Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Performance Management

We provide full service talent management and talent development consulting services. Read our blogs in this category for stories and best practices from real clients and real research on Performance Management.

  • What’s Your Leadership Mindset on Empathy & Expectations?

    What’s Your Leadership Mindset on Empathy & Expectations?

    Having high expectations of people. Being empathetic. I’ve written about this balancing act before. Are they in conflict with each other, or are they actually complementary? When they seem to be in conflict with each other, which way should we lean?

    No greater example illustrates this than something I’ve been struggling with lately. In three particular instances (two recent, one a few years ago) I’ve had someone tell me and/or a family member that they are going to do something or take care of something. Not one of these things has been followed through on. Being that one of my first premises of leadership (following a close second to putting others first) is DWYSYWD- Do What You Say You Will Do, I’ve written this leader in title off as something far from a leader.

    When you don’t do what you say you will do, especially when you show a pattern of not DWYSYWD, these are the reflections I have about that person and their leadership ability:

    1) You’re incompetent. You say you will do something, but then you don’t have the wherewithal to follow through. This may seem pretty bad, but the second reflection is worse:

    2) You’re a flat-out liar. You had no intentions of doing what you said you would do, you just told me what I wanted to hear. I would rather you not say you will do anything, even if I expect you should, than to tell me you will then not do it.

    In reflecting, well let me be honest, in stewing over this for the last few days, I came across this nugget of insight from one of my favorite blogs, Fistful of Talent:

    In discussing the importance of curiosity for leadership, the author says,

    “Belief in the rationality of others – I once heard one of my heroes (Doug Stone) say that everyone is typically acting in rational ways that makes sense in their minds. If you don’t understand their behavior, ask questions to better understand them instead of writing them off as irrational. A slightly more famous leader (Abraham Lincoln) was also quoted as saying “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” If you chalk up the behavior of others being “mad or bad,” then you miss out on an opportunity to learn from them. If instead you get curious, you just might change your mind, or at least understand better how to relate to them.”

    Whereas I haven’t written this person off as irrational, I’ve written then off as maybe worse- an incompetent liar. So, rather than stewing, should I be asking the person questions? And what should my questions be? When someone doesn’t DWTSTWD are he or she acting rationally?

    Although I still hold true to the importance of DWYSYWD to establish creditability as a leader, my judgment isn’t reflecting too highly on my leadership mindset either. First, I should act in empathy- because lets face it, if I’m honest with myself there are times when I have said I would do something only not to do it. And I always had some “rational” excuse for not doing so.I assume people will understand, and asking questions and making sense of the situation(s) is the right thing to do.

    Then maybe acting in empathy, especially if a pattern of DWYSYWD is present, requires calling them on this behavior in an empathetic, non-judgmental in a way that leads it to stopping. But first I must look in the mirror and call myself on similar behaviors before doing so. And now I’m back to my first rule of leadership- people first.Thank you Fistful of Talent for helping me come full-circle J

    When have you struggled with someone who didn’t do what they say they would do? How did you respond?

    If you like this post, you may also like:

    Balancing Empathy and Expectations as a Leader

  • The Changing World of Work: Is the Policy Going to Die?

    The Changing World of Work: Is the Policy Going to Die?

    You all know I hate policies for the sake of policies. Rules follower I am not, so when I see that one of the potential trends in the way work is changing is a swing away from policies, I get excited. Now throwing policies out the window isn’t being adopted by all, case in point this experience I had recently but with the need for innovation and adaptability in order to attract and retain talent and therefore meet customer needs, trends are arising to simplify or scratch policies all together.

    For example, companies like Netflix have scratched vacation and sick policies all together. Revolutionary? Maybe not. Let people take what they need, knowing if you’ve got motivated and engaged people they won’t take enough of what they need, and it builds two things:

    1. Trust in your work place.
    2. Money to do other things that contribute to your bottom line besides paying someone or some system to police your workforce.

    In fact, some companies are doing away with traditional performance review all together, here are some great reads on the movement: The Crowd Sourced Performance Review and “Is It Time to Put the Performance Review on a PIP?”.

    If you are considering getting rid of some of your policies then:

    1. Review all policies in place now against business needs. Do this in writing.
    2. Dialogue with colleagues and industry peers about what does and doesn’t work for them. Set the scope for industry standards in writing.
    3. Make decisions with your leadership team based on business needs and industry standards. While I hate a policy for policy sake, I’m not advocating for the wild, wild West. Most of the time, we need to consider everything from the scope of moderation. It’s like food, don’t eat enough and it will kill you, eat too much and it will kill you. What is your health dose of policy given your business needs and your industry standards? In answering this, consider where you can be an industry leader in innovative policy structures that can push you to be the talent leader.

    What policy would be the first to go at your organization?

  • Goal Setting for Students

    Goal Setting for Students

    I’ve always been a list maker. I love to make a list at the end of each work day, so I can draw a red line through item after time the following work day. And, by the way, I don’t just do this for work. I do it for everything: grocery list, kid’s activities for the week, Christmas shopping list, cleaning for the week and the list goes on and on. I’m the queen of lists.

    That being said, even though I’m a list maker, I’m still not as organized as I would like to be. But, when I began the process of quarterly goal setting and implemented a weekly tracking process, organization and my life ran much smoother.

    I believe this process can not only be valuable in a person’s career, but is a great tool to help students become more organized and, long term, be ready for college or career. What a great habit to begin as a high school student?

    First things first words written on the chalkboard
    First things first words written on the chalkboard

    To quote Stephen Covey, first things first, developing a mission statement is a great way to get on the right track. Check out Developing a Personal Mission Statement to prevent stress and burnout  and Power of 3 – Mission and Purpose to help you develop a mission statement. Then, you are in a great position to begin your quarterly goal setting. You can begin this most any time of year, but I suggest beginning on January 1 or in the summer before the upcoming school year. Develop 3 or 4 goals for the quarter. Then, document how you will achieve those goals. This will help you as you begin entering action items into you weekly tracking spreadsheet.

    Even if you are very disciplined, it is great to have an accountability partner. So, grab a friend and begin the process together. How great will it be to be entering your senior year of high school and already be on the right track for college or career? You could have your portfolio complete, applications completed to your top college choice, job shadowing experience and even taken the ACT for the fourth time. You will be leaps and bounds ahead of some of your classmates.

    Check out our Goal Setting Worksheet to help you get started.

  • 3 Questions for Balancing Empathy and Expectations as a Leader

    3 Questions for Balancing Empathy and Expectations as a Leader

    Quite a while ago, I wrote about the “Es of LEadership” with empathy being one of them.  Not included in these essential “Es” was “expectations”.   And as the article on empathy points to, sometimes managing expectations and having empathy seem to be in direct conflict.

    Setting, communicating, monitoring and maintaining expectations is a critical skill for leaders.  We must maximize performance of others through effectively setting expectations high and constantly pushing others to reach higher.  When we do so, we provide meaningful and challenging work, which has been shown to increase worker satisfaction leading to higher productivity (and profits).

    Yet also as leaders, we always need to put people first, realizing they have demands both inside and outside of work.  People are our greatest asset, and we must be able to put ourselves in others’ shoes to lead effectively.  In other words, we must establish an empathetic approach to leading with a genuine interest in the whole person.

    So what do we do when “e” of expectation seems to be in direct conflict with the “e” of empathy?

    For example, say you have an employee that is not performing their job satisfactorily.  You are aware that this employee is dealing with several difficult personal issues.  He/she is in the process of getting a divorce, has a mom that is suffering from cancer and has recently brought a troubled teenager into his/her home to support.

    You take off your shoes and walk around in his or hers for a bit to establish empathy towards them.  You feel for this person, yet they are not maintaining performance standards at work.  Do you talk to them?  Do you ignore the issue?

    Bottom line, when do you lower your expectation bar for the sake of empathy??

    Here are three questions to consider for how to respond when empathy and expectations seem to be in conflict:

     1.  Is the need to compromise expectations for empathy an established pattern or an isolated event?  In the above example, has the employee had an issue with performance before this set of personal issues arose or has the person been a star performer in the past? 

    2. Does acting in empathy enable a continuation of bad choices? As a leader, our job in not to take ownership and responsibility for bad choices others have made either inside or outside of work and their subsequent consequences.  If you ignore expectations or lower them, will it enable the continuation of bad choices that impact not only your business but also the person?  You may have heard parents call this “tough love”.  And tough love is still love and empathy is a component of love.  Maintaining expectations may actually be an act of empathy.

    3. Does empathy for one cause you to be lacking in empathy towards the whole? If we let someone’s performance suffer and it causes others who do a good job day in and day out to take up the slack that shouldn’t be their responsibility, then we aren’t acting as a leaders.  When we do this, we are communicating to those star performers that it is okay not to meet expectations. We are actually giving the person who seemingly needs empathy the green light to NOT act in empathy towards their team.  Realizing that our actions have consequences that impact the greater whole is important both for us and for conveying this message to others.

    If you walk through these questions and realize a person needs a break from responsibilities of the job in order to resolve situations and come back better able to perform and meet expectations, then my hope is that you allow that flexibility in your company policies for a leave of absence.   As Workforce magazine points out in its feature article- “A Monumental Problem” from the August 2014 issue, mental health, stress and burnout is a major issue in today’s workplace.  Sometimes the best thing to do is allow people opportunities to regroup and come back better for having that time.

    However, if you walk through these questions and realize that you are just avoiding confrontation with empathy as your guise, become the better leader by tackling the difficult issue of refusing to lower the bar.  Often, when we lower our expectations that we know are fair expectations given the person’s skill level and expertise coupled with what is needed for the job, lowering the bar is potentially the inverse of empathetic.   It sabotages putting trust in people and empowering them to do a great job. And at our core, we all want to be valued and trusted.  When we take that away from people by avoiding difficult issues, we aren’t acting as leaders and we aren’t being very empathetic.

  • How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    “This is why I’m not married anymore,” said a participant in a recent leadership training class.   She was partly kidding, but it was obvious that the results of her personality assessment, which were being used to launch the leadership training series we were conducting for her company, had struck a cord.

    Her personality assessment showed that she was a highly dominant, take charge, get it done kind of person.  These characteristics had served her well in her role in finance with the organization, but she realized that maybe her personality had impacted the success of her marriage.

    In another conversation with the director of a college career center, concerns were expressed about students’ ability to know themselves- their strengths and areas for development- and take this knowledge into the workplace in order to succeed.  In designing a leadership workshop for them, our first approach was to implement a personality assessment to help these student leaders with the self-awareness they seem to so desperately need.

    As we’ve often said, self-awareness is the first step in establishing yourself as a leader.   Although it isn’t the only way, personality assessment can help with this self-awareness and then provide a framework for building interpersonal relationships, providing feedback, delegating and a host of other leadership issues.

    Here are some assessment tools/vendors we use based on client needs (Note: It’s important to know which personality assessment is right to use based on your organization’s needs.   You should define the needs first- are you wanting to facilitate teambuilding, leadership coaching or training, make better hiring decisions, etc.- then pick the best assessment, not the other way around.):

    Hogan Assessments

    DiSC Assessments

    Tools from Assessment Associates International

    Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

    How as a personality assessment helped you at work or in your personal life?