Leadership is influence, and to effectively influence others, a leader must be clear about where he or she is going. It’s a clear vision that gives others something to aspire to and work toward. The challenge is that often leaders are so caught up in the midst of the day to day that they fail to take time to reflect on what’s most important and what it is they truly want.
I am such a visionary myself, so it’s no surprise that one of my absolute favorite things to do is to lead others through a creative visioning exercise. In my experiences with this type of work over the last ten years, I am continually amazed at how leaders respond to the process. If at first a bit resistant, they typically emerge feeling empowered and energized.
The visioning process usually works like this:
Step 1: Look to the past for key themes
After affirming what’s most important to the leader (his or her core values), he or she will work through an exercise that serves as a trip down memory lane and identifies key situations/life events that have shaped his or character; reflecting upon these events, the leader identifies theme(s) surrounding those situations.
Step 2: Consider the possibilities of what could be
Using the themes and core values as a strong foundation, the leader then answers a series of questions about the meaning and fulfillment in the work that he or she does.
Step 3: Bring the vision to life
At this point, the leader has a lot of thoughts in his or her head and words on paper. Through a creative, vision-board exercise, the leader brings the vision to life through images, colors, words, etc. This visual helps to tell the story of what it is the leader is creating. The picture below shows a group of leaders who currently went through this process.
As part of a ten-month leadership development initiative at Savvis, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises, leaders spent time articulating their vision for their roles in helping the organization accomplish its goals.
As the business world evolves, development tools evolve to fit the needs of today’s learners. For example, the traditional mentoring relationship with a rigid meeting structure now looks much different, as mentoring occurs virtually and just-in-time. Certainly the traditional mentoring structure is still applicable in some scenarios.
As mentoring has evolved, it is also increasingly confused with other development activities, such as coaching. The challenge with confusing these two disciplines is that when used inappropriately, we miss opportunities to leverage their full potential. Human resources professionals and managers must understand the purpose and desired outcomes for both mentoring and coaching to ensure they are used in the most effective way.
The visual below shows the different focus of mentoring and coaching. Notice that mentoring is more directive—its purpose is knowledge transfer from the mentor to the protégée, so key activities within the mentoring relationship include sharing expertise and offering advice. Coaching is more non-directive, with a focus on eliciting ideas and thoughts from the participant, hence, the focus on asking questions.
I am currently in the midst of a coaching engagement, focused on helping a person transition from individual contributor to leader of a new team within her organization. Specifically, I am coaching her to develop a vision for her team and create a structure that best supports their direction. The essence of the engagement is asking key questions to help her identify what she needs to do; it’s an empowering process. My colleague, Jennifer Rufatto, wrote in a blog about demystifying coaching, “the essence of coaching is helping someone learn to think better.”
Because this manager has the management skills (from previous positions) necessary to lead this group of people, coaching is the most effective development opportunity for her; she is getting what she needs to support her success, and ultimately the organization’s success. Andrea Moore is Senior Consulting Manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals 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 voted for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas deserved a little more attention. Now I get to share 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: Denise K. Pierce, President
DK Pierce & Associates provides strategic and tactical services across the entire drug life cycle and helps their clients navigate the complex healthcare environment. They are experts in sales, marketing, new product development, national account management, and reimbursement planning.
DK Pierce & Associates developed the DKP MARVELous superhero idea to creatively focus on patient access to care. The goal is to explore how their team collaborates, innovates, and takes action to live the company’s mission and values.
Here’s how it works. During a staff meeting, the team designed superhero names for each employee. Here are some examples:
Gray Matter (this person is the “brains” behind the business)
Green Vortex (this person generates business for the company)
Guano Guy (this person goes into “bat cave” mode when focusing on big projects)
Once they finalized names, the team designed each consultant’s background—identifying what makes his or her contributions integral to the business and what essential functions demonstrate the company’s values (in superhero mode, of course).
Now as they plan staff meetings, the team defines the quarterly issue theme and storyline. Each team member uses his or her superhero frame-of-mind to approach client needs and develop heroic solutions.
We think that this unique way of integrating a company’s mission and values makes tactical execution fun . . . and perhaps more importantly, meaningful. In the end, both DK Pierce and the client win.
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 FlashPoint’s Blog so you don’t miss similar posts.
As 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.
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:
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.
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 2nd 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 2nd 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.
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
Blanchard and Hersey, 2001, p.9, Management of Organizational Behavior- 8th edition.
Drucker, 2008, p. xviii, Management- Revised Edition.
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.
Andrea Moore and I had the opportunity to give a presentation during the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference. The topic, Linking Learning and Development to Organizational Strategies, resonated with the audience as evidenced by nodding heads and participation. Perhaps it will strike a chord with you, also.
We’ve summarized the presentation into a brief, six-part video series. Part one is below. Video topics for parts two through six with links to each follow.
Most business leaders understand the value of providing learning and development opportunities to their employees. Because human capital is such a significant investment, it’s important that employees have the knowledge and skills they need to produce quality work. Companies realize this.
What leaders and managers often fail to do, however, is to provide learning and development that aligns with their organization’s strategy. Sometimes the training they provide is haphazard or reactionary; much of it fails to develop abilities that help the company achieve its goals.
For learning and development to be successful, business leaders—along with the professionals who are in charge of designing and delivering it—must move beyond this myopic view. Instead, they must clearly define the organizational strategy and then identify core competencies that employees must develop and demonstrate in order to carry out that strategy. They must then build training that enhances these essential competencies.
What is your company doing well with regard to linking learning and development to organizational strategy? What could it do better?
Within our leadership development initiatives and coaching projects, we spend time helping participants to reframe and get unstuck. The message is always the same . . . rather than spending time complaining about the current situation or wishing it were something different, empower yourself to move forward with positive action. The five questions noted below work like magic . . . they shift your mindset from one of victim to victor over the current situation.
1. What do you want?
In other words, what is your vision? Use your imagination and push yourself to think beyond what is to what could be. If you want something different, you have to focus on what it is you want, not where you are right now.
2. What are you learning?
Those situations that challenge you the most truly do provide the greatest opportunity to learn something about yourself. Through the recognition of growth within the situation, the challenge suddenly becomes more meaningful and you are provided with greater confidence to move forward.
3. What support is available to you?
You are not alone. Regardless of how isolated you may feel, there is always support if you are willing to open your eyes and ask for it.
4. What’s working well?
Be gentle with yourself and remember that you are doing the best you can with what you have where you are. Give yourself credit for the progress you have made, and continually look for ways to leverage your strengths.
5. What can you do to influence the situation?
Given your answers to all of the previous questions, you are ready to take action. While there will certainly be things that are not possible for you, there is always something you can do. Continue to focus on where it is you can influence the situation (regardless of how small the action may be) and watch your vision come to life.
As part of a ten-month leadership development initiative at Savvis, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises, leaders spent time articulating their vision for their roles in helping the organization accomplish its goals.
As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals 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 voted for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas deserved a little more attention. Now I get to share these exciting and innovative programs. My hope is that these “mini case studies” will inspire you and your organization to be innovative!
As 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, 
I can list several things that I love about my role at FlashPoint, but working in a culture that supports and encourages us to 
Within our 
