Horizon Point Consulting

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…).

  • 3 Highlights from the 2014 NCDA Conference

    The 2014 National Career Development Association Conference in Long Beach, CA was a tremendous experience.  Here’s what I learned along with some thoughts on leadership actions for us all to consider:

    1.  Career Development in an Employee Engagement Strategy. I heard about how Boeing and GM are setting up systems (mainly through online tools) to facilitate employees to take ownership of their careers and for leaders to take ownership of facilitating career development discussions and planning with their employees as a part of performance management.

    I personally learned how true this lesson is through an experience a friend had before we departed.  The organization he works for has a new CEO. He had a one-on-one meeting with him, and the first question the CEO asked him was, “What are your career goals?”  He then engaged in a discussion with my friend about how he could help him facilitate the growth of his career. This is the first time my friend has experienced this and his engagement with his organization is now renewed.  He called it “refreshing.”

    ACTION ITEM FOR LEADERS:  Ask your employees,  “What are your career goals and how can I help you reach them?”

    2.  Planned Happenstance Happens.  As a career development theory I’ll have to admit I wasn’t immediately drawn to, I saw it in action when a lady attended one of my sessions with a desire to put a plan in place to facilitate business and industry connections with schools.  The session I was speaking about wasn’t on this topic, but the roundtable I presented earlier in the conference was. I was able to provide her with the handouts and resources for this hopefully enabling some food for thought for her on how to do this in her community. She shared with me how her community set up a program where teachers were immersed in business and industry that I was able to learn from.

    ACTION ITEM FOR LEADERS:  Put yourself in a position to interact regularly with others you wouldn’t routinely get the chance to interact with. You can be a resource to them and they can be a resource to you. We all have something to learn from those around us.

    3. “If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”  -Richard Buckminster Fuller@BryanLubic did a fanatic job in a roundtable illustrating how you can use tools to create experiences that lead to career decisions and actions instead of telling people what career path they need to take.  Teach people how to fish, don’t give them a fish.

    ACTION ITEM FOR LEADERS:  Show and do, don’t tell. No one likes a dictator or a know-it-all.

    Agree?  You may like this post.

    What take aways did you have from your last conference or professional development experience?  How did you act on them?

  • 2 Reasons You Should Consider Dual Career Ladders

    2 Reasons You Should Consider Dual Career Ladders

    Being in a leadership role seems to be the ideal in most companies. Leading is what people strive for, and in most cases I think this is the norm because it is the only path by which advancement can take place. Want to move up and get paid more? Well then you have to lead and manage others.

    Another way to help people grow

    A client we’re working with is considering dual career ladders for the organization. With this organizational structure, there are advancement opportunities into the traditional route of leadership, but there is also a path by which people can grow by demonstrating technical expertise in their field.

    Why you should consider dual career ladders

    Dual career ladders may be a good route for your company because:

    1. Not Everyone is suited for or has the desire to get work done through others. Quite frankly, some people would rather do the work themselves and may be best suited to do so. Getting work done through others can be extremely challenging, and for some, can be draining instead of stimulation. If people are in roles that are constantly proving to be draining instead of energizing, productivity will suffer. Which leads to the 2nd reason to consider dual career paths…

    2.  Dual Paths can help your company be more successful. By placing people in the roles where they contribute the most, the company gains success through talent.

    Dual career paths may not be feasible for all companies due to size of the organization or the nature of the work, but the structure begs the question for any organization about how to provide opportunities for people to advance and grow in their careers.

    The best place to start if you are considering how to determine who is best suited for an expert role or a leadership role is to assess your talent. There are a variety of instruments that are effective for this purpose (email us if you want some recommendations), but the most important way to assess people for advancement opportunities is to ask the hard but simple question, do you want to lead? It’s much easier for people to honestly answer “no” if there is an option to grow in their career through another path. I think we hear the answer “yes” to the question do you want to lead more than we should because it’s the only option.

  • I’m Spending a Lot of Money on This: Getting and Measuring Bang for Your Buck Through Leadership Coaching

    I’m Spending a Lot of Money on This: Getting and Measuring Bang for Your Buck Through Leadership Coaching

    We’ve spent the last few months here at The Point blog talking about Leadership Coaching. Posts have included a run down on what to look for in a coach, should you hire a coach, our coaching process, how to seek feedback, how to practice feedforward and how to address the most common coaching issues.

    Does coaching work? 

    According to scholarly research in an examination of coaching effectiveness on 370 coaching participants, coaching produced results equivalent from moving someone from the 50th  percentile to the 93rd percentile and which equates to being at least three times more effective than leadership training impact on performance.

    Coaching is effective.

    But it isn’t cheap.

    So is it efficient?  In short, yes. The same scholarly article sites strong Return on Investment (ROI) in a different study that indicated the coaching to be worth 5.7 times the initial investment. This shows, spending money (on coaching) made the company 5.7 more money than what they spent on the coaching. You’ve got to spend money to make money, or so they say.

    Coaching provides bang for the buck.

    But will it work for you and give you bang for your buck?

    Just because leadership or executive coaching has been cited to be both effective and efficient for certain organizations, how do you know if coaching will pay off for your organization or if it has if you’ve already engaged a leadership coach?

    First, you hire a coach that measures the performance of their endeavors.

    If you want a complete run down on how to evaluate coaching we suggest reading:

    A Practical Guide to Evaluating Coaching: Translating State-of-the Art Techniques to the Real World(Peterson & Kraiger, 2004)

    But, for the sake of your time here’s what we do and suggest (and many of these ideas come from the above reading):

    1. Make sure your purpose is defined at the beginning so you can measure performance against that purpose.

    2. To measure did it work? Gather individual data  (we use a 360° feedback tool) at the beginning of the engagement and then issue the same data gathering process at the end of the coaching engagement to see if improvements are present. Sometimes this can be too cumbersome or time consuming to administer the 360 again. If that is the case, pinpoint key areas cited for improvement and simply gauge these areas for improvement through a shorter survey.

    3. To measure did it work? Measure success against goal attainment. Were the goals or learning objectives in the coaching achieved? This is simply a yes or no thing, and of course begs the question of goals needing to be set at the beginning of the process.

    4. To measure did it work? Get the leaders of the leaders being coached to evaluate change in performance level before and after the coaching. Has desired performance level been achieved?

    5. To measure did it work? Get the participants to provide feedback on the effectiveness of coaching by issuing a questionnaire to them. The article cited above has a good one that could be utilized.

    6. To measure did I get bang for my buck?:  Look at individual results achieved during the coaching time period compared to the cost of the coaching (this is measuring ROI).

    For example, at the individual level was the purpose of the coaching engagement to help someone improve their time management skills? If so, how much more efficient are they with their time and how much is their time worth? If they make $100,000 a year (considering a 40 hour work week which we know is probably on the short end of the time most leaders work each week), each hour of their time is worth almost $50.00.   If they improved efficient use of their time by an estimated 10%, then this efficiency gain equates to a value of $10,400 a year. Did the coaching cost more or less than this?  Let’s just say the coaching cost $5000.00. Well you just go a 100% return on your investment.

    7.  To measure did I get bang for my buck? Look at results at the organizational level during and after the coaching engagement. Obviously, every organizational gain isn’t a direct result of coaching, other factors come into play, but this needs to be measured. For example, did sales, quality, production efficiency, etc. increase as a direct or indirect result of people who have been involved in the coaching?

    Anything worth doing, which coaching should be worth doing, is worth doing right.  And the only way to know if it is done right is to evaluate effectiveness and efficiency.

    Are you measure the results of your organizational initiatives such as leadership coaching? If so, how?

  • 4 Steps for Handling and Diffusing Conflict

    4 Steps for Handling and Diffusing Conflict

    Last week, I had to share some information with someone that was unpleasant. I was nervous about how to deliver the message, but I went back to the steps I recommend to leadership coaching clients when they have to deliver and discuss issues that involve conflict. This is a very common issue that leaders have to navigate, and the best method to handle or diffuse conflict is to address it. The worst thing that can be done is to ignore.

    If you’re struggling with how to handle a situation head on, use these steps to make it easier:

    1.  Get your facts before proceeding. There are two sides to every story and a he said/she said issue is not ready to approach until you’ve gathered your facts. Make sure you know the ins and outs of the issue before discussing and address it.

    2.  Seek counsel of the wise. Before I went into my “unpleasant” discussion last week, I sought the counsel of three people that I trust. There was consensus on how to handle the issue from the three individuals (who had no idea what the other people recommended), so I felt confident that the approach was the best method. Make sure you have 2-3 trusted advisors as a leader. This is why hiring a coach may beneficial.

    3.  Plan and practice your approach. Write it out if you need to. This will help you feel confident in your delivery and anticipate questions or concerns that may arise from the party(ies) you are addressing.

    4.  Address it. Like I said, the worst thing you can do when conflict arises is to ignore it. To address the situation effectively:

    • Frame the issue with the facts
    • State your concern as well as why you are concerned making sure that potential effects on company and individual performance are addressed
    • Ask open-ended questions of the parties
    • Provide time for comment from all involved
    • Develop an approach or plan of action to resolve the issue. Ensure that everyone involved is clear on his or her responsibilities.

    How do you address difficult issues and/or resolve conflict in the workplace?

    Want more? You may like this post:

    2 Tips for Resolving Conflict Wisely

  • Drop Lots of FYIs to Communicate Effectively

    Drop Lots of FYIs to Communicate Effectively

    I was mad. Really mad. I had an appointment with a client. He asked to reschedule because he said he would be out of the office all day the day we had scheduled to meet. I showed up at the company the day we were scheduled to meet in order to meet with one of his colleagues and out he walks. He’s there. I felt lied to and intentionally blown off.

    He said nothing. I said nothing. I expected an apology or at least an explanation e-mail or phone call to come from him. I got nothing.

    In inquiring about his presence at the office when he said he was going to be gone, I found out he was waiting on another person to leave for the day. He hadn’t lied, but he hadn’t clarified anything with me. I’m glad I did some inquiring before I blew off the handle at him, and I was embarrassed that I got so worked up about the situation. But it all could have been diffused if he had just informed me about what was going on, instead of leaving me assuming.

    I often find that with business communication, we assume a lot. We assume people know certain things are happening, or we assume they have the information they need to complete a task, or we assume people think the best of us. More often than not, our withholding information by assuming leaves people, well mad. Like I was.

    Taking on the mindset of informing others helps to steer communication in a way that does not leave unanswered questions.

    Are you informing people enough? Consider this list from the coaching tool, For Your Improvement(maybe it’s not a coincidence that the book is referred to as FYI). If you find yourself thinking one or more of these statements describe you, then you’d be well served dropping a few more FYIs every now and then.

     

    Unskilled Informer:

    -Not a consistent communicator

    -Tells too little or too much

    -Tells too late; timing is off

    -May be unclear; may inform some better than others

    -May not think through who needs to know by when

    -Doesn’t seek or listen to the data needs of others

    -May inform but lack follow-through

    -May either hoard information or not see informing as important

    -May only have one mode- written or oral or e-mail

     

    For more on improving communication:

    Saying too much is like saying nothing at all

    How to combine communication with teamwork

    Team communication: It’s not what you say but how you say it