Who’s Feedback Should Count (or NOT) in 360-Degree Feedback by Sandra Mashihi - Envisia

Note From Jim:


Trying to process advice about your performance? So whose feedback matters most, especially when it's conflicting? Sandra Mashini will help you reconcile this question. Follow the link below.

by Sandra Mashihi

Excerpts:

Self-ratings are typically weakly to moderately correlated with other rater perspectives with greater convergence between peer and supervisor ratings (Nowack, 1992). It seems intuitive to expect that some differences in perspectives will occur across rater groups. According to Ken Nowack, Ph.D. in his 2002 and 2009 publications, the following patterns of perceptions exist between raters:

Direct reports tend to emphasize and filter interpersonal and relationship behaviors
Superiors tend to focus more on performance-oriented behaviors
Peers tend to be most accurate at predicting future leadership potential

These rater group differences cause confusion in the interpretation of 360-degree feedback
Discussing the differences between rater group perceptions led to the revelation of an underlying issue

So, as a lesson, all variations of feedback results can provide meaningful insights and lessons. In fact, a core learning message may be revealed regardless of whether there are differences or similarities between perceptions of different raters.

“Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.”- Albert Einstein

Access Article And Other Great Stuff: http://results.envisialearning.com/whos-feedback-should-count-or-not-in-360-degree-feedback/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ResultsVsActivities+%28Results+vs.+Activities%29

50 Ways to Foster a Sustainable Culture of Innovation - Idea Champions - Mitch Ditkoff

Note From Jim:

Are you innovative? Do you foster innovation? The 50 suggestions made by the very impressive Mitch Ditkoff are sure to assist your mastery. 

Of these 50, my top 10 favorites:

2. Wherever you can, whenever you can, always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is "Public Enemy #1" of an innovative culture.

5. Make new mistakes.

6. As far as the future is concerned, don't speculate on what might happen, but imagine what you can make happen.

14. Embrace and celebrate failure. 50 to 70 per cent of all new product innovations fail at even the most successful companies. The main difference between companies who succeed at innovation and those who don't isn't their rate of success -- it's the fact that successful companies have a LOT of ideas, pilots, and product innovations in the pipeline.

23. Make sure people are working on the right issues. Identify specific business challenges to focus on. Be able to frame these issues as questions that start with the words, "How can we?"

27. Make customers your innovation partners, while realizing that customers are often limited to incremental innovations, not breakthrough ones.

32. Avoid analysis paralysis. Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction

33. Before reaching closure on any course of action, seek alternatives. Make it a discipline to seek the idea after the "best" idea emerges.

35. A great source of new ideas are people that are new to the company. Get new hires together and tap their brainpower and imagination.

42. Give your people specific, compelling, and measurable innovation goals.

Best everyway & always - Jim

*****
Access Mitch's Article: http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2012/12/50_ways_to_fost_1.shtml

Mitch Ditkoff is the co-founder and President of Idea Champions, a highly acclaimed management consulting and training company, headquartered in Woodstock, NY. He specializes in helping forward thinking organizations go beyond business as usual, originate breakthrough products and services, and establish dynamic, sustainable cultures of innovation.

Educated at Lafayette College and Brown University, Mitch has worked with a wide variety of Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies who have realized the need to do something different in order to succeed in today's rapidly changing marketplace. These clients include: GE, Merck, AT&T, Allianz, Lucent Technologies, NBC Universal, Goodyear, A&E Television Networks, General Mills, MTV Networks, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a host of others.

Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience - Peter Bregman - HBR

Note from Jim: Great and quick lessons below from Peter Bregman.

Try It. Just 10 minutes a day. Separate your self from the messages that your mind produces.


Find your self. Watch / observe your breadth. Your breathing happens unconsciously. So does your thinking.

Observe what you mind is doing… what is it that your mind is thinking and saying.  Don't engage with the thoughts or the emotions they create. Just be a witness. The witness is your self, not your mind, or the thinking, the messages, and the images that your mind produces.


Best Always - Jim
-------------------
Try Meditation to Strengthen Your Resilience
by Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/try-meditation-to-strengthen-y.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Excerpts:

One of the great gifts of meditation is that it exposes your Self. As it turns out, it's surprisingly easy to find because it's always there, watching.

Follow your breath as it goes in and out of your body without thinking about anything in particular except your breath. soon enough, you will notice that your mind is thinking about something

The person noticing those thoughts? That's you. That's your Self. Your Self just noticed "thinking".

... no matter what happens,... you'll be fine. Even though everything around you may change — how much money you have, whether you have a job, whether you're married, and so on — your Self will still be there, observing.

... even in failure, you'll be able to let the part of you that did not change as a result of the failure see what it feels like to fail. Then, when you realize your Self is still intact, you'll get up and try again.

[REPEAT] The person noticing those thoughts? That's you. That's your Self. Your Self just noticed "thinking".

You are not your thinking. You are the person watching your thinking. That little distinction is the difference between feeling your feelings and being them — and it's critically important. When you feel anger, you're in control of what you do next. When you are angry, you've lost control.

The part of you that observes your thoughts and feelings is steady and wise and trustworthy. Identifying with your stable, predictable Self makes you a stable, predictable person and leader, one who doesn't get tossed around by random events and the decisions of the people around you.

PETER BREGMAN
Peter Bregman is a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/try-meditation-to-strengthen-y.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Make It a Habit to Give Thanks - HBR - Ron Ashkenas

Note From Jim:  Ron, this advice is priceless.  Thank you!!! 


by Ron Ashkenas
12:00 PM November 20, 2012

Excerpts:

It's also a good reminder that "thankfulness" and "appreciation" are important managerial behaviors in effective organizations — behaviors that need to be fostered throughout the year, not just when there's a holiday.
[First] Interpersonal appreciation is the day-to-day ability to genuinely and graciously thank other people for what they do....  all of us need affirmation and positive feedback, at least occasionally... without some measure of day-to-day appreciation it's difficult to build relationships and trust, which are essential to a well-functioning workplace.... The challenge though is how to make the process of giving thanks more routine, so that it occurs without a reminder.

The second type of thanksgiving is appreciating how effectively your organization solves problems and gets things done. Many managers have a tendency to focus on the things that are not working well, the shortfalls and the misses. On the other hand, much of the power and potential in organizations is revealed by its success stories. By identifying these vignettes and shining a spotlight on them, managers can help to tease out important lessons, reinforce innovation, and unlock tremendous value.... an approach called positive deviance shows that finding people who succeed, when everyone else is struggling, can be a key to large-scale innovation.
... perhaps if all of us were more thankful and appreciative throughout the year, we'd have much more to be thankful for.


***Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

***Access Article, HBR Website and Great Content: http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2012/11/make-it-a-habit-to-give-thanks.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

HBR Blog Network.Where You Sit Determines What You See - Ron Ashkenas

by Ron Ashkenas
8:00 AM November 6, 2012

Excerpts:

... all of us have biases that influence how we interpret events. To some extent we see what we unconsciously want to see

If you assume that these people perceive the assignment or challenge in the same way that you do, you'll be severely frustrated or disappointed. In fact, you'll be on much firmer ground if you start with the assumption that each person comes to the table with a different spin on the situation.
... [with] different perceptions of "the problem" the team easily could have become trapped in unproductive blaming or hardened their positions. Fortunately, the team leader understood the different perceptions and encouraged everyone to listen, repeat, and appreciate each others' starting points. Eventually each side realized that both positions were valid, which opened up the possibility of joint problem solving.

Of course, overcoming perceptual bias is not a one-time exercise. Just because the people in our example learned how to work together on one project doesn't mean that they won't revert back to their earlier blinders when they reenter their regular environments. In fact, there is a Stockholm syndrome effect for most people in organizations, in which they take on the biases and attitudes of those around them.

All of us see the world in different ways — which may make alignment that much harder, but at least makes things a lot more interesting.

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.
More blog posts by Ron Ashkenas ...More on: Execution, Leading teams, Managing yourself :
http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2012/11/where-you-sit-determines-what.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are - Power Posing - Amy Cuddy - Harvard Business School Via TED

TED Video Filmed 6/2012 - 21 Minutes 

Note From Jim: This is a must watch video!!!!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html

Create Your Future - "Do It Until You Become It"

Excerpts:

Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident -- can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success.


Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions — and even our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions.

Cuddy is a professor and researcher at Harvard Business School, where she studies how nonverbal behavior and snap judgments affect people from the classroom to the boardroom. And her training as a classical dancer (another skill she regained after her injury) is evident in her fascinating work on "power posing" -- how your body position influences others and even your own brain.


Access TED and Its Great Content: http://www.ted.com/

Onboarding New Leaders October 8, 2012 by Ken Nowack - Envisia

“You can observe a lot just by watching.”  ~ Yogi Berra

Onboarding new and potential leaders for success is important.

About 40% of executives who change jobs or get promoted fail in the first 18 months.

Right now, we are grooming a new leader. HIs name is Indy and he is a 6-week guide dog in training owned by Guide Dogs of America. He is our 5th guide dog puppy we have raised and we will have the ability to shape his leadership skills for about 18 months.

Here are some onboarding lessons we have learned from our previous guide dog puppies and what we are applying to Indy.

Onboard Lesson 1: Effective Leaders Get to Know Critical Stakeholders

Effective leaders learn quickly to identify the political “movers and shakers” and key stakeholders within and outside the organization. New leaders should systematically be introduced to these key stakeholders and take the initiative in their first 90 days to establish rapport and a working knowledge of the key needs of these individuals.

Develop a plan to understand the stakeholder’s expectations of you and how you can support their performance. Take a personal interest in them and tune into special details about their likes, dislikes, and even family relations.

We are planning on introducing Indy to all of our favortite vendors and restaurant owners that have been so gracious over the years to support our work with the guide dog puppy raising program (special shout out to La Vecchia and their great staff over the years).

Onboard Lesson 2: Effective Leaders Play Well With Others

 Talent today don’t leave bad organizations, they leave bad leaders who are competent jerks. Most failures of leaders are primarily due to overuse of one’s strengths and interpersonal deficits. Understanding one’s own personality (bright side assests and dark side liabilities) will enable new leaders to foster positive relationships and nurture interpersonal trust.

Playing well with others also involves starting to create a new team identity. It starts with understanding and attempting to deploy the signature strengths of each direct report on one’s team. It also involves truly listening and understanding the team culture for the first 90 days without making too many significant changes or decisions that impact the organization unless you have a direct mandate to do so.

We have already begun puppy training for Indy–a lot of his learning is how to interact with other puppies. Truly learning to play well with others will allow him to become a great guide dog in the future.

Onboard Lesson 3: Effective Leaders Create a 90 Day Action Plan

Behavior change is very difficult for most of us. Starting new behaviors and maintaining it over time requires a different set of motives and skills.

Effective leaders should create both an organizational and personal plan of goals and activities to support these goals for 90 days.

Creating and espousing a vision without action is a waste of time and will diminish the credibility of new leaders. Demonstrating a connection between a vision and concrete actions and successes in the first 90 days is one of the most important metrics that new leaders are judged on.

Each month Indy will be going to our “guide dog” support group and training and it is during this time we have to demonstrate the 90 day core skills we are building with him (e.g., the basic commands needed to be a service dog in the future). We have some carefully mapped out exercises and activities that are age (maturity) dependent to social Indy to new sights and sounds and focus on deliberate practice of new skills until they become automatic.

Onboard Lesson 4: Effective Leaders Truly Manage Energy and Not Time

The most effective leaders understand that they don’t have enough time but, they have all the time that there is.

Effective leaders make sure to renew their energy and not run it down so they can be at the top of their game each day. Here are some behaviors that appear to differentiate the most effective leaders who manage their energy:

Develop Secondary Passions

Manage Energy and Not Time

Use Short-Term Goals to Accomplish Long Term Success

Seek Ongoing and Candid Feedback

Deliberate Practice Over 10 Years Makes You Better

Use “Ultradian Sprints” of no longer than 90 minutes to Minimize Interruptions

Compete with the Very Best to Get Better

Utilize a Balanced Success Scorecard with specific goals for enhancing relationships, happiness, achievements at work/life and their legacy/life meaning

Well, Indy is just waking up from one of his renewal naps so you probably can guess what I need to do now!

Stayed tuned for more leadership lessons with Indy….Be well….

Access Envisia Content Source And Its Great Stuff: http://results.envisialearning.com/onboarding-new-leaders/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ResultsVsActivities+%28Results+vs.+Activities%29

Passing on a Positive Legacy - Leadership Wired - John Maxwell

 September 2012, Issue 2


“There is a choice you make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.” ~ John Wooden

A legacy isn’t something over which we have no control, like the shadow that follows us down the sidewalk. Rather, we can choose the way in which our influence will remain once we’re gone. Here are a few suggestions for how you can purposefully pass-on a positive legacy.

1. Integrate a daily focus with a long-term perspective.

Leaders who have an enduring influence keep one eye on the compass and the other eye on the clock. That is, they look ahead without losing sight of what needs to happen each day. They give their best to activities and appointments, or the daily doings of life, while not forgetting their orienting vision and values.
2. Establish a direction that is clearly observable.

When your time on this earth draws to a close, people will describe your life in a single sentence. Pick it now. Be intentional about the sort of influence you want to have on the world around you. I live each day with my legacy statement at the forefront of my mind: “John Maxwell added value to leaders who multiplied value to others.” Being aware of how I want to be remembered gives me perspective on what’s truly important.
3. Develop a network of meaningful relationships.

Leadership is influence, and relationships are the foundation of leadership. Throughout life, I’ve heeded the Law of the Inner Circle: “Those closest to me determine the level of my success.” Perhaps nothing is more predictive of your legacy than the quality of people surrounding you.
4. Commit to a positive learning attitude that guarantees growth.

Personal growth is linked to a teachable disposition. My friend and mentor John Wooden liked to say: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” I credit my growth as a leader to a set of learning attitudes that I developed early in life.

My Learning Attitudes

a) Everyday I will learn something.
b) Everyone will be my teacher.
c) Every experience will be a learning lab.
d) Every opportunity I will ask questions.
e) Every time I will apply what I’ve learned.

5. Continually experience inner renewal.

Since the cares of life easily crowd out space for reflection, it’s essential to schedule time to think. By itself, experience doesn’t teach us anything; it has to be evaluated. Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you. My motto is that “you cannot travel without until you’ve traveled within.” In other words, you won’t have transformative influence on the world until you’ve been transformed yourself.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Each of us has received thousands of blessings that we did nothing to earn. Being a legacy-minded leader is an intentional way to give back out of gratitude for what we’ve been given.


This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at www.johnmaxwell.com/newsletters.

Legacy - Quotes - Leadership Wired

September 2012, Issue 2 • Quick Quotes

QUOTES


"LEGACY"

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand."
~ Woodrow Wilson


"[What matters most] is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind."
~ Branch Rickey


"The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope."
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


"Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you."
~ Shannon L. Alder

This article is used by permission from Leadership Wired, John Maxwell's premiere leadership newsletter, available for free subscription at www.johnmaxwell.com/newsletters.

The Secret to Health, Performance and Success: The Positivity to Negativity Ratio - Envisia - Kenneth Nowack

September 9, 2012

“If you have nothing to say, say nothing.”

Mark Twain

Here’s the answer: at least 3:1 to 5:1.

What’s the question?

Is there a universal ratio (P/N) of positive to negative communications, interactions and behaviors that predicts individual health, longevity, performance, relationship success and how team’s perform?

Across different disciplines, researchers continue to find an interesting relationship between “positive to negative” expressions of thoughts, attitudes and behavior that seem to predict things as diverse as how long we will live to how effectively teams function and product great results. This is sometimes referred to as the positivity to negativity ratio. Here are a few examples:

Longevity in Life

Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 951. The autobiography was to contain no more than two to three hundred words and should be written on a single sheet of paper. The nuns were asked to include place of birth, parentage, interesting childhood events, schools attended, influences that led to the convent, religious life, and outstanding events.

Their study revealed that the nuns whose autobiographies contained the most sentences expressing positive emotions lived an average of seven years longer than nuns whose stories contained the fewest. Further, lifespan increased by 9.5 years for nuns whose autobiographies contained the most words referring to positive emotions and by 10.5 years for nuns who used the greatest variety of positive-emotion words.

Positive Feedback

When we use 360-degree feedback assessments we always include at least 1-2 open-ended questions at the end of the questionnaire asking raters about perceived strengths to leverage and behaviors the leader can do more, less or differently to become even more effective. Smither and Walker (2004) analyzed the impact of upward feedback ratings as well as narrative comments over a one-year period for 176 managers2.

They found that those who received a small number of unfavorable behaviorally based comments improved more than other managers but those who received a large number (relative to positive comments) significantly declined in performance more than other managers. This is the only study I know of that has found that qualitative feedback in 360 interventions might actually be disengaging and demoralizing to participants if the ratio of positive to negative feedback is low.

Marriage/Relationship Longevity

John Gottman (1994) followed 700 couples for 10 years and found that when there was less than a 5 to 1 positive to negative interactions in a videotaped interaction of fifteen minutes it predicted subsequent divorce with 90% to 94% accuracy3.

He has observed couples for over 30 years, at his apartment-style laboratory, the “love lab” at the University of Washington. A Positive-to-Negative Ratio of 0.8 or less is a strong indicator of divorce with the most corrosive behaviors including:

• Criticism: Expressions indicating a defect in one’s partner’s personality (example: “You always talk about yourself”). Contempt: Expressions of superiority (example: “You just can’t get things right).”

• Defensiveness: Expressions of righteous indignation (example: “It’s not my fault that we’re always late—you are the one holding us up”).

• Stonewalling: Emotional withdrawal from interaction (e.g., ignoring the other individual).

Criticism predicted early divorcing (an average of 5.6 years after the wedding) and emotional withdrawal and anger predict later divorcing (an average of 16.2 years after the wedding).

Psychological Well-Being/Life Satisfaction

Fredrickson (2005) examined students’ month-long diaries and the positive/negative ratio of emotions seemed to differentiate those who were languishing from those who were high in psychological well-being4. She found that students who expressed a ratio of 3 times as many positive emotions than negative emotions reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness than the other students.

Team Effectiveness

Over the years we have run developmental assessment centers that always have at least one leaderless group exericse. We can easily observe the differences between groups that appear to function effectively from those who don’t based on the communications and interpersonal behavior of the group members–not how smart any individual is or the collective experience or technical expertise of the members.

Recent studies have established that teams with positive to negative interaction ratios greater than 3 to 1 are significantly more productive than teams that do not reach this ratio (Things can worsen if the ratio goes higher than 13 to 1). Marcial Losada brought 60 management teams into a simulated board room where they could hold actual meetings5. Behind mirrors, researchers observed and coded every statement made by each individual on three scales:

1. Positive statements (support, optimism, appreciation) versus negative statements (disapproval, sarcasm, cynicism).

2. Self-focused statements (refer to the person speaking, the group present, or the company) versus other-focused statements (references to a person or group not part of the company).

3. Inquiry (questions aimed at exploring an idea) versus advocacy (arguments in favor of their own point of view).

Losada also measured something he called connectivity or how attuned or responsive the team members were to each other. Finally he gathered data on three dependent variables: profitability, customer satisfaction, and evaluations by superiors, peers and subordinates. In the study, positive to negative ratio (P/N) was measured by counting the instances of positive feedback (e.g. “that is a good idea”) vs. negative feedback (e.g. “this is not what I expected; I am disappointed”).

Overall, high performance teams had a P/N ratio of 5.6, medium performance teams a P/N of 1.9 and low performance teams a P/N of 0.36 (more negative than positive).

Taken together, it seems that the secret to individual and team health and productivity might be as simple as accentuating the positive to negative ratio of emotions and behaviors and being aware of when our own self-talk and expressions seem tilted in the wrong direction.

I will have to ask my wife, who is registered dietitian, if this ratio also applies to healthy eating….Be well….

1. Danner, D., Snowdon, D., & Friesen, W. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 804-813 [↩]

2. Smither, J. & Walker, A.G. (2004). Are the characteristics of narrative comments related to improvement in multirater feedback ratings over time? Personnel Psychology, 89, 575-581 [↩]

3. Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum [↩]

4. Fredrickson, B. L. & Losada, M. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60, 678-686 [↩]
5. Losada, M., & Heaphy, E. (2004). The role of positivity and connectivity in the performance of business teams: A nonlinear dynamics model. American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 740–765 [↩]

Access Article, Source, And Great Ongoing Content: http://results.envisialearning.com/the-secret-to-health-performance-and-success-the-positivity-to-negativity-ratio/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ResultsVsActivities+%28Results+vs.+Activities%29  

De-Constructing Executive Presence - HBR - John Beeson

by John Beeson
11:00 AM August 22, 2012

"Executive Presence - .... your ability to project mature self-confidence, a sense that you can take control of difficult, unpredictable situations; make tough decisions in a timely way and hold your own with other talented and strong-willed members of the executive team".

If you ask a group of managers who aspire to the C-suite what it takes to get there, they'll invariably mention executive presence, but they aren't always so clear about what it means. Not too long ago I conducted a series of off-the-record interviews with senior executives responsible for executive placement in their organizations. I asked them about the "make or break" factors they consider in making C-suite promotion decisions. Executive presence was one of the handful of decision criteria they cited, but even these experienced executives struggled to define what it is and why one person has it and another doesn't. In an increasingly diverse world where senior executives are no longer all 6 foot 2 inch tall males who look they were sent from central casting, what does it take to create a commanding executive presence? The right clothes? A firm handshake? Those matter, but they don't tell the whole story.

Although executive presence is highly intuitive and difficult to pin down, it ultimately boils down to your ability to project mature self-confidence, a sense that you can take control of difficult, unpredictable situations; make tough decisions in a timely way and hold your own with other talented and strong-willed members of the executive team. If that's the nub of the issue, what style, what behaviors combine to signal that level of self-confidence to others? For some answers consider three talented managers — two of whom didn't make it to the executive level and one who did.

Every manager would love to have a Frank Simmons on his or her management team. Experienced, results oriented, collaborative, and committed to the company, Frank showed up on succession lists for a number of years — but was never promoted. Although a top performer in his area, Frank always looked a little rumpled and his posture was a bit hunched. When he made presentations to the executive team, he was invariably well-prepared, but his lack of comfort was evident in his body language. Normally highly articulate, his presentations were long-winded and rambling. In the Q&A portion of his presentations, he tended to be overly deferential to members of the executive team, and he was hesitant to insert himself into the conversation when the executives got into a debate. As one senior executive said privately, "Frank's an incredible asset to the company, but I just can't envision putting him in front of a customer."

Alicia Wallace was a highly-trained marketing manager who had succeeded in every assignment she'd had. However, when it came time to select high-potential people for promotion to more senior levels, she always missed the cut. As much as the senior marketing executives liked and respected her, they were never quite comfortable moving her to the next level. The reason: her apparent disorganization. People would talk about "Alicia being Alicia" when she arrived late to yet another meeting: rushed, harried, and with her files askew. Was this trivial and petty? Perhaps, but on a visceral level it caused senior people to question her "bandwidth" to manage a larger staff and maintain the necessary focus on implementing key priorities.

If you entered a room filled with twenty managers, Lydia Taylor, a member of the legal department, wouldn't stand out — but that would change once the dialogue started. Although soft spoken and not terribly aggressive, she was highly respected by her peers as well as the executives with whom she worked. Lydia possessed outstanding listening skills and had an unerring sense of when to enter the conversation to make her point. Unrushed, straightforward, and unflappable, she maintained her calm, even demeanor when others got emotional, and she used her dry sense of humor to defuse difficult situations. When challenged by others, she stood her ground in a firm, non-confrontational way. Although highly supportive of her internal customers, she was prepared to put her foot down if anyone advocated a position that might put the company at risk. As a result, Lydia was identified as a top candidate and groomed to succeed the company's General Counsel.

The age-old question is whether executive presence can be developed? The answer is yes — if you have a baseline of self-confidence and a willingness to deal with the unpredictable situations that go with the territory at the executive level. Start by addressing the basics. Find a couple of trusted people who will give you unvarnished feedback about your dress and grooming and the level of self-confidence you project. As noted, dress and grooming aren't the whole deal, but major problems can create an impediment. One highly talented female manager was privately described by her peers as dressing like a "school marm" while others said a hard-charging manager came off like a "used car salesman." The connotations aren't flattering nor are they insignificant. People tend not to trust a used car salesman, and school marms aren't typically thought of as creative and risk taking, two qualities central to leading innovation and change at the executive level.

Look for opportunities to hone your presentation skills. Not only is public speaking an important executive requirement, but your ability to "stand and deliver" to an executive group or large audience is frequently viewed as an indicator of your ability to handle pressure. Rehearse major presentation until you can come off as relaxed and in command, and pay special attention to the Q&A portion since your poise when questioned and ability to think on your feet help you project a sense of self-confidence.

Most important, find your voice as an executive: that is, identify your assets and leverage them to the hilt. Some people are naturally gregarious and can fill a room with their personality. Others, like Lydia Taylor, rely on their listening ability, sense of timing, and ability to maintain their composure when others get emotional. In an increasingly diverse world, executive presence will look very different from one executive to another. However, the constant is building the confidence of others that you can step up as a leader when times get tough.


John Beeson


John Beeson is Principal of Beeson Consulting, a management consulting firm specializing in succession planning, executive assessment and coaching, and organization design. He is also the author of The Unwritten Rules: The Six Skills You Need to Get Promoted to the Executive Level (Jossey-Bass.). Follow him on twitter @johnrbeeson.

Access HBR Website, Article, And Other Great Stuff: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/de-constructing_executive_pres.html?awid=7248761852809504214-3271

Building Trust Through Skillful Self-Disclosure - Harvard Business Review

Building Trust Through Skillful Self-Disclosure - Lynn Offermann and Lisa Rosh - Harvard Business Review

by Lynn Offermann and Lisa Rosh

11:37 AM June 13, 2012



Excerpts:

Psychologists have long known that self-disclosure is one of the hallmarks of intimate relationships. Revealing your motives, intentions, goals, values, and emotions, can increase liking and feelings of intimacy. There is considerable evidence that leaders who disclose their authentic selves to followers can build not only trust, but generate greater cooperation and teamwork as well. Yet successful and strategic self-disclosure is a leadership competency that many leaders have yet to acquire. Used incorrectly, or in the wrong corporate environment, self-disclosure can backfire.


Access Source, Article And Other Great Stuff: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/06/instantaneous_intimacy_skillfu.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

How to Respond to Emotional Outbursts - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review

EXCERPTS:

11:19 AM Thursday April 19, 2012

Love, acceptance, and understanding in the workplace? Really? What's that got to do with performance?

Everything.

An organization performs best when the people in the organization know they can trust and depend on each other. Then they break out of silos. They take accountability for their own mistakes instead of blaming each other. They surface problems before they become major obstacles

But if people spend their energy hiding their feelings, that energy will leak out in negative and insidious ways, sabotaging your efforts and theirs.

Uncovering the real issue happens when people feel safe enough to be vulnerable.

How do you do it? It's actually very easy. Take a deep breath and just validate. Repeat back what you're hearing. Be a mirror.

If it's easy, why don't we all do it all the time? Because there's a hard part too: Managing your own discomfort. Can you be OK with the feelings of others? Can you listen without judging? Can you listen even though you might feel threatened?

Peter Bregman is a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. To receive an email when he posts, click here.


Access article, source and other great stuff: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/04/how-to-respond-to-emotional-ou.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

CEO Challenge 2012 Reveals Critical Link Between Innovation and Human Capital - Governance Center Blog

Apr 19  2012
The top five challenges facing business leaders worldwide this year are Innovation, Human Capital, Global Political/Economic Risk, Government Regulation, and Global Expansion, according to nearly 800 chief executives, presidents and chairmen from leading companies in Asia, Europe and the United States who took part in the Conference Board CEO Challenge 2012.

The Conference Board has conducted the CEO Challenge survey every year since 1999, asking top executives across the globe and from many different industries to identify and rank their most critical business challenges and their strategies for addressing each one.

The 2012 survey report, Risky Business: Focusing on Innovation and Talent in a Volatile World, which was published in March, was authored by three Conference Board executives: Charles Mitchell, executive director for knowledge content and quality; Rebecca Ray, senior vice president of human capital; and Bart van Ark, executive vice president and chief economist. Through the combination of their insight and the candid responses of those who were surveyed, the report provides an in-depth look at global and regional business trends and a dynamic picture of the strategic thinking of leading executives on three continents.

Although the top five business challenges are clear when the executives’ responses are viewed collectively, the survey also reveals sharp differences from region to region, as shown by the following excerpt from the report:

The varying speed of economic recovery in the world’s regions, the lack of a qualified labor pool in many geographies and industries, and the peculiarities of regional cultures, customers and government attitudes means that CEOs in Asia, Europe and the United States each see a unique set of challenges that reflects the business realities they face locally and globally. Only Innovation and Global Political/Economic Risk make the top five challenges in all three regions.

United States – For U.S. CEOs, the biggest challenges reside outside the corporate walls. Faced with a divided Congress and political inertia regarding national debt levels and taxation, as well as the uncertainty of pending legislation that may significantly affect business models and healthcare costs, U.S. CEOs ranked Government Regulation first. Cost Optimization was fifth, a telltale sign that there is less than full confidence that the economic recovery can be sustained over time.

Europe – Against a backdrop of government cutbacks, reduced revenue, recession fears, and ticking demographic and pension time bombs, the focus of CEOs in Europe is on Global Political/Economic Risk—their top challenge. CEOs in the region see a combination of Innovation, Cost Optimization and Global Expansion as a way to fuel top- and bottom-line growth in a volatile business climate. Due to weak growth, CEOs are keeping a careful watch on the bottom line in a return to the frugal attitudes that characterized the 2008/2009 recession.

Asia – CEOs in Asia are focused on the region’s relatively high-growth business environment. Asian CEOs ranked Innovation and Human Capital their top two challenges. Their selection of Innovation as number one coincides with an explosion of R&D expenditure in the region. The high ranking of Human Capital underscores the view that the continuation of the extraordinary growth trajectory in the Asia-Pacific region will require solutions to such human capital issues as attracting innovative talent and developing effective leaders.

Innovation was on the minds of CEOs in all regions and industries, yet while executives continued to view technology as the leading driver of innovation, the survey shows that they also recognize the critical link between innovation and human capital—the role that talented people play in creating and nurturing innovative ideas and bringing them to market.

As the report observes:

Ranked as the second most critical challenge globally in 2012, Human Capital is also the key to conquering this year’s top-ranked challenge of Innovation. Of all of the highest rated challenges, none is so heavily dependent upon effectively addressing Human Capital issues as Innovation.

In addition to examining key challenges and strategies in Asia, Europe and the United States, the report also gives special attention to India and China, two emerging economies with enormous influence on global markets due to their rapid economic growth, large populations and changing demographics. Companies in India and China operate in very different business environments, yet CEOs in both countries rank Human Capital as their number-one challenge.

If India and China, the world’s two most populous countries, can succeed in developing their billions of people into a creative, highly skilled and innovative workforce, it will have far-reaching consequences for the global economy.

The CEO Challenge 2012 report is complimentary to members and can be downloaded now. The Conference Board is also offering a series of CEO Challenge Business Perspectives Briefings in a number of locations worldwide. Register today for a briefing near yo
Larry West

Access Governance Center Blog, article, the survey report, and other great stuff:  http://tcbblogs.org/governance/2012/04/19/ceo-challenge-2012/

Personal Accountability: Putting the Brakes on Moral Breakdown - The John Maxwell Company

April 2012, Issue 2

Article Excerpts:

Developing personal accountability involves three steps:

1) Distrust Yourself
2) Set Behavioral Boundaries
3) Invite Inspection

CONCLUSION

As a Japanese proverb instructs, “The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of a single hour.” If you’ve not taken steps to safeguard your reputation, start today by asking yourself the following questions:

Access Article, Content Source And Other Great Stuff:  http://www.johnmaxwell.com/products-resources/leadership-on-demand/articles/personal-accountability-putting-the-brakes-on-moral-breakdown/

Career Coach: Is your style causing problems for you? - Washington Post

By Joyce E. A. Russell, Published: March 4 2012

EXCERPTS:

Here are some of the primary issues that seem to cause stress among peers and reasons for why they don’t want to work with a particular individual:

An abrasive style, tactlessness or lack of empathy.

Intimidating, domineering or condescending style.

Disengagement or inconsistent engagement.

Unwillingness to change.

Undependability.

Disorganization and lack of focus.

Poor communication skills, especially failing to listen to other’s views.

Negativity, moodiness or bad temper. Individuals want to be around positive, hopeful people.

Don’t be the source of the problem. Collect candid feedback from others on your work style. Be sensitive to the reactions of others and be open to adjusting your behaviors to fit the current situation. Research has shown that people better at self-monitoring are often more effective in managerial positions because they are required to read situations and play multiple roles when communicating with different types of people.

Factors that employees have told me they most appreciate in peers include:

Collegial skills

Consistent high-quality work performance, regardless of the project

Timeliness of work

Positive “can-do” attitude and enthusiasm
Dedication to the project.

Consideration of others and being trustworthy — being sincere and genuine and truly caring about teammates.

So, if you want to be able to lead or influence others or even get them to pick you for that next project, think about your own style and what might be holding you back.
Joyce E. A. Russell is the director of the Executive Coaching and Leadership Development Program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. She is a licensed industrial and organizational psychologist and has more than 25 years of experience coaching executives and consulting on leadership and career management. She can be reached at jrussell@rhsmith.umd.edu.

Access Article, Source And Great Content: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/career-coach-is-your-style-causing-problems-for-you/2012/02/29/gIQARByrqR_story.html

CIOs as Revolutionaries? Technology Spurring Change Among Carriers - PropertyCasualty360.com

http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2012/02/09/cios-as-revolutionaries-technology-spurring-change
No longer supporting players, Deloitte views CIOs as leaders in innovation.

By ROBERT REGIS HYLE, PROPERTYCASUALTY360.COM

February 9, 2012

In its 2012 Global Insurance Outlook, Deloitte Research insurance leader Sam Friedman issues an interesting description of technology leaders in the insurance industry. He describes their work as “revolutionary,” and points out the important decisions CIOs make today are less about software or reengineering processes than they are about transformation.

“CIOs are evolving into key players within the C-suite to develop and execute strategy,” he says. “They are expected to be transformational.”

Technology today is viewed as a way to change the business culture within an insurance company.

“Maybe it’s a culture that’s insulated in the sense they always do things in-house, work with existing systems, and adapt the best they can with the systems in place,” says Friedman. “Now [CIOs] are being asked to come up with more ambitious game plans to change the culture and the approach—and not just technologically, but from a business operations standpoint. Technology facilitates the business operation.”

The C-suite within an insurance company has expanded in the last few years, explains Friedman. The CEOs, CFOs, and COOs remain lead players, but newer titles—chief risk officers, chief information officers or chief technology officers—are playing important roles in the enterprise.

“Their roles are not simply to take marching orders from the C-suite and execute strategies,” he says. “They have a more influential seat at the table in terms of setting strategy, planning how that strategy will be executed, and having a say on what resources will be available—particularly outside resources like software and the people involved.”

Because so much technology today is being outsourced—in part because of the current growth in cloud computing—technology leaders need to perform a tremendous amount of due diligence, explains Friedman. Outsourcing requires carriers to put a great deal of faith in the infrastructure and the personnel from outside the organization.

Friedman concedes it is difficult to look at insurance CIOs as revolutionaries since the insurance has been known as a less than revolutionary type of business.

“Insurance tends to change slowly,” he says. “Product development is incremental. You don’t have the introduction of a revolutionary product that changes the landscape very often. Technology is an area where you can bring transformational change within insurance. The whole decision to outsource to a cloud is revolutionary to many insurance companies that either kept patching their legacy systems or kept reinventing the wheel in house.”

Social media is not viewed as a transformative tool and is mostly used as a marketing tool for insurance carriers to interact with policyholders on social networking sites such as Facebook. But Friedman believes IT leaders need to look at social media as a collaboration tool within an organization, particularly for multi-state or multi-national carriers where employees are not in the same office or even in the same country.

Friedman points out that at Deloitte, the social media site Yammer is becoming an important tool the research firm uses to conduct business day to day. Deloitte facilitates knowledge management by setting up internal Yammer sites to discuss issues in real time rather than brainstorming on a conference call.

“Why do that instead of using the telephone?” Friedman asks. “What we found is on a call someone is leading it and sometimes people are hesitant to speak out. The experience we’ve had with Yammer is people are much more interactive in the social media platform rather than on the telephone. There seems to be more content generated and information exchanged than on the phone or in a live meeting. [Workers] seem to be more open on the social media platform.”

Friedman believes the same thing is happening within insurance organizations. For example, the person in charge of distributor relations at a carrier could hold a session to deal with their independent agents to discuss a new product or a new twist on an existing product like telematics, or strategic planning for product development.

“Rather than having conference calls and live meetings, maybe it’s less expensive and perhaps more effective through social media,” he says. “There are many other services out there. The software itself is secondary. It’s really about transformation for the business operation. The CIO can lead that.”

Most insurers have a social media policy in place, but Friedman wonders how carriers are quantifying and benchmarking what they are accomplishing—particularly in contrast to their competition. Carriers need analytics tools to answer those questions.

“There’s work going on to try and solve [benchmarking issues] through advanced analytics, it’s just a matter of what the field of information is going to be and how it is weighed against the competition,” he says.

Analytics is the wave that is overcoming any sort of internal objections, points out Friedman.

“It’s such a natural transition to the business,” he says. “My only surprise is it’s taken so long to take off. It’s being heavily leveraged to red flag inflated or fraudulent claims. [Analytics] always had a strong element in underwriting and with smaller accounts you can leverage it to make decisions and save the underwriter’s expertise for more complex accounts.”

Friedman also is excited by the new hardware for agents and consumers: the smartphone.

“Think of all the things you can do from a smartphone,” he says. “It is the most insurance-friendly device invented in a long time.”

Policyholders can document an accident with a still photo or a video, write all the details of the accident on the phone’s memo function and email it to the insurance company, and go online through the an insurance app and the GPS function will tell them where the closest repair facility is located. Customers also can get quotes on their smartphone.

“It’s an amazing device,” says Friedman. “It can transform how an insurance company does business and it’s all under the CIOs purview.”

Many functions also are delivered for tablets. A life salesperson can sit down with a prospect and rather than printing out policy details or having the prospect hunch over and look at the laptop, they can present the policy to the customer on their tablet.

“This is the revolution being led by the CIOs,” says Friedman. “CIOs are the ones bringing these ideas to the C-suite and the board of directors to differentiate [the insurer] from the competition. CIOs are no longer just middle managers.”



Access Source And Its Great Content: http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2012/02/09/cios-as-revolutionaries-technology-spurring-change


Access Deloitte Insurance Outlook 2012: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCoQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.deloitte.com%2Fassets%2FDcom-Sweden%2FLocal%2520Assets%2FDocuments%2FDeloitte-FSI-Global-Insurance-Outlook-2012.pdf&ei=ryU1T8TzHOP00gGHq-HQCQ&usg=AFQjCNFL42xA35uXRtec-ztP-jBYqqHJdg&sig2=gm9ZBcYvVVST9uZkJTD1JA

The 10 Worst Things to Say When You Fire Someone | Inc.com

Jeff Haden
02.06.2012


EXCERPTS:

1. "Look, this is really hard for me."
2. "We've decided we need to make a change."
3. "We will work out some of the details later."
4. "You just aren't cutting it compared to Mary."
5. "Okay, let’s talk about that. Here’s why..."
6. "You’ve been a solid employee but we simply have to cut staffing."
7. "We both know you aren't happy here, so down the road you’ll be glad."
8. "I need to walk you to the door."
9. "We have decided to let you go."
10. "If there is anything I can do for you, just let me know."

GET IT RIGHT. ACCESS ARTICLE
Access Article: http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-10-worst-things-to-say-when-you-fire-an-employee.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29

Great Leadership: A Performance Management Model

Great Leadership: A Performance Management Model


Note From Jim:  Dan McCarthy of the Whittmore School Of Business offers great advice for coaching performance.  Find his post at the link below:  Best Always - Jim

EXCERPTS

As a follow-up to the recent post and comments "Are You Managing or Just Nagging?", here's everything you need to facilitate a robust dialog on performance management, with lots of room for grey areas.

Dan McCarthy is the Director of Executive Development Programs (EDP) at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics. He is responsible for all administrative, fiscal, operational, and policy matters associated with the development, delivery, and marketing of Executive Development Programs at the Whittemore School.


The Whittemore School’s Executive Development Program offers executive development designed to meet the specific educational and training needs of individual businesses. For more than 30 years, the Whittemore School has worked collaboratively with companies on a variety of short- and long-term programs, offering intensive study for companies who want to strengthen their management skills, develop leadership capabilities or enhance specific business skills
 
Access Source And All of Dan's Great Content: http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2012/01/performance-management-model.html

Risk Profile, Appetite, and Tolerance: Fundamental Concepts in Risk Management and Reinsurance Effectiveness GC Capital Ideas

April 30th, 2009
Posted at 1:01 AM ETFinancial Intelligence Team

EXCERPTS

Overview

As the financial crisis continues to unfold — and explanations are offered — it is clear that more robust enterprise-wide risk management will be the result. Many industry participants and observers anticipate that regulatory and rating agency scrutiny will accelerate at an unprecedented rate. Further, insurer and reinsurer shareholders and Boards of Directors are likely to demand that risk be measured and managed as it relates directly to capital on an enterprise-wide basis, particularly as an integral part of the corporate governance process.

Advancing the ERM dialogue can help insurers make value-accretive decisions through the improved deployment of capital. A thorough understanding of the basic concepts of enterprise-wide risk is fundamental to the implementation of ERM disciplines, establishing risk management parameters, and integrating this knowledge into the process of making strategic business decisions. As a result, insurance and reinsurance firms will not only be better prepared to respond to the internal and external questions relating to risk and capital, but (perhaps more importantly), they could benefit by establishing hedging or reinsurance strategies to drive capital efficiencies and maximize stable risk-adjusted returns.

We will address three core aspects of the emerging ERM and capital management dialogue:

1.We will offer a framework for defining common terminology: distinguishing Risk Profile, Risk Appetite, and Risk Tolerance. Currently there are no consistent, overarching definitions of commonly used risk terms. Greater clarity in this area is fundamental to a proper understanding of the concepts involved.

2.We will offer a framework for discussing risk tolerance, including best practices.

3.We will present the results of Guy Carpenter’s initial risk tolerance benchmarking study, which will allow us to advise our clients about their own circumstances and the general context of the markets in which they operate.

Risk Profile, Risk Appetite, and Risk Tolerance


Access Article:  http://www.gccapitalideas.com/2012/01/27/weeks-top-stories-january-21-27-2012/