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HIGH IMPACT LEADERS: FIVE KEY STRATEGIES

Posted on 12 January 201712 January 2017 by quintonpick

Even as we display the behaviours and competencies of a leader, we still need to stay out of the sludge and accelerate our impact. Even the best leaders fall into a trench and must find a way to re-energise and re-focus. According to Wallace and Trinka high impact leaders, invest in five key strategies:

1. Focus: They arrive at work daily clear on the strategic transformation at which they must succeed. Eighty percent of their day is focused on the vital few priorities necessary to move the transformation agenda forward:

· communicating rationale,
· celebrating short-term wins,
· empowering coalitions of other leaders to keep moving.

The day-today urgencies draw the other 20 percent of the day. However, because they have created leaders at all levels, there are fewer exigencies. Busy is the enemy of accomplishment. High performers often have too many priorities because they feel they can cover more ground. High-impact leaders accelerate their impact, knowing they have the right priorities in the first place, by limiting their targets and focusing on the vital few three to five key strategies. By narrowing the field of impact, and then accomplishing something, leaders give hope, demonstrate movement, and energise others. Great leaders regularly cull their commitments. Quarterly they look over their commitments and give up some. Cutting one meeting a week enables them to reinvest time and energy around the vital few priorities.

2. Relationship capital: People, not plans, deliver outcomes. Trust, encouragement, appreciation, coaching, and information are the raw materials of human effort. High-impact leaders know that one of their vital few commitments must be investing in this human capital. Leaders don’t lord over their associates to manage effort. They create availability to keep passion high and course corrections timely. How much of our time do we commit to being ‘live in the bullpen’ where the action is – not to manage, but to invest in relationships? Amazing communication opportunities arise when we move among teams, reinforcing focus and showing interest in their efforts. Developing trust is a hands-on investment. People need to see the “person behind the position.” So, be open about who we are, where we see the organization going, and hear out people’s questions, fears and ideas.

3. Develop others: Developing others is a high ROI behaviour. This is not training. Show big earnest interests in helping people grow, expressing appreciation in their learning and accomplishments, and helping them find greater opportunity to learn at work— this is how leadership succession becomes real. Development occurs best when applied to the challenges and opportunities of current work. In leadership development program, leaders can be seen teaching, mentoring, coaching, and advising people. Developing others also grows their competencies in communication, employee engagement, innovative thinking and leading change.

4. Permission to tinker: Why do high-impact leaders have so many breakthrough ideas? Why do they have more creative, innovative initiatives? Because they create a climate where people are comfortable challenging assumptions. Rather than being defensive when their ideas or processes are questioned, they appreciate the possibilities. They also encourage tinkering with processes and products. They encourage people to experiment and create a climate of “how can we improve” thinking.

5. Balance: High-impact leaders know they don’t live to work. Despite investing long hours when required, they also navigate the work-life dilemma by making their family and personal growth time meaningful. Most high-impact leaders have a personal health regimen, build time in their year to recharge their energy, and make and keep learning commitments.

6 Secrets to achieve communication excellence.

Posted on 29 August 201612 January 2017 by quintonpick

6 SECRETS TO ACHIEVE COMMUNICATION EXCELLENCE.

MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR INVOLVING EMPLOYEES

For this discussion, I am using Finney’s (Watson Wyatt’s) Communication Model – six secrets of top performers
Studies confirm that good communication has an impact on the bottom line/results. Here’s what highly effective organisations are doing to make that happen. There is an old adage that says, “What gets measured gets done.” Today, that phrase has taken on renewed importance, as communicators are expected to quantify the value of what they do and to demonstrate how it advances the organisation/schools and contributes to the bottom line/learner achievement. Since 2000, Watson Wyatt’s Worldwide communication practice has been analysing the correlation between Organisations effectiveness: Organisations that communicates effectively significantly outperform their peers.

These results, however, have prompted two more questions:
Which communication practices add the greatest value?
If an employer has limited time and resources, where should it focus internal communication efforts to get the highest return on investment?

Six years’ worth of data collected by Watson Wyatt from more than 750 organisations around the world is helping to answer these questions. The research shows that the organisations with top scores in employee communication have discovered six “secrets” that enable them to achieve communication excellence:

1. Focusing on the customer.
2. Engaging employees in the organisation.
3. Improving managerial communication.
4. Managing change effectively.
5. Measuring the performance of communication programs.
6. Establishing a strong employer brand.

Secret No. 1: Focusing on the customer/employee.

In Watson Wyatt’s global research, customer focus emerged as a key driver of employee engagement. Highly effective organisations (those in the top third of organisations that scored highest based on their responses to the survey questions) focuses on everyone in the organization – managers, supervisors, technical specialists and frontline employees – on the customer. Seventy-six percent of these organisations report having a formal process for ensuring that employees understand how their actions affect customers, compared with only 5 percent of less effective organisations (those that ranked in the bottom third of surveyed organisations based on their responses).

At a midsize U.S. manufacturing firm, a one-page weekly briefing delivered to employees at shift start-up meetings keeps the customer top of mind. The briefing reports on the key organisation and plant metrics and indicates how departments are tracking for the quarter and year to date. It highlights exemplary performance and explains reasons for negative results. The back page is devoted to customers, providing customer quotes about the quality of products and service as well as new orders, industry news and other items of interest. Employees discuss the information with their immediate supervisors and identify changes they can make to improve results. This program ensures that everyone understands how their efforts shape the customer experience.

Secret No. 2: Engaging employees in running the organisation.

The Work Attitudes research also identified communication as a key driver of employee engagement around the globe. Highly effective organisations promote two-way communication between senior leaders and employees. They are nearly 10 times as likely as less effective organisations to give employees the opportunity to provide input into decisions that affect them; more than twice as likely to ask employees for ideas about how to get work done; and nearly seven times as likely to ask employees to share suggestions on programs and changes.

Highly effective organisations use employee input to make positive changes that help drive success. These organisations are nearly three times as likely to implement policy change as a result of employee opinion surveys as organisations in the less effective group. In addition, they communicate the changes they have made as a result of employee surveys, demonstrating that employee input is valued and helping to build trust and confidence.

Secret No. 3: Improving managerial communication.

In the 2007/2008 study, two-thirds of the organisations said they were going to rely on their managers even more in the coming year to communicate company information to employees. Highly effective organisations work through frontline managers and supervisors to reinforce key messages, gather employee input and establish individual objectives that align with corporate goals. To help managers and supervisors in this important role, they:

Provide training that improves managers’ communication skills.
Package information for easy delivery.
Involve managers early in the communication process to give them time to absorb the material before disseminating it.
Reward managers for being effective and attentive communicators.

To this end, one global technology company has created a website for managers that offer a variety of tools for honing communication skills. The site features articles and videos in which successful managers describe how they tackled tough challenges associated with geographically dispersed audiences, foreign languages, and desperate cultures.

Secret No. 4: Managing change effectively.

Staff reductions, management changes, restructuring, and alterations to pay and benefit programs characterise today’s organisation environment. Highly effective organisations use the talents of internal communicators to navigate these changes. They are nearly twice as likely as less effective organisations to implement a communication initiative to support change. In addition, they are 14 times as likely to help their managers — and, through them, their employees — understand, embrace and deal openly with change.

To meet its transformation goals, Suncor Energy of Fort McMurray, Alberta — winner of a 2007 IABC Gold Quill Award of Excellence — created “Oil Sands: The Next Generation,” a program targeted at the 3,000 employees of Suncor’s oil sands unit. Senior leadership asked the oil sands communication team to put together a series of employee meetings to mark a turning point in the unit’s history and communicate new goals and vision. Planning started nearly a year in advance. During the lead-up to the sessions, communicators published a series of monthly magazine-style inserts for the employee newsletter. These publications, along with a series of teaser ads, helped raise awareness and build excitement for the program. During the sessions, senior leaders celebrated the unit’s history, presented the new vision and goals, and described the changes required to accomplish those goals. Presentations incorporated a variety of media, including a video in which oil sands employees talk about the challenges they face. A live question-and-answer session gave employees an opportunity to express their concerns and get answers from senior leaders.

An eight-question exit survey (using a scale from 1 to 5) helped measure the success of the sessions. The results were gratifying:
 76 percent agreed that the company’s strategy and vision were clearly presented.
 76 percent believed in an exciting and positive future for Suncor, with almost 50 percent saying they strongly agreed with that statement.
 Confidence in the oil sands leadership team received a mean score of 3.63.

Secret No. 5: Measuring communication effectiveness

Measurement is the cornerstone of effective communication. But how do top-performing organisations measure communication effectiveness? Watson Wyatt and the IABC Research Foundation partnered to develop a set of measurement-related questions and incorporate them into the 2007/2008 Communication ROI Study.'” Responses revealed that highly effective organisations were three times more likely to have organisation metrics in place for at least half of their communication initiatives. Forty-five percent of all organisations said measurement was a standard operating procedure, with 16 percent saying they measure to justify their current activities and budget.

One question focused on reasons for not measuring internal communication initiatives. Two-thirds of participants cited resource constraints, one-third said they couldn’t figure out the organisation metric, and 6 percent said they were afraid of being held accountable.

Highly effective organisations are far more likely than other organisations to measure the impact of communication on key organisation indicators. For example, they are: More than two and a half times as likely to measure the effect of communication on workforce productivity and more than four times as likely to measure its effect on retention of critical talent. Furthermore, they are more than five times as likely to measure its effect on organisation performance.

Secret No. 6: Establishing a compelling employer brand

The employer brand is the communication of all elements in the employment deal and links that deal with organisation goals. Like a company’s external brand, the employer brand encompasses language, messages, positioning, graphics, packaging, and media.
Highly effective organisations recognise the value of investing in a compelling employer brand.

I wish you well in the effective planning to execute this strategy – Quinton Pick

Utilising staff to drive change – Quinton Pick

Posted on 3 June 201612 January 2017 by quintonpick

How to utilise staff to drive change – Quinton Pick

Most staff members hear about strategy, change, post-merger integration or everyday decisions after an elite group or their managers have made decisions, which are then presented by the usual array of formal top-down communication channels. Staff on the receiving end often feel powerless, and sometimes scared. Rarely does this style of decision-making engage them. Yet leaders (whether they are bosses or supervisors) hang on to hierarchy and power because they think that being the boss means being right and making all the decisions.

However, more and more organisations are experimenting with engaging their employees in everyday decision-making and change to drive performance as there is much excitement around the idea of employee engagement. Organisations all want the benefits: employees and leaders at every level, from bottom to top management, who give more changeable effort, are more creative and make things happen. These practices of benefits are not causes of engagement. Smythe (2008:20) asserts that researchers could walk into many companies and be presented with a long list of factors that are said to cause engagement. Many organisations have repackaged employee satisfaction surveys as employee engagement surveys and added an action process in the hope that employee engagement will increase. In the research (Smythe, 2008), a temporary organisational fellow with McKinsey & Co., into the meaning and value of employee engagement among 59 organisations worldwide, he was challenged to find the single most influential cause of more engaged employees. Smythe (2008:6) concluded that the primary driver resulting in engaged leaders and employees is the eagerness and ability of leaders at every level to engage their subordinates in everyday decision-making processes. This implies to share their power and reach down to those who deliver the service or make change happen on the front line.

Sharing power means admitting as a leader that you don’t know all the answers, and being able to lead (and manage or supervise) as a guide. Jon Hargreaves, CEO of Scottish Water, as cited by Smythe (2008:21) points out, that employee engagement is first a leadership philosophy and second a process and set of tools and skills. Leaders who engage the right groups in everyday decisions and in designing and executing change will be effective both in terms of the quality of decisions and the speed of execution that derives from people who feel ownership of the outcome.

Smythe (2008:21) uses the following examples for engaging people more inclusively.

Keep in mind that there are seven key points to remember about employee engagement:

Past patterns are the best predictors of future behavior: The business situation and the history of the employer-employee relationship will influence the way employees to respond. Understanding the previous patterns of engagement is an essential step to designing a program that will break the patterns of the past.

Leaders’ approaches to employee engagement are often instinctive and irrational: Personal and corporate approaches to employee engagement are often impulsive and shaped by past experiences. Leaders’ are usually unaware of their preferred approach to employee engagement. As such, many communication and engagement programs are destined to reflect the preferences and personality of the leader.

The primary driver of employee engagement is opening up decision making: The primary cause or driver of engaged employees is power sharing—reaching down to give work to the people within a well-governed framework. This concept is the core of employee engagement, and it has significant implications for the mental models organisations have about leadership. In essence, to engage people effectively, leaders must adjust their style from that of a god to that of a guide to other people’s creativity. In designing change and strategy processes and in everyday decision-making, leaders, managers, and supervisors must be clear about what is non-negotiable (the givens) and when the invitation to contribute is open to certain groups or all staff.

Look within for good examples of employee engagement: There will be pockets of excellence already. In the case of Zürich Financial Services, they took the view that the most convincing argument to encourage leaders to reach down was to identify pre-existing examples that had already produced positive results.

Look for obstacles to change among the senior leadership: It is often said that the “marzipan” layer of middle management is the blocker. Top leadership, more often, is the blocker to change, not middle management. It is frequently observed that invariably there are sections of the senior leadership team who block change. They often have the most to lose. Thus, engagement programs are often a route to breaking deadlocks.

Engage people in solving crises as well as identifying opportunities: The highest levels of performance come from engaging people in painful decisions as well as growth opportunities. Some think it too risky to engage too many people when difficult decisions have to be made. Engaging people beyond the usually paid dividends in terms of solutions that are faster and better and that mitigate the impact on more groups than those that management alone would achieve.

Engagement is a terrific opportunity for communicators: The opportunity to communicators is to help leaders distinguish between old-style “tell” communication and employee engagement. It means becoming the architects of the engagement interventions that add value to the business. It also means knowing how to contextualise engagement with communication that helps people to understand the invitation that is being extended to them.