Blanchard LeaderChat

Bringing people together from a wide variety of backgrounds creates tremendous opportunities for organizations, but also some challenges. In two upcoming executive briefings in Calgary and Ottawa, best-selling business author and consultant Ken Blanchard will be discussing how organizations can benefit from new perspectives if they are able to unite people behind a common set of values and goals.

For leaders looking to improve their ability to successfully manage a diverse workforce, Blanchard recommends six strategies:

1. Set a clear, inclusive vision.  As Blanchard explains, that includes identifying your organizational purpose, picture of the future, operating values, and action steps.
2. Increase the quality and quantity of conversations occurring between managers and direct reports. The greater the amount of diversity there is in the workforce, the more managers have to communicate to make sure that everyone’s issues and concerns are on the table.
3. Walk the talk. In the past, if leaders were inconsistent, employees would talk about it in the bathrooms and in the hallways, but that was usually as far as it went. Today, people are much more direct, so integrity is more important than ever.
4. Turn the organizational hierarchy upside-down.  Effective day-to-day implementation requires turning the organizational chart upside down so that front line people are at the top serving customers while leaders move themselves to a supporting role and focus on removing roadblocks and providing resources.
5. Consider the whole person. Don’t ask people to “leave their nerve endings at the door.” Employees want their managers to know them as people—including the issues they might be dealing with both in and out of work. Employees want to feel cared for, understood, and supported in their efforts to make a difference at work.
6. Increase involvement. As Blanchard likes to point out, “No one of us is as smart as all of us.” One of the great advantages in having a diverse population is that you can tackle a problem from a rich variety of viewpoints. But you have to encourage participation and really listen to what people have to say to make the most of that opportunity.

Globalization and the increasingly international nature of business is changing the requirements of leadership. The old ways of doing things are not necessarily the ways of leading in the future. By using the excitement, willingness and the capability of people from diverse backgrounds, leaders will find they are able to make a significant impact in their organizations, their communities, and in all walks of life.

You can learn more about what Ken Blanchard has to say on The Changing Face of Leadership by checking out his recent article in Diversity Executive.  You can learn more about his upcoming presentations in Calgary and Ottawa by clicking here.

Would you like to win a free seat to see Ken Blanchard in Calgary or Ottawa?

Tweet about this post between now and October 4 and you will automatically be entered into a raffle to win a seat to Ken’s presentation in Calgary October 19 or Ottawa on October 22 (a $250 value). Be sure to include @LeaderChat in the body of your tweet.  One winner will be randomly selected and announced on October 5. Winner will have their choice of attending either the Calgary or Ottawa presentation.

October 5 Update: Congratulations to Peter John McFarlane @pjmcfarlane who won the free admission to see Ken Blanchard in Calgary or Ottawa.  Thanks to everyone who re-tweeted this announcement!

Dr. Vicki Halsey covers the topics of Listening and Feedback in this month’s Webinar:

Click here to view the entire webinar now.

Join The Ken Blanchard Companies for a special complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern).  Best-selling author and consultant Dr. Vicki Halsey will be sharing strategies for managers looking to improve their feedback and listening skills. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 1,000 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Dr. Halsey will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions. 

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat 

1. Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
2. Type in your question
3. Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Dr. Halsey will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses. 

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

How are most organizations doing when it comes to managing the performance of people in their companies? Not very well, according to Dr. Vicki Halsey of The Ken Blanchard Companies. In talking with managers and direct reports, Halsey has heard a lot of frustration with the process of leading others.

As she explains, “Managers are upset because their people aren’t doing what they think they should do. Direct reports are upset because they are not getting the direction that they need.”

That’s a challenge, according to Halsey, who points out that without a clear sense of what to do and how to rank and accomplish their most important tasks, employees are left on their own to prioritize their work.

“Some of the problem stems from the fact that managers are busier than ever today,” Halsey explains.

“Most managers have their own task-related goals in addition to their people-management duties. When you are trying to juggle both, it’s easy to fall back into a mentality of, ‘I hired you to do this job and I expect you to get it done.’ And what I’m hearing from people is that managers are doing a great job of telling people what to do, but rarely are they doing a great job of telling people how to do it.”

So, What Can Managers Do?

Savvy managers can improve the situation by focusing on three areas: 

1. Clarify roles and goals. Begin by identifying the goals and strategic imperatives of the organization. Next, clarify what each team and department needs to be doing to help the organization achieve its goals. Finally, break it down to individual tasks and goals to achieve the desired results. Create alignment between individual tasks and the organization’s initiatives.
2. Identify individual development levels and needed leader behaviors for each employee’s key tasks. What is the employee’s experience with this task? What does he or she need from a manager in terms of direction and support?
3. Schedule weekly one-on-ones. Don’t let time pressures get in the way of a weekly check-in with direct reports to see how they are doing. A short, weekly meeting can work wonders in providing managers and direct reports with some structured time to discuss the direction and support neeeded to be productive.

With time and resources at a premium, leaders need to focus their people on the critical tasks to be accomplished. By clarifying goals, identifying direction and support needs, and scheduling the time needed to talk, people will get up to speed faster and produce the results organizations are looking for.

Employees need specific and descriptive feedback if they are going to master a skill or achieve a goal. But this type of one-to-one feedback is sometimes missing in many organizations. Ask managers why and you’ll hear a variety of different reasons including a lack of confidence in how the feedback will be received, no clear process to follow, and concerns that the conversation might be perceived as evaluative and judgmental. The net result is hesitation on the part of the manager and feedback that is never delivered.

Providing good feedback does not occur naturally or by default. To provide effective feedback, leaders must learn, develop, and cultivate very specific conversational skills.

Here are three tips:

Start with Some Self-Examination—many managers get off on the wrong foot because they focus more on their own needs than the needs of the person receiving the feedback. To address this, ask yourself, “Is this my need to give this feedback, or am I giving this feedback because the other person’s performance will actually benefit as a result of it?”

Match the Feedback to the Situation–Once a manager is clear on the purpose of the feedback, the next step is to provide the type of feedback that will best meet the needs of the recipient.

Personalized feedback is the type that most managers are familiar with. This is evaluative information (either praise or redirection) designed to encourage good behavior or discourage poor behavior.

Pure feedback is a new concept for most managers. It is feedback that is descriptive, objective, factual, and nonjudgmental. This kind of feedback allows the receiver to decide what to do with it. It is most appropriate when the goal of a manager is to develop an independent person who can judge for themselves how they are doing.

It might sound something like this, “You did this. You didn’t get the result we expected. Let’s troubleshoot it, let’s brainstorm it. What’s going on? How can we achieve the goal doing something else?”

Get in the Habit–Finally, managers need to get in the habit of giving constant feedback. Learn to give feedback in the moment instead of saving it up for formalized performance reviews.  

The good news is that managers can give almost any kind of feedback if they keep the judgment and the blame out of it. The key is to come at the question of feedback figuring that people have the best of intention and that people are always doing the best that they can given the information, skills, and competencies that they have at their disposal.

For more information on improving feedback, be sure to check out past Ignite! articles on Providing Feedback and Direction and Delivering Well-Crafted, Targeted Feedback

Also learn more about feedback and listening skills in an upcoming webinar on The Manager’s Tool Kit, Part One: Listening and Feedback

Good listening and feedback skills are essential to any manager’s success—but they are in short supply these days, according to Dr. Vicki Halsey of The Ken Blanchard Companies. With today’s managers struggling to find the time required to get their own jobs done, it’s easy to move listening and providing feedback to the back burner.

To help managers learn to slow down and focus on developing their people to be successful over time, Halsey recommends a three-step EAR model—Explore, Acknowledge, and Respond. The magic in this process is remembering to take the time for fully exploring the issue raised by a direct report by asking clarifying questions, then acknowledging what is being said and the emotion behind it, before going on to the third step of responding.

• Explore—ask open-ended questions such as “Can you tell me more about that?” and “How do you think that will go?” and “What does that really mean?”
• Acknowledge—respond with comments such as “You must be feeling …” or “So, if I’m hearing you correctly, what you’re saying is ….”
• Respond—now that you have a good understanding of the direct report’s point of view, you can carefully move forward with a possible response.

As Halsey explains, “Typically, when people are trying to listen to someone else, it is hard to resist jumping right to responding to solve the problem. Better listeners will stop and take an extra minute to make sure they really understand the situation before responding.”

Are your manager’s missing this important ingredient in creating stronger relationships at work?  To learn more about the importance of slowing down to address the people side of getting work done, be sure to read Take the Time to Listen and Provide Feedback in this month’s Ignite! newsletter.  Also be sure to check out a free webinar Halsey will be conducting on September 23, The Manager’s Tool Kit, Part One: Listening and Feedback where Halsey will share additional tips and strategies for improving dialogue between managers and direct reports.

“Hoping all your consequences are happy ones.” That was Bob Barker’s signature sign-off phrase when he hosted the 1960’s TV game show Truth or Consequences. The premise of the show was that contestants were presented with a question of “truth” (trivia or a bad joke), that if they didn’t answer correctly, would lead to a consequence that was usually some sort of zany or embarrassing stunt.

As I reviewed Deloitte’s recent Trust in the Workplace – 2010 Ethics & Workplace Survey, I was reminded of the dire consequences faced by organizational leaders who don’t get the right answer when it comes to understanding and appreciating the critical importance of trust in today’s workplace. Read more…