Training and Development Archives

Bookmark This! Change Management Edition

July 21, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

I’ve been hearing lots of conversation about change. Whether it’s organizations that need to change OR departments that want to be more agile so they can respond to change OR individuals who want to create a change in their lives. Change is hard. Even when we want it. Typically, change involves developing new habits and routines.

If change wasn’t hard enough, the speed in which we must adjust to change can be even more difficult.

So, I wanted to put together a list of articles and resources that you could bookmark (hence the title, bookmark this) and refer to it when you’re looking for information about change.

To me, being able to manage change is one of the key components in self-management. It’s a little different from change management, which I consider to be an organizational process. But it is change and we must learn how to deal with it.

Speaking of organizational processes, a few years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. John Kotter on creating organizational change. Lots of good reminders here whenever we’re faced with implementing change in the workplace.

I ran across an email from this Spring that I wanted to share. At this year’s TAtech Congress, I heard Britt Andreatta speak about brain science. Great speaker! After the event, she sent us a link to her online training courses on Lynda.com (a LinkedIn company) including Organizational Learning & Development and Leading Change. Oh, and if you don’t have a Lynda.com account, Britt shared this link for you to access a 30-day free trial here: https://www.lynda.com/trial/Britt_Andreatta.

I like having processes or steps to help me walk-through a change. VUCA is an acronym that can help. It stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It was introduced by the U.S.Army in the 1990s but businesses are starting to adopt it.

If you find that speed and change are creating stress, I like the techniques that Srikumar Rao shared about reducing individual stress levels at work.

In addition, I found these strategies for handling burnout to be helpful. We all manage stress and burnout differently.

Change management on a personal and professional level can be stressful. Managing change within your organization can be difficult. The good news is there are tools to help us, whether it’s an article, online class, or finding a coach to discuss what’s happening. The important part is find the way that works for you.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the 2016 MBTI Users Conference in San Francisco, CA

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4 Ways Managers Can Create the Work Conditions for High Performance

July 9, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

One of the most important responsibilities we give to managers is employee performance. Organizations ask managers to set performance standards, communicate those standards, and train employees to deliver. Creating high performance isn’t a goal; it’s a key component of a manager’s job.

Frankly, it’s a big job. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that. We talk about “Managers need to do this…” or “Managers must do that…” Truth is, managers need to focus on creating the conditions for high performance.

During this year’s SilkRoad Connections Conference, Mollie Lombardi, co-founder and CEO of Aptitude Research Partners, outlined a great roadmap for building high performance.

I think we’ll all agree that the conditions for high performance are those traditional talent management activities such as hiring, learning, goal-setting, and feedback. That’s the easy part! The tough part is, how do we use these talent management activities to create high performance. Lombardi recommended four strategies:

Alignment: For high performance to exist, it must be in alignment with organizational strategies, goals, and objectives. Organizations need to agree on employee performance, both in terms of what meets the standard as well as the defined goals of high performance.

Experience: Employees should be involved in the performance process. They need to give and receive feedback about performance. Employees will perform at a high level when they can personalize their work and have control over the way it gets done. That includes being able to simplify work processes when it makes good business sense.

Coaching: Organizations should provide managers with training so they can effectively coach employees. Coaching isn’t something that’s only done to when an employee is performing poorly. Managers have the ability to offer positive feedback and coaching to employees so they will perform at a high level.

Technology: We’ve heard the saying before, “more isn’t always better.” Organizations should use technology strategically to help with administration. Today’s technology solutions can help with succession planning, collaboration, learning, and performance management. More technology doesn’t mean better technology.

Every organization wants high performance from employees. To get high performance, managers need to play an active role in talent management. They have to hire the best, train them well, set relevant goals, and coach. The way that managers excel in talent management is by creating alignment, encouraging employee experiences, coaching regularly, and using technology strategically to assist.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the SHRM Annual Conference in Washington, DC

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A Senior Management Change Can Interrupt Company Culture

July 6, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

A key theme during this year’s Great Place to Work Conference was developing talent. Are organizations asking their managers the question, “What are you doing to develop talent? And specifically, your replacement?”.

You know I’ve always felt the primary role of a manager is to hire and train their replacement. It goes without saying that a big interrupter can occur in company culture when there’s a change in management. Organizations don’t always get to plan for management changes, so when they do, it’s a big deal. It’s a visible process that demonstrates whether the company really lives their culture.

During the conference, Plante Moran Managing Partner Emeritus Bill Hermann and current Managing Partner Gordon Krater shared their formula for successfully transitioning management responsibilities. The firm is the 14^th largest certified public accounting firm in the U.S. It has over 2,000 employees and has been recognized as a “best place to work” by Fortune Magazine for 13 consecutive years.

Their transition took 8-9 months. Let that sink in for a moment. Almost a year. Now I will admit that some of it could be attributed to the position of managing partner. But after hearing Hermann and Krater share their story, I can easily see the successful transition of managers taking months. Emphasis on the word “successful”.

The reason I say that is because of how they defined the goal. The goal of transitioning management responsibility was for the incoming and outgoing managers to maintain credibility. Both of them. Equally.

So many times, when we think of transitioning management, it’s because one person is leaving the company. In this situation, Hermann wasn’t leaving. He just wasn’t going to be managing partner anymore. It could hurt the organization if the transition didn’t preserve the individual’s credibility.

In today’s work environment, we are going to be faced with more situations where a manager transitions and doesn’t leave the company. Maybe they move to another department, division, or position. Maybe they retire and come back as a part-time consultant. Organizations have to put more thought into the transition process. Hermann and Krater shared three phases to a successful management transition that apply at any level of the organization.

Become knowledgeable about the company. This might seem like the easy part because it includes understanding the financials and the business. It might involve some technical training. But knowledge of the company means giving individuals the experience they will need in a future role. It’s allowing them to make mistakes while gaining knowledge. Remember the goal of maintaining credibility while creating a teachable moment. It can be tricky.

Take responsibility for the organization. Great managers should try to leave the organization better for their successor. They don’t “kick the can down the road”. They take care of business and do what’s in the best interest of the organization. Once a successor has been identified, managers need to step aside so the successor can start to assume responsibility. But not step so far into the background that it appears the new manager isn’t getting the support they need to be successful.

Maintain the company culture. I’d like to think we all know that culture is the number one reason people come to work for our organizations and the number one reason they leave. Managers should not only act in the best interest of the organization but also its culture. For example, in organizations where employees know the founder and remember the early days, it can be hard when a new manager takes over the reins. New managers need to understand and preserve the culture.

A lot of organizations do Phase 1 and 2 well. Managers know the company and their responsibility. It’s the culture component that can derail their success. Company culture is made up of those moments of truth about who the company hires, promotes, recognizes, and fires. If you want to learn more about how to maintain company culture during a management transition, check out Hermann and Krater’s book, “Succession Transition: A Roadmap for Seamless Transitions in Leadership”. It’s a super easy read that can provide a little creative inspiration for your organization.

Image capture by Sharlyn Lauby on the streets of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas USVI

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5 Key Components of Any Successful Performance Management Process

June 27, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 5 Comments

Regardless of your opinion of the annual performance review, organizations still need to have a performance management process. Performance management is a way to provide feedback, accountability, and documentation for performance outcomes. Even organizations that are “ditching” the annual review aren’t abandoning accountability, feedback, and documentation. So, it’s important for organizations to create a process that works for them.

At this year’s Halogen TalentSpace Live, David Mennie, vice president of product marketing and strategy at Saba + Halogen, shared the five essential elements to any performance management process. As he was discussing each, I couldn’t help but wonder how organizational performance would improve if everyone just focused on these five things. That the list David shared was really a roadmap for high performing cultures. Here are the five components:

Management Involvement. It starts here. Managers are responsible for setting performance expectations, providing feedback and coaching, and recognizing excellent work. That doesn’t happen on the sidelines. Managers need to buy into and be an active part of the performance management process.

Goal Setting. High performing individuals and teams have a big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) that drives their performance. And company cultures that place an emphasis on goals align employee performance with that BHAG. The connection creates engagement because employees see how their work helps the company.

Learning and Development. Once goals are set, employees need to have the knowledge and skills to do the work. Companies that want high performance need to make investments in employee learning and development. It will allow employees to accomplish their goals – both now and in the future.

Feedback and Coaching. Employees want to know how they are performing. Because they want to do a good job. Managers should regularly tell employees about their performance – what’s good, what could be improved, and even more importantly, how to evaluate their own work. When employees can evaluate their own performance well, they can set their own goals and begin to become self-learners.

Ongoing Conversations. This component brings the other four items (management, goals, learning, and feedback) together. Organizations should create cultures where having ongoing discussions about performance goals, learning, coaching, etc. are happening.

Now if you’re saying to yourself, “This is a great list. But it’s easier said than done”, you’re right. If the list were easy, everyone would have nailed it by now. We’d all be working on high performing teams. Mastering this list is a journey. The good news is, technology can help support many of these components. But technology isn’t a substitute for training or effective management or accountability. It’s also not a substitute for process. Organizations need to have excellent processes. Those pieces must be in place. Then, technology can effectively support the system.

Organizations cannot let the difficulty of the task keep them from creating a successful performance management process. Not taking the time to define the process isn’t fair to the employee, manager, or the technology.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby just off Duval Street in Key West, FL

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Onboarding: Your Connection Between Recruiting and Learning

June 18, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

We’ve all seen the headlines lately about the U.S. being at “full employment”. On the surface, full employment might sound like a good thing, right?

Well, not so fast. Full employment can create a couple of challenges.

Over inflated compensation and benefits. I’m all for a competitive job market. Top talent should be able to get what they deserve for their skills and experience. However, too much competition can cause employers to throw money at their recruiting problems. I know what you’re thinking, “Is that a bad thing?” I hate to say it, but it can be. Employees don’t want to be underpaid. They also don’t want to be overpaid.

Less turnover. I’m not advocating for high turnover. But some turnover is good for business. It brings in fresh perspectives. In my experience, when recruiting gets tough, organizations might be reluctant to terminate employees for fear that they won’t be able to find a replacement for months. It’s the philosophy that it’s better to work with the devil you know than someone new.

As a result of these “full employment” recruiting challenges, the recruiting and training functions must work together to fill the talent pipeline. Recruiters must be able to tell the organization what roles are better to develop in-house (versus recruit from the outside). Trainers have to do the same thing. Let the organization know what jobs would be better to hire from the outside (instead of developing from within).

In addition, training and recruiting also have to work together to ensure that new hires are set up for success. The way to do that is with onboarding. It’s the intersection between recruiting and training that creates employee success. According to TLNT.com, one third of new hires quit their job in the first six months. And we all know turnover is costly.

When it comes to onboarding, I’m starting to hear more about a format called talent center. The idea is that talent centers are dashboards where employees, managers, recruiting, and training can monitor and measure onboarding progress. Within the talent center are resources and checklists that new hires and managers can use during the onboarding process.

Now, before declaring checklists as evil, hear me out. On some basic level, we all work with checklists on a regular basis. We need them to remind us because we’re not perfect. Checklists can be used to:

Outline what it takes to be successful in a new role (i.e. competencies)
Document compliance requirements

The tricky thing about checklists is making sure they’re used. That’s the difference between a boring, outdated checklist and an interactive talent center. Here are a couple of things to consider:

Employees and managers must be trained on how to use the talent center. Organizations should not make the assumption that everyone knows how to effectively use a checklist. That’s probably one reason that they’re used badly – no one has ever received training. We’re not talking about hours or days of training here. But do provide managers and employees with guidance on how to make the most of the resource.

Regularly survey managers and employees. The other reason that checklists are not used effectively is because they can quickly become outdated. An outdated checklist is worthless. Managers and employees should be surveyed quickly to make sure onboarding resources are current. (And on a side note: training and recruiting should work together to put a maintenance program in place for talent center materials.)

It could make a lot of sense to transform a traditional onboarding process into a talent center, bringing together recruiting, learning, and performance. They key is getting everyone to participate at a high level. That includes HR.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the 2016 MBTI Users Conference in San Francisco, CA

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Quick Shots for #Recruiting and #HR Pros – Boomerang Employees Edition

June 16, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve received several notes about boomerang employees. In a nutshell, boomerang employees are basically rehires. They worked for the organization, left, and have boomeranged back.

It’s a good time to talk about boomerang employees. There’s been a bit of a rise in boomerang employment. I attribute it to the increased challenges in finding talent. The last U.S. jobs report started the conversation about “full employment”. I recently heard a senior vice president of human resources say that the “war for talent” is child’s play. Candidates were showing up for interviews with 6, 7, 8 offers. Organizations have to start thinking about how they will differentiate themselves.

One way is to consider “Adding Boomerang Employees to Your Recruiting Strategy”.

When you think about boomerangs, it might be tempting to only think about employees who leave for another job. First off, not everyone who resigns is unhappy with the company. It’s possible that employees might leave to attend school. Or maybe they’re an intern. It’s also possible that a boomerang could be an older worker returning to the industry at a later point in their career.

I know it would be awesome if employees never left in the first place. Organizations do need to have retention strategies. Turnover does happen. Sometimes though, it can be good for the employee (and the company) to let the employee leave and gain skills they would never have exposure to otherwise. Then the company can welcome the employee back.

A first step in letting boomerang employees know they’re welcome is the exit interview. Use exit interviews as a way to let employees know they can reapply for jobs.

The next step, and a really important one, is then making sure boomerangs actually feel welcome. It’s one thing to say it and another to actually do it. I had the pleasure of discussing the advantages (and cautions) of hiring boomerangs with Joyce Maroney, director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos, and John Hollon, award-winning journalist and talent management expert, during the podcast “Boomerang Employees: Can you Go Home Again?”

Boomerang employees can bring a lot of value back to the organization. They already know the company’s strengths and weaknesses. The one thing that must be resolved is the reason for the employee’s departure. Will the same annoyances happen again? The employee and company need to have their eyes wide open and discuss matters honestly.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby somewhere on the back trails of Walt Disney World, FL

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How to Create Learning Paths that Align with Company Goals

June 15, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

A learning path is a sequence of activities that allows a person to build knowledge or skill. For instance, an employee who wants to become more proficient in project management might have a learning path that includes: proposal writing, budgeting, scheduling, critical evaluation, and project management. The idea being that each topic builds upon the previous and makes the employee better at project management.

Learning paths are different from talent pools, in my opinion. A talent pool is often used as an alternative to succession planning. Organizations that aren’t ready to make the definitive statement “We’re grooming Leonard to be our next chief financial officer.” can instead identify future talent needs and provide career development opportunities.

And that’s the difference to me. Learning paths address the organization’s current needs and talent pools take more of a future approach. Any employee can have a learning path. In fact, every employee probably should have a learning path. And an employee’s learning path should help them achieve their goals.

I’m a fan of cascading goals. The idea that the organization’s goals are the department’s goals. And the department’s goals are employee’s goals. It all flows downhill…in a good way, of course. The idea being that if companies want to achieve their goals then employee goals should be aligned. Employees should understand how their goals help the company accomplish their strategy.

So how do companies create learning paths? Consider these six steps.

Educate employees on how to develop relevant goals. Employees need to know not only how to state the end result (i.e. the goal) but outline the individual steps toward accomplishment. They also need to know how to establish priorities along the way.

Train employees on self-learning. For learning paths to really become a part of organizational culture, employees need to buy into them. That means emphasizing from hire to retire the concept of learning. Being a lifelong learner isn’t some trend du jour. It’s how individuals and businesses stay competitive.

Use SMART to develop learning action plans. You guys know I’m a big fan of the SMART acronym (specific, measurable, actionable, responsible, time-bound). One of the reasons is because, once you learn it, it’s very adaptable. Teach employees how to use SMART and they can create their own learning paths.

Allow employees to learn using different learning styles. In #2, we talked about self-learning. Part of self-learning is having a self-awareness of how someone likes to learn. In addition, knowing when to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone and learn a different way because it will benefit us in the long-run.

Create an environment that encourages feedback. All learning involves feedback. The feedback might occur before, during, or after the learning takes place. The goal of feedback is to improve performance. Train employees at every level how to deliver feedback to their peers and their manager.

Allow employees to fail. This is probably the toughest part of a learning path. Organizations have to be willing to let employees make mistakes…and learn from them. Managers should play the role of coach and truly help employees learn from missteps.

Learning paths can provide employees with educational opportunities to achieve their goals. When employees achieve their goals, organizations can accomplish their goals and strategies. But it means that organizations must make an investment in training – at the employee and manager level – so learning thrives.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the SHRM Annual Conference in Las Vegas, NV

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