3 Signals That a Company Cares About Its People
Nearly half of human resources managers have job openings that remain unfilled longer than they would like, mostly due to a lack of qualified applicants. When that happens, they will do anything to get someone on board. Management hopes that setting up a game room and hosting the occasional happy hour celebration will attract top-quality talent to the organization. While those culture perks may be fun for employees in the beginning, most workers want benefits that truly matter (and they should fight for those).
Have you ever thought you found the perfect job opportunity only to land the position, start work, and discover the exact opposite? Unfortunately, it happens frequently, especially when the company’s values don’t match your own. This article originally published in Careerbright. To read the full article, visit Careerbright.
Nearly half of human resources managers have job openings that remain unfilled longer than they would like, mostly due to a lack of qualified applicants. When that happens, they will do anything to get someone on board. Management hopes that setting up a game room and hosting the occasional happy hour celebration will attract top-quality talent to the organization. While those culture perks may be fun for employees in the beginning, most workers want benefits that truly matter (and they should fight for those).
Companies that not only know their purpose and values but publicly advertise them are the places where you want to work. With increasing frequency, businesses are learning that employees don’t head to work each day just to make a salary: They want to contribute to an effort that they believe in and that helps the greater good.
Finding a Good Supervisor
For job seekers, it is important to find a company that cares about its employees — and perhaps more important, a supervisor who cares. The best-case scenario is to be employed by both a company and a boss who care about you, because it can be draining to work for a good company with bad leadership.
Smart candidates will make sure they like their supervisors as much as the positions they apply for. You and your potential employer should both walk away convinced that you are the best fit for the job and vice versa.
So when the interviewer asks whether you have any questions, you should absolutely assess and interview in return. Ask questions like, “How many employees have left your team in the past two years, and why did they leave?” Ask about employee engagement, the company culture, and how the company scores itself on living up to its core values. Asking questions serves to help you better understand the job and company and will shift the dynamic of the interview into more of a two-way conversation.
Signals That a Company Cares
Along with the interview process, you can look for several other indications that a company actually cares about its employees:
Someone gives you a realistic job preview.
You want the company to give you a realistic preview of the position. Every company has some dysfunction, so look for signs that it’s transparent about areas that need improvement. In the final stages of the hiring process, you want the potential employer to divulge both the positives and negatives about working for the company. You also want the honest, realistic view of your exact position: the work environment, duties, and expectations. Not only will you have the correct expectations regarding the job, but you can also decide whether the position is the ideal fit for you and your skills.
They have implemented a clear onboarding plan for you.
Your first day should proceed without hiccups. A human resources department that has a thoughtful and effective onboarding process allows new hires to settle in properly. Your desk and/or office space should be established, and you should have a working computer ready to go. You should also have a team member who guides you through the first few days and introduces you to the rest of the department. Someone in leadership should interact with you and take you to lunch to get you acclimated.
They offer mentorship on the job.
These first impressions are critical for employee engagement, and you want a manager who takes extra time and care to ensure that you find friends and at least one mentor during the first day or week of your new position. A survey by Comparably found that more than half of employees in the technology industry have best friends at their places of employment. Friends are vital to a successful career as they make you seven times more likely to be engaged while working. Friends boost your mood and morale and also offer the emotional strength to face challenges and crises.
Companies that take it a step further and offer sponsorship opportunities are an even better place to work: You’ll have a champion focused on your success and career advancement.
When you job search, it’s key to know your worth and not settle for just any open position. Take the time to research, ask questions during the interviews, and look for the signals that indicate the company will take care of you from the very first time you set your foot in the door. That type of company has the values and culture you want to affiliate yourself with.
Ramp up Your Recruitment With Intelligent Job Descriptions
The battle for talent has reached unprecedented levels among companies struggling to hire star candidates. Sure, there are incredible people out there, but the vast number of open positions means they get to be picky about the jobs they accept.
Recruiting great talent is becoming tougher as top performers get their pick of open positions. But with some creative changes to upcoming job descriptions, human resources and recruitment leaders can attract awesome candidates faster, writes Krister Ungerbock, CEO, The Language of Leadership. This article originally published in HR Technologist. To read the full article, visit HR Technologist.
The battle for talent has reached unprecedented levels among companies struggling to hire star candidates. Sure, there are incredible people out there, but the vast number of open positions means they get to be picky about the jobs they accept.
According to CareerBuilder, 58% of hiring managers report needing to keep job postings open for a frustrating 12 or more weeks. And 45% say they can’t find adequate recruits despite leveraging technology and digital platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed.
On the upside, 40% of workers admitted to CareerBuilder that they expected to switch jobs. But to capture some of those new workers, human resources professionals must challenge themselves to think differently when it comes to their job postings.
Updating Your Recruitment Strategy With New Job Descriptions
If you’re in charge of creating and spreading a job post for your organization, you need to take a new approach. Instead of thinking like a recruitment pro, try thinking like a marketer. Start with these strategic changes:
1. Write marketing copy, not standard recruitment lingo.
Most job postings contain stale wording that doesn’t turn heads. Instead of writing for yourself, write for candidates skimming job openings. In general, that population of candidates won’t be moved by dull headlines. Wow, them with job titles that captivate their interest. A/B test a more traditional headline with one that uses all-caps and unconventional symbols to see which attracts the most applicants.
Add keywords such as geographic locations or other terms to ensure titles are discoverable. You might also want to reconsider the adjectives and language you use in titles. “Front Lobby Greeter” doesn’t have much of a ring, does it? ”Director of First Impressions and Contracts at Award-Winning Real Estate Firm” is a lot punchier. Your titles must be accurate, of course, but they don’t need to be boring.
2. Keep your job descriptions straightforward and SEO-friendly.
Are your job descriptions long and dry? LinkedIn reveals that short and sweet seems to be the name of the game. In their investigation, job posts of 300 words or fewer got 8.4% more hits than the average, and ads between 301 and 600 words saw 3.4% less interest from seekers. What does that mean for you? It means you need to creatively boil down your postings to their basic elements.
Challenge yourself to say in 50 words what you might have said in 200. Each sentence should naturally whet the reader’s appetite so that he stays engaged until the call to action. If you can’t seem to whittle your wording, consider adding a link to longer copy on your website’s recruitment page. That way, you can have a more fully fleshed-out job description online without cluttering up your general ad.
3. Cut out the abbreviations.
Sure, everybody knows that HR means human resources, an RN is a registered nurse, and a COO is a chief operating officer. But spelling out abbreviations ensures you don’t miss searchers who don’t use acronyms and nets you a little extra keyword love to boot.
While you’re at it, skip the workplace jargon. We all get comfortable using certain phrases after a few weeks on the job, but your ideal candidate might have no idea what you mean — especially if you work in technology or another jargon-heavy industry. Write like a straight shooter and talk to your audience like they’re real people who might be interested in a professional move.
4. Ask for help from your noncommittal job seekers.
Some people like to peruse Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn out of curiosity. Maybe they’re checking out the competition or just want to see what a similar job pays in another industry. Perhaps they’re just bored for the moment or had a fight with the big boss. Regardless, they may never apply to your posting.
Even so, you shouldn’t ignore those passing eyes. Include a line in your job description like, “Job not a fit for you? Help us find our next administrative superhero!” that suggests passersby should send your information to their qualified connections. To further encourage referrals, you can even offer bonuses if your current employees refer people you eventually onboard.
5. Get loyal employees in a meeting with human resources first.
When you’re sifting through incoming résumés, put the candidates who have worked at the same company for at least five years at the top of your pile. Great companies don’t let their people go without a fight, so these candidates’ performances have likely stood the test of time. They’re clearly loyal — and they might be willing to transfer some of that loyalty to your organization with the right motivation.
Remember that some online job board technology allows you to actively source applicants who submitted their information but aren’t aggressively looking for work. Again, try to uncover people who have exhibited longevity and received promotions every few years. When these types of candidates do apply, get back to them ASAP.
It’s time to reimagine the face you present to all those superstars who might want to make your office their new home away from home. Updating your open job descriptions and the titles that accompany them can take time, but setting aside the hours is a must if you want to draw in applicants faster. Shortening your recruitment and hiring cycle by just a few percentage points will enable you to ramp up your operations and reach new levels of companywide success.
How to Shatter the 30-Employee Ceiling
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, researcher Eva de Mol identified a critical element of startup success: that experience alone won’t make a team successful. And data from Adecco USA confirms that experience isn’t everything, as 62 percent of hiring teams report reducing the experience needed for new hires. In her research, de Mol found that soft skills like shared passion and a cohesive vision are far more important traits to encourage in a startup team.
If your team's growth has stalled, examine whether your managers are leading through expertise or curiosity. This article originally published in Entrepreneur. To read the full article, visit Entrepreneur.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, researcher Eva de Mol identified a critical element of startup success: that experience alone won’t make a team successful. And data from Adecco USA confirms that experience isn’t everything, as 62 percent of hiring teams report reducing the experience needed for new hires. In her research, de Mol found that soft skills like shared passion and a cohesive vision are far more important traits to encourage in a startup team.
Yet during early team-building phases, most founders or managers lead primarily through expertise. In other words, founders and entrepreneurs share their vast knowledge stores, leading others to immediate solutions when problems arise. This is akin to sharing the answers to a test, but top performers don’t want or need that kind of hand-holding. Many even find it insulting. Plus, it relies on one person’s experience, depriving the team of more diverse thoughts and ideas, especially as the company grows and encounters new challenges. This leading by experience often causes companies or managers at larger organizations to hit two team-growth ceilings: one at 10 employees and the other at 30. These lags can cause an extreme growth bottleneck, especially at the 30-employee mark. Instead of leading by experience, leaders and managers must completely shift their styles to accommodate further growth. Otherwise, they will languish with fewer than three dozen workers and possibly stall further scaling.
According to Census Bureau research, 89 percent of America’s nearly six million businesses have fewer than 20 people on the payroll. And Guidant Financial data has discovered that small companies say it’s tougher than ever to woo and keep talent. For that reason alone, fledgling operations should rethink old-style management techniques to reduce the likelihood of constant turnover and disengagement. Besides, leading by expertise simply isn’t efficient when one person becomes the go-to authority on everything.
Case in point: For quite a while, I was an expertise leader with a line of people outside the door, hundreds of emails and a ton of stress. A wiser leadership style for a company that’s hit 20 or more team members is leading with curiosity. Questions lead; answers follow. If you aren’t leading with questions, then you’re following with answers. Leaders who put curiosity foremost ask questions to elicit ideas and lead people to their own solutions. Those concepts are often imaginative and fascinating because they come from different mindsets. By revamping my style from authoritarian to coach, I gave my people the freedom to make our company better and break through the 30-person glass ceiling.
If you’re struggling because people leave before you can take your business to the next level, consider whether you could benefit from a leadership style overhaul. Below are several strategies I’ve trusted to move my team from merely existing to prospering.
1. Hand out autonomy raises.
Micromanaging can be helpful in some situations, but across the board, it doesn’t make sense. Plus, overmanagement keeps workers from experiencing job satisfaction. Research from the University of Birmingham in the UK revealed that employees who experienced more autonomy also experienced a number of benefits, such as improved well-being.
Generate a “table of autonomy” outlining which actions or operations require approval and which lie in the hands of the doers. As you work to build a diverse team, you’ll likely find that some employees need different guidelines than others. Once you’ve agreed upon those guidelines, allow your best staff members to have freedom within them. By generating a playbook for your talent to gain more authority, you show that mutual trust is within their control.
2. Start questions with "what" or "how."
Mistakes will happen. Stop asking everyone why they erred when they make a misstep. Instead, present a future-forward approach by treating all experiences as learning opportunities. Ask questions like, “What will you do differently after this experience?” or, “How might this experience change the way you operate moving forward?”
The more you change your approach to snags, the richer and more honest your dialogue with people will be. They’ll begin to model your questions in their own interactions, helping them become better at evaluating their blunders and coming up with innovative solutions.
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs was known to ask a few pointed questions to help drive the tech giant toward success. Simple inquiries like, “What is not working here?” and, “Why not?” helped him get to the root of problems and encourage employees to offer solutions that would improve the company’s products and offerings.
3. Ask, don’t tell.
When you feel the desire to give your team answers, pull back. Instead, seek to learn what’s in their heads and hearts by asking questions. For instance, when you prepare for meetings, come up with a list of inquiries instead of outlining what you want to tell attendees.
As data culled by Digital Synopsis notes, 95 percent of Google searchers stop at page one. In other words, a lot of people just want to be told what to do. Challenge your people to think for themselves, to value a variety of diverse opinions and to be inquisitive rather than look to you for the right answer every time. The more they hone this skill, the more native it will become.
4. Brainstorm with purpose.
When you encounter a big problem, gather your team. Ask them about their top three options, their ideal outcomes and the resources they’d need to make their ultimate dream solution a reality. Encourage them to identify the true problem source, the assumptions they have about the issue, the lessons learned thus far and what’s holding them back from taking further actions. Ask everyone to participate, because as you build out a team of people with differing backgrounds, you’ll be more likely to hear a variety of new opinions about problems and ideas for solving them.
You should participate little in the activity -- just step in to reiterate your questions if needed. Within an hour, you should be able to gather quite a bit of information that you can use to follow up with key individuals and drive initiatives. Not only will you lead others to answers, but you’ll serve as a mentor rather than an omniscient ruler.
For an example of excellent brainstorming in action, look no further than Pixar’s Notes Day. Once a year, the production company halts all other work to make way for an all-employee brainstorm session. Former CEO Ed Catmull said he views his leadership position as a chance to support his employees, not to get in the spotlight. Offering Notes Day presents Pixar with an opportunity to do just that and ensure all voices are heard throughout the organization.
Worried that you can’t seem to get traction when it comes to boosting your team’s numbers? Investigate your leadership practices. Focusing on leading from a place of curiosity could make all the difference.
Using Audience Mapping to Build a Better Keynote
Audience mapping is a means of creating a mix of visual, auditory, conscious and subconscious cues to manipulate the direction of the keynote presentation. It allows planners and their speakers to create a blueprint for better facilitating the meeting attendees' experience throughout the speech.
Working with your event speaker, use these tips to enhance the meeting attendee experience.
This article originally appeared on Northstar Meetings Group, to read the full article, visit northstarmeetingsgroup.com.
Most of your meeting's keynote speakers spend hours perfecting their content and delivery. Far fewer practice what Greg Holder, author of The Genius of One, calls audience mapping, a method of ensuring a speech's maximum impact.
Audience mapping is a means of creating a mix of visual, auditory, conscious and subconscious cues to manipulate the direction of the keynote presentation. It allows planners and their speakers to create a blueprint for better facilitating the meeting attendees' experience throughout the speech. Working together with your speakers, venue crews and conference staff, you can use audience mapping to create a more beneficial presentation for your audience – one they’ll be talking about long after it’s over.
Audience Mapping in Action
If you’re having trouble envisioning how audience mapping works, put yourself in your keynote’s shoes. You’ve developed impactful slides to display behind you during the presentation, but in large auditoriums, what might end up on the display screen during your presentation is a close-up of your person.
To maximize the impact of the keynote content, you’ll want to control what the attendee sees and when — the speaker or the slides — thus further influencing their overall takeaway(s). Use the following practices to tighten and maneuver the overall keynote experience for your next meeting.
1. Develop A/V Crew Cues
The folks handling the audiovisual elements of your event won’t have a ton of time to concentrate on complex arrangements, so provide them with all the information up front. Meet with your speaker to map out the supporting elements of the presentation. Develop cues to better facilitate the process as it's happening. For example, you might have the speaker brand important slides with a logo. Then, you can communicate to the A/V crew that, when they see a slide with an embedded logo, cameras should focus on the screen instead of the presenter.
You might also consider coaching your speaker to use other transitional indicators, such as a repeated code word that indicates the crew should turn the house lights up or activate microphones for a Q&A session. Regardless of the approach, make sure all necessary parties are aware of established cues.
2. Use Visuals to Direct Attention
Rather than using visuals as a crutch, have your speakers use them to inform audience members of their role in the presentation. A slide might include a quote that the audience should chew on for a few seconds, or it could offer a picture that illustrates what your speaker is about to discuss.
If your speaker asks a question, adding a slide containing a phone number to which audience members can text their answers might increase live engagement. No matter what’s on the slide, give the crowd enough time to absorb what they're seeing. Science shows we (the attendees) can’t read and listen at the same time, so be patient and let silence rule when necessary.
3. Add Blank Presentation Slides
Never be afraid of padding the presentation with blank slides. Empty slides won’t compete for attention, and they’ll help the audience focus solely on your speaker. Instead of freaking out over seemingly blank space, rest assured that blank slides provide a subconscious cue for attendees to focus on whatever the speaker is conveying at that moment in time.
4. Include Verbal Cues
Pretend you’re in the audience at a convention speech. You hear, “If you look at the screen...” and it gets your attention, right? Using simple, direct language helps attendees know that it’s okay to look away from the speaker. It also sets your keynote up as the person in charge.
When you’re working with a speaker to construct a new speech, start by defining the core message you want attendees to understand. From there, map out what the audience’s journey should look like throughout the presentation. Use the tips and cues above to better control what your attendees will be focusing on and when, helping to instill the intended takeaways.
Krister Ungerböck is a sought-after keynote speaker, former CEO of Ungerboeck Software International and author. He’s been featured in national publications such as NPR, Forbes, Inc. and Entrepreneur for his fresh perspective on leadership, business growth, emotional intelligence and employee engagement. He is an expert on the Language of Leadership — communication insights that he discovered while learning to lead in two foreign languages, observing top execs in more than 40 countries and building businesses in six.
The Employee Perks That Actually Work
Establish benefits that will actually matter to your employees, then share them with potential applicants you’re recruiting to help turn them into new hires. It’s tough enough to find good people: About half of human resource managers have job openings that are staying open longer than usual or that they can’t fill because of a lack of qualified applicants.
Ping-pong tables are not a recruitment strategy. Yet some members of leadership and human resource teams think setting up game rooms and throwing occasional pizza parties somehow make their organizations super attractive to potential talent. That’s not the case. This article originally appeared on Glassdoor for Employers. To read the full article, visit Glassdoor for Employers.
Establish benefits that will actually matter to your employees, then share them with potential applicants you’re recruiting to help turn them into new hires. It’s tough enough to find good people: About half of human resource managers have job openings that are staying open longer than usual or that they can’t fill because of a lack of qualified applicants.
When you do unearth gems, you want them to feel your strong culture from the first impression. Here are the perks you need to set up to attract new rock stars and how you can showcase them during the hiring process:
1. Hand out authority raises.
At some point, raising paychecks no longer raises morale, and offering your star performers competitive wages won’t be enough to keep them around. Giving them more autonomy through an authority raise can be the ideal solution, and increased autonomy can play a huge role in team success (Australian Leadership Foundation, 2016)
For current employees, consider giving your top dogs wider decision-making berths. Does a stellar sales director need the go-ahead to authorize discounts of more than $5,000? Up the amount to $10,000 to give her a bump in pride and control. And during interviews, turn the tables to let the candidates ask questions — especially questions about salary, bonuses, and raises. This will show that you respect candidates’ time and encourage curiosity. They’ll also appreciate your openness on a typically taboo subject.
2. Provide a taste of luxury.
Most people will never own a Porsche. But what if your company purchased a used Porsche to hand out when employees achieve exceptional successes? The talent would get to drive it for a weekend, showing off to family, friends, and neighbors. It would be a huge ego hike — and a reason to talk up the company as a great place to work. Admittedly, a sports car or exotic Bentley convertible isn’t a cheap investment. If that’s not in the cards for your company, try something else, like giving successful employees a “blank check” gift card for dinner at an expensive restaurant in your city.
Either way, you’re showing employees that you trust them and giving them an experience they’ll remember as a reward for their accomplishments. And while you can’t let prospective employees test-drive a Mercedes, you can give them a tour. Like all exceptional tour guides, you should have a playbook of great ideas. For example, knock on the CEO’s office door and facilitate an “impromptu” chat. How many initial interviews include a warm welcome from the C-suite?
3. Offer on-site fitness training.
Healthy employees feel confident, tend to fight off sickness, and have improved stamina. Offer everyone on your team a comfortable place to work out with a treadmill and functional weight trainer. It will cost less than $5,000 and will immediately show your commitment.
Take it one step further by hiring a personal trainer to come to your facility for a few hours a week. Employees could meet with the trainer in groups or pairs, encouraging them to get fit while meeting people from other departments. It’s a great way to facilitate connections across siloed verticals and hierarchies and to foster company wide camaraderie. Advertise gym and trainer access in every job description you post, and when candidates come in for interviews, ensure your company tour swings by the gym for a sneak peek.
4. Cater lunch and learn sessions.
Sixty-one percent of professionals would hand over work-related data to have the chance to develop themselves on the job (Accenture, Decoding Organizational DNA, 2019). At the same time, most team members don’t think much of the food their companies provide (ZeroCater, 2017). Why not kill two birds with one stone by simultaneously upping your cuisine game and setting up opportunities for whole groups to learn critical new skills?
In my experience, it works like magic. Our office provided lunch one day a week. During the lunch, one employee would teach something to the rest of the group. The topic didn’t have to be a deep dive: We had only about 30 minutes to share. Still, 52 weeks’ worth of content added up. It also forced everyone to take a stab at public speaking, which turned out to be a huge advantage for people who hadn’t done so before. During interviews, mention these sessions to show that your company values professional development. If you ever have an interview at the same time as a session, consider having the applicant sit in. If not, consider connecting the applicant with an employee who recently led a session.
By all means, keep the Pac-Man arcade game by the water cooler. Just don’t rely on it to do the recruiting work of more essential perks aimed at constructing a tight-knit culture in which people can thrive. Learn more about employee engagement and leadership by watching my speeches.
Krister Ungerböck is the global expert on the Language of Leadership. Krister is a captivating keynote speaker, a coach to high-performance CEOs, and former CEO of one of the largest family-owned software companies in the world. Based upon his experience observing business leaders in more than 40 countries, building businesses in six and living in three, he shares insight into leadership that bridges between business, relationships, and family.
Why Every Entrepreneur Needs to Learn How to Defuse Fear
According to Benjamin Franklin, the only certainties are death and taxes. But with all due respect to the Founding Father, he forgot to mention something just as common, at least for entrepreneurs: fear.
Fear is a time bomb. Here's how to MacGyver your way out of dread's grip and become a more confident leader. This article originally appeared in Entrepreneur.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
According to Benjamin Franklin, the only certainties are death and taxes. But with all due respect to the Founding Father, he forgot to mention something just as common, at least for entrepreneurs: fear.
Fear can be an everyday state of mind for modern entrepreneurs. After all, when big problems happen, the world knows it at once and responds without remorse or filters. Even before BuzzFeed announced in January that it would lay off about 220 workers, CNN and other news outlets had already caught wind of that scuttlebutt. That left CEO Jonah Peretti in the unenviable position of explaining why 15 percent of his workforce would soon be searching Indeed and Glassdoor for new roles.
No startup founder wants to experience what Peretti did. Yet everyone in a leadership position must accept that, in time, tough choices will be necessary. That realization can lead to an increase in the fear already simmering just below the surface. And, unless you shake it off, fear it can become crippling.
Scared stiff in the C-suite
Of course, fear is hardly unnatural, especially for people struggling to keep a company afloat. Considering that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that three-quarters of companies are destined to fail within a decade, it's no surprise that entrepreneurs might break out in a cold sweat.
What's more, closing shop is hardly the only worry founders have: There's also the threat of financial ruin and job instability; and the list goes on.
Like many other entrepreneurs of his generation, my father experienced these fears as the leader of a successful company. The business was dealing with a big problem, and he asked me to solve it. So I came up with a solution, but one that involved addressing the issue in a completely new way.
My father's fear, however, prevented him from seeing the value in my out-of-the-box solution, so he fired me. I was 17 years old. It wasn't until two decades later that I learned just how much stress he had been under.
All those years ago, my father hid his fears from me, and in my experience, a lot of entrepreneurs do the same. They live with nagging worries about various aspects of their businesses, but they keep those worries a secret from employees, friends, even family members, and that can add a layer of loneliness on top of that fear.
Even the smartest, most well-trained leadership team members are only human. And humans have something called the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain controlling creativity and innovation. This is also the part of the brain that goes into hibernation in response to rising fear.
The way to kick-start the prefrontal cortex and return to a state of control and confidence? Masterfear. Entrepreneurs can do this by following the following five-step path to achieve long-term, effective fear management.
1. Imagine the worst-case scenario.
When dread comes calling, address it head-on by “going there” and verbalizing the most disastrous outcome you can imagine. Rather than trying to push away your fight-or-flight desires, lean into your feelings. Be clear and fully outline exactly what you fear the most, putting words to all those neurological responses pinging from your amygdala.
Indulge your mind by going on an expedition to come up with the scariest scenario possible. Beyond bringing your fear to your conscious mind and away from a generalized sense of doom, you will engage the rational side of your brain and allow yourself to move to the next step.
2. Outline the map to that worst-case scenario.
Now that you've called out the worst things that could come to pass, figure out how they could come to fruition. Write down all the dominoes that would need to fall in perfect alignment for the worst to occur. In the majority of cases, you will be surprised at how unlikely the gravest situation can be or how easily some dominoes could be sidestepped.
Let's look at a worst-case scenario that did come to pass for one company: the downfall of Blockbuster. It turns out that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings approached Blockbuster CEO John Antioco in the early 2000s with the option to purchase the DVD company. While surely Antioco had a worst-case scenario in the back of his mind of his business failing, he neglected to map out the path there that included a pivot to mail-order and, eventually, streaming content.
He passed on the deal, and though Blockbuster still exists, most of us view it as a distant memory (in fact one of the two last Blockbusters in the world recently closed).
3. Determine how much time you have to avert disaster.
You have your worst-case scenario mapped out. Now, figure out how long you have to avoid the crisis. In most circumstances, you may be weeks, months or even years from disaster, so you have plenty of time to correct your course. Bringing awareness to how much control you actually have positions you to head off fear by taking a new path.
Avoid prediction bias by basing your forthcoming moves on realistic forecasts culled from similar prior projects, or even just reaching out to someone in your network so you can talk it over together. As humans, we often don't do a great job estimating how long it will take to complete tasks, so it can be helpful to get an outside perspective.
4. Decide on the top three disaster-aversion actions to take.
Using the information you've put together about your fear and what it will take to avoid a calamity, focus on taking action. For instance, one of your ways of avoiding a worst-case scenario might be to shift operational processes. In this case, you would create a do-able timeline to execute this action.
As you create your fear-defusing plan, implement goals using the SMART system: goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-linked. By the time you are finished, you will have a strategy that is attainable and realistic.
5. Use a scale to gauge your worst-scenario likeliness.
Look at that: Now that you've completed the previous four steps, you've got a solid plan and time line to avoid your worst-case scenario. The last step is to take a good, hard look at the likelihood that said scenario will actually occur. Use the 1-to-10 rating scale that psychologists often use in self-reporting surveys, or something like SurveyMonkey's widely used Net Promoter Score template.
Using a scale instead of simply asking yourself whether the scenario will occur helps you pinpoint the extent of your fear. This step will show you just how successful the past four have been. I'd be willing to bet that your rating will be much lower than you might have expected at the beginning of this exercise.
Getting rid of fear is hard to do, especially if you have an ounce of emotional intelligence and sensitivity. Still, you can overcome your primal responses by validating, processing and rationalizing them. Over time, this skill will come easier, enabling you to grow your leadership abilities without being waylaid by dread.
5 Stories That Will Make You Rethink Your Leadership Style
When he first became a business leader, admits Krister Ungerboeck, CEO of Courageous Growth, in St. Louis, Mo., he was a bit of a jerk. “I assumed that the CEO should be the smartest person in the room,” Ungerboeck told me recently via email.
CEOs speak candidly of times they fumbled on the job, and what they learned in the process. To read the full article, visit Entrepreneur.
When he first became a business leader, admits Krister Ungerboeck, CEO of Courageous Growth, in St. Louis, Mo., he was a bit of a jerk. “I assumed that the CEO should be the smartest person in the room,” Ungerboeck told me recently via email.
That was a mistake, Ungerboeck now acknowledges. Thanks to that mentality, he says, he tended to lead through criticism, he says. And that in turn led him to doubt the abilities of his team, and created an unproductive work environment.
But after receiving less-than-stellar feedback on an employee survey, Ungerboeck says he realized his leadership style wasn’t working. “When I finally realized that my leadership style left my employees struggling to feel inspired, I made a major transformation,” he wrote. “I learned that criticism is lazy leadership that is intended to pump up the ego of the boss by making the employee feel smaller.”
Since that epiphany, Ungerboeck has tried to do better by leading through encouragement. In fact, he now refers to himself as a “recovering a-hole.”
While his employees are now better off for the change, Ungerboeck is hardly the first boss to rethink his or her leadership style. Here are five stories of how other leaders came to realize they needed to do things differently:
Always be learning.
By his mid-20s Glenn Phillips was an award-winning entrepreneur. There was just one little problem: His software company wasn’t making money.
“While we delivered great systems and support, we were not profitable and I was not addressing the problem well,” Phillips told me. “I thought that I was smart enough and hard-working enough to ‘figure it out’ and solve our issues.”
Eventually, though, Phillips realized he needed help. “I started educating myself about running a business,” he said. “The education included peers, classes and lots of reading. I studied businesses, cognitive thinking, sales, capital and more.”
Soon, his business began to turn around. Today, as the head of Lake Homes Realty in Pelham, Ala., he says he makes continual learning a priority for everyone at his organization. He says he hosts regular lunch-n-learns at the office and leads in-person trainings. The company even has a reading library, and if an employee finishes one of the books, Phillips takes that individual out to lunch to discuss what was learned.
Leadership takeaway: Set a good example for employees by constantly seeking new knowledge. This will ensure that your entire company will always be learning and improving. Tools like Workramp can help your team reach its potential.
Accept your new role.
When Rachel Beider, CEO of Massage Williamsburg + Massage Greenpoint in Brooklyn, N.Y., set out to expand her business, she quickly saw she was spreading herself too thin.
“I was trying to do too much, including still seeing massage therapy clients directly, and being involved in the day-to-day tasks,” she told me recently through email. “I started to feel perpetually stressed and burned out, and I knew I wasn't giving my best to the position.”
That’s when Beider set a deadline for herself so she couldn’t make excuses and put off the change. “Though it was a scary transition, it has allowed me a lot more time to work on important things and see the bigger picture," she wrote. "I had to learn to delegate. Now, I'm a lot more 'present' at work, with less on my plate, and open to more suggestions on improving the company.”
Leadership takeaway: First-time CEOs often need time to adjust to their new responsibilities. And it can be hard to give up old tasks that feel comfortable. But, as a leader, it’s important that you step up and accept the fact that it’s time to stop spending energy on things others can do, and focus on running the organization.
Be adaptable.
“When I had five or six employees, I managed them all the same,” Beck Bamberger, founder of Bam Communications, in San Diego, Calif. said in an email.
That worked for a while, she said, but once the company grew to dozens of employees, she saw she’d have to adapt. “There was one particular client meeting where I noticed a highly independent, quiet but well-liked employee was not taking my feedback as well as a bubbly, vivacious employee,” Bamberger went on to say.
What he told her, though, just didn’t seem to click. “We had this awkward pause in the meeting where we sat in silence for nearly 20 seconds before we started (thankfully) laughing. Then I said, ‘Okay, you're different from her.’ This was a little a-ha moment for me in terms of leadership that was adaptable for each individual.”
Leadership takeaway: Not every employee responds the same way to the same leadership style. Great leaders recognize each individual’s needs and adapt accordingly. This ensures that every employee can perform at his or her best.
Think quickly.
“A few years ago, when my companies were just starting out, my employees or potential business partners would ask me questions, and I would let them linger for a long time rather than answering them right away,” said Tony Jakstis, founder of Casa De Lago Event Centers, in Orange, Calif.
Not wanting to make a bad decision, Jakstis took his time coming up with the best answer. But, sometimes, stalling can mean missing out on big opportunities. “A good leader needs to be able to hear any kind of problem or opportunity and make a key decision that will benefit the company,” Jakstis said. “If it fails and something goes wrong, then at least I’ll find out quicker. If I’m right, the job will be done.”
Leadership takeaway: Don’t be afraid to be decisive. Even if a decision doesn’t turn out as planned, see that not as a failure, but a chance to learn.
Find support.
Danielle Wiley, CEO of Sway Group, in Corte Madera, Calif., never wanted to be a leader, she says. Nonetheless, she found herself at the helm of a fast-growing company.
“With the rocketship success that Sway saw in its first few years, my own personal leadership growth couldn't keep up,” she wrote in an email. “We were no longer a small company, but one that 35 employees' livelihoods depended on.”
The weight of that responsibility led Wiley to isolate herself -- and her team to suffer as a result. “I knew I needed to do better, I just didn't know how,” she told me.
Around this time,the executive attended a dinner for women executives. She was at the same table as a woman who kept talking about a CEO advisory group that she had joined. Wiley decided to give the group a go.
“At my first meeting, I quickly realized this group was exactly what I needed," she said. "I began to see that my concerns and frustrations were the same other CEOs were experiencing. The group gave me a newfound sense of confidence and direction that I was able to bring back to the team.”
Leadership takeaway: Being a CEO is an experience unlike anything else. Finding others going through similar situations can provide much needed support and guidance.
How to Make It Almost Impossible for Top Talent to Resign
It’s likely that you’ve worked for a subpar supervisor at one point or another. Was it hard to leave that company, even if the paycheck there was stellar? Probably not. But now that you’re in the human resources or leadership seat, you owe it to your organization to make sure your best people don’t feel like you once did. After all, your company can’t afford to have them quit — or, perhaps worse, stop caring about their work.
Thanks to a strong job market, top performers from every industry are jumping from job to job with ease. Although most of them might say they’re taking new roles because they offer higher wages, survey results tell a different story. To read the full article, visit Business 2 Community.
According to Gallup, boss behavior majorly impacts whether top talent stays or leaves. In other words, the actions of great managers trump the lure of great salaries, at least most of the time.
It’s likely that you’ve worked for a subpar supervisor at one point or another. Was it hard to leave that company, even if the paycheck there was stellar? Probably not. But now that you’re in the human resources or leadership seat, you owe it to your organization to make sure your best people don’t feel like you once did. After all, your company can’t afford to have them quit — or, perhaps worse, stop caring about their work.
Interestingly, it’s that last group of totally disengaged folks that Amazon actively weeds from its payroll. Once a year, qualifying full-time fulfillment center employees are given the option to take $5,000 and split — for good. The corporation actually pays to send people packing to keep its workforce stronger.
While you might not be ready to take such drastic measures, you should dedicate your time and resources to boost employee engagement among your organization’s top performers. Unsure how to do that? Start with the following steps:
1. Identify the cream of the crop.
Who would you fight hard to keep in your company? You can probably name a couple of people off the top of your head, but dig deeper than that. Who keeps grinding long after everyone else gives up? Which player puts quality and brand reputation over all else, constantly evolving through self-directed professional development? Whose calm-under-pressure decisions exude intelligence and confidence? These are the people who are anything but average. Retaining them will make your office stronger.
2. Share your top performer list with your leadership.
After you compile the list of your strongest employees, share it with your company’s leadership team. Explain in no uncertain terms that if anyone thinks one of those performers is disengaged, they should alert you immediately. That way, you can set up a meeting between the employee, his or her direct support, and/or another team member to learn how they can adjust their relationship and keep the employee engaged and loyal. In the meantime, schedule twice-yearly “stay interview” check-ins between your top performers and the most senior company executive you can. These meetings will advance your employees’ networks and careers as well as reduce the chance of them leaving without warning.
3. Move ASAP to keep any performer who tries to resign.
As you focus on keeping great talent in-house, ask leadership team members to identify potential flight risks and prepare for the worst. If you receive a resignation letter from a talented worker, get him or her in front of a senior executive within 24 hours. Use every tool at your disposal to win the person back. Give (or get) the blessing to move mountains if you can. Sometimes, a creative solution can be the difference between retaining top talent and shelling out for a new hire.
Money may initially motivate amazing people to join a company, but it doesn’t keep them around for longer than a couple of years. Committed, respectful leaders and human resources teams who absolutely care are the reason top talent stays put. Strive to fulfill those traits and watch as your superstars stick around According to Gallup, boss behavior majorly impacts whether top talent stays or leaves. In other words, the actions of great managers trump the lure of great salaries, at least most of the time.
It’s likely that you’ve worked for a subpar supervisor at one point or another. Was it hard to leave that company, even if the paycheck there was stellar? Probably not. But now that you’re in the human resources or leadership seat, you owe it to your organization to make sure your best people don’t feel like you once did. After all, your company can’t afford to have them quit — or, perhaps worse, stop caring about their work.
Interestingly, it’s that last group of totally disengaged folks that Amazon actively weeds from its payroll. Once a year, qualifying full-time fulfillment center employees are given the option to take $5,000 and split — for good. The corporation actually pays to send people packing to keep its workforce stronger.
While you might not be ready to take such drastic measures, you should dedicate your time and resources to boost employee engagement among your organization’s top performers. Unsure how to do that? Start with the following steps:
1. Identify the cream of the crop.
Who would you fight hard to keep in your company? You can probably name a couple of people off the top of your head, but dig deeper than that. Who keeps grinding long after everyone else gives up? Which player puts quality and brand reputation over all else, constantly evolving through self-directed professional development? Whose calm-under-pressure decisions exude intelligence and confidence? These are the people who are anything but average. Retaining them will make your office stronger.
2. Share your top performer list with your leadership.
After you compile the list of your strongest employees, share it with your company’s leadership team. Explain in no uncertain terms that if anyone thinks one of those performers is disengaged, they should alert you immediately. That way, you can set up a meeting between the employee, his or her direct support, and/or another team member to learn how they can adjust their relationship and keep the employee engaged and loyal. In the meantime, schedule twice-yearly “stay interview” check-ins between your top performers and the most senior company executive you can. These meetings will advance your employees’ networks and careers as well as reduce the chance of them leaving without warning.
3. Move ASAP to keep any performer who tries to resign.
As you focus on keeping great talent in-house, ask leadership team members to identify potential flight risks and prepare for the worst. If you receive a resignation letter from a talented worker, get him or her in front of a senior executive within 24 hours. Use every tool at your disposal to win the person back. Give (or get) the blessing to move mountains if you can. Sometimes, a creative solution can be the difference between retaining top talent and shelling out for a new hire.
Money may initially motivate amazing people to join a company, but it doesn’t keep them around for longer than a couple of years. Committed, respectful leaders and human resources teams who absolutely care are the reason top talent stays put. Strive to fulfill those traits and watch as your superstars stick around for years.
If you’d like to learn more about how the language leaders use every day can help employees feel more connected and engaged, check out a sample of my upcoming book here.
How to Identify and Nurture the Leadership Potential of Your Employees
Think about the best leader you’ve ever had at any point in your life. It might be your current boss; it could be a volunteer coordinator from college. It might even be your high school football coach. He or she embraced the characteristics of a capable and inspiring leader, no matter his or her profession.
Your company's future leaders are probably right under your nose. Here's how to sniff them out -- and help them grow into the role. To read the full article visit Entrepreneur.
Think about the best leader you’ve ever had at any point in your life. It might be your current boss; it could be a volunteer coordinator from college. It might even be your high school football coach. He or she embraced the characteristics of a capable and inspiring leader, no matter his or her profession.
The task of identifying leaders challenges every company. That’s why it’s important to encourage every member of your team to think like a leader, no matter what job title he carries. If you wait to coach someone on leadership until he eventually occupies a managerial position, you’ll be too late. You should be teaching your employees to be leaders from day one.
When seeking new managers and leaders for your company, promoting from within may prove more effective than hiring an external candidate. Elevating someone who already works for you means that individual will need less time to get up to speed. Also, leveraging your company’s growth into professional growth for your current team members can only make your employees feel more optimistic about their path at your organization. If you take this approach of promoting from within, you’ll be in good company: Hearst Magazines, Palo Alto Networks, Gap and Twilio all focus on career mobility for those they hire.
And promoting from within serves a selfish purpose, too: Leaders can create succession plans, meaning they can eventually move on to other projects without worrying about what they're leaving behind. They can groom internal leaders and help them gain perspective and context they normally wouldn't get until several years into a leadership role.
Business leaders who want to build the best possible leadership team can’t rely on impressive résumés or past experience. To identify and develop your company’s most promising leaders now and in the future, look for employees who:
1. Take initiative
Taking initiative is crucial to leading. Reward employees who come to you with solutions for problems, who step up when a project needs to be done and who seek out opportunities for professional growth. “You can’t force participation or improvement on employees who aren’t dedicated to it,” notes Krister Ungerböck, speaker, author and CEO coach. “When an employee doesn’t volunteer for more educational or professional opportunities, that should tell you how well suited he or she is for a management role.”
You’ll also want to invest in people who invest in themselves outside of work. Harvard Business Review has reported that about one-third of the most successful CEOs in the world have MBAs, so aiding your team’s educational efforts can only help your efforts to grow leaders from within.
Look for employees who are investing in their long-term future -- whether by getting an MBA, earning a professional certification or pursuing another educational opportunity – and assist them however you can. Offering tuition assistance, flexible scheduling around class schedules and time off for professional development workshops could go a long way.
2. Show humility
If someone is humble about her work, she'll always be open to suggestions for improvement. That lifelong learner mentality is crucial for leaders. “Humbleness comes with selflessness,” says Saahil Goel, CEO and founder of Kraftly. “Once you accept the equality between your team and yourself, it helps in creating a healthy learning environment in the company.”
And there’s another reason leaders should practice humility. According to psychologist Sherrie Campbell, people aren’t as eager to follow a leader who's perceived as perfect. When leaders make themselves vulnerable, it helps others feel accepted by and connected to them. That, in turn, encourages followers to become more open to trusting and learning from leaders.
You can foster humility in your nascent leaders by helping them gain greater self-awareness of both their strengths (via Gallup’s CliftonStrengths assessment, for example) and their weaknesses. When you frame discussions about improving weaknesses as an opportunity for growth, these become positive conversations rather than negative ones.
3. Can speak well -- and listen better
Think back to your last meeting. Was there a team member who argued persuasively for a particular course of action? Another who managed to convey next steps in a thorough but concise way? Being an effective communicator is key to being an effective leader. Leaders prepare what they’re going to say in advance, yet they're comfortable speaking extemporaneously -- the ability to think on one’s feet is an important leadership quality.
And leaders know that perhaps the biggest secret to communication is to be an active listener. “It’s more important to listen than it is to talk most of the time,” arguesspeaker and performance strategist Matt Mayberry. “How else can you learn about what needs to be done to improve a situation?” Fortunately, there are myriad exercises that can be used to boost your employees’ active listening skills.
You could divide team members into small groups and have them work through the story line exercise, for example. In that activity, someone begins a story, then the person next to him summarizes the first few lines and adds to the story. Active listeners should be able to paraphrase what they’ve just heard, and such exercises can help would-be leaders hone that vital skill.
In a business environment that grows more complex every day, having a team of leaders can only benefit your business. When you see the above qualities in your employees, you've likely identified the new leaders who can move your business forward today and act on opportunities that will deliver results tomorrow.
How to Turn an Underperformer Into One of Your Strongest Employees
As a manager, you’re expected to deal effectively with underperformers — either by letting them go or helping them improve. Easier said than done, right? However, with the proper mix of patience, guidance, and tact, you can manage your direct reports to success and avoid the spread of toxic underperformance to other workers.
When your co-worker underperforms, you have the option of looking the other way. But when you’re the team leader, you’re in a different position. To read the full article, visit Under30CEO.
As a manager, you’re expected to deal effectively with underperformers — either by letting them go or helping them improve. Easier said than done, right? However, with the proper mix of patience, guidance, and tact, you can manage your direct reports to success and avoid the spread of toxic underperformance to other workers.
Recognizing the Many Shapes of Workplace Underperformance
The low performance of some employees is quite evident, such as not fulfilling work assignments or only doing half the job. Other examples of subpar performance may be harder to pinpoint. For instance, is the person who routinely grumbles but executes on responsibilities an underperformer or just a capable co-worker with a snarky attitude?
In your supervisory role, you’ll need to use your best judgment to gauge what passes for satisfactory performance at your company. A general rule of thumb is that failing to meet agreed-upon expectations, skirting corporate policies, and exhibiting negative behaviors all fall in the category of underperformance.
Although the signs of underperformance are relatively easy to spot, their underlying causes are not. An underperformer might actually be responding to a lack of upward mobility in the organization. Or he could be burdened by personal stress or repetitive, monotonous duties. Take time to find out the underlying cause for each individual so you can proceed with understanding.
Regardless of the reason behind an employee’s underperformance, you have choices when it comes to taking charge of the situation. Use these recommendations to address and remedy any problems of underperformance among your direct reports.
1. Find out whether the underperformer is ready to call it quits.
Sometimes, an employer-employee relationship just isn’t the right fit anymore. Still, it can be tough for a worker to take a career risk and leave. Ask underperformers the tough question: “Do you still want to work here?” Make sure they understand that wanting to move on isn’t a crime.
Amazon believes not only in keeping happy, engaged workers on board, but also in incentivizing dissatisfied ones to go. Annually, the e-commerce giant offers some of its staff members up to $5,000 if they leave. The only catch? They can never work for Amazon again. Seem radical? It’s the best way to make sure workers are devoted to your cause, according to Michael Burchell, a workplace culture expert. “If you choose to actually not take the money and you choose to stay, it means that you’re committed to the organization and committed to your work,” he says. “It helps to frame the employer/employee bargain or that psychological contract.”
Not sure you want to offer a big bonus to an underperformer who wants to quit? Provide another incentive, such as a glowing letter of recommendation or gap insurance to cover her during her job search, with the caveat that you expect her to do her best work until she leaves.
2. Become the micromanager you never wanted to be.
When you took on a leadership role, you probably vowed never to become a dreaded micromanager. Now, you may have to rethink your promise, particularly if you want your underperformers to change.
Micromanagement isn’t all bad, as long as you temper and customize this much-maligned managerial strategy. Speaker, author, and CEO coach Krister Ungerböck suggests changing your point of view to embrace helpful aspects of micromanagement under certain circumstances. “For high-performance talent, micromanaging seems rather Big Brother-ish because it wastes time and energy,” he notes. But what happens when the work isn’t up to snuff, and the employee doesn’t know how to fix it? “In that case, micromanagement — when implemented correctly — might be a way to set parameters to help him succeed, not to punish him.”
For example, why not set up a series of expected check-ins with your underperforming employee? These touchpoints allow you to see whether work is being done and to help him overcome early stumbling blocks. You don’t have to hound your employee every second of the day to keep an eye on his progress and output quality, but regular meetings will ensure that a project doesn’t veer too far off track. Think of it like parenting: If you give a child three outfit choices, he experiences independence — despite the boundaries you’ve established.
3. Leverage the underperformer’s core strengths.
Resist the temptation to view your underperforming employee as somehow intrinsically flawed. All workers bring strengths to the table. Uncover your employee’s strong points to redirect her energies toward positive change.
Gallup studies have shown that managers, not just employees, play an enormous role in workplace engagement. Therefore, you probably have the chance to make a big impact on your workers’ future performance if you help them name and exploit their strengths. For 90 percent of teams using strengths interventions, Gallup saw up to 15 percent improvement in employee engagement and an up to 29 percent boost in profits.
Place yourself in the position of coach. Get to know your underperformers better, and help them leverage their innate skill sets. For instance, you may discover that your lackluster customer service representative has a natural penchant for problem-solving. In that case, giving her more power to generate troubleshooting ideas — that could benefit the whole team — could boost her engagement level as well.
Stop seeing underperformers as bad, as beyond help, or as the people you’ll have to fire next week. Instead, guide them to achieve their potential through some smart managerial techniques.
3 Behaviors That Make You a Better Leader
Effective business leaders possess many common denominators, but in the current culture of automation, the ability to connect on a human level is what truly sets great leaders apart. One analysis discovered that leaders who can develop positive work relationships not only drive better employee engagement and retention, but also motivate their employees to go above and beyond.
Incorporate these three behaviors into your everyday routine to build better relationships at work. To read the full article, visit Thrive Global.
Effective business leaders possess many common denominators, but in the current culture of automation, the ability to connect on a human level is what truly sets great leaders apart. One analysis discovered that leaders who can develop positive work relationships not only drive better employee engagement and retention, but also motivate their employees to go above and beyond.
In the past, most businesses were very hierarchical in nature. Success was measured by an ability to perform the specific functions of your role, whether you were at the peak or the base of the pyramid. Sure, these traits still matter to some extent, but most modern organizations want more — from leaders and employees. It’s why the best leaders don’t simply shout out orders and why companies aren’t just looking for employees who excel at doing what they’re told. We know those rigid behaviors stifle innovation.
Conduct a quick job search, and you’ll probably notice that companies typically describe their work environments as “fast-paced,” their teams as “tight-knit,” and their ideal candidates as “self-motivated.” Well, leading tight-knit teams of self-motivated employees in a fast-paced business environment takes a willingness to be part of the team — to be the cornerstone of the team, even — and to rely on other people’s expertise and judgment when necessary.
That’s why leading is hard: It takes talent but also a high level of social skill. Whether you’re currently a leader or aspiring to be one, here are some key behaviors that you should cultivate now to strengthen your own professional relationships.
1. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Acknowledging your vulnerabilities is a sign of strong emotional intelligence. Krister Ungerböck — a speaker, author, and CEO coach — says that showing vulnerability can be hard for a lot of leaders, but the payoff is a mind that’s free to focus on breakthrough solutions. “If you want to add value to your team, you must be open to showing yourself fully to the leaders around you,” says Ungerböck. “Not only will you add a sense of authenticity to your persona, but you’ll also foster deeper connections with peers.”
When you show your team members that you’re vulnerable, you’re not displaying weakness but are reminding them your colleagues that they’re fundamental to your success. In contrast, attempting to hide your vulnerabilities will inevitably prove exhausting and alienate those around you. They already know you’re not perfect — no one is.
2. Give praise instead of seeking it. Authentic praise is a great motivator. Studies show that employees who get regular praise and recognition work harder, perform better, and stay at their current companies longer. Authentic praise often takes the form of positive, specific, and constructive feedback. When giving authentic praise, draw attention to your coworkers’ achievements and how an individual adds value to the group.
Conversely, avoid dishing out praise to everyone all the time; others will perceive it as a disingenuous tactic to get people to like you. This diminishes the value of your positive feedback and sends mixed messages. Instead, express your gratitude when someone takes on a big challenge or works outside of his or her job description to help the team. If you’re specific and sincere with your accolades, they’ll matter more.
3. Listen more and talk less. Modern leaders must wear a lot of hats, which makes it hard to be present and focused on the task or conversation at hand. We’ve all been involved in discussions where we hear other people speak but aren’t fully listening. Rather than thinking about what they’re saying, we’re thinking about everything we need to get done before tomorrow. But when we do this, we waste everyone’s time because, more than likely, the conversation will have to happen again.
When you have a lot on your plate, you need to be even more attentive to your surroundings. Resist the urge to tune others out. During conversations, summarize what you just heard to ensure you are accurately understanding what individuals are trying to convey. By being in the present, you’ll be better able to read colleagues’ emotions and better equipped to respond appropriately. In doing so, you’ll not only forge stronger connections with the people you rely on, but you’ll be able to use their insights to make better business decisions.
Modern leaders are made, not born. They invest plenty of time into studying and improving the ways they interact with others because they know that every interaction matters. They pay attention to their behaviors because they know they’ll be observed and analyzed. Most importantly, today’s top leaders know that they can’t accomplish anything alone. Emphasize building strong relationships with the people who matter most.
— Published on April 1, 2019
3 Ways to Retool Your Hiring Process to Attract High-Quality Job Seekers
At the end of 2018, the number of open jobs in the U.S. reached 7.3 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the highest number of job openings on record since the Department of Labor started measuring them in 2000. Available jobs have outpaced hiring for more than a year, indicating that companies are having a difficult time filling their vacant positions.
In a job seeker's market, businesses are finding it hard to hire and retain new employees. Here's how to revamp your hiring process to attract the best talent. To read the full article, visit: Entrepreneur.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
At the end of 2018, the number of open jobs in the U.S. reached 7.3 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the highest number of job openings on record since the Department of Labor started measuring them in 2000. Available jobs have outpaced hiring for more than a year, indicating that companies are having a difficult time filling their vacant positions.
In other words, it’s a job seeker’s market. Candidates are feeling so secure, in fact, that USA Today reports some of them are now “ghosting” employers -- that is, simply not showing up for scheduled interviews (or even their first day on the job) without canceling.
The cost of hiring a new employee is already prohibitive. Replacing someone can cost the average company $4,000, according to Bersin by Deloitte, and having to start the process all over again after a bad hire or a ghosting will only hurt your finances more.
The good news is that a great hire can boost your business’s productivity and profits. The challenge is finding those great hires. With a smaller pool of talent, it’s imperative that your company stands out. Here are three strategies you should use to better appeal to the top candidates in a limited hiring pool:
1. Be nimble, be quick.
For years, job seekers were taught to expect they’d have to follow up with companies multiple times in order to get a response. Today, that expectation will no longer fly. The need to constantly follow up with your hiring manager can turn candidates off a job, even if you do eventually respond. Worse than that, they’ll share their experienceon review sites like Glassdoor, turning future applicants away, too. To avoid leaving a bad impression, get back to potential hires quickly, and communicate your hiring process clearly so they aren’t left waiting in the dark.
But how quickly is “quickly”? According to speaker, author and CEO coach Krister Ungerboeck, employers should waste no time in calling candidates back if the employer wants a speedy response in return. He notes, “If a top-quality candidate applies, pass the information along to your C-suite so someone can call him or her back within the hour.” Because you’re responding immediately, and at the highest level, you should get a response back sooner than if you weren’t. You don’t even have to message or email -- new updates with LinkedIn allow employers to leave candidates a voice message through the platform.
2. Ask not what the candidate can do for you; ask what you can do for the candidate.
A basic job description needs to include the job title, responsibilities of the role and your required qualifications and skills. But to take your job post to the next level, you need more than a list of duties. In fact, lists of requirements and responsibilities can work against you by alienating qualified candidates, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Vermont’s School of Business Administration, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Calgary.
The researchers rewrote 56 job advertisements using two different approaches: one emphasizing what a company can do for the job seeker and one emphasizing what the company wants from the candidate. Candidates who responded to the first type of ad were rated more highly than those who applied to the second. Adjust your job descriptions to stop focusing so much on your list of desires -- instead, think about what the candidate wants and how you can provide it. Do you offer flexible work schedules, career development opportunities, more autonomy? Concentrate on how you help employees do well in their roles.
3. Turn your attention to the interview.
Leadership IQ found that problems with new employees might actually occur due to a flawed interview process. In fact, according to a study by the organization, 82 percent of the surveyed managers agreed that interviewers are distracted by other issues, pressed for time or lacking confidence in their ability to conduct interviews. If you fall into this category, it could be that your interviewers are so wrapped up in finding new hires who are technically competent that they ignore other key factors -- such as emotional intelligence, motivation or attitude. Shift the focus of your hiring process back to the interview, and hold behavioral interviews rather than asking only run-of-the-mill questions like “What is your biggest weakness?”
After setting the candidate at ease with some small talk, ask the person questions that help you identify past instances when he or she exhibited specific behaviors. If you do it right, the candidate won’t even realize the behaviors you’re trying to pinpoint in his or her answers. Behavorial interviewers ask questions such as “Tell me about a time when you obtained a new customer through networking activities” or “Please tell me how you went about maintaining a long-term customer relationship.” By allowing the candidate to show rather than tell you that she possesses certain traits, you’ll have a clearer picture of whether the individual is a good fit for the role.
In a job seeker’s market, you can’t afford to stick to the same process you used in the past. It’s time to switch things up so you can stand out among your competition and gain the kinds of new employees who will help your business grow.
3 Ways to Make Hiring Easier for C-Suite Executives
If you consider all the articles touting that culture comes from the top, then it only makes sense to keep the ultimate hiring decision up to your bosses. Hiring the wrong person could turn your comfortable, open environment into a toxic space that will only encourage other employees to leave.
Hiring the perfect employees for a company is not HR’s job. That job belongs to your C-level executives. To read the full article, visit: HR.com.
Hiring the perfect employees for a company is not HR’s job. That job belongs to your C-level executives.
If you consider all the articles touting that culture comes from the top, then it only makes sense to keep the ultimate hiring decision up to your bosses. Hiring the wrong person could turn your comfortable, open environment into a toxic space that will only encourage other employees to leave.
Companies like JotForm and even Google have made it a point to keep their C-suite executives involved in hiring decisions. JotForm CEO Aytekin Tank wants to ensure new employees work well in the existing company culture without creating conflict. And he finds the role of hiring essential to keeping the company efficient — especially considering that hiring the wrong person can cost as much as $240,000, according to Link Humans CEO Jörgen Sundberg.
As leaders in HR, you’re on the front lines, and it’s up to you to bring in candidates, not employees. Here are three things you can do to better support your C-level executives in the hiring process:
1. Write job advertisements, not descriptions.
Companies that win the war for talent sell their open jobs; they don’t just describe roles. Next time you have a job opening, consider the unique selling points of the position and incorporate them into your listing. Then, learn what eligible candidates are searching for and tailor your language to match so they can easily find the role online.
From there, read a book about copywriting. I’m paraphrasing David Ogilvy when I write, “The goal of the first sentence is to get them to read the second sentence.” Every sentence of your job description should appeal to a job seeker. Your job advertisement should be so good that it’s the one job a passive yet talented candidate will look at and say, “This job looks so awesome that it might be the only job I apply for this year.”
2. Call top-quality candidates back within an hour.
If a top-quality candidate applies, pass the information along to your C-suite so someone can call him or her back within the hour. While Bullhorn found that the morning is a good time to contact candidates back, you should get a response as long as it’s within the hour. Plus, a new update from LinkedIn gives recruiters the ability to call candidates rather than emailing or messaging them via the platform.
Think of the impression you want to make on candidates. When I lived in Germany, candidates would apply to German companies and expect to not hear a response for almost three weeks. We differentiated ourselves by calling back good candidates almost immediately. This is not as impossible as it seems. Fewer than 1 in 100 job applicants are superstar caliber and justify a callback within an hour. But those people can make a huge difference within a company.
3. Don’t pass along bad candidates.
If you get 100 job applicants and all 100 applications belong in the trash can, don't hesitate to toss them! I recently spent an entire day with five other board members interviewing "top" candidates who were flown in from out of town at great expense. Two of them were not even strong enough for a phone interview, yet we took up six senior executives’ time — and the candidates’ time — interviewing them so we had a “point of comparison.”
Jobvite found that the average time-to-hire is 38 days. That’s a long time, especially considering how much of that time is wasted on interviewing the wrong candidates. Giving people points of comparison makes subpar candidates look better, not because they are right for the job but because they look good next to someone who wasn’t qualified. Ask your executives whether they would prefer to see only qualified candidates or whether they want to see the top few, even if some don't meet the minimum criteria.
Working in human resources and recruiting comes with many responsibilities, but while it is your job to find the right candidates, you shouldn't be making the final hiring decision. That's up to your company's executives. Use these three tactics to make your job easier and to help them find the next employee faster so that you can move on to filling the next role.
Krister Ungerböck is the global expert on the Language of Leadership. Krister is a captivating keynote speaker, a coach to high-performance CEOs, and former CEO of one of the largest family-owned software companies in the world. Based upon his experience observing business leaders in more than 40 countries, building businesses in six and living in three, he shares insight into leadership that bridges between business, relationships, and family.
Which Employees Should You Invest in? 3 Strategies on How to Make That Choice.
Unemployment is at its lowest point since 1969, thanks to the job gains we’ve seen during the past eight years, as described in this article in the New York Times. Now, however, it’s up to companies to compete over the best talent. Employees can be more selective than ever, resulting in a race to provide the best perks. But instead of pushing more and more money into benefits, perhaps it's time that businesses consider a different strategy: investing in leaders.
With unemployment low, you need to enrich and empower your company's existing leaders so they'll stick around. Here's how. To read the full article, visit Entrepreneur.
Unemployment is at its lowest point since 1969, thanks to the job gains we’ve seen during the past eight years, as described in this article in the New York Times. Now, however, it’s up to companies to compete over the best talent. Employees can be more selective than ever, resulting in a race to provide the best perks. But instead of pushing more and more money into benefits, perhaps it's time that businesses consider a different strategy: investing in leaders.
Companies will invest in a $250,000 machine and set aside thousands of dollars each year to ensure it can be updated and serviced. But when it comes to management, we expect our executives to be fully equipped with anything they need. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen.
Leadership training, on the other hand, has been shown to improve leaders’ confidence, abilities and emotional intelligence. Investing in your leadership team’s development will also help you reduce turnover, enrich your company culture and create a better foundation for your business. Plus, investing at the top will allow skills to cascade down the organization to other employees.
And if those benefits aren’t enough, a Gallup report found that the way leaders manage workers has a significant effect on employee engagement levels, which affect organizations’ bottom lines. Better to increase engagement and revenue through better leadership, right?
Whose development should you invest in, anyway?
I ran an international company with 250 employees, and, looking back, my biggest regret is that we didn’t invest more in our leaders. We eventually had to hire new ones outside the company because we outgrew our team and didn’t train those who were already working for us.
Hiring external leaders can cost a pretty penny, though. Between recruiter fees, compensation for a brand new employee and the potential to lose key people who haven't been promoted, hundreds of thousands of dollars can fly out the door. That's what happened at my company: At one point, we had to hire three people to replace one IT specialist because his knowledge of our company had been so vast -- and those three still didn't cover everything he could. It would have been a lot cheaper to invest $10,000 or $15,000 to train that IT specialist for a senior leadership position.
The lesson learned? You can’t afford to spend what we spent on three people just because you didn’t know whom to invest in and to promote internally.
So, whom, exactly, should you empower with more opportunities? Here are three strategies for figuring that out:
1. Advance people who are already volunteering.
It’s crucial to manage promotions correctly because companies whose stock returns exceed the market average typically see lower turnover and consistently outperform competitors when it comes to innovation, productivity and growth, according research from Great Place to Work executives published in the Harvard Business Review. But not everyone believes promotions are managed correctly, even at top companies.
To to manage your promotions successfully, start by choosing people who volunteer.
Rather than trying to identify interested employees yourself, give your company's leaders a chance to volunteer for new projects or promotions. You can't force participation or improvement on employees who aren't dedicated to it.
The lesson learned is that when an employee doesn't volunteer for more educational or professional opportunities, that should tell you how well suited he or she is for a management role.
2. Encourage employees to use some of their own funds.
Ask your employees to cover 20 to 25 percent of their education. Match every dollar they invest for this purpose with $3 to $4 more. In other words, let them know that you’ll happily give them a promotion and a higher salary if they’re personally willing to cover some of their educational opportunities.
People invest their own money into getting MBAs all the time because they know they’ll have more opportunities as a result. The Harvard Business Review recently reported that one-third of the most successful CEOs in the world have MBAs.
The lesson here is that the time and financial commitment for an MBA is much higher than the investment for continuous education when that education is being matched by company funds.
3. Invest in people who invest in themselves outside of work.
Seek employees who are already leading on their own or taking advantage of education opportunities when they aren’t in the office. To do this, set the expectation that you can't invest in everyone. Inform your team that you can provide opportunities for only the top 10 or 20 percent of team members who have differentiated themselves.
For example, Satya Nadella’s first few years at Microsoft were spent commuting from Redmond, Wash., to the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business to finish his MBA. Nadella set himself apart from his co-workers by making it a point to learn as much as he could, which eventually led him to his current role as Microsoft CEO.
The lesson here is that not everyone can commute 2,000 miles to get an education, of course, but you should pay close attention to those employees who do go the extra mile to learn something beneficial for their jobs.
Still unsure about the benefits of investing in your leaders? Machinery company Barry-Wehmiller launched an internal leadership training program, Barry-Wehmiller University, to help find the leaders within its own company. The program wound up being so successful that the company launched the Barry-Wehmiller Leadership Institute for other companies to use.
While you might not have the resources to do the same, it’s important to find time to develop your own employees into the leaders you know they can be. If you don’t, you might miss out on higher productivity, a great company culture and -- most importantly -- some wonderful people.
5 Entrepreneurs Share How They've Handled Client Disasters
When customers go from being satisfied buyers to brand haters, companies should take the opportunity to learn what inspired the change and prevent it from happening in the future — or even turn it around in the moment.
Client disasters don’t have to be catastrophic. To read the full article, visit Forbes.
When customers go from being satisfied buyers to brand haters, companies should take the opportunity to learn what inspired the change and prevent it from happening in the future — or even turn it around in the moment.
Sometimes, though, clients are bound to stay unhappy. If the company stops offering an unprofitable service that a small group of clients needs, the former buyers will be upset no matter what. Rather than bumble through changes hoping for the best, businesses facing client-related mishaps must learn to anticipate potential strife and recognize when compromise is (or isn’t) possible.
Keeping Client Disasters to a Minimum
It’s imperative to anticipate certain customer issues and train your staff to handle those issues. The more you prepare your team for what it might encounter, the better it will do when faced with a customer service issue. During my time working in the consumer products and retail business, I’ve also learned that, as an owner and manager, I can defuse most customer service situations.
If you elevate a problem to a senior person, people tend to feel more confident that you are taking them seriously and care about their problem. In addition, even if the situation calls for you stepping in, it’s crucial to empower your team to handle customer complaints and to support them in their decisions.
Keeping customers happy isn’t just nice for the company’s reputation — it has a direct effect on the bottom line. Companies that provide great experiences enjoy higher rates of retention, customer satisfaction, and opportunities to upsell. Where price used to be the biggest differentiator between companies, the customer experience has taken the throne. More than four out of five buyers are willing to pay more for exceptional experiences.
No matter how much companies prepare, however, a few client disasters will always slip through the cracks. Someone’s unreasonable expectation will go unfulfilled, an employee will make an unforgivable blunder, or the forces of the universe will simply decide that the relationship needs some strife. When that happens, companies need to know how to handle the situation without losing face — and without letting one customer’s bad day lead to widespread displeasure.
After all, as much as companies love good clients, unhappy customers can do far more damage than happy clients can do good. One study by Dimensional Research found that 95 percent of people who experience bad customer service tell someone else about it, with 54 percent expressing their displeasure to at least five others — compared to just 33 percent who share a good experience.
Faced with these stats, I asked five entrepreneurs and business leaders to share with me what they’ve done in the face of client disasters:
1. Matt Clervi, CEO of Fresh Ideas Management
Growth is great, but it can make longtime customers feel like afterthoughts when personal service becomes less attentive. Matt Clervi knows this all too well. “We were growing fast, and one of our first clients said that our growth had robbed them of our attention,” he said. “They weren’t feeling the love anymore. They threatened to take their business elsewhere.”
Clervi believes that deep listening and hard questions are the key to salvaging damaged relationships. After that client complained, he challenged everyone within his company to slow down. They took time to listen to the challenges of their client and put timelines around a solution. Clervi said it taught his team members to be grateful for growth, but not to allow the rate of growth to lessen the experience they’re able to provide clients.
“When you appreciate the people who helped you grow and consistently listen to them, you put yourself in a position to consistently succeed,” he explained. He added that his company reviewed its culture and hiring practices and implemented techniques to better identify when a candidate is self-aware and able to slow down and ask hard questions.
2. Erik Huberman, CEO of Hawke Media
When small blunders carry massive costs, deciding who foots the bill can be a treacherous prospect. Erik Huberman shared a time when his company had a glitch occur with a client’s email system, which meant a discount email offer intended for a small subset of his client’s customers was sent to a much wider audience. When he recommended that the company retract the discount, the client declined — then decided not to pay its several outstanding bills for Huberman’s company’s services.
“They had asked me to just keep working and the bills would get handled,” he said. “They basically lied and took advantage.” After hearing that they would not be paying, Huberman said he told the company that he could get a lawyer to collect his money. The client’s founder began texting him slurs and threatening to drag his name through the mud.
That’s when Huberman said he made another mistake: “I jabbed back, threatened, sank to the same level. Then I said, ‘Good luck with marketing,’ and not to call me again. Then the other partner in the company called me apologizing and begging us to keep working together.” Huberman said his company ended up making some money back, but it was the beginning of the end for that client relationship. If Huberman could do it again, he said he wouldn’t let emotions guide the way he handled the situation. Customers can afford to get heated, but business leaders cannot.
3. Caroline Santiago, Founder and CEO of Utopia Life Consulting Inc.
Clients will be hesitant to work with a person whom someone else has selected, a phenomenon Caroline Santiago experienced firsthand. When the chief operating officer at one client company hired Santiago to work with the chief technology officer, the CTO felt saddled with an unasked-for partner and wanted nothing to do with her. Santiago arranged a daily 9 a.m. check-in meeting with the CTO, whom she described as an independent thinker and leader, but when she showed up on the first day to meet him, he didn’t show. He then ignored her attempts to meet with him the next several days.
Eager to get started on work the firm was paying her to do, Santiago met with the CTO’s technology department leadership team over the course of three days. After those three days of meetings, the CTO showed up to the scheduled daily check-in meeting with Santiago, but his reaction wasn’t what she was expecting. “The CTO proceeded to yell and scream at me, stating he didn’t want me here and asking what authority I had to schedule meetings and work with his leadership team,” she recalled.
“I told him he should interview me right now for this position, and if he did not think I was a good candidate for the role, I would not show up to work tomorrow.” The CTO’s shock at her proposal showed in his face. That on-the-spot interview went well, and Santiago received the buy-in she needed from the CTO to keep the relationship going. Santiago said that, through this experience, she learned to make sure she is able to speak with all key client stakeholders before signing a client agreement. Clients don’t always want the world. Usually, they just want to feel like they have a choice in the matter.
4. Josh Hudgins, Managing Partner and Director of US Sales at Global Ecom Partners
Every company makes mistakes. But the best ones take responsibility for them, especially when those mishaps occur early in the client relationship. Josh Hudgins learned this lesson when his company onboarded a new client but failed to walk that client through the onboarding process. That omission led to a lag in shipping time to the end customer, which was soon caught and corrected. Unfortunately, Hudgins’ company also failed to realize it had overlooked the part of the onboarding process in which the client’s in-house marketing is moved to its platform. That oversight resulted in zero marketing for all of the client’s products for a month.
“The most significant dilemma was maintaining our client’s confidence in our ability to execute what we had promised and not leave us after such a short honeymoon period,” he said. “Luckily, we had set the expectation that there would be bumps in the transition process but let them know we were committed to resolving any issues quickly.”
Hudgins reminds anyone in his situation that deals are not over at closing. They are a series of commitments, each of which requires appropriate fulfillment — a lesson he learned through this client mishap. The poor onboarding experience and transition led his company to create a new onboarding checklist. “This checklist allows complete transparency and accountability to everyone involved in the new client process, which has resulted in a better client experience,” he said.
5. Krister Ungerboeck, Strategic Planning and Leadership Consulting Expert
Krister Ungerboeck relies on what he calls “the language of license,” meaning that clients need to know when they’re getting in the way of a successful partnership. With this in mind, when one of his clients kept pushing their agreement to the bottom of the list and making his team run behind schedule on a project, Ungerboeck took action.
He and the client’s CEO engineered an agreement to give each other’s teams permission to raise red flags. That way, if a project is running behind schedule, each team feels comfortable enforcing the schedule. Ungerboeck said: “This discussion gave our teams authority to hold one another accountable. I call this move ‘the permission play,’ and it’s imperative to my leadership playbook.”
Businesses should not wait for clients to reach the brink of disaster before getting firm. Clients would much rather have a tough conversation early than missed revenue later. Ungerboeck added: “Be sure to give your team permission as a group rather than individually. Communicating this to the group will have a more powerful impact.”
Not every client relationship can be salvaged, but every business needs to know how to handle things when something goes wrong. By remaining flexible and keeping the lines of communication open, businesses can minimize client disasters and ensure every customer experience is as great as it can be.
People Who Love Their Jobs Work for This Kind of Boss
Money alone doesn't make talented, motivated, career-minded people get out of bed. What does is a sense of purpose, a feeling they're making a direct impact. Regrettably, many leaders still haven't gotten this memo.
Want to be a leader who's revered, not reviled? Do three of the most important things that empathetic bosses do every day. To read the full article, visit Inc.
Money alone doesn't make talented, motivated, career-minded people get out of bed. What does is a sense of purpose, a feeling they're making a direct impact. Regrettably, many leaders still haven't gotten this memo.
As a consequence, is it any wonder that we envision Michael Scott of NBC's The Office when we picture the quintessential bad boss? Troublesome, emotionally confusing managers abound, often prompting high employee turnover, low office morale, and constant client churn with their management style. Unless you're interested in becoming a memorable boss for all the wrong reasons, you'll want to learn how to make your employees feel valued, not undermined.
Go from being a downer to a defender
Far too many leaders remain stuck on the notion that they have to manage by force. In some cases, this comes from the belief that barking orders will cause their people to "get $#!+ done." However, heavy-handed approaches to managing talented teams will quickly devolve into disengagement.
To be sure, switching gears from gruff, demanding manager to supportive mentor and coach isn't simple. Nor does it happen happen overnight. It takes a willingness to learn the power of empathy, something that's lacking in 60 percent of leaders.
I discovered how effective it can be to praise and recognize others publicly as well as empathize proactively. I took steps to increase my emotional quotient when I learned about the chasm between the way employees view empathetic and non-empathetic bosses. Workers tend to love their jobs when their managers show empathy; conversely, they merely clock in when leaders have a dictatorial management style.
If you aren't bettering yourself in the areas of humility and team empowerment, I recommend you try doing what the best bosses do.
1. Look for opportunities to build trust each day.
Trust between a boss and an employee doesn't occur after one positive encounter. It unfolds over time as the worker comes to realize that the leader isn't going to throw sudden curveballs or fly into a rage. Look for ways to show your employees you believe in their judgment. After all, that's why you hired them.
Put the brakes on micromanagement. Give workers the freedom to make choices, then allow them to proceed unfettered. Will they always succeed? No. When they make mistakes, show empathy rather than immediately withdrawing your trust. Come from a position of understanding and walk them through their decisions. Treat them not as failures but rather as talented individuals who misjudged a situation, an outcomes, the data, etc. The next time you give them a task, encourage them to use their past experiences as a guide to map out better solutions.
2. Silence your inner know-it-all.
As a manager who has tripped on his gift of gab more than once, I couldn't be more aligned with the advice from leadership consultant Krister Ungerboeck. "How many times do we march into a conference room with a list of things to say?" he asks. "Yet it's far more prudent, productive, and profitable to shift from having all the answers to asking all the questions."
I've been guilty of this, and I bet you have, too. Speaking over everyone and having all the answers just leads to disengagement among team members, as Ungerboeck points out. In time, employees with exciting ideas may start to doubt themselves, assuming that only you can run the show. Instead of losing fantastic, innovative ideas from your team, take a backseat role more often than not in group settings. Oh, and banish "We tried that before, and it didn't work" from your phrasebook.
3. Walk out of the bathroom with toilet paper attached to your shoe.
OK, so you don't literally have to do this, but do be humble. Show employees you are a real human and not some kind of would-be superhero. Rather than puff out your chest at how amenable a tough client became thanks to your risky strategy, reveal how you wondered whether your gamble would pay off. Talk about your actions not in terms of self-satisfaction but self-awareness.
When you express humility, you change the way employees see you. A research project published in Organization Science showed links between retention and humble bosses due to the resulting job satisfaction and employee engagement. How does this translate into everyday life on the job? Two words: Be real.
You don't have to be a flawless boss to master leadership traits that will keep your employees eager to tackle projects on behalf of your brand. In fact, it's better if you're not! You just have to make changes to your approach to others, starting with the empathy you feel and show.
PUBLISHED ON: DEC 20, 2018
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
How to Help Your Team More by Talking Less
As leaders, many of us regularly fall into a revolving-door trap when it comes to telling versus asking. And it’s most evident in meetings.
I wanted a way to become more positive in my communications to help staff feel more empowered and committed, so I confronted my assumptions through a diet of sorts. To read the full article visit Startups.
As leaders, many of us regularly fall into a revolving-door trap when it comes to telling versus asking. And it’s most evident in meetings.
How many times do we march into a conference room with a list of things to say? Yet it’s far more prudent, productive, and profitable to shift from having all the answers to asking all the questions.
In fact, it’s so important that it might just be the core differentiator between a company’s culture and that of its competitors.
Stuck in an Always-Telling Rut
Why do we so quickly fall into the routine of telling instead of asking? Honestly, the reaction has roots in science.
Put simply, having all the ideas is a rush. Providing a quick solution that gets a group from point A to point B rapidly leads to feelings of importance. The body releases the feel-good chemical dopamine during creative spurts, which explains why some of us can’t let go of having all the answers. To be sure, we’re offering short-term value by being the go-to people in our companies. But long-term success won’t follow as those organizations scale.
My own epiphany surrounding talking versus listening happened when I recognized I needed to meet my employees where they were. As long as they were past the initial learning phases and into the “doing” stages, they needed less direction. Truly, those who already had solutions would have become disengaged after being micromanaged. Instead of risking the loss of their confidence, I wanted to empower them while maintaining an “I’m here if you need advice” status.
Out of my searching for the right way to move forward, the 10-Day Talking Diet was born.
A New Perspective on Mental Fuel
The day after Thanksgiving in 2017, I started a five-day fast as an experiment. Consuming only water, tea, and coffee, I embarked upon a silent retreat. I quickly realized that all my assumptions about food and communication were wrong.
After the experience, I wondered what else I was mistaken about. Was I in error about what it meant to be an ethical leader who concentrated on helping workers find satisfaction and meaning in their jobs? Was there a way for me to become more positive in my communications to help staff feel more empowered and committed?
I figured the only way to know was to test some hypotheses — and my discoveries became a 10-day test. If you’re prepared to confront your own assumptions, take the first steps toward a 10-Day Talking Diet. Here’s a taste of the first three days:
1. On day one, play Meeting Monopoly.
Seventy-one percent of senior managers in one Harvard Business Review-reported survey thought most meetings weren’t worthwhile. Could the problem be a lack of balance in participants’ verbal contributions? Use this experiment to find out.
Choose a day with a meeting lasting no less than 30 minutes. How much of the conversation do you expect to monopolize? Jot down a percentage. Then record the meeting and send the file to a transcription service. When it comes back, use Word or Google Docs to calculate the proportion of how many words you said versus the total spoken by all attendees.
Here comes the really fun part: Compare your prediction to reality. Did you speak roughly as much as everyone else? Or did you dominate the conversation? Write down your results, as well as goals to change your percentage in future meetings.
2. On day two, take on the Magic Management 8-Ball Challenge.
As a kid, you might have picked up one of those Magic 8-Ball toys. When you asked it a question, you got one of several answers like “the future is hazy” or “most likely.” While not exactly specific, they made contemplating problems fun. Use this same concept to make a meeting more enjoyable and streamlined.
For instance, say you have a meeting with several key people. Don’t make an agenda outlining what you’ll say. Write down all the questions you need to ask. It’ll take up a fraction of everyone’s time and get you closer to solutions.
What questions might you choose? How about, “What would the ideal outcome be?” “What’s standing in the way?” or “What support will you need to be successful?” Oh, and try “Tell me more …” to dig deeper. Here’s the kicker, though: Say nothing else. Just ask questions.
After your meeting, ask for feedback. Did participants feel the exchange worked? Were they excited? Would they like to see this change applied to all meetings? You might be shocked at how motivated attendees can be by this new way of talking about problems and opportunities.
3. On day three, give “should” the heave-ho.
If you’re like me, you’ll benefit from a “should” fast. What’s wrong with the word? It introduces a sense of guilt in the other person when you tell them they “should” do or have done something. Their defenses perk up, shutting down receptiveness to new thoughts.
Try replacing “should” in all your conversations by either dropping it from a sentence completely or changing to “I suggest,” “could,” or “would.”
Because this is an ongoing experiment, be sure to write down the results. Note how people react to your different verbiage choices. Then, make a pact with yourself to kick “should” to the curb.
After you get through three days of the 10-Day Talking Diet, you’ll have a wealth of leadership knowledge. If you’re motivated to keep going, do. You’ll be astonished at the changes you could make in fewer than two weeks.
About the Author
Krister Ungerboeck
Krister Ungerboeck is a leadership keynote speaker and CEO coach who helps leaders unearth unseen potential in their organizations, their teams, and themselves. Before becoming the world’s first leadership archaeologist, Krister was the award-winning CEO of a global tech company. He has done business in more than 40 countries, built businesses in five, and has lived in three.
Want to Assemble a Dream Team? Look for EI, Not Just Expertise
Leave it to Google to use its own analytical data to support the need for stronger empathy in business leaders. To be sure, most people have long suspected that emotional intelligence (EI) plays a role in team building, productivity, and retention. But Google's Project Oxygen backed hunches with pure, in-your-face facts.
Leading a team of skilled superstars? You won't get far without a heaping helping of EI. To read the full article visit Inc.
Leave it to Google to use its own analytical data to support the need for stronger empathy in business leaders. To be sure, most people have long suspected that emotional intelligence (EI) plays a role in team building, productivity, and retention. But Google's Project Oxygen backed hunches with pure, in-your-face facts.
Fortunately, Google shared its findings with the world, opening the door for companies large and small to rethink the way they evaluate manager effectiveness. But to what end? Isn't EI something innate and unchangeable? If so, less emotionally intelligent supervisors wouldn't have a chance at redemption.
As it turns out, though, EI isn't a locked-in trait. It's a skill set that, when improved, can become a company's secret weapon.
Understanding the nuances and advantages of EI
What is EI, exactly? As TalentSmart points out, EI has nothing to do with personality or IQ, both of which are defined from childhood. Instead, EI is a malleable, learned ability to effectively recognize and manage one's own emotions while simultaneously understanding those same feelings in others. And those who master EI tend to see plenty of benefits.
For instance, TalentSmart research found that for every EI point a leader gains, he or she can expect to see a $1,300 annual salary bump. Is it any wonder, then, that 90 percent of top performers score high in emotional intelligence? Obviously, they've tapped into a way to move up the corporate ladder through constant self-improvement.
With such a clear advantage, why don't more business leaders dive into developing their EI? Krister Ungerboeck, a "leadership archaeologist" who tries to find unconventional solutions to management concerns, feels it's a lack of understanding about the process.
"Many executives want quick fixes that provide immediate results," he explains. "EI can mean the difference between inspiring teams to succeed or instigating an employee exodus -- but it's not something you can manufacture overnight." Hence, those seeking instant outcomes may be reluctant to accept the long-term commitment involved in truly increasing EI. On the other hand, those who are prepared to give EI a shot may one day leapfrog over genius-level managers who can't seem to relate to their crews.
Becoming a team of EI gurus
Interested in seizing EI-related opportunities for you and your team members? Start with some of these changes.
1. Commit to improving your EI.
The best way to impact a group is to lead by example, so begin by getting a clearer understanding of your own EI. One assessment is the EQ-i, which measures your emotional quotient (EQ) from the answers you provide. Yet it's only one tool; another is asking your employees to fill out a 360-degree evaluation of your strengths and areas for improvement.
After collecting this information, you'll be able to see your EI gaps more clearly. Slowly begin to close them by concentrating on weak points over the coming months and regularly requesting more feedback from colleagues.
2. Share your dedication to EI improvement with your team.
As the person in charge, be open with employees around and under you about the importance of EI. You may even want them to test their own EQs using this test from Psychology Today. Encourage them to reflect on their results and brainstorm ways to sharpen their emotional skills.
For example, you may recommend that they read Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence to get a basic grasp of the concept. From there, begin to change group norms by fostering an environment of respect. Simply making conscious expressions of gratitude the expectation can change office dynamics in a hurry. Other ways of bolstering team members' EI is by practicing empathy, talking openly about stressors, and letting off steam with work-related field trips.
3. Work together on a social responsibility project.
Finding it tough to adapt to an EI mindset? You can increase your corporate team's awareness by working on a project that helps an underserved community. Not only will you improve life for others, but you'll develop your ability to empathize with people and situations that may be out of your frame of reference.
A nice side effect to tackling volunteer work with colleagues is the bridges it builds. You'll have a common sense of accomplishment, which creates stronger bonds that can make dealing with problems easier in the future.
4. Establish norms for communication.
Maybe you've received correspondence that started something like "Not sure if you saw my last email ..." Did it make you crazy? Frustrate you? You're not alone. Adobe discovered that it was one of the most hated email phrases, probably because it's passive-aggressive and not at all rooted in EI.
Look for other communication areas in which you can apply the Golden Rule. There are plenty of ways to ask for information or voice opinions without resorting to low-level sniping or caustic replies.
Cultures built around consideration and value for others tend to produce less worry and a higher quality of work. Even if you're sure your team has a collective EI rating that's through the roof, do yourself and your employees a favor and test your theory. You may be surprised to find lots of holes that, when filled in, can smooth your path to success.
How to Incorporate Forgiveness in Business
Best sellers such as Difficult Conversations and Crucial Conversations enjoy Kindle bookmarks and repeated readings. But a closer look reveals that communication training is simply a bandage covering a deeper issue that could be solved by one thing: forgiveness.
In the HR field, communications training remains a hot topic. To read the full article, visit HR Daily Advisor.
Best sellers such as Difficult Conversations and Crucial Conversations enjoy Kindle bookmarks and repeated readings. But a closer look reveals that communication training is simply a bandage covering a deeper issue that could be solved by one thing: forgiveness.
We seem quite comfortable acknowledging that our business interactions might lead us to butt heads, but if we give people a step-by-step process for forgiveness, there will likely be less conflict that requires a “crucial conversation” to smooth over.
Let me be clear: When I say “forgiveness,” I’m not talking about becoming a perennial victim. As psychologist Bob Enright has noted, forgiveness happens internally. It’s not necessary to remain friends or allies with someone who has wronged you; justice and reconciliation are separate experiences from forgiveness.
Instead, I’m talking about becoming more fulfilled, healthy, and effective. When emotional intelligence and attitudes of forgiveness become a way of life among the leaders of a company, its employees experience a noticeable uptick in job satisfaction, per a South African study. And that’s smart business.
Reducing the Forgiveness Taboo
It’s funny: We don’t hear a lot about forgiveness. Business schools don’t teach it in a course. Onboarding manuals skip it. Perhaps it’s the potential religious overtones that make forgiveness a taboo subject in the working world. However, executives needn’t shun it because forgiveness has secular components.
For example, in Colin Tipping’s book Radical Forgiveness, he sets up a framework for practicing forgiveness regardless of faith. He breaks down forgiveness as a fundamental skill that’s important in everyday life, whether between business colleagues or family members. His step-by-step process for forgiving—even in the absence of apologies—has the power to train leaders on how to stop blaming others. In fact, he reveals that what most angers us might be traits we mirror.
Case in point: I could say that I’m angry because someone is being arrogant. But if I’m honestly self-aware and willing to take a step back, I might discover that I’ve reciprocated that arrogance. Basically, what’s irritating me is my own behavior just as much as the other person’s behavior. This helps me come to a place of understanding from which forgiveness can grow. From that point, I can move on rather than unproductively stew in my own (toxic) anger.
It’s not difficult to see how such a sudden thought shift can have far-reaching implications. As one Luther College-based study discovered, those who lead a more forgiving lifestyle are less likely to exhibit high stress and worse mental health. Along the same lines, a Johns Hopkins Hospital director interviewed for a piece on healthy aging linked forgiveness to improved overall health.
Of course, my words of praise for forgiveness aren’t just science-based. They’re coming from my history of working for a demanding, difficult CEO for nearly 15 years. My anger toward this man spilled over into my relationships with my direct reports and even my family members. Ultimately, it persisted even after the CEO retired and I took over the CEO role myself. Our contentious connection had affected me so deeply that I had trouble staying calm even after he was no longer leading me.
However, after years of working together, I was with him as he experienced a moment of vulnerability. Witnessing that moment was a shock; all that anger and resentment I held toward him began to soften. The bulk of my pent-up frustrations melted away. I forgave, and the clouds lifted on our relationship.
Facilitating an Environment of Forgiveness
You can’t expect your team to establish a culture of forgiveness overnight. Still, you can take those first steps toward making forgiveness acceptable and desirable within the walls of your business. Use these tips to get started:
Reflect on Your Own Forgiveness Level
Think of two or three people toward whom you harbor anger. Why are you irritated? What makes you mad when you think about those folks? Dig deep to acknowledge and recognize your unproductive feelings. Name them without shame. Though it might not be a pleasant experience, it’s essential to understand how holding onto grudges detracts people from achievements and success.
Pick up a Copy of Radical Forgiveness
Either grab a paper copy of Colin Tipping’s book or download it onto your mobile device. Not only will you understand the concept of secular forgiveness on a larger scale, but you’ll also see how forgiveness can be utilized to cultivate a healthier organization. At that point, you’ll be prepared to bring forgiveness to the rest of your team members, especially those in leadership positions or who are about to come into the fold.
Complete a Forgiveness Inventory
Let me be extremely clear: I don’t get any commissions on Radical Forgiveness, so my advice is completely untethered to profits. With that having been said, I believe that the worksheet and other tools available online offer a fantastic way to explore forgiveness. You’ll want to adapt the worksheet for your corporate purpose and make tweaks after the initial beta test. In time, a forgiveness inventory might become part of your HR training for higher-ups.
Is it realistic to assume that everyone on your payroll will instantly jump into a state of utter forgiveness after taking these steps? To be sure, that’s one of those “forgiveness fantasies.” Like any other switch in attitude, forgiveness takes time to develop and implement. That’s OK. As forgiveness becomes a key element in your executive training, it will seep into the cracks of your corporate environment. Eventually, all those positive leanings will foster stronger, emotionally healthier decisions across your company.
Krister Ungerboeck is a leadership keynote speaker and CEO coach who helps leaders unearth unseen potential in their organizations, their teams, and themselves. Before becoming the world’s first leadership archaeologist, Ungerboeck was the award-winning CEO of a global tech company. He has done business in more than 40 countries, built businesses in 5, and lived in 3.
Do You Struggle With EI? Three Hacks Will Help You Boost Your EQ
Despite a TalentSmart study that linked high emotional intelligence with strong workplace performance (and Google’s statistical findings that depict EI as more important than technical skills), executives continue to lag behind in the empathy department.
Emotional intelligence has been in the leadership spotlight for decades, but that doesn’t mean today’s leaders are any better at identifying, evaluating, controlling, or perceiving emotions in themselves or others. To read the full article, visit CEO World.
Despite a TalentSmart study that linked high emotional intelligence with strong workplace performance (and Google’s statistical findings that depict EI as more important than technical skills), executives continue to lag behind in the empathy department.
What’s behind the C-suite’s struggle to understand colleagues’ feelings, needs, and expectations? As one Harvard Business Review article explained, the higher up in the corporate ranks someone is, the higher his or her tendency toward inflated ego and self-interest. Not surprisingly, this leads to a disconnect between managers and employees, which can directly affect engagement by up to 70 percent, according to Gallup.
While I’ve always had a strong logical understanding of EI, I assumed it simply involved me telling others how I was feeling. I was mistaken. What I’ve come to understand is that EI isn’t based on being transparent with your initial emotions but on diving beneath the surface to find out what’s motivating those emotions. It can be difficult to stop from lashing out automatically, as leadership involves wielding power and making immediate choices. But when emotions are involved, executives must learn to hold back.
The ABCs of building better EI
Wherever you are on the journey toward true emotional intelligence, you can enhance your progress with these three strategies:
Recognize anger as an alarm bell.
The next time you find yourself disappointed in your employees, pause and take a moment to assess your emotional state. Which emotions are you actually experiencing? Fear? Frustration? Confusion? You need to flesh out the true cause of your primary reaction. Think of anger like an alarm bell; it isn’t a primary emotion, after all.
It can be hard to admit when you’re terrified that a client will jump ship because a project wasn’t finished on time. Sure, you may be mad, but you’re more worried than anything. It’s more constructive to communicate that worry than to simply lash out without addressing the root cause of your ire.
Anger disconnects people, whereas primary emotions like fear or shame connect people. Most people don’t want their boss to be afraid or embarrassed, but being honest about those feelings make you more human and relatable. Your workers will appreciate your candor.
Beef up your emotional vocabulary.
There is research that part of improved emotional intelligence is simply having a deeper vocabulary to describe our emotions. For example, frustration and disappointment are variations of anger. An important element of EI is knowing the nuances.
We all understand basic emotions — happiness, anger, sadness, and so on. What separates those with high EI scores from people who struggle to empathize is the ability to identify secondary and tertiary emotions such as sentimentality, fascination, and skepticism. After all, how can you truly feel an emotion if you don’t have the words to describe it?
Being able to pinpoint precise emotional reactions in yourself helps you clarify your own feelings, but it also enables you to recognize them in others. If you aren’t able to acknowledge situations that make you feel hurt, then you’re more likely to say hurtful things to others and not understand the consequences of those actions.
Practice sensing how others feel.
If you aren’t an innately intuitive person, you might have trouble predicting others’ emotions. Therefore, you need to use trial and error to educate yourself in this arena. Need some help? Read “Nonviolent Communication,” a book written 50 years ago by a peace activist who created a communication technique to help defuse race riots. One of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s first orders of business upon taking the helm was to recommend the book to his leaders so they could practice spotting and validating others’ emotions.
The language of nonviolent communication looks like this: “You are feeling _______ because you are needing _______.” By filling in the blanks here, we can experiment with identifying others’ emotions. People are more likely to correct us and tell us the actual emotion they are experiencing when we use this language.
Over time, you’ll get more accustomed to stifling knee-jerk emotions and controlling potentially negative impulses. Taking a moment to understand others lessens the likelihood that you’ll unconsciously say something that could potentially ruin a good relationship forever. Something you say in a split second of frustration can stick with a person for years; it’s not worth the risk.
The fundamental definition of “empathy” is the ability to understand another person’s emotions, and that’s the key to emotional intelligence. Fortunately, you don’t have to be born empathetic to develop the EI skill set. You simply need to recognize your need for improvement, actively pursue emotional knowledge, and pay attention to the reactions of yourself and others. In time, you’ll unravel the mystery of EI success.