In all my years of teaching and consulting around workplace performance, I see three reasons why employees consistently under-perform: they incapable, they are disconnected or they are unclear.

Employees who are incapable have core abilities that do not align with the abilities required to complete the activities of the job. Every job has very specific activities that are key to performance and therefore success in the job. For example, the activities of an accountant are to close the books, create reports, analyse performance, ensure compliance with procedures, etc. These activities require a strategic, analytical, methodical and detail-oriented person. If your accountant employee is not that, performance is a challenge. Many times the primary reason for employee underperformance is in hiring employees who do not fit their role – they do not have the abilities that align to the specific needs of the job.

Solution: Include the required abilities in addition to skill and experience criteria when defining the performance profile of the job; hire for abilities as well as skill and experience.

Employees who are disconnected do not share or understand the direction, vision, belief or mission for the business; there is no emotional connection to the business. When employees understand the beliefs and vision of the business and they align with their personal values, they are more engaged, committed and passionate about their performance. Think of the way employees who work at Google feel about innovation, the way employees feel about coffee at Starbucks. Our performance is fuelled by our passions and values – and diminished by our lack of interest or connection.

Solution: clearly share your vision and belief about the business and source/hire employees who share your beliefs.

Most employees do not have or understand their specific performance expectations – they don’t know what a successful or “done right” outcome is; they have no performance standard. Here is a personal example: when my kids were younger it seemed we were always in conflict with them about keeping their rooms clean. The problem was we didn’t share the same definition of “clean room.” So, once the room was cleaned “at expectation,” we took a picture – then taped it to the door. This became the standard of how a room was to look when we said “clean.” We all shared the same expectation or standard and now could hold them accountable for delivering this specific performance. In the workplace, employees need the same guidance about what a successful performance outcome is so that they can be held accountable to deliver it. This clarity lets them use their abilities to determine how to deliver the outcome.

Solution: improve the clarity of performance expectations to ensure employees know what is expected and can perform accordingly.

Sustainably high performance requires that employees’ abilities fit the activities required of the job, they share the values, beliefs or mission of the business and they clearly know their performance expectations. We can’t expect employees to bring their A-game if we haven’t set them up to be successful. Once in place, it is fair to expect great performance.

1. Misfiring on performance - Overcommitting and under-delivering.
2. Resistance to change - Failing to embrace new ideas.
3. Being a problem identifier vs. problem solver.
4. Winning over your boss but not your business peer group.
5. Always worrying about your next career move versus focusing on the present.
6. Running for office - its totally transparent to everyone but you!
7. Self-importance - exhibiting a humorless, rigid attitude.
8. Lacking the courage and conviction to push back on the system.
9. Forgetting to develop your own succession plan for when you get promoted.
10. Complacency - you've stopped growing.

Im sure we can all identify a few of these that may have hindered your own personal growth and potentially your organisations stability.

Keep this list close and review as part of your quarterly career development goals and ensure you are not self sabotaging your opportunities. Be aware of your own blind spots and look at completing a 360 degree assessment to help identify blind spots.

Greater insight into blind spots and the damage they can cause within a organisation.

http://www.whamond.net/learnings/blind-spots-are-the-root-causes-of-some-of-the-most-severe-breakdowns-faced-by-leaders

Success in business, of course, depends on so many factors. There are external drivers of success as well as internal ones. In this post I want to share with you one internal factor which I call the DNA of the leadership team.
Over the years I have worked with many successful (and some not so successful) companies, and I have observed that more often than not, the successful ones seem to have three main characters in their leadership team.

The DNA of your leadership team

Take a look at the leadership team of your company or a company you work with. Can you identify where each person falls in the leadership DNA?

D: A Dreamer -- Usually the founder or CEO, this is someone with a vision and the passion to make it happen, someone who can inspire others and take them with him/her. Quite often, the dreamer is not as good at details, numbers, processes, finance, etc., but rather a “big picture” person and an extrovert who knows how to inspire others.

N: A Number Cruncher -- Usually the CFO or the VP of Finance, this is someone who loves numbers and can keep an eye on the money, maybe even a trained accountant. These people tend to be introverts and usually are not natural leaders. Sometimes they have trouble communicating well or inspiring others, because their gift is in the analytics, not the emotions. Nevertheless, they are a vital component for any successful business.

A: An Accomplisher — Usually the Chief Operating Officer, this is someone who can be a strong taskmaster, making sure projects get delivered, and that key systems and processes get implemented. This person needs to be a strong finisher of tasks, making sure things happen. This person can also make difficult personnel decisions and restructure the business in a way that is right. They may also be good at sales, as they are often optimistic, competitive, and high-energy.

Balancing the team for success

Together, this trio is a business dream team. Businesses who have too much of one personality type and too little of another can falter. A business without a Number Cruncher won’t have the financial knowledge or wherewithal to make important decisions. A business without an Accomplisher might have personnel or productivity problems. And no company can truly reach the highest pinnacles of success without a vision and a Dreamer to keep the company on track.

It is my experience that you usually don't find all of these characteristics in a single person. Occasionally a person might be strong in two areas, and I can only ever recall one (exceptional) CEO that had strengths across all three areas.

But what you’re not a large enough company to have this kind of leadership team? Even if you’re in a very small business or are a solo-entrepreneur, you can still seek to balance these characteristics. For example, if you are more of a Dreamer, you might be sure to find an accountant experienced enough to help you make business decisions based on your finances, or hire a project manager or sales manager with the ability to get things done.

For me, this has become a powerful way of assessing the potential success of a leadership team. When the three personality types come together with mutual respect, they can accomplish much more than any one or two could on their own.

Do you have this balance in your company? If you own a smaller business, how do you balance your own personality type against the other two?

We all know that motivated staff work better and harder.  But how do we ensure our staff are always motivated?  Here are a few tips.

1.  Happy work force = happy customers

Provide a great environment to work in and look after your staff the way you expect them to look after your customers.

Why should they be nice to customers if they are getting a raw deal at work themselves? Keep them happy by providing what they need in terms of training (soft skills as well as technical knowledge) and genuine support with positive messages where appropriate and constructive feedback where development is needed.

Top customer service strategies – No. 2 Happy Staff = Happy Customers

2.  Senior manager feedback

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to make your people feel motivated and valued. Quite often a telephone call from a senior manager congratulating a team member on a ‘good week’ is equally as effective as an offer of a training course or gift voucher. You can’t be seen to be withdrawing from investing in your people. Of course, you may have to make decisions to protect the profitability of your business that may not be popular so the messages you communicate are extremely important. We must continue to celebrate success, coach people on specific challenges and address any difficult issues they face.

Five ways to share good customer feedback with the rest of the team

3.  A positive attitude

It is vital that recruitment team managers realign their expectations and take into consideration the economic climate when setting targets and objectives. Whilst I don’t believe it is all doom and gloom out there, it is definitely tougher to convert leads into sales and there are fewer opportunities. That said, team leaders must encourage their staff to raise their game and sell themselves out of the credit crunch.

4.  The right tools and skills for the job

Regardless of whether you are operating during a credit crunch or not – staff motivation is influenced by the following factors: having the right person in the job who is capable of doing it; equipping them to do the job by giving them the right tools and support and finally setting realistic targets that they believe can be achieved.  We have continued to invest in sales and marketing during these difficult times and have launched a number of new product lines. This shows our staff that we are responding to the challenges of the marketplace and supporting them in every way we can.

5.  Using temporary workers

The benefit of having temporary workers is that the customers can flex up and down depending on their requirement. So unsurprisingly over the past few months we have seen a decrease in demand for temporary workers across a number of our customers. Naturally companies are also reticent to commit to permanent recruitment and are even subject to headcount freezes.

Temporary vs permanent staff – which is more productive?

6.  Don’t be tempted to carry anyone who is not up to the job

Leadership skills are ever more important during a credit crunch and you must lead from the front and inspire the team. Concentrate on motivating your best people and don’t be tempted to carry anyone who is not up to the job – this can be highly demotivating for the rest of the team.

7.  Keep things fresh

As obvious as it may sound, the key to motivation is to keep things fresh. Any job, however much you enjoy it, can become monotonous. This is even more true for the call centre environment.

8.  Small ‘quick fix’ prizes

Monthly bonuses and incentive schemes are always useful, but what will keep them motivated throughout the month is the small ‘quick fix’ stuff, the here and now, if you like. The little prizes they can take away with them as soon as they win them (or hit target).

Incentive schemes that work

Fifteen great ways to improve your incentive programmes

9.  Training is always good, it keeps people up to date and focused on the job

Regular, effective and relevant training is massively important and a great motivator. If you want them to perform properly and consistently then you have to give them the tools to do so. Training is always good, it keeps people up to date and focused on the job at hand, it keeps their skills at the forefront and it will show them that management are obviously concerned with how well they do their job, etc.

If they are given good quality training that covers the topics and issues they are faced with then they will respond and to a certain extent motivate themselves to stick with what they learn.

What’s the best way to deliver agent training?

10.  Offer a nice clean working environment

You need to make sure that the environment they are working in is conducive to good performance. Everyone likes to work somewhere nice, clean carpets, working computers and phones, a couple of nice plants.

Consider this, which team do you think would give the best performance, the one who works in a scruffy office where the equipment only works half of the time and the managers never offer any support, or the team that works in a clean, friendly office where everything works properly and managers spend their day patting you on the back?

I appreciate that I’ve given an extreme example but the fact remains that if your call centre is clean and welcoming then your team will want to be there and motivation is much easier to come by.

Six clever ways to design your call centre

11.  We all like to be rewarded or praised for doing it well

A good reward scheme is a great motivator, especially if your team are conducting outbound calls. Human nature dictates that no matter what job we do we all like to be rewarded or praised for doing it well. Sales people live by that, generally because the better they do the more money they get.What you have to do is have more than one programme running at any given time – immediate, daily, weekly, monthly – it doesn’t really matter what timescales are involved – the key is to run a programme that suits all members of the team. Basically, the thing that might motivate the top sales person won’t necessarily work with an average performer and vice versa. So if you have different options then you should be able to give all of them something to aim for.

Articles about staff recognition

12.  Use both sides of the brain

We support people by using the NBI Brain Profile. Through listening to callers’ word patterns (usually borrowers) you can establish how best to deal with them, e.g. if a caller wants to tell you their story it probably means they are more of a right-brain thinker. This is important for them to know you understand their situation and if later in the call you want to obtain a commitment from them this will increase your probability of success.

13.  Listening to your team

We have found that the simple yet very effective “secret” to motivating a call centre team effectively comes through how one views motivation. We run with the premise that it is impossible to impose motivation upon people, you need to create an environment within which they can (and will) motivate themselves.

This environment comes through really listening to your team, and understanding the call centre from their perspective. You do not need to agree with everything they are thinking but you do need to understand why they feel this way. Understand what problems/worries they are encountering, what opportunities they see, what is important to them.

Top customer service strategies – No.5 Listen to your customers and staff

14.  What does success look like?

One area (often overlooked) is providing absolute clarity in “what success looks like” – all employees must be able to understand their goals and determine whether or not they are achieving these goals.

15.  Positive immediate consequences

Rewards that come at the end of the period are too late to produce ongoing change. “Well done” at the end of the week has a short-term impact. Sustained change in behaviour comes when agents are told right through their shift … every minute of the day … precisely how they are performing and being rewarded for that performance.

When they see the positive and immediate consequences of what they do, the do it better; faster; more often.

16.  A team huddle at the start of the shift

A bit of fun can go a long way towards motivating staff and helps to energise. At the start of shifts a quick ‘huddle’, not only to pass on bits of key information but to also share a topical joke or ‘vote’ on a true/false, can really wake people up! Far more effective than email bulletins that are rarely read!

Set up daily briefing sessions

17. Be careful promoting people into management roles

One of the most common mistakes, one which I have never understood, is moving consistent, well-performing call centre staff into management roles and away from the front line of customer service. Often when these top performers are promoted to managing others, they are replaced by less talented individuals. But many good call centre staff are wilfully independent workers, so can find management roles stressful and demotivating. Ultimately, the result is the business loses out on two fronts.

18.  Get the systems right

The best way to motivate contact centre staff is to ask for their direct input. A key area for consultation is the re-evaluation of the area where agents spend all of their time: the desktop.

Agents frequently cite dissatisfaction with systems as being a major source of low morale.

Can a unified desktop improve agent productivity?

19.  Sort out the headaches

Having to navigate accurately across multiple desktop applications while trying to deal effectively with impatient customers can be incredibly unproductive and stressful for agents. The sheer volume of copying and pasting across different systems requires intense concentration and can lead to headaches and repetitive strain injuries.

Ironically, deploying integration and automation technology to tackle these issues can genuinely humanise highly repetitive, manual and error-prone processes for call centre agents.

20.   Rewards to share with the family

Motivation and reward schemes need to have a high satisfaction level and appeal.

We are finding more and more that staff want rewards that they can share with their family and that give them a sense of well-being.

Incentive schemes: making them work for you

21.  Find out what makes staff ‘tick’

Find out what motivates each employee, and make each individual feel that they have a part to play in the overallsuccess of the business. An annual employee satisfaction survey won’t even scratch the surface.
To find out what makes staff ‘tick’ on an ongoing basis you need to measure employee attitude at ‘key moments of truth’ for each employee.

The best way to do this is to use employee feedback software which can provide a regular opportunity for employees to ‘air their thoughts’ in a non-confrontational way. And to provide that information to team leaders so that they always have an up-to-date picture about how an employee feels.

22.  Reward good work

When someone does a good job it’s important to recognise their achievements. Offering commission on sales targets or promotions based on performance gives staff something to strive for and also shows you will commend good work.

How to motivate employees for less than £50 per week

23.  Regular review sessions

In every role people want to develop their skills to help them progress. All members of the team should have regular review sessions which help staff and employers to identify both areas of strength and skills gaps. At the end of each of these sessions, targets are set for the employee to work towards, helping them develop in their career.

24.  Encourage staff to dress smartly

Even though customers rarely come face to face with call centre staff, it is important for them to act and look professional at all times.  All our staff must dress smartly. Putting on smart clothes for work puts you in a professional mindset which can also boost your business confidence and motivation.

Call centre dress codes

25.  Introduce colour in the work space

Inspire your staff to work hard and strive for success. Call centres can be bland, so you can create a more vibrant atmosphere by introducing colour in the work space, using motivational images and pictures to brighten the area. These little, low-cost improvements can make a significant impact on your workforce.

You know your staff better than anyone else; if you have new motivational ideas for your call centre workforce don’t be afraid to try them. Sometimes the simplest of changes can make a significant impact on employees’ working culture and attitude.

When Nelson Mandela spoke people listened. When Winston Churchill spoke people listened. When Warren Buffet speaks people listen. When Jeff Bezos speaks people listen. When leaders speak people listen. When you speak do people listen? 

Do you have the character and credibility to persuade others with your message? Ethos refers to an audience’s perception of the character, authority and credibility of the speaker. Ethos concerns itself with answering the questions of “What do you know about this topic?” and “Why should I trust you?” as asked by the audience.

Strong character and credibility is necessary to get the attention and respect of an audience. If you have low ethos an audience will not be persuaded by your message. Character is based on the audience perception of who you are and how you come across.

• Who you are? This aspect of ethos relates to the your goodwill, trustworthiness and credibility.
• How you come across? The extrinsic characteristics of ethos relates to the speaker’s similarity, practical wisdom, language and style.

Before we explore each of these elements let’s discuss the role and importance of character in persuading others.

What Do We Mean by Character?

Character answers the question why should anyone believe what you’re saying?”

Character is central to persuading using ethos. Good moral character provides the foundation on which a speaker gains the right to communicate and share their message. 

Character is the authentic expression of who you are as a human. To be an authentic expression it needs to include your strengths, weakness and flaws. It shows you as a real person, a person of integrity and good morals, subject to the same problems and pressures as others. Character also means that you are a person who lives by a set of values. Authenticity, integrity and a good moral character provides the basis for trust.

What an Audience Looks for to Establish Character

An audience makes many judgements about a speaker based on assumptions as to who you are and if you can be trusted. To establish a strong ethos and show character you need to answer the following five questions:

1. Does the audience believe you are of good character?
2. Does the audience believe you can be trusted?
3. Does the audience believe you're an authority on the topic?
4. Does the audience see you as similar to them?
5. Does your language and communication style resonate with your audience?

Most of the above questions about a speaker are answered by the audience even before the speaker gets to share their message. Your message may have the best ideas, facts, evidence and a compelling story. But if your audience doesn’t think you’re credible you’ll fail to persuade them with your message. Let’s explore each of these elements of ethos and how they can be strengthened.

1. Goodwill

One of the elements of ethos identified by Aristotle is the goodwill of the speaker towards the audience. This concerns the speaker’s intent and motivation. You need to show your audience that your intention and motivation is to be useful, to help educate, to inspire, to inform and to entertain. These motivations are positive and demonstrates your goodwill towards the audience. Goodwill is strengthened when you’re able to demonstrate your motivation, intention and a commitment to a set of values:

• One of the most powerful ways of demonstrating goodwill is through empathy. Your ability to empathise with the audience, their challenges, frustrations and difficulties creates goodwill. The act of empathy demonstrates that you understand the audience, their state of mind and emotional reactions. This opens the way for your message to be positively received.
• State your values and tell stories of how you use them to guide your behaviour. Give practical example of how you live your values. This helps to show that you are of good character.
• Show how your interests are align with their interests. If you’re able to help the audience feel that their interest are aligned with yours they will be more open and accepting of your message.

2. Trustworthiness

A trustworthy person is someone in whom you can place your trust. An audience is more likely to be persuaded by someone they trust. Speakers are considered trustworthy when the audience believes the speaker is presenting accurate information in an objective manner. Expertise is not trust! Just because you are considered an expert it does not mean people will trust you. You can have great expertise, but if you’re not perceived as trustworthy you’ll find difficulty in persuading your audience. Some of the ways that you can go about improving your trustworthiness are as follows:

• Trust is improved when your words and actions are for the benefit of others. Speak and act for the greater good.
• People trust when there is mutual respect for one another. Alway be respectful of others.
• Honesty is central to being trustworthy. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Honesty is important to building trust with an audience.
• Admit what you don’t know. If you don’t know the answer to a question say so.
• Do what you say you will do. Keep your commitments and promises. If you show you’re reliable people will learn to trust you.
• People who are trustworthy do not only have the expertise, they also have the skills and experience necessary to get results.
• Be fair and unbiased presenting multiple perspectives on the topic. Trustworthiness is enhanced when you present information from multiple perspectives, in an objective and balanced way.
• Always cite credible sources when providing data and information.

3. Credibility

We are more open to persuasion by people we view as credible. Credibility consists of two core components trustworthiness and expertise. We discussed trustworthiness above. Expertise is about what you know about your topic. The audience perception of your expertise is shaped by many factors:

• Your education, certification and knowledge relating to the topic.
• Your track record, skills and achievements relating to the topic.
• Your years of experience and reputation relating to the topic.
• Recognition received from institutions and peers relating to the topic.

Your credibility depends on your expertise and how this is communicated to the audience. These factors only contribute to improving your ethos if they’re communicated to the audience. So you must take charge of communicate your expertise, experience and knowledge to your audience. Some of the ways you can improve how the audience perceives your credibility are as follows:

• Ensure your audience knows about your expertise and experience. You many need to remind the audience of your knowledge, skills, expertise and experience.
• Speak with confidence, making eye contact. If you want people to believe you, you must show that you believe yourself. Speak confidently as though you cannot be challenged.
• Prepare well and know what you’re talking about.
• Share your biography before you present to a new audience.
• Show practical wisdom. Practical wisdom refers to your ability to determine what’s worth doing together with the ability to get it done. It’s about showing that you’re sensible as well as knowledgeable. Show how your practical experience has benefited others.

4. Similarity

We are more easily persuaded by those who are like us. If you’re perceived similar to your audience they will be more open and receptive to your ideas. If you share some of the same characteristics as your audience you’re off to a good start! If you don’t there are a number of things that you can do to adapt and thereby increase your influence. The idea is to identify common traits that you share with your audience. By identifying and communicating traits that show you similar to your audience you increase the audience’s openness to your message. There are a number of traits you can use to show that you’re similar to your audience to boost your ethos. You can use any of the following traits to show how you’re similarity to your audience:

• Demographic Similarities. Age, culture, ethnicity, race, gender, country of birth. For example a female audience will be more receptive to and more easily identify with a female speaker and their experiences.
• Professional Similarities Profession, organisations, industry, career history or common challenges. For example an audience within a specific industry would be more open to someone who has had experience working in the same industry.
• Personal Similarities Personality, extrovert, introvert, personal motivations, challenges and difficulties. An audience will be more open to someone who has experienced similar challenges and difficulties.

These are some of the traits you can use to show how you’re similar to your audience. You can also adapt your language, presentation style and your dress to match the audience. With careful observation of your audience you’ll be able to identify other areas where you can show how you’re similar to your audience. The key message is that you need to adapt to your audience in ways that make you seem similar to them.

5. Language and Style

The ethos of a speaker is improved by adopting a language and style appropriate to the audience. This means using language, words and jargon that resonates with your audience. Where possible seek to use the same language that your audience would use to describe the concepts you’re presenting.

• Use an appropriate level of vocabulary.
• Use definitions to add clarity.
• Use facts, data and statistics to support your argument.
• Avoid jargon and acronyms not familiar to your audience.
• Use vivid and concrete language.
• Use stories and example to illustrate your points.
• Show enthusiasm and passion for your topic.

A Google search on the term leadership yields about 134,000,000 hits! An Amazon search yields over 112,000 results for books on the subject. Wow!

I have been writing this blog for some time and whilst I have explored how others have defined leadership. I have not taken time to define what I mean by leadership. The reason for my tardiness is that I have found defining leadership to be quite a daunting task. I have even asked myself if it’s possible to create a leadership definition? Despite these nagging concerns and against my better judgement I’m giving it a shot.

My definition for leadership is as follows:

Let me explain some of the underlying principles and ideas that are implied in this definition.

1. Leadership is a about change. It’s the purpose of leadership to bring change, to drive innovation, encourage people to do different things or to do things differently. If there is no need for change, there is no need for leadership.
2. Leadership happens through a social process of influence. Leadership is a social process. A process of influence resulting in the commitment by people to a vision and process of change. Leadership is not about authority or having a position and a title.
3. Leadership demands results. Leadership brings vision into reality, leadership demands results. Leadership is about making things happen.
4. Leadership is distributed. Leadership is not the responsibility of the person at the top. Leadership is not the responsibility of the person with the title, position or authority. We are all responsible to exercise leadership at all levels of an organisation and in all facets of our lives.
5. Leadership is personal. Leadership is an extension of who we are, an extension of our own personal purpose and vision. There is therefore no one right way to lead. You work with the abilities that you have to create change whilst working to learn and improve. Leadership begins with leading yourself.
6. Leadership is developmental. Leadership is about change and therefore requires learning, growth and personal transformation. Leadership requires you develop new abilities, those necessary to translate the vision into reality.

So there it is. Yet another definition of leadership! So in a nutshell leadership is about three things:

1. A Vision of the Future
2. The Alignment of people with that vision
3. The Execution of the vision

Please add your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.

When we give our people authority and responsibility, we must also give them the tools they need. Giving responsibility without resources is ridiculous. It is incredibly limiting. If we want our people to be creative and resourceful, we need to provide resources.

Tools, however, include much more than just equipment. Be willing to spend money, on things like books, tapes, professional conferences, etc. Fresh ideas from outside an organisation can stimulate growth. Be creative in providing tools. It will keep your people growing and equip them to do the job well.

How does the current state of leadership affect employee engagement? What is the effect of both good and bad leadership as it pertains to organisational health and engagement? 

From a leadership perspective, who actually is responsible for employee engagement?

Who is responsible for the act of leadership?

According to Hay Group, a global management consulting firm, 63 per cent of CEOs and other members of the top team reckon it’s the top leaders in the company who are “chiefly responsible for staff engagement and leadership,” but only 38 per cent of those outside the C-Suite agree that the top tier is responsible. Now that is a disturbing leadership and engagement paradox.

Is job satisfaction correlated to employee engagement? Or is job satisfaction more correlated to life satisfaction as per the research conducted by Rain, Lane and Steiner? And if it is — if job satisfaction is akin to life satisfaction — are leaders paying enough attention to their employees such that they are in fact caring about their lives, connecting in ways that allow them to enact life-work balance and a sense of community, and a sense of belonging with their colleagues? Do today’s leaders actually care about the person that is doing the work? Do they even know their name let alone what provides them with job satisfaction?

Between 1985 and 2005, the number of Americans who stated they felt satisfied with the way life was treating them decreased by roughly 30 per cent. Even more shocking was the number of dissatisfied people; this increased by nearly 50 per cent. The reasons appear to be related to Americans' declining attachments to friends and family, lower participation in social and civic activities, and diminished trust in political institutions.

Rather than life imitating art, is life imitating the organisation instead? As levels of employee engagement have dropped and subsequently stagnated over the past thirty years, it’s no wonder the perceived quality of life has decreased as well.

This begs the question whether today’s leaders know if members of their direct report teams have children or not? It’s cheeky, I know, but it’s a valid question. Does leadership equate to cardboard cut-out relationships or is it an engaging and personal liaison opportunity?

If employees are enthusiastic, committed, passionate, and generally into their work, isn’t it time leaders of any stripe, at any step in the hierarchy chain, acted with more humility and were less parochial?

Does the health of an organisation and its overall engagement correlate to productivity and in return financial results?

Does it correlate to customer loyalty, employee turnover and retention? While the questions may sound rhetorical, why do command-and-control tactics dominate the workspace versus “cultivate and coordinate” as per MIT Sloan School of Management professor Tom Malone’s suggestion from his book The Future of Work?

Have we not reached, therefore, a professional paradox in the workplace?

Shouldn’t we be advocating for and developing a more engaged leader?

Has the organisation become so blind that, within the underbelly of the top leadership ranks, a professional mutiny is in the works? Perhaps it’s already in motion. A mutiny that manifests in human capital contradiction where employees are either punching in their time to simply get through the day or they are in eternal job searches hunting for the Holy Grail organisation that actually cares about their well-being.

And leaders, who sit ignorant to the brewing storm, continue to commit crimes of managerial misdemeanour.The job that people perform is central, or at least a large part of their personal identity.

Picture yourself meeting someone for the first time at a cocktail party or a community gathering or your child’s first soccer practice. What do you inevitably ask within the first two minutes of your initial conversation?

“So, what do you do? Where do you work? How long have you been there?”

When your new acquaintance looks sheepish or worse nosedives into an apoplectic rant about their place of work, you might do one of three things:

• Wince, smile and nod, and affirm that their place of work is awful;
• Agree to never buy the company’s product or service due to this diabolical repudiation; and/or
• Hold your breath, wait for the conversation to end, and find the nearest safe harbor as soon as you can.

Employees in today’s organisation are expecting more from leaders than what is currently being offered. Sadly and paradoxically, 69 per cent of executives agree they too feel engagement and leadership is a problem in their organisation.

It is time to connect the dots between leadership, engagement, learning, technology and collaboration. It is time for the act of leadership to be carried out by everyone in the organisation.

Without a challenge, many people tend to fall or fade away. You must have a long-range vision to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures. Vision helps people with motivation. That can be especially important for highly talented people. They sometimes fight lack of desire. That's why a great artist like Michelangelo prayed, "Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." A visionary compass answers that prayer.

Someone said that only people who can see the invisible can do the impossible. That shows the value of vision. But it also indicates that vision can be an elusive quality. If you can see vision for your team, then your team has a reasonably good chance at success. Vision gives team members direction and confidence, two things they cannot do without.

Why do we tolerate and follow toxic leaders?

For most of us that question is too painful to confront. Our fear of losing income, reputation or self-esteem edges us into compromises that damage our hearts and souls. We are willing to bear these burdens and accept these scars because the alternatives frighten us too much. How can I sacrifice my family’s wellbeing or feed my children if I’m constantly marching away from positions that upset my fragile moral frame of reference? Life is hard, so I just need to put up with my bullying boss ... right? And it is true: many leaders suffer from some degree of toxicity. 

Bullying and Commanding
Bullying involves things like unfair treatment, public humiliation and other forms of threatening behaviour. While some bullying is straightforward, other behaviours can be subtler yet still create toxicity. These include undermining one’s position or responsibility, falsely taking credit, spreading rumours and half-truths, and social ostracism.

Whenever a leader commands, the power dynamic shifts and can become problematic. There is a thin line between commanding and bullying. Bullying can involve shouting, swearing, name-calling, malicious sarcasm, threats to safety, or actions that are threatening, intimidating, humiliating, hostile, offensive or cruel. To cement their position, bullies evaluate performance unfairly, deny advancement, steal credit, attack reputations, give arbitrary instruction, and even assign unsafe work. They can interfere, sabotage, undermine, and encourage failure. The underlying phenomenon often identified as workplace bullying can result in physical as well as emotional and psychological disorders, including a diagnosis such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Toxic Ambivalence: Toxic leadership does not necessarily require intentionality—it can be accomplished quite effectively as a sin of omission rather than commission. Simple ineptness and rank incompetence breed toxicity in their own way. Followers experience frustration where managers do nothing. 

It is easier to recall occasions when we have been bullied than it is to remember when we have done the bullying. In the midst of enthusiastically cataloguing the various injustices that another leader may have perpetrated on us, we might need to work through our own “due diligence” and explore our personal capacity as leaders for battering followers.

Once aware of our problem, most of us will hopefully seek a solution, recognising that self-regulation is part of our job as a leader. However many leaders still refuse to confront the signs of toxicity and instead assault their followers until they are stopped or retire. Without this honest appraisal we have no right to complain about those who batter us.

Effective executives must engage in upward communication, a two-way process in which communication is initiated by recipient as well as received. 

This helps ensure that the recipient understand what is being communicated - because unless the recipient "hears," communication has not taken place. Information and communication are different. Communication has not taken place unless the emitter is sure that the receiver understands what action is to be taken as a result of, say, a conversation, email or memo. 

The most effective way to ensure that real communication has taken place is to ask the receiver to describe what he or she has heard from the conversation, including the demands for required action, and to make sure it is what the emitter wanted to convey.

Over the past few months I have witnessed good people hurt by stress. Unfortunately when circumstances change out of people's control, their is a tendency for some people to feel stress and anxiety. In the ever changing world and business we are in today, change is inevitable and handling these changes within your life is the key to good health.

These days nearly all professionals suffer from some form of stress, deadlines looming, people counting on you and generally putting yourself in a position of pressure. Stress is becoming a every day part of the roles of professionals so your success is not longer a case of wether you suffer from stress or not, it how do you deal with it when it comes. So how do you deal with Stress in todays ever changing and turbulent world.

1. Cut Yourself Some Slack 

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, dwelling on your failures and weaknesses won’t solve the problem. You’re better off looking at your mistakes with compassion and remembering that everyone messes up now and then. Most of us believe we need to be hard on ourselves to perform at our best. But by giving yourself permission to make mistakes and learn from them, you can actually reduce your stress and improve your performance.

2. See the Big Picture

As you’re facing your mountain of tasks, draw energy and motivation from the larger goals you’re striving for. By thinking about the greater purpose that each action supports, you’ll cast a whole new light on things that don’t seem important or inspiring on their own. Next time you’re slogging through e-mails at the end of a long day, don’t think of it as merely “digging myself out of my inbox.” View it as “wrapping up a critical project on schedule,” for example, or “showing decision makers how committed I am to meeting their goals.” 

3. Rely on Routines

If I asked you to name the major causes of stress in your work life, you’d probably cite deadlines, time-sucking meetings, a heavy workload, bureaucracy, and maybe even a controlling boss. You might not think to say “making decisions,” because most of us aren’t aware of this powerful and pervasive cause of stress in our lives. Yet every time you make a decision—which candidate to hire, when to ask your supervisor for help, whether to delegate a task— you create mental tension that is, in fact, stressful. 

So use routines to reduce the number of decisions you need to make. U.S. President Barack Obama, who has one of the most stressful jobs imaginable, takes this approach. Here’s what he told Vanity Fair  (October 2012) about it:

You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.

If there’s something you need to do every day, do it at the same time  every day. Establish a ritual for preparing  for work in the morning, for example: Perhaps you can check e-mails and voice mails and respond to the urgent ones first thing, which clears the decks and makes it easier to move more quickly to important projects. Set up a similar routine for packing up to go home at night. Once you’ve put less-important decisions on autopilot, they’ll stop weighing on you—and you’ll free up your energy for things that matter more.

4. Do Something Interesting

Interest in an activity doesn’t just keep you going despite fatigue—it actually replenishes your energy for whatever you’ll do next. 

In a study, researchers found that interest resulted in better performance on a subsequent task as well. In other words, you won’t just do a better job on Task A because you find Task A interesting—you’ll do a better job on follow-up Task B because you found Task A interesting. The replenished energy flows into whatever you do next. So make time during your day for projects that fascinate you, for brainstorming, and for reading about exciting innovations in your field. All that will help  you power through your less-interesting but necessary tasks. Also, remember that interesting doesn’t merely mean pleasant, fun, or relaxing. 

5. Add When and Where to Your To-Do List

Does a whole day (or even a week) often go by before you check a single item off your lengthy to-do list? Stressful, isn’t it?

To get things done in a timely manner, add a specific when  and where  to each task on your list. If-then planning can help you fill in those blanks. For example, “Call Bob” becomes “If  it’s Tuesday after lunch [when], then I’ll call Bob from my desk [where].” Now that you’ve created an if-then plan for calling Bob, your unconscious brain will start scanning the environment, searching for the conditions in the if part of your plan. This enables you to seize the critical moment and make the call, even when you’re busy doing other things. You’ve already done the hard work of deciding what to do; now you can execute the plan without consciously thinking about it.

6. Articulate Your Desired Response

When we’re stressed, it can feel as if the universe is conspiring against us. It’s easy to get trapped in a negative spiral, ruminating on everything that’s going wrong--essentially paralysing ourselves. Perfectionism can similarly trap us. We keep going into the weeds to fix “just one more thing.” Projects never get done because we’re endlessly fiddling with them.

How do you break the cycle when it’s your own mind playing tricks on you? Do some additional if-then planning, because it can help you do more than tackle your to-dos. According to research it also allows you to control emotional responses such as fear, sadness, fatigue, self-doubt, and even disgust.

Just think of the situations that provoke those reactions from you and decide how you would like to respond instead. Then make an if-then plan that links your desired response to the situations that tend to raise your blood pressure. For instance: “If I see lots of e-mails in my inbox when I log in, then I will take three deep breaths to stay calm and relaxed.” Whatever thoughts or actions work for you, make them a part of your if-then plan.

7. Focus on Improving,not Perfecting. 


We all pursue our goals with one of two mind-sets: what I call the be-good approach, where you focus on proving that you already know what you’re doing, and the get-better approach, where you concentrate on developing your abilities and learning new skills. It’s the difference between wanting to show that you are smart and wanting to get smarter.

If you’re in be-good mode, expecting to do everything perfectly right out of the gate, you may constantly (often unconsciously) compare yourself with others to see how you size up. And when things don’t go smoothly, you’ll quickly start to doubt the abilities you’re desperately trying to prove, which creates more stress and anxiety. Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to fail.

A get-better mind-set, by contrast, leads to  self-comparison:

You measure how well you’re doing today against how you did yesterday, last month, or last year. When you catch yourself comparing your performance with others’ or being too self-critical, shift your perspective by asking yourself “Am I improving?” (and “If I’m not, what can I do to change that?”). You’ll experience far less stress—and it will be easier to stay motivated, despite any setbacks.

8. Appreciate the Progress That you’ve Already Made

Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. Small wins that keep us going—particularly in the face of stressors.

So it’s enormously helpful to reflect on what you’ve accomplished so far before turning your attention to the challenges that remain ahead. If you’re stressed by a complex yearlong project six months in, take a moment to list what’s been done since day 1. Remember the difficulties you’ve already encountered and how you dealt with them. Then, with a sense of well-earned confidence, think about how far you have left to go and keep your eyes on the prize.

9. Know What Motivates You

Without realising it, we can add stress to our work lives by managing it in ways that don’t mesh with our own motivational styles. Figuring out what drives you will help you rein in your stress.

If it’s optimism, you have what psychologists call a promotion focus : You think of your job as rife with opportunities for achievement. You’re driven by the belief that everything will work out if you apply yourself. You probably also:
• Work quickly
• Brainstorm lots of alternatives to consider
• Plan for best-case scenarios
• Seek positive feedback (and lose steam without it)
• Feel dejected when things go wrong

The best way to cope with your stress is to maintain forward momentum. Motivation feels like eagerness to you—it runs on positivity. If you’re feeling stuck, shift to another project and make some progress there before returning to the original obstacle. Also, since you’re someone who needs to stay optimistic to be truly effective, reflect on some of your past triumphs to keep your chin up.

By contrast, if you have a prevention focus,  you’re motivated by security—and hanging on to what you’ve worked so hard for. You tend to:
• Work deliberately, with a high degree of accuracy
• Prepare yourself for the worst
• Get stressed over short deadlines
• Stick to tried-and-true ways of doing things
• Feel uncomfortable with praise or optimism
• Get anxious when things go wrong

For you, managing stress at work largely means avoiding mishaps and fulfilling your responsibilities. It feels like vigilance, and it’s sustained by a kind of defensive pessimism--the need to keep danger at bay. In fact, it feels downright wrong  to “stay positive” when you’re under stress. You actually work best when you think about what might go awry and what you can do to keep that from happening (or how you’ll respond if it happens, anyway). When you’re dealing with potential budget cuts, for example, you cope most effectively by preempting the problem—figuring out where you can trim some of the fat, just in case. To others, this might seem like wallowing in negativity and making your life needlessly stressful (after all, the budget cuts might not happen), but you’re actually alleviating stress by considering all possible scenarios and solutions and planning accordingly. You’re working to minimize your losses. We all take different views (promotion versus prevention) at different times, depending on which challenges we’re facing. But most of us have a dominant motivational style. Identify yours, and then embrace either the sunny outlook or the hearty skepticism that will reduce your stress and keep you performing at your best.

Here’s the main thing to remember as you read: When it comes to stress, you are far from powerless. You may not be able to remove the stressors from your life, but you can take control of how they affect you. Stress doesn’t have to interfere with your productivity, your health, and your happiness. You can even learn to harness its power for good by viewing stress-inducing challenges as opportunities to become more skilled and resilient.

Why does one organization get a reputation as a great place to work while another struggles to retain its employees? It’s never a simple matter of company A paying more than company B. Financial incentives may attract more applicants, but they don’t connect an individual personally to an organization. The level of commitment, the willingness of an employee to recommend his or her company as a great place to work and to do business — what we call engagement — can make or break an organization. 

Recently I read a paper who examined the rational and emotional factors that impact engagement in the workplace. The research identified senior leadership practices and behaviours as a critical area of focus. From the quality of the people they hire, the resources and training they give them, the level of communication with employees, to the way employees are compensated, the climate of the working environment is a reflection of senior management. 

THE BUSINESS VALUE OF ENGAGEMENT 


Senior leaders often find it difficult to assess the impact of employee engagement on their business performance. The study revealed that seven out of ten employees are not fully engaged in the workplace. Just under half do what is expected of them but feel undervalued and are unwilling or unable to put in any extra effort. 

More pernicious are disengaged employees, who represent over a quarter of the workforce. They exhibit negative behaviors and undermine the accomplishments of their coworkers. The effect can be seen in decreased output and a rise in accidents, absenteeism and staff turnover. With disengagement having such a detrimental effect on the workplace, some employers may consider it better just to let disaffected workers go, but these employees can carry their discontent outside, damaging the organization’s reputation with customers and potential future hires. 

Sixty-nine percent of disengaged employees would move to a new employer for as little as a 5% pay increase, whereas it would take a 20% increase in salary to attract an engaged employee.1 Therefore, any shift from disengaged to engaged reduces turnover costs and should not be downplayed. The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment put the figure to recruit and train a replacement worker at 150% of salary, including lost productivity.2 The current talent squeeze in some sectors, especially the tech and health care industries, may mean that a position remains unfilled for a considerable period of time after an employee quits. This is likely to become more problematic as the economy improves and workers have more employment choices. 

On the other hand, while disengaged employees cost employers time and money, engaged employees drive business. The twenty-nine percent of workers who are fully engaged do more in less time than their colleagues. The resulting benefits are felt within the organization and beyond: greater productivity, increased customer satisfaction, repeat business, and higher profit for the organization and its shareholders. Given these facts, it is surprising that 75% of organizations have no engagement plan or strategy, although 90% say engagement impacts business success.

CREATE A CULTURE THAT ENCOURAGES ENGAGEMENT 


Senior leaders are the visible face of the organization. They set strategic and cultural goals and steer the company in the right direction to achieve their vision. Through positive attitudes and actions they can build a culture of engagement that involves and inspires all employees. Sixty percent of employees who have confidence in the abilities of senior leaders and think that senior leaders are moving the organization in the right direction are fully engaged, compared with less than a third who disagree with the statement. 

Employees want to be able to voice their opinions and to know that their opinions matter. Unsurprisingly, employees who say their company encourages open and honest communication are more engaged. They welcome the opportunity to share concerns and work together to find solutions. Sixty-one percent of employees who say they are satisfied with the amount of input they have in decisions affecting their work are engaged. When employees feel they lack opportunities to express opinions or they feel their voice is unheard, they tend to become unmotivated. 

Most employees know what is expected of them, but the opportunity to grow and develop new skills and try new things drives engagement. Senior leaders establish engagement by providing a clear career path, ensuring employees receive helpful feedback and initiating training programs throughout the organization. Workers need to feel that what they do is meaningful and that they are working for a successful company. Sixty percent who feel they have an impact on the direction of the company are engaged. 

People want to feel they belong to a community that shares their values. When the values of the organization and the employee align, and when employees see organizational behaviors that reflect those values, they are engaged. For example, one-third of employees say their organization values diversity; of those, 55% are engaged. Management can reinforce its commitment by ensuring a safe working environment where employees feel that their health and well-being are supported. 

There is a direct correlation between corporate responsibility and employee engagement. The engagement level is twice as high (54% vs 25%) among those who say they are proud of contributions their organization has made to the community. 

Senior leaders can further generate engagement in the workplace by promoting a spirit of teamwork and cooperation. This positive peer interaction allows employees to look forward to going to work and helps them create long-lasting friendships among their colleagues. These are the employees who feel proud to be working for their organization and act as ambassadors for it. 


MEASURING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT 


Effective people management does not come from a one-time performance review; it is an ongoing process. Senior leaders need to invest time and resources to measure engagement. Questionnaires and face-to-face interviews should be conducted on a regular basis, and the results should be analyzed and the information used to take future actions. Discover why people leave by conducting exit reviews. Employees need to feel confident that they can express themselves and feel sure when they offer their opinion that they are safe from repercussions. Bear in mind that some employees may lack the motivation to respond. Likewise, failure to ask the right questions may mean signs of disengagement go unnoticed. Encourage employee feedback and follow through on the results. Failure to act is worse than not acting in the first place. If employees think the person conducting the interview does not value their opinion, they will become disillusioned, which leads to complete disengagement.

ACTION PLANS TO ADDRESS 

IDENTIFIED WEAKNESSES 


Every organization needs its own unique development plan based on the findings of its research. Management needs to understand how engaged employees segment by department and location, the factors that are enhancing engagement and those that detract from it. With this knowledge, senior leaders can develop a targeted action plan at the individual, departmental and organizational levels. 

• Organizational level: Senior leaders set the tone for the organization and define its goals. These behaviors and goals needs to be clearly defined, realistic for the employees to achieve and communicated throughout the organization. This will create a shared sense of responsibility for the success of the organization. 

Workers’ perception of senior leaders tends to be less positive than their perception of immediate supervisors, possibly because they are distanced from management and more likely to concentrate blame for all problems in the organization on the executives. Leaders have to project a positive manner in all interactions with other managers and employees and be accessible to them. 

• Departmental level: Engaged senior leaders act as a positive role model for all employees, but in particular they serve as a role model for immediate supervisors who in turn build more engaged teams. Engaged managers are more likely to have an engaged team; disengaged employees probably have a disengaged manager, too. 

Each team or department needs to understand how its roles and tasks fit into the organizational vision. Use the diversity of skills, experiences and backgrounds within the team to create an enthusiastic and innovative environment. 

Build a climate of trust within the team, ensuring that the necessary feedback supervisors give is well-received and improves overall performance. See that supervisors support the individual members of the team and care about them on a personal level. Encourage employees to learn from managers’ strengths. 


• Individual level: Think of employees as internal customers; they are key assets in implementing and maintaining the culture of engagement that leads to an organization’s success. Employees who say their employers “care about how I feel about our overall business” are more engaged.

Determine how the individual’s personal ambition aligns with the organization’s goals. Encourage individual development and recognize individual accomplishments. Praise publicly, reprimand in private and coach individuals who do not demonstrate behaviors that encourage engagement. 


HOLD EVERYONE ACCOUNTABLE 


Senior leaders establish the parameters for an engaged workplace while immediate supervisors who interact on a daily basis with employees are in the best place to evaluate engagement levels at the individual level. It is up to senior management to support immediate supervisors and ensure they have the appropriate skills and motivation to identify and understand changes in engagement levels. Individual employees are responsible for their own actions and interactions with coworkers, which contribute to a positive working environment. Respectful peer feedback builds engagement throughout the team. 

REWARD ENGAGEMENT BUILDERS 


All employees want their contributions to be acknowledged. Successful executives set realistic targets and value sustained effort, rewarding employees and managers who increase productivity and who build enthusiasm. These rewards need not be financial, but they should be meaningful — offering the same incentives time after time leads employees to think management doesn’t really care about them. Benefits and incentives can be customized to appeal to different segments of the workforce. Recognition and praise in addition to physical incentives promotes engagement.

CONCLUSION 


Effective senior leaders recruit the right people for the job, motivate them by giving them clear goals and responsibilities, and train them throughout their careers. Senior leaders who trust their employees, communicate positively with them and recognize and reward their work tend to build an engaged workforce that gives their organization a competitive advantage. 

A recent research paper from Center of Creative Coaching for Leadership titled “The Challenges Leaders Face Around the World: More Similar than Different” explores the challenges facing leaders today.

The research found that senior management and executives wrestle with the following 6 leadership challenges:

Developing Managerial Effectiveness: The challenge of developing the relevant skills — such as time-management, prioritisation, strategic thinking, decision-making and getting up to speed with the job — to be more effective at work.

Inspiring Others: The challenge of inspiring or motivating others to ensure they are satisfied with their jobs and working smarter.

Developing Employees: The challenge of developing others, including mentoring and coaching.

Leading a Team: The challenge of team-building, team development and team management. Specific challenges include how to instill pride in a team or support the team, how to lead a big team and what to do when taking over a new team.

Guiding Change: The challenge of managing, mobilising, understanding and leading change. Guiding change includes knowing how to mitigate consequences, overcome resistance to change and deal with employees’ reaction to change.

Managing Internal Stakeholders and Politics: The challenge of managing relationships, politics and image. This challenge includes gaining managerial support and managing up and getting buy-in from other departments, groups or individuals.

Reflecting on this list of challenges it’s clear that we are struggling to adapt effectively to a Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) environment - the uncertain and fast changing times of today. We’re experiencing immense change at all levels of society. And this change is happening so fast that we often find ourselves struggling to keep up. Leadership styles and practices of the past are often no longer relevant. The result? Significant change that requires personal and corporate transformation to navigate successfully.

In times like these it comes as no surprise we’re seeking to build teams, inspire others, lead change and manage dynamic internal relationships and politics. The immense time pressures and the speed of change requires leaders to improve their strategic focus, decision-making processes and their personal effectiveness.

Enterprises who are not proactively addressing these challenges will be ill equipped to lead into the future. So there is an urgent need to develop people at all levels and prepare them for the competitive environment of tomorrow.

Reflecting on these top 6 challenges what are you doing in response?

Communication is critical for effective leadership. Without communication leaders are unable to share their vision, convince people to follow and to inspire the action that they want people to take. When it comes to leadership communication the motive and intention behind the message it as important as the message itself. Unless leaders are are to emotionally engage with their audience and are seen to be trusted people will be reluctant to follow or take action.

Leaders are constantly being observed and watched. All they say and all they do is constantly being analysed and interpreted. Everything a leader says and every action a leader takes is amplified, assessed and examined. So how do leaders ensure  they send the right messages?  What can leaders do to improve the effectiveness of their communication?

The 7% – 38% – 55% Rule

Research by Professor Albert Mehrabian described in his book entitled “Silent Messages” found the following three elements that contribute to effective face-to-face communication:

55% of the meaning in communicating attitudes and feelings is in the facial expression.
38% of the meaning in communication of attitudes and feelings is in the way that words are said.
7% of the meaning in communication of attitudes and feelings is in the words that are spoken.

As can be seen from the above illustration the majority of meaning in communication comes through the nonverbal elements – tone of voice and body language. Professor Mehrabian’s contention is that effective communication requires that the spoken word, tone of voice and body language be consistent with each other. That when there is inconsistency between these three elements the person receiving the message will tend to rely more on the nonverbal elements – tone of voice and body language – than the verbal elements in determining the meaning of the message. When the verbal and nonverbal elements of a message are incongruent we tend to accept the nonverbal elements as being the real message.

“When actions contradict words, people rely more heavily on actions to infer another’s feelings.” – Albert Mehrabian

For example if a person says “I did not break the glass!” whilst they avoid eye contact, look nervous and constantly look downward, etc. it’s likely that we will believe that the person is lying.

To produce effective and meaningful messages our words, tone of voice and body language all need to support one another. If not people are more likely to interpret the meaning of message based on the our tone of voice and body language rather than the actual words.

This model is useful in that it reminds us of the importance of nonverbal elements – tone of voice and body language – in communication. Whilst the exact percentages may vary when it comes to communicating feelings and attitudes words alone are not sufficient. When interpreting leadership communication people tend to believe it when they see it!

Implications of The 7% – 38% – 55% Rule

Before we unpack the implications of Professor Mehrabian’s findings it’s important to point out that many people have misinterpreted the professor’s findings and use them to support their own ends. The findings are only relevant when people communicate messages that relates to how someone understands the feelings, attitudes and the intent of the message. This is not the case when communicating facts and objective data. The findings describe how the three elements account differently for our liking for the person who is communicating a message concerning their feelings and attitudes – with the nonverbal communication accounting for the biggest impact on how the message is received and understood.

Manage Your Nonverbal Communication

As leaders we need to take a step back and re-examine the way we communicate and the impact of the “7% – 38% – 55% rule”. We need to be aware that the meaning of our communication will be interpreted both by the words we use and in the way that we deliver our words. Unless our words, tone of voice, body language and more broadly our actions align people will walk away conflicted.

As humans we are “meaning making machines” – that is we seek meaning from our relationships and life experiences. Therefore it should come as no surprise the influence that tone of voice and body language has on our interpretation of communication. We are constantly interpreting, assessing and framing that which we hear and see to help us makes sense of life experiences. The audience interprets the messages we send and unless our message is congruent – that is our verbal and nonverbal messages align – we risk our message getting misinterpreted. The audience will interpret the message and it’s meaning to fit with what they see. As leaders we cannot rely on words alone to communicate our motives and intentions. We need to ensure our words, tone of voice, body language and indeed our behaviours are congruent. When our words, tone of voice and body language is out of sync it’s unlikely that the audience will be persuaded by our message. We need to live our message for people to be persuaded.

Everything Communicates

For leaders everything communicates. Everything you say and do as a leader is closely watched and amplified. Leaders are always communicating. They communicate in what they say, their tone of voice, their body language and in how they choose to behave. Example is the most powerful form of communication. Often what we do as leaders speaks so loud that people cannot hear what they’re saying! Leaders are always communicating whether the mean to or not! Leaders are always sending a message.

How you communicate reveals a lot about who you are and what you stand for as a leader. What are you communicating in what you say, how you say it and how you act? Have you taken control of the messages you’re sending? Is your words, tone of voice, body language, actions and your example consistent?

Listen Constantly and Seek Feedback

Leaders constantly seek feedback, they listen to ensure that their message is being received and understood. Leaders listen to see how their message is received and if it’s acted upon. Lack of action means your message was misinterpreted. Leaders are always listening to ensure their message is understood. They constantly seek feedback and do not leave interpretation of the message to chance.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. —George Bernard Shaw

Leaders take responsibility for their communication and always seek to confirm that the audience received their intended message. They listen, seek feedback and make adjustments.

Don’t Say What you Don’t Believe

Tone of voice and body language is a reflection of your emotions and it’s important that it supports the content of your message. Don’t deliver a message that you’re not committed to or that you don’t personally believe. People will pick up any inconstancy between your message and your nonverbal communication. This will undermine your integrity and trust.

Leaders are involved in high stakes communication, encouraging people to take risks to bring about change. Central to this is trust. People need to see that a leader is committed to their message. They look for evidence of that commitment in the leaders words, body language and actions. Only when they’re convinced the leader is committed will they embrace the process of change. Until that time the status quo will remain.

Leadership determines an enterprise and team’s level of effectiveness. The more you seek to achieve the greater the demand for leadership. Hence the reason for the huge need for leaders during these fast changing times. The lack of leadership restricts what can be accomplished. Enterprises are limited today by a lack of leadership more than any other resource.

The good news is that leaders are made, not born. Therefore we all can develop our leadership ability. To grow we need to raise our leadership effectiveness through learning and development.

The 70:20:10 model is a simple approach to guide the development of leaders based on research by various researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). This model suggest that a single focus on formal training is insufficient for the development of leaders. That formal training represents only a small fraction of how people learn and develop. The model shows that effective leadership development combines formal training, developmental relationships and learning experiences.

The 70:20:10 model recognises that a blend of learning elements – working together – results in effective leadership development. The framework suggests that effective leadership development programs are structured as follows:

• 70% from challenging assignments – real life and on-the-job experiences, tasks and problem solving.
• 20% from developmental relationships - feedback and working with and observing role models.
• 10% from courses and training - formal development and reading

It turns out that leadership development is largely an experiential process. The leadership skills we develop are primarily learnt through experience, not formal classroom training. This is supported by how many of the worlds greatest leaders have developed – from Martin Luther King, Jr. through to Nelson Mandela. Many of these leaders were formed, shaped and recognised during times of crisis or adversity. In business – as in life – we learn most by doing.

It’s important to recognise that this is a reference model and not a formula or recipe. The numbers are not a ridged formula. The insight here is not in the absolute percentages, but rather the emphasis placed on feedback, mentoring, social and experiential learning as part of developing leadership. This is not to say that formal learning is of no use, it certainly has it’s place, but it’s not the complete answer.

1. Leaders Learn From Challenging Assignments Leaders learn from challenging assignments. Leaders learn by doing. Leaders learn through purposeful practice. One of the most powerful ways of learning is through stretch assignments, these are assignments that demand we step outside our comfort zone. Challenging assignments can include the following:

• The expansion of roles and responsibilities
• An increase in decision making authority
• Dealing with change and diversity
• Working on new and innovative projects and initiatives
• Building new teams and capabilities
• Turning around a troubled project or business unit
• Leading cross-functional teams
• Working in a different industry or country

All of the above assignments challenge and stretch us, they challenge our thinking and demand that we develop new skills and behaviours for success.

Leaders learn by taking time to reflect their life experiences. Our experiences shape us and if we learn from our life experience we grow. Learning from life experience requires us to develop a regular practice of reflection. Reflection is simply a quiet time, purposefully set aside, to cast our minds back and think about the events of the day or past week, with the intention of learning. By asking questions such as “what happened?”, “how we reacted?” and “what should we do differently next time”, we learn valuable lessons.

2. Leaders Learn From Developmental Relationships As people we learn with and through others – learning is social. This means that we learn through personal interaction and conversation. Leaders encourage learning by creating an environment where people work in teams and take advantage of the social aspects of learning. Encouraging teams to talk, share experiences and best practice accelerates learning. So make sure people are wiring and talking together rather than working alone.

Leaders learn from others. We learn from discussions and feedback we receive from relationships and conversations with other leaders. The feedback and insights we gain from these relationships is another source of learning and development. Effective leaders cultivate relationships with other leaders and use these relationships to discuss challenges they face and receive feedback on their behaviour.

Developing relationships with coaches and mentors is another source of learning. We all need mentors and coaches in our lives – preferably more than one. Leaders develop wisdom by seeking advices and counsel from those who are more experienced. Specifically those who have experienced the journey of life and have a good understanding of human nature.

Here are some ways that we can encourage developmental relationships:

• Create opportunities to work together in small teams for new initiatives where teams members can learn from each other.
• Encourage collaboration and working across traditional enterprise functions and boundaries.
• Identify opportunities for experts to work with and share work assignments with others.
• Encourage coaching as an approach for the development of future leaders.
• Create meetings for people to gather and share their best practices and experiences.
• Establish and nurture communities of practice to capture and share learning.
• Create space to debrief and reflect on what’s working, what could be improved and what should be stopped.

3. Leaders Learn from Formal Training Formal learning occurs through courses, training, seminars, and workshops. The goal of formal training is to change thinking and behaviours. Sadly formal training does not always result in changed behaviour. This is because effective learning requires a combination of formal training, developmental relationships and challenging assignments for maximum effect.

Leaders can gain a lot of leadership insight and knowledge from reading and digesting great books. It’s important however to remember – when reading for personal development – to focus on digesting and applying what we read.

Next Steps Thoughtfully combining these three types of learning helps to accelerate the growth and development of leaders. Continuous learning and development is key to lifting the lid of leadership in our lives – increasing effectiveness – growing our teams and organisations.

Developing Ourselves

Leaders need to learn and grow continuously. The 70:20:10 model can be applied to our own personal development as leaders. Effective leaders use these three elements to enhance their leadership skills.

• In what areas do you need formal learning to enhanced your leadership?
• Who can assist you in learning and acquiring these new skills?
• How can you apply your learning? What experiences will help?

Developing Others

It’s when we combine all the three different ways of learning and implement them together that we develop leaders effectively. Leaders the 70:20:10 model to develop others in the following ways:

• Leaders look for opportunities to shape the experience of those on their teams.
• Leaders use questions to help their teams reflect, learn and grow.
• Leaders use every project and initiative as a learning opportunity for their team.
• Leaders combine formal learning, developmental relationships and challenging assignments  to maximise learning.
• Leaders act as coach and mentor for their teams.

Patrick Lencioni in his book “The Advantage” argues that to succeed in business organisations need to be both smart and healthy. Sustainable competitive advantage requires organisations to have what Patrick Lencioni calls “organisational health” rather than only organisational smarts.

Patrick Lencioni describes smart organisations as follows:

“Smart organizations are good at those classic fundamentals of business—subjects like strategy, marketing, finance, and technology — which I consider to be decision sciences.” – Partick Lencioni, The Advantage

However, it’s the health of an organisation the provides the context in which decisions concerning strategy, marketing, governance and technology takes place. As such organisational health is a key determinant of success. Patrick Lencioni describes healthy organisation as follows:

“An organization has integrity — is healthy — when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when its management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense. A good way to recognize health is to look for the signs that indicate an organization has it. These include minimal politics and confusion, high degrees of morale and productivity, and very low turnover among good employees.” – Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage

In summary, the primary elements of smart and healthy organisations are summarised below.

Smart vs Healthy Organisations (Source: Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage)

It turns out that dysfunctional organisations make poor decisions no matter how smart they appear to be. This is the same effect can be seen with people who are not psychologically whole, they can be extremely smart, however they end up making poor decisions. Organisational health is thus a critical part of success.

Patrick Lencioni makes the following observations concerning organisational health:

• Organisational smarts – although important – does not provide long term competitive advantage, it only gives organisations “permission to play”.
• Sustainable competitive advantage requires organisational health, not just organisational smarts.
• Leaders spend too much time on organisational smarts and spend too little time improving organisational health.
• The biggest lack in business is organisational health, not organisational smarts.
• Organisational health should receive priority over organisational smarts.
• When organisational health is lacking smart people end up making dumb decisions.
• Organisational health acts as a multiplier of organisational smarts.

In the fast changing, turbulent times of today it’s critical for organisations to be both smart and healthy. The biggest challenge today is that organisations tend to be smart but unhealthy. Hence a critical need for leaders to invest in improving organisational health.

• What’s that state of your organisation’s health?
• Do you need to commit to improve your organisational health?
• Which of the elements of organisation health requires your focus?

With many managers and executive leaders far removed from the coalface, how do you know if your company has the culture you want? How can you tell if your getting full engagement, reluctant compliance or mere lip service from staff? And why should the leadership group be concerned with a matter most usually dealt with by the HR department?

Few will doubt the importance of organisational culture in leading companies to success, retaining the best talent, improving productivity and unlocking valuable resources towards collaboration, innovation and growth. 

But even the best of us overestimate the openness of the cultures we create, underestimate the challenges for employees to be forthright within them or underrate how quickly cultural shift occurs. 

Simple things can forge a gap between the culture we think we have (or would like to have) and the one that really exists. Most often, this occurs from genuine misunderstandings rather than disingenuous behaviour, but both have an effect in misdirecting your culture and increasing the gap between what the workforce can deliver and what it does deliver.

Given that alignment to a company’s values and operating environment drops before individual engagement and performance drops, the leadership group has an important role to play in sending a message of transparency and encouraging employees to speak up about where they feel the company could be doing better, where they are losing engagement and where the blockages to productivity really lie. 

It is not the superficial behaviours that dictate whether your workforce fully engages with your objectives – it is their deeper values, which often remain hidden. In Margaret Heffernan’s Dare to Disagree TEDGlobal talk (video below), she noted that 85 per cent of managers avoid conflict when they should be advocating good disagreement as a path to progress. With so much swept under the carpet in every company, the leadership group can step up and make a real difference simply by reassuring the company that it is open to the truth and new ideas.

Here are three insights every company must uncover: 

1. Who’s most important? 
   Is it the customer, the company, the board, the individual, the shareholder, everyone or another group? At a large healthcare organisation, most staff operated with the customer (or patient) as the most important. But one long-serving employee genuinely felt she was the most important because of the professional advice she gave patients. This seemingly innocuous difference in values had a huge (but hidden) negative effect on customer satisfaction because her patients felt their dignity was not being respected. After a short feedback and training session, the employee was then able to align her values with the company’s towards patient needs and began dispensing her professional advice with more empathy and customer focus.
   
   
2. What do your staff members feel? 
   Staff (or customer) reactions include their fears, hopes, emotions, ideals, rights and duties. These feelings dictate their level of engagement with all the company’s strategic objectives, but they remain hidden for lack of an appropriate channel to capture these insights. The healthcare organisation spotted low dignity levels among a group of patients and was able to trace this pattern back to the one employee. For example, staff might fear a new proposal could adversely affect the group they’ve identified as most important, or they may feel they have a duty to act in a certain way, or that a particular right should prevail. All these raise questions they need answered or suggestions they would like to voice, but they will often shy away from sharing their feelings. If nothing is done about it, it is at this point that engagement may become reluctant compliance.
   
   
3. How do your staff members think? 
   For most companies, this is the starting point and they discuss objectives or issues rationally and openly, but resolution is often difficult because people take sides, thoughts become entrenched and silo mentality kicks in. This is because their values and feelings have not been taken into account, and yet these are the very things that create understanding and unity. If nothing is done about them, it is at this point that reluctant compliance may become lip service. Had the healthcare organisation only tried to discuss its patient complaints issue rationally, it may have missed the key determinant creating the problem. Having access to powerful insights (and analytics) into staff values and feelings enabled it to build consensus, align employee values with its organisational objectives and enhance creative teamwork to deliver better solutions to its customers.
   
   The leadership group needs to ensure the next cultural audit takes all three steps into account. It should also make it clear that the ensuing discussion over the results does not become a defensive rationale to justify the present, but rather an open debate about how to improve performance. If the employees know the board, CEO and leadership group are genuinely interested in more than scratching the surface to really get to know what makes their company tick, it may even inspire the 85 per cent of line managers to do the same and open their minds to more forward thinking.
   
   It will allow you to create the culture you need to meet your strategic objectives.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/margaret_heffernan.html

Given that digital is now an important part of virtually every business, it is almost inevitable that organisations should have some sort of digital strategy. 

The challenge for the directors and managers is how to tell the good from the bad.

While digital strategies vary in scope, quality and origin, here are the key reasons for having them:


To ensure all areas of the business are efficiently using digital channels and, in particular, to align IT and marketing team objectives.

• To avoid duplication of expensive technology solutions and resources.
• To leverage opportunities presented by the ever-changing behaviour of consumers and the ever-increasing range of channels they use.
• To present the brand in a consistent manner for consumers and ensure all issues or engagements with consumers are effectively resolved.

Based on this, there are five essential questions to ask of any digital strategy:

1. What is the scope of the strategy? 
   A good digital strategy spans a wide variety of digital touchpoints, but still has clear boundaries and intersection points with other business documents. 
   
   It should clearly address all digital external touchpoints with stakeholders, including the media, job applicants and shareholders, but it shouldn’t cover off internal activities – for example, extranets, enterprise resource planning or document-management systems. 
   
   Leave internal workflow or process stuff to your IT strategy. IT strategies tend to have one point of ownership and don’t need the complexities involved with external-facing digital strategies.
   
   
2. Does your strategy clearly connect to the customer’s use of digital? 
   Many digital strategies are developed with a strong focus on IT solutions and business needs, clearly laying out what these are. 
   
   But ultimately it will be how the customer interacts with your digital communications and offerings that will determine their success. 
   
   The development of a good strategy must involve input from, or an understanding of, the key user audience. 
   
   For example, while businesses are often keen for customers to self-serve so they can reduce costs, customers will only play that game if it suits their needs and desires. 
   
   Ensure the customer voice is clearly represented in the strategy. 
   
   
3. Is your strategy based on strategic principles, rather than specific technologies and platforms? 
   Having a Facebook page is not a strategy, it’s an execution. A digital strategy should be articulated based around the key areas of functionality, content and engagement required, and how this connects to business objectives. 
   
   Once these are outlined, they can then be executed based on the appropriate channel or platform of the moment. 
   
   Launching a new customer relationship management platform or mobile app may be the right thing to do, but without grounding your actions in strategic rationale, your business won’t be nimble enough to adapt if your digital environment changes. And it can change pretty quickly!
   
   
4. Do the digital executions clearly align with the business objectives and have the key performance indicators for both been connected? 
   Most elements of digital execution are really easy to measure – number of likes, visitors to a website or open rate on an email. 
   
   However, connecting these metrics to tangible business outcomes like sales, increased share of wallet or reduced churn can be difficult and, therefore, are often only referenced in vague or relational terms. 
   
   A clear strategy will link these measurables back to the business objectives. 
   
   This is essential to ensuring your digital spend remains relevant to the business and doesn’t blow out.
   
   
5. Does your strategy cover an ongoing approach with clear “test and learn” elements? 
   Digital is for life, not just for Christmas, and if your strategy ends with a silver bullet like “launch the new website”, it’s likely to fail. 
   
   The most effective digital strategies have the concepts of test-and-learn and “incremental improvement” baked in, as well as a roll-out plan that starts with the minimum viable product and progresses from there based on learnings and insights from the field.

BOTTOM LINE 
If the digital strategy you are presented with stands up to being asked these five questions, it’s likely that the more prosaic elements – such as technology selection, channel plans and content alignment to audience – will be well thought through and that the strategy will be effective in driving the business forward.