Photo courtesy of Emma's Teashop for Old Ladies

Didn’t get to go to the SHRM annual conference in San Diego this year (or any year for that matter), so I took it upon myself to try to read as much as I could about all the conference doings and such.  After my bazillionth blog, it hit me.  A LOT of these fine folks are saying similar things. 

 And I kinda got pissed off.

 You know, I’m going to go out on a limb here and respond to all the Bloggers, Tweeters, SHRMers, etc. that are saying that, for HR to be effective, it must hear from its practitioners in the field – not from the consultants, academics, etc. who have been populating the national, state and local HR and related conferences around the country and probably around the world.  Such as from:

 Tim Sackett from Fistful of Talent, “When I was preparing to go to SHRM and deciding on what sessions to attend – my very first impression was “seems like I’ve been here and done this before”  – my next impression was “why does 90% of presenters have either consultant or speaker as their title?  Where have all the real HR Pros gone?”

 Ben Eubanks from Upstart HR, “Some of the sessions I went to were wonderful, and I took a lot of notes (and even wrote about some, too). Others didn’t turn out so well. I went to two or three sessions where the speaker read off of slides or just didn’t hit the topic the session was supposed to be about. That’s fine, when that happened I just left or started talking to someone in the crowd. I did my best not to waste any time during the event…”

 Another comment from Ben, “One of the most profound statements I’ve ever heard from Eric was this: move up, not out. So many amazing HR pros eventually take off and leave the profession instead of continually climbing to be Directors, VPs, and Chief HR Officers. We need more great people to ascend to those positions instead of leaving them to the people with seniority by default (even if they don’t have the skills or passion to be great at it)…”.

 Michael VanDervort from The Human Race Horses, “My big learning was really just a verification of what is an old discussion – HR needs to reinvent itself, and it is the practitioners who need to make that happen through aggressively transforming the way we think and work…”

 Mark Stelzner from Inflexion Point, “Second, I was sadly disappointed by the attendee reaction to a keynote featuring a panel of HR leaders, including Google, Northrop Grumman, Kaiser Permanente and Deutsche Bank. SHRM’s membership is generally not comprised of the senior-most HR professionals from the world’s largest firms, so when they actually take the time to show up, share best practices and offer advice, you damn well better pay attention. Attendees swarmed from the session, first in 2’s and 3’s and then by the dozens. Are you there to listen to Steve Forbes and Al Gore or should you perhaps learn from those who have theoretically arrived at your career destination? And if you did walk out early, you missed a gem from Deutsche Bank’s Conrad Venter when he predicated that HR will be obsolete in ten years if we stay on our current course…”.

Kathy Rapp from Fistful of Talent, “When people ponder the future of HR or ask, “What’s wrong with HR?!” it’s my belief we don’t have enough HR pros who possess the attitude of “Give ME the ball or I want to win the game.”  If there were, we’d have more HR practitioners teaching at SHRM conferences and sharing their own personal stories of achievement and beating the odds.  We’d have more HR folks who move into top leadership roles in their companies outside of HR vs. those non-HR executives who “land” in HR to finish out their careers.  Frankly, we’d have more students coming out of college wanting a job in HR because of the opportunity to build successful business careers and make a better than average living…”

 And, Charlie Judy from HR Fishbowl, “Much of what I see today seems oriented too much toward developing pansy HR subject matter experts and not focused enough on injecting the HR professional pipeline with people who are Ninjas in navigating workplace complexities, sorting through emotional dynamics, acting with agility, and thinking critically.  Without that stuff, you’re just a commodity; after all, anyone can learn to manage a benefit plan…sorry.  If as a profession we are really committed to making HR more crucial to an organization’s value stream, I think we should see stuff like this in the syllabus…”

 What’s the common thread here, people? 

What I interpret is that HR has to change.  No ands, ifs or buts about it.  And I am totally up and down with that.  But change is NOT going to come from the folks who have been doing the same things year after year after year – the HR generalists and practitioners slogging along, waiting until retirement. 

You know, the ones who run to the conference expo hall for all the free swag. 

The ones who leave when senior HR leaders do participate and try to help start the transformation.

Makes me mad as hell.

Here’s the thing – I have consultant and speaker in my title – and guess what?  I was still am an HR practitioner and OD specialist.  As a consultant I get to go into a lot of different organizations and see what’s happening at the macro and micro levels.  As a speaker, I get to share ideas –in an interesting and engaging way – that hopefully serve to inspire and get people to start thinking and doing things a bit differently. 

That is what a teacher is,  you know.  Someone who is focusing on the future and hopefully opening new minds to new ideas.

So, that is what I take from all these comments.  We don’t just need practitioners to share their thinking; we need new minds, new ideas, and new ways of doing things – no matter where they may be.  And that is going to take some serious shaking up and shaping of up of HR.   It’s time.

That’s why I love reading the comments and blogs – new minds, new thinking, new ways.

Makes me aim to misbehave.

Going Out on a Limb, Here is a post from: The HR Whisperer

I was watching an old Cesar Milan rerun the other day on how to train puppies and in it he introduced a new pitbull puppy named Junior.  Now for anyone who watches the Dog Whisperer, you know that his all time fav and constant pit companion, Daddy, passed away in February of this year at the ripe old dog age of 15.

In Cesar’s Way magazine, Milan discusses his selection of Junior:

“…when the time came – about a year-and-a-half ago – I took Daddy along. Any newcomer in our house would first have to get Daddy’s approval. That’s how we wound up at the home of a friend whose female pit bull had given birth to a litter about two months earlier. One puppy, all gray with just a little dash of white on his chest, caught my attention immediately. Some people – the Dali Lama, for instance – have this calm energy. So do some dogs. Daddy has it. And I quickly realized that this little gray puppy had it too. In fact, he reminded me of Daddy when he was a puppy…”

This got me thinking about succession planning.  That is what Milan was doing when he found Junior – preparing for a new Daddy or top dog.

When was the last time you had succession planning on the agenda?

Executive transition is a crucial moment in any organization’s life and should be broached even when nobody’s anticipating a change in leadership.  Think back to 2004 when McDonald’s CEO Jim Canalupo died from a heart attack; the company named Charlie Bell six hours later.  Then a few weeks after that, Bell was diagnosed with cancer and the board again needed to make a replacement.  Sometimes a company has time to prepare – and sometimes they don’t.

Without a plan, an executive leaving can be uncertain, painful and difficult, both operationally and politically.  It’s hard to think strategically when you’re busy putting out a fire.  So, here’s three things to think about in preparing for succession.

Have a bus book.  Robert VanHook and Jackie Eder-VanHook call this the “what to do if the executive is hit by a bus” plan.  A bus book is a compendium of critical information about an organization.  While it doesn’t take the place of succession planning, the book can help an interim executive get up to speed while the organization assesses its next step.  Bus books should include contact information, organizational policies and procedures, financial statements, audits, budgets, board minutes, staff lists and resumes, important contracts, etc.  Remember, it’s a supplement to the succession plan, not a substitute.

Ensure that there is a succession contingency plan. With a plan in place, the organization will have coverage while leadership decides what its next step should be.  The plan should include an assessment of where the organization is, where it wants to go and what kind of leadership it needs to help it get there.  The plan should also include an outline and timeline of succession procedures, a communications plan that discusses who should be told of executive departures and when, a plan for how the leader will be replaced and a financial plan for covering the costs of replacement, whether the successor comes from inside or outside the organization.

Align the succession plan with the organizational strategy from a people as well as a business perspective.  This is key.  There are a ton of examples out there of senior leaders brought into place in a succession arrangement – and failing spectacularly.  Emotional intelligence is just as important as business acumen.  Think of when Sam Walton retired in 1988 and put David Glass in place.  Wal-Mart did great financially, but from an emotional intelligence perspective, not so much.  Same thing with Carly Fiorina and HP.  Great culture shift when she took over the reins, but at a huge cost to employees.  It was no surprise that employees at one of the HP plants passed out Ding Dongs to announce “the witch is dead” when Carly was fired in early 2005. 

Finally, make sure that your succession plan has a process to recruit high potential employees, develop their skills and abilities and prepare them for advancement.  Succession planning is not just for senior leadership positions; it is often the mid- level positions that are the most crucial to the organization in terms of business and cultural success.  These mid-level positions are a great feeder pool and often are ignored in favor of bringing in someone new in. 

Planning takes energy and time but it’s worth it.  Do you have a Junior ready in your organization?

Succession Planning for the Top Dog is a post from: The HR Whisperer

Happy to be back in the blog saddle once again – it’s been a busy month with billable work, so I just know the economy is on the rebound!

Can’t say the same about Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.  Just read a Reuters article this morning announcing that a New York jury decided on $250M damages against Novartis on behalf of 5,600 past and present women employees, only two days after finding that a U.S. division discriminated against women in pay, promotion and pregnancy (Velez et al v Novartis Corporation, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 04-09194).

What were they thinking?

 The jury found that Novartis systematically denied promotions, paid less and subjected 5,600 women to discrimination up to and during 2004.  Court papers said that the women made complaints to Novartis’ human resources division, which were routinely ignored.

That scares me.

We know that employee behavior is often the product of the pressures of the organizational culture.  And we know that organizational culture often comes from a history of “that’s always been the way we do  things around here.” 

 Aren’t we, as HR professionals, supposed to be able to think and operate outside the confines of an organizational culture, especially when confronted with policies or acts that are in direct conflict with what we know to be the best thing for the organization and the employees?  I suspect that the Novartis HR folks “knew or should have known” that this discrimination was going on.  They were probably told not to worry about it by the execs or legal reps as the inequities were” justified.”  Or they too, got stuck in the rut of a bad culture and found it easier to walk away than put up a fight.

What does that say about the HR pros?  It says they weren’t behaving strategically and putting a strong case in play to move toward a gender equitable environment.

 HR Executive Online points out that it may be no surprise that women outnumber men two-to-one in HR, but make over 30% less than their male colleagues.  Former SHRM chairman Johnny Taylor says it’s because “the senior HR roles are dominated by men.” 

Kate Sweetman, principal with The RBL Group and former editor at the Harvard Business Review adds that “it’s terribly ironic because HR should play a key role in helping women and organizations make changes if the ‘leaky pipeline’ to leadership is ever to be patched.”  She adds that “HR needs to create the business case and help find practical ways for gender equity to happen all the way to the top. HR has failed if they don’t have it from top to bottom.”

 So, did Novartis HR create a “leaky pipeline” fail in this situation?

 In my opinion, yes, they did.  Now where is HR going to find the duct tape?

The Leaky Pipeline: Second Edition of What Was HR Thinking?? is a post from: The HR Whisperer

 Toyota’s recent woes with automobile manufacturing defects and the dragging of their feet in responding to the resulting safety and customer issues has left a lot of people feeling cold right now.  This, combined with the record brisk temps we’ve been having anyway  is wreaking havoc on the car buying public and our collective psyche. 

Well, maybe I’m the only one who’s collective psyche is cold.  

 John Rosevear of the The Motley Fool points out that the problem really isn’t so much the safety issues, which are bad and need fixing, but more with the “company’s longtime pattern of responding to problems with a mix of denial and foot shuffling.”

 And apparently it is going to get worse. 

John goes on to say that,

 “Officials in high places in the U.S. are getting cranky…on Tuesday [February 16^th], the Department of Transportation ordered Toyota to turn over documents related to various safety issues.  That may not sound like a big deal, but it is — the DOT is aggressively looking for evidence that Toyota knew of safety defects but didn’t take appropriate action. And if they find that evidence? Oh boy.”

Suddenly, it’s getting hot in here.

Many companies have faced recalls – I distinctly remember Johnson & Johnson’s recall of its Tylenol product  as I worked for The Southland Corporation (parent company of  7-ELEVEN food stores) at the time and in the absence of our area manager had to tell our franchise owners to remove the analgesic from the shelves.  Bad situation.  Good decision.

But the product recall itself is not the entire issue; the more important issue is how the company deals with the recall. 

Which really is trust, isn’t it  – customer trust in whether or not it is safe to purchase the company’s products, and employee trust in whether or not leadership is upfront in walking the talk.

J&J’s doing a great job.  Toyota’s not.

The president of Toyota’s Georgetown, KY plant says company workers are taking the series of recalls personally.

Of course they are.

It seems that Toyota built its reputation on excellence, reliability, customer service and value.  But the company values listed on its website say:  “We believe…in hard work…that good neighbors make good company and vice versa…that the world is getting bigger, but resources aren’t…in the value of diversity – it’s what makes life interesting.”

I don’t about you, but I don’t take away anything about integrity and trust from those values.  Maybe they are implied, but if company leadership refuses to accept responsibility for its mistakes and doesn’t even acknowledge that trust and integrity are important components of doing business, then what can employees believe in?

Now, I’m not saying that if it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.  But we do know that mutual trust is a critical factor in the employer-employee relationship.  If trust exists, employees have a pretty good idea of what company life they can expect and how the company will behave.  When that trust has been breached, as it has been with Toyota, that relationship changes dramatically.

Or maybe the relationship really wasn’t there to begin with.

The best way to maintain trust is to keep from breaking it in the first place.  Leadership integrity, as demonstrated by behavior, is crucial.  That’s Leadership 101.

So, it really is not just Toyota’s products that need to be recalled; I think it’s also time to recall its leadership.

The Eroded Trust of Toyota is a post from: The HR Whisperer

I was listening to the radio the other day on my way home from the ever-present swim team car pool drive (an hour and a half round trip, ugh) and heard the radio jockeys talking about Valentine’s Day and an article on they found on the Internet related to “64  Ways to Say I Love You.” 

Of course, I went to check it out and thought it was great fun – and something that would be worth translating into showing the love for employees or volunteers.

You see, we don’t do that enough.  And its been worse lately as folks are stressing over the lack of jobs and the lack of a decent economy.  Recognizing employees (and each other’s) contributions takes work – strengthening the relationship takes work – and retaining employees takes work.

So, in honor of Valentine’s day, here’s my list of 64 ways to let employees know you care. 

64 Ways to Show Employee Love

1. Be courteous.
2. Encourage physical and mental health.
3. Have fun. 
4. Don’t compare employees to each other.
5. Give your full attention. 
6. Trust. 
7. Truly listen to what the employee is saying (no multi-tasking!).
8. Be respectful.
9. Share some humor.
10. Be interested in the employee’s interests.
11. Be a cheerleader. 
12. Highlight the employee’s accomplishments.
13. Bring in pizza.
14. Ask for input.
15. Let bygones be bygones; embrace the present – and the future. 
16. Accept the fact that nobody’s perfect. 
17. Play hooky together. 
18. Show interest in the whole person, not  just the at-work person.
19. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar – be nice.
20. Apologize. 
21. Live by the Golden Rule.
22. Better yet, the Platinum Rule-do unto others as they like…unto them.
23. Tell the employee you appreciate him or her. 
24. Take a group picture and post it in your office.
25. Encourage risk-taking and from that, learning.
26. Talk about the day.
27. Laugh.  Best de-stressor outside of prescription drugs.
28. Pick your battles.
29. Have a vision and share it with inspiration.
30. Don’t be competitive; it’s a team effort.
31. Forget about labels – everyone is unique and special.
32. Don’t forget about the commonalities, though.
33. Have an ice cream sundae contest.
34. Watch a great teambuilding movie together like Remember the Titans.
35. Write a “you did an outstanding job” note once a week and mean it.
36. Share company war stories or historical (hysterical) tales.
37. Keep your word.
38. Have them plan the work and then work the plan.
39. Go to a seminar together.
40. Encourage them to join a professional association.
41. Bake cookies in the microwave and share.
42. Be a good idea-bouncer-offer.
43. Show your gratitude; you really can’t do the job without them.
44. Consider employees’ perspectives.
45. Respect personal lives and personal time.
46. Praise publically.
47. Correct privately.
48. Be a person that others want to be around.
49. Take pride in the employee’s large accomplishments.
50. Take pride in the employee’s small accomplishments, too.
51. Share a sincere compliment about the employee in front of other people.
52. Make time for the employee.
53. Recognize that everyone makes mistakes.
54. Give $1 lottery ticket, because they are a winner no matter what.
55. Give space when they need it.
56. Communicate a lot.
57. Be honest.
58. Ask for feedback on your leadership style.
59. Do something constructive with that feedback once you get it.
60. Teach tolerance.
61. Reconnect – do a fun team building exercise.
62. Give the benefit of the doubt.
63. Tell them how important they are to the success of the team and of the business.
64. Be a servant leader.

 True leadership does not dominate – it cultivates.
– HR Whisperer

64 Ways to Show Employee Love is a post from: The HR Whisperer

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ve decided to share my top ten reasons why any organization should be thankful for HR.    Here goes:

 10 – We figure out where to find people to get the job done, even if there are no niche employees to be found who are experts in Java, HTML, Sequel Pro, Cobol 2.56a, team building, play a mean set of drums, AND come to work on time – sober.

 9 – We understand that it is difficult to merge Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Al-Hijira, Bodhi Day and the Wiccan Yule for the annual holiday get-together.  But we do it anyway.

 8 – We explain – in simple terms – why NO ONE will be getting a raise this year, merit or otherwise.  We also explain why the C-suite got an increase in stock options.  We’ve got the bruises to prove it.

 7 – Instead of asking, “where’s the form for that?” we take care of it.

 6 – We tell you that your supervisors suck at managing people and then try to do something to make them better.

 5 – We say “no” even though the boss may not like it or it hurts, ’cause it’s good for business.  We also say “yes” when it’s good for business.

 4 – We routinely manage FLSA, ADA, FMLA, COBRA, OSHA, and HIPPA  – hell, do you know what these even are?

 3 – We cover your ass, legal and otherwise.

2 – We take care of all the people crap no one else wants to deal with.

 1 – We put the LEAD in Leadership.

First Annual We’re Not Turkeys List is a post from: The HR Whisperer

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned.  It has been 20 days since my last blog.  Boy, time flies doesn’t it.  Between consulting, teaching, volunteering, a husband, two active teenagers, three cats, a dog and a rat (and not necessarily that order of importance!), I’m constantly looking for time to get creative and write for the blog.  Yes, I’m one of those girls who multitasks like crazy and also the one on the crackberry while driving. (Maybe in the interest of safety, I shouldn’t confess to that!).  Anyway, I LIKE being busy and do consider myself organized in spite of all the chaos.  But, pondering this dilemma got me thinking about the concept of time management and what that truly means today in the world of work and people.  Behaviorally speaking, if someone has problems organizing his or her time, just what obligation, if any, does the employer have in fixing that?

None.  I don’t think employers have any obligation in fixing how a person spends their time – the only influence they have and should have is in those 8-12 hours a day that the person is at work.  And even then, the amount of control should depend on the job function.  Employers can expect and measure results, though, which is completely different from expecting and measuring activities.  But to get results, you have to manage time well.  And of course, some do it better than others.

We can’t deny the importance of really good time management, especially today in the crunch of work and life and the messy blending of the two.  Researcher that I am, I took to the web to find out what others have to say about time management.  Came up with an oldie, but goodie – The book, First Things First by Stephen Covey (1994) .  Covey is an old fav of mine, back from the early 90s when he came to the forefront for his management thinking.  Written with Roger and Rebecca Merrill, Covey’s First Things First offers a time management approach that helps a person to focus on priorities or the “first things first.”  Suffice to say, this comes from one of Covey’s more inspirational books, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  [Quick aside – my alma mater AT&T was one of the pilot companies for Covey’s training on the Seven Habits; I got my golden egg, but never made it to the golden goose.  If you got the goose, please let me know – I want to hear about it!]

Covey talks about the four generations of time management:  task lists; personal organizers; goal setting and prioritization and finally, values clarification.

The first generation focuses on using notes and checklists that serve as reminders.  I find that people who are highly task- and quality-focused like to do this.  As things get done, they get checked off.  I confess, there is some sort of emotional satisfaction about checking something off the to-do list.

The second generation uses planning calendars and appointment books, a.k.a. MS Outlook, Blackberries, iPhones, Palms, etc.  Electronics now take the place of paper and pencil calendars.  Lord knows what I’d do without my Blackberry.  Still know people who like to buy paper calendars though and write on ‘em.  Like me – if I don’t get my annual Yorkie calendar in my Christmas stocking, things get ugly!

The third generation of folks take TM to the next level by scheduling and prioritizing goals.  These individuals identify the stuff they need to do first and arrange their activities around getting those things done.  That’s me – on a good day.

The gods and goddesses of all generations, the fourth generation people are the ones with the line of sight.  They understand the difference between something urgent and something important.  They are the ones who can and will make decisions based on their moral compass and so don’t forget about the things that are important in their lives.  Like family, friends, and down time.  I like to think that this is me most of the time.

Covey asserts that people have a need “to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy.”  If a person can move beyond “urgency addiction” into “quadrant two” management, then he or she can begin to prioritize work for achieving both short and long-term goals, while still maintaining a holistic life balance.

So what can you do to help your time management?  Focus on what YOU believe is important.   Plan the work and work the plan.  The 80:20 rule argues that 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results. The other 80% are achieved with only 20% of the effort.  Good things come to those who sweat.

Managing time well does take a sustained effort.  Look at the roles you play in life – which are the most important?  Which are the ones that you can put to the side now and then? 

Think about what you must do to ensure you play each of your chosen roles well.  Can you distinguish between urgent and not urgent?  The answers all of these questions will help you focus your energy on the things that matter.  My chosen roles are family woman, HR pro, volunteer and blogger; in that order.

And that’s why I only write when I have something to say.

Time to Make the Donuts is a post from: The HR Whisperer

Once again I must thank my mentor, Cesar Millan, for the inspiration for this week’s blog.  He said that “when humans bring a dog into their lives, they are most often looking for a companion; what they may not realize is that they are getting a teacher as well.”  This is true in a business sense, too.  When we bring a potential leader into our organization, we should be getting someone who can teach or positively influence others.  But teaching goes both ways…is it really possible to teach someone to be an effective leader or is it just genetics coming into play?

Many organizations decide they want to implement a leadership development program because they need better leaders or people who could be put into some kind of succession plan.  The HR department gets the charge to put “something together” and manages to get someone to run the program, get people into it and maybe even toss in a measure or two to try to link the success of the program to a business goal–all within a few months.  Is it any surprise then, that so many of these programs lose steam after one year or fall flat due to budget cuts?  Aside from the timing and operational issues, the real question centers on whether or not leadership development programs truly teach people to be good leaders.

Leadership by its definition is a very complex.  Some say that leadership is a natural thing, that we are born with the innate qualities it takes to be a leader.  Psychologists have continuously searched for the personal attributes that would describe leaders and differentiate them from the rest of the pack.  A large body of research supports the theory that the “Big Five” of personality traits underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. In addition to providing a cohesive framework, research has also found strong relationships between the Big Five and job performance, especially in terms of successful leadership.  It’s no surprise then that tools like the Myers-Briggs’ MBTI® or DiSC® tend to be a part of LD programs.

More recent research shows that effective leaders have emotional intelligence (EI).  Daniel Goleman found that high levels of EI predicts high performance.  I would even go so far as to say that the combination of EI and the Big Five trait of extroversion defines charisma.  A definitive study conducted in 1999 on the personalities of two executive management teams found that over a period of five years the charismatic personality of the executive manager and of the team he selected was key to understanding a company’s rise or decline in the market.  

Hmmm.

Now on the other hand, behavioral theories focus on identifying the specific behaviors that differentiate leaders from nonleaders, which implies that these behaviors can be taught, i.e., leadership is a competency that can be broken down into concrete sets of trainable skills.  The most comprehensive of the behavioral theories resulted from research conducted at Ohio State University in the late 40s where the researchers narrowed a thousand different leadership dimensions into two categories: (1) task/structure and (2) relationship/consideration.  The managerial grid developed by Blake and Mouton and the contingency leadership theory developed by Hersey and Blanchard in the 1960s serve as the landmarks for situational leadership theory today.  The Hersey-Blanchard theory in particular focuses on the leader being able to select the right behavioral style based on followers’ willingness and ability.   

So, in my mind good leadership really is a combination of personality and environment. Which brings us back to our original question:  can people be trained in leadership?  The answer to me is an unequivocal yes.  Strong, results-driven leadership development programs worth their salt screen for the necessary Big Five personality traits and then provide adult-centered interventions to develop the skills necessary to:

• Run the task/structure of a business, such as strategic planning and financial management.
• Develop the relationship/consideration in teams, such as communication and conflict management.
• Understand the self and corresponding behavior by opening the Johari Window through extensive feedback, coaching and 360° profiling.

Another question:  if “nature” and “nurture” are important elements of leader effectiveness then, how does experience play a part?  Many believe that the value of on-the-job experience is a strong predictor of leadership effectiveness. Research, however shows that experience alone is usually a very poor predictor of leadership.  There have been numerous studies of military officers, shop supervisors, and school principals that demonstrate that experienced leaders tend to be no more effective than leaders who have little experience.  The problem seems to be in the variability of the situations a leader finds himself in that influence whether or not the experience will transfer to that situation.  Another problem is the assumption that the amount of time a leader spends in a particular position is really a true measure of experience.  So, LD programs need to provide education, training and experience through action learning.

Remember the heroes of September 11?  They may not have had the particular experience of being attacked by terrorists, but may have had the necessary personality traits and training in leading others and influencing them to action.

And that’s what we really need in any LD program.

Nature or Nurture: Training the Leader of the Pack is a post from: The HR Whisperer

You know, as the HR Whisperer, I’m really enamored with the whole idea of creating top performing organizations through positive behavior change. One of my favorite mentors, Cesar Millan, says, “A dog that doesn’t trust its human to be a good pack leader becomes unbalanced and often exhibits unwanted or antisocial behaviors.” It struck me that the same is true for people in organizations. We need to have strong leadership because in many cases our very business survival depends on a stable, organized and motivated team. Business survival instinct is perhaps one of our greatest natural motivators in the workplace and if a person is not guided well, it can not only result in unwanted behavior but total chaos in the long run.

So, I’m digging this concept and working it through in my brain as to how this relates to human capital and wouldn’t you know, I web-stumbled across an article recently published by Harvard Business Review (September 2008). Written by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis, “Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership” discusses new studies of the brain that show that business leaders can improve team performance by understanding not the psychology, but the biology of social intelligence. How cool. It struck me that scientists have discovered a biological underpinning to what makes a good leader great, which could toss more fuel on the fire in the “leaders are born, not made” camp. (Which I don’t subscribe to, by the way. I believe that anyone, given time and effort can change their behavior – even interpersonally. That’s why I’m in the business I’m in. Oh, I feel another blog topic coming on! <huge grin>)

More on the biology of leadership from Harvard Business Review:

“The salient discovery is that certain things leaders do—specifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to others’ moods—literally affect both their own brain chemistry and that of their followers. Indeed, researchers have found that the leader-follower dynamic is not a case of two (or more) independent brains reacting consciously or unconsciously to each other. Rather, the individual minds become, in a sense, fused into a single system. We believe that great leaders are those whose behavior powerfully leverages the system of brain interconnectedness…If we are correct, it follows that a potent way of becoming a better leader is to find authentic contexts in which to learn the kinds of social behavior that reinforce the brain’s social circuitry. Leading effectively is, in other words, less about mastering situations—or even mastering social skill sets—than about developing a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.”

Wow. The idea that leaders need good interpersonal as well as functional skills has certainly been around for quite some time. As a matter of fact, Goleman coined the phrase, “social intelligence” to discuss this very thing. But what he and Boyatzis are talking about here is different – they’re saying that we have these things in our brains called mirror neurons that mimic what another person does. As social beings, when we “consciously or unconsciously detect someone else’s emotions through their actions, our brain’s mirror neurons reproduce those emotions and allow us to instantly share that experience.” Ever notice when two people are deep in discussion they tend to hold their arms the same way or cross their legs at the same time? That’s the mirror neurons in action.

 So, how can leaders take advantage of this brain interconnectedness? If it stands to reason that followers will create a social connection with their leader, it also stands to reason that they will emotionally feel whatever it is the leader is feeling and behave accordingly. If leaders are emotionless, don’t smile or otherwise engage their followers, they will not activate the mirror neutrons in a positive way, leading to distressed and nonperforming followers, and thus the potential for business chaos. Body language plays a great part also. If a leader’s body language doesn’t jibe with what is being said, the follower will go with the body language. Bodies don’t tell lies, mouths do.

 The bottom line is that when people feel good about what they are doing, when they have a social connection with their leaders, when they feel part of something that is bigger than them, those mirror neurons come in handy. Reinforce the brain’s social circuitry — if you want to motivate those around you, create a positive atmosphere. If you want higher performance or enhanced creativity, be in a good mood and show you care.

If you truly want the best from your followers, kick those mirror neutrons into high gear and create an environment where sincere respect, fun, laughter and performance are a serious part of your business operations.

Social Intelligence and the Biology of the Pack Leader is a post from: The HR Whisperer