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.

  • Social Capital How-To: 5 Steps to Build the #1 Competency You Should be Developing

    Social Capital How-To: 5 Steps to Build the #1 Competency You Should be Developing

    Due to technical difficulties last week, we are sharing this topic again. We have made a few changes and added some additional tips and tools. We hope you enjoy the read and find the information beneficial!

     

    One competency you need to be building, regardless of who you are and what you do, is social capital. But creating a to-do list or development plan for building this competency is not something that comes naturally. For most,it’s like something that grows organically and exponentially once you do it. And to a large extent, this is true.

    But like all good things that need to be done, doing it with intentionality leads to better results. Try this list of steps to get you started on an intentional focus for building your social capital:

    1. Realize the WHY behind your building. Social capital, by definition is about building relationships that result in us doing things for each other because of the law or norms of reciprocity. It’s human nature that if you do something to help someone, they want to in turn, help you. So…

    2. Start helping others. Look for ways and opportunities to volunteer to help others through your expertise or connections. Make a list of three people at least once a week that you can reach out to or meet with to see what you can do for them, not what they can do for you. Respond positively when people seek out your help.

    3. As you are reaching out to help people, Assess your network. – Look up, down, left right, inside your organization, industry and community and outside of it. Where are the gaps? Here’s a link to help you do this.

    4. Set goals to plug the holes in your network. Set no more than three goals to plug the holes in your network. Some ideas to do this include committing to joining at least one group outside your box and attending at least one conference or event outside of your wheelhouse this year. Also, just simply going to a place you don’t normally go at least once a week can be powerful if you stimulate conversation with others while there. Actually, just making conversation with someone where you frequently go may do the trick. Next time you walk into Starbucks for your routine cup of joe, pay attention to who is there and talk to them.For more on setting good goals and tracking them, these posts may help:

    Goal Setting – A Series

    Goal Setting – Diminishing Returns

    Goal Setting – Feedback

    5. Finally, be self-aware. Examine your environment regularly to make sure you aren’t limiting the potential exponential power of social capital. Maybe this should be a separate post, but I think it drives home this point. I have been sitting in on several community meetings about the need to improve the community I live in. In every meeting, everyone is white, middle to upper middle class, business professionals. My community isn’t just white, college educated, professionals. In fact, like most communities, there are more people who are not college educated than those who are, our community is racially and ethnically diverse and we have the gamete of income earning. In one group, there is a diversity of gender and age, but in another, I’ve been one of two women at the table. While I’m extremely humbled to be sitting at the table with these successful people- more often than not I don’t feel worthy to be doing so- I wonder if we could make a difference more if we had people around the table that don’t frequent the same circles we frequent and think like we think?

    For you, what is hardest part of building social capital?

    Like this post? You may also like to check out Talent Anarchy’s blog posts on social capital.

  • 3 Reasons Why Social Capital Should Be the Number 1 Competency You are Developing

    3 Reasons Why Social Capital Should Be the Number 1 Competency You are Developing

    If you missed us last week, check out our first post on social capital.

    For those of you who want to keep moving along with this post, know that social capital

    “…refers to the collective value of all “social networks” [who people know] and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other [“norms of reciprocity”].”

    Now, more than ever, you need to be developing social capital to bring your A game to work.  Why?

    1. Strong social capital saves you time.As a part of a few HR groups, it is rare for a week to go by where I don’t get an email that says something along the lines of…”we are looking to update our policy on xyz, does anyone have one they could share with us…” or something like, “we are looking at changing our payroll provider, does anyone have feedback on the provider you use and if you would recommend them? Or, “We are thinking about doing an employee engagement survey, what would you recommend?”This doesn’t even begin to capture how much this happens on social networks like groups on LinkedIn that tap you into an even broader range of people with resources and brain power you need, which leads to….
    2. Social capital makes you smarter than you really are.You can’t possibly know it all.   Google helps a lot with this.   But, truth be told, there are experts out there on just about anything (all the info out there on Google is from somebody) and when experts are experts, they like to share their expertise.  Don’t you like to share yours?   So to increase your brainpower, find others around you with big brains and learn from them.
    3. Social capital can save your marriage (or maybe this is just the combination of #1 & 2 above)….At a conference a few months ago, a woman told a pointed story about working long, hard hours when her husband asked her, “Did your job put a ring on your finger or did I?”  Ouch.  She went on to say that she realized she had to work smarter not harder and did it by harnessing the power and knowledge of the people around her.  She realized with a strong social network, answers were a phone call away instead of hours of endless research away.

    How does social capital give you a competitive advantage?

  • Don’t Network, Develop Your Social Capital

    Don’t Network, Develop Your Social Capital

    I find that the trouble most people have with “networking” boils down to two things:

    1. It scares the-you-know what out of them.

      Someone recently came to me seeking advice on how to advance his career. This happens a lot, but his response was interesting.  I told him to start networking. He responded that under no uncertain circumstances was he going to do that because it just wasn’t his personality.  He went on to say that if he had to be someone he is not to get ahead, then he shouldn’t do it. He wasn’t going to try to kiss you-know-what to get ahead.  I think manipulative, political behavior and networking were somehow synonyms to him; it seemed like it was some moral issue for him the way he presented it.  In other words all that he was saying was, networking scares the-you-know what out of me, so I’m not going to do it.

    2. The second reason stems from the first and is also seen in this example.  It’s quite frankly that people see networking as something it is not.  It is not about kissing up to someone, being entirely self-centered, or coming across as a used car salesman.

     

    So let’s get rid of the word networking.

    Now I tell people to develop their social capital.   What is social capital you say?  Google it and this is what you get:

    “Social capital refers to the collective value of all “social networks” [who people know] and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other [“norms of reciprocity”].”

    So social capital is whom you know and whom they know, and the inclination of those who know each to do things for each other.

    It’s not a one-sided thing; it’s a win-win thing, and unlike “human capital” that we talk a lot about and is related to what one person brings to the table, it is not what you know as an individual, but whom you know and what they know (or whom they know) that makes the difference. John Donne told us this quite a while ago before social media was even around, “No Man is an Island.”

    From a job search and hiring perspective, it indicates that what some people refer to as the “good ole boy network” is still much needed to get a job and advance- let’s hope with a lot more diversity to it these days- but it also, and maybe more importantly, relates to how good you can be at your job. You can’t know it all.

    Social capital gives us all a competitive advantage. How are you building your social capital to create win-wins?

  • GREAT REALITIES OF MANAGEMENT: It’s Not Your Fault, But It’s Your Problem…

    GREAT REALITIES OF MANAGEMENT: It’s Not Your Fault, But It’s Your Problem…

    By Kris Dunn

    It’s one of the unwritten rules of management. It’s also one of the hardest things for new managers to wrap their heads around.

    “It’s not your fault, but it’s your problem.”

    Let’s deconstruct that a bit.  New managers were often very high performing individual contributors (ICs). The great thing about being an IC is that you only have to worry about one person – and that person is you.

    But your performance as an IC convinced us that you’d make a good manager of people. For the most part that’s true.

    One point that sneaks up on new managers is taking feedback on what needs to happen related to their team as failure on the part of themselves (the new manager).

    Here’s what I mean – If you’re managing other managers of people and some of those are first time managers, you’re going to spend more time talking about what’s going on within those teams than you will with a more experienced manager of people. You have to be the coach for the new manager.

    As you’re coaching that new manager of people, it’s important to separate their individual identity as a high performer from the brand new – and at times, scary – role as a manager of people.

    Example – someone on their team is struggling in a certain area, and the new manager delays a bit. Your job is to push as the director, but careful! Your feedback might be perceived as failure on the part of the new manager.

    I’ve always found the best way to handle that with new managers is to use the title of this post –“It’s not your fault, but it’s your problem.”  

    What I’m trying to convey with that is simple – “Look, you’re going to manage people who struggle in your life as a manager.  Just because they’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re a bad manager. It’s what happens next that is key – are you gong to address it, coach for improvement, etc. Or are you looking the other way?”

    The only way you lose is if you don’t get in there and address it. Bias for action is the key for new managers.  Left to their own devices, most will wait too long to address whatever performance issue is in question.

    “It’s not your fault, but it’s your problem.” by Kris Dunn first appeared on November 30, 2015 at HR Capitalist

  • Should we measure leadership by popularity?

    Should we measure leadership by popularity?

    “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.”

    What departments and/or managers do people in your company clamor to get into?  What drives this clamor? I’ve seen it before. No one wants to work in finance, but everyone wants to be in marketing. Or everyone is trying to figure out a way to work for manager A instead of having to report to manager B. What is driving the popularity of the department or the person, and should we pay attention to it?  Is the number of people who want to work for you a good way to measure your leadership strength?

    Kris Dunn calls it “Leadership Gravity” in his Workforce Article. But I think we need to get to the root of what causes the gravitational pull before we bank on it as a way to measure leadership success.

    Some recent coaching examples I’ve encountered may give us some insight on the pull….

    1. Leaders that are everyone’s best friend
    2. Leaders that hold people accountable for results and because they are held accountable, they grow. This is what Kris is talking about when he says,

    “All that interaction and observation means your employees know which managers in your organization are the best at developing talent, giving them interesting things to work on, challenging them, giving them the credit for great work and always approaching employee development with an eye on what’s best for each employee.”

    I’ve had a couple of clients who have brought us in to say, hey, we think something is up with John/Jane Doe’s performance as a leader. We need a 360o evaluation of them. Can you do one and then let us know what’s up?

    Sure we can.

    In completely unrelated instances, the “perception” of the leader in question is he/she being the guy/gal no one wants to work for. He/she is usually compared to a counterpart middle level leader in his/her area. The counterpart seems to be best buds with his/her direct reports- i.e., the popular one.

    We do the 360o. And we look at it by those that report to this person and those that don’t.   In both instances, the people who report to the boss in question don’t say he/she is the jerk. They cite he/she as being focused on accountability, and, surprisingly, they don’t complain about it. They may say something about wishing he/she was a little “warmer” as a person.  A little less closed off, but not a jerk.

    In contrast, those who are looking from the outside, i.e.-those that don’t report to this manager, and sometimes it is his/her own boss-  cite he/she as being the jerk.

    Maybe the manager in question needs to improve his/her interpersonal skills by lightening up a bit, seeing the personal side of things. We can coach on that. But, at the end of the day, they challenge people to get stuff done and hold them accountable for it, and the people who are held accountable don’t mind it. They grow. Maybe they just want the boss to ask about how their day has been a little more, but they are better because of their leader.

    So maybe the better question about how to measure leadership is not by popularity but by measuring what DRIVES that popularity.

    Is it because he/she is best friends with people and lets them coast or is it because he/she creates a vision and drives people towards that vision and holds them accountable for it?

    If I were the boss’ boss, I’d choose the latter. That one is making more leaders, and 9 times out of 10 those who are following, aren’t complaining about it. And the ones who are complaining, you may not want around anyway.

    What popularity contests do you see in your workplace?