I recently read an article from Strategy + Business magazine titled “The Decision-Making Flaw in Powerful People.”

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.

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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.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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A recent blog post associated with Indianapolis Business Journal caught my attention and inspired me to comment. The author poses some thought-provoking questions about women entrepreneurs. FlashPoint has at least two of them so I shared my thoughts on the blog and want to share here with you too.

Here is a link to the post on Small Biz Matters hosted by Focus Editor Norm Heikens:

http://www.ibj.com/small-biz-matters/2011/04/06/where-are-the-wildly-successful-women-entrepreneurs/PARAMS/post/26380

Here is my response:

FlashPoint Principals Krista Skidmore and Andrea Cranfill at GROWCO 2011, Inc.'s "Grow Your Company" Conference

While I don’t have a ready answer to some of the questions posed, I do have an answer for this question: “Where are the wildly successful women entrepreneurs?” I know two of them. Krista Skidmore and Andrea Cranfill are cofounders and principals of FlashPoint, one of Indiana’s largest human resource consulting firms. (Disclosure: I am the marketing manager for the business and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t enter this conversation!) Where are they? They’re out growing our business.

Jennifer Holme’s point [Jennifer authored a comment on the post too] about women not promoting themselves or actively seeking recognition might be somewhat true for FlashPoint. Beyond project deliverables, we spend a lot of time creating extra value for our clients. Client relations have always been our top priority. For us, it’s less about differentiating ourselves from male entrepreneurs or focusing on the fact that our business was started by women. It’s more about being relevant to our clients and helping them achieve their business goals. Through that process, we’re achieving ours.

In the last four months, FlashPoint has added three full-time consultants to handle our growing workload and a business development associate to further grow our client base, bringing our staff total to 16. We are soft launching a new suite of services called Clearly HR. These are streamlined services with a lower, fixed cost for small businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities. Clearly HR complements our fully customized work and was developed to fill a need that we continuously found unmet in the market.

Not only are Skidmore and Cranfill business leaders but they are community leaders serving on boards such as the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Arts Council of Indianapolis, Humane Society of Indianapolis, and Indiana Humanities.

Their talent is well-rounded, deep-seeded, and fully accessible. So, here’s FlashPoint! We’re crushing our sales goals, exceeding our client expectations, and having fun all the while. Now don’t get me wrong, we like awards and attention, and we’re working to earn some of that too.

Joellyn Detjen is marketing manager at FlashPoint and helps tell the company’s story.

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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.

Image: Derek Kimball

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 We are discussing ten fundamental principles for business success (see February 14, 2011 post to review the ten principles). If we put these principles into practice in a consistent, disciplined manner, we will realize steady and significant progress toward our business goals. Principle number one is to understand your business. In the March 2^nd post we discussed the importance of understanding the environment in which our business operates. Today we will focus on understanding the fundamental components of our business’ management system.

Let’s start out with three simple concepts about management to ensure we are on the same page:

Management is:

• The process of working with and through individuals and groups and other resources (such as equipment, capital, and technology) to accomplish organizational goals¹.

The fundamental insight underlying all management science is:

• That a business enterprise is a system of the highest order…and one thing characterizes all genuine systems: all the parts are interdependent.
• What matters in any system is the performance of the whole.
• Successful performance of the whole system requires managers to constantly balance, adjust, and work to integrate all aspects of the organization².

 The critical actions of management are:

• Alignment of the organization’s goals, strategies, and priorities with the reality of the external environment (see March 2^nd post).
• Setting expectations for all aspects of the business.
• Ensuring effective and efficient operation of internal processes and systems.
• Closing any gaps between performance expectations and actual performance.
• Supporting performers as they execute the assigned work³.

 Therefore, if we are to:

• Align our organization’s goals, strategies, and priorities.
• Balance, adjust, and integrate our business systems.
• Ensure the effective and efficient operation of our internal processes.
• Accomplish organizational goals…

We need to be able to answer, without hesitation and in great detail, the 16 questions below.  Remember, a very important concept that will guide our exploration of all ten principles is “questions are the answer”.  Answering these 16 questions will help deepen our knowledge and understanding of our organization’s management system.  

 After you read through the questions below, use a 5 point scale to rate your understanding of your business environment (1 signifies no knowledge, 5 signifies very knowledgeable). Then, start working on finding the answers you need! Next time we will discuss how to gain a strong understanding of our organization’s process systems.  

Bill Mugavin is a consultant at FlashPoint. Bill focuses his consulting in the areas of strategic planning, organizational development, and leadership and management development.  

Flashpoint is committed to helping building strong organizations and helping client’s connect their business strategies to their people strategies. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Bill (317 735—3875) or Jeremy King (317-221-2617). We would love to learn more about you and your business.

References

1. Blanchard and Hersey, 2001, p.9, Management of Organizational Behavior- 8^th edition.
2. Drucker, 2008, p. xviii, Management- Revised Edition.
3. Rummler, Ramais, Wilkins, 2011, p.54, Rediscovering Value.

Questions to help you understand your business’ management system

1. What is your organization’s mission?
2. What is your organization’s vision?
3. What are your organization’s values?
4. What is your organization’s strategy and value proposition (low cost leader, product leader, complete customer solutions, etc.)?
5. What are your organizations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)?
6. What is your organization’s customer value proposition?
7. What is the profile(s) of your customer(s)?
8. What are the attributes of your products and services?
9. What is your corporate brand image?
10. What is your organization’s culture?
11. What is the availability of qualified leaders at all levels to mobilize your organization toward its strategy?
12. Are individual, team and departmental goals and incentives linked to attainment of strategic objectives?
13. Is knowledge with strategic potential shared throughout your organization?
14.  What are your organization’s performance goals (strategic objectives, measures, and targets)?
15. What initiatives and operating plans are in place for achieving your organization’s key performance goals?
16. What is your organization’s structure?

• Do people who do similar or closely related work typically report to the same manager or management group? 
• Do managers have a reasonable span of control?
• Is decision making authority placed at the lowest possible level?
• What are the locations and regions your organization operates in?
• What are the hours of operation for each location?
• What cross functional relationships and interdependencies exist across departments or business units?
• Are business and support unit goals and operations are aligned with your corporate vision/strategy?

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My advice to all leaders: Spend less time talking about what’s going on in your life and more time talking about how you are reacting to your life.

I recently conducted a coaching session with the head of an organization, and he described to me his challenge in working through a situation that had had a dramatic impact on his company. When I asked him to tell me more about the situation, he noted, “I don’t really think the issue has anything to do with it. It’s not the issue that defines me as a leader; it’s how I react to the issue.” 

As this very insightful leader observed, the way in which you approach and react to situations defines them. If you’re like most leaders, you likely find yourself getting carried away or caught up in the content of your life, when actually the content is irrelevant. It is all one big storyline and you are the lead the character. Every situation and circumstance you find yourself in is actually neutral. The only meaning a situation has is the meaning that you give to it. So stop talking about the situation and start talking about what you are doing in relation to it. That is where the opportunity for growth and change can be found.

Andrea Moore is senior consulting manager at FlashPoint. She focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.

Image: Stock.XCHNG

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As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals across the state to tell us about the innovative HR-related programs they have introduced at their organizations. I had the opportunity to collect these innovative ideas and present them at the conference where attendees were invited to vote for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas were deserving of a little more attention. Now I get to share the details of these exciting and innovative programs. My hope is that these “mini case studies” will inspire you and your organization to be innovative!

The Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. (Midwest ISO) is an essential link in the safe, cost-effective delivery of electric power across all or parts of 13 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba. As a Regional Transmission Organization, the Midwest ISO assures consumers of unbiased regional grid management and open access to the transmission facilities under the Midwest ISO’s functional supervision.

The Business Challenge

Joellyn: Can you briefly describe your innovative HR-related program?

Deb: The Midwest ISO regularly sponsors The Leadership Challenge^® Workshop, which helps our employees develop their leadership skills. To supplement the content, however, we developed our own Business Challenge component. As part of the Business Challenge, we pull together cross-department and multi-level teams of Leadership Challenge^® students to identify a business issue that impacts the entire organization.

Students have one month to work on the issue before presenting their findings and identifying leadership skills used in the process. They deliver their presentations to a panel of executives, who ask questions focused on leadership skills.

Following the presentations, students hand off their recommendations to the appropriate department for potential implementation. Students are required to gather data and discuss the issue with departments impacted by the issue, reducing the “surprise factor” when they receive the final product.

Joellyn: Why did you develop this program? What problem/situation were you hoping to address?

Deb: We implemented the Business Challenge for the following reasons:

• Students were having a difficult time identifying how to apply what they learned in a business environment.
• Executives expressed interest in being involved in The Leadership Challenge^® Workshop, yet we wanted to ensure that their involvement had meaning and demonstrated the value of what students were learning.
• We wanted to strengthen cross-departmental relationships and knowledge

Joellyn: Why do you consider it innovative?

Deb: The innovative piece of the program is in leaving the success of the program in the students’ hands. Students are provided with very few parameters for the exercise and the presentation. Because of this freedom, the solutions demonstrate considerable creativity. Linking it to providing an opportunity to present to executives also prompts the students to take the assignment as seriously as they would a major project for their department. The results have been impressive! 

Joellyn: What impact have you seen? How did the program address your problem/situation and how has it improved the company and/or the HR function?

Deb: The challenge has resulted in raising awareness of key issues, providing additional support to business areas struggling with some of the challenges identified by students, and providing an impactful way to demonstrate the influence employees can have in shaping the organization. This exercise is also one that executives look forward to participating in.

What idea does this inspire for you and your company? Each month I’ll highlight another HR-related innovative idea. I invite you to subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss similar posts.

Joellyn Detjen is marketing manager at FlashPoint and helps tell the company’s story.

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I sat in my kitchen watching the television intently as Lebron (James) stated that he was “taking his talents to South Beach” and joining the Miami Heat, arguably the most talented basketball team currently assembled in the NBA. Sports radio could not leave the topic alone and the debate was not if they would win a title, but how many they would win and could they break the record for most wins in a season.

Reminiscent of the 2004 Dream Team II basketball team that shocked the world by winning only a bronze medal in Athens, the Heat started the season with a dismal 7-9 record. What was going on? You had three of the best players in the league on one team and you couldn’t buy a win. Then it happened. . .eleven wins in a row and now the Heat sit near the top of the NBA food chain.

What do I mean by “it” happened? They started playing as a team. They started to work within the game strategy (offensive and defensive systems), and stopped trying to individually create opportunities. They checked egos. They leveraged talents instead of trying to trump everything with talent. They started listening.

When I take FlashPoint’s message on the road I often state that great systems are better than great people. I say it in part to get people’s attention, but FlashPoint definitely believes that without a great system you will underutilize superstars and eventually lose them.  A great system will also maximize the potential of your average worker by clearly explaining expectations and accountabilities.

What systems am I talking about? Here are just a few:

Talent acquisition system

Onboarding system

Performance management system

Total rewards system

Training and Development

Client engagement system

Succession planning

Even if you don’t have Lebron on your team, if you have great systems in place you can acquire the right talent for your business, maximize their potential, and ultimately make your business more successful.

Jeremy King, SPHR is the Business Development Manager at FlashPoint.

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Five ways that FlashPoint’s strategic HR peer group will change you:

• Develop important strategic competencies that can improve your personal performance and the success of your business
• Better understand your organization’s business needs and how you can shape your HR programs to address those needs
• Demonstrate to your organization’s leaders that you have the skills you need to influence strategic outcomes
• Advance your critical-thinking abilities to help you assess your HR programs, understand strengths and weaknesses, and consider alternatives
• Build a network of HR colleagues who will provide insight and help you work through your challenges—both during the peer group experience and beyond

What other ways are you looking to grow as an HR professional in 2011?

Learn more and download an application.

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I can list several things that I love about my role at FlashPoint, but working in a culture that supports and encourages us to volunteer in our local community is my favorite. I have been to events where I’ve met powerful CEOs, politicians, and local celebrities—heck, I even got to chat with Peyton Manning at a Peyback Foundation event—but my passion is working with kids.

As a member of the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis, I assist with a program called the Builders Club at IPS #56; there my fellow members and I work with middle school students to help them learn about leadership, community involvement, and service. As the business adviser for this group of future leaders, I have the opportunity to talk to them about topics that I feel are important. During the election of officers a few weeks ago, I noticed that all of the candidates referenced having “good leadership” so I decided that I’ll talk to them about leadership at one of the upcoming meetings. Choosing this topic was the easy part. What I’m going to actually say is the million-dollar question.

I plan to keep it simple by telling them of a few myths:

Myth #1—Leaders are born. In a sense, leaders are born because everyone is born. But leadership is not about talents as much as it is about your behavior. It is how you “show up” each day.

Myth #2—Leaders are charismatic. While being charismatic doesn’t really hurt you, it is more important to be trustworthy, visionary, and a good person. Remember, Hitler was charismatic.

Myth #3—Titles make you a leader. A leader is simply someone who can get others to follow him or her. It does not matter what your title is; it matters if you are respected, trusted, and followed.

I also plan to discuss what makes a good leader:

Be Trustworthy—Do what you say you will do.

Have Vision—Don’t think only about today; think about your future and base your decisions on that.

Model the Way—Set a good example for others to follow.

Set Goals—Understand that the difference between a dream and a goal lies in writing it down. If you don’t have a goal, how do you know where you are going?

Be a Good Person—Recognize that people will eventually see who is a good person and who is not. We generally do not follow bad people for the long term.

I’d like to tell these kids so much more about leadership, but I want to keep it simple with the hope that they’ll remember the lesson and think about their behavior on a daily basis.

What would you tell an 8th grader about leadership?

Jeremy King is business development manager at FlashPoint.

Image: Pathathai Chungyam

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