Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Lorrie Coffey

  • Leadership Reminders From my Night in O’Hare

    Leadership Reminders From my Night in O’Hare

    Things don’t always go as planned. 

    After a great week at SHRM19 in Las Vegas, I planned to be back in the comforts of my own home Wednesday night. But thanks to bad weather and a missed connection, I spent the night at Chicago O’Hare Airport. I was exhausted and just wanted to get home. But what could have been a miserable experience turned out to be an adventure. And as I sit here watching the sun come up over Chicago, waiting for my flight home, I’m reminded of a few leadership lessons. 

    1. Be flexible. Things won’t always go as planned. Be willing, and able, to adjust to unexpected changes. Be willing to consider plan B or plan C, and sometimes Plan D. And don’t be surprised if someone else comes up with a better solution. As I stood in line last night waiting to try to get a flight home, I considered my options, which included flying into Nashville and driving almost two hours back to Huntsville. When I finally got up to the ticket counter, the customer service rep came up with a better solution for me, she switched my airline from United to American and was able to get me on an early morning flight and have me home by 10 AM when every United flight wouldn’t have gotten me home until late afternoon. 
    2. Be patient. Try to look at the situation from other perspectives and understand what those involved are trying to accomplish or are enduring. Due to the bad weather, the line at customer service took me almost two hours to get through. I was tired and not looking forward to a night in the airport, but I knew that it was due to circumstances outside of anyone’s control and the Delta customer service reps were working diligently to help fliers find a way to their destinations. Even though I stood in line for so long, the experience was a positive one and I didn’t mind the long wait. (the free fruit snacks and bottled water helped!)
    3. Seek out a mentor or partner. Find someone who has been there and done that who you can learn from, or at the least, someone who is in the same boat that you can walk the walk with. Last night while grounded in Milwaukee I met Allison on the plane. She too attended the SHRM Conference and was trying to get back to Huntsville. We decided to stick together through this adventure and that made it much more bearable, and even fun. And since neither of us has ever found ourselves missing our flight and stuck overnight in an airport, it was nice to have someone else to figure it out with. 
    4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes you just can’t figure it all out on your own. Others may have information or solutions that you need, you just need to ask. After getting our return flight figured out, walking for what felt like forever to our new terminal gate, and trying to figure out how we were going to get any sleep, we met a very nice housekeeper and asked her how we could get a blanket. She led us to the jackpot! Thanks to her help we found two bags full of fresh blankets and were able to use them to make ourselves “beds” on the floor so that we could get at least a little bit of sleep during the night. 

    You don’t have to be in a leadership role to practice leadership. How do you practice leadership at work or outside of work? 

  • Five Quick Teambuilding Activities

    Five Quick Teambuilding Activities

    I once put on about 30 articles of clothing in a matter of a couple of minutes. My team won. I once had to build a wooden tower while blindfolded and being instructed by others what to do. My team lost. I did these things (and many more) at a previous employer where we had morning meetings and every Friday was Fun Friday. We’d forego the regular meeting content of financials, project updates, and announcements every Friday morning to have fifteen minutes of fun. It was the weekly meeting everyone looked forward to and usually, we all walked away laughing and smiling. And we’d talk about it for days, weeks, and sometimes I still see former co-workers posting old videos and pictures from some of the activities we did.

    Managers took turns planning the activities, which ranged from trivia to challenges to charades to getting pies in the face. Some were team activities, some were every man for themselves. And there was always a prize for the winners.

    Here are five quick teambuilding activities to get your teams engaged, energized, and best of all, working together and having fun.

    1. Team Trivia. Pick a theme and come up with 10-15 questions. Divide up into groups and each group is given a copy of the questions to write down their answers. Then switch papers with another team and reveal the right answers. The team with the most right wins a prize.
    2. Scavenger hunt. Give each team 5-10 clues for items that are found around the office or facility and send them on their way. The first team to bring back all the items wins a prize.
    3. Charades. Break into teams and take turns having one player from each team draw a clue and act it out. Their team has 30 seconds to guess what the clue is. If they fail, the other team has a chance to steal the point. Some clue ideas- movie titles, song titles, or animals.
    4. Pass the package.  Wrap a gift or just a box in layers of wrapping paper. Grab a die and two oven mitts. Pick a number 1-6. The first player has to put on the oven mitts and try to unwrap the gift while the next person in line rolls the die. When they roll the designated number, it becomes their turn and the next player begins to roll the die. To see this fun in action, here’s a video.
    5. Get to know you. This works well with slightly larger groups. Prior to the meeting ask everyone attending to submit one unusual fact about themselves. For example, I have traveled to 45 out of the 50 states. Compile all of these statements and give a copy to each employee in the meeting and give them 10-15 minutes to mingle and find out who the statement belongs to. The person with the most at the end wins a prize. This is a great way for employees to get to know each other better and is a great conversation starter. Employees may also find that they have some things in common.

    These activities don’t take a lot of time, but they can have a big impact on your employees, their team dynamics, and just overall morale.

    How do you encourage teambuilding at work? What other quick teambuilding activities can you come up with?

  • Sometimes You Will Fail, And That’s Okay

    Sometimes You Will Fail, And That’s Okay

    “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”

    During a recent conversation with a client, he raised a concern about his leadership team expecting him to make every decision. The previous leadership set that expectation, but he wants to empower his team to make decisions they are capable of making.

    The conversation reminded me of when my children were younger and learning new skills, like riding a bike. My youngest is very headstrong and lacks patience (he doesn’t take after his mother at all). If he doesn’t get it right the first time, he’s quick to say “I can’t.”  

    One of the best mentors I ever had, who just happened to be my first boss in HR, empowered me while still providing me with the guidance I needed as a new HR practitioner. Whenever I brought him an issue, he would ask me what I thought I should do. Eventually, I learned to come prepared with those possible solutions. Together we would weigh the options and determine which route to take. The longer I worked for him, the easier it became for me to determine what I needed to do to resolve a situation. And in the end, I learned to make those decisions on my own and simply inform him of how I intended to handle it.

    I have a client that is experiencing a high level of change in their organization and as part of that change, I helped them lead an interactive workshop with their staff. When reviewing the potential outcomes of the feedback received during the workshop, I was very transparent with the group. Their feedback will guide change and the success of that change will be measured. Some of those measurements will show that the change is effective, but some is going to show that the change isn’t effective. And that’s okay. It means that we go back to the table. We reevaluate the plan and determine if we need to adjust to get the desired results. Or we decide that the plan isn’t the right one and we start over from scratch. Many of them looked a little shocked that I admitted that we will fail.

    Failure isn’t a bad thing, as long as you learn from it and grow from it. Just as parents tell their children, as long as you learn from your mistakes, you are still succeeding.  

    By mentoring employees to assess issues and come up with possible solutions, eventually, they will take that initiative without even having to think about it. And they will grow more confident in their ability to formulate those solutions and implement them. And in turn, they will empower their own employees and the impact will continue to trickle down the ladder and the entire team will become more effective, more cohesive, and more productive.

    Do you empower your employees to create solutions? Do you support them when they fail?

  • What’s on Your Career Bucket List?

    What’s on Your Career Bucket List?

    The end of the school year brings final exams, award ceremonies, parties, and best of all, summer. My boys have been counting down the days. And with their countdown comes the usual question I face every year.

    “What are we doing this summer?”

    I always try to do fun things with them throughout the summer that they will each enjoy. But with three boys ranging from 9 to 15, that’s not always easy. Their interests don’t always match up. What my nine-year-old finds thrilling, my fifteen-year-old finds more boring than watching paint dry.

    So this year, I’m putting the decision making in their hands. I’ve tasked each of them with creating a summer bucket list. The parameters are:

    • Something we can all do together.
    • Nothing really over the top cost wise.
    • Things that can be done in a day (no more than a two-hour drive one way).
    • At least four items on each of their lists needs to be educational.

    I’ve also asked each of them to give me at least three longer trips they’d like to take. Together we’ll pick one.

    Our Leaders as Career Agents training helps employees create a career bucket list. Participants are asked where they want to be in their careers in one, three, five, and ten years. Then they are asked to set goals that will help them get there.

    Goals need to be SMART. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based.

    A Harvard Business study showed that only 17% of participants set goals, and only 3% of those actually wrote down their goals. The 14% who had goals in mind were ten times more likely to be successful than those who didn’t set goals. And the 3% who wrote down their goals were even more successful.

    Setting goals is only the first step in succeeding. I recently read an article about goal setting that made a great point. View your goals in terms of “I am” instead of “I will.” Focus on how am I going to start taking action to achieve the goal now versus I’ll work on achieving the goal at some point.

    Find ways to keep your goals front and center. A few years ago my sister-in-law decided to lose some weight. To keep her goal in mind and help keep her from cheating on her diet, she found a picture of herself before she gained the extra weight and stuck it on her refrigerator door to remind herself what she was working towards. In the context of your career, it may mean having regular performance meetings with your manager or finding a mentor in your organization that can help you achieve your goals. It may mean blocking out time on your calendar each week to work on your goals.

    So where do you see yourself in a year, or ten? And how are you going to get there?

  • Are We Taking the Human Out of Human Resources?

    Are We Taking the Human Out of Human Resources?

    My first job in HR was with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) in Virginia. It was a great opportunity for me to learn about the HR field very quickly and I loved it. But there was one thing I absolutely hated about my job, and that was having to terminate employees over the phone. We managed clients in the 48 continental states and whenever a client needed to terminate an employee, that task fell to me. Imagine a manager half way across the country pulling an employee into an office and saying “I have HR on the phone to speak with you” and then me sitting in Virginia saying “I’m sorry but we’ve got to let you go.”

    There was no personal connection there. It was a very sterile way of conducting those terminations, and I dreaded it every time, regardless of whether it was related to their performance or something else.

    I recently read an article about Amazon’s employee tracking system. It tracks productivity, automatically creates and issues warnings, and determines when an employee should be terminated for performance issues. In one facility alone the system led to the termination of 300 employees in one year! Granted the manager makes the final termination decision, but does so without having been present for the events that led up to that termination recommendation.

    AI in HR is a huge topic these days. And I definitely believe that HR needs help in automating some of our processes. But it needs to be used in a way that compliments the HR function, not one in which it eliminates it.

    Take for example recruiting. Many applicant tracking systems now have the functionality to scan resumes for key words in order to weed out those candidates who do not meet the skills requirements of the job. A candidate has six seconds to impress a recruiter and convince them to dig deeper into their qualifications. That doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but when you have 300 applicants for a job that time adds up. Being able to eliminate those candidates who don’t meet the basic qualifications without even having to review their resume can be a huge time saver. It can also help you determine those candidates who are the best match and allow you to focus on their applications first.

    But what if AI in recruiting went a step further and an automated system conducted prescreens or took the candidate through the entire hiring process and made the hiring decision for the organization? Think it couldn’t happen? Well, let me introduce you to Tengai, the robot interviewer.  

    So at what point does AI become a hindrance to HR instead of a help? When it takes the human out of human resources, as in the examples with Amazon and Tengai.

    Amazon’s performance management system doesn’t account for human factors. What led that person to perform below the standards? Do they have something going on in their personal life, do they have an undisclosed illness or disability, or maybe they are struggling to learn the job. You find these things out by speaking with the employee, not by producing an automated warning or write up.

    Tengai conducts the interview then creates a text of that interview for a human to review. That human bases their hiring decision solely on the text provided to them. But hiring decisions aren’t based solely on what a candidate says, they are also based on those non-verbal signals an interviewer provides during the process. If you’re hiring someone for a sales role, you watch them during the interview to see if they appear confident, make eye contact, cross their arms, or even fidget a lot. Tengai isn’t picking up on these non-verbal cues, only what the candidate says. It’s also not picking up on how it is said, which can also be an indicator to an interviewer.

    Limited AI can be very helpful to HR, but as with technology in general, it easily has the potential to eliminate the human aspect. How many times have you seen or heard people complain about self-check out lanes at retailers (personally I LOVE self-check out) or the self-order kiosks at McDonalds. AI in HR has the potential to have that same effect for organizations. People want, and need, human interaction and AI unchecked can easily take that away.