I was recently working with a client on a new recruiting process and we made a major discovery! Managers were hiring to replace what they just lost rather than hiring for what they needed. This approach left gaps in the team and duties. As the organizational strategy evolved the roles did not. Sound familiar?
To ensure a solid new hire, ask yourself these five questions before you begin the process:
What results does the organization need from this role today? 18 months from now? Three years from now?
What skills and competencies are required to meet those needs? Do I need to modify the job description to encompass these skills?
What level of employee do I need to fill this role? (For example, if you have a department of senior level project managers, do you really need another at the senior level or would someone at entry level be most appropriate?)
What type of personality will work best with my team and my leadership style? Do we need someone similar to us or a different, fresh perspective?
Are there different sourcing options I should consider given this analysis?
It might require a bit more time up front, but I think you can see how this might save you a headache or two in the future.
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning and leadership development.
I cannot believe it is already the middle of April! The first quarter is in the books and I am still writing 2011 on my checks! When time flies by like this, I often feel like I am already behind. At a time when I should have a quarter of my goals accomplished I am still wrapping my mind around what they entail and what I want to achieve this year.
Can you relate to that? If so, I have good news. While a quarter of the year is already past, we still have three quarters left. Knowing I have nine months left, I am:
More inclined to set realistic goals as compared to when I think that I have a whole year to accomplish things.
Clear on my organization’s strategy for the year which helps me understand what the business needs me to accomplish.
Able to use my accomplishments from the first quarter to influence the direction for the rest of the year.
If you are like me and initially panicking because three out of twelve months have already past—take heart! There are several good things about where we are in the year and we still have nine whole months to make it happen! So let’s kick it in high gear and get centered on what we want to accomplish by December 31, 2012.
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning and leadership development.
The authors cited several experiments leading to the conclusion that powerful people run a higher risk of making flawed decisions because their power gives them a high confidence in their judgment; thus, they don’t feel a need to seek or listen to advice from others. And in fact, those defined as “powerful” made less accurate judgments than those in the control group or low-power group. In this context, power was defined as an individual’s “capacity to influence others, stemming in part from his or her control over resources, rewards, or punishments.”
I imagine most of us can recall a situation where someone in authority didn’t listen to what we could clearly see as the “right” path because they were so heavily vested in their own ideas. The question I have now is how do those in power temper their confidence to allow for external viewpoints and advice, while at the same time ultimately make decisions? We praise decisiveness in leaders and we also praise the humility required to seek and listen to counsel. It seems that this fine line is a tightrope leaders must walk every day. The closest I have come to an answer is summed up in the article subtitle, “Overflowing with confidence, many leaders turn away from good advice.”
Perhaps the key is to keep confidence in check. I think most leaders would self-evaluate to say they do a good job of this—so is that reality or just their perception fed by being overconfident? This makes my head spin.
I am so curious about your thoughts and ideas. How do leaders balance the humility to ask and listen with the need for decisive and quick action?
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning and leadership development.
For many managers, end-of-the-year activities include completing employee reviews as part of a performance management system. Giving year-end feedback is something that some managers view as “checking one more thing off the list.” Some employees view the activity as a “necessary evil.” Often, this is a missed opportunity to start the new year with a bang—especially with high performers. In 2011, the high performers did most things very well; yet, managers often feel compelled to give “developmental” feedback. Managers feel they aren’t doing their job if they can’t find something that is less than awesome. As a result, high performers leave the review slightly miffed that the manager documented an obscure area of improvement just to ensure the review wasn’t too glowing.
I am going to suggest a very radical approach to performance reviews for high performers. Focus on all they did well and … end the review. Resist adding the developmental feedback—unless it is actually a critical success factor.
High performers are high performers because they self-analyze and independently seek to improve. Ask them what they would like to improve in 2012, identify how you can help them, and conclude the review without saying anything negative. Discuss personal growth and development in 2012, but frame it from a perspective of what they want to accomplish and not from the often misused perspective of “no one is perfect,” “we don’t want them too big for their britches,” “everyone has the ability to improve,” etc.
While some of those axioms are true for some people, I believe that high performers will appreciate managers identifying how they can help them move in the direction they want to go. Try ending the review with a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and keep up the great work in 2012.
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning and leadership development.
One of the challenges that some learning and development (L&D) professionals deal with is getting executive attention and resources. Many senior leaders will tell you that one reason for this is a communication gap. Often, L&D professionals “come to the table” speaking the language of learning and development—not the language of the senior leader. It’s not a lack of ability, but rather a lack of experience in that environment. I believe more senior leaders would be open to funding learning and development initiatives if someone clearly articulated the value that the investment would bring to the organization.
What we need is better business acumen and experience making senior level decisions. That’s why the Central Indiana chapter of the American Society of Training and Development (CIASTD) is bringing BTS, a global leader in strategy alignment and execution, to Indianapolis! I’m excited that they’ll conduct a full-day simulation focused on seeing the business through the eyes of the leader. Participants will work in groups and run their own fictitious company to experience the thought process that senior leaders use. BTS has worked with companies such as Coca-Cola, Sony, AT&T, GE, GlaxoSmithKline, Proctor and Gamble, and Toyota.
If you have a role in your organization where you could benefit from thinking more like a senior leader, you cannot miss this session. If you’re wondering if you should attend and wondering how you could afford a day away from the office, I captured my thoughts on video to provide more insight. View the video here.
If you’re interested in learning more or registering, visit the CIASTD website. I hope to see you for this great learning opportunity, “Through the Eyes of a Leader: Strengthening Your Business Partnership Skills” on Friday, November 4, 2011.
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
A good friend of mine recently sent me an article detailing the benefits of vacations for optimal brain function. The complex processing of our brain is what makes us special, but also requires a great deal of oxygen and glucose (sugar). In other words, when we are running on empty we do not have the required fuel for our brains. No wonder we have the 3:00 p.m. slump!
Another idea that I have been thinking about is that each of us has a “craft” that we practice each day. Most of our organizations desire that we’re innovative in our chosen area of expertise. Yet, how much innovation comes out of your office with emails pinging you right and left?
Even when I am in a professional development webinar, seminar, or conference, I am also responding to email and dealing with things that come up during the natural course of the day or in my hotel room in the evening.
What if we combined these two ideas into a learning vacation? No, that is NOT an oxymoron. We need vacations to rejuvenate and see things more clearly, and we need time away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life to learn and grow in our chosen area of expertise.
This year, I have decided to take a learning vacation. My dual purpose is to relax and to learn. I will go away somewhere, read a book or two, and spend dedicated time just thinking. I will let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I am curious about how you take time to rejuvenate and also take time to learn and develop. What do you do? How does it work? What advice do you have for the rest of us?
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
In HR consulting, often I hear leaders say that team building is great—but they just don’t have time.
When I drill down, the assumption I find is that team building needs to take hours—even days—to be effective. In reality it is the value of consistent team building that has the greatest impact rather than the amount of time spent.
Give yourself a break! Team building can be done in 15 minutes or less! To make it most effective decide on what message(s) you want your team building to convey and center your activities around that message. Consider the following examples:
Message: Value the unique contributions of each person within the team.
Team Exercise One:
Have each team member take a piece of paper and write their name at the top. Pass the paper clockwise and when they get someone else’s paper, they should write one thing they value about that person. Continue passing the papers until each person has their own paper back. Have team members take turns reading their paper out loud. Finally, close the exercise by encouraging team members to keep this paper handy when they need to remember what their team values in them. This exercise not only builds the esteem of each person, but reminds everyone to think about what they value in each other.
Team Exercise Two:
Prior to the meeting, have each team member map out the core responsibilities of their job and identify what other roles on the team are impacted by each responsibility. In the meeting, have team members pair up and give them three minutes to share their maps with their partner. Do four rounds of this and then come back and debrief by explaining that nothing we do is in a vacuum. Encourage them to get with each other before the next meeting and add more detail to their maps. Managers could have many uses for these maps; yet, the primary goal is to get the team thinking about how what they do impacts others on the team.
What quick and effective team building ideas do you use? Please share!
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
I recently read an article in a mainstream magazine that took me on quite an emotional adventure. The piece offered tips to job seekers from a human resource professional’s perspective. I laughed (mostly at the Dilbert cartoons), I agreed, but mostly I got mad. The last thing we need in the HR profession, which is already sometimes misunderstood, is a popular publication creating content that reinforces negative HR stereotypes and, in some cases, gives wrong information. Here’s a synopsis of my journey through the article.
I laughed. . . .
A cartoon depicts a horn-haired boss asking his secretary to interview a job candidate. The secretary asks the candidate why he left his last job. After replying that he left because he punched his boss, the secretary promptly recommends the candidate for the job.
I agreed. . . .
The article provides good pointers for job seekers. For example, it advises them to research the organization before they go to interview. It’s frustrating when candidates ask me to tell them about our business. I’ve been tempted to give them 10 minutes alone with our website and then resume the interview. I also agree with the author that having your mother call to renegotiate your job offer is a bad idea.
I got mad. . . .
There is so much wrong with this quote from the article that I don’t know where to begin: “If you’re put on a performance improvement plan, you’re cooked. I might look you in the eye and say we’re going to do everything possible to make this work, but that’s just total BS.”As an organizational development (OD) consultant, this counters what I witness from HR professionals every day. Another quote nearly broke my OD heart: “All those boring training things? We think they’re boring too.” Really? Perhaps there’s something lacking with the trainer or the training content.
Information such as this is unhelpful and perpetuates negative images of the “HR person upstairs.” It reminds me that we have a long way to go as HR professionals in establishing our role as valued members of the leadership team. We know that we can provide great value to employees and can impact our company’s bottom line. We need to get that message across. I can’t wait to see an article published in a mainstream magazine that portrays us as progressive thought leaders. It’s time to get some good PR for HR!
I’m eager to hear what you think. Do you agree with my frustration and/or do you have ideas for changing the negative perception of HR professionals?
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
If you’re a manager and helped your employees set goals for the year, did you spend time worrying about setting the “right” goals?
If you did, you’re not alone. I’ve noticed many managers put undue pressure on themselves to craft “perfect goals.” In many cases they delay delivering final goals to their employees until they feel they have crafted worthy ones. Often, once they feel they have done so, they relax, take a deep breath, and ignore their goal-setting files until the following year.
In situations such as this, goal setting becomes the key focus, and achieving the goal is ignored—the managers view the goal-setting process as the beginning and the end. But what if we focused on goal achievement rather than goal setting? Would that change how we looked at the entire process?
If we did this, it might look something like this:
Step 1: Set the initial goal Setting a goal is in essence documenting educated hope. Doing it doesn’t accomplish anything, but it gets you started in the right direction. When working with the employee to set a goal, apply your current knowledge about what is possible and what you need the employee to accomplish. Also consider what the organization must achieve in order to meet its strategic objectives.
Step 2: Regularly discuss progress Check in regularly with the employee to see how he or she doing. The real work in achieving a goal is following up on progress, dealing with roadblocks, and assessing the viability of the goal. Without this a goal—no matter how “perfect”—is often doomed to fail.
Step 3: Restructure the goal when needed Given all the things that change in an organization on a daily basis, how realistic is it that the initial goal you set will remain the best goal to achieve? The key is to monitor the goal progress and make adjustments as needed.
Step 4: Enjoy goal achievement You did it! The goal began as a hope, and through planning, adjusting, and follow-up, the employee—with your guidance—achieved it!
I am interested in your thoughts on goal setting versus goal achievement. Please share!
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
This is the time of year when goal setting for the upcoming year goes into full swing for most organizations. Often both employees and managers struggle with this, as they try to create effective goals that are measurable and have impact. Many of us know about SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Bound) and try to create them, but I find that sometimes people lose the spirit of the goal.
In his book Hundred Percenters, Mark Murphy suggests a different way of looking at goal setting. He suggests creating HARD goals, as spelled out below:
H = Heartfelt—Murphy suggests that people want to do something more than just hit a numeric target. They want to do something they believe in. He uses the “NOBLE” formula as a litmus test for the Heartfelt component of the goal: “Name a party Other than ourselves who will Benefit from this goal Like customers or End users.”
A = Animated—I’m sure that a lot of us can relate to Murphy’s next point, which is that many of our goals are boring. For example, consider the following goal: “Create a new inventory system by April 30, 2011, to streamline spending on supplies.” Woo hoo! (I’d be jumping out of bed to get working on that one!) The problem isn’t the goal itself, but rather how it is worded. It is lifeless and lackluster. Murphy says that goals should be inspiring by graphically and vividly describing the results. So instead, try writing the goal above this way: “Work with managers to create and implement a new streamlined inventory system that could give them up to $10,000 back in their budget to put toward whatever area they feel needs more money. Have this system up and running by April 30, 2011, and follow up with managers to see how it is working by August 31, 2011.” In this case, the employee can see how completing the goal will directly impact every manager he works with.
R = Required—When setting a goal, ask why it is necessary. If it isn’t crucial, don’t set it! Goals should drive and direct employees throughout the year. If they aren’t critical to the business, then why have them?
D = Difficult—Research shows that performance increases as goals become tougher. This makes sense. If the goal is easy, how good will the employee feel when she accomplishes it? Not very. If she has to push and stretch, however—if she’s a little afraid she won’t hit it, her commitment and performance increases to meet the challenge. And she feels energized, confident, and proud when she does accomplish that goal.
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
I was recently working with a client on a new recruiting process and we made a major discovery! Managers were hiring to replace what they just lost rather than hiring for what they needed. This approach left gaps in the team and duties. As the organizational strategy evolved the roles did not. Sound familiar?
lieve it is already the middle of April! The first quarter is in the books and I am still writing 2011 on my checks! When time flies by like this, I often feel like I am already behind. At a time when I should have a quarter of my goals accomplished I am still wrapping my mind around what they entail and what I want to achieve this year.
For many managers, end-of-the-year activities include completing employee reviews as part of a 
A good friend of mine recently sent me an article detailing the benefits of vacations for optimal brain function. The complex processing of our brain is what makes us special, but also requires a great deal of oxygen and glucose (sugar). In other words, when we are running on empty we do not have the required fuel for our brains. No wonder we have the 3:00 p.m. slump!
In HR consulting, often I hear leaders say that team building is great—but they just don’t have time.
This is the time of year when 
