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#26539 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Mon Nov 16, 2009 7:45 pm
Subject: Article: The Benefits of High-Tech, High-Touch Mentoring 		harvinderjit...
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The Benefits of High-Tech, High-Touch Mentoring
by Judy Corner and Crystal Ding
 
As a rule of thumb, every HR leader knows and employs the positive ROI rule when deciding on a new initiative. This rule is especially important when investing in talent management technology, which requires an additional cash outlay for the company and changes the way many HR administrators, managers and employees perform day-to-day tasks.
 
With that in mind, the question is, can technology be a part of a successful mentoring initiative? Mentoring is, after all, purely about relationships between people. In fact, in the realm of talent management, mentoring relationships are as high-touch as you can get. And few dispute the potential gains of an organization from a good mentoring initiative. But at first glance, the chances of an online solution investment that supports and generates a positive ROI may seem sketchy, because how is technology going to help?
 
For firms running medium- to large-scale mentoring initiatives, using software to facilitate and complement the initiative produces tangible gains. A good online solution can support a mentoring initiative and enable companies to achieve their mentoring-related business objectives in the following ways:
 
1. Facilitate Sound Matching and Pairing Relationships
Well-defined, focused and mutually beneficial mentor-mentee relationships are the backbone of successful mentoring initiatives. While matching and pairing can be done by people, a systematic online process can help mentoring administrators connect mentors and mentees more quickly, using an array of clear and specific criteria to generate the most suitable matches for mutual personal and career development.
 
With a well-designed technology solution, participants are able to complete various assessments and fill in a wide range of relevant information, including current job title, skills, personality traits on the job, individual timetables and clear and specific mentoring goals. The technology can then do the low-touch work, indicating possible choices for mentors with mentees according to their respective traits and goals via a customizable algorithm. This frees up administrators for more high-touch work within the mentoring initiative.
 
2. Increase Administrative Efficiency
Armed with a series of online back-office support capabilities, mentoring administrators and consultants can deliver a high-quality initiative while saving time and resources. In addition to tools for matching and pairing, a well-designed mentoring software solution typically features assessments, data tracking and reporting tools. These enable administrators and consultants to oversee the program more closely and promptly cater to the needs of its participants on both sides of the mentor-mentee relationship.
 
3. Enhance Program Capacity, Reduce Training Costs
Ultimately, greater administrative efficiency means a greater program capacity and therefore a greater participation rate within the organization. Effective mentoring, when complementing or replacing expensive off-site training initiatives, can help an organization cut training costs per employee and increase employee retention efforts. Over time, facilitating a mentoring initiative with technology will increase the total value of these savings and productivity gains for the firm.
 
It is important to keep in mind that an online mentoring solution typically works for some firms and not others. By way of the aforementioned avenues, economies of scale tend to generate more profitable opportunities for very large firms using mentoring software and less profitable opportunities for small ones. In general, an integrated technology solution works best for firms with a minimum of 75 to 100 employees.
 
Regardless of an organization's size, it is paramount to determine the ROI of purchasing and implementing mentoring technology. For many firms, incorporating an online solution into a new or existing initiative can render a high-tech, high-touch career development solution - one that boosts not only employee morale and productivity, but the bottom line as well.
 
 
[About the Authors: Judy Corner is a mentoring subject-matter expert and Crystal Ding is assistant to the global marketing director at Insala.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26538 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:40 pm
Subject: Article: High-Impact Mentoring 		harvinderjit...
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High-Impact Mentoring
by Randy Emelo
 
Never has the need for rapid learning been greater. The swiftly changing workforce and marketplace bring new challenges every day; generational pressures and attitudes make transferring knowledge both critical and difficult; and downsizing and consolidation of organizations means each worker has increased responsibilities that require new understanding and skills.
 
Talent managers have attempted to address learning issues such as these with e-learning and knowledge management systems. Neither provides a comprehensive solution to a complex problem. On the one hand, old learning structures, such as classroom training or e-learning modules, lack the relational support and situational adaptability to be effective learning tools for an entire workforce. On the other hand, knowledge management systems have failed to deliver promised  results because people often bypass sophisticated databases and look to other people for their immediate knowledge needs.
 
The common denominator in both of these attempts seems to be people's desire for relational and social interaction. This has led many to believe social networking will be the panacea for their learning development pains. They believe people will connect virtually in constructive, intentional learning relationships through social networking sites, and not just for social interactions. But many companies that have used social networking software for workforce development have been disappointed by the lack of intentional learning relationships that develop. While some accidental learning may increase due to participation in social networking sites, they lack focused learning structures and support mechanisms needed for goal-oriented, intentional learning.
 
What is needed is a process that combines the strengths of learning structures, knowledge management and social networking in a way that produces intentional, collaborative learning relationships where anyone in the workforce can find the knowledge he or she currently needs to succeed.
 
Today's Mentoring: Social Learning Systems
 
The future of mentoring and learning systems will begin with innovation in social, not content, components. While the expansion of e-learning, learning content management systems and knowledge management databases has increased access to information, new forms of social learning connection technology will lead the way to actual employee performance improvement. Continuing to expand the conceptual understanding and the range of applications for mentoring will be critical to implement any social learning system that will:
 
a) Use technology to increase access to knowledge in a relational context.
b) Facilitate intentional learning relationships in a goal- and competency-centered process.
c) Create a growing network of social learning opportunities.
 
A system like this will create intentional learning relationships by providing a learning structure and access to virtually all the tacit knowledge in an enterprise. Personal learning networks will form that speed tacit knowledge transfer in real time. Connecting this with various forms of mentoring will expand talent development, employee engagement, productivity and retention efforts.
 
Build a Network of Collaborative Learning Relationships
 
To create a social learning system, organizations need to implement a less restrictive, more open use of mentoring. In their book Intelligent Mentoring, which looks at mentoring at IBM, authors Audrey J. Murrell, Sheila Forte-Trammell and Diana A. Bing suggest that people need access to multiple, collaborative learning relationships and environments that fall under an expanded view of mentoring. Mentoring, when rightly understood and applied, can be a broad umbrella under which companies can organize a variety of self-directed intentional learning relationships. There are three distinct uses that can be applied concurrently for greater learning as people build a network of collaborative learning relationships.
 
1. Expand the use of one-to-one mentoring as a productivity tool.
Many people still see mentoring as a way to gain encouragement in career path choices. However, Triple Creek Associates research shows that when people are allowed to conscript one-to-one mentoring relationships based on their needs and preferences, they are used in a variety of ways to address real issues. In May 2009, Triple Creek conducted a study, "Impact of Web-Based Mentoring on Productivity and Effectiveness," of 13 organizations (1,323 respondents) and found 88 percent of mentors and mentees agree that their productivity or effectiveness increased due to their current mentoring experience. Mentees and mentors both felt the impact in areas such as expanding networks (64 percent), interpersonal effectiveness (63 percent), confidence in role (62 percent) and leadership skills (59 percent). Participants rated on-the-job training (88 percent) and mentoring and coaching (79 percent) as more effective than e-learning (37 percent). Essentially, mentoring most profoundly impacted complex development areas that are notoriously hard to address with traditional development options. Further, participants provided insights into other productivity gains impacted by a broader use of mentoring, as seen in these anonymous quotes:
 
a) Problem solving
"We were able to work on problem solving for a couple of specific job-related issues, and his advice will help me with future problems."
 
b) Functional skills
"My mentor provided me with some good ideas for managing from a distance. He also helped me to be more organized and use pre-planning for phone conferences with my direct reports."
 
c) Job-specific information
"My mentee shared information about the project side of processes, which [helped] me to learn some new codes and understand how pieces fit together."
 
d) Technical skills
"My mentor was able to teach me some very specific computer skills, which allowed me to create some usable spreadsheets for my manager."
 
2. Increase learning networks with group mentoring.
Group mentoring, when a group of individuals comes together to collaborate and share learning focused on central development goals, is typically seen as a way to stretch limited mentor resources to accommodate multiple mentees more efficiently. However, the power of group mentoring is being re-examined.
 
"I can integrate it into our leadership development program so that it is embedded and becomes integral to [participants'] learning," said Paula Schwartz, manager of instructional design services at Thomson Reuters. This means groups who learn together in a workshop can stay together afterward via group mentoring so they continue growing and learning from one another. Schwartz said she estimates Thomson Reuters can save $70,000 by using group mentoring this way.
 
Long-term social learning connections set today's group mentoring practices apart from traditional classroom training methodologies. With group mentoring, participants learn from leaders and other participants during meetings, but they also can engage one another between meetings, expanding the breadth and depth of learning that can take place in real work situations.
 
When combined with collaboration technology, group mentoring can address a variety of organizational outcomes and needs. Dell has used group mentoring with its accelerated development population, where high-potential directors mentor emerging leaders. Lisa Graham, learning and development consultant at Dell, said the company plans to expand the use of group mentoring to other departments such as sales, where top performers can mentor colleagues and share highly focused knowledge, such as insights around the K-12 sales group.
 
Group mentoring also appeals to younger generations. "We realized in our pilot younger employees were really looking for social networking opportunities," said Mary Cummings, program analyst for the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration. Group mentoring offers people a way to network with peers and senior-level managers to whom they might not have access normally. "It's a good retention mechanism for our office," Cummings said.
 
3. Solve pressing issues with situational mentoring.
Today's workers often need quick access to advisors and experts who can provide them with specific guidance on a finite topic. Situational mentoring enables mentees to recruit a team of advisors who can collaborate with them on whatever high-impact issue they face. This process allows learners to move beyond their current social network to search for new nodes of knowledge in the organizational network, and it creates a collaborative learning team formed for a single, high-value purpose.
 
Situational mentoring is not an isolated process; a variety of collaborative learning relationships can emerge, including:
 
a) Short-term learning coalitions that end when the project is complete or the problem is solved.
 
b) Ongoing open nodes of learning that function like communities of practice.
 
c) Group mentoring interactions where expertise gained is exported to a larger audience so more people can benefit.
 
d) One-to-one relationships that broaden the learning.
 
Social Learning Redux
 
Critical learning often occurs best in a relational context. The future of organizational learning will promote the development of a highly integrated, technology-supported structure that focuses on the expansion of socially based, intentional learning relationships. An expanded vision of mentoring is emerging that will allow multiple modalities of learning relationships based on the needs of learners and the expertise already present in the organization. All three processes - one-to-one, group and situational mentoring - will stimulate and reinforce each other, creating a positive feedback loop that accelerates the development of intentional, social learning relationships across the enterprise.
 
This kind of flexible, intentional learning system combines the strengths of social networking and knowledge management systems with the intentional learning focus of mentoring relationships. It will provide the flexible, just-in-time learning environment critical for all workers to maximize both their own performance and their contribution to the learning needs of others.
 
 
[About the Author: Randy Emelo is president and CEO of Triple Creek Associates.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26537 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:14 pm
Subject: Article: Moving Beyond Behavior-Based Questions 		harvinderjit...
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Moving Beyond Behavior-Based Questions
by Kee Meng Yeo and Scott C. Hammond
 
Candidates are often prepped with stories of success, so it's up to the recruiters and hiring managers to mine those stories to determine how reflective candidates are about those experiences and what they learned. Such insights will lead to hiring the talent necessary to help their organizations succeed.
 
Behavior-based interviewing leads the corporate climber to claim their individual past success should reward them with future opportunities. Most hiring managers have heard the heralded heroics of the success-laden manager, who has also prepared for the interview with stories of their behavior-based successes.
 
But once hired, the much hoped for business improvements are less common past the "honeymoon" period when a favored candidate can seemingly do no wrong. Does the recent economic downturn mean the talent pool of business professionals has sprung a leak? Are there fewer talented individuals in enterprise now than there were previously when blue skies and bulls were still gracing Wall Street?
 
Not likely.
 
The level of talent in today's corps of climbing managers is roughly the same as before. Many managers have survived the tough times by creatively finding ways to make their workforces more productive and their businesses more profitable.
 
But "survival" does not create the kind of interview stories and resume lines that were created in the business environment prior to 2008, where growth, some would argue, was automatic. As commonly practiced, job-interview techniques tend to focus on accomplishments.
 
We argue the focus should be on learning.
 
The Talent Searcher's Dilemma
 
The statement that "past performance is the best predictor of future success" is only true if a person's past behavior really did create the claimed success, and at the same time, future circumstances (both organizational and marketplace) that led to the previous success were identical to the past.
 
The widely used technique of behavior-based interviewing is based on a partially false assumption that success follows some people and does not follow others. If you can determine the past successes of others, then you can identify and hire the "winners."
 
Now we all know that winners don't win all the time. As a former boss of one of the co-authors so elegantly puts it; "You are good until you are [deemed] bad and you are bad until you are [deemed] good."
 
Nevertheless, we seem to be obsessed with hiring people who have a history of claimed success, regardless of the circumstances that led to the alleged success.
 
As such, we propose that behavior-based interviewing needs to include an exploration of a candidate's learning ability as an essential component in verifying their contribution to business success and to determining how they learned - and what they learned - while meeting the challenges of their previous assignment, even in situations where success may not be as evident, such as in the current economic environment.
 
Notice we say that the core assumption of behavior-based interviewing is only partially wrong. Behavior-based interview questions get recruiting managers to the context by helping us see that the candidate has experienced the kind of problem we need them to solve for our company. It does not tell you what the candidate learned from their experience.
 
This is like a gold prospector knowing where to dig, but not actually getting their hands dirty by digging.
 
Digging for what a candidate learned in an experience that gets to the gold. If they learned from their success (or failure for that matter) and they are reflective about that learning, then they are more likely to be able to adapt their experiences to the new market and organizational environment embedded in the new job opportunity.
 
Complete the Learning Loop
 
Human resource and organizational development professionals may disagree about what makes a good leader or manager, but almost all agree that learning is at the core of leadership and career success.
 
Jack Welch has said that learning is the ultimate competitive advantage. Peter Drucker has said that anyone who does not learn is old and less useful, regardless of age. Chris Argyris gave us the notion of "double loop learning," where information should always be followed by application in order to personalize learning.
 
In our organizations, we want managers and leaders who learn at the double-loop level. If that is the case, our interviews should focus, not just on reported "experience," but how reflexive candidates have been about that experience and what they learned.
 
In an effort to complete the learning loop, we offer three levels of questions:
 
Level 1: Behavior-Based Experience.
This is the standard behavior-based question when the recruiter or hiring manager asks: "Tell me about a time when ... " in conjunction with a particular problem that the company is looking for the candidate to be able to solve.
 
Most experienced candidates have been coached or readied themselves to recount stories about a particular success that they have experienced. If the hiring manager follows up with the next two levels, a layer of honesty and reflection that is more revealing may be mined.
 
Level 2: Reflection.
Ask the candidate what they think about the above experience. Did it change the way they approach similar problems? Did they rethink how they lead and manage? Did it change relationships? This level will help bring to light how reflective the candidate is. Do they take experience to a higher level and use it to learn and become better?
 
Level 3: Application.
Next, the candidate should be asked about how the experience has changed the way he or she would behave in the future. How did that experience change your beliefs? How are you a different person because of that experience? How do you think that experience would make you more qualified for the job that you are applying for? In other words, seek out the generalized truth of the candidate's experience.
 
In our experience, Level 1 stories can be rehearsed, practiced and embellished. But it is very hard to fake answers to the Level 2 and 3 questions. Either the candidates have them or they don't.
 
The questions below are common - and good - recommendations for behavior-based interviewing. We have added the important steps of verification and learning that take the questions to the level of reflection and learning:
 
Question One:
 
Level 1: Tell me about a recent situation in which you had to deal with a very upset customer or co-worker.
 
Level 2: What did you learn from that experience? (Checking for the ability to abstract beyond a specific incident.)
 
Level 3: How did you deal with customers differently now because of that experience? (Checking for turning learning into action.)
 
Question Two:
 
Level 1: Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
 
Level 2: What did you learn about the overall organizational system as a result of that experience? (Checking for the candidate's ability to abstract at a systems level.)
 
Level 3: Did you initiate and any larger system corrections as a result of that experience? (Checking to see if anomalous workloads are seen as opportunities to improve work process.)
 
Question Three:
 
Level 1: Tell me about a time when you were forced to make an unpopular decision.
 
Level 2: What did you learn about your relationship with your co-workers when you made that decision? (Checking for observation and learning related to critical relationships.)
 
Level 3: Did that experience change the way you worked with your team and made decisions as a group? (Checking to see if learning was persistently applied to similar experiences.)
 
Most interview responses begin with 10 second to 40 seconds of noise. Candidates will often talk, but say nothing for the first few sentences after your question in order to fill air space so that they can think.
 
They say things like, "That's an interesting question" or "As I think about the question you are asking I am reminded of a time when ... ." As an interviewer, you want to give candidates time to hem and haw before they tell their story, but make sure they tell it.
 
In addition, when asking Level 1 questions, a candidate may want to follow up with more generic, open-ended questions to lay a deeper context before going on to Levels 2 and 3. Those questions include non-judgmental questions such as "say more about ..." or "how did you feel when ..." These kinds of questions give the candidate time to order their own thoughts about the experience that you have asked them to verbally relive.
 
Staying on one experience and mining down three levels to learn how a candidate learns has several benefits.
 
First, rather than feeling like they are being interrogated, candidates feel like they have been heard. The sense that they have been listened to and understood goes a long way in convincing them to take an offer.
 
Second, the recruiter or hiring manager is modeling in the interview the importance of learning. This is likely at the core of company values. Finally, important things about the candidate that otherwise might just be impressions are learned. The hiring manager is able to see how the candidate thinks in public and how they turn learning into action.
 
This will surely lead to better talent search and selection, regardless of the business condition that create the pool.
 
 
[About the Authors: Kee Meng Yeo is the director of Global Talent Development at Amway, an $8 billion privately held company based in Ada, Mich. Originally from Singapore, he has more than 25 years of global corporate experience in a variety of senior HR roles as well as having worked in knowledge management and marketing. Scott C. Hammond, Ph.D., is a professor and chair of management in the Woodbury School of Business at Utah Valley University. He is also an author and consultant with more than 25 years working in life sciences, energy and technology.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26536 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:46 pm
Subject: Article: Learning From Social Networks 		harvinderjit...
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Learning From Social Networks
by Ed Cohen
 
To date, social networking has applied mainly to life outside the workplace. However, given its collaborative nature, social networking is becoming increasingly attractive for organizations looking to improve communications and interactions with, between and among employees. As organizations look to translate social networking's benefits into business value and competitive advantage, however, they are struggling to govern this communication and behavior in the workplace.
 
Governance Models in Learning 2.0
 
Because social networking is defined as open, informal communication, the technology seems to contradict the very idea of a governance model. From a learning or talent management perspective, social networking appears to be unstructured, immeasurable and often unmanaged. Since the purpose of implementing a learning governance model is to identify people and develop a plan to execute a corporate learning and development strategy, the question becomes: How do these new technologies impact a learning governance model? Do they play a role in internal learning and development at all?
 
In its most basic form, a governance model is a way to bring structure to the learning and development process within a company. Often this includes distributing information as well as being a source or library for information. Depending on the industry, this process can be as simple as bringing representatives from different departments together to share information on a regular basis, or as complex as assigning a formal board within a company to discuss and plan the specific talent structure of the business. Governance could include developing the learning strategy, defining technical and learning-specific standards, designing appropriate learning programs, overseeing the development and delivery of learning content, managing the technology infrastructure that supports the learning initiatives, and aligning employees with the learning strategy to ensure a high rate of user adoption and adherence to learning goals.
 
Typically, one level up from the learning governance group is the overall talent management strategy. Once again, depending on the industry and company, the talent management process can either be "stove-piped" within a department or follow the latest industry trends and be managed more globally. Although it may not be immediately obvious, the link between the learning governance group and the overall talent management process is crucial for the enterprise.
 
One simple example of this can be found in succession planning. Deciding whether a company should increase the number of succession candidates through recruitment or internal talent development can influence the need for specific training, which the learning governance body would ultimately be responsible for developing. The learning department also can influence the talent management process by identifying the types of training an outstanding employee received during his or her employment to better define future candidates for a specific job position.
 
Regardless of the talent management and organizational structure, the goal is the same within the learning governance group: to define a measurable set of learning and development goals that align with the company's overall corporate direction. This is crucial to maximize the effectiveness of learning and talent development within a company. In general, the more participation talent managers from across the company have in the governance process, the more aligned efforts will be with corporate goals. Further, the stronger the alignment, the more effective and efficient learning and development efforts will be.
 
Social networking applications, such as wikis, blogs, Twitter and Facebook, are all different forms of communication that allow one individual or group to share information with another. Unlike traditional learning and development technologies, however, social platform responsibilities are not usually assigned to individuals, nor are the benefits or results they generate measurable in any traditional way. To date, the learning and talent management industry doesn't really have a best practice for implementing these technologies. When it comes to any type of governance, companies often take one or a combination of the following three approaches: they implement company-specific tools such as SharePoint, which presents a different set of governance issues; they take a wait-and-see approach, managing and governing social networking on a case-by-case basis, which is subjective, time consuming and doesn't scale; or they disallow the use of social networking tools altogether, which limits an organization's ability to keep pace with its competition, workforce and new technology.
 
Blending Social Networking and Learning
 
Aside from social networking, few if any recent technologies have been as hyped or have benefitted from as many unsubstantiated claims around how they would change learning and development. Perhaps the main reason for this misunderstanding is that people think of social networking in the wrong context. Social networking is an activity that revolves around open communication, and nothing more.
 
In fact, the role of social networking in employee learning is analogous to playground time for children. When kids engage in unstructured play, they learn and exchange ideas with other kids in an informal way. Similarly, when adults participate in social networking activities, they experience many of the same benefits as kids playing on the playground - the main difference being that they are not engaging face to face. In almost every case, the pros and cons that apply to children on the playground also apply to adults and social networking.
 
For example:
 
1. The information is only as good as the source. In both cases, the recipient must know the source of information so he or she can make a judgment about the accuracy and validity of the information being presented.
 
2. If a teacher monitors the conversation, the participants will have a different discussion than if the conversation is open. The same is true for social networking within a corporation.
 
3. If everyone is forced to participate, the results will be diluted. When a child who doesn't like softball is forced to play, he or she won't put forth the same effort as a child who does. The same holds true for an adult commenting on a co-worker's question online.
 
4. No matter how much a child learns on the playground, it is not a substitute for classroom instruction. The same is true for social networking applications. While social networking can and should be used to enhance the learning experience - by facilitating collaboration and employee interaction or by fostering knowledge sharing and extending informal learning initiatives - it is not designed as a replacement for formal, classroom-based learning programs.
 
While similar there are two important aspects of social networking that distinguish it from playground time for adults at work. First, social networking is somewhat corporate culture-sensitive. Second, social networking can be an incredibly effective communication tool within an organization if used properly. In both cases, the way a company applies, manages and enforces learning governance models can make all the difference.
 
Making social networking part of the corporate culture and effectively governing its use can present significant challenges for many organizations. For those with a Lotus Notes culture, incorporating social networking software is probably easy and fairly seamless. Lotus Notes, arguably one of the first social networking tools on the market, allowed employees primarily in large organizations to create peer discussion threads that could be saved, commented on and searched by other employees. Lotus Notes also was used to help individuals identify other employees who might have the answer to or knowledge about a specific question or topic. On the other hand, for organizations with a "stovepipe" culture, where holding the most information is seen as a competitive advantage and as providing job security, a distinctly different approach toward implementing any type of social networking would be required.
 
The learning governance body, meaning the people within the organization who develop the model, needs to look closely at all forms of communication that occur and exist within the business. Unfortunately, communication types are rarely consistent across the entire business, so it's important to understand which groups of people communicate what type of information and what media they use. Then, the learning governance body must determine if social networking will help move those discussions in a positive direction. For example, members of a sales team might be reluctant to share information about how to close a deal simply because they are competing with each other. A maintenance crew, on the other hand, might be willing to share information with other crews if it minimizes the amount of future work, but crew members might not be as comfortable using social networking technology to do so.
 
In both cases, the governance body needs to look at the types of individuals involved and their motivation for sharing any information. Individuals have to believe that by sharing information, they are benefiting from the process.
 
While there is no single approach that works for every company, if the governance body can identify groups of individuals who are part of a process where all benefit from one another, there is a potential fit. Ironically, implementing some of these technologies within the governance body itself may be an ideal place to start. Learning governance bodies are typically composed of individuals from different parts of the organization who share a common goal but may not be able to meet on a regular basis. Social networking technology can be used to keep members informed about what their groups are doing and how it will impact the governance model. By implementing this technology within the governance body first, organizations can gain a sense of how the technology fits within the corporate culture and how the rest of the company might adopt it.
 
 
[About the Author: Ed Cohen is chief technology officer at Plateau Systems, a talent management solutions provider.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26535 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Mon Nov 16, 2009 7:33 pm
Subject: Article: Managing Chaos 		harvinderjit...
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Managing Chaos
by Chuck Green
 
Even under normal circumstances, keeping a business on a steady course can be rife with challenges. But nowadays, with a stream of changes unfolding at a sometimes breakneck clip, a queasy economy and employees on edge over job security, more and more companies are managing chaos.
 
Yet work still must be done, deadlines met. In other words, it's business as usual in an environment that is far from it. This can be frustrating for employees and managers, but according to experts, workplace issues are not insurmountable if dealt with properly. Marcia Riley, vice president of talent management and human resources for ESI International, said companies must be "very in touch, very agile and very nimble. There's simply no book on how to navigate the business climate today. It's a daily triage."
 
Riley said ESI International, which specializes in project and contract management and business analysis, frames the issue in terms of "owners versus renters." While many renters bail during difficult times like these, "when it's tense and uncertain," owners tend to be more resilient. "[Their mindset] is to get through it, ask questions and put out fires instead of fanning them," explained Riley.
 
In fact, Gint Baukus, senior vice president of global talent management at Western Union, said in this economy, it's prudent for companies to hone in on how to deal with the business climate, even if it means other areas receive less attention. After all, he said, the "real trick" is to allay employees' fears, as they are understandably unnerved by external forces, such as the blitz of bad news coming at them from multiple sources. "You can't turn on the television or pull up Yahoo news [without hearing] about the doom and gloom. We have our arms around the day-to-day [issues]; we just can't predict how people are going to react when news on the outside gets worse."
 
Western Union conducted an engagement survey to measure employees' moods and priorities, despite internal debate about the wisdom of doing so in this market. Ultimately, the organization felt the need to pinpoint what employees were talking about and reinforce its interest in the workforce. "It's one of those age-old questions: whether to be careful of what you ask," Baukus said. "But if you fail to engage people and learn how they're doing, a company can't make [things] better."
 
When the results of the survey came in, Western Union found key employee engagement measures had actually improved since the previous survey - "a real accomplishment in this climate," said Baukus.
 
These days, employees need all the reassurance they can get. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers took 2,933 mass layoff actions in May that resulted in the separation of 312,880 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month. Each action involved at least 50 people from a single employer.
 
The national unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in September 2009, seasonally adjusted, up from 5.8 percent a year earlier. In September, total nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 263,000 over the month.
 
To help cope during these turbulent times, talent managers should continue to concentrate on doing their jobs and emphasize truthfulness to keep employees focused and engaged, said Robert Gillespie, executive vice president of talent central at AmTrust Bank, because "bad news is better than no news."
 
"We talk a lot here about keeping the trust bank full," Riley explained. She said that while senior management can't eliminate a recession, the company will be forthright and frequent when interacting with employees and will remain accessible to put out rumors. Employees often rally around the truth. "Even if the truth is, 'We're going to do layoffs, and here's how we're making tough decisions,'" said Joseph Murphy, vice president of Shaker Consulting Group, developers of a pre-employment candidate evaluation called the Virtual Job Tryout in Cleveland. But don't do so in a punitive or threatening manner - that's sure to motivate employees to find another job, he cautioned.
 
Further, in the midst of chaos, companies must demonstrate that they sincerely care about employees, said Jim Downey, vice president of global learning and organization development for CH2M Hill, a global environmental engineering firm. "That's something you can't fake." So how do you best demonstrate caring? "Communicate, communicate, communicate, from the CEO on down."
 
The ability to communicate and build cross-functional and cross-level relationships outweighs merely being smart and technically competent, said Riley, particularly since "even the top leaders don't have all the answers right now."
 
Downey said his organization's CEO, Lee McIntire, blogs from the Arctic Circle to the Middle East, no holds barred. "He tells it like it is," which he said is important when managing in chaos. "The leader has to be honest."
 
Communicating truthfully comes easier to some than others, said Gillespie, who said most of the time, talented managers seem to do the right thing. "These are challenging times. Not just here, but with colleagues and friends at other organizations throughout the country and world; those who aren't as talented really almost don't know what to do. They need talking points more than ever." Otherwise, he said they withdraw from communicating altogether.
 
Fortunately, Murphy said effective management can be coached or developed, because good leaders are cultivated by honing skills and learning from experience and self-reflection. "A manager has to ask, 'What am I doing that's working or not working, and how can I adapt?'" A manager should ask peers and direct reports how he or she can be a more effective leader, said Murphy.
 
Being available, adaptable and acting as an advocate are also marks of effective leadership. Availability includes meeting frequently on an informal basis so employees know they are being heard and have a voice, said Murphy. At the same time, to help managers meet such objectives, they should have a clearly defined role as an advocate. A manager should ask employees what resources they need to become effective and what barriers they perceive a manager should be able to help remove, Murphy explained.
 
Tim Clifford, CEO of Marlborough, Mass.-based Workscape, which provides talent management and outsourced benefits administration solutions, said talent managers need to provide forums where employees are encouraged to ask questions and voice their concerns to help increase productivity and help employees deal with pressure. He said periodic town hall meetings can provide an excellent venue to achieve these goals, while also giving management the opportunity to reinforce big-picture thinking.
 
Working with managers and leaders, Murphy said he's found many line employees and individual contributors are driven "absolutely crazy" when their boss gives them a new project, with unspoken expectations they'll complete previously assigned tasks on time as well. "That leaves employees feeling overwhelmed and out of control." To help avoid that, as soon as a manager asks an employee to start working on another project, the manager should emphasize that the employee is to stop working on something else and agree on what will be moved lower on the list of active priorities.
 
If a manager fails to do so, he said employees should push back, lest their priorities become murky and they jeopardize performance. "When you're working on one project, you're not working on another," Murphy said. "It's okay for priorities to change, but being adaptive means that you say, 'Here's the new priority; start working on this and stop working on that.'"
 
However, Gillespie said he is not sure if many managers actually discuss new assignments and how they impact previously assigned projects with employees especially since, more often than not, managers themselves may not be fully aware of the big picture.
 
As a manager, it's important to avoid making short-term decisions that will punish a firm in the long term, said Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor professor of management, director, Center for Human Resources, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. "At the moment, it's hard for organizations to do these things because they're so focused on the immediate crisis and getting through it." He said there is a big risk in being out of step with your organization. "You're taking the long view, and they're focused on cost cutting - you end up being one of the costs cut."
 
When everyone is tightening their belts, one of the first things typically to get cut is the training and development budgets, said Baukus. "Somehow, we've all acknowledged that's normal and smart business." However, he said that this year, Western Union's senior management team increased the size of his training and development budget, going against accepted concepts of leadership, which often fly in the face of tightening things down.
 
Especially during periods of chaos, Downey said his organization, CH2M Hill, looks hard at where it can give employees a choice. Doing so helps make them feel involved, which can help secure their buy-in for projects, strengthen teams and generate better ideas. Further, he said allowing decisions to be made at the lowest appropriate level is a key to employee involvement.
 
Like many organizations, tw telecom in Littleton, Colo., a provider of managed voice and data networking business solutions, believes strongly in empowering employees, said Laura Coburn, vice president of talent management. Currently, the company is standardizing its work order process. The project is being managed by a cross-functional team of employees responsible for some part of the process.
 
Further, anyone above the level of vice president has been asked to stay out of the way to allow the development team to identify and implement the improvements, said Coburn, who explained that will enable the employees closest to the work to improve the process. The initiative seems to be working. "Even in this troubled economy, the company continues to grow revenue, deliver impressive margins and generate solid cash flow," she said.
 
 
[About the Author: Chuck Green is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26534 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:42 pm
Subject: Article: Organizational Culture: Life and Death? 		harvinderjit...
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Organizational Culture: Life and Death?
by Joe Frontiera and Dan Leidl
 
Sometimes it takes a series of events so unfathomable for reality to truly hit home.
 
Just ask France Telecom. Since the beginning of 2008, 24 employees at the company have committed suicide and an additional 13 have attempted suicide. Many of these victims left suicide notes implying the company's working environment was a key factor in their decisions - one even explicitly cited "overwork, stress, absence of training and the total disorganization in the company." Some of the attempts occurred on France Telecom premises.
 
In September, the telecom giant announced the launch of a training program that will teach its 22,000 managers to recognize signs of depression. However, this reactive measure is akin to handing out first-aid kits. It addresses the symptom rather than the root problem: The organization's culture is quite literally toxic, slowly suffocating its employees.
 
Culture is a critical and often misunderstood element of business. A "good culture" is one where the values of the organization mirror the values of its employees and leaders, guiding appropriate behavior while strengthening commitment. A "negative culture" is one in which competing values, such as honesty and dishonesty, exist and lead to anxiety, undesired behaviors and an uncomfortable working environment.
 
As France Telecom's situation would indicate, a negative culture can have a disastrous impact on the workforce and the organization at large. Luckily, culture is learned, and for this reason, learning leaders can have a profound impact on an organization's culture.
 
Here are four signs that a corporate culture may be in distress:
 
1. High turnover.
To reduce turnover, businesses often take the strategy of improving the interviewing and on-boarding process, assuming that employees leave because they weren't the right fit to begin with. However, there's a good chance that recently departed employees had the appropriate talents and skills for their position, but disliked the environment. Properly phrased exit interview questions can go a long way toward identifying specifics within the environment that pushed an employee away.
 
2. Low motivation.
With the continued economic uncertainty, many employees may feel trapped in their current positions. There are common-sense methods to assess motivation. Learning executives should speak with a cross section of organizational figureheads as well as with employees directly to get an idea of engagement throughout the company. These conversations can also help determine the most effective motivators - i.e., fear, paycheck, love of job.
 
3. Minimal communication.
In organizations where information is power, it is a closely guarded resource and released reluctantly. This dynamic can lead to redundancies, wasted time and effort, and stifled innovation. Furthermore, the flow of information is often one way, which can leave lower-level workers with the sense that they are a commodity rather than a valued asset.
 
4. Failure to address problems.
We've seem it in countless organizations: the underperforming employee who continually gets glowing letters of recommendation in order to facilitate transfers to different departments; the leader who desires to put an employee on a performance plan but can't due to a lack of prior documentation; the manager who rules with an iron fist and has successfully terrified all who report to him or her. When individuals fail to confront known issues, it sets a precedent with negative long-term consequences.
 
Along with identifying and eradicating these concerns, CLOs are in a unique position to proactively spearhead positive cultural maintenance efforts. There are two simple strategies to maintain a healthy culture:
 
1. Reinforce cultural values.
Learning programs have the potential to reinforce cultural values and norms, thereby increasing employee commitment and engagement. By integrating organizational values into training programs - for example, presenting case studies that emphasize key values and behaviors - CLOs may advance cultural expectations while addressing learning objectives.
 
2. Be the mirror for business leaders.
At times, leaders may not be aware that the values they are communicating through decisions and actions are contradictory to the promoted values of the organization. This can wreak havoc. A CLO can ensure that values communicated through both decisions and actions align with the values that are openly promoted throughout the organization. When they don't align, a CLO can be the mirror for that decision maker, pointing out the alternate values that may be communicated. This takes a certain level of skill, but the benefits in what the organization can avoid are enormous.
 
Didier Lombard, France Telecom's current CEO, has said of the company's working environment: "The pressure is necessary because we have to compete on the world market." A CLO might have informed him that his goals can also be achieved through a properly trained and motivated workforce. Even in a highly competitive industry, achieving business objectives and creating a supportive, positive work environment do not need to be considered exclusive end goals. In fact, one might argue they're inextricably linked.
 
 
[About the Authors: Joe Frontiera and Dan Leidl are the managing partners of Meno Consulting, a firm specializing in leadership development, organizational culture and team building.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26533 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:21 pm
Subject: Article: Challenges in Identifying Potential Leadership 		harvinderjit...
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Challenges in Identifying Potential Leadership
by Dan MacDonald
 
When leaders are chosen, the decision can at times be based on the wrong criteria. Many look to people with strong, charismatic personalities or passion for personal achievement. They look to people who are commanding or who manage the efforts of others well. Some people even look to physical attributes as an indication of leadership ability.
 
The misconceptions of what makes a person a good leader are not limited to these factors. They also include our choices of personality characteristics. Some see great leaders as people who can mesmerize a crowd with their stage performance, who can make those around them relax with their confidence, or who can think circles around other senior people in the organization.
 
In reality, these traits and characteristics are not indicators of great leaders. Rather, great leaders are characterized by their focus on integrity over stage performance; passion for what is best for the company over self-importance; humility and passing forward credit over ego; and empowering their people to make decisions on their behalf. There have been numerous books written, research conducted and data compiled that point to these findings; however, even extraordinary companies with insightful, intelligent and experienced boards of directors and senior executives have erroneously chosen leaders based on their perception of leadership capabilities.
 
Leaders can either drive organizations to market capitalization of hundreds of millions of dollars or to losses equally as great. It is hard to dispute that leadership plays a vital role in the success of a company, yet many organizations do not have systems in place to identify and develop potential future leaders.
 
Few people can pick great leaders, so the question remains: How do organizations create a system for identifying great leaders in the early stages of their development? Do they use psychometrics profiles to identify the leaders with the best traits and fast track them on a path to more senior roles? Do they let the people inside or outside the organization decide who will be the next leader? Many decisions must be made, but before making these decisions, organizations must be aware of their faults in choosing leaders.
 
Organizations need new ways of deciding who will be a leader, as leadership impacts the organization as a whole. Hard-working employees rely on their leaders to make the right choices for the company and ensure the employees have a future with the organization.
 
It's difficult to know the right answers, but it's clear that investing in the development of potential future leaders will provide a company with advantages over organizations that hire people from outside to fill internal leadership roles. As a result, companies are turning to post-secondary institutions to assist them in developing their leaders from within. Forward-thinking companies are already realizing the benefits that can be achieved by investing in their people and consequently the future of their organization.
 
 
[About the Author: Dan MacDonald is president of Business Improvement Solutions (BIS), an Alberta-based training and development company. He is the co-author of three books: Leadership, Management, and Success.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26532 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:36 pm
Subject: Article: Tapping Into Research for Innovation 		harvinderjit...
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Tapping Into Research for Innovation
by Sharon M. Ravitch
 
How can the CLO conduct company research that will serve as a sustainable driver of innovation?
 
In an increasingly global, interconnected corporate milieu, the role of the chief learning officer is becoming more complex. The challenges that CLOs face, and the need to meet these challenges through evidence-based means, require both a mindset and a capacity for rigorous research.
 
The mindset necessitates that CLOs develop the awareness, knowledge base, skills and methodological savvy to encourage a more informed, evidence-based professional practice. Otherwise known as an "inquiry stance" - a term coined by Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle in their journal article "Relationships of Knowledge and Practice: Teacher Learning in Communities" - this mindset can help recast companies as learning organizations that value qualitative research for its ability to provide textured data about people's perspectives, experiences, decisions, roles and needs, as well as quantitative metrics to measure performance toward strategic objectives. Adopting an inquiry stance requires that CLOs:
 
1. Expand their own and others' skill sets so that decisions are grounded in evidence about effective approaches and best practices.
 
2. Deepen their knowledge base about the backgrounds, perspectives and needs of their various constituencies within and outside of their companies.
 
3. Cultivate strategies to engage themselves and their counterparts in active and meaningful professional development regarding evidence generation, data analysis and data-based execution.
 
4. Deepen and broaden their own understanding of what research entails so they can offer a broad palette of approaches and options well-tailored to the company's information needs.
 
5. Learn how to develop research agendas and customized research plans, as well as how to facilitate research teams.
 
Practitioner Research Defined and Carried Out
 
Practitioner research is the name given to a systematic discovery process that emerges from assessing problems or concerns within a work setting. The goals of practitioner research are the understanding and improvement of practice, as well as the initiation of an informed change process.
 
Practitioner research has the potential to generate genuine and sustained improvements in organizational settings. It provides new opportunities for stakeholders to reflect on and assess their work; to explore and test new ideas, methods and materials; to assess the effectiveness of new approaches; to share feedback with colleagues; and to make decisions about strategies for professional development, assessment plans, service delivery models and policy changes.
 
Example One: Culture Clashes Explicated
 
Imagine that a U.S.-based corporation, the giant in its industry, acquires another large national company. As the acquisition proceeds, pushback from the acquired company impedes the integration process, especially confounding knowledge transfer and communication pathways.
 
The CLO decides to intervene in what was becoming a costly and increasingly hostile chasm between companies. He designs a qualitative research investigation of the companies' respective cultures and succeeds in positioning the research project's findings to leverage a revised change management plan. Through an intensive six-week study, a carefully selected representative sample of executives, middle management and front-line employees is interviewed in one-on-one and focus group formats. The interviews are intended to elicit perspectives, concerns and needs with respect to the short- and long-term future of the newly merged business. Let's say that an observational component, consisting of walk-throughs focused on corporate culture, was conducted as well.
 
Now imagine that one discovery that emerged from this process was that promises were made early on from the top of the house that were not kept across sectors. This failure, combined with multiple moves that were experienced as hostile by employees at the acquired firm, created considerable mistrust and resistance. However, the interviews and focus groups provided insightful data about employees' concerns and clear recommendations for improvement.
 
While third parties were hired to conduct the interviews and focus groups - for their impartial perspective, as well as their perceived neutrality - selected executives and high-level management were involved in a collaborative data analysis stage. Results were shared with all employees as a way to open dialogue and demonstrate the company's renewed commitment to transparency and trustworthy communication.
 
Example Two: The Problem Is Inside
 
Let's say another large U.S.-based company was adapting to the new reality of it being one of many players in an industry undergoing contraction and consolidation. The company was at a loss for how to respond. Now imagine the CLO suggests that the company engage in a needs-assessment process, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data; prior company research had been entirely quantitative, collected by surveys.
 
A needs-assessment design was carefully created to examine, among other issues, how major business drivers and industry trends affected employees, from the top to the middle of the house. The study combined qualitative data gleaned from observation, interviews and focus groups with quantitative data from surveys. From the results of this inquiry process, the company discovered that its biggest issues were less external - the bad economy, macro trends - than internal. There was eye-opening consensus that major barriers to success stemmed from the company's business model and its culture.
 
Major weaknesses - including siloed organizational functioning, competitiveness undermining collaboration and punitive sanctions rewarding isolation - were identified, and a strategic plan was developed. The study's qualitative insights enabled the company to get beyond decontextualized survey data and re-energized its efforts to adapt.
 
The Evidence-Based CLO
 
These two fictional examples demonstrate how a data-based understanding of corporate culture, structure and functioning can lead to improved organizational focus. The need for companies to view themselves as learning organizations - and to understand how this stance on knowledge can foster growth and development - is the raison d'etre of the CLO role.
 
In a recent special issue on "Managing in the New World," Harvard Business Review offered numerous insights into the value of workplace research and the role of the CLO. In an article titled "Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis," authors Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky said that new models and modes of leadership are a necessary response to new accountability demands. To be successful, leaders must "foster adaptation, helping people develop the 'next practices' that will enable the organization to thrive in a new world, even as they continue with the best practices necessary for current success," they wrote.
 
To develop these next practices, companies must adopt a more receptive sensibility, grounded in enhanced understanding of the perspectives and experiences at all levels of their settings. Learning leaders must infuse insights from workplace research to help their institutions restructure and re-energize.
 
Hitting the reset button requires a practical understanding of how new business models will be experienced, taking into account the perspectives of an array of stakeholders within the contexts in which these perspectives are shaped.
 
"The issues themselves are more than disembodied facts and analysis," wrote Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky. "People's competencies, loyalties, and direct stakes lie behind them. In a period of turmoil, you must look beyond the merits of an issue to understand the interests, fears, aspirations, and loyalties of the factions that have formed around it. [This] requires that you create a culture of courageous conversations. Executives need to listen to unfamiliar voices and set the tone for candor and risk taking."
 
But how does the company accomplish this? How does the CLO engender and actively support a culture of courageous conversations? How does the CLO focus these conversations so they are generative?
 
Overcoming Barriers to Workplace Research
 
CLOs often wish to develop stronger evidence to guide their decision making, but they don't know where to begin. Or it seems too complicated, expensive or time-intensive. Overcoming these common barriers to more evidence-based decision making is key to making workplace research a mindset rather than a series of isolated projects. One helpful strategy is to re-establish the central role of the company's basic and applied research. Further, the CLO should have data to support the value of workplace research in his or her specific industry. These data, taken from actual case studies and existing studies, help make a strong argument for research-based initiatives.
 
A CLO also must understand how concerns in the workplace can be developed into researchable questions answered through workplace studies. Familiarity with cutting-edge workplace research designs and methodological skills, understanding of time and resource constraints, and knowledge of how and when others' involvement can be achieved can help position workplace research as a strong ROI step. The most crucial consideration, however, is being able to align methods with the study questions.
 
Consider the following example. Andrew is a CLO for a youth marketing company. Over time, he has grown increasingly concerned about a mismatch between the cultural backgrounds of the company's leaders and their clients. He feels the lack of understanding of youth culture might impact the company's ability to provide services that are resonant and, therefore, profitable. Andrew designs a study to examine client backgrounds and expectations of marketing services. What follows are the steps he would take to engage in this kind of work-based research.
 
1. Identify and refine research questions.
Andrew would develop research questions about his company's client base and the relationship between the clients' cultures and the cultures of his company's personnel. Possible questions include: How does culture influence youths' perspectives on services and products? What are the multiple cultures of youth, and how can the company better understand and relate to them? Andrew would vet these questions by a selected task force in the company, seeking representation from various functions and levels. Their input helps develop more complex questions and facilitate buy-in and engagement.
 
2. Review existing knowledge.
Andrew would read about youth culture broadly as well as subcultures specifically. If possible, he also would read anything written about the many diverse cultures of his company's employees. A review of literature is often the first step in the development of a research design. Engagement with the literature ideally happens before, during and after data are collected.
 
3. Develop a research design.
Andrew and his colleagues would decide on the population for the study. This is called participant selection. He would choose a representative group of young people and employees to study over a selected period of time. This would give him a range of perspectives and a deeper level of insight into these individuals' experiences in relation to the products and services of his company. Then, as suggested by Joseph A. Maxwell in Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach, Andrew would choose methods for data collection, aiming for "triangulation" with multiple, intersecting sources to enhance validity. He would also map out a timeline for the study.
 
4. Collect data.
Data collection methods would likely include survey data from a broad base of youth and employees; interviews or focus groups - ideally, recorded and transcribed - with a subset sample of youth and employees, which Andrew would need to explain are voluntary and non-evaluative; and the ongoing writing of reflective notes that relate to the guiding research questions.
 
5. Analyze data.
Once data collection is complete, Andrew and his colleagues would analyze the data, looking for themes that emerge within and across the various data sources. The team would engage in structured readings of the themes to develop inductive categories of analysis that help uncover new knowledge and understanding. Ideally, some of this data analysis would happen in an initial stage of the analytical process, resulting in formative data analysis, which can influence subsequent data collection instruments in ways that can enhance the data set.
 
6. Report findings.
Andrew and his team would write up findings in the form of a research report, examining and organizing what has been learned about the driving issue in light of the data. The report would include a specific section on the implications for the company's strategic plan and day-to-day functioning. Ideally, members of the team would be involved in an inquiry group with other colleagues for additional interpretations and to generate new professional development opportunities.
 
To increase companies' flow of information and foment the collaborative development of solutions - effectively pushing innovation from the inside by engaging employees in the structured pursuit of increased understanding - CLOs must understand the value and possibilities for workplace research. They must be intentional and strategic proponents of this kind of research. And they must be able to invite people into a process of discovery that has the potential to reinvigorate the workplace and transform both individual and group functioning.
 
 
[About the Author: Sharon M. Ravitch, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer and director of executive leadership development at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26531 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2009 7:54 pm
Subject: Article: Qualifying the Next Successor 		harvinderjit...
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Qualifying the Next Successor
by Marshall Goldsmith, Ph.D.
 
Three qualifying questions you can ask to determine if behavior coaching may be useful in the development of your successor:
 
1. Do you really want him or her to be the next CEO?
2. Will the individual be given a fair chance by key stakeholders?
3. And is the individual willing to make an authentic effort to change, specifically those in-spite-of behaviors?
 
Let's examine how the answer to the first question - Do you really want him or her to be the next CEO? - might play out.
 
A major CEO asked me to coach his CFO and potential successor. But after just a few minutes, I got the distinct feeling the CEO didn't like the CFO and didn't really want him to get the job.
 
I was frank, and I told the CEO, "I don't think you like this guy."
 
His reply didn't come with a great deal of conviction. "He may not be my favorite person, but I guess I like him OK."
 
"If you really don't want him to get this job, why are we having this conversation?" I challenged. "I don't know this guy. I don't care if he becomes the CEO or not. Why would you want me to coach him - or to work on developing him as your successor - if you really don't want him to have the job?"
 
"You are right!" he grunted. "I don't like this guy. I think that he is kind of a jerk."
 
I asked again, why are we having this conversation? He said, "I don't like him much, but I have to admit, he has made a tremendous contribution to our company. We have done a fantastic turnaround - and without him, it would have been impossible. If you can really help him improve his interpersonal skills, he deserves to be CEO of the company."
 
I had misgivings about the CEO's sincerity, but I worked with the CFO for more than a year. At the end of my assignment, he was seen as making great improvements in all his targeted areas for interpersonal change by 15 out of 16 raters. Only one person saw no change. Guess who that was? The CEO.
 
After the CFO confronted the CEO with his obvious improvement in interpersonal relationships, the CEO still did not recommend him for the job. The CEO reluctantly admitted the CFO had made great improvement - which was clearly documented and hard to dispute - but he now concluded the CFO lacked "adequate marketing skills." This was the same CEO who told me the CFO's marketing skills were just fine one year earlier.
 
Needless to say, the CFO was incensed. He pointed out that he had been assured he would get the "big job" if he improved his interpersonal skills. He mentioned that he turned down other, lucrative offers since he assumed he would get the CEO position. He went to the board, pointed out what happened, and basically said, "Either make me the new CEO - or write me an extremely large check."
 
He was paid off by the board, which cost the company millions of dollars. Since he had clearly improved, I was paid for my work as his coach. But I still wished I hadn't taken the assignment. In hindsight, I felt I was used as a pawn in a political game. The CEO believed the CFO would not improve, and then he could say, "Well, we tried to help him and he didn't improve, therefore he is not ready for the job."
 
When the CFO did improve, the CEO had to play the embarrassing "lacks marketing skills" card. My work, and the CFO's great effort, ended up costing the company a lot of money.
 
Since that event, I have had other experiences that have reinforced my belief that if the CEO doesn't want a potential successor to get the job, he or she should not, under any circumstances, suggest otherwise.
 
Don't jerk around potential successors. It's not fair to them or to the company. If, in your heart, you don't want the person to be your successor, don't pretend to be interested in developing that individual for the job. Work with someone you can support. If you can't find a successor internally whom you can sincerely support, go to the outside immediately and start recruiting some new talent.
 
 
[About the Author: Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. He is the author or co-editor of 24 books, including Succession: Are You Ready?]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26530 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sat Nov 14, 2009 8:02 pm
Subject: Article: Eight Tips for Effective Performance Feedback 		harvinderjit...
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Eight Tips for Effective Performance Feedback
by Steve Lopez
 
Delivering performance reviews - in a formal manner on an annual basis or as part of a weekly feedback session - can generate anxiety for even the most seasoned talent managers and HR professionals. Still, increasing the frequency and quality of performance reviews will go a long way toward ensuring a high-performance workforce.
 
Here are eight tips that can help better prepare managers to deliver meaningful performance reviews and, ultimately, improve the development and morale of their employees.
 
1. Do your homework.
In order to assess an employee's performance, managers need a comprehensive view of their employees' work throughout the time frame being reviewed and should collect all relevant information before moving forward.
 
2. Look at the whole picture.
When reviewing an employee or contingent worker, managers must consider work, skills and demonstrated effort. It's important not only to consider how well the employee fulfilled his or her job responsibilities, but also how this employee's performance compares with that of others in the same job. Which competencies were demonstrated that supported or enhanced performance? Also, did the employee seek to align his or her behavior with the values of the company, demonstrating a desire to drive better results and greater efficiencies?
 
3. Create the right setting.
Performance reviews should be conducted behind a closed door. As eager as managers may be to deliver well-prepared feedback, they must remember to listen as much as they talk so that the performance review is conversational.
 
4. Communicate expectations and results clearly.
Managers can reduce the inherent subjectivity by discussing and agreeing on as many measurable results as possible. For example, if the stated goal for a sales representative was to make 10 new prospect sales calls per week, then it's harder to argue about results when performance review time rolls around and, on average, only three weekly calls were made.
 
5. Include the positive.
To keep employees motivated, managers must recognize their accomplishments. This extends to all members of the workforce: temp workers, consultants, traditional employees and subcontractors. Additionally, while performance reviews should be conducted in private, positive feedback is often best served in front of others.
 
6. Make feedback frequent and informal.
Going an entire year without feedback is like having a toothache in need of a dentist. Employees need to know how they're performing in their jobs - and this is especially true in the case of new employees or temporary workers, who need to have early feedback on a regular basis.
 
7. Keep documentation.
Detailed records should be kept to document any performance problems as well as progress and accomplishments discussed. These records need to be dated and the corresponding expectations and next checkpoint noted. This will not only serve to refresh a manager's memory, but it can also serve as documentation in the event of promotional opportunities or legal or disciplinary actions that could develop.
 
8. Plan for the future.
Managers must ensure that discussions for future development are actionable by turning them into development plan documents, in concert with the respective employee. They must be clear about expectations regarding results, evidence and timing of progress.
 
 
[About the Author: Steve Lopez is vice president at Veritude, a provider of temporary staffing, direct hire and managed services programs. He has more than 20 years of experience specializing in the areas of leadership and organizational development.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (1)
#26529 From: "Raghav Rao" <gvlr_99@...>
Date: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:43 pm
Subject: Is Facebook a time waster ? 		gvlr_99
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Is Facebook a time waster ?

  Friends,

  Social networking has created a huge amount of opportunities to virtually
connect with anyone who is open to network with fellow professionals.

  On the flip side we also know that it consumes lot of time, energy and effort
to sustain the network.

  Question :

  Do you thin Facebook a waste of time for employees ?
  What are the benefits Company gets ?
  What are the benefits Employee gets ?

Reposting with the correct link to the article..

http://hrinindia.blogspot.com/2009/11/facebook-wastes-employees-time-do-you.html

  What should be the HR policy to be practised where it is found that employees
are increasingly spending more time on social networking tools.

  For full article on the subject http://preview.tinyurl.com/FB-time-waster.
Here we are not discussing about professional networks like LI.

  Thanks for your time and effort

  Raghav
  Sr HR Consultant
  Bangalore India

   +91.9880080321

  Read www.hrinindia.blogspot.com
  Follow www.twitter.com/Raghav_HRGuru

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (1)
#26528 From: "suryaprasanna" <surya_mcse@...>
Date: Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:07 am
Subject: Re: Do you think Facebook is a time waster ? 		suryaprasanna
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If we look with a systems perspective the processes and the data flow between
the processes should be very important.
In this case we do not know much about the processes in the system so it is very
difficult to answer such questions (they may be biased).
The effect of facebook will be different for different types of organizations as
most of the organizations have different processes.

If we take an example of a recruitment company which headhunts candidates and
places them in different organizations. Then the boundaries and environment are
more clear.

do you think that facebook is a waste of time for employees?
It would be a great tool for finding prospective candidates, there would be a
lot of false profiles , but screening is the job of the recruitment consultant
(interviews, questionnaires etc). We can take the example of many credit
companies, In Australia organizations are hiring people to go through facebook
and other social networking profiles to find out the bad creditors who have gone
hiding. Even police are using facebook for finding out more about criminals.

What are the benefits the company gets?
Again, this depends on the processes of the company. In the recruitment
consultant scenario the benefit would be more prospective candidates.

What are the benefits the employees gets?
Facebook will make the employees more motivated. If we take into account the
Maslows need hierarchy the social needs of an individual are quite important,
hence it is important for the employess.

In conclusion , facebook would be great if used in a proper way to attain the
goals of organization. Facebook makes it very easy to detour but it is the job
of a good employee to be in line and on goal.
The onus remains on the HR department of the organization to select and retain a
perfect employee for the organizations need.

note: sorry if I was off topic as the link which was provided by Raghav did not
work

--- In HRinIndia@yahoogroups.com, "Raghav Rao" <gvlr_99@...> wrote:
>
>
> Is Facebook a time waster ?
>
> Friends,
>
> Social networking has created a huge amount of opportunities to virtually
connect with anyone who is open to network with fellow professionals.
>
> On the flip side we also know that it consumes lot of time, energy and effort
to sustain the network.
>
> Question :
>
> Do you thin Facebook a waste of time for employees ?
> What are the benefits Company gets ?
> What are the benefits Employee gets ?
>
> What should be the HR policy to be practised where it is found that employees
are increasingly spending more time on social networking tools.
>
> For full article on the subject http://preview.tinyurl.com/FB-time-waster. 
Here we are not discussing about professional networks like LI.
>
> Thanks for your time and effort
>
> Raghav
> Sr HR Consultant
> Bangalore India
>
> raghav@...
>  +91.9880080321
>
> Read www.hrinindia.blogspot.com
> Follow www.twitter.com/Raghav_HRGuru
>

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (2)
#26527 From: "Raghav Rao" <gvlr_99@...>
Date: Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:35 pm
Subject: Do you think Facebook is a time waster ? 		gvlr_99
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email
  
Is Facebook a time waster ?

Friends,

Social networking has created a huge amount of opportunities to virtually
connect with anyone who is open to network with fellow professionals.

On the flip side we also know that it consumes lot of time, energy and effort to
sustain the network.

Question :

Do you thin Facebook a waste of time for employees ?
What are the benefits Company gets ?
What are the benefits Employee gets ?

What should be the HR policy to be practised where it is found that employees
are increasingly spending more time on social networking tools.

For full article on the subject http://preview.tinyurl.com/FB-time-waster.  Here
we are not discussing about professional networks like LI.

Thanks for your time and effort

Raghav
Sr HR Consultant
Bangalore India

raghav@...
  +91.9880080321

Read www.hrinindia.blogspot.com
Follow www.twitter.com/Raghav_HRGuru

Reply | Forward | Messages in this Topic (2)
#26526 From: "uditc" <uditnc@...>
Date: Mon Nov 2, 2009 5:40 am
Subject: Re: Article: The Three C's of Coaching for Managers 		uditc
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Group,

Managers in today's context, who are often finding their feet above other
priorities, must realise the importance of their own coaching efforts to be
secure as well as effective.

Udit

--- In HRinIndia@yahoogroups.com, Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
wrote:
>
>
>
> The Three C's of Coaching for Managers
> by Erin Green
>  
> As employers ask managers to step up and coach their employees, they need to
have a clear idea of the sometimes conflicting goals of coaching.
>  
> "There are two clients in every coaching engagement - the individual who's
being developed and the organization that has goals," said Paul Gorrell,
principal at Partners in Human Resources International, a member of OI Partners,
and co-author of The Coaching Connection. "The challenge is through [this]
singular process satisfying two distinct clients."
>  
> In the book, Gorrell develops the idea of contextual coaching, which tries to
bring the organization into the coaching situation and make sure the focus is
not entirely on the individual.
>  
> He said there are three C's to the contextual coaching method that managers
can follow to develop employees.
>  
> 1. Convince
> Employees may not be used to receiving coaching because it's rare for a
manager to provide it at a high level. "Because there hasn't been a coaching
culture in the management-employee relationship in most companies, first the
manager has to convince the individual to buy in to the process, to want to
really participate in a development process that is beyond simply the
performance coaching they may be used to," he said.
>  
> 2. Craft
> Managers also may not be used to providing coaching, so they should take the
time to learn the basics before meeting with employees. "They have to understand
how to create rapport around the focus of the work; they have to have incredible
empathy skills and the ability to be directive at times and to get the
individual to really create plans around their growth," Gorrell said.
>  
> 3. Context
> This is the whole basis for this sort of coaching model. "[Managers] have to
work with that individual in terms of the larger organizational context and the
more global context beyond that of best practices in their field," he said.
>  
> While Gorrell encourages coaching on the fly, he said effective coaching over
the long term requires upfront work and a plan developed with insight into how
an employee can grow within the organization.
>  
> Overall, Gorrell suggested managers go into the coaching process with an
organization development mindset. "What they need to do," he said, "is look at
some core elements of the organization that have either impact on the individual
or are core concerns of that individual."
>  
> These elements may include, for example, the company's strategy or culture or
the teams an individual is a part of.
>  
> While coaching may take time out of the day for both the manager and the
individual, it is an investment that pays off in the long run.
>  
> "The investment is around getting an employee engaged in both the stuff they
have to do right now to be successful and the things that are about their
long-term career growth, and to really see that tied with the company - that's a
retention tool," Gorrell said.
>  
> "Engagement [is now] often about productivity. Coaching is a great way to
invest in getting people to be more productive and really energizing a team."
>  
>  
> [About the Author: Erin Green is a senior editor for Talent Management
magazine.]
>  
> Regards,
> Harvinder
> http://harvinderjit.multiply.com
>

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#26525 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:19 pm
Subject: Article: Beyond Engagement: Using Surveys to Drive Strategy 		harvinderjit...
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Beyond Engagement: Using Surveys to Drive Strategy
by Jon Brickner and Joe Dettmann
 
Looking at employee engagement can be scary these days, but improvement is possible with the right approach.
 
Recent global workforce studies have identified a growing engagement gap - posing a real threat for organizations amid a struggling economy. According to research published by the Corporate Leadership Council this year, since 2005, the number of employees exhibiting high levels of discretionary effort has dropped by half, and disengaged employees are 24 percent less likely to quit than they were in 2006. A recent Towers Perrin study of nearly 90,000 employees globally reports that only 1 in 5 employees is giving full discretionary effort on the job, and nearly 40 percent of employees are disenchanted or disengaged - lacking the rational, emotional and motivational connections to the company that drive discretionary effort.
 
But there are intimations of hope. Studies also clearly establish that organizational attributes like leadership, career and professional development, and the kind of work culture and reputation a company creates play a significant role in shaping employees' level of engagement and behavior. Perhaps most encouraging is that employees worldwide report that they want to give more, but also want to see a clear and measurable return for their effort.
 
It's HR's challenge to deliver on this desire - aligning global employees so that their relationship with their organization, its leadership and their general work experience are mutually rewarding. HR rises to meet this challenge amid pressure to accelerate its own evolution toward being a strategic business driver balanced with the budget-tightening and high-performance mandates happening in nearly every organization. This collective of challenges creates "the perfect storm" for re-evaluating critical HR processes. Amway and Towers Perrin recently collaborated to manage the storm and discovered how the employee survey process can be as important as the destination. In the face of pressure to optimize investment and maximize value, Amway successfully launched a fresh approach to conducting an employee survey - one that goes beyond engagement to strategically align and drive the business.
 
The Challenge
 
Aligning and engaging employees are intimately coupled, and as a pair they are a necessary condition for business success. When these occur, people become an important source of competitive advantage. Amway has remained committed to the employee survey process - making the transition from measuring satisfaction to measuring engagement in the early 2000s. But in the current economic context, the decentralized survey approach and cost structure brought the priority of the survey process into question. Rather than simply addressing the obvious concern of a central administration, HR leveraged this opportunity to re-evaluate the entire survey process, taking a strategic approach to integrate it with business outcomes top of mind to leadership.
 
Principles Guide Action
 
Taking a thoughtful look at the goals, roles and processes of the current state of the survey produced a new set of principles that guided the design and implementation of the Amway global survey.
 
1. Integration
Reaching beyond engagement into other tenets of Amway's enterprise strategy immediately increased the perceived value of the survey among leaders - placing survey results on par with other key strategic and financial measures. Every survey question now measures something that matters to doing business at Amway, and the resulting insights are being fed into critical value streams, such as strategic planning, business innovations and consumer research functions. With on-boarding as a priority for newly hired leaders and associates, the survey was also used to raise awareness of and measure Amway's core values.
 
2. Alignment
Prior to the current year employee survey, Amway used a decentralized survey approach, with individual geographic markets administering surveys at different times. This led to inconsistent, and hence incomparable, survey questions and an overly myopic focus. Rather than just building a better Amway-China or Amway-North America, the team sought to build a better Amway culture globally. Aligning on a consistent set of survey questions enabled apples-to-apples comparisons across markets. Additionally, an intentional, proactive global survey brand, which allowed for some local adaptation, generated significant trust and participation among employees globally. Individual country operations were aligned through common global benchmarking compared to global high-performing companies, whose culture Amway seeks to emulate. Finally, using a standard set of analyses and reporting displays focused leaders on those most important cultural elements that will drive Amway's strategic and financial success.
 
3. Discovery
To shift the perception of ownership on the survey, the survey team shifted the experience of discovering survey insights from HR to leadership, using technology as the conduit. This technology was kept simple so that leaders would want to engage with the data and the most salient, relevant information surfaced quickly - allowing leaders to discover specifically what issues impact movement of strategic outcomes. Analytic techniques like linear multiple regressions were at play behind the scenes, while the user interface displayed a clean, customized predictor map.
 
4. Execution
In addition to the strategic intent behind the design of the survey, there was also a focus on organizational effectiveness throughout the process - including the rollout structure, the role of the HR business partner and leveraging technology to enable the process. To further executive support for the process, Amway's office of chief executives assembled a global leadership team to address the most pressing systemic global issue. Beyond this, local leaders, within a guided framework and supported by tools, followed a traditional approach of local action planning.
 
To prepare client-facing HR consultants for the rollout of results, Amway focused on the coach and techno-navigator role in the data insight and action planning process. To lend credibility to the coaching process, building basic statistical acumen and an understanding of different analytic techniques was a major component of the HR consultant training.
 
The role of technology itself was critical in the result-to-action process. To get buy-in and involvement in the results of the survey, a simple and intuitive interface was designed for the standard electronic reporting tool. The interface visually reinforced the survey brand and walked Amway leaders through the result-to-action process. Taking a Turbo Tax-like approach to technology, any less-than-necessary bells and whistles were turned off, statistical language was simplified and customized export features like a one-click PowerPoint presentation were added to make the user experience pleasant enough for technically challenged, time-conscious leaders to stomach.
 
Results
 
Many of the benefits of conducting an employee survey can be difficult to quantify in the form of a hard return - such as an employee understanding the vision of the business and, in the spirit of that vision, choosing to stay late to finish a project. Yet guiding the survey process through the principles stated herein, many of the benefits were an easier sell to leadership. With "softer" benefits more readily apparent to and accepted by leaders, the survey team was also able to realize some overt returns. These include:
 
a) Administration savings
Moving from staggered, paper-based administration to global, online administration saved $500,000 in contract costs.
 
b) Implementation savings
Creating a simple, customized, dynamic reporting tool saved an estimated 1,770 hours in running and debriefing additional reports (approximately $70,000).
 
c) Response rate increase
Despite the transition from paper to online administration, consistent and proactive messaging raised global response rates 4 percent (to 87 percent overall). In some markets, the response jumped as much as 10 percent.
 
d) Correlation to business results
Strong correlations exist between Amway's survey categories, strategic priorities and business outcomes (sales, net favorability, revenue).
 
e) Global trends, but local differences
Certain categories of questions, such as "living our values," universally predict engagement, while second and third order predictors vary by market.
 
Beyond cost savings, the global survey also yielded some insights worth noting. First, Amway achieved a response rate on par with some of the highest-performing companies in the world. Second, by employing data analytics, Amway leaders were able to link employee opinions to other business metrics, thus quantifying the impact of change in culture with change in these metrics. This had important implications for the types of actions leaders chose to pursue. Rather than focusing simply on the lowest-scoring questions, leaders focused on those issues with the greatest strategic impact on the business. Third, while Amway drives toward one strong global culture, some markets offered unique strengths to be leveraged across the business and others offered the opportunity to better align. Understanding different geographies in the context of country culture was important in not jumping to conclusions and helped to develop locally formed solutions that yield greater returns than a completely centralized approach.
 
Recommendations: Seven Steps to Optimizing Employee Surveys for Strategic Impact
 
1. Measure what matters to your business.
2. Integrate change management throughout the survey process.
3. Surface only the most relevant insights.
4. Rethink the roles of HR and leadership.
5. Leverage technology to do more with less.
6. Prioritize global findings over local ones.
7. Drive accountability.
 
The employee survey process, when guided by sound principles and thoughtful practice, can be utilized to close the engagement gap, position HR as a business driver, align global culture and drive high performance throughout an organization. Following a strategic survey framework, guided by principles of integration, alignment, discovery and execution, Amway was able to improve global participation, align culture and enroll more leaders in the ownership of and action against their survey results - all while realizing cost savings of more than half a million dollars. Sound science, supported by strong HR coaching and simple, intuitive tools and leadership accountability, sets the stage for aligning individuals and organizations for strategic and financial success.
 
 
[About the Authors: Jon Brickner is a consultant in global and learning development at Amway. Joe Dettmann is a senior consultant in Towers Perrin's organizational surveys and insights practice.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26524 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2009 6:09 pm
Subject: Article: Doing More With Less - Really! 		harvinderjit...
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Doing More With Less - Really!
by Bob Mosher
 
Ours is not an industry of parts and inventory. Trimming the bottom line is never an issue of simply reducing head count or closing classrooms. It also impacts the level of service we can provide.
 
I was recently speaking with a CLO friend of mine who said he was being asked to cut his budget by more than 50 percent while maintaining the same level of service. It doesn't seem possible that we could remove many of the standard learning services we've offered for years and still be able to provide a quality product.
 
But many learning professionals are being presented with similar challenges and are either coming up with creative new solutions or revisiting old models and trying to look at them in a new way. In fact, some may even save money while providing a whole new - potentially better - level of service. Let's examine a few of these ideas.
 
The uptake in online synchronous instruction is staggering of late. I don't think I have been to a conference, spoken to a fellow learning director or read a related article recently without some mention of moving brick-and-mortar classrooms online. After all, online virtual classroom instruction can do more than simply cut down on travel expenses. It can also increase learning in ways that the classroom may never have seen before.
 
The most powerful advantage here seems to be time. When designed correctly, online instruction builds independent and applied learning back into the "classroom" model in ways the standup classroom couldn't. In fact, many of the learning executives I've talked to who are using these new approaches say that, when done well, the actual online synchronous portion is no longer the most important or highest-impact part of the experience. It's there to stabilize and guide, but the real learning and return on the investment are realized when the learners take time between sessions to participate in group work or individual assignments in the context of their day-to-day jobs. This moves learning to a whole new level and maximizes an already cost-effective model.
 
Two natural offshoots of the virtual classroom are the use of social networking and performance support. The virtual classroom is at its best when learners are asked to take their learning beyond a one- to three-hour online session. Learners should be given the time to collaborate with their peers, share what they've learned and document best practices. These online communities, or communities of practice (CoP), are often very vibrant and sustainable because they were born out of a specific outcome and are bringing together learners of a like mind and experience.
 
However, CoPs can't be forced. The ones that have been formed for the sake of simply gathering tend to die on the vine. Conversely, those started in the classroom or online, since they have been driven out of common experiences and business outcomes, often grow into very powerful knowledge-sharing tools that far outlive and go beyond the original experience.
 
Performance support is the tie that binds. It's a cost-effective approach that allows learning departments to shorten class time while extending reach and effectiveness. Learners are taught to self-support, discover new findings and extend the classroom into their workplace in an applied way often not seen through traditional instruction. When blended appropriately,  I have seen performance support reduce class time by up to 75 percent. For example, I once worked with an organization that took a traditional 20-hour class and reduced it to a five-hour session, much of which could be done synchronously online when enhanced by a performance support strategy on the back end.
 
Smaller budgets and greater demands on learning departments will clearly affect the services we are allowed to offer. But in many cases, we can still offer a robust - and potentially more effective - product if we share best practices and take a new and creative look at existing methodologies.
 
 
[About the Author: Bob Mosher is global chief learning and strategy evangelist for LearningGuide Solutions and has been an influential leader in the IT training space for more than 15 years.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26523 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2009 6:01 pm
Subject: Article: The Five Rs of Effective Apology 		harvinderjit...
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The Five Rs of Effective Apology
by John Kador
 
Effective apologies are as unique as the offenses that inspire them, but they all have, in varying degrees, five dimensions. You will easily remember them if you think of the five Rs of effective apology: Recognition, Responsibility, Remorse, Restitution and Repetition.
 
Recognition
 
Acknowledging the offense - establishes that an offense requiring apology has been committed. To the offender this step may seem as obvious as the offense itself, and therefore it may be tempting to just get through the apology or "get on with it." But more often than not, skipping the recognition step results in a statement that just compounds the offense because it leaves the victim uncertain whether the apologizer understands why the victim is so upset.
 
Responsibility
 
The key to effective apology is taking responsibility for your role in the consequences of your behavior.
 
What distinguishes effective from half-hearted apologies is the integrity that offenders demonstrate when they look deep into their hearts and reckon uncompromisingly with what they find there. In fearlessly pushing away all excuses, the apologizer retains undiluted responsibility.
 
Underlying it all is the intention that the offender values the relationship and desires to rebuild it on terms agreeable to the victim.
 
Remorse
 
Signals the offender's contrition. Remorse is the feeling that we get when we realize that something we did hurt someone, that it was wrong and that we wish we could undo what we did.
 
Because there is no way to know whether someone else is experiencing remorse, we rely on a variety of verbal and nonverbal cues. By far, the most important verbal cue, without which a statement falls short of being an actual apology, is the phrase, "I'm sorry" or "I apologize." Using the words, "I'm sorry" or "I apologize," is pretty much nonnegotiable. It is, in fact, the entire reason for the apology and without such an expression you may as well not bother with the apology at all.
 
Restitution
 
Is the practical attempt to restore the relationship to what it was before you broke it.
 
Effective apology is more than just words. You can't talk your way out of a situation you acted your way into. For serious breaches, the offender must demonstrate a concrete expression of contrition. In other words, it must have some element of action.
 
Without restitution, it becomes more difficult for offended parties to accept an apology, however well crafted.
 
Repetition
 
Is a promise to the victim that the offender will not repeat the offense. A particularly effective phrase is a variant of, "I promise it will never happen again." It is often effective to end the apology with such a commitment; communication theory suggests that people remember best what they hear last.
 
 
[About the Author: John Kador is a frequent contributor to Human Resource Executive. He is the author of Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust (Berrett-Koehler, 2009).]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26522 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:27 pm
Subject: Article: You've Got Two Minutes 		harvinderjit...
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You've Got Two Minutes
by Kevin D. Wilde
 
There are many exciting things about talent management, and that excitement can get us into trouble.
 
I remember my exhilaration years ago in going eyeball-to-eyeball with my CEO about a new talent management initiative. After a polite opening, it became clear that I had only two minutes to win him over.
 
Out went most of my 10-page deck covering the theory of the project, the cutting-edge innovation and the multilayer change effort required. I had to quickly boil down the message to its essence. I sensed the outcome was either going to be a head nod - meaning "I get it" - or squinting eyes and a series of increasingly skeptical questions. I did make it out alive that day, but I will never forget that two-minute drill because it forced me to clearly communicate that the need was real and the solution was practical.
 
As I reflect on why line leaders put a premium on practical over exciting, it seems to me that as the world grows in complexity and speed, those who reflect or amplify the complexity with their ideas will not have influence. Our task is to add value with solutions that simplify the essence, not pile on the complexity.
 
Are You Heading Into Trouble?
 
Unfortunately, our enthusiasm for our own bright ideas can blind us to the test of practicality. So how do you know if you are headed for trouble? I can offer these four signs - derived mostly from personal experience - that you aren't being practical.
 
1. You cannot explain the core of your proposal in four minutes or less; everything you are explaining is equally important; and you can't prioritize the critical elements. Or the execution phase lacks much thinking at all.
 
2. The graphic flowchart of your initiative includes more than three boxes and three arrows. I refer to this as the "bad highway interchange" chart.
 
3. You build the solution around the award criteria for a professional society submission or making a magazine list. I was in a staff meeting recently where an HR department was asking to add a new element to an already successful practice because a special interest magazine had changed its "best of" ranking criteria.
 
4. It worked so well last time, you are bringing it back with "more, better," even though last time was just fine. You feel your department won't be as respected if you don't bring out something fresh and challenging.
 
The Clock Begins Ticking
 
If you're going to see the CEO soon to discuss your latest talent management move that will revolutionize the company, before you walk into her office, check the practicality of your idea, minute by minute. The good news is that the CEO is in a generous mood today, and you'll be given four minutes of undivided attention.
 
1. First minute:
Is it real? Can you begin with a real business-grounded problem or opportunity the CEO cares about?
 
2. Second minute:
Is it direct? Can you make a logical connection between the need and the solution you propose? Does it apply lean thinking by taking the most direct path to resolve the issue?
 
3. Third minute:
Is it familiar? Does your proposal balance familiar aspects with new thinking? Does the listener hear common business language, or need a translator for too much HR speak?
 
4. Fourth minute:
Is it well planned? Without going into too much detail, can you show you've thought through the execution and sustaining essentials of your initiative? How will you overcome potential obstacles?
 
5. Fifth minute:
Silence. Your four minutes are over. You've kept it "executive crisp" and are now waiting for a response. You can tell she is thinking it over. Most likely, she is reflecting on your track record. Has your prior work been successful and impactful? If so, you will probably hear a yes. If not, you better scale back your proposal to a pilot test as a way to build confidence.
 
There is a growing list of talent management challenges, rich in complexity and urgency. As leaders, our job is to strike the right balance in our solutions, avoiding oversimplifying that underdelivers and overcomplexity that overwhelms. Taking the time upfront to get it right will pay off - especially the next time you are given the two-minute drill.
 
 
[About the Author: Kevin D. Wilde is the vice president and chief learning officer at General Mills.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26521 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sat Nov 7, 2009 4:31 pm
Subject: Article: Effectively Communicating Employee Rewards 		harvinderjit...
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Effectively Communicating Employee Rewards
by Martha B. Terry
 
Ever more increasing numbers of employees are using social-networking, but Web 2.0 tools are just breaking through the corporate approval process in many organizations. Companies should be using such technologies to communicate about total rewards with workers.
 
Is your organization effectively communicating the value of employee rewards? Are your senior leaders aware of employee perceptions of company rewards? Does your brand have a winning reputation for its overall rewards program? Are there low-cost, high-value opportunities to make reward-program components easier to understand and use?
 
Nearly two-thirds of Towers Perrin's 2008 Global Workforce Survey respondents rated their organizations as "fair" or "poor" in communicating clear pay and benefit information. Yet research clearly indicates that non-monetary rewards do matter, and communication about them is the missing link to retaining employee loyalty as the economy recovers.
 
Unfortunately, many organizations are still relying on annual summary plan descriptions, messages posted on the company Web site, and the occasional, impersonal e-mail. In failing to embrace dynamic, new two-way Web technologies, businesses are passing up opportunities to create healthier relationships with employees through compelling, personalized information that positively affects engagement.
 
Renewed Interest in Communicating Total Rewards Fueled by Potential Talent Wars
 
Towers Perrin's insights from a total-rewards survey of HR and business executives across mid-size and large U.S. companies confirm that organizations have awakened to the importance of having skilled staff at all levels engaged and delivering results.
 
Roughly three-quarters of these executives believe 2010 will bring a full economic turnaround. This perception is reinforced by The Conference Board's third quarter 2009 CEO Confidence Study showing that 68 percent of surveyed CEOs believe economic conditions have improved, compared to six months ago, with a majority expecting continued improvement.
 
Data and experience consistently show that relational rewards have a direct impact on the retention and engagement of talent. The risk of ignoring the benefits of internal social networking for creating meaningful, personalized communication with employees is clear - and economic recovery will be the fulcrum that tips the talent-retention balance.
 
Increasing the Perceived Value of Rewards
 
Employees need to understand their deal, and that their company remains committed to them in areas beyond their paycheck, i.e., the work environment and other fundamental concerns that employees no longer consider "fringe benefits."
 
While second quarter results from Towers Perrin's Workplace Watch quarterly employee-opinion survey suggest that employees understand their organization's goals and are handling the stresses of the economic environment fairly well, the low- to no-cost factors that account for this are notable:
 
a) Increased communication from leadership that's clear about immediate goals and priorities; and
 
b) Offering employees greater flexibility in deciding the hours and locations in which they work.
 
So the big question is: As the focus on efficiency and cost management gives way to a more complex array of growth priorities, will increased communication and employees' sense of connection be lost in the shuffle?
 
While companies' perception of "talent" has become more expansive, many have also demonstrated a near-sighted reluctance to move beyond familiar terrain into leading-edge areas. However, to improve and maintain the employee relationship, organizations will need to:
 
a) Research what each employee segment values;
 
b) Assess how the current reward program affects behaviors and attitudes;
 
c) Understand how the work experience drives employee appreciation of rewards; and
 
d) Develop effective communications that increase employees' comfort with work/life balance,benefit protection and financial security.
 
Communicating Total Rewards - One Employee at a Time
 
An August 2009 Nielsen Online study shows that 17 percent of time spent online is at social-networking sites (up 11 percent from the previous year) - and nearly half of all online workers use Facebook at the office. Facebook use grew by roughly 200 percent last year, and Twitter by multiples of that; there is no doubt that your employees are communicating virtually and globally. What are they saying about their work experience?
 
Through social-networking sites and other Web technologies - and perhaps in part because employers have been pushing them to take more responsibility - employees now have the technology at hand to instantly connect with the best jobs.
 
Employers with less-than-healthy employee relationships are likely to be caught flat-footed by the speed with which employees use personal networks to research company rewards and leap for a deal perceived as better.
 
One of the most exciting developments in HR service delivery is the growing use of next-generation Web tools such as social-networking sites, forums, podcasts and blogs. These tools don't just speed and expand the flow of information; they substantially increase opportunities for personalized messaging, and can be used to support HR program delivery as well as to step up employee engagement levels.
 
Web 2.0 tools enable organizations to:
 
a) Foster greater internal information sharing and teamwork;
 
b) Enable knowledge management and collaboration within teams and departments, as well as between departments and functions; and
 
c) Increase individual and group productivity, using fewer resources, while raising the level of employee engagement.
 
As for HR, leading organizations are already applying these tools for HR communication, knowledge management, training and career development.
 
Dynamic Web tools offer an interactive, personal and immediate means of communicating with and engaging employees, forming a direct channel between leadership and employees, and helping to provide a collaborative context for business decisions.
 
What Other Organizations are Doing
 
According to Towers Perrin's 2009 HR Service Delivery Survey, new Web technologies have quickly carved out a niche in the mainstream - both in and out of the workplace. More than 85 percent of respondents were familiar with "Web 2.0," and roughly half used social-networking sites, online forums, podcasts or blogs.
 
While social networking has not yet broken through the corporate barrier in large numbers, 43 percent are considering internal-networking sites, which suggests much higher implementation percentages and that the use of Web 2.0 tools will continue to grow.
 
Organizations that maintain control of their message will be those that meet employees where they already are. Implementing social-networking tools can help your company to:
 
a) Ease the way for employees managing their career, health and personal wealth;
 
b) Communicate in a personal and meaningful way about benefits, pay and bonuses; and
 
c) Achieve a better relationship with employees.
 
 
[About the Author: Martha B. Terry is the global practice leader for communication consulting at Towers Perrin. She brings more than 30 years of experience in corporate communication, public relations and communication consulting to her work with Fortune 1000 organization.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26520 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sun Nov 8, 2009 6:29 pm
Subject: Article: Apology Is the First Resort 		harvinderjit...
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Apology Is the First Resort
by John Kador
 
Why is it so hard for HR professionals to be accountable for mistakes and faulty judgments? All professionals are reluctant to admit they are less than perfect. And everyone is apprehensive about the consequences of making mistakes. But there is evidence that HR professionals may be a little more adverse to admitting mistakes than other professionals.
 
Human resource professionals make no more mistakes than their peers in information services, accounting, finance or any other department. But when HR makes a mistake, the consequences are usually obvious and messy for the organization. So what are HR executives to do when they realize they have made a mistake or given faulty advice?
 
Plan A is to admit the mistakes as soon as possible, sometimes before they have become obvious, accept full responsibility, apologize and accept the consequences. Plan B is to wait to see if things really are as bad as feared, shift the blame, minimize, cover-up, spin and deny. There's little middle ground.
 
Let's look at some actual examples of HR mistakes. No one likes to admit mistakes. So I have agreed to change names and identifying details as a condition of reporting these stories of actual HR foul-ups. As you read these stories, put yourself in place of the HR executive and try to decide how you would handle it.
 
1. HR Gives Faulty Information
 
The first example takes place at a global technology company. A well-respected computer analyst - let's call him Jim - with 10 years at the company announces his resignation because he has an opportunity to join a start-up. Everyone is sad to see him go and wishes him well. A month later, Jim asks for his job back. The start-up did not work out. Jim's manager is glad to have him back. The company's policy allows rehiring of former employees. Jim left on good terms and returns on good terms.
 
So far so good. But here's where the problem starts. When Jim reapplied for his job, he asked HR whether his seniority would be reset. In other words, would he be treated as a brand-new employee or would his seniority be preserved? The HR manager assured Jim, "It's like you never left. Your seniority continues, minus the one month you were away."
 
A year passes and Jim receives his year-end bonus. He's unhappy because the bonus is much lower than he expected; in fact it's calculated not on 11 year's credit, but on just one year. So Jim appeals and it's revealed that the HR manager who assured Jim that he would not lose seniority was, in fact, wrong.
 
And then, the HR manager denies saying anything of the sort, so Jim feels doubly betrayed. Betrayed, first, by the HR manager, whom he thought should have been more of an advocate, and betrayed also by the company's bonus program. Instead of being motivated by the bonus, Jim was left feeling frustrated and demotivated.
 
The situation ended especially badly. Jim produced an e-mail that demonstrated that the HR manager did indeed give faulty advice. The HR manager was asked to resign and Jim left the company shortly thereafter.
 
It's not hard to understand what probably happened. The HR manager panicked. Caught in a significant mistake, her first instinct was to deny and to protect herself. Worse, she engaged in a cover-up. Such lack of integrity ended her career.
 
It didn't have to be that way.
 
Had the HR manager accepted accountability for her mistake and apologized to Jim and the CFO, the situation would have been manageable. Assuming that such mistakes weren't a pattern, the HR manager could have saved her job. A compromise could have been worked out with Jim, a valued employee, and the company would have an opportunity to reaffirm its seniority policy or change it. The lack of accountability and apology subverted all that.
 
2. Termination Letter Mailed to Wrong Employee
 
Not all HR mistakes end as badly. Here's an example of a mistake that's probably the basis for the nightmares of many HR executives. I'm indebted to Washington-based HR consultant Katharine Giacalone for this example.
 
A large company with thousands of employees scheduled a mass layoff. The HR department mailed termination letters to the homes of about 100 employees. Unfortunately, a valued employee not on the layoff list received the letter by mistake.
 
When the HR executive discovered the error, she had a decision to make.
 
She could attempt to handle the situation herself and perhaps avoid criticism of her department, but she understood that this was a significant mistake with significant downsides for the company.
 
She immediately went to the president of the company and explained the situation. She accepted responsibility and apologized for the error. The HR executive further recommended that the president phone the employee, apologizing for the mistake, rescind the letter and ask the employee to return to the job that was waiting for her.
 
The president followed the HR executive's recommendation. Initially, the employee was justifiably angry. She had started making plans for a new job and didn't know if she wanted to come back. The president was very apologetic and assured the employee that she was valued and there was no intent to terminate her.
 
This situation worked out well. The employee accepted the president's apology and returned to her job. The relationship between the president and HR executive actually improved. The incident renewed the president's trust in HR, recognizing that, even when things go wrong, HR has the best interests of the company in mind and will not blindside the president.
 
And because the HR department was willing to be accountable, the energy that might have gone into covering up the incident was instead channeled into ensuring that wrongful termination letters would not be sent out in the future.
 
The moral here, according to Giacolone, is that the HR executive balanced her advocacy for employees with her commitment to the business.
 
"She was willing to be accountable for the actions of her department without blaming anyone else," Giacolone says. "The HR executive understood that the best outcome required the president's involvement and it was much better that the president hear of the problem from her instead of someone else."
 
Apology Outcomes
 
Why is it so hard for HR professionals to be accountable for mistakes and faulty judgments? All professionals are reluctant to admit they are less than perfect. And everyone is apprehensive about the consequences of making mistakes. But there is evidence that HR professionals may be a little more averse to admitting mistakes than other professionals.
 
Two reasons may account for the relative difficulty of HR professionals to hold themselves accountable.
 
First, there is a certain defensiveness that still prevails among some HR departments. Many organizations have residues of the stereotype that HR managers are less professional than other managers.
 
"To the extent that HR internalizes that stereotype, it is not surprising that there might be temptation to cover up mistakes, lest they give credence to the stereotype," says Ethan Becker, president of Boston-based Speech Improvement Co., who frequent consults on communications issues with HR executives.
 
Lawrence Polsky, managing partner of People Energy, a consulting firm in Princeton, N.J., agrees.
 
"At the end of the day, disclosing their own mistakes is tricky for all executives, but HR executives may have an especially hard time because of their training," he says. "As part of their professional duties, HR executives are put in the middle and frequently expected to withhold the facts and delay the disclosure of information."
 
In fact, HR managers have to train themselves to resist disclosing truthful information. Given that the culture of HR is sometimes antagonistic to transparency; it may be difficult for HR managers to satisfy the organization's needs for transparency when it's about the limitations of HR itself that transparency is called for.
 
Acts of Omission
 
HR managers can also err by failing to do the right thing. Lauren Bloom, a lawyer practicing in the Washington area, and the author of The Art of Apology, recalls a recent incident in which a company president wanted to classify his overworked secretary as exempt - when, by the company's own definitions, she wasn't.
 
Nevertheless, the president ordered the HR manager to arrange the reclassification. The president said he would be responsible for the action, and the HR manager capitulated. The situation went on for a number of years. Then, as these things do, the situation unraveled. The secretary, fed up with the endless, uncompensated overwork, resigned and demanded all the back wages - at time-and-a-half - that she has accumulated over the years. She claimed tens of thousands of dollars for unpaid overtime.
 
In the investigation, the HR manager accepted full responsibility for her failure. She pointedly did not excuse her judgment on the rationalization that she was just following orders. She apologized for not standing up, for failing to document her professional judgment and for allowing herself to be pressured.
 
Because the HR manager accepted full responsibility, she kept her job.
 
Evidence shows that executives who apologize just have better outcomes. Everyone in HR knows that that the cover-up is always worse than the underlying offense; yet when HR executives make a mistake, many are tempted to see how the situation plays out, see who else can be blamed or attempt to minimize their responsibility. Such instincts are normal, but they must be resisted. Instead, HR leaders must instill a culture of strict accountability, starting with themselves.
 
 
[About the Author: John Kador is a frequent contributor to Human Resource Executive. He is the author of Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust (Berrett-Koehler, 2009).]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26519 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sun Nov 8, 2009 6:37 pm
Subject: Article: Five Tips for Effective Hiring and Recruiting 		harvinderjit...
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Five Tips for Effective Hiring and Recruiting
by Steve Bonadio
 
Hiring and recruiting systems broaden the scope of legacy applicant tracking systems (ATS) by streamlining the entire hiring life cycle, from talent needs assessment and requisition creation to candidate selection and on-boarding.
 
Here are five tips talent managers can implement to get the most out of their hiring and recruiting investments.
 
Tip No. 1: Eliminate talent assessment and sourcing bottlenecks.
Many organizations are inundated with record numbers of applicants and resumes as job seekers significantly outnumber open positions. Compounding this challenge, HR and recruiting organizations are seriously resource-constrained.
 
For many organizations, talent assessment and sourcing processes are neither automated nor optimized, thus creating serious bottlenecks. The negative consequences of these bottlenecks include slow time to hire, low quality of hire, reduced hiring productivity and inconsistent collaboration and feedback.
 
A key solution to this problem is candidate filter management, which improves candidate flow and reduces bottlenecks by enabling users to more efficiently search, filter, pre-screen, assess, and rank and score applicants. By implementing a systematic candidate filtering process, organizations are better able to quickly find the right candidate for the job as well as ensure the long-term success of new hires.
 
Tip No. 2: Improve end-to-end process consistency and transparency.
A typical hiring and recruiting process is complex, time consuming and involves numerous constituents, including recruiters, hiring managers, approvers, interviewers and candidates. Because of the complexity, many users find that there is little consistency and transparency in the overall process, which negatively impacts hiring quality, timeliness and effective decision making.
 
There are four essential steps involved in the hiring and recruiting process, with each step flowing from the previous one:
 
a) Talent needs assessment:
Assessing the talent requirements and managing job requisitions.
 
b) Sourcing management:
Recruiting for an open position both internally and externally.
 
c) Candidate evaluation:
Evaluating candidates' skills and competencies and managing the interview process.
 
d) Offer and on-boarding management:
Managing job offers and transitioning candidates to employment.
 
To ensure consistency across the entire hiring and recruiting process, each step must flow seamlessly into the next step via automated workflows, and alerts and triggers must be established to notify users of pending action items. Each step by itself must also be optimized. Across the entire hiring and recruiting process, reporting and analytics must be enabled to support effective decision making.
 
Tip No. 3: Promote talent mobility.
In many organizations, talent mobility is impeded because there is no consistent or systematic process for aligning current and future talent needs to the existing talent inventory. Without a cohesive talent mobility strategy, organizations face several risks, including a focus on costly external recruiting versus internal sourcing as well as lower high performer engagement and higher churn.
 
Organizations should consider the following integrated processes to promote and enable talent mobility:
 
a) Current workforce analysis:
Includes detailed talent profiles, employee summaries, organization charts, competencies and job templates.
 
b) Talent needs assessment:
A key process within the overall hiring and recruiting process responsible for defining talent requirements.
 
c) Future needs analysis:
Development-centric succession planning to create and manage dynamic, fully populated talent pools.
 
Tip No. 4: Link hiring and recruiting to broader talent processes.
Many organizations tend to focus myopically on the hiring and recruiting process itself and do not consider how the process links to broader talent processes.
 
Organizations can drive greater efficiencies by taking a more holistic view of hiring and recruiting. Several broader talent processes present themselves for integration, including performance management (create and align new hire goals to divisional and company goals), career development (create competency-based career plans for new hires), and learning management (automatically schedule courses for new hires, especially important for compliance).
 
Tip No. 5: Improve reporting, measurement and decision making.
Tactical hiring and recruiting metrics, such as time to hire and source yields, used by many organizations today are inadequate and do not enable continuous improvement or facilitate better decision making. The majority of organizations continue to measure their hiring and recruiting effectiveness based on how long it takes to fill a position, how much it costs and where candidates are sourced.
 
Part of the challenge lies in the fact that data is spread out in various silos across the organization and there's no common employee system of record. A single, fully connected talent platform that covers the gamut of HR functions and processes - including hiring and recruiting - can alleviate some problems since the data is all in one place. With this infrastructure in place, organizations can more readily leverage strategic workforce analytics that provide meaningful cross-functional metrics, such as on-boarding effectiveness and the impact of learning programs on employee performance.
 
 
[About the Author: Steve Bonadio is a 15-year veteran of the enterprise software industry and currently serves as the vice president of product marketing for Softscape.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26518 From: Harvinderjit Kaur <harvinderjit_kaur@...>
Date: Sat Nov 7, 2009 4:22 pm
Subject: Article: Balancing Your Scorecard via Action Learning 		harvinderjit...
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Balancing Your Scorecard via Action Learning
by Dr. Bea Carson
 
Just hearing the phrase "strategic planning" tends to trigger apprehension in most executives. Annually, many organizations produce a strategic plan that sits on the shelf for the rest of the year. The problem with most strategic plans is that they encourage the perpetuation of what has worked in the past - focusing primarily on past financial successes. The balanced scorecard helps break the mold of focusing solely on the financial aspects of a strategic plan and provides an effective vehicle for moving forward. The question remains, how does an organization populate the balanced scorecard without the stress that is typically associated with strategic planning? A process, utilizing action learning, is proving to be both an effective and efficient solution.
 
Typically, strategic planning starts with the vision statement and some long-term objectives. From this, organizations identify desired goals and objectives. Next, the current situation is analyzed and historical information is examined. They follow this with the identification of assumptions that are no longer valid. Next, they dissect the advantages and disadvantages of alternative strategies. From this, they chose one or more alternatives. With each of these, they identify the result (if things go right). Finally, they identify next steps and action items.
 
The problem with this method is that organizations typically do strategic planning on an annual basis. Current methods of strategic planning encourage the continuation of what has worked well in the past. They do not anticipate the rapidly changing environment. A distinct feature of the balanced scorecard that does not exist within other strategy development tool is the inclusion of learning and development. Additionally, the scorecard synergizes three other perspectives with learning and development. These are the financial, customer and internal perspectives. It is an ideal tool for taking the goals set by the senior executives and translating them into what they mean to the front-line employee. This measurement system reports on past operating performance as well as watching what will drive future performance.
 
Success in business can be examined from a variety of different perspectives and the questions they seek to answer. The financial perspective seeks to answer the question, "How should we appear to our shareholders?" For the customer perspective, the key question is, "How should we appear to our customers?" The question in terms of internal business processes is, "To satisfy our shareholders and customers, in what business processes must we excel?" Finally, from the learning and growth perspective, we seek to answer the question, "How will we sustain our ability to change and improve?"
 
Using the balanced scorecard, a team develops strategic themes incorporating elements of the four perspectives, including the linkages between them. Then, for each objective, they identify measures, targets and initiatives for each theme. Where objectives are what the strategy is trying to achieve; measures are how to evaluate the performance against objectives; targets are the required level of performance or the rate of improvement; and initiatives are an action program to achieve the target.
 
In his 2002 book, Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step: Maximizing Performance and Maintaining Results, Paul Niven describes a seven-step development process for populating a balanced scorecard. He indicates traditionally this process takes four to 12 months:
 
1. Gather and distribute background material.
2. Develop or confirm mission, values, vision and strategy.
3. Conduct executive interviews.
4. Develop objectives and measures in each of the balanced scorecard perspectives.
5. Develop cause-and-effect linkages.
6. Establish targets for your measures.
7. Develop the ongoing balanced scorecard implementation plan.
 
Action Learning Balances the Scorecard
 
Using action learning to populate the balanced scorecard presents an interesting situation - the problem is predefined. Because of this, in addition to the role as learning coach, the coach also acts as a guide to populating the balanced scorecard. The coach's primary function is to stay focused on the learning; however, by acting as a guide to populating the scorecard, the coach can accelerate the process. The action learning/balanced scorecard team consists of members who are knowledgeable about the organization's mission, vision, values, operational plans and financial projections.
 
The coach opens the session by guiding the team through defining the strategic themes of the organization. With each theme that is suggested, the coach will ask, "How does that relate to our mission, values and vision?" By doing this, not only are the team members able to identify valid themes quickly, but they are also able to filter out themes that are not aligned with the strategic direction of the organization.
 
To identify the objectives within each of the four perspectives - financial, customer, internal processes and learning and growth - the coach uses this same method. However, rather than simply brainstorming, the objectives are identified using a focused approach. As the team identifies an objective within a perspective, the coach again asks the question, "How does that relate to our mission, values and vision?" as well as asking, "How does it fit within the strategic theme?" Rather than allowing brainstorming to take over at this point, the team works to identify objectives in the other perspectives that link to the one already there. This allows the team to develop the linkages as the balanced scorecard is populated. Again, by using the focused approach rather than brainstorming, the team identifies appropriate objectives and filters out inappropriate ones. This technique accelerates the process, because the team does not waste energy on objectives that do not fit within the corporate strategy.
 
While the strategy map is being populated, measures, targets, and initiatives that surface that are related to an objective are recorded. During this phase, the team does not make a deliberate effort to fill out these elements; however, the coach writes down any linkages to the strategy map that become apparent. Once the strategy map is fully populated, the team goes back to fill in the remaining measures, targets and initiatives. Where the team needs additional information, individuals are assigned action items to acquire it before the next session.
 
By using the action learning process to populate the balanced scorecard, the teams have seen several positive results. First, the team members truly listen to each other, because participants can make statements only in response to questions. The team members do not just shotgun their ideas without hearing what the other participants are saying; rather, they listen to each other and build on each other's thoughts and themes.
 
Second, valid objectives surface quickly and invalid ones filter out. Because the team does not use brainstorming, they focus on pieces that fit rather than those that do not. This is not to say that new and innovative ideas are discouraged; rather, they are encouraged - but the team tests the validity of a new theme immediately, rather than firing off random ideas.
 
Third, because the nature of questioning forces people to think outside the usual box, the team generates new and relevant objectives they had not thought of in the past. Finally, because the coach continues to focus on the learning of the team, the process is continually improved. Using this approach, the team documents the objectives, measures, targets and initiatives for a theme in a matter of hours.
 
These sessions are extremely intense. Everyone on the team stays engaged for the entire session. The questioning process does not allow the participants time to zone out. Instead, they remain actively engaged throughout the entire session. Because of this intensity, it is recommended that each session be restricted to four hours. If multiple sessions are scheduled for a single day, a minimum of a two-hour break should be planned between sessions.
 
The Next Level
 
In today's permanent white water, it is imperative to develop strategies that are both distinctive and flexible. The balanced scorecard is an ideal start to developing plans that encompass all the elements of an effective strategy. However, it falls short in forcing the creative thinking required for the distinctive strategies that will be necessary to survive.
 
To take the balanced scorecard to the next level, the creative thinking pervasive in action learning is necessary. The most common remark made by those in these sessions was "action learning prevented us from talking over each other." In other words, those who were involved in the session listened to each other; they gave more thought and insight to their responses. They built on each other's remarks and developed a more useful product for guiding and measuring the organization's performance. At the end of the session, no one felt any stress, and they all had a sense of a broader understanding of the elements that would produce a truly powerful strategy.
 
 
[About the Author: Dr. Bea Carson is an author, speaker and expert in the field of action learning.]
 
Regards,
Harvinder


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#26517 From: Gautam Ghosh <lists@...>
Date: Thu Nov 5, 2009 3:21 pm
Subject: references of great technical recruiters and headhunters 		gautamghosh
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hi,

a friend who is Manager HR with a IT product firm in Chennai is
looking for partnerships with recruiters who specialise in providing
.NET and C# software folks.

if you know such folks can you mail me their details?

thanks,
Gautam
Http://www.gautamblogs.com

--
Warm regards
Gautam
Blog: http://www.gautamblogs.com

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