Category: Beyond Leadership

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

  • How can we best help? 5 Insights from Sheryl Sandberg at #SHRM18

    How can we best help? 5 Insights from Sheryl Sandberg at #SHRM18

    2018 for me has been a year of providing support for both professional and personal friends and family that have been experiencing tremendous situations of stress, pain and loss.  As I count today, there are half a dozen people that I’m actively engaged in providing support and encouragement for. If I think about it objectively, I could say that most people, every year, are actively providing support for at least this many people who dealing with some type of life struggle. Struggle is just a part of life.

    I am humbled to have the opportunity to be a small part of helping people through their pain and problems.  If you are doing the same thing, I’m sure you are too.  But if you’re like me, I’m often not sure what helps and what may possibly hurt when it comes to the words and behavior I use when trying to provide the right support.

    Sheryl Sandberg spoke about a variety of things at #SHRM18, most of which came from her personal experience of being a female business executive, a mother and widow. Her insights on the best way we can help each other in the workplace integrated with Adam Grant’s comments on creating an organization of givers.  Like Adam, she was also diligent in stating facts and citing research to back up her points.

     

    When people are dealing with difficult situations, Sheryl noted:

    1. Realize people feel like they are a burden when they are hurting.  Often, they will apologize or say they are sorry when they share their thoughts or feelings. Make sure you assure people that they are not a burden. Validate for them that their thoughts and feelings are okay and that vocalizing them is a good thing.
    2. Don’t assume people have enough help or support from family and close friends.  They often don’t and need you. Oftentimes people that aren’t as close to the situation are the best people for providing support.
    3. You are never reminding people of their pain.  It is always there. When you realize this, it is always best to ask about and acknowledge the elephant in the room.
    4. When you don’t ask, you aren’t protecting people you are making them feel isolated.
    5. Our natural tendency is to ask, “How can I help.”  This is not bad, but people often don’t know what to tell you.  Sheryl suggested just showing up.  Show up in the waiting room at the hospital and just let them know you are there if and when needed.   Show up with a meal or a gift or with their dry cleaning you’ve already picked up and paid for them.  Don’t ask, just do.

     

    What are the best ways you know to help people who are hurting?

  • Marketing Your Core Values and Culture

    Marketing Your Core Values and Culture

    How does your company market your core values and culture? What do candidates see when they look at your website? Are your values and culture emphasized during the hiring process?

    • 76% of candidates want details on what makes the company an attractive place to work. (Glassdoor survey, October 2014)
    • Nearly 80% of Millennials look for people and culture fit with employers, followed by career potential. (Collegefeed, March 2014)
    • 77% of job seekers go to Company Websites to look for jobs. (Gallup State of the American Workplace Report 2017)

    If you’re not marketing your core values and culture, you may be losing out on attracting top talent. According to the 2017 LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends, 61% of those surveyed said that the best channel to build an employer brand is through the company’s career site, followed by LinkedIn at 55%, and Third-party websites or job boards at 40%.

    Try to look at your company’s career site through the eyes of an applicant. What sets you apart from other potential employers? What benefits does your organization offer that might attract potential candidates? Is your company culture reflected on the career site?

    Next, make sure your organization has a solid LinkedIn profile and post regularly. Ask current employees to follow your company page and share posts. Do the same with other social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter. Share pictures from company events that show the camaraderie outside of the office.

    And then look at third-party sites and job boards such as Glassdoor. Many candidates look to sites like Glassdoor to get a true feeling of what it’s like to work at a company. Employees and candidates can review organizations, share salary information & interview questions, rate the CEO, and much more. What does your Glassdoor profile say about your organization? Does your organization respond to reviews that are posted on Glassdoor and other sites? While you can’t control the reviews that are posted to Glassdoor, you can control their impact based on how you manage your profile and respond to negative feedback.

    • Employer branding has a significant impact on hiring talent according to 80% of recruiters. (LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends 2017)

    What message does your current employer branding send to potential candidates?

    For more on employer branding, read our blog post The Candidate Experience Influences the Brand.

  • Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch:  9 Takeaways from Adam Grant at #SHRM18

    Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch: 9 Takeaways from Adam Grant at #SHRM18

    “The work of culture building is never done.  It’s always a work in progress.” – Adam Grant

    People were excited about the concert Tuesday night at #SHRM18, but I was giddy about hearing Adam Grant speak that morning.  The organizational psychology nerd in me was so excited to hear Adam Grant speak, and his comments did not disappoint.

    Top takeaways from his presentation all centered around company culture:

    1. What got you here won’t get you there. Hire for cultural contribution (if you are a big company).  Cultural fit is still important for startups.

    I think most people miss Adam’s overall point in this.  Many simply hear him say don’t hire for cultural fit.  But he cited a study showing start-ups that focused on hiring for cultural fit above other characteristics had a 0% failure rate, surviving for at least 15 years.  Interestingly though, what happens post IPO is that cultural  fit is the worst way to hire.  As a company grows, you need more change and adaptation. Cultural fit doesn’t sit as well.  Instead, look at what is missing from your culture and hire people that can help you fill gaps and adapt.

    2. Not hiring toxic people is more important than hiring good people. Regardless of company size, hire givers, not takers.

    Adam stated that the cost savings of not hiring a selfish employee are more than twice as valuable as hiring a superstar, or the top 1% of people in terms of performance.  In addition, the negative impact of a taker is more than double to triple the positive impact of hiring a giver.

    This is because givers make cultural contribution.  They 1) share their knowledge 2) make connections and 3) create an environment of sharing.  All of which lead to innovation.  Takers sabotage all of this.

    3. Worried about how to screen out toxic people?  Ask one simple question.

    Adam suggested taking anything you are worried about hurting the culture of your organization and asking candidates how common they think it is.   For example, “What percentage of the population do you think is fundamentally selfish?”  Then it is your job to ask them how they came up with that estimate.  If their answer gets back to the fact that they think people are fundamentally selfish, then they are most likely fundamentally selfish.  Steer clear.

    4. Hire disagreeable givers.  

    People who are takers are not the same thing as people who are disagreeable.  You can be agreeable and be a giver or a taker and be disagreeable and be a giver or a taker.  Think four-box grid. Disagreeable givers aren’t afraid to speak up, saying what no one wants to say, which leads to better results. They are more committed advocates for original thinking and are often disagreeing because they are intensely loyal and passionate about the company and the mission.  You need to hear them; they give through challenging.

    For more on this idea, take a look at Adam’s Ted Talk on the subject.

    5. In order for people and companies to thrive, build a culture that welcomes upward challenge.

    When was the last time you questioned or disagreed with your boss?  Do you feel comfortable doing so?  If not, and if you aren’t alone in your organization, most likely your company isn’t capable of remarkable results.  Adam cited Bridgewater,  a company where, “no one has the right to hold a critical opinion without speaking up about it.”   Their website says the culture is one in which, “meaningful relationships are pursued through radical truth and radical transparency.”   One dimension of performance evaluations at Bridegewater is challenging upward.  People are actually rated on whether or not they challenge their boss and their boss’ boss, all the way up the ladder.   The company has consistently outperformed its competition in the market.

    6. Create a negative feedback video.  

    Most people hate to be challenged and hate to receive negative feedback.  But Adam’s talk emphasized that both are necessary for a great culture to thrive. Great leaders seek out both challenge and negative feedback.  He showed a hilarious video of his colleagues all reading negative feedback they received from students.  When employees saw the negative feedback videos there was an 11% increase in a growth mindset.  Creating such a video shows you can take it and opens people up to realize that there is nothing that can’t be voiced.  It is the beginning of a culture where people can speak truth to ideas.

    7. To communicate original ideas, give people a reference with a tune they know.  

    If you have a truly original idea, most likely people lack the schema or reference point to understand it.  If you can relate your idea to another in a different context (for example,  the match.com for companies and job seekers) people are more likely to understand and be open to your idea. “You have to take your unfamiliar idea and make it familiar,” says Adam.  The more you know outside of your organization and your industry, the better you are at making connections to get your ideas adopted.

    8. People who really believe in a mission and are able to contribute in the most meaningful ways are ruthless prioritizers.

    People in this category are able to not pursue a good idea because it isn’t as good as another idea.  What you aren’t working on is often more important than what you are working on.

    9. Crowdsource questions, problems and requests making it easier for people to be givers. It’s imperative to create channels for knowledge sharing.

    This gives people the opportunity to ask for help, especially when they have an unproven idea.  An innovation tournament where problems and requests are presented and people work together on solving them is a good way to put this idea into action.

     

    Adam Grant’s points at #SHRM18 and in any of his other talks or books show what makes him one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and a part of Fortune’s 40 under 40.  His ideas are 1) grounded in research and 2) unconventional. His ideas disprove the status quo with data and science. He’s the type of scientist-practitioner we should all strive to be.

    Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

    Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

     

    Like this post? You may also enjoy:

    Consider Culture Contribution When Hiring 

    2017 Book of the Year

     

  • Mental Health in the Workplace… What Can You Do?

    Mental Health in the Workplace… What Can You Do?

    Recently I talked about authenticity during employee hardships. With recent events in the news, including the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, I wanted to dive deeper into how employers can help employees in need.

    Mental health is an ever-growing concern in our nation. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

    • Approximately 1 in 5 adults (43.5 millions) in the U.S. experience mental illness in a given year.
    • One in 25 of those Americans suffer a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.
    • 9% of adults in the U.S. have had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.
    • 1% of adults in the U.S. experienced an anxiety disorder such as PTSD, OCD, or specific phobias.

    With mental illness so prevalent in our nation, what can employers do to help employees who suffer from mental illness?

    1. Understand, and make sure employees understand, what mental health benefits are covered under your health insurance plan. Going over the benefits coverage annually during open enrollment is a perfect time to educate employees on what is covered. If an employee comes to you, remind them that their insurance includes coverage for mental health services.
    2. If you don’t already have one, consider adding an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to your benefits package. Employees can contact the EAP confidentially, receive immediate counseling services for work related or personal issues, and if needed, the EAP will assist the employee with finding a mental health professional in their local area. Employers see an increase in productivity, reduced time off, reduced turnover, reduction in work related injuries, and more. It’s a win-win.
    3. Listen. Listen to your employees and take what they say seriously. If you have an employee who comes to you concerned about a co-worker, don’t take their concern lightly. If an employee comes to you to discuss a problem they are having, take the time to sit and really hear what they have to say. Sometimes all that is needed is someone to listen and show compassion. Sometimes more is needed, and that is when #1 and #2 may come in handy.
    4. Understand that sometimes it is bigger than you. There may be cases in which you aren’t equipped to help. I once called the local police and had them conduct a welfare check on an employee who showed signs of extreme mental distress and made an insinuative comment to a coworker one day before leaving work about what he’d do if he had a gun. (I had also provided this employee with information on his mental health coverage and the EAP).

    There are also many programs and resources that employees can access within their communities, as well as online. These include:

    • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline- 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
    • Alabama Department of Mental Health- 1-800-367-0955
    • National Alliance on Mental Health- 1-800-950-NAMI
    • Project Semicolon- projectsemicolon.com

    Remember that mental illness may be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If an employee comes forward with their mental illness and requests accommodations, be sure to follow your organization’s ADA accommodation request procedures. If an employee needs to take leave for a mental illness, be sure to see if they qualify for leave under FMLA.

    For more information on mental health in the workplace, check out the Center for Workplace Mental Health.

  • 6 Ways to Build Energy

    6 Ways to Build Energy

    “…every movement of your body, every emotion you have, and every thought that passes through your mind is an expenditure of energy. Just as everything that happens outside in the physical world requires energy, everything that happens inside requires an expenditure of energy.” From The Untethered Soul

    “Coach, I’m tired,” said one little boy to my husband on his 7-8 year-old baseball team. Practice had only been going on for ten minutes and they hadn’t even been running.

    To which my husband asked, “Why are you tired?”

    “Well, I played at the trampoline park all day.  I’m wore out,” he said.

    This humorous encounter led my husband to set guidelines for the team on what activities were okay for them to engage in prior to their first All-Star tournament game on Saturday.

    Swimming? No. Riding your bike or running around the neighborhood all day?  No.  And definitely no trampoline park.

    My husband’s goal is conserve his players’ energy so they have enough gas in their tanks for a 5:30 pm game in the summer heat.

    He may take baseball too seriously, but I think this encounter holds an important lesson for us all.

    We all have a finite amount of energy to give. Whether it is physical energy as in this example or emotional or mental energy, we often expend it on things and people that do not lead to positive outcomes or results. We come to things that we need to be fully engaged in totally drained.  And it’s not because of the activity in the present, it’s the activity in the past.

    I know I struggle with this, do you?  In thinking about ways to combat it:

    1. Examine your commitments and tasks by things that leave you drained, energized, or neutral.   I’ve seen planners and time management systems organized around this mindset.   It makes a lot of sense.   Also, I would encourage you to analyze your relationships or people by this mindset as well.
    2. Get rid of most of the things that drain you. We’ve all got to do laundry in our life,  whether is actual laundry or metaphorical laundry, that no one find particular energy in. We also have relationships that leave us at a net loss in energy for a period, but dedication to this person(s) is important.  Hello, anyone that has ever been sleep deprived because of a newborn at home. However, much of what drains us is optional.  I would encourage you to eliminate at least two things this week that drain you.  Say no to something.
    3. For the draining tasks you just can’t abandon, chunk them together and schedule time to get them done. Often being able to check off multiple things on your to-do list at once, even if they are tasks you dislike, can lead to increased energy.
    4. Add one thing to your week that builds energy for you.  It could be a workout, a good night’s sleep, or a particular activity (like what I’m doing now, writing energizes me) that leads to more energy.  Schedule a time to do this each week like it is any other appointment you can’t take off your calendar.
    5. If you are a part of a team at work and/or a team at home, make your draining, energizing and neutral list as a group.   You’ll probably be surprised to find that you aren’t assigning responsibilities based on what builds energy for individuals and thus the team.  Swap tasks around as needed and appropriate.
    6. Realize everything you do is an opportunity to shine your light. Light requires energy. Ask yourself regularly, Am I shining or am I not?

    “The more you stay open, the more energy flow you can build…it starts flowing out of you…..What’s more, the energy [flowing out of you] affects other people.  People can pick up on your energy, and you’re feeding them with this flow.  You become a source of light for those around you.” From The Untethered Soul