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 Leadership Lessons from Garth Brooks

    3 Leadership Lessons from Garth Brooks

    We call them strong
    Those who can face this world alone
    Who seem to get by on their own
    Those who will never take the fall
    We call them weak
    Who are unable to resist
    The slightest chance love might exist
    And for that forsake it all
    They’re so hell-bent on giving, walking a wire
    Convinced it’s not living if you stand outside the fire
    Standing outside the fire
    Standing outside the fire
    Life is not tried it is merely survived
    If you’re standing outside the fire

    Garth Brooks- Standing Outside the Fire

     

    My husband and I attended a Garth Brooks concert this past weekend with some friends. It was so good to spend time with friends we grew up with and enjoy live music again!  All of us grew up on Garth Brooks music, and like other artists of our time and age, a lot of his music has shaped the memories we have of our childhood and teenage years. 

    I was struck not only by the music and the crowd of the concert but also by the leadership lessons Garth exhibited while performing:

    1. Surround yourself with a diverse group of people.  You’ll all perform better. Those that performed with Garth were a diverse group- spanning age, race, gender, and talents. It was obvious that they took cues from one another and truly enjoyed performing together. The whole was greater than just the sum of the parts, in part, because of the diversity present. 
    2. Give away the credit. You’ll find joy through others’ gifts. Throughout the concert, Garth recognized everyone on stage by name and highlighted their talents and the value they brought to the group. He also recognized those that had contributed to his success off the stage. His wife, Trisha Yearwood, was brought on stage to sing with him and also showcase her talents by singing two of her own hits. He glowed watching her perform and it was inspiring to see. 
    3. Bow together.  The crowd loves you all.  Garth was obviously the star, the person people came to see.  It would have been entirely appropriate and expected at the end of the concert for him to bow by himself. As they made their way around the four corners of the stage facing different segments of the crowd, Garth never once bowed alone. He bowed together, with his team—all of them. 

    It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of celebrities, of the leaders, of the ones out front on center stage. But the ones who have the longevity of a career are usually the ones that build up the team around them.  Many of the people Garth recognized performing with him have been with him since the early 1990s.  He believes in them, and they believe in him. And with that, they all put on one hell of a show. 

    What leadership lessons have you learned from those with celebrity status? 

     

  • Repost! Career Development as Performance Management

    Repost! Career Development as Performance Management

    Career Development is becoming even more relevant in the workforce arena these days. Career Development as Performance Management is a great tool to attract and retain employees. 

    Revisit this blog post from 2021 for ideas on how to use Career Development as a Performance Management (& retention!) tool.

     

    I will be presenting at BSHRM on May 11 on this topic. We would love to see you there!

    Check out where else we will be in the coming weeks here.

  • 3 Steps to Actually DO Succession Planning

    3 Steps to Actually DO Succession Planning

    With the great resignation still continuing and baby boomers, who many feel delayed retiring, now retired or retiring in large numbers due to the pandemic, succession planning has never been more important. 

    But as we’ve seen through many of our clients (and ourselves!), the need to get something done and getting it done are two different things.  When it comes to succession planning, I think the key challenge is not knowing where to start and the steps to take once started.  Overall, you need to:

    1. Know your current talent state.  This involves several sub-steps of determining: 

    a. What’s your talent funnel? This means mapping how people progress through the organizational hierarchy, determining the number of people needed at each level of hierarchy, realizing how turnover affects each level, and getting a good picture of the number of people needed to fill key vacancies. 

    b. What are your performance standards? This should be mapped out through your mission, vision, and values as an organization and connected to the KSAOS of each position. 

    c. And how do you measure them? A performance evaluation tool should be used, and in the case of succession planning especially, a way to measure performance potential should be deployed. 

    d. How is each person performing towards your company’s performance standards? Your measurement tools give you the way to determine how people are performing towards standards.  In this step, it’s critical that leaders deploying the tools should be trained on how to use them effectively and given the bandwidth to execute this process effectively. 

    e. And what do they want out of your career? Understanding what individuals want and expect out of their career progression is imperative to this process.  If you don’t know what people want, you may plan for progression that ends up being sabotaged because it doesn’t meet people’s needs or expectations.  For more on this, read about our Leaders as Career Agents Process (Taylor is also speaking about this at the Birmingham SHRM meeting in May if you want to learn more!)

    2. Know what you need to fill talent gaps both in terms of the number of people as well as the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOS) needed for each position vacancy.  This should consider not only what is needed to fill key vacancies in the current state, but also what will be needed to facilitate organizational growth.  It also includes an accounting of what training and development are needed to equip people to fill the gaps.  

    3. Execute a talent management and development system and plan to meet the needs found in your gaps.  Again, to execute effectively it is essential that leaders deploying the process are 1) trained to deploy it and 2) are given the bandwidth and support to deploy it well.  In addition, it is critical that there be a calibration process done through collaboration to work across department lines to facilitate effective succession planning. 

    Want to learn more about this process through a real-life case study?  Mary Ila is speaking at ALSHRM 2022 today (May 3, 2022) about this, but you can also catch her at Florida SHRM speaking on the topic in August 2022. 

    How do you successfully execute succession planning for your organization? 

  • Servant Leadership

    Servant Leadership

    I recently helped a top security government employee with developing a resume. His leadership philosophy centered around supporting his employees (as opposed to the other way around); he believes in empowering subordinates with authority, as opposed to responsibility. His view of leadership embodies serving which is what great leaders do.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Servant leaders are a revolutionary bunch—they take the traditional power leadership model and turn it completely upside down. This new hierarchy puts the people—or employees, in a business context—at the very top and the leader at the bottom, charged with serving the employees above them. And that’s just the way servant leaders like it. – The Art of Servant Leadership, SHRM.org

    At HPC, we have a textbook servant leader. Our CEO lives this out daily and truly makes our staff want to be better every day, for our company and our clients.

    Here are a few things servant leaders do differently:

    • Servant Leaders share power.
    • They consistently put the needs of others first.
    • They help people develop and perform at their highest level of potential.

    Check out 10 Principles of Servant Leadership from Indeed.Com for more insight.

    Are you a servant leader? Do you have servant leaders in your life?

    If you’d like to learn more about this type of leadership, hit us up at HPC. We love to train & empower servant leaders!

  • Design Thinking as a Leadership Practice

    Design Thinking as a Leadership Practice

    In an ever-changing world, it’s more important than ever for leaders to have the tools to be able to navigate change and innovate. It’s also important for leaders to have opportunities to spur creative thinking in a world that is cluttered with a lot of noise and distractions. Most importantly, though, leaders need support in connecting with people and building empathy.   

    When frameworks are provided to help spur innovation and build valuable people skills, we find that leaders are better equipped to move forward.  It seems counterintuitive to use a process to try to break away from routine thinking and/or to build relationships, yet the design thinking process helps to spark creativity in order for organizations to adapt and grow. The process begins with building empathy and because of this, we believe it is a valuable tool for anyone wanting to create better workplaces.  

    There are multiple trainings, models, and tools out there if you want to apply design thinking in your organization.

     

    Our favorite Stanford’s d School’s tools.  In particular,  we like this resource because it has all the tools you need to conduct a design thinking boot camp for any type of organization or group:

    (archival resource) Design Thinking Bootcamp Bootleg — Stanford d.school

     

    Other good sources of training and resources can be found through Harvard and MIT: 

    Design Thinking Course | HBS Online

    MIT Sloan Design Thinking | Online Certificate Program

     

    A good (although dated) video to watch that captures the design thinking process can be found here: 

    ABC Nightline – IDEO Shopping Cart – YouTube

     

    How do you spur innovation and creativity in your workplace?