blog       careers      contact       site map      home  
             
        Flikr
Practice Areas
Organizational Performance
Strategy Development
Competencies Development
Job Design
Talent Systems and Processes
Performance Management
Talent Development
Leadership Development
Management Training
Teambuilding
Coaching
Compensation
Base Pay
Variable/Incentive Pay
Pay-for-Performance Systems
Public Training and  Development Programs
Strategic HR Peer Group
The Leadership Challenge® Workshop

 

 

Posts Tagged ‘success’

How HR Helped One Indiana Company Go Green (and See Green)

June 14th, 2011 by George Hanlin in Talent Management

Green HeartAs we all know, Indiana is not known for being environmentally progressive. If there’s a top ten list on which we’re bound to be included, the list of least green states is one of them (followed no doubt, by the list of most obese states and the list of states with the most smokers). So imagine my surprise the other night when I noticed on msnbc.com an article titled, “Subaru of Indiana: America’s Greenest Carmaker.” I had to check it out.

Based on the headline, the article appeared to be primarily about Subaru of Indiana’s impressive stature as the nation’s first zero-landfill auto factory. (The plant recycles 98 percent of its waste and generates power by incinerating what it can’t reuse.) But as soon as I started reading, I discovered that the heart of the piece was really more about the plant’s HR programs and how they’re tied to the organization’s strategic objectives.

As the article points out, Subaru of Indiana invests heavily in its people in order to achieve its environmental goals. It provides employees with intense training to learn tools and techniques for reducing waste. It offers financial incentives to employees who find better ways of working. It leverages its environmentally friendly brand and its excellent pay and perks to stand out as an “employer of choice” and draw top talent. The results have been astounding: even amid the recession, the plant didn’t lay anyone off, and now it’s in a position to expand.

At FlashPoint we emphasize again and again the need for HR professionals to become strategic players in their organizations. The “Subaru of Indiana” article illustrates well this key point. At Subaru of Indiana the leaders had a key objective—to produce no waste (thereby reducing costs, improving efficiency, and increasing profits). Clearly, the HR staff got on board, making sure that they understood the goal, that managers and employees bought into it, and that workers had the resources they needed to achieve it. HR integrated the company’s strategy into all of its programs—including hiring, training and development, performance management, and compensation—and now the plant is reaping the rewards.

It’s an environmental success story—AND an HR success story—the Hoosier State can be proud of.

George Hanlin is a consultant at FlashPoint.

Image: bulldogza/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This post currently has no responses.

Focus on the Fundamentals Part 4: Understanding the Business’ Process System

April 22nd, 2011 by Bill Mugavin in Management and Leadership Development, Organizational Performance

So far in our discussion of the ten fundamental principles for business success (see the February 14, 2011 post to review the ten principles), we have delved into the environment in which our businesses operate and the fundamental components of our business’ management systems.  Today we will discuss our organizations’ process systems. 

First, let’s define what we mean by process. A process has three components:

  • A desired output
  • An input that will be transformed into the desired output
  • A system of work that accomplishes the transformation from input to output

Second, a good process will achieve a business result in a way that meets the following three criteria:

  • Effective and efficient- A process is a way of organizing work so that the work can be effectively and efficiently performed.

 

  • Effective management- A process is a way of organizing work so that it can be effectively managed. In other words, the work is organized so that management has the ability to plan and track performance and fix problems. The work must be organized so that managers have visibility into the process and some control over its performance.

 

  • Competitive advantage- Processes should provide a competitive advantage. Ultimately, the difference between companies is in the hundreds of activities required to create, produce, sell, and deliver products and services. What separates one company from another is how each chooses to perform these activities (via processes). A company can perform these activities differently, perform them better, or perform them faster than competitors.

This should give us a good idea of the critical importance of strong process design and management in our organizations!   It tells us that:

  • Organizations are only as good at delivering goods and services as their processes are
  • Individuals ability to work, or improve work, is limited by the processes they work within
  • A good performer cannot overcome poor, weak, or confused processes
  • Automating processes (including information technology) is a waste of money if it is used to facilitate a poor process2

 Third, every organization is a giant processing system made up of many, many different processes.  Examples of processes include operations management processes, customer management processes, innovation processes, regulatory and social processes, support processes, and hundreds of sub-processes3.

And here is our big challenge- all of these processes must work together in order to ensure optimal performance (and competitiveness). Therefore, it is vital that we understand how each process in our organization operates. AND… we must understand how each process affects every other process in our business.  This means we must look at the performance of our processes as a whole; we must take a systems view of the giant processing system that makes up our business. 1

Unfortunately, many managers and performance improvement practitioners do not have a detailed knowledge of their companies’ processes. This makes it very difficult to manage or improve performance or to meaningfully impact organizational results1. When we do not take a holistic view and develop a deep understanding of our processes, our performance improvement efforts can actually cause more harm than good. Pulling any lever in the process system will have an effect on other parts of the organization. It is not uncommon to see a process fix in one area cause a problem in another because we failed to look at the whole system!

Successful performance of the organization requires us to constantly balance, adjust, and work to integrate all aspects of the organizations processes 4. Answering, without hesitation and in great detail, the questions below will help get us started on the path to effective process management and improvement.  Next time we will discuss how to gain a strong understanding of our organization’s technology 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.  

Process Questions12345

  1. What are the key processes in your organization?
  2. How does each key process support the organization’s structure?
  3. How does each key process support the organization’s strategy?
  4. How are key processes interrelated and aligned with each other to ensure optimal performance (efficient and effective)?
  5. How do  key processes provide the organization with a competitive advantage?
  6. What triggering events initiate each process (what causes the process to kick in)?
  7. What are the results expected by the customer and other stakeholders for your key processes?
  8. What are the main sub-processes (usually 5 +/-2) for each of the key processes?
  9. What major variations or factors could cause a change to occur in the process (desired or undesired)?
  10. What major internal and external departments or functions participate in the process (in other words, how must people work across functions to ensure the desired output is achieved?)
  11. Who are the individual performers responsible for working each process and what are the main steps they carry out in each process?
  12. How is each process supported by technology, equipment, forms, documents, or any other means?
  13. How do you measure process performance and what are the key performance indicators for each process?
  14. What quality management practices and measures are in place?
  15. How are the processes currently performing?
  16. How effectively are  key processes managed and who is responsible for managing each process?
  17. What tools are used to measure process performance (Gantt charts, spreadsheets, reporting systems, Six Sigma tools, etc.)?
  18. What process improvement methods and models are in place?

References

  1. White Space Revisited (Rummler, Ramais, and Rummler, 2010, p.10)
  2. Organizational Intelligence (Silber and Kearny, 2010, p.192)
  3. Strategy Maps (Kaplan and Norton, 2004, pp.65-163)
  4. Management- Revised Edition(Drucker, 2008, p. xviii)
  5. Workflow Modeling(Sharp and McDermott, 2009, pp.137-138)

This post currently has no responses.

FlashPoint’s Entrepreneurs

April 8th, 2011 by Joellyn Detjen in Talent Management

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 at GrowCo

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.

This post currently has no responses.

For Success, Focus on the Fundamentals Part 2: Understanding the Business Environment

March 2nd, 2011 by Bill Mugavin in Management and Leadership Development, Organizational Performance

Imafge by Oleg Pidodnya | Dreamstime.comThis is post number two in the series, For Success, Focus on the Fundamentals. Over the coming months, we will discuss 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 understand our business. Today we will focus specifically on understanding the environment in which our business operates.

Before we dive into understanding our business environment, we need to cover a very important concept that will guide our exploration of all ten principles- “questions are the answer”. In every post, I will provide you with a list of questions to help you deepen your knowledge in the area we are discussing. It will be your job to find the answers. Finding the answers will take time, effort, and will-power. But remember, business leaders who search out the answers will generally be very successful. Those who do not will be marginally successful or fail.

Silber and Kearny write in their book, Organizational Intelligence (2010, p.44), “History is full of organizations that failed to understand their operating environment or simply failed to adapt to change in their environment. On the other hand, there have been many spectacular successes where organizations have spotted trends in their operating environment and capitalized on these.”

In today’s business world, the operating environment is global! Consider how to answer the questions below for each of the geographic regions your organization operates within. For example, question 1a asks how the threat of military invasion may impact your business operation. Certainly this is not a problem for your Chicago office; it is a very real consideration if you also have an office in Libya.  Question 3h asks about the core values of the predominant culture of a country. This question also applies to different regions within the United States. For instance, how employees are recruited, trained, and motivated may be different in India versus the United Kingdom, or in Manhattan, New York versus Port Saint Joe, Florida.

Remember- you must answer the questions in terms of how they impact your business!! This is not a current events quiz. While it is good to have a general knowledge of business and world affairs, you only get a bang for the buck when you apply your knowledge to helping your organization thrive within the environment(s) it operates within.

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 management practices.

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.

Questions to help you understand the environment in which our business operates

1      What political conditions are affecting your organization?

  • Risk of military invasion
  • Government policies in the home country
  • Intergovernmental relations and alliances
  • Intra-country relations among different ethnic and religious and tribal groups
  • Stability of governments and geographic regions
  • Legislation that governs business and trade (GATT, WTO, Big 8 Summit, NAFTA, etc.)
  • How the government enforces existing laws
  • What nongovernmental groups lobby for laws that impact business
  • The attitude of the government toward consumer lawsuits

 2.    What economic conditions are affecting your organization?

  • Global and national economic conditions (inflation, recession)
  • Type of economic system in the countries of operation
  • Government intervention in the free market
  • Comparative advantages of the host country
  • Exchange rates, interest rates, inflation rates and the stability of the host country currency
  • Efficiency of the financial markets
  • Infrastructure quality
  • Skill level of workforce, Labor costs, Unemployment rates,  Labor-management relations, Job market trends and Turnover trends, Recruitment trends and techniques
  • Business cycle stage (prosperity, recession, recovery)
  • Economic growth rate
  • Capital availability
  • Levels and distribution of wealth globally and nationally
  • Rates of savings and debt among consumers
  • Consumer spending patterns and discretionary income (individual, corporate, national, and global)

 3.     What social conditions are affecting your organization?

  • Projected growth, now and projected, worldwide
  • Age distribution (bookers, gen-x, gen-y, etc)
  • Family structure (single parents, married, extended, grandparents living in house)
  • Gender distribution
  • Geographic distribution
  • Education levels
  • Ethnic and racial make-up
  • Core values of the predominant culture of a country
  • Core values of the subcultures in a country. How do they clash, and where is there common ground?

4.    What technology conditions are affecting your organization?

  • The value of science in the culture
  • Fields of science in which “hot breakthroughs” are being made
  • The percentage of government and private money available for research and development
  • Changes in products and services that incorporate technology
  • The lifespan of any technology
  • The regulation of technology
  • The protection of technological innovation
  • Technologies impact on product offering
  • Impact on cost structure
  • Impact on value chain structure
  • Rate of technological diffusion

 5.    What environmental conditions are affecting your organization?

  • Greenhouse gas emissions
  • Solid waste produced
  • Liquid waste discharged
  • Energy consumption
  • Recyclability
  • Clean water consumption
  • Overall environmental footprint

 6.    What legal conditions are affecting your organization??

  • Antitrust laws
  • Pricing regulations
  • Taxation- tax rates and incentives
  • Wage legislation- minimum wage and overtime
  • Workweek
  • Mandatory benefits
  • Industrial safety regulations
  • Product labeling requirements

 7.    What industry conditions are affecting your organization?

  • Competition
  • Supplier bargaining power
  • Buyer bargaining power
  • Threats of new competition
  • Threat of substitutes

This post currently has no responses.

The Business Challenge: Developing Leadership Skills by Identifying and Addressing Real-Life Organizational Issues

February 5th, 2011 by Joellyn Detjen in Talent Management

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!

 
Innovative idea submitted by: Deb Lang, Director, Training
Organization: Midwest ISO

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.

This post currently has no responses.

Is Talent Overrated?

January 13th, 2011 by Jeremy King in Management and Leadership Development

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.

This post currently has no responses.

An HR New Year’s Resolution You Should Stick To

December 29th, 2010 by George Hanlin in Talent Management

2011I’m not sure if it’s human nature or something about our culture, but as we approach the end of one year and start thinking about the next, most of us tend to look ahead and form plans. It’s almost expected of us—we’re supposed to make new year’s resolutions, figure out how we’re going to do things differently, or come up with ways we’re going to make our lives better in the next twelve months.

I’m itching to write that this is all trite and overblown, but I’m going to stick with the storyline and insist that yes, this is indeed a good time to evaluate where you’ve been and develop a plan for moving forward in the months ahead. Specifically, if you’re in charge of human resources at your company, it’s a great opportunity to conduct an HR assessment and set priorities for how you’re going to develop your programs in the year ahead.

Why do I say this? I do so because for many of us the past couple of years have been challenging. Our HR programs have been under stress. We’ve had to do more with less, so we need to figure out the state of our HR affairs. As we’ve asked our employees to take on more duties, are their job descriptions accurate or do we need to update them? Are our compensation programs still competitive? Are we giving employees the training they need to do their jobs?

An HR assessment can help you answer these questions and others, and it can help you figure out which areas need the most attention. If you’re interested in learning more about what an HR assessment covers and why it’s important, you can check out this article on FlashPoint’s website.

So this year maybe you’ll resist the urge to set personal resolutions that you know you’re going to break by, oh, say . . . January 2. I support that. But if you’re an HR professional, I do encourage you to consider the HR assessment and the benefits that it can bring to you and your organization. Good luck and happy new year!

George Hanlin is a consultant at FlashPoint.

Image: Salvatore Vuono

This post currently has no responses.

When It Comes to Merit Increases, This Is What It’s Going to Take to Keep Up with the Joneses

December 14th, 2010 by George Hanlin in Talent Management

CalculatorHere it is again—that wonderful time of the year! No, I’m not talking about the holidays (though they are indeed pretty terrific), but instead the time when many of us conduct annual performance reviews for our employees and provide merit increases for the next year.

If you’re a manager and are budgeting for merit increases, FlashPoint has helpful data for you. Julie Bingham, our senior consultant, regularly keeps up-to-date with the latest compensation-related research and trends. Julie’s a member of WorldatWork, the national compensation and benefits professional association, and she recently received results from WorldatWork’s 2010-11 salary budget survey:

  • The national average merit increase in 2010 was 2.5 percent, and the national average projected 2011 increase is 2.9 percent.
  • For the central U.S., the average increase in 2010 was 2.5 percent, and the projected 2011 increase is 3.0 percent.
  • For Indiana, the average increase in 2010 was 2.5 percent and the projected 2011 increase is 2.9 percent.

According to Julie, this data includes those organizations that offered or plan to offer no increase (that is, it includes zeros), and if you exclude the zeros, the data comes in slightly higher.

Julie also notes that other sources, including the 2010-2011 Mercer U.S. Compensation Planning Report, indicate similar trends.

Earlier this year, Julie wrote an article on regaining control of your compensation programs, with six steps you can take to assess and adjust them. As you consider your merit increases and other compensation-related issues in the new year, it’s a great resource. You can find it here.

Meanwhile, best wishes as you wrap up your year-end HR projects (including those performance reviews—mine is December 15) and as you prepare for 2011. And amid all the hoopla, don’t forget to take time to enjoy the other activities the season has to offer! Happy holidays!

George Hanlin is a consultant at FlashPoint.

Image: nuttakit

This post currently has no responses.

Demystifying “Coaching”

November 23rd, 2010 by Jennifer Rufatto in Talent Management

CoachingCoaching. Yes, you know it is the new management and leadership trend. But what is it? I find that people avoid implementing coaching programs simply because they don’t know what it is or how it can help their organization.

Last month I read Quiet Leadership by David Rock and he described coaching in the simplest way I have ever heard. While discussing his leadership philosophy he notes that what we pay people to do at work has significantly changed in the past 50 years but our leadership style has not changed. Years ago we paid people to DO something; run a machine, work an assembly line, file papers, etc. The command-control style of management was very effective for workers who, essentially, conducted processes. Today we have found ways to automate or outsource most processes—now we pay people to think. Yet, the dominate management style has stayed command-control. If the nature of what we ask employees to do has changed from conducting a process to thinking, doesn’t it make sense to change our management style?

Rock suggests that if we pay employees to think, then managers and leaders should help employees learn to think better. That is the essence of coaching. Coaching is helping someone learn to think better.

Consider this example which demonstrates the difference between the two management styles.

Managing the Process

Employee: I have a customer who is irate that we charged shipping even though the product was three days late. What should I do?

Manager: Was it our fault the product was late?

Employee: Yes, we ran out in the warehouse.

Manager: Then credit the shipping and offer a 10% discount on the next order.

Helping the Thinking

Employee: I have a customer who is irate that we charged shipping even though the product was three days late. What should I do?

Manager: Sarah, you have good instincts about customer service. What do you think?

Employee: It was our fault since we ran out of the product, but the customer knew when they placed the order we were backordered. I don’t know.

Manager: If you were the customer what would you want the company to do?

Employee: I would want the free shipping, but I wouldn’t expect them to give it to me.

Manager: What would you think about the company if they did give you free shipping?

Employee: I would be impressed they went above and beyond. Our mission is to exceed the customer’s expectations and that would do it!

The manager took 60 more seconds so the employee could learn how to think instead of how to do. Next time the employee is in a similar situation she will have the confidence to handle the issue and will take ownership over the solution.

See, this coaching thing isn’t so complicated. Take time to help people think better and you are coaching!

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.

Image: Graur Codrin via freedigitalphotos.net

This post currently has 5 responses.

Leadership Development: Facilitate on the Field Beyond Right Thinking and Wrong Thinking

November 16th, 2010 by Andrea Moore in Talent Management

Open Field“On the other side of right thinking and wrong thinking there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”—Rumi

During a section of a recent leadership development training session which I facilitated, participants were exploring the impact of their personal style on the way in which they deliver feedback. Participants were tasked with reviewing their unique areas for improvement (based on their style) and identifying what they could do differently to be more effective. Suddenly, a participant raised his hand and asked, “How can the overuse of praise be ineffective when giving feedback?” After a brief group conversation, I suggested to the questioner that when the same type of praise, said in the same way, such as “thank you,” is used repeatedly, it may lose its significance and meaning. As the questioner nodded in agreement, I added that because of his natural style, he might want to be more specific in the feedback that he provides to employees. Nodding in agreement once again, he said, “So, I should say, ‘thank you, s—head.’”

Fortunately, his response was very funny to others in the group, and his colleagues erupted in laughter. In that moment, I was so glad to be laughing along with everyone else in the room, because I didn’t really know how else to respond to his sarcasm. When the laughter subsided, the questioner became much more serious and shared a couple of ideas for how he could be more specific in giving feedback. Being given the space to be sarcastic and funny, he quickly rebounded into what he could do to improve his effectiveness as a manager.

This experience reminded me of the important message in the Rumi quote above. In the facilitation of leadership development, there is no right and wrong. My role as the facilitator is to create a safe place for learning to occur. Who am I to say what will work for someone? I do not walk in the shoes of any participant; the participant must come to the perspective that works best for him or her. I can certainly share my personal experiences and what I have seen work for other leaders, but never can I credibly give the participant advice on what he or she should do.

As a facilitator, focused on development, I am meeting the participants on the field beyond right thinking and wrong thinking, for this is a safe place for growth to happen.

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

Image: Dan via freedigitalphotos.net

This post currently has 2 responses.



Find us on Facebook
| Follow us on Twitter

 
 

Authors

Recent Posts

Categories

Search Tags

 Feed Subscription

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

e-Flash Newsletter

Please enter your email address to sign up to receive our e-Flash newsletter featuring talent management news, tips, and advice.
Name:
Email:
HTML
Text

Subscribe
Unsub.
Read our most recent newsletter.
 

© 2012 FlashPoint // Site By Firebelly Marketing


200 S. Meridian St., Ste. 270, Indianapolis, IN 46225-1076 Phone: 317.229.3035