Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Skills Improvement

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for personal skills improvement.

  • 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?

  • Create Insights Instead of Giving Feedback

    Create Insights Instead of Giving Feedback

    “….But the most helpful advice is not a painting. It is instead a box of paints and a set of brushes. Here, the best team leaders seem to say, take these paints, those brushes, and see what you think you can do with them. What do you see, from your vantage point? What picture can you paint?” from Nine Lies About Work

    A few weeks ago, we talked about how neuro research shows us that for learning to happen, insights have to be created. We talk a lot about giving and receiving feedback in the workplace and how necessary it is.   But what if it is more important to create insights than to give positive or negative feedback?

    What’s the difference? Feedback is about you telling people what you think and giving them the path forward from that in most cases.  Insights are people discerning what they think.

    Research shows us that people are more likely to act on what they think not what you think because insight is brain food which creates dopamine which makes us feel good. (When was the last time traditional feedback gave you a shot of dopamine?)

    So as a leader, creating insights may be the better way to get the results you need rather than trying to give feedback.

    How do you do it though? Our previous post suggests some ways. There are also some helpful ways in Nine Lies About Work by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall.   Their “insights” suggest focusing on the 1) past 2) present and 3) future and all revolved around asking good questions, not giving good answers*.

    1. Start with the Present: Ask, “What three things are working right now?” For more on this, especially when utilizing it for change management purposes, read here.
    2. Revisit the Past: Ask, “When you had problems/situations like this in the past, what did you do that worked?”
    3. Finish with the Future: Ask, “What do you already know you need to do? What do you know already works?”

    My little girl loves to paint and draw. Often, she asks me to help her draw something. We’ve been on a heart drawing kick lately. The first few times, I’ve drawn a heart on a page or a canvas for her to color or paint in. But then I stopped doing it and just left her to it. What I discovered was that her own hearts were better than anything I could have ever helped her create.  I just need to provide the tools and she can do the rest better than I can.

    How are you providing the right tools and asking the right questions in order to give people the opportunity to grow?

    *Nine Lies About Work is an insightful book linked to a lot of research. The way they phrase the nine lies, though, may just be a matter of semantics, so don’t let the titles of the lies fool you. Read the context in the chapters. In this case, you may be giving feedback in the form of creating insights.  Don’t take this to mean you need to scratch giving feedback. Just make sure you do it in a way that leads to learning and engagement instead of in a way that leads to disengagement. For more, read the book on how to do this.

  • 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?

  • 3 Ideas to Help Your Recruiting Efforts

    3 Ideas to Help Your Recruiting Efforts

    In our last post, we discussed strategies for retaining talent in a difficult labor market.  Hopefully, you’ve focused efforts there, but most likely, you also need to figure out the best ways to recruit talent.

    Here are some ideas for doing so:

    1. Expose Yourself! Exposure is a key problem in attracting talent, especially for B2B companies.  Developing programs that expose people in the community to your company and jobs are important. We aren’t all Apple and Google.

    You can do this through partnership with schools in your area, marketing campaigns, involvement in community and charitable endeavors and by giving your employees tools to talk about your company in the community in a positive way.  An employee referral program may be a good strategy related to this.

    Work with your marketing department to create a communications plan for exposure in your primary geographic area(s) for recruitment.


    2. Look for talent in all the “wrong” places.  Explore looking for talent that you may not have ever considered before.  Here are a few areas to consider and resources and ideas to connect with these populations:

    • Individuals with criminal records.  There is a significant national movement to hire those with prior backgrounds.  Many organizations fear doing this, but there are multiple reasons do so in the right context.  Check out these resources:

    Getting Talent Back to Work

    70 Million Jobs

    • “Stay-at-home” moms or moms that have left the workforce to raise children and are now wanting to return.  This could also include people who have left the workforce to care for people other than their children.

    The Mom Project

    JPMorgan Chase ReEntry Program

    • The “retired” or “semi-retired”.

    AARP Resources  

    • Outsource. Contractors, consulting firms and/or freelancers may be the best way to get work done.

    72 Best Freelance Sites

    Oftentimes when you connect with diverse talent pools, you see that you need to think differently about how jobs may be structured.  Not everything requires a traditional FTE. Some of your best and most productive workers just may be a shift in mindset away.

    3. Reevaluate your wages.  More on this here. I’ll be speaking on this at SHRM19 in Las Vegas at 10:45 am on Tuesday, June 25th, so if you’re there, come join me for an in-depth dive on this.

    What is one thing you can do today to boost your recruiting efforts?

  • The Essentials of Professional Development

    The Essentials of Professional Development

    Written by: Steve Graham

    As a coach, I often work with clients who are needy for knowledge.  They desire to grow professionally and often feel stuck in their current work environment.  It is no secret that when an organization values developing their people, the benefits for both the employee and organization are numerous.  The benefits often include: lower turnover, increased engagement, and a smarter workforce. Professional development goes beyond cookie-cutter training programs.  It involves a deeper commitment to learning.

    Learning can take various shapes within an organization. It can be organic, formalized, personalized, or on-demand.  Whatever the shape, the approach to learning is the first essential of professional development.  According to Dr. Brad Staats, Associate Professor of Operations at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business: “Today’s fast-paced, ever-changing, global economy requires us to never stop learning or we risk becoming irrelevant.”  Dr. Staats’ recent publication, Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive, illustrates the importance of making the lifelong investment of learning.

    The second essential of professional growth is to take the lead in your development.  Do not wait on your organization to offer growth opportunities. There are various resources available, and some are even free.  Resources include:

    1. Continuing education/certification programs from professional associations.

    2. Higher education-based professional and graduate certificate programs.

    3.  LinkedIn’s Lynda.com

    4. Free online courses, like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

    5. Webinars, TED Talks, seminars, and conferences.

    The third essential of professional development is finding a style of learning that works for you.  Do you prefer a structured learning program and in-person environment? Or, do you want to work at your pace and complete learning via a virtual (online) program?  These are important questions to answer before you search for the right opportunity. Some virtual programs offer digital credentials, like a badge, that adds to your professional credibility.   

    Creating a professional development plan is the fourth essential of professional development.  The plan will serve as a guide in setting development goals, deadlines for completion, and illustrating how the professional development fits into your overall career or professional brand.  For example, if your work requires project management, or if you desire to become a Project Manager, then becoming a Certified Project Manager would be a goal.

    The professional development plan should identify the areas you desire or need to grow, and what methods will be used to attain these goals? How will you use the new knowledge?  Whatever your plan, make sure you have enough interest to pursue additional learning in that area. Growing as a professional also means growth as a person. There needs to be an alignment between “who we are” and “what we do”.  This is one path to finding satisfaction in our work. Professional development can offer more confidence and career opportunities.

    No matter your position within your organization, you need to focus on growth.  Learning also helps with brain health. A study by Harvard Medical School found that “Every brain changes with age and mental function changes along with it. Mental decline is common, and it is one of the most feared consequences of aging. But cognitive impairment is not inevitable.”  If you want to stay relevant and confident, then invest in professional development.  

    About the author: Steve Graham serves as Vice President for Marketing, HR Business Partner, and college instructor. He holds graduate degrees in management and higher education. As a life-long learner, he has additional graduate and professional education in executive & professional coaching, health care administration, and strategic human resource management.

    He is a certified HR professional with The Society for Human Resource Management, a certified coach with the International Coach Federation, and a Global Career Development Facilitator. His professional memberships include: The Society for Human Resource Management, the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration, Association for Talent Development, and International Coach Federation. LinkedIn.com/in/hstevegraham