into planning curricula.

Action learning done in teams is the best method for integrating leadership development and real-world issues and practice. The critical issue, as Henry Mintzberg points out, is to make it into "action-reflection learning," leaving the time needed to assure that the program is not dominated by actions to be taken or problems to be solved.

2. Connecting leadership development to the strategy and involving internal leaders as teachers and facilitators of that strategy. This goes beyond using leaders as teachers. It means involving them in crafting the strategic message and the issues to be tackled by the participants. It is more than telling leadership stories; it is teaching in a way that projects the participants into the strategic choices and decisions that their leaders are facing. I find that the personal involvement of senior leaders fundamentally changes their view of education and development. Taking on the role of teacher has a profound impact on leaders. However, these leaders are seldom provided with good models and training on how to be effective teachers and facilitators of strategic cases studies and interactive debates. Such teaching takes preparation and coaching, but it pays off by altering the leader's approach to asking questions, listening, and learning. In addition, leading organizations create their own toolkits for analyzing and solving problems, improving teamwork, and driving change. These then become teaching tools. Creating a committed internal leadership faculty is a powerful way to turn leadership training into true development and turning senior leader sponsors into passionate advocates.

3. Timing access to the leadership development to the right career or transition point. Are emerging leaders involved where they are most ready and open to learn? The timing element has both individual and organizational components. Has the organization communicated a development roadmap of where those leadership transitions are and what is needed to succeed at each point? Is the program connected closely enough to a transition point in responsibility or scope or when a change is recent or imminent enough that it rings powerfully in the experience of the participants? Are the developmental goals of a program or assignment clear to the participant, his or her manager and direct reports?

The individual component is one of engagement with learning and with change. Is the participant ready to engage with a new set of leadership issues? Does any assessment provided create an opening-not only through the typical 360-degree feedback process but also because there are new insights for participants on their personality, decision style, or strategic thinking?

Great timing also means that the learning needs to be applied during the class and reapplied more intensively soon after the class. Timing means engaging individuals, teams, and organizations at points where the connections to leadership learning hit with impact because success is not guaranteed and the stretch to improve and innovate effectively gets people's attention.

With these three practices, powerful leadership development is possible. Both practitioners and leaders should look for ways to bolster and maximize these three best practices as they seek an integrated approach to developing their leaders for the future.

This article originally appeard in Leadership Excellence Magazine - January 2007

David Giber is a senior vice president at Linkage, Inc. In that capacity, he has responsibility for the company's Research business, as well as the New Programs and Leadership Development segments of the company's Professional Services Group.