What are you proud of?

Posted on June 24, 2011 by BJ McKay

In reading the book, Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright, I am continually struck by how the best questions are the most simple. I meet with and work with companies that are complex in a lot of ways, and in that complexity the reason for existence gets blurry, muddy, or just plain lost. Here is the question:

“What are you most proud of?”

If you take that question in the broadest sense, you will get insightful and meaningful answers. That question gives us the fundamental building blocks to answer an even more profound question: Why? As in, why do I do what I do and live the way I live?

Well, in the spirit of sharing, here is my answer to the question: What am I most proud of?

(I’m going to answer this question as it relates to my career and professional development because a holistic answer to this question would take many pages.)

I’m most proud that I have taken great strides to subjugate my own ego to truly serve and learn from others. I’m proud because my profile is a difficult one when it comes to listening and not seeing the success of others as detrimental to my own success. I am most proud of this because it has allowed me to be a better man. It has allowed me to impact the lives of others with selfless intent, and not claim ownership. It’s allowed me to create a timeline where I am able to measure myself, to a degree, through the eyes of those whom I’ve been able to help advance in the world. It’s also allowed me to see more clearly those whom I have let down, disappointed, and just plain failed. Admitting that I have failed others and will likely fail again is a freeing realization to me.

Right now, that is the best answer I can give relative to my career and professional development.

Exercise: What are you most proud of? Take 5 minutes today and reflect on that question. Whether your highest priority is managing difficult people, determining if you have organizational alignment, or simply learning your true core values, you’ll find this exercise worthwhile. If you struggle to focus, go for a walk, or close your door and shut your eyes. The answer to this question is of the utmost importance when looking at the larger question of: Why?

If You Want the Right Answer, Don’t Ask the Wrong Person

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Aszure Grimes

Ahhh…good intentions. They can bite you in the “you know what” and probably have on more than one occasion. For some reason, we like to think that good intentions or just performing the act itself will be sufficient. It makes us feel better. And, we even have the nerve to act surprised when the result isn’t what we had hoped it would be.

Why do we ask our mechanic for stock tips and our accountant for advice on the rattle our car is making? Why do we ask our five year old what they want for dinner and act surprised when they say ice cream? Exactly, we shouldn’t.

“Well, you told me to start seeking advice…” Yes, but, consider the source. One of the reasons organizations find human analytics so useful is that it can take some of the guesswork out of decision-making when it comes to your people. Whenever you find yourself asking, “Why isn’t our strategy working?”, the next question should be “Did we consider the human factor?” People are funny and complex, as we all know. And, those good intentions (my mechanic really thought he was giving me good financial advice) are not always enough.

Human analytics, a compilation of data about the people in your organization, can be utilized to strengthen your organization and answer tough questions about how to motivate employees; making targeted recruiting metrics; help with managing difficult people; improve employee productivity and creating an organizational design structure to take you where you want to go.

What data do you need? How do you obtain it? Once you get it, how do you ensure that you are applying it properly to resolve your unique business challenges or to achieve your company’s goals? I’m glad you asked. While I can’t answer your questions in this blog, I’d love to schedule a time to talk with you about it.

That’s what we do at ADVISA. We ARE the people with those answers.

Free Webinar – Real-Life Stories about Familiar Leadership Challenges

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Paul Dumouchelle

Join me for a complimentary ADVISA webinar reviewing real-world success stories addressing these familiar challenges:

Leadership Effectiveness

When the “Golden Rule” isn’t good enough (Focus on Others’ Needs
Communicating with someone who will not listen (Managing Difficult People)
Getting a “perfectionist” to delegate work (How to Supervise People)
Am I doing a good job? (Working with People Different than You)

Teamwork

Herding cats (Executive Team Building)
Rules? What rules? (Another type of people challenge)
Defusing conflict (Proven processes to overcome conflict

Job Fit

“Stop chatting & get to work!” Do you say that too much? (Personality mismatch in a job)
Knowing exactly what you want (Defining hiring targets)

Leadership solutions grounded in real-world experiences provide immense value and insight, often comprising the core content of leadership development programs. If you’re responsible for leadership effectiveness, teamwork or matching people to work (job fit) then you won’t want to miss these key lessons from real-world experiences.

The webinar will be repeated on two dates. Please choose one that is most convenient for your schedule:

Wednesday, March 23rd, 10 a.m.

Tuesday, March 29th, 2 p.m.

Managing Difficult People – Shipping Distractions

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Paul Dumouchelle

This is an occasional series describing (anonymously) a real challenge faced by one of my clients and my recommendation to them based on an analysis of the situation.

Shipping Distractions

Scenario: A manufacturer who ships product to a large number of customers on a daily basis employs a very extroverted person as a shipping specialist.

The Issue: The Shipping Specialist is considered a problem employee by their Supervisor. While the Shipping Specialist is very effective at handling the job, even during times of extreme pressure, this employee distracts others from their work. The Shipping Specialist walks throughout the plant and talks with everyone about both work-related and non-work-related topics. This talk takes place even it is not necessary to get the shipping job done.

The Shipping Specialist also draws everyone’s attention whenever possible, and if high-priority shipping work needs to be done the Shipping Specialist can create a great deal of drama around this fact – while still getting the job done.

Personality Assessment Pattern: The personality assessment pattern of the Shipping Specialist had a strong orientation toward extroversion.

Analysis and Recommendation for Supervising Employees: The Shipping Specialist is acting exactly like we’d expect from a very extroverted person. They need to interact with others and draw the spotlight on themselves. So while the Shipping Specialist is effectively completing the required shipping activity they are also wasting a lot of productive energy by distracting others from their work.

There were two different options for the Supervisor:

1. Leverage the person’s need for social approval with an approach that allows them to fulfill their needs for attention and interaction by completing their work in a way that does not distract others. To accomplish this, the Supervisor must use a new approach in how to supervise people – in other words, establish a close and personal working relationship with the Shipping Specialist and consistently emphasize how important it is TO THE SUPERVISOR that the shipping job be done quickly, as always, but ALSO QUIETLY. When using employee motivation techniques such as this, the Shipping Specialist values both their relationship with the Supervisor AND what the Supervisor values in the work, then the Shipping Specialist should change their behavior.

2. Replace the Shipping Specialist with a person whose natural behavior matches the needs of the job better. It seems the shipping job at this company would be better served by a person who is not extroverted.

We focused on the first option as our priority given the employee’s record of contribution at the company. Option 2 is available, of course, if the first approach doesn’t yield results.

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