Blanchard LeaderChat

Only 20% of people say that they are truly passionate about their work according to a recent survey from Deloitte.  The vast majority of workers are disengaged, with an estimated 23 million “actively disengaged” in the U.S. alone according to Gallup. 

The lingering economic slowdown has created a real motivational problem for today’s leaders.  A shortage of resources has limited the ability of organizations to provide raises, promotions, and other perks. It’s been just as bad for employees as the widespread scope of the problem has left them with few alternatives beyond their present organization.

The result has been a perfect storm where millions of workers have resigned themselves to their jobs and effectively “quit and stayed.”  These workers show up and do their job at a basic level, but they are sullen and unmotivated in a quiet way that is hard to get at. 

It’s not so much what these workers do, as much as it is what they don’t do.

Here are the five intentions that passionate employees embrace.  Wondering if your people have “quit and stayed?”  Ask yourself to what degree your people:

1. Actively endorse the organization as a good place to work?
2. Go above and beyond the basic requirements of the job in terms of performance?
3. Think beyond themselves and strive for win/win solutions?
4. Go the extra mile when it is necessary to get the job done?
5. Intend to stay with the organization long term?

If you can’t answer YES confidently to these five questions, here are a couple of additional questions to ask yourself to get at the cause of the problem. A lack of passion is usually caused by negative perceptions at a job, organizational, or relationship level.  Probe a little bit in each of these areas and you will likely find the problem area. 

• Job Factors: Do your employees see the importance of their work?  Are people empowered to make decisions about their work and tasks? Are workloads reasonably proportioned for the time people have to accomplish them?
• Organizational Factors: Does the organization still seem committed to growth? Have clear goals been set? Are decisions about resources being made fairly?
• Relationship Factors: Do people feel connected? Do employees have a supportive professional relationship with their leader? Are leaders checking in and providing feedback regarding employee performance?

No one wants to be the type of person who quits and stays, but sometimes people fall into that trap.  Help people up.  Open up a dialogue around these issues.  Just taking the time and asking how things are going in each of these areas will show people that you’re noticing, that you’re willing to help, and that you care.

PS: Do you have a “quit and stay” solution to share?

On January 25, The Ken Blanchard Companies will be hosting a Leadership Livecast on the problem of Quitting and Staying.  Have you successfully addressed quitting and staying in your organization? Can you share it in five minutes or less?  Videotape yourself and send it to us.  You could be a featured speaker!  Click here for details.

What keeps companies from acting on what they know?  Seven culture issues according to Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton.  In their classic business book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, Pfeffer and Sutton point out that the problem in most organizations isn’t knowing what to do—but actually doing it.

See if any of these bad habits are present in your organization:

1. Mimicking best practices instead of underlying values.  Organizations looking to learn from best-in-class companies often move immediately to copy the best practices of a leading company instead of taking a moment to understand the concept behind the practice.  Don’t substitute copying for thinking.  It’s not the foosball table that makes it a great place to work—it’s the corporate value that makes buying a foosball table a good idea that is the real best practice.
2. Staying conceptual instead of getting practical.  Theories and models have their place for understanding and organizing content, but they are no substitute for working on real business issues.  It isn’t until people put concepts into practice, with real consequences, that learning takes place. 
3. Planning and deciding instead of doing.  A slightly more sophisticated version of staying conceptual that only seems more action-oriented.  Remember the question, “If five frogs are sitting on a log, and one decides to jump, how many frogs are left on the log?”  (The answer is five until the frog actually jumps.)  Never mistake planning and decision-making with doing.  They are two different activities.
4. Punishing failure instead of encouraging initiative.  When people stretch and take action, it often ends up in failure—even under the best of circumstances.  How does your company react to failure?  Is it seen as a chance to learn and adjust, or is it time to punish and reprimand?  If you want your organization to have a bias for action, people need to have the freedom to fail occasionally.
5. Setting a poor example at the top.  People know to watch for actions instead of announcements when it comes to trying to figure out where senior leadership really stands on an issue.  Don’t announce an open-door policy: simply leave your door open.  Demonstrate desired behaviors through your own actions.  Nothing speaks louder.
6. Creating a competitive internal environment.  People need and want to collaborate but organizations often set up structures, policies, and incentives that create internal competition.  Encourage teamwork by designing policies that promote collaboration instead of competition.
7. Poor measurement and tracking.  What gets measured is what gets managed.  Be picky in deciding which key metrics to focus on.  Some organizations measure everything, or leave it to individual departments to decide what is measured.  This can lead to “siloed” thinking and a focus on departmental goals instead of the big picture.  Think overall and organization-wide when it comes to measurement.

Develop an attitude of action.  Understanding, planning, and deciding are just the first step.  Doing is what counts.  Take action today!

Organizations around the world have been forced to change the way they do business. The worldwide recession, downsized workforces, and value-conscious customers have created a new set of expectations. A just-released white paper from The Ken Blanchard Companies identifies key strategies for leaders. Here are four of my favorites to get you started on positioning your company for success. 

• Change the organizational mindset. In many companies people have been hunkered down and focused on the short term for almost two years. The emphasis has been on cutting costs, holding down expenses, and weathering the storm.  Now that the worst is over, how do you let people know that it’s okay to lift your head, look around a little bit, and cautiously make new plans for the future?  One thing that leaders can do is share a vision for the road ahead, indicate that growth is a goal again, and let people know that they can try new things that have some risk involved. You want people to start thinking about stepping out again, but they have to feel safe in order to make that leap.
• Give people behavioral examples. What does “try new things that have some risk involved” really mean? The best organizations define the values, attitudes, and practices they desire in clear behavioral terms. People have gotten pretty clear about what they shouldn’t be doing over the past 18 months; make sure they are just as clear about what they should be doing now. The more specific and granular the examples are the better.
• Stay open to change. Constant adaptation is a key for thriving in the new business reality. Pay attention to customers’ expectations and competitors’ innovations. Especially after an extended time of downsizing it’s important for organizations to embrace new ways of thinking to breathe new life into old practices and generate innovative new ideas.
• Involve everyone. Smart leaders look for good ideas everywhere. This means checking in with people who are informal leaders in the organization as well as the people who are in formal positions. By listening to everyone—including people with divergent points of view, you increase the odds that the organization will be more responsive, adaptive, and successful in the face of change.

 By sharing power and expanding influence, leaders can create an organization with a strong overall capacity to change and succeed. The new business reality demands that organizations find new ways to address old problems. To learn more ways to increase your organization’s ability to succeed, be sure to check out the complete white paper, Thriving in the New Business Reality from the Blanchard website.

Has there ever been a time when we’ve had more access to good information about leading and managing people? Probably not.  Has it changed the way the majority of managers are leading their people?  The jury is still out on that one.

What gets in the way of managers making the shift from knowing to doing?  In their book Know Can Do! authors Ken Blanchard, Dick Ruhe, and the late Paul Meyer, identify three big reasons why people don’t put more of their good ideas into practice. See if any of these rings true for you.

• Too much knowledge
• Too much negativity
• Bad habits

To overcome these roadblocks, the authors recommend three strategies—a “less is more” approach, positive—instead of negative filtering, and spaced repetition with active coaching.

• Less is More. Before you can take a step, you have to decide on a direction.  Don’t become paralyzed wondering if there might be a slightly better idea out there.  The key is to move from analysis to action.  Which diet works best for you?  The one you stick to!
• Avoid Negative Filtering. While it is important to evaluate an idea from different perspectives, make sure that you are not letting a “why that won’t work” mentality keep you from moving forward.  What’s easier for you?  Seeing the reasons why something will work, or the reasons why something won’t work?  If you tend to see the negative first, practice seeing the positive side as well.  It will help you get started with taking action.
• Repetition, Repetition, Repetition. There is no substitute for just doing it.  Take action—evaluate the outcome—adjust accordingly—repeat.  You’ll be surprised how much you will accomplish once you set yourself in motion. 

At its core, behavior change is a personal process. Any real change has to start by addressing the beliefs, limitations, and thought processes going on inside of a person.

Today, the gap between knowing and doing is probably wider than the gap between ignorance and knowledge.  Close that gap in yourself and your organization by identifying and resolving the three challenges.  Make the shift from knowing to doing.

 Laura Birk is the Director of HR at Barilla America, a part of Italy’s Barilla Group, the #1 provider of premium pasta products in the world. In this One Minute Interview, Birk talks about the challenges of innovation in a global company.

Q. What is your top business or management challenge as you look forward into the year ahead?

A. For us, the top challenge is managing a couple of questions that all center on innovation in a global world. Specifically—

• How can you influence innovation?
• Who has the technical competencies within the organization?
• Who owns the process?
• And finally, who knows the most about the consumer?

What we are finding–probably not surprisingly–is that different people have different parts of the puzzle—some have the competencies, others own the process, and still others are the ones who know the consumer best. Yet, when we are trying to push innovation globally, that creates some challenges that we are keeping our eye on.

For example, one of our goals is to create innovative and authentic Italian pasta products. Here in the US, our local marketing research and development group knows the US consumer best. Yet our people in Italy are the ones who have the competencies about what true authentic Italian is. The question then is who should own that innovation pipeline?

Q. What are some of the potential challenges associated with this?

A. The challenges on the business side are primarily the complexity of the manufacturing environment and the capacity and the technology needed to implement whatever the innovation is.

We have an innovation business team here for our local geography, but we are also playing on a bigger team in terms of global innovation. While we don’t necessarily need, or want, to be first to market, when we do lead we want to lead well, but that means coordinating locally and globally.

Another challenge from an HR or OD perspective is being able to know the business well enough as an HR OD person that you are invited to the strategic discussion. It doesn’t matter if you have HR-speak, what senior leadership wants to know is if you have business speak. The reality is that you have to be a business leader first, and an HR leader second.

Senior leadership is interested in how a new strategic direction is going to impact people, but they don’t really ask it from an HR perspective. Instead they ask, “What are the risks of us being able to execute this in our business from the people side?” As an HR professional, you need to be in on that conversation early. But if you don’t have the necessary business acumen, then you are not going to be at the table, or be able to chime in or ask the question.

Q. Any advice you might give to peers if they want to get a head start on this challenge in their organization?

A. For me, personally, I’d recommend volunteering to facilitate strategic planning meetings. I’ve found it helps me to anticipate and think about some of those risks we should consider. People always appreciate good facilitation and while you are serving as facilitator, you are also getting great insight about the direction and strategy the company is considering.

Second, I’d recommend spending more time with business people. Actually go and be with them in their work. If they are salespeople, go on sales calls, go to their meetings, be a fly on the wall.

Finally, ask people, “How are we doing?” Sincerely ask them. And I think that when you spend time with them, and sincerely ask them, they are going to be very open to giving you feedback about how you are doing on helping them solve their issues. And if they ask you to come to the table, it is a pretty good signal on how you are doing!

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My friend Jim Ballard wanted me to forward this question on to all of you:

Dear blogger:  As a writer of fables, to me the current explosion of social networking begs a fable. A fable provides a fictitious world and whimsical characters that are fun to read about, while conveying some lesson or simple truth. I want readers to say, “Thanks, I needed that. It’s something I tend to lose sight of when I’m Twittering and blogging and Facebooking.” So I am requesting your help as a participant in this online community-building world. If you would kindly take the time to respond to the following 4 questions, you will furnish me with insights and guidance. Thank you in advance. -Jim

a.  How has social networking helped you be more connected to people?
b.  Less connected?
c.  What are the biggest benefits?
d.  What are the biggest pitfalls?

The new book Who Killed Change?, co-authored by Ken Blanchard, John Britt, Pat Zigarmi, and Judd Hoekstra, hits bookstore shelves on May 26.   Written in a fun, who-done-it murder mystery style, the book follows the investigation of the death of Change in the large ACME organization.  Readers follow along as a hard-boiled detective (known only as Agent) questions each of the suspects including Budget, Sponsorship, and Aligned Leadership. 

Has a change initiative ever “died” in your organization?  Who would you point to as the likely suspects?  Take our poll below, and also leave a comment and let us know about the biggest killers of change you’ve experienced.

Leaders need to create fast, flexible, and nimble organizations to meet constantly changing market and customer demands. Otherwise they risk becoming obsolete, according to Dr. Patricia Zigarmi of The Ken Blanchard Companies. How can you tell if your company is in danger of losing its capacity to change? Zigarmi suggests that companies be on the lookout for some early warning signs.

• Resting on your laurels. You see companies ignoring the numbers on their balance sheet, or in their employee turnover or customer satisfaction numbers. These companies treat bad numbers as a blip on the screen rather than as a trend over time.
• Discounting customers’ expectations and competitors’ innovations. These companies stick their head in the sand and seem bent on protecting the way that they have always done things. They are more interested in defending their decisions and their approach than they are in exploring new ideas.
• Discouraging new players and new voices within the company. A tendency to find ways to say that “the next generation doesn’t really understand the situation” or that some people with strong opinions based on experience elsewhere “haven’t been here long enough to really have a voice at the table” is a sure way to stay stagnant.

Pat’s recommendation for keeping your organization change-ready? Increase involvement and influence. To find out more about Pat’s thinking on improving your organization’s capacity to change, check out her interview in this month’s edition of Ignite—our free monthly eNewsletter.

Eventually, it all boils down to one question.  What are you going to do differently?  For an organizational change plan to work, it has to be driven down to the individual level.  Until it does, it remains only a dream.

I was reminded about that as I was staring at a blank Personal Action Card at the end of a day-long planning meeting.  Three hundred employees had just finished a four-hour strategy session to identify ways to decrease costs and increase revenues and now we were individually being asked to commit to four things:

1. What can I do to save money?
2. What can I do to support company growth?
3. What can I do to help someone in another department or workgroup?
4. What can I do to help myself?  

I was surprised at how much trouble I was having at this critical moment in the process.  Earlier in the day I had been very active with ideas on what the organization could do to cut costs and increase revenues, but now that it had gotten to a personal level, I was struggling.

Have you driven your organizational change down to the individual level?  Are people ready to change?  Have they committed to a new course of action?  It’s not really going to happen until they do.

There are a couple of different measures that always matter.  Productivity is one of them.  You have to hold people accountable to deliver upon the goals and tasks that they are asked to accomplish.  The other piece that is not as heavily managed is people’s discretionary energy. 

That’s part of what I found out after finishing an interview with Chris Edmonds, a senior consulting partner here at The Ken Blanchard Companies. My interview with Chris will be featured in next week’s issue of Ignite!, our monthly e-newsletter and Chris will also be our featured presenter for an April 14 webinar on Revitalizing the Downsized Organization.   Both of these resources are free and you can find out more by clicking on the links above.  If you haven’t had a chance to hear Chris speak, here are a few of the ideas that Chris will be sharing: 

• Most leaders are more comfortable managing metrics like productivity but may not be as comfortable having the type of wide-open conversations about issues that you have to have if you are going to build the passion and commitment you need to move forward in trying times.  And because leaders don’t take the time to stop and get everyone involved, you can end up making a stupid short term decision that may look really good right now, but a month from now, or six months from now, continues to have really negative impact on your business.
• You want your people to be passionate and engaged in the work that they are doing. And you are only going to get the discretionary energy of your people is when they are feeling trusted and respected as a valued partner and stakeholder in the way that the business operates.   
• It’s the secret behind organizations like Southwest Airlines where even when times are tough they don’t have folks leaving, demonstrating, or picketing.  Instead, they’ve got folks constantly meeting together about how they can help the organization get through this economy.  It is a great example of how overall employee commitment and demonstrated discretionary energy is driven by clear communication of what is happening, open involvement in trying to influence the decisions that are being made, and what can happen when people are consistently cared for as a vital asset.