Creating An Engaged Workforce

Accenture (the large management consulting firm), revealed in a recent survey of business executives, that 72 percent of these leaders consider employee engagement to be critically important to the competitive success of their companies.

Accenture's research found that workforce engagement can be measured using the following characteristics:

• Satisfaction
• Understanding
• Contribution
• Alignment
• Retention

Accenture also found the following 10 approaches to be effective for improving employee engagement:

1. Rewards and Recognition
2. Human Capital Infrastructure
3. Learning Management
4. Knowledge Management
5. Performance Appraisal
6. Workplace Design
7. Employee Relations
8. Career Development
9. Human capital strategy
10. Recruiting

BOTTOMLINE: Small businesses can create an engaged workforce -- in fact, small businesses have a distinct advantage over much larger businesses to do so. Many of these approaches for e effective for improving employee engagement are part of the Six Disciplines Methodology.

How To Think About Performance Appraisals

Employee reviews, performance appraisals...they're enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck...unless...

While I didn't meet John Porcaro while I worked at Microsoft, here he offers his 15-year Microsoft-centric view on approaching reviews (from his own perspective):

1. Take time to reflect
2. Think of your review as a living resume
3. Be thorough
4. Go with metrics
5. Make it about YOU
6. Don’t worry too much about missing an agreed-upon deadline
7. Don’t forget the “extra credit.”
8. If there’s something negative to say, bring it up yourself
9. Sometimes mistakes can be the best thing
10. Realize that half the equation is perception
11. Don’t sweat the review
12. Ask your manager to edit some of their negative comments
13. Don’t put it off until the last minute

BOTTOMLINE: What if...you used an intuitive Internet-based tool (every day) that made the entire process of doing weekly status reports, monthly performance updates, and annual performance appraisals -- a "no-brainer"? The Six Disciplines People Suite offers small businesses a practical way to approach this important HR activity.

(Thanks to Max at SuccessFactors for the tip)

Decker Marketing Reviews "Six Disciplines for Excellence"

In his review, "Six Disciplines for Excellence -- Strategic Prioritization, "Sam Decker, blogger of Decker Marketing, singles out the implementation focus of Six Disciplines:

"Here’s what differentiates this book: it bridges concept and principles to execution.

Most books focus 80% on principles and 20% on implementation. This book is 80% implementation."

BOTTOMLINE: Sam sums up his review: "For pragmatists and those who love execution, I give this book a strong recommend. Buy Six Disciplines of Excellence."

More On Management Fads

FastCompany is looking into the reasons why management trends (fads, new ideas) don't last long.

Their assessment?

• Consultants offer services in which they lack expertise
• New ideas come and go faster and faster
• People try to apply the same idea to too many dissimilar problems
• New practices and processes don't work for every organization

Take the FastCompany poll here.

Leadership Pitfalls

The Top 10 Leadership Pitfalls revealed in a recent survey by Quality Digest:

• 35% - Past and habits
• 29% - Economic climate or budget
• 23% - Company culture
• 20% - Way they work together
• 18% - Senior management team
• 18% - Customers
• 14% - CEO/president lack of confidence
• 13% - Technology
• 11% - Middle management
• 9% - Reputation
• 7% - Human resource management or employees

BOTTOMLINE: Respondents also indicated that the most important things to ensure successful strategy execution include:

• Creating a clear strategy
• Adding a specific plan
• Communicating what the plan is
• Rewarding employees for following the plan
• Continuing employee communication

However, even when companies do the alignment process well, their past and culture can derail execution, as the alignment of people and strategy isn’t enough for long-term success.

High-Performance Workforce Research

Accenture just released its latest findings on the High Performance Workforce. The research, Accenture High Performance Workforce Study, is conducted approximately every 18 months to measure workforce management trends among executives in large corporations in the United States, Europe and Australia.

Among the most recent research findings:

• Only 20% of respondents said the vast majority of their employees understand their companies’ strategy and what’s needed to be successful in their industry.
• Just one in 10 respondents reported being very satisfied with the performance of his or her human resources (HR) and training functions (11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.)
• 42% of respondents described capturing and sharing knowledge as a challenge or a severe challenge for their companies.
• 60% of respondents reported that, over the next five years, they expect to begin feeling the impact of the aging workforce and the impending retirement of baby boomers.

BOTTOMLINE: “A company’s ability to manage its workforce strategically and develop its capabilities will set it apart from its competitors. Some companies focus well on one or two aspects of human capital management, such as learning or internal communications, but the best take a broad view of managing their workforce. These are the companies that vastly increase their chances of being industry leaders.”

The World Cup of Leadership

The World Cup is perhaps the greatest sporting event in the world, and truly a global championship. Every four years, after exhaustive qualifying rounds, the top 32 nations in the world compete against each other for the right to be called world champions for the coming four years.

Every match matters. Every win and loss counts towards becoming a true world champion. The team that wins will have some great players, but the team with all the best players does not always win.

As in business, great leaders know these six rules:

1. LONG-TERM SUCCESS, SHORT-TERM RESULTS
2. CHOOSING THE RIGHT TEAM IS CRITICAL
3. WINNING AS A STATE OF MIND
4. PASSION, PLANNING AND EXECUTION
5. POSITVE LEADER RELATIONSHIPS
6. NEVER SATISFIED WITH THE STATUS QUO

Read the entire article here.

Leadership Lessons from Jack Welch

Leadership lessons from Jack Welch (former CEO of General Electric)

• Lead More, Manage Less (lessons 1-10)
• Build a Winning Organization (lessons 11-15)
• Harness Your People for Competitive Advantage (lessons 16-20)
• Build the Market-Leading Company (lessons 21-25)

(Thanks to Phil at Make it Great for the tip, and to George Amber at the Practice of Leadership)

Vision, World-Class Organizations, and Six Disciplines

According to thought-leader Ken Blanchard, all world-class organizations are driven by three critical factors:

1. Clear vision and direction championed by top management
2. Trained and equipped people focused on implementation of the agreed-upon vision and direction
3. Established recognition and positive consequence systems that sustain the behaviors and performance that the vision and direction require

BOTTOMLINE: If you map the Six Disciplines Methodology to these three factors of world class organizations, you'll find very similar views:

1. Clear vision (Discipline I-D Renew The Vision) and direction championed by top management (Discipline II - Set Goals That Lead)
2. Trained and equipped people (Discipline II-D Engage The Team) focused on implementation (Discipline IV - Work The Plan) of the agreed-upon vision and direction (Discipline III-F Align People)
3. Established recognition and positive consequence systems (Discipline V-D Recognize Contribution) that sustain the behaviors and performance that the vision and direction require

SMB Trend Wire: Podcast About Six Disciplines

Anita Campbell, the Visionary, TrendSpotter, Futurist, and Editor of Small Business Trends E’Zine, Small Biz Advisor - along with Steve Rucinski of Small Business CEO fame, get together on SMB TrendWire for a podcast interview with Six Disciplines CEO and founder, Gary Harpst.

According to Anita:

“If you have a chance to listen to only one small business podcast, you definitely want to listen to Gary Harpst.

There is nothing like Six Disciplines and I guarantee you will get a tremendous amount out of his talk."

BOTTOMLINE: Listen to the very insightful interview here.

Small Business CEO: "There is Always Waste, Find it Now!"

"There's more wasted activity in your organization than you imagine."

These jarring words are part of the advice Gary Harpst received from another CEO that eventually prompted him to found Six Disciplines Corporation.

According to the Steve at Small Busines CEO:

"Six Disciplines is unlike anything I've seen for small businesses.

It's a book.

It's a methodology.

It's technology.

It's a coaching system.

It's something you'll be hearing a lot more about."

BOTTOMLINE: Listen to the entire interview on Small Business CEO: "There is Always Waste, Find it Now!"

Top Ten Innovation Killers

Discipline V. Innovate Purposefully, is unlike the other five Disciplines, because it primarily provides principles and tools that are used in day-to-day execution of the steps in the other disciplines. Innovating purposefully...is a mindset that permeates the culture of an excellent organization." (page 180)

A recent Harvard eLearning Alert stated “70% of all business initiatives fail.”

Joyce Wycoff articulates the Top 10 Reasons for Innovation Failure:

1. Not creating a culture that supports innovation
2. Not getting buy-in and ownership from business unit managers
3. Not having a widely understood, system-wide process
4. Not allocating resources to the process
5. Not tying projects to company strategy
6. Not spending enough time and energy on the fuzzy front-end
7. Not building sufficient diversity into the process
8. Not developing criteria and metrics in advance
9. Not training and coaching innovation teams
10. Not having an idea management system

BOTTOMLINE: While it's probably impossible to compute the exact percentage of business initiatives that fail, it is widely acknowledged that most do. After years of research and observation, it is clear that the same reasons for any change initiative failure tend to be the same culprits that make innovation initiatives fail.

Six Disciplines Leadership Center of Central Indiana Names GM

Six Disciplines Corporation today announced that it has named Chip McLean to take the leadership role of General Manager and owner with the newly added franchise of Six Disciplines Leadership Center of Central Indiana, located in Indianapolis.

The Six Disciplines Leadership Center of Central Indiana will service clients in the greater Indianapolis area, extending to the East and West state borders, North to Marion and South to Seymour, Indiana.

The Six Disciplines Leadership Center of Central Indiana is scheduled to be operational in June of 2006. For more information, contact Chip McLean at 317.691.3169 or email CMcLean@SixDisciplines.com. Visit the Six Disciplines Leadership Center of Central Indiana on the web at www.SixDisciplines.com/Indy

Read the entire release here.

Advantages of Small Businesses

Compared to small businesses, large corporations have more money, name recognition and benefits to attract the best and brightest employees. But bigger doesn't always mean better. And small-business owners smart enough to lure them are finding hires eager to help them build their companies.

What are the advantages? Here are lures that are working for small business owners:

• The chance to make a difference
• The freedom to make decisions
• The sense of teamwork and camaraderie
• The flexibility to balance work and life
• The room to grow

Check out the rest of this June 2006 article from MyBusinessMag.com

Leadership in Sports: Pat Riley

For Pat Riley, head coach of the World Champion Miami Heat, the NBA championship is a promise fulfilled from 11 years ago to Miami Heat fans. He now has a championship ring for all the fingers on hand; the third-most among NBA coaches.

In the waning moments of difficult games, the Heat seemed to indeed get stronger and summon the very best from all their players. The Heat went on to win three more (four consecutive NBA Finals games), becoming only the third team in league history to win despite an 0-2 deficit.

Read more about this "master of motivation" here.

Dealing With Poor Performance

According to a survey by Sirota Survey Intelligence, a company’s failure to deal effectively with its few workers who are consistently poor performers may decrease the extent to which other employees are engaged in their jobs and their companies.

Key findings:

• Only two out of five employees (slightly more so for management) who feel their companies are doing much too little to correct poor employee performance are favorably engaged at work.
• 33% of management and 43%of non-management employees think their companies are not doing enough to deal with poor performers.
• A very small percentage of employees at a typical workplace – usually around only 5% – are ‘allergic to work,’ and do as little work as they possibly can.

Strategic Planning and the Learning Organization

Harvard Business review's excerpt of "The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker" reveals a radical new of economics as a highly dynamic and evolving system with implications for companies and organizations everywhere.

His assertions?

• Rather than thinking of strategy as a single plan built on predictions of the future, we should think of strategy as a portfolio of experiments, a population of competing Business Plans that evolves over time.

There are some general lessons that can be learned from a portfolio-of-experiments approach to strategy.

1. Management needs to create a context for strategy. Constructing a portfolio of experiments requires a collective understanding of the current situation and shared aspirations among the management team.
2. Management needs a process for differentiating Business Plans that results in a portfolio of diverse Plans.
3. The organization needs to create a selection environment that mirrors the environment in the market. Fourth and finally, processes need to be established that enable the amplification of successful Business Plans and the elimination of unsuccessful Plans.

This shift in perspective implies a major redesign of the strategic planning process:

• First, the process should be focused on structuring in-depth discussion and debate among principal decision makers.
• Second, the process must be fueled by facts and analysis
• Third, there must be other forums clearly designated for decision making.

BOTTOMLINE: "If the strategy process becomes overburdened with near-term decisions on budgets, setting targets, and allocating capital, then learning goes out the window. The decision-making forums should be linked to, but separate from, the strategic learning process. Again, the focus of the strategy forum should be setting context to inform the design and management of the portfolio of experiments."

Leadership Challenges

Management-Issues published a study of more than 1,400 leaders and managers by global consultancy the Ken Blanchard Group, which revealed the following:

• 41% felt inappropriate use of communication or listening was the biggest mistake leaders made when working with others.
• More than 25% felt the major failing was in under or over-supervising people, providing a lack of, or too much, direction and delegating, either too little or too much.
• A lack of management skills was cited by 14%.
• A lack of or inappropriate support by 12%.
• A lack of accountability by 5%.

• 43% cited the most critical skill a leader could possess was communicating and listening (followed by effective management skills, emotional intelligence and empathy, values and integrity, vision and empowerment.)
• A whopping 82% said that of the top five things leaders and managers failed to do when working with others, the one that came up the most was not providing appropriate feedback.
• 81% said failing to listen or involve others in the process was nearly as big a failing.
• 76% felt leaders failed to set clear goals and objectives

BOTTOMLINE: "It seems that many leaders out there do not have even the most basic, critical leadership skills they need to do their job properly and this is bad news for business. We all know leaders hold the key to organizational success. Bad leadership leads, ultimately, to low organizational vitality, high staff turnover and poor customer loyalty."

Father's Day Advice

Entrepreneur.com has a great article exposing business advice from a father.....just in time to celebrate Father's Day:

"Here are the most valuable business lessons he taught me:"

• Pay your dues. He instilled in me a strong work ethic that has served me well in my career. His father used to have a sign on his desk that read: "The harder I work, the luckier I get!"
• Do work you enjoy . If you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work.
• Walk and talk. Being accessible and approachable is important if you want a culture where people can admit they don't have all the answers and need help in a certain area.
• Lead by example. Never ask people to do things you wouldn't do yourself.
• Share success. When good things happen, make sure everyone who contributed is acknowledged and rewarded, not just the people at the top.
• Give back. Be active in your community.
• Stay positive. My dad is one of the most upbeat and optimistic people I've ever met. He has a great attitude and people love being around him. I think it makes them feel better about themselves. He always has a kind word or encouragement and smiles a lot. There's something very magnetic about people who exude happiness.

Happy Father's Day!

Six Essential Roles of the CEO

Vistage speaker Lawrence King offers his take on the six essential roles of the CEO:

1. Co-Strategist. First and foremost, key executives must contribute to the development of strategy. They must use the knowledge and information they gain from their critical vantage points to help set the future direction of the company.
2. Team leader. Like the CEO, key executives must make the difficult transition from functional expert to leader. “They may go kicking and screaming,” notes King, “but you must drag them out of their familiar, comfortable, functional roles and into this new, ambiguous and demanding role of team leader.”
3. Content expert. In their specific areas of knowledge or expertise, key executives need to bring global best practices to bear on the current, everyday practices of the company.
4. Champion of change. Key executives need to beat the drum, wave the flag and point their people in the right direction, while constantly reinforcing the vision of why the company must go forward.
5. Role model. Key executives must march shoulder-to-shoulder with the CEO, actually living the values that are spoken for the company.
6. Student. As with the CEO, key executives must engage in continued professional development, but as students of leadership, not of the technical/functional turf they manage within the organization.