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…).

  • Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

    Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

    We’re working on a compensation project now with a company to redesign their exempt salary structure. When thinking about how to best design a system, it’s important to realize there are two key factors: 

    Internal Equity– Are you paying people fairly compared to what other people within the organization are making based on the knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role? 

    External Competitiveness– Are you paying what the market demands for certain knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role in order to recruit and retain people?

    Basic steps to consider when designing a compensation structure: 

    You gotta do a job description. In considering the factors of internal equity and external competitiveness, both of these hinge on knowing the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for the jobs in which we you trying to define a compensation structure.  Read more about performing job analysis and what a job description needs here (link back to previous post). 

    Get market data.  For external equity, you need to know what the market pays for the jobs you have.   

    Some sources for market data: 

    Career One Stop

    Salary.com

    Salary Expert

    BLS

    Define compensable factors. Compensable factors are based on what the organization places a value on (internal equity) in order to differentiate the value of roles.  For example, education is a compensable factor.  In general, positions that require a bachelors degree have a higher value placed on them than those that only require a high school diploma.

     

    Create the structure. Creating the structure takes the information defined in the previous steps to create salary grades and ranges. Grades are the hierarchy of the salary structure (grouped by jobs with relative worth) and ranges are the minimum and maximum established within grades. Using compensable factors for each job, you will then place each job into the appropriate salary grade.  

    Create a Salary Administration Manual. In order to make sure that the structure you created is implemented appropriately, a salary administration manual needs to be created.  The manual should include a description of the newly created structure, administrative procedures governing the structure and guidelines for annual salary increases. In addition, it should contain ways to keep the program up-to-date through a periodic systematic review of the structure.

    Designing and creating a compensation system seems like a daunting task. But if you take things step-by-step, you’ll see that it can be manageable. More importantly, if done correctly it can add tremendous value to your organization by helping you recruit, retain and reward talent appropriately. 

  • 3 Introverted leaders and the leadership lessons we can learn from them

    3 Introverted leaders and the leadership lessons we can learn from them

    We used to think leaders were born, not made. Now we know through training, coaching and mentoring the skills needed to be an effective leader can be learned.  However, there are certain leadership situations, company cultures and team dynamics lend well to certain types of personality traits (“born” characteristics) that individuals possess that make a person more effective in their leadership role. 

    One of the most common personality continuums discussed today is introversion/extraversion.

    A rundown of the dynamic can be seen here: 

    Orientation of energy

    E     EXTRAVERSION

    Energized when you are with people 

    Talk out your ideas

    First you live it – then you understand it

    Enjoy the interaction

    Breadth of inter

    INTROVERSION    I

    Energized when you are alone

    Reflect on your ideas before vocalizing

    First you understand – then you live it

    Enjoy the concentration

    Depth of interest

    Unfortunately, there is still an “extravert ideal” that surrounds leadership, especially in western culture.  Whereas some situations and roles demand someone who is energized by others, outgoing, gregarious and people oriented, some leadership roles and situations are served better by the leaders who are thinkers, driven by ideas and oftentimes driven by solitude or small, intimate relationships, otherwise known as the introverts among us. 

    Consider these three introverted leaders and how their disposition made them more effective: 

    Moses.  As the leader of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land, Moses (especially the movie portrayal of him) may imply that he was an outgoing orator with the skills to fire up his people and move them forward.  However, Moses spoke with a stutter and utilized his more extraverted wingman, Aaron, to speak to the people (Exodus 1-15).  His introversion is also seen in his humility. Numbers 12 accounts that he was a “quietly humble man, more so than anyone living on earth.”

    Introverted leadership trait seen in Moses that is needed for today’s leader:  Humble and reflective

    More on leadership lessons from Moses

    Stephen Wozniak. When you hear Apple, most immediately think of Steve Jobs as the leader. However, Apple most likely would have never existed without Stephen Wozniak, the brainy electronics geek and consummate nice guy that designed the circuit boards that created Apple’s first computer. He co-founded the company with Jobs.   In the early years of Apple, Wozniak was the worker bee and genius that drove the creation of the personal computer. 

    Introverted leadership trait seen in Wonziak that is needed for today’s leader:  Innovation through concentrated hard work and depth of knowledge

    Rosa Parks:  As one of the icons of the Civil Rights movement, Rosa Parks was a small, unassuming woman. Her refusal to give up her seat on the bus to a white person may portray her as confrontational person, but that she was not. And because she wasn’t, her impact was far-reaching. Just think, would a gregarious, outspoken extravert have made the same impact on the bus that night by refusing to give up their seat? 

    Introverted leadership trait seen in Rosa Parks that is needed for today’s leader:  Determination and quiet resolve. 

    Know an introverted leader?

    How does their introversion make them a better leader?

    Other introverted leaders you should learn more about: Eleanor Roosevelt, Warren Buffett, Al Gore, Gandhi, Einstein, Stephen Spielberg, Larry Page

  • Passion + Productivity = Give Back

    Passion + Productivity = Give Back

    “Rarely are there ever great achievements without great expectations.” 

    A mid-sized manufacturing firm in a small Alabama community demonstrates the give back mindset through their passion and productivity. This focus has transformed an almost bankrupt company into a thriving and profitable business. Not only that, their passion and productivity prompts them to give back to the community in which they live and work. 

    The company’s mission statement reads, “We are passionate about resolutions that positively impact our customers.” With this mission, the President of the Company states, “We have products and solutions that can help make customers more productive, save money and keep people safe. Why would we not want everyone to know this? We can help enrich the lives of others by what we do. Because we believe this, we can approach our work with not just hard work by an element of intense emotion. This type of enthusiasm is contagious. The longer people work in this environment the more infected they become.”

    Their work does not stop with “intense emotions”. It extends to a focus on productivity as well. “Productivity is a measurable activity. Every week we get together as a team and review a couple dozen key indicators to be certain that we are meeting our internal and external standards. The bottom line of how this is demonstrated is letting our yes be yes and our no be no. Our vision is to be the trusted source for tough mining and industrial rubber solutions. We will bend over backwards, increase productivity, to make certain we keep our promises to one another and to our customers,” states the company President. 

    The focus on passion and productivity extends beyond the walls of the organization and into the community. 

    “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” 

    The company seeks to spur more passion and productivity in the community by partnering with organizations, churches and schools that impact individuals. 

    Through the Partners in Education Program in their community, the company works with high school students to help them maximize their potential by providing college scholarships, hosting a parent night and providing one-on-one career coaching to students at the school. The combination of these programs helps the school with resources that are not readily available otherwise. The company hopes that these efforts will help students form a plan, create goals and reach their potential in order to become productive citizens. 

  • 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.