Leadership Thought

Most managers consider payroll to be cost. Why do we view the money we spend on payroll differently than capital investments, or any investment for that matter.

Most of the leaders I know would tell you that the largest single expenditure in their business is compensation.  What is your annual payroll?  Imaging having that money in cash.  Would you put it in a CD (passively manage) or would you develop an investment strategy to both protect the principle and maximize the ROI (actively manage).

So, what is your strategy for managing your investment in payroll?  Clearly the potential of human capital is basically limitless. Just look at how our world has changed over the last 10 years.  Give human beings an opportunity and the right environment and they will produce stunning results.

So I ask again, how much of that investment in payroll are you leveraging?   Research tells us that if you are the average employer it is about 30%. A lot of money is being left on the table.  If you could double the return on that investment to 60% what impact would it have on business productivity, growth, customer service, innovation, profits?

At this point if you are thinking that this isn’t attainable because people don’t want to do any more than they have to… you can stop reading now… we are not on the same page.

My experience as a leader and now as a coach is that people are willing to do more than is expected if the environment enables them to do so.

As leaders it is our job to become aware of strategies and approaches that effectively leverage the investment in payroll.  Free to contact me alan@coach2engage.com or visit my website http://www.coach2engage.com.   Don’t leave money on the table.  al

Alan Adyniec Employee engagement, Leadership effectiveness achieving results, business success, Effective leadership, employee enagagement

Commitment, passion, engagement, enthusiasm, determination.  When employees exhibit these characteristics organizations are highly successful. This isn’t an accident.  It takes effective leadership to create the kind of an environment in which these employees can thrive.

Take another look at those opening words, these are all aspects of our emotions. Daniel Goleman in his book “Primal Leadership” advances the notion that leadership actually works through the emotions. Assume that an organization has a dynamite strategy to really get fantastic results.  No matter how brilliant the plan, if employees do not have an emotional connection it isn’t going to reach its potential.

Here is how I think it works. When our logical left brain is stimulated by the plan and then our more emotional right brain kicks in something almost magical occurs.  People begin to make connections, see opportunities, develop ideas and most importantly act intentionally.  They care about what happens, feel responsible and act accountably.

Effective leaders create environments that draw people into the process in a way that creates that emotional connection. One primary element of that environment is TRUST.  People do not follow leaders they do not trust.  Why? Simple, a lack of trust stimulates emotions such as suspicion, fear, apathy, distain etc.  Do you know of any toxic environments such as this that produce great results?  I don’t.

The Integro Leadership Institute (disclosure -I am an associate partner) has a primary focus of helping leaders learn to build trust.  Contact me to talk about a proven trust building process.

al

Alan Adyniec Employee engagement, Leadership effectiveness achieving results, Effective leadership, emotional intelligence, Trust

The leadership approach that got us here won’t take us there”.  Expectations within the workplace are changing rapidly.  Some of our most effective leaders have set aside the notion of “managing” people and instead focus on creating an environment in which people can perform at their best.

Why? Simple, because it works better.  Everyone appreciates having a clear direction however do you like to be managed.  I believe the root of “manage” comes from the Latin word manu or hand.  So I guess to be managed is to be “handled”.  Not very enticing is it.

However this handling or control over people was and continues to be the modus operandi of most organizations.  That is changing.  Hierarchical approaches in the current rapidly changing and sometimes chaotic business environment make it difficult to be agile, adaptable and innovative.

If you get this… congrats! Now what do you do about it.  It is easy to say we want to create an environment where staff are motivated, self-directed, passionate and focused on results.  It is much more challenging to construct such a workplace.  The primary barrier is the inertia of the past.  It is difficult to break old habits. Even as we begin to develop new habits if a little stress is introduced we tend to go back to what is more comfortable for us even if it is not more effective.

See my next post on what to do about this conundrum.  Al

Alan Adyniec Employee engagement, Leadership effectiveness achieving results, business success, Effective leadership, Management

Surveying staff certainly isn’t a new idea.  However I am not sure that staff satisfaction, the most common survey, is very helpful in improving performance.  The level of satisfaction may or may not have an impact on outcomes.  For instance staff may be perfectly satisfied and, at the same time, be somewhat complacent about their work.

Several 21^st Century staff surveys focus on aspects other than satisfaction such as employee engagement, the level of trust, employee passion, organizational alignment etc.

The value of these surveys is that they deal more directly with organizational performance.  Mountains of research (links below) clearly indicates that employee engagement, trust, and alignment have a direct impact on performance.  Obtaining an employee perspective on the organization’s effectiveness in areas like communication, leadership and process function can lead to breakthroughs in performance, highlight areas for training and development and often separate a little of the “ivory” from the “tower” that many executive teams live in.

Most surveys provide a good overall look at the environment or culture which is a strong indicator of the health of the organization.  Drill down capabilities are also usually available to “slice and dice” the data by group or function.   Some of my clients have fielded surveys as an element of strategic planning.  In the same way that organizations gather data on the external environment more organizations are also assessing the internal environment. After all having a brilliant strategic plan that can’t be implemented because of internal problems is of little value.

The Gallup Q12 which measures employee engagement has been around for a while.  More recently Curt Coffman (formerly of Gallup) has developed a similar product the Employee Engagement 2.0 which is gaining some traction.

Personally I like the survey tools developed by the Integro Leadership Institute.  Keith Ayers has some great surveys that give a better picture (by my reconning) of what is going on within the organization.  Integro’s surveys measure things like specific behaviors that build trust, employee passion, alignment with the organizations purpose, values, vision etc. There is even feedback available regarding how well values are demonstrated in the workplace.

If you go to the Integro Website and click on Assessments you will get a better idea of what I am talking about.  Click on the Passion Index to complete a free survey to find out how passionate you are about your work.   al

Gallup research on employee engagement on business results

Cornell research on The Impact of Trust on profits

Alan Adyniec Employee engagement, Leadership effectiveness achieving results, alignment, Effective leadership, employee enagagement, Trust

There are several factors that influence the business decisions we make

• Cultural norms - Everyone else is doing it this way
• Tradition - We have always done it this way (policy)
• Reason  - It is logical to do it this way
• Emotion - It feels like we should do it this way (right thing to do)

So what, how does this help with effective decision making?

These factors can be used as decision making criteria to ensure that current decision are linked to the purpose and values of the organization.

Try this ….Form each of the above into a question to help guide effective decisions

• Will what others are doing helping us meet our purpose within our values set (are we staying on track and true to our principles)?
• Will what we have done in the past continue to help us achieve our purpose going forward (are the strategies still effective)?
• Is it logical that what we hope to accomplish (goals) will move us closer to achieving our purpose (are our goals still appropriate)?
• Do we feel like this is the right thing to do (does it align with our values set)?

This simple process can help maintain focus and alignment in the midst of change.  al

Alan Adyniec Leadership effectiveness achieving results, business success, Effective leadership, making business decsions

Who is usually responsible for

·      Successes – ????? The executive team, planning dept., middle mgmt., frontline staff, everyone????

·      Failures - ???? usually nobody. 

o    Frequently a rigorous round of the “blame game” breaks out.  Management points the finger at staff for poor execution. Staff point back by questioning the competency of management.  Or…

o    In some misguided efforts to develop more “positive work environments” successes are shared by everyone but failures simply get brushed aside as outside of anyone’s control.  (“It is a difficult market, consumers are fickle, we just can’t catch a break, every one is taking a hit right now” etc.)

A better approach… Learning!

• Successes –The leadership involves staff in identifying the behaviors that led to the success so that the success can be repeated and the behaviors adopted by others.
• Failures – First, refrain from “shame and blame” it is utterly unproductive. Instead involve staff in a non threatening discussion focused on
  • What was expected to happen (goal)
  • What actually happened
  • What should have been done differently
  • Gaining agreement (commitment) to getting better results next time.

I think you will find a positive and more performance oriented work environment.

I know this seems incredibly simplistic but try to think of a time in the last year that your organization actually handled a success or failure in this manner.  al

Alan Adyniec Employee engagement, Leadership effectiveness achieving results, business learning, business success, Effective leadership, employee enagagement

Control based leadership does work.  It is the leadership style that took us through the 20th century.  The question is; Is (or was) control based leadership the most effective method?  The answer according research is NO! If you had a chance to review the HBS blog and video of Eric Schmidt in my last post you can see that Google’s leadership style is an open and trust based leadership approach.  It could easily be termed “out of control” leadership.  Yet Google achieves great results through innovation.  Control stifles innovation.

Most leadership teams operate under the delusion that they are not control based.  Why, because it is really hard to see your own behaviors and how they affect others.   I believe that control based leadership is the primary reason that Employee Engagement surveys show very little improvement after investments of years and billions.  al

Alan Adyniec Uncategorized achieving results, Innovative leadership, Trust