Blanchard LeaderChat

I just finished up the main article for the next issue of Ignite, our monthly e-newsletter.  It features an interview with Madeleine Homan-Blanchard, who is the founder of the Coaching Services division at The Ken Blanchard Companies.  

 

One of the things we talked about was the situation new managers find themselves in as the deal with managing through their first recession.  In most cases, these new managers don’t have any past experience to draw from since they were not in a managerial position during the downturns of the early 80s and 90s.  

 

So how do these managers chart a course without the benefit of past experience?  Madeleine recommends that they take a moment to step back and reflect on some of their own best managers.  Who were the people that provided direction and support for them in the earlier days when these new managers were direct reports?

 

One of the traits that she thinks people will rediscover through this exercise is the power of consistency.  Not that these managers acted the same with every single employee, but instead that they used systems and processes consistently so that people knew what to expect and also what was expected of them.

We just published the results of our annual corporate issues survey. This year’s survey shows that executives and company leaders are somewhat optimistic that the US economy will rebound in 2009. Following the 2008 slowdown that has crippled economies around the world, over 70% of those surveyed expected the economy to begin its recovery sometime this year.  Only a quarter of the respondents thought the downturn would continue unabated into 2010.

 

The 2009 results represent feedback from more than 1,700 executives, line managers, and training and human resource leaders from a range of companies, industries, and countries. Since 2003, over 6,700 leaders have participated in this ongoing study. Here are some of the highlights from the press release:

 

“Participants in the most recent Blanchard survey were asked to describe their organization’s overall outlook in regards to the economy, training expenditures, expected cuts, and coping strategies.  In addition, the survey touched on corporate issues relating to organizational, HR, and management challenges. Responses focused on the most important aspects of future corporate growth and employee development, as well as how employees are prepared to deal with these and other hurdles. Some of the survey’s top responses include:

 

Tactics for Coping in a Down Economy

 

-         Invest in productivity and performance

-         Cut travel costs

-         Increase focus on branding and differentiation

 

2009 Top Organizational Challenges

 

-         Economic challenges

-         Competitive pressure

-         Growth and expansion

 

2009 Top Management Challenges

 

-         Managing change

-         Creating an engaged workforce

-         Reducing costs

 

Types of Training to be Offered in 2009

 

-         Leadership skills

-         Managerial/supervisory skills

-         Customer service skills

 

With the expectation that the economy will begin to recover within the next year, survey respondents also predict that their corporations will not make drastic cuts to training budgets. Fewer than 1 in 5 state that their organization plans to spend significantly less money on training in 2009, as compared to 2008. This desire to maintain an adequate level of training points to the identification of corporate development as a way to ride out the storm of economic turmoil, while also refining and realigning each organization’s own learning infrastructure.

 

While recent news has highlighted the downsizing of well-known companies, the Blanchard survey results show signs that corporations are looking inward to survive current conditions instead of resorting to the old playbook of cuts, cuts, and more cuts. Companies seeking to decrease costs along all facets of the organizational structure are not, the survey suggests, primarily targeting personnel and marketing. Only 29% of respondents listed personnel layoffs and cuts as ways their companies plan to cope with the down economy, while marketing cuts came in at 14%. More than 60% plan to invest in productivity and performance-maximizing strategies, while another 46% plan to focus on their corporate branding and differentiation.”

You can view the entire Blanchard 2009 Corporate Issues Survey findings at:

http://www.kenblanchard.com/img/pub/Blanchard_2009_Corporate_Issues_Survey.pdf

 

 

Join Dr. Vicki Halsey, VP of Applied Learning for The Ken Blanchard Companies, right here on LeaderChat beginning at 10:05 a.m. Pacific Time for a 50-minute Q&A session. 

 

Dr. Vicki will be stopping by right after she finishes a webinar being hosted by our friends at WebEx on Best Practice Blended Training Designs.  Over 300 human resource and training professionals are expected to participate in the webinar and many will be gathering here to ask follow-up questions.

 

If you have a question that you would like to ask Vicki, just enter this thread or click on the COMMENTS hyperlink near the title of this post.  Type in your question in the space provided and hit SUBMIT COMMENT.  Vicki will answer as many questions as possible until she has to leave at 11:00 a.m. Pacific.

 

And if you can’t stay, be sure to stop by later and see all the questions that were asked.  Or better yet, hit the RSS FEED button on the right-hand column and receive updates on a daily basis!

How do you quickly retool your existing classroom training for virtual delivery?  That’s a question many training directors are facing as cost cutting travel restrictions have put a large number of classroom-based training programs on hold.

 

I think that’s why we’ve seen such a large registration for tomorrow’s webinar on Best Practice Blended Training Designs featuring Blanchard’s VP of Applied Learning Vicki Halsey.  Originally we had anticipated about 200 people registering for this event, but at last count we were nearing 500 people.

 

In a 50-minute online WebEx presentation Vicki will be sharing some of the virtual training designs she has created for large Fortune 500 companies. Participants will get a chance to see how other companies have successfully converted classroom designs into virtual programs.

 

Vicki will also be joining us here at LeaderChat immediately after her presentation to continue the conversation and answer questions.  If you’d like to participate in either event, they are both free. 

 

Best Practice Blended Training Designs Registration Link

Colleen Barrett, past president of Southwest Airlines, was asked about some of the techniques she used to keep morale high at her company.  One of the things she shared was how she spent time every day writing personal notes to employees recognizing them for accomplishments, noting milestones achieved, or just saying thank you.  After she had shared some of her “secrets” she was asked if she was worried about competitors finding out what she was doing and copying it.

 

Colleen wasn’t worried.  Why? Because she knew that the power of what she was doing wasn’t in the concept—it was in the execution.  In Barrett’s case, she knew that most executives wouldn’t take the time to write 4,000 personal notes a year to employees like she did.  And that was why she wasn’t worried that they would duplicate the culture.

 

The idea of writing notes wasn’t the magic.  Actually doing it was.  What’s waiting in your idea queue?  Make the shift from knowing to doing.  That’s where the power is.

I was just reviewing the research section of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ website and I rediscovered a great item from last March that I wanted to highlight.  In open-ended questioning we did asking what are the biggest mistakes that leaders make 1,400 survey respondents identified that too often leaders either don’t communicate, overcommunicate, communicate inappropriately through outbursts, anger, or blaming, or simply don’t communicate clearly. In addition, leaders may fail to communicate the vision in a way that is meaningful, assuming that direct reports intuitively understand the direction of the company and their role in making this happen.

Providing inappropriate direction was the second most highly cited leadership mistake. Giving direction without involving others in the process, not seeking the feedback of others, and not empowering direct reports can cause frustration and lack of focus. In addition, using a generalized approach to direction rather than considering the person, task, and situation was cited as a key mistake made by leaders.

In today’s highly charged work environment, leaders have to provide a clear vision for people and then follow-up with the direction and support that people need to succeed. Failure to address these two important issues negatively impacts the performance and productivity of the people working in the organization. If you want the people in your organization to meet or exceed their annual goals, be sure that you are setting them up for success by establishing clear goals upfront and then providing the direction and support they need to achieve those goals throughout the year.

I wanted to recommend a great business book, Egonomics, that is now out in paperback.  It is written by two consultants, David Marcum and Steven Smith who do work in the area of executive development.

 

One of the keys point in the book is that an out of balance ego doesn’t feel dramatically different from an in-balance ego and that is why it trips up so many leaders.

 

In fact, you might not even notice at first—even though other people will.  That’s because ego takes your strengths and subtly changes them into close counterfeits.  Now everything seems a little self-serving and things that people appreciated about you—like being able to come up with an alternative viewpoint, being able to objectively compare your point of view to someone else’s, brainstorm good ideas, and seek and welcome feedback—things that make you a good team member—are subtly changed. 

 

To help leaders identify when their ego might be getting the best of them, the authors offer four warning signs.

 

1. Being comparative—instead of focusing on being your best, you find yourself focusing instead on just being better than someone else. 
2. Being defensive—instead of defending an idea, you find yourself making things personal.
3. Showcasing your brilliance—you go beyond sharing good ideas to making your brilliance the center of attention. 
4. Constantly seeking acceptance—you find yourself becoming overly concerned with what other people think.

 So how do the authors of Egonomics recommend rebalancing your ego?  Three things:

 

1. Humility—don’t think less of yourself—just think about yourself less. 
2. Curiosity—ask, instead of tell.
3. Veracity—find truth-tellers in your life.  People who will be straight with you and tell you what you need to hear.

 Ego can be our greatest asset, or it can be our biggest liability. It’s all about keeping it in balance. 

I’ve just fallen in love with a new television series that I’ve discovered online. The program is called Kitchen Nightmares and it features world-class restaurateur Gordon Ramsay, most famous for his television show Hell’s Kitchen.  In this series, Ramsay works with struggling restaurants all across the United States to see what he can do to help them return to profitability. 

 

The most fascinating thing that I found in watching Kitchen Nightmares is all of the different human resource issues that are being addressed.  It’s almost like a series of Harvard business school case studies presented in a fun, entertaining format.  For example, in the first episode Ramsay works with a family-owned Italian restaurant.  The question?  How do you tell the manager of the restaurant, who also happens to be the son’s owner, that he is the biggest problem holding back the business?

 

In another episode Ramsay works with a downtown Manhattan restaurant that is absolutely filthy.  The problem here?  Apathetic employees and incompetent managers.  Ramsay’s solution?  Fire the general manager and instead turn to the floor manager to run the restaurant while he simultaneously brings in a new chef.

 

In all of the episodes you have the opportunity to watch a wide variety of real life human resource problems solved on a practical basis.  I was struck by the complicated nature of the problems that each of these businesses faced and how it ultimately fell back to a people problem in all cases.  Certainly, in some of the episodes the issue also turns out to be poor promotion, a too-complicated menu, or an unfocused business plan, but in the end you can always trace the problem back to an individual. An egotistical owner, an incompetent manager, or apathetic employees who just don’t care anymore.  The result?  A poor experience for the customer, and of course, poor results at the cash register.

 

The series gives you a chance to see the subtle people issues that managers have to deal with on a daily basis and how, if neglected, ultimately cause the business to suffer. 

 

If you have ever wondered whether good people management matters, tune in. You’ll see real life examples of the difference that good leadership makes. Look for it under popular TV shows at www.hulu.com.   

Even under the best of circumstances nearly 70 percent of all change initiatives fail. That’s a shocking rate considering all of the effort that companies put into the process—and how much is riding on a successful outcome—especially these days.

 

What’s the main reason for failure?

 

Leaders don’t involve or address the concerns of the people affected by the change.

 

I was thinking about all of the change that is on the drawing boards of companies—including ours—as we look for ways to stay profitable.  So I went back into my notes to an interview that I conducted with Dr. Patricia Zigarmi, our change expert here at the company.  What Pat shared with me was that if leaders would just focus on three concerns that all people have, they could greatly enhance the probability of change succeeding in their organizations. 

• The first area to address is around information concerns. People want to know what the proposed change is all about, what you are seeing, and why things have to change.
• The second area involves personal concerns. People want to know how the change will be good for them personally—not just good for the company.   They also want to know if they will be able to master the new skills the change requires.
• The third area is around the nitty-gritty implementation concerns such as system alignment, best practices, and the daily mechanics of making the change happen.

 If you’re interested in exploring this a little further, check out the free Change Readiness Quiz at our website.  Once you take the quiz, you can also download the Top 15 Reasons Why Change Efforts Fail

We had a great turnout for Ken Blanchard’s webinar on Leading in Uncertain Times yesterday.  Over 1,600 people joined us online for the live event and over 700 people joined us here at LeaderChat afterwards to ask additional questions.

 

Ken identified a couple of key points about leading during times of change that I wanted to call out.  See what you think and consider how each of these recommendations is being played out in your organization.

 

1. Make your people your business partners. During challenging economic times it might seem like you need to be careful about what you say and what information you share.  This is misguided according to Ken.  Instead of communicating less, leaders need to be communicating more.  Share what you know so everyone in the organization is seeing what you are seeing.
2. Be a bearer of hope.  What’s your intended role as a leader in your organization?  Realist? Pragmatist? Strategist?  Ken’s recommendation?  Leaders need to be bearers of hope. Once you’ve shared the situation with people, share your positive plans for moving forward.
3. Be a servant leader.  Having a good, solid plan is only half of the story.  The real work begins when you turn the organizational pyramid upside down.  Now your job as a leader is to support your people, providing the tools, resources, and authority that allows them to take action.