Special Note: When this post went live, some of the links were not working.  That has now been corrected.  All links are working properly.

I am very excited to announce the release of 2 new books I’ve compiled this summer!

The first is a collection of wisdom for every professional entitled: Wisdom@Work – Insights for 21st Century Worklife Success. Get more info. or order – click here: https://www.createspace.com/3456926

The second is The 1% Edge – Strategies to Increase Your Management Effectiveness. There are 2 releases here. One is the handbook and the other is the workbook counterpart which is the expanded version with a series of coaching questions for each. The handbook is available now. To learn more or buy – click here: https://www.createspace.com/3467099

With this new announcement also comes sharing an exciting change related to this blog. This blog will now be replaced with a new blog related to the new book – The 1% Edge. It will serve as the interactive counterpart to the book for supporting information and a place/forum for purchasers of the book to share experiences and best practices as they apply the principles of the book – in essense to build a community of managers to support their professional efforts.

The blog is open to everyone: www.the1percentedge.blogspot.com.

Even if you’re not a manager with a title, it will additionally have tips to help you gain your 1% edge for career management success!

This blog will be ending in the next few months.

Again:

For practical coaching, tips, advice for career and management success visit: www.the1percentedge.blogspot.com

For commentary on currents news and trends related to leadership, career, and management – go to

www.leadership-careerandmanagement.blogspot.com

To your success!

JoAnn

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As companies continue to invest in the training of their employees there still seems to be some key elements missing to insure there is a meaningful return on investment. The key employee training component that impacts several other key components is this – a learning rhythm.

Consider the definition of rhythm: a regularly recurrent quantitative change. Rhythm implies ongoing, consistent, and reliable.

In reflecting on these three qualities, ask yourself does your own professional learning include those qualities?  Additionally, does any employee training or management training contain those qualities?  The answer for many companies is no!

Professional development to be truly effective, to get real results must have these components.  Here are some practical considerations:

1. At the beginning of each week, decide on your focus for the week.

2. Determine what resource(s) you will use to add to your current knowledge around the area of focus. A resource could be a book, audio, blog post, or article.

3. Set aside and commit to a certain time each day (this a secondary rhythm) that you give attention to the area.  The good news, it doesn’t have to be that much time.  Even 5 minutes is useful.

4. In that time, take in new information and think about times, ways, situations to which you can apply what you’re learning. You can also decide on key information that you repeatedly review everyday. Repetition, particularly spaced repetition is also a necessary component in adult learning and employee training.

5. Keep a learning notebook.  There is something about writing that helps to reinforce the learning experience.

So why is rhythm necessary and powerful?  Rhythm helps to engage the brain in such a way as to create a complete sensory experience engaging us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  That repeated multiple sensory experience begins to build sensory memory which accelerates development towards the desire behavior change. This ultimately builds a habit.  A habit, as we know, is permanent behavior change and isn’t that what training is really all about?….turning knowledge into know how?… and isn’t know how tangible behavior?

Coaching Question: Can you identify tangible outcomes from the learning your experiencing?  Whether it’s from a book or seminar how are you practically integrating what you’re learning into your real time experience?

Two areas of changes to look for: change in thought and/or change in behavior – one precedes the other.

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Expand Your Understanding of This Post – you can access additional learning bites at the links provided.

1. Thought impacts behavior – http://joanncorleyspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/11/tfb.html

2. The Power of Focus – focus-article

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Related to performance success, this is essential and I want to recommend a method that is a twist on the more traditional ways of approaching this.

To follow is a link to an assessment tool called – Annual Portfolio Evaluation.  What is unique about this assessment approach is the human part of the equation commonly known as our strengths and weaknesses is now reframed as an ASSEST OR LIABILITY, which is the language used on a company balance sheet and other company resources.

I think that this is the key advantage to using this approach.  You and those you use this with can feel a greater sense of responsibility to what you can contribute, in essence the value you and members of your team bring to an organization.  Framing it this way vs. “strength and weakness,” adds a whole new dimension to working in the context of human resource. In fact many use the word human capital vs. human resource.

This also can be used in developing a Personal Development Plan or integrating the information into any development program currently being used in any organization.

Conversely, there is something called a “liability.”  A liability is explained in Websters a follows:
3 : one that acts as a disadvantage : drawback.

This is a useful way of helping somone see that what would otherwise be considered a weakness is actually a cost.  The message is stronger – that behavior or lack of skill is costing you and the company.  There is a cost. As somone who runs my own firm, I am keenly aware of what weaknesses I have and how they tangibly translate into costing me money. Each employee needs to constructively feel that on some level.

This message and experience is much stronger than, “you’ve got a weakness.”

I recommend you download the free assessment sheet above and give it a whirl.  Got any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact me at joann@joanncorley.com

To your success! JoAnn

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Now before you go feeling overwhelmed, consider coaching someone to be initially a shift in thinking.  Coaching is really about the way you relate to someone in a strategic way.  It means that discussions are more purposeful and targeted.

There has been much written about blocks to manager allow themselves to “take on coaching” in their professional development.  That view makes it appear and feel like a burden.

For now, let’s start here with this high-impact principle: Coaching is not necessarily something you do, but who you are.

So in the context of let’s say adding coaching to your regular management practices it can be seen simply as having regular conversations and being consistent:

Here’s a useful explanation from the management blog, The Performance Improvement:

“The manager who communicates regularly that he needs noticeably improved performance from his directs and then provides guidance on how to do so and then measures their progress is going to noticeably outperform the manager who does not.

Their point is that the regularity of these conversations and the focus on specific performance outcomes are what bring about change. When everyone makes coaching a “small, habitual routine,” it will become part of the culture of the organization. (and…these are my words…a part of the relating rapport between the manager and team member…and THIS is the most important piece to effective management).

I believe that at that point it doesn’t have to be called “coaching” anymore; it’s just something that happens as part of brief, weekly conversations between managers and their direct reports for the purpose of improving performance and achieving the organization’s strategic goals.”

This is a good explanation. There are other points made in that post that are worth a read, so here is the link: The Performance Improvement

Coaching Tip: Evaluate the functions of coaching in your current management style. What is your attitude around this function or style.  What could use improvement? Do your team members feel “coached?”  What are the qualities of an effective coach?

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One of the key competencies to management success is the ability to manage not only individuals, but the collective team. Some call it “team work management.” Other descriptions include team performance management or team work management. No matter what you call it…the bottom line is it does impact a company’s bottom line! Team success equals a company success.

I like the phrase, “team work management,” which I saw in an article on this topic. A link to the complete article is included at the end of this post.

For this post, I wanted to draw attention to it’s definition and some of the components mentioned in the article that are necessary for successful team performance management.

Please note – this is a skill!!…and an absolutely necessary skill to be a competent and complete manager.

Team management is in essence the optimization of manpower to attain results. Individuals with complimentary skills together form teams, which (hopefully in synergy) strive to attain specific results. Though the priorities might be different for different business entities the end result of team management would always be to increase the profitability of the organization.

I’m going to share the 4 core components included in the article and add comments.  Here they are:

1.  Clarity of vision – I call this going from “me to we.”  Each team member has a conscious and unconscious agenda that drives how they behave within the group and how they prioritize their work.  I have a cool “team building in a box” exercise in my workshops that helps team members make the critical shift from me to we.  This is one of the positive elements of group think.

2.  Selecting the right personnel – Better, targeted hiring is essential to a productive team. To do so,  are you clear on what qualities and skills are necessary for the success of each role within the team, which then directly impacts the success of the team?

This philosophy by the way is a management best practice and is researched and discussed in the book “Good to Great.”  This book is a must read for every management professional.  Don’t have it in your library? – you can get it here: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

3. Holistic approach – see the team in the context of the entire company and how it is specifically contributing to key company objectives. The article terms it this way, “drive the various departments as a single unit. There will be scores of departments in organizations and to attain their proposed objectives these units need to work in tandem by overlooking the boundaries to ensure better coordination and results.” This of course requires great collaboration between the leaders of these departments.

4.Team accountability – as a compliment to touching base one-on-one with individual members, creating ongoing  team and public accountability in the context of team goal setting and reporting meetings is the bow that wraps all the other components together and supercharges productivity.

A key reason for why effective team management needs to be apart of every managers capabilities portfolio can be found in this 2 minute lesson from Management-in-Minutes – entitled “Team Management – The Power of the Group,” which you can  access here.

Finally, obviously this post does not exhaust the topic, but serves as a great springboard for personal assessment and an initial checklist.

Coaching Tip: Where are you at with your knowledge in this area and what practices do you have in place that supports these productivity components?

Also, you may want to have someone come in and springboard your team synergy with some team facilitation.  I am happy to do that as well. Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss – joann@joanncorley.com

Here is the link to the full article from which this post was sourced.
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As a former career coach, I would spend many hours preparing job candidates for interviews.  We all have that list…right… the one that says these are the questions you to which we should definitely have the answers.

Creative, zanny off beat questions are an interesting compliment to behavior interviewing.

How about throwing that candidate off on purpose? In reality asking questions they are unprepared for will go a long way in getting more honest answers and gaining some insight into their personality.

Here’s a few to consider and hey, put your creative twist on these:

—What will your colleagues miss most about you when you leave?

—What about work reminds you most about what you hated in school?

—If you worked in a big glass fish bowl, what would you do differently?

—What would your company be liked if you never worked there?

—What proverb best captures the essence of your current organization!

—What’s your idea of a utopian workplace? (Ok…if they know what utopian means…that should count for something!)

Note: some of these are sourced from the book 75 Cage Rattling Questions, by Dick Whitney

You can access the book at this link:
75 Cage Rattling Questions to Change the Way You Work: Shake-Em-Up Questions to Open Meetings, Ignite Discussion, and Spark Creativity

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Though this article was written sometime ago, I think it flew under the radar for some time.  I’d like to resurrect it.  At the end of this post you’ll find the link to the full story.

The headline? Why Zappos Offers New Hires $2,000 to Quit. Now at first blush you might be thinking…what?…it cost me money to hire them and now I’m going to pay more money to let them go…encourage them to leave?

This thought begs an essential question regarding profitable management and here it is, “How much does it cost to keep an employee who is underperforming, has proven to not be a good fit, has proven to not be coachable and is now disruptive?”  Might I suggest way more than $2,000.00. If nothing else think of the ripple effect on fellow team members and their productivity.

The cost is more explicitly spelled out in a study conducted by The Future Foundation. You can find the key findings via an article at this link. The Hidden Cost of Poor People Performance. It worth your time to read!

It’s been my experience as I’ve connected with thousands of managers across North America, that it is a very common practice to keep these kind of employee way too long!  Now there are many reasons for that, but the point is it’s happening more than it should and it absolutely does hurt a companies bottom line as well as the morale of the direct reports and fellow team members.

In this new economy where there is a crying need to be innovative in all areas of business practice, more innovation regarding this people part of business is essential as well.

I am going to consider this a potential best practice.  Here is the link to the full article: Full Article

Coaching tip: See how this practice can be implemented or modified in some way or see how the spirit of the practice can be applied in your situation.

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