Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Personal Development

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for stories and best practices for personal wellness and wellbeing, skills improvement, and  more.

  • No New Year’s Resolutions in 2020

    No New Year’s Resolutions in 2020

    January. The time to set a resolution for better living and better outcomes.  Have you set one or two or ten? 

    Resolving to be better is always a good thing but resolve rarely accomplishes.  As Paul David Tripp says in New Morning Mercies for the December 31 devotional: 

    …the reality is that few smokers have actually quit because of a single moment of resolve. Few obese people have become slim and healthy because of one dramatic moment of commitment. Few people who were deeply in debt have changed their financial lifestyle because they resolved to do so as the old year gave way to the new. And few marriages have been changed by means of one dramatic resolution.

    Tripp goes on to say that change is important, but our method for trying to will that change is wrong.  We often think grandiose in our change mindset instead of realizing that change happens through growth (in grace as Tripp would say) in the day to day.  Growth that happens through the mundane priorities of and habits exhibited on a regular Tuesday or a typical Thursday. 

    So in 2020, focusing on a mindset of growth can lead us down a path to success.  Where when we look up in July or October and realize a process has taken place that has changed us because we practiced change instead of resolving to it.  

    According to the NeuroLeadership Institute in the Growth Mindset Culture publication in 2018, growth mindset is “the idea that skills and abilities can be improved, and the development of skills and abilities is the goal of the work you do.”

    In a Growth Mindset Case Study Collection also by the NeuroLeadership Institute, one company featured described their focus on growth mindset as, “perseverance in times of change, being curious and asking lots of questions, and achieving more tomorrow than they did today.”  Love this. 

    Three factors contributing to great growth occur are: 

      1. Priorities
      2. Habits
      3. Systems

    For example, if you are “resolving” to be a better leader in 2020, ask yourself what priorities, habits, and systems can actually help you be one with “the development of skills and abilities” being the goal. 

    1. Priorities: My priority is to help other people grow through my leadership in 2020. 
    2. Habits:  In order to be a better leader in 2020, I will: 1) Hold regular (weekly, biweekly or monthly) one-on-one meetings with each of my direct reports and 2) Provide one stretch assignment per quarter to each of my direct reports.
    3. Systems:  I will use our project management (or some other system) to log and follow-up regularly on action plans created in the one-on-one meetings and for the stretch assignments.  I will utilize our performance management/appraisal system (or create one) to provide feedback and rewards for each of my direct reports based on their performance.

    “The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they are little moments that we live in that form us,” as Tripp goes on to say for his December 31 thoughts.  Priorities, habits, and systems are lived out in the day to day, day in and day out. 

    What priorities, habits, and systems can you set today that will form you and grow you in the day-to-day? 

    Happy 2020!

     

    Author’s Note:  The little moments are truly what shape us.  I had a “little moment” this past weekend where I ran into an old high school friend.  It did our souls good to see each other, however so briefly, and we exchanged phone numbers to be able to get together again soon.   She texted me a screenshot of the devotional referenced in this post this morning.  I had been wrestling with thoughts for a New Year’s post. The idea of growth mindset taking shape and her text and the thoughts in the devotional set me to immediately write.

    I could have gone a different way on my run on Saturday morning and not seen her, she could have not taken the time to send me this devotional, and we both have the choice to either follow-through or neglect our commitment to get together again “soon.”   The point is, the priorities, habits, and systems we create lead us to experience moments of growth and honestly holiness, not the other way around, and it so simple to neglect them in the hustle of life.  

    It is so easy to reschedule a one-on-one meeting with a direct report because something else “came up” and then never actually reschedule it.  It’s so easy to not log that follow-up item in your system because you’re too busy or to not provide quality feedback because it is uncomfortable. But to neglect these things in the day-to-day is to neglect growth in you and in others. 

    I’m so thankful for my friend taking the time to help me grow in the day-to-day by sending me the devotional screenshot.  I can live in that example by making sure I schedule a time to get together with her by the end of January, or by sending her the next things that come my way that make me think of her. 

     

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  • A Pound of Prevention

    A Pound of Prevention

    “A pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure” is a phrase I heard for the first time this week.

    I was at lunch with an attorney who specializes in employment law, and she said that phrase as we were talking about clients who don’t see the benefit of proactive, preventative measures and instead just hope everything turns out alright. I immediately wrote it down and googled when I got home, and the internet says it’s a Benjamin Franklin quote. Apparently, Franklin wrote an anonymous letter to his own newspaper in Philadelphia in 1735 about the importance of preparing for possible fires ahead of time versus waiting until the fire is burning to make a plan. 

    How many of us have waited until the metaphorical (or literal) fire was burning to actually do something? 

    One of the common “fires” companies face is invaluable leaders retiring or leaving for other opportunities. Many organizations do not spend enough time proactively planning for succession, and then they find themselves without a VP or other critical leader and have to scramble to find a suitable replacement. We speak to this in our recent blog post “Who Is Your Successor?”. 

    Another fire that can burn quickly is non-compliance – knowingly or unknowingly failing to comply with employment law. This is common for small businesses who see rapid growth and suddenly find themselves crossing the FTE thresholds for various legislation (e.g. the Affordable Care Act typically applies at 50 FTEs). As a business owner and/or leader, you are responsible for ensuring that your organization complies with federal, state, and local employment laws. If you operate your business in more than one state, you may need to take another look at your policies. Having an updated employee handbook – and actually having every employee read and agree to it – is a pound of prevention that every single organization needs to take seriously. 

    We don’t wait until the fire is burning to buy an extinguisher. Let’s not wait until there’s trouble to protect our organizations and our employees.

  • 3 Quotes to Consider When Leading Volunteers

    3 Quotes to Consider When Leading Volunteers

    Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to lead volunteers as a staff member as well as a chair of an all-volunteer board. It can certainly be a challenge, but it is also a great privilege and offers surprising rewards!

    I remember planning an awards event several years ago that went awry. We had more than a dozen people show up that did not RSVP. My first thoughts were: where will we seat them & will there be enough food? As I look back, I am so thankful for the volunteers who jumped in to help. That was one of the first times I truly thought about the importance of volunteers and the impact of leading others.  

    These 3 quotes are some of my favorites and certainly ring true for leading volunteers.

    If you are leading a group of volunteers and have the opportunity to help select them, remember this quote. Look for individuals that are willing to share their unique talents and gifts, but who also share similar values and believe in the mission and vision of your group.

    Always, always, always appreciate others! A simple thank you gift, note or text can go a long way. Since volunteers don’t receive a paycheck, showing your gratitude can have a major impact.

    Great leaders, regardless of who they are leading, should have a servant’s heart. I’ve had the opportunity to serve alongside some amazing servant leaders and can only hope I reflect a servant’s heart while leading volunteers.

     

    Where can you volunteer today? 

  • Can I Get Your Attention?

    Can I Get Your Attention?

    I’m the mother of three boys. Two teenagers and one about to hit that “preteen” stage. Most days I want to bang my head against the wall. I feel like I need a support group for moms of teens. I miss when they were little and hung on my every word. Now I’m lucky if I can get them to take the earbuds out long enough to hear anything I say. 

    We recently went on vacation and I forced them to put their phones away and engage in conversation with me. That request got me dirty looks and eye rolls. Then we started playing twenty questions on our four-hour drive to our destination, which led to lots of laughs, some light-hearted banter, and even some great conversation. And the best part, they even ASKED to play again on our way home a few days later and voluntarily put their phones away! 

    I will readily admit that I hate technology. I think that while it’s a necessary evil and has definitely advanced our society and most of the tasks we do daily, it has also created a disconnect between us as people. We struggle in every aspect of our lives just to get someone’s attention, to get them to look up from their phones, computers, video games, or whatever screen they are glued to. According to a 2016 Nielsen study, adults spend over ten (10) hours per day staring at a screen! 

    A Careerbuilder study showed that 55% of participants surveyed said that their cell phone was their #1 distractor at work, followed closely by the internet and social media (both of which can be accessed on a cell phone). Is allowing employees to have cell phones on their person during work hours costing your organization, both in productivity and in lost customers? In just the last few weeks I can count multiple times when I went to a retailer or fast food restaurant and had to wait because the employee was distracted by their cell phone. 

    This inability to give and receive undivided attention extends into leadership as well. In his blog post Attentiveness (One of the Overlooked Leadership Skills), Jason Barger talks about the distracting times we live in, the expectation to always be multi-tasking, and valuing the individual moments. Those leadership skills that are most valued are those that tie back to leaders who give their undivided attention, who truly listen, and who show interest. 

    Steven Madenberg’s compares our lack of attention to how Charlie Brown and the gang always heard their teacher, Mrs. Donovan (who knew she had a name?!) in his blog post Leaders and the Gift of Undivided Attention. How often do we walk away from a conversation and realize we only heard half of it because we were distracted?

    I recently had a manager come to me upset that during a candidate interview another manager on the panel was visibly texting on his cell phone. We talked through coaching that manager on appropriate interview etiquette. A couple of weeks ago while eating lunch at Panera I heard the gentleman at the booth behind me talking on the phone. He was conducting a phone interview and ended up having to end the call because he was distracted by the lunch crowd in Panera. He didn’t set himself up in a position to be able to provide that candidate with his undivided attention and as a result, may have given the candidate a bad impression of the organization. 

    Think back over the last few weeks, what are some situations in which you realize you were distracted? What could you have done differently to ensure that you were giving your undivided attention? 

  • 4 Reasons to Outsource

    4 Reasons to Outsource

    I came across a post on a Facebook group a few weeks ago.  The mom participant posted a question to the group asking how people simplified their lives.  She has three young children, and I took her post to mean she wanted to spend more meaningful time with her kids but didn’t know which direction to take or have the ability to do as a working mom. 

    Most of the responses to her question came down to two types of responses 1) limit your kids (and your) extracurricular activities 2) outsource.  People recommended outsourcing laundry, grocery shopping, ironing, and clothes shopping among other things. Get rid of spending time on the things that don’t add value and meaning the responses seemed to suggest.

    In business, outsourcing is also an option that provides an opportunity to focus on meaningful things while at the same time often reducing costs. This New York Times article acknowledges this and also indicates that outsourcing human resource functions is on the rise.  At Horizon Point most of the work we do, when it comes down to it is outsourcing human resource work.

    So when and why should you outsource?

    I would suggest that there are four key reasons or situations to outsource in business:

    1. When things are non-essential or don’t create value.  Just like the responses to the mom post, saying no to something is saying yes to something else.  If you have the resources to hire someone to do your laundry you can spend that time on a Saturday at the park with your kids when you would normally be doing laundry. Or you could hire a nanny to take your kids to the park while you do laundry- which is more meaningful and value-added?  Same with grocery delivery. 

    Likewise if you outsource, let’s say payroll as an HR function, you can focus more on employee engagement as a more value-added activity than processing payroll (Let me just caveat this by saying, both having clean laundry and payroll being right are essential, they just aren’t differentiators in life and in business- it’s gotta be done, but it’s really no fun to do it and it is a time suck.) Many of these things that don’t add value are also being are automated, which is similar to outsourcing for this reason. 

     

    2. When you don’t have the expertise.  I’ve got a big hole in my den ceiling right now because apparently something is leaking from upstairs.  I have no idea what is leaking, why, and how it is ending up in my den. I could try to fix it, but I would most likely create more of a mess and it would take countless hours for me to learn how to fix it.  It is much more effective and efficient for me to hire someone that has expertise in this area to stop water from dripping out of my ceiling. In the same way, outsourcing things that you don’t have in-house resources for is a good reason to call in some experts.  For example, you may need to outsource leadership training because you don’t have a person that is trained and experienced enough to do this. Often this makes sense for project-based work, not ongoing needs. 

     

    3. When you need someone that doesn’t have a dog in that fight.  Another reason to bring in expertise is that you need an objective third party to facilitate whatever activity that needs to be done.  We see this a lot in outsourcing 360 evaluations, engagement surveys, and anything where anonymity is needed to ensure the integrity and participation in the activity.  Other types of activities where I see more people bringing in experts is for organizational design and development activities such as looking at how an organization is structured and making recommendations on how to improve it or in coaching someone to better performance.  The main value the outsourcing brings in these cases is objectivity that obviously needs to be tempered with outsourcing to an expert that knows what he/she is doing. 

     

    4. When you are in transition.  The mom who posted on the message board is in a phase in her life where many things require her undivided time and attention. She has lots of competing priorities and is trying to sort through managing them.  

     

    Likewise, businesses are often in this place.  At Horizon Point, we have found living all of our company values (people first, passion, productivity, continuous learning and improvement, and give back) by helping companies that are in this type of growth transition.  It usually presents itself as a company that has grown past 50 people, where the office manager or a similar role has been doing “HR” and the owners/leaders of the company realize this isn’t going to work long term. They need an expert to help them be successful at all things people -to give them a competitive advantage- but they don’t have one in house.  They are like the mom with three young kids who still have two that can’t tie their shoes without help. Eventually, her kids will learn to tie their shoes and she won’t have to devote time to this every morning, but not without her teaching them to tie their shoes.  

    We come in and help the company identify internal (and on occasion, external) talent that can be the people leaders they need with some guided help and practice.  They outsource their HR to us temporarily, but the key piece of this outsourcing is teaching someone else to be their HR leader. We are working ourselves out of the job and we want to, just like the mom tying the shoes is doing.  She doesn’t want to tie her kids’ shoes forever.  

    We’ve worked through a few engagements like this at Horizon Point over the last four to five years, and there is nothing more rewarding that seeing a company continue to grow and thrive because you’ve helped them pick the right person to lead their HR function and helped them learn how to do it. 

     

    What do you find is best to outsource in life and in business?

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