The practice of creating bad management apples continues in organizations today. A bad management apple (not to be confused with a bad person) is an apple that does not have the skill, natural propensity, or drive to tackle the incredibly challenging job of a manager. It does not matter if the apple is a Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, or a McIntosh. At the heart of the issue is the fact that we promote apples when we should be promoting oranges. Or in talent management speak, we should be promoting high potentials (oranges), not high performers (apples).
It can be difficult to differentiate between the two because individuals who are high potential are almost always high performers. However, not all high performers are high potentials.
“A high-performing employee is a high performerwithout the potential to move into higher levels of management, but who can follow a career path with broader responsibilities and higher levels of contribution within a profession. In comparison, a high-potential employee is a high performer who has also been identified as having the potential, ability and aspiration for successive leadership positions within the company.”1
Below are five key characteristics of high performers (apples) and high potentials (oranges) that you can use to differentiate between the two.
What Do High Performers Look Like (Apples)?
Is a key expert and contributes to the organization in significant and unique ways.
Would be very difficult to replace.
May be qualified for a broader role within the same organization or profession.
Lacks the desire and/or potential to move “upward’ in a management capacity.
May create new products or services for the organization.
What Do High Potentials Look Like (Oranges)?
Has the ability and willingness to advance or move laterally rapidly into significant and complex leadership roles.
Demonstrates high-learning agility, creativity, and strategic-thinking skills.
Is able to work in an ambiguous and rapidly changing environment.
Demonstrates superior interpersonal skills and is respected by others.
Is self-motivated and highly engaged in the organization.
A good apple is an essential part of a healthy diet, but it’s no substitute when what you crave and need is a citrusy orange. So be sure you recognize the benefits of both apples and oranges (in real life as well as in our management allegory), and pick your produce wisely. You’ll better manage expectations and achieve the results you want.
How much of your success is up to you—your choice, your actions, your behavior—versus outside conditions?
If you said anything less than 85 percent, then according to Linda Galindo, author of The 85% Solution: How Personal Accountability Guarantees Success, you most certainly blame your problems and failures (big or small, personal or professional) on other people, circumstances beyond your control, or just plain bad luck.
I recently cofacilitated a session called The Accountability Experience with my colleague, Andrea Moore. The session is based on Galindo’s book, and we asked participants the question posed above. We received a myriad of responses and had some good discussion as a result. We talked about the challenges of choosing accountability and owning your personal success and happiness.
It’s not all that easy, but you can take action and establish a mind-set that will lead to more accountable behaviors. Here are steps that will help you act on the fact that you—and you alone—determine your success, failures, and happiness.
Responsibility. This is not something you do but rather something you think. Start any project or task with the mindset that you are 100 percent responsible, that success or failure is up to you. Even if you’re working on a team, go into the project thinking and acting as if you are the one responsible for success.
Self-Empowerment. The “E” word has been thrown about for years, but the fact is, there is only one kind of empowerment: self-empowerment. When you are self-empowered, you take actions that help you and your team succeed. You don’t wait for someone to deem you “empowered.” You step forward (sometimes out of your comfort zone) to take the necessary actions—and potential risks—that can lead to results.
Personal Accountability. Unlike responsibility (the before) or self-empowerment (the during), personal accountability is the after. It’s answering for choices, actions, and behaviors. It’s not putting blame on someone else or some outside condition. It’s not making excuses. It’s taking the fall when your choices cause problems.
Accountability is a mind-set, but you can also make it a skill set by following this three-step process. If you’d like to learn more, join FlashPoint via webinar on May 9 for a free preview of The Accountability Experience. You can get more details here.
The Accountability Experience (which includes an assessment of each participant’s ability to self-manage and to sustain high performance) is eye-opening. Learning how to be wholly responsible for a result before you even take action (responsibility),taking actions and risks to get what you want (self-empowerment), and answering for the outcome of your choices (personal accountability) can have a huge impact on your results, relationships, and success.
Linda Dausend is a consultant at FlashPoint. She consults with clients on talent management, helping to align their human resources programs with organizational strategies.
Ask a group of people to describe the attributes of an effective leader, and you’ll quickly hear responses around the importance of leading by example and modeling the way. Yes, leadership literature across time has acknowledged the importance of practicing what one preaches, but what separates great leaders from those who know what’s important is the tough work of critically exploring the examples that one is setting and the ways that one is modeling. This exploration is at the heart of leadership development and critical to clarifying your personal leadership philosophy.
For several years I worked with someone who naturally brought a lot of humor to his presentations; I watched his audiences react positively, as his wit drew them in and was very engaging. I wanted so badly to be funny and to create that same kind of experience for the audience, so I gave it a try … and you know (just as I now do) what happens when someone who is not naturally funny purposely tries to be; it’s not funny.
Anne Lamott (author of one of my all-time favorite books, Traveling Mercies) encourages would-be writers to find their own voice: “The truth of your experience can only come through in your own voice. If it is wrapped in someone else’s voice, readers are suspicious, as if you are dressed up in someone else’s clothes. You cannot write out of someone else’s big dark place; you can only write out of your own.”
In trying to be funny like my colleague, I was trying to wear his clothes—it worked for him, so I assumed it would work for me; but obviously it didn’t. As soon as I stopped trying to be something I wasn’t and instead leveraged my own strengths, life got a lot brighter (and a little funnier). I am naturally positive and empowering, so rather than trying to be funny during presentations, I rely on my natural strengths, and the good news is that I’m never going to have to try to be positive or empowering; those attributes go with me everywhere. Positivity and empowerment are the truth of my experience, and the audience feels it.
The important work of finding your voice is in the exploration. Think about those situations/interactions that feel effortless for you. The way in which you showed up in those moments points to your personal leadership philosophy; what qualities did you bring to the situation? Those qualities point you to the way that you were modeling in the moment, and you can bring those attributes with you everywhere! Leadership is about connection and relationship. Trust and credibility are born from authenticity, so by knowing and modeling your way consistently, you put people at ease; when you bring your way into all of your interactions, others know what to expect and will appreciate having received the natural gifts that represent your voice.
Andrea Moore is a Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint. She focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
When I worked for Macy’s back in the ’80s I was selected to be part of a roaming training team that went within the branch stores in southern California. Our group of six facilitated leadership development for store managers and their senior leadership team.
Now, anyone who has ever worked in retail knows how dependent the business is on customer traffic, and scheduling time away from the store is never easy, especially for senior leaders. Yet the training sessions that we delivered were scheduled for one week. That’s right . . . an entire week away from the store.
Today we would see that as a luxury. Expectations for training time commitments are very different now; it is the rare organization that has the time to send people away for days at a time, particularly senior leaders.
That’s not to say that organizations are cutting training. On the contrary, the 2013 Bersin by Deloitte Corporate Learning Factbook indicates that organizations increased training spending by 12 percent in 2012, the highest year-over-year change in the last six years. Expenditure per employee has increased as well, with high-impact learning and development organizations spending $867 per learner, 34 percent more than less “mature” companies*.
But how those training dollars are being used has changed considerably. Gone for the most part are the week-long instructor-led classroom training events. While some organizations do utilize these events for programs such as new-employee onboarding and M&A transition training, most have abandoned them because of high demands on leaders’ time and an increasingly broader scope of responsibilities.
In their place, FlashPoint finds that organizations are delivering smaller training events (two to four hours) spread out over longer periods of time. This approach reduces the amount of time participants spend in the classroom, and it provides an opportunity to incorporate more reinforcement activities and application exercises—including e-learning options, which are becoming increasingly popular.
We’re encouraged by this trend because it gives participants more time to practice the skills they learn, which translates into improved performance. Are you seeing this in your organization? Are you providing smaller chunks of training with more reinforcement and application? Is it effective?
Linda Dausend is a consultant at FlashPoint. She consults with clients on talent management, helping to align their human resources programs with organizational strategies.
*For more information about high-impact learning organizations, see David Mallon, Janet Clarey, and Mark Vickers, The High-Impact Learning Organization Series (Oakland, Calif.: Bersin by Deloitte, 2012).
Recently I began a group coaching initiative with a national organization in the healthcare industry. When I met with the participants, one of the goals that quickly emerged was each person’s desire to strengthen his or her professional network. Many of the participants were uncertain about how exactly to go about this. Still others thought knowing more people, say bumping their LinkedIn connections from 300 to 400, was directly correlated with the strength of their network. We explored different approaches they could take, and below are five tips we discussed to help them “net” the right contacts with minimal “work.”
Bigger isn’t better. First, throw out all the advice books that you’ve read that advocate for building an ever-larger social network through attending ceaseless events and handing out business cards like flyers on the Las Vegas strip! Fifteen years of research conducted by Rob Cross at the University of Virginia indicates that, when it comes to networking, bigger isn’t actually better. In fact, Cross found that a too-large network can serve as a significant career derailer.
The wrong network can derail your career. Yes, networking can be a career derailer! Consider this—to what extent are you energized by your interactions with people already in your social network? Do you come away from some interactions feeling vibrant and engaged? Do other conversations leave you feeling zapped of vigor and focus? These responses are the difference between interacting with an energizer and, for lack of a better terminology, an energy sucker. Cross’s data demonstrates that having energizers in your network is a strong predictor of personal success. Conversely, energy suckers will derail your best career intentions by costing you valuable time and energy. Rather than expanding your network, consider unloading people who block your productivity, joy, creativity, and momentum.
It’s who you know and what they think about you. While the mantra “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is still true, the math of social networking is more nuanced than just “who” and “how many.” It actually matters more what the people in your network actually think of you. So, so don’t forget to always put your best foot forward.
Develop a leadership middle-class. Executives in particular can be derailed by their network when it balloons to epic proportions and becomes unmanageable. If you find your productivity suffering and projects mounting, create a middle-level of leadership—trusted team members to spearhead initiatives and make decisions on your behalf. This endeavor will be beneficial to all parties. Your high performers will get to take on additional leadership and responsibility and you will be able to use your time more effectively!
Give before you get. Building a network is about building relationships. So, instead of approaching interactions with a “getting” mindset, adopt a spirit generosity. Ask what you can give to another person to nurture a relationship. Take a vested interest in the life, pursuits, dreams, and challenges others are facing. You’ll make friends and create trusted colleagues in the process!
Taryn Stejskal is a consultant at FlashPoint where she supports clients in the areas of leadership development and executive coaching.
As FlashPoint works with businesses, we find that those who focus on developing leadership competencies—“people management skills”—tend to be the ones adding customers and staff, while employers who cut training and development are anemic and still recovering from the recession. As someone once said, “You can’t cut your way to growth.”
Managers are the human “levers” of productivity in every organization because they determine the quality of staff hired, the quality of onboarding provided to new hires, the quality of the stretch assignments and development opportunities team members receive, as well as the quality of recognition and feedback offered to employees.
Your managers model what they know—or don’t know. If they do not model your organization’s values, or your industry’s best practices and efficiencies, and if they do not make time to actually lead their staffs, how can their team members do their jobs to the fullest? If your managers are not confident in their abilities to make and implement decisions, how can they lead others?
Consider:
1. A 3Q 2012 survey conducted by Walker Information found that manager loyalty declined significantly below that of employees. Only 61 percent of employees were “truly loyal” while a surprising 41 percent of middle managers and only 39 percent of front-line supervisors were truly loyal. Truly loyal employees decline job offers to leave, participate in training and development, accept promotions, willingly update their job descriptions to reflect today’s realities and can see themselves staying at least two more years. How can managers who feel less loyalty than their employees lead them to higher productivity?
2. According to the Gallup organization, one in six employees says that his or her manager is “the most disliked” aspect of the job. Is that why some organizations have 25 percent, 35 percent or even 50 percent turnover even though only 13 percent of the workforce says they plan to leave their jobs this year? It is not easy to find the next job, no matter your level. Could it be that employees really do leave their managers, not the employer?
3. In a fall 2012 survey of more than 200 Indiana HR professionals from across Indiana, FlashPoint learned that the greatest overall issue Indiana employers face is developing and training talent, especially leaders. In addition, the number one growing issue in talent management is finding and developing strong managers. Retaining and recruiting top talent will only be exacerbated without the presence of well-developed managerial and leadership skills.
4. Wise organizations use multiple before-and-after comparisons to calculate their return on investment (ROI) after leadership development efforts are completed. In the year following management development, organizations often use multiple metrics to track these bottom-line killers:
Absenteeism
Turnover
In addition, organizations review bottom-line builders such as:
Earnings per employee
Evaluation scores for needed competencies and overall performance
Integration of proven leadership behaviors as reported by managers’ staff members
5. Teams that score highly on productivity and profitability, according to the Gallup organization, also rate their managers highly for:
Clearly stating what is expected of employees
Showing care, interest and concern for their staff
Enabling employees to be in roles that fit their abilities
Providing feedback and recognition regularly for work well done
If there is more change outside of your organization (in your marketplace among your clients and prospects) than there is inside it, your organization is falling behind. Business changed in 2007. Trained managers are a must! If you have not restored your budget for manager and leadership training, or if you’re focusing on the 1990s concepts of control, coordination and correction, instead of today’s care, communication, feedback and recognition, it’s time for a turnaround. What is the key to employee productivity and bottom-line growth? It’s the managers!
Nancy S. Ahlrichs is strategic account manager at FlashPoint where she interacts with human resource professionals, executives, and business owners in order to understand their organizational needs. She collaborates with our other team members to develop appropriate consulting solutions and supports prospects throughout the sales process.
Coaching leaders through the transition to a new position is one of my favorite initiatives. When I work with leaders as they’re settling into their role, many wonder how they can best move beyond the “honeymoon period” and become an integral part of the organization. I’m a big fan of Michael Watkins’s book The First 90 Days: Critical Success Factors for Leaders at All Levels, and when I consult with my clients I often discuss some of his ideas, sharing how they can adapt them as they move past their initial introductory period and dig into their new job. Here are some of those strategies I’ve come up with, based on Watkins’s book. If you’re a leader who’s transitioning out of the honeymoon and seeking to solidify your relationship with your new company, I hope you’ll find inspiration in them.
Take responsibility. While you will benefit from the expertise and knowledge of others, being a leader means that your team looks to you for guidance, direction, and feedback. As you settle into your role, make a concerted effort to incorporate credibility and responsibility into your work so that you inspire the confidence of others.
Secure early wins. Focus on one or two initiatives you can continue to champion, and report back to your team on your progress. Remember—it’s okay to try something new or even make mistakes. The most important thing is that your team sees movement and progress on your behalf.
Be the figurehead. Continue to gain visibility as a new leader with key stakeholders by taking charge of your department, area, or organization. Of course including other members of your team is important, but ultimately you are the face leading the charge.
Assess your vulnerabilities. Are you still wondering if you can fill the shoes of your new role? Is there a greater learning curve than you had anticipated? Is this your first time leading and managing others? It’s not a matter of “if” you have vulnerabilities; it’s a matter of “what” vulnerabilities you have. Examine your vulnerabilities in this new role and make a plan to augment them with strengths and/or supports.
Develop your team. If you have direct reports, it’s now your responsibility to develop yourself and others! How will you help your people set goals, provide clear expectations, and hold your team accountable? Remember you have to have a development plan and be transparent about holding yourself accountable for your goals as well!
Taryn Stejskal is a consultant at FlashPoint where she supports clients in the areas of leadership development and executive coaching.
Source:
Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Factors for Leaders at All Levels (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2003).
Perhaps you’ve heard of compassion fatigue, the experience of being pushed beyond one’s capacity for caring, suffering, and/or trauma to the extent that a person runs a deficit of mental, emotional, or physical energy. Within organizations, the experience of change fatigue is not drastically different. Typically, change fatigue occurs over time with continued exposure to stress, uncertainty, reorganization, and redirected priorities.
Recently I have heard a great deal from my clients about the large-scale changes occurring and recurring within their industries. And considering the economy, strong desires for innovation, and lightning-fast upgrades in technology, it’s clear that change is here to stay. Given that change has become a part of our vocational landscape, how can leaders brace for—and even embrace—change?
In order to thrive in a state of flux, leaders must refine and learn new skills as a means of capitalizing on change. Here are some things you can do to maximize the opportunities inherent in change:
Personal Care: Remember that it is important to care for yourself amid uncertainty. While it is tempting to hunker down in front of your computer, this is counterproductive. Instead, rest, exercise, nutritious eating habits, and stress reduction become critical in order to effectively manage change and bolster energy to complete work in a timely and effective manner. Encourage others on your team to care for themselves too.
Invest in Training: If possible, invest in off-site opportunities for you and your staff to reflect on the changes within your organization. Training can help you become more resilient by providing some space from the office and the opportunity to learn to skills to deal with the issues you’re facing.
Recognize the Power of Choice: Often managing change feels beyond our control. In order to thrive (instead of merely to survive), it is important to recognize that we have choices about how we think, feel, and behave. Make wise choices that align with your values and those of your organization.
There’s no avoiding change—but you can take steps to avoid change fatigue. By doing so, you can capitalize on change as a powerful agent for improvement within your organization.
Taryn Stejskal is a consultant at FlashPoint where she supports clients in the areas of leadership development and executive coaching.
One of FlashPoint’s service area strengths is leadership and management development. We are called on time and again to provide this service; our clients see that we have a very robust development model, based on extensive research, and we can customize the training to fit the needs of a particular company or individual.
But as good as our design and facilitation is, we understand that there are many other factors that impact the effectiveness of the training.
An important statistic we share involves the reasons that training fails. In a study conducted by the American Society for Training and Development, we learn that the primary reason that training fails to create performance change is not because of an ineffective training event (which contributes to 10 percent of the failure) but rather because of ineffective preparation (30 percent) and ineffective follow-up (60 percent).
While we build into our training several components to support both preparation and follow-up, we recognize that the participants’ immediate supervisors play the most important role in making sure that training sticks. In an employee training effectiveness study conducted by the Cegos Group in 2012, the researchers discovered that employees looked at their managers—not HR and not the trainer—for their primary source to reinforce training. Supervisors who recognize the impact they have will see the most dramatic changes in their employees’ performance.
So how can you as a manager effectively support and reinforce learning in the classroom? Here are some techniques:
Before a training session, schedule a meeting with your training participants. Ask them about the topic and discuss with them what you expect them to focus on during the training. Ask the trainer to share the content for the session so that you are well versed and can talk about how you will support the objectives. Tell your participants that you’ll look forward to discussing the session with them after they are done.
After the session, follow up with coaching. If you have internal coaches in your organization, consider using them to help the participants apply the skills they learned. Consider engaging the services of a professional coach (such as our coaches at FlashPoint) to help participants stay accountable.
You be the coach as well! Observe behaviors and discuss the actions and activities you see, and provide timely feedback. Acknowledge participants’ good behaviors and encourage continued positive performance change.
Reinforce the training through internal communications. One company I’m working with has placed flyers throughout the organization highlighting the key learnings from recent training sessions. Another has all leaders wear buttons on training day to show their support. Others use internal company newsletters and meetings to highlight some key points. What a great way demonstrate the importance of the training!
Consider assigning participants to “action learning teams” that work on real needs for the company, using the skills the participants have gained from the training. One organization I’m consulting with is establishing these teams to work on initiatives such as employee orientation, wellness programs, and effective communication. Who better to serve on these teams than employees who have just learned about the topics in a classroom setting?
Set an example for learning and application of learning in everything you do. Don’t ever think your employees do not see your actions and follow your behavior—because they do. Model the way for continual growth for yourself, and your people will do the same.
Taking these actions will create the opportunity for successful performance change for your people and your organization. Please share other ways that you support training and reinforce learning in your organization. We’d love to hear your ideas!
Linda Dausend is a consultant at FlashPoint. She consults with clients on talent management, helping to align their human resources programs with organizational strategies.
Just what is vulnerability? And when it comes to leadership, how can a person command respect, lead an organization, and be vulnerable? At first blush, many people equate vulnerability with weakness. But this assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. In order to truly be vulnerable, a person must possess immense strength and courage. Vulnerability is about personally cultivating a sense of openness and authenticity. A person who engages with vulnerability recognizes that in order to succeed, he or she must also face the possibility of failure.
For leaders, there are even more compelling reasons to endeavor toward a stance of vulnerability. Here are three:
Relationships: Research shows that leaders that are more vulnerable are also more trusted by colleagues. Vulnerability is a critical ingredient to enhance relationship closeness and deepen connections by sharing past experiences, aspirations, dreams, and, yes, even failures. As humans, when we feel we know a person, we are more likely to relate to and like that individual.
Innovation: In order to reap the rewards of creativity, a person, department, or organization must also be willing to accept risk. Great leaps in human understanding and capability have not typically been discovered within safe and comfortable environments. Instead, when vulnerability is incorporated, failure is not avoided; it is recognized as a necessary part of the process.
Awareness: Giving and receiving feedback is an essential part of leadership. Openness to receiving feedback—being a sponge, not a shield—requires elements of vulnerability to learn from past performance. In addition, giving effective feedback also requires authenticity and a genuine understanding of how the feedback being given is actually received.
In the United States, many of our greatest leaders have understood acutely the importance of vulnerability. In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt gave his now-famous “Citizen in a Republic” speech where he said, “The man who is actually in the arena [is the one who] at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” Instead of hiding from our concerns, vulnerability is about facing our fears and showing up for the arena of life.
Taryn Stejskal is a consultant at FlashPoint where she supports clients in the areas of leadership development and executive coaching.
The practice of creating bad management apples continues in organizations today. A bad management apple (not to be confused with a bad person) is an apple that does not have the skill, natural propensity, or drive to tackle the incredibly challenging job of a manager. It does not matter if the apple is a Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, or a McIntosh. At the heart of the issue is the fact that we promote apples when we should be promoting oranges. Or in talent management speak, we should be promoting high potentials (oranges), not high performers (apples).
How much of your success is up to you—your choice, your actions, your behavior—versus outside conditions?
When I worked for Macy’s back in the ’80s I was selected to be part of a roaming training team that went within the branch stores in southern California. Our group of six facilitated leadership development for store managers and their senior leadership team.
Recently I began a group coaching initiative with a national organization in the healthcare industry. When I met with the participants, one of the goals that quickly emerged was each person’s desire to strengthen his or her professional network. Many of the participants were uncertain about how exactly to go about this. Still others thought knowing more people, say bumping their LinkedIn connections from 300 to 400, was directly correlated with the strength of their network. We explored different approaches they could take, and below are five tips we discussed to help them “net” the right contacts with minimal “work.”
As FlashPoint works with businesses, we find that those who focus on developing 
Coaching leaders through the transition to a new position is one of my favorite initiatives. When I work with leaders as they’re settling into their role, many wonder how they can best move beyond the “honeymoon period” and become an integral part of the organization. I’m a big fan of Michael Watkins’s book The First 90 Days: Critical Success Factors for Leaders at All Levels, and when I consult with my clients I often discuss some of his ideas, sharing how they can adapt them as they move past their initial introductory period and dig into their new job. Here are some of those strategies I’ve come up with, based on Watkins’s book. If you’re a leader who’s transitioning out of the honeymoon and seeking to solidify your relationship with your new company, I hope you’ll find inspiration in them.
Perhaps you’ve heard of compassion fatigue, the experience of being pushed beyond one’s capacity for caring, suffering, and/or trauma to the extent that a person runs a deficit of mental, emotional, or physical energy. Within organizations, the experience of change fatigue is not drastically different. Typically, change fatigue occurs over time with continued exposure to stress, uncertainty, reorganization, and redirected priorities.
One of FlashPoint’s service area strengths is 
Just what is vulnerability? And when it comes to 
