Read our blogs in this category for stories and best practices from real clients and real research on Talent Management.
Related Blog Posts:
Leaders, Know the Skill and Will of Those You Lead
Tell ?Show ? Do: Leading when Someone has High Will and Low Skill
Find Another Seat (or Challenge) or Get Off the Bus? How to Lead when Skill is High but Will is Low
A Final Thought on Leading for Skill and Will: It’s a Long Term Game, Not a Short One
I’m the mother of three boys. Two teenagers and one about to hit that “preteen” stage. Most days I want to bang my head against the wall. I feel like I need a support group for moms of teens. I miss when they were little and hung on my every word. Now I’m lucky if I can get them to take the earbuds out long enough to hear anything I say.
We recently went on vacation and I forced them to put their phones away and engage in conversation with me. That request got me dirty looks and eye rolls. Then we started playing twenty questions on our four-hour drive to our destination, which led to lots of laughs, some light-hearted banter, and even some great conversation. And the best part, they even ASKED to play again on our way home a few days later and voluntarily put their phones away!
I will readily admit that I hate technology. I think that while it’s a necessary evil and has definitely advanced our society and most of the tasks we do daily, it has also created a disconnect between us as people. We struggle in every aspect of our lives just to get someone’s attention, to get them to look up from their phones, computers, video games, or whatever screen they are glued to. According to a 2016 Nielsen study, adults spend over ten (10) hours per day staring at a screen!
A Careerbuilder study showed that 55% of participants surveyed said that their cell phone was their #1 distractor at work, followed closely by the internet and social media (both of which can be accessed on a cell phone). Is allowing employees to have cell phones on their person during work hours costing your organization, both in productivity and in lost customers? In just the last few weeks I can count multiple times when I went to a retailer or fast food restaurant and had to wait because the employee was distracted by their cell phone.
This inability to give and receive undivided attention extends into leadership as well. In his blog post Attentiveness (One of the Overlooked Leadership Skills), Jason Barger talks about the distracting times we live in, the expectation to always be multi-tasking, and valuing the individual moments. Those leadership skills that are most valued are those that tie back to leaders who give their undivided attention, who truly listen, and who show interest.
Steven Madenberg’s compares our lack of attention to how Charlie Brown and the gang always heard their teacher, Mrs. Donovan (who knew she had a name?!) in his blog post Leaders and the Gift of Undivided Attention. How often do we walk away from a conversation and realize we only heard half of it because we were distracted?
I recently had a manager come to me upset that during a candidate interview another manager on the panel was visibly texting on his cell phone. We talked through coaching that manager on appropriate interview etiquette. A couple of weeks ago while eating lunch at Panera I heard the gentleman at the booth behind me talking on the phone. He was conducting a phone interview and ended up having to end the call because he was distracted by the lunch crowd in Panera. He didn’t set himself up in a position to be able to provide that candidate with his undivided attention and as a result, may have given the candidate a bad impression of the organization.
Think back over the last few weeks, what are some situations in which you realize you were distracted? What could you have done differently to ensure that you were giving your undivided attention?
Hanging pictures on the wall. Proofing documents. Formatting presentations. Checking to make sure calculations in a spreadsheet is correct.
I really dislike doing all of these types of tasks. They all require, quite honestly, a sense of detail and accuracy and, of course, patience that doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s not how I’m wired.
My husband, on the other hand, finds satisfaction in hanging pictures on the wall, taking care to make sure they are level and perfectly spaced and aligned. He likes to measure, just like he did with the table. And it makes me happy that he finds satisfaction in it, so I don’t have to be frustrated by it.
Two people, I work with find satisfaction in proofing documents. Another can format presentations in a way that makes the people who create PowerPoint templates look like amateurs. And a contractor we use regularly for compensation projects loves spreadsheets, formulas, and checking to make sure they are right.
Personality differences in the workplace and at home are often a source of headache. Our default is to see our differences as contradictory instead of complementary. But they can actually lead to team and organization competitive advantage if the diversity of differences is harnessed.
A person’s personality leads them to like certain tasks and activities and dislikes others because of the energy or stress that activity creates. If you look at the map of the DiSC model of personality below, you can begin to see what types of activities people with certain profiles would like.
For example, the contractor I work with on compensation projects is a C. She likes the analytical, detail-oriented, and systematic approach to the data analysis. I, on the other hand as an I, like the task of convincing a potential client that we are the best organization to conduct their compensation analysis, and I like speaking on topics, including compensation, to help inspire and persuade people to do things in an innovative way. She and I make a great team for securing and conducting compensation related work.
If you are interested in figuring out how to harness personality diversity in your workplace, I would look at it from a task or activity-based perspective. Here’s how:
1. Get a big stack of sticky notes in a variety of colors. You’ll need as many colors as you have people on your team.
2. Give each person on your team a big stack of one color of sticky notes. An assigned color indicates a person on your team.
3. Ask each person to write down everything they can think of that they do at work by individual tasks. One task/activity equals one sticky note.
4. Ask them to code the task on each note with a + or a -. + meaning they enjoying doing it a – meaning they do not.
5. Have everyone stick their sticky notes up on the wall.
6. Give everyone the chance to review the notes on the wall and allow them to pull off notes that have a – on them that would actually be a + for them.
So for example, my sticky notes could all be blue and I write down “Run payroll” on one note and put a – sign by it. I stick it on the wall. A colleague of mine could look at that and say, “You know I think I would like to do that, or I do like to do that.” and they could take it off the wall.
Once this takes place, have a discussion about what tasks people have taken off the wall that they would like to do. Does the person that put it up there really want to divest of that task? Can you move things around? Some cross-training may be required.
Are there certain colors that have changed hands so to speak? Are people in the wrong “jobs”?
Think about moving beyond job descriptions to how people’s personality and interests can drive work assignments to lead to engagement.
There will be things no one likes do to. That’s just life and these things will still have to be done, but you might be surprised how much you can move things around. This can lead to people being more productive, and therefore your team more productive because you simply let personalities compliment each other instead of conflicting.
It’s a different way of thinking about how to get work done, but it could be one that might just help to diminish some of your personality conflicts at work in a unique way.
How do you ensure that personalities complement instead of conflict with each other at work?
Your top employee or best manager just walked into your office holding that dreaded piece of paper. You know, the one with the words “thank you for this great opportunity, I respectfully resign my position” typed neatly on it.
As you read it, your mind starts brainstorming “what can I do to get them to stay?!” You can’t lose them, they’re the best of the best. You’ll never be able to find someone with their skill set and knowledge of the organization. You’ll spend months training their replacement just to get them up to speed. You’ve invested so much into them, how can they quit?
And then without hesitation, the words “would you reconsider if I put a counteroffer together for you?” comes out of your mouth. They graciously say “sure” but in their mind, they’re thinking there’s nothing you can offer them to stay. It’s too little, too late.
And in reality, in most cases it is. Yet, in many industries, counteroffers are becoming increasingly common.
What does a counter offer really say to an employee?
So how can you proactively keep your top employees from slipping you that piece of paper?
Start by assessing your key talent through a people review. This should include their strengths and areas of improvement as well as their risk for leaving the organization and a succession plan if they do. Then sit down with them and have a conversation, or what we in HR sometimes call a stay interview. Find out what their career goals are and see how that matches up with the succession plan you designed. A succession plan won’t work if you haven’t taken into consideration where your employees want to be in three to five years within your organization. During that stay interview also ask them what they like about working for the company, what their pain points in their position are, and give them the opportunity to share their ideas. And finally, assess your wages on a regular basis. Are you lagging in your industry with regards to wages? If so, what can you do to improve that?
What steps has your organization taken to ensure that your key employees don’t walk out the door and leave you in a panic?