Investing in Leadership Futures

Don’t Change Everything, Start with 1%

Learning today that we will be presenting at a leadership development conference in Argentina in June, 2012, made me immediately think, of course, of a great grilled steak (for which Argentina is famous for).  Our topic? Inviting disruptive change into one’s professional life in the spirit of leadership innovation.  Steak and innovation.  What better chance to share a few coaching lessons learned from my own journey as a novice grillmaster: 

 

4 Legal Leadership Strategies to Build In-house Legal Capability

4 Legal Leadership Strategies to Build In-house Legal Capability by Dirk Baxter, PhD SPHR and Karen Steadman, PhD

Having the right in-house legal counsel team is an increasingly important facet of a successful talent strategy, however it is often neglected.  If your organization’s current state consists of what would be considered the bare minimum [individual PDPs (personal development plans), career planning meetings individually every 6-12 months, and recruiting for technical expertise], you might be in for some bad news.  The complexity of the modern market and political landscape requires a more agile and interpersonally savvy legal team than previous scenarios.  Here are four strategies that legal leadership should incorporate to help increase the team’s capability.

“All for One, and One for all” - A Musketeer’s Challenge for Team Alignment by Dr. Dirk Baxter and Dr. Karen Steadman

Alexandre Dumas wrote a classic tale on the adventures of d'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a guard of the musketeers. Throughout their adventures, the Musketeers lived by the motto  "all for one, one for all", and this creed was their foundation. Through this value, regardless of trial, they knew they were not alone and were able to focus as a team aligned to their purpose.

Part II – Always Play your Best Hand – More Leadership Lessons for Raising your Game - Dr. Karen Steadman and Dr. Dirk Baxter

 
Our last article with leadership lessons from the world of poker resonated with so many people (leaders and poker players alike), here are a few more lessons to raise your game at work.  

Always Play your Best Hand: 3 Lessons from Poker for Raising your Leadership Game – Dr. Dirk Baxter and Dr. Karen Steadman

Watching poker tournaments is a fascinating lesson in human behavior.  While new and amateur players believe luck has a lot to do with winning, professionals approach poker exactly the opposite - every hand is an opportunity to play their best.   Every move is a conscious decision including folding when appropriate.  Lucky breaks are capitalized rather than anticipated.  The game is often long, the stakes high, and one cannot afford to drift in and out “hoping” for the best outcome.    In the world of work, many successful leaders have a similar focus – a balance of routine, high engagement levels, and the ability to take calculated risks that are far from haphazard.   Mike Caro, the “Mad Genius” of poker who is not only a professional player, but a behavioralist and casino executive as well, outlines lessons that transcend Texas Hold ‘Em.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Most of Your Profit comes from Borderline Decisions: Most poker winnings (and prevention of loss) come from borderline decisions –

Assessing Leaders Who Might Make Bad Decisions by Dr. Karen Steadman

I have a friend in the mortgage industry who shared the following sentiment with me about refinancing:

“Do not try to use common sense to understand this process, there is none of that in our industry at the moment.  The mantra in our industry is “rules over risk” which means that they are not concerned whether your loan represents a risk or not, it is all about whether we are able to meet the guidelines.”

Rules over risk?  This approach concerns me. 

Successful Consensus Building: Modern day Leaders vs. Bees

What do economists, social scientists, money market specialists, management consultants and animal biologists have in common?  They are all searching to understand what makes collective decision-making go right or wrong and advise on ways to more often and more quickly “get it right”.   This recent economic crisis has brought many examples to the forefront where speed, greed, and a lack of inputs produced disastrous results. For a few tips let’s look to emerging research on bees who have apparently been making pretty darn good decisions for about 30 million years.

As a group, bees rarely make mistakes.   On their own they typically don’t survive.    True, they aren’t necessarily tasked with negotiating climate treaties, achieving profitable numbers every quarter or hedging the diminishing sources for oil.  However, expert Tom Seeley, author of soon to be released book Honeybee Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2010), believes their success should not be discounted by modern day leaders.  He has improved his own faculty meetings by studying the behavior of bees stating “We’ve all been in committee meetings where agreement was never reached because nobody would ever give up”.   Apparently, bees know when to fight for a cause and when to let their personal enthusiasm wane to build consensus…..most often for a superb result. 

The following “swarm smarts” I adapted from Seeley's work are helpful for leaders to keep in mind when trying to build consensus and make decisions:

*Avoid groupthink and allow for argument – contrary to popular belief, bees do not just follow each other blindly nor do they follow one opinion (not even the queen’s).   When bees are seeking options they encourage individuals to research on their own, “report freely and argue.”  For example, numerous experienced scouts are encouraged to seek new opportunities and report back many options for all to sift through.   Too often leaders stifle conversation and diversity of opinion because they have already made their decision and are merely going through the motions of listening to options.    This approach may seem like a shorter route but it more often leads to a much worse result including reduced inputs to the leader over time.

*Adapt when needed - when the alarm is sounded bees rapidly shift course by lowering their threshold levels to make a decision and agreeing to reduce deliberation time.  They encourage argument if possible but, when necessary:  stop arguing, rapidly assess what is a “must have” vs. a “nice to have” for the group, and move forward.   They adjust later when they can fully assess the situation and incorporate the learning for next time.   How many leaders wait too long working in the wrong direction and fail to adapt while in search for the perfect solution?

*Know your audience and communicate clearly – The rare time when bees fail is when a “must have” is known but the failed bee does not tailor the message to the audience and is handily ignored.  In one instance cited, the bee dances furiously but others only see noise and frantic action rather than a clear, easily defined recommendation.   Leaders who rant and dramatize rather than present the facts may lose their audience just when they need it the most.  The hive goes in a different direction.

Earlier this year, a special multidisciplinary conference came together to analyze decision making in everything from voting patterns and alliance building in European Parliament to the rapid search capabilities of ants.   I would have loved to be a fly on the wall.

Investing in What Matters: Linking Employees to Business Outcomes

Today, we dive into the world of analytics and human capital in an interview with my colleagues Shane Douthitt and Scott Mondore from Strategic Management Decisions (SMD). Always in search of wise investments, I believe the power of analytics is key to solving today and tomorrow's business challenges ...I find it very interesting that as I post this interview, IBM announces their purchase of SPSS - predictive analytics software.    In my interview, SMD shares their deep expertise in developing human capital strategies based on analytics linking employee data to business outcomes as recently published in their book "Investing in What Matters: Linking Employees to Business Outcomes"

 

 

*What is the main theme of the book and your work?

We provide a structured approach for human resource (HR) professionals to instruct corporations how to use solid analytics to connect employee data to business outcomes. "Investing in what matters" uses a case study approach to help organizations use the data they have to transform their workforce into their biggest asset. 

 

*What experiences compelled you to write this book?

We have worked as internal HR executives, external HR consultants as well as corporate strategy executives and line-of-business leaders. We have seen HR from all angles and have had great success over the past 15 years in these roles applying our methodology to show the value of what we were doing in HR. We wanted to write this book to help HR leaders become true business partners and show the value of the work we have dedicated our careers to...

 

 

*How is your work with HR data unique compared to everything else that has come before it?  What are the differentiators?

To date, the work that is out there is based on assumptions and weak analytical techniques.   The work on HR Scorecards focuses on efficiency metrics and employee engagement—none of which are business outcomes. Efficiency metrics are strictly for functions that are viewed as cost-centers who can only show value by cutting their budgets. This does not have to be a soft science...far from it. Our approach is a simple, practical way to take the vast amounts of HR data that already exist in organizations (training, surveys, competencies, demographics) and link them to actual business outcome data that shows cause-and-effect relationships. This allows HR leaders to show a monetary impact on the business and to also be held accountable for the business reaching its goals. This is what is truly meant by getting a “seat at the table”.

 

*Can you give us an example of a company that followed your advice and has realized gains in their investment?

A large grocery chain was losing $93 million dollars a year in losses called ‘shrink’ (e.g. employee theft, food losses, spoilage). The company had worked on their supply chain and distribution issues with some impact. However, the head of the shrink initiative realized that changes in behavior was the one area that would yield the greatest benefits. We implemented our methodology which pulled in all of the HR data and we discovered specific competencies, attitudes and hiring process issues that were directly driving shrink. The organization implemented initiatives to work on these specific areas and are now already ahead of the total annual plan for the year (and it’s only July).

 

*What are some "a-ha's" from your experience that drive the advice you provide to organizations:

We have ten principles in the book that help frame the next steps:

1. Organizations already spend significant amounts of money on their people….they just don’t spend it on the right things.
2. Organizations make investments in people without any data or with the wrong data.
3. Employee engagement in itself is not a business outcome.
4. People and organizations are complex. The linkages between attitudes and outcomes have to be understood within your organization using your data.
5. The people data and outcome data do exist—you just have to go and get it.
6. The organization’s data exist in silos.
7. There will be obstacles and barriers to obtaining the data (e.g. politics, turf battles).
8. Once a connection/linkage is made with the data—accountability is unavoidable (and that’s a good thing).
9. Don’t assume a link between employee data and business outcomes—define it and understand why or why not.
10. Perceptions alone do not show up on the profit and loss statement.

*Considering everything that businesses are handling at the moment, why is linking employees to business outcomes even more critical right now?

Our work outlines a process that organizations can follow to connect investments in employees to the bottom line. In the current slow economy, as organizations have been looking to cut expenses--our approach allows them to make people investment decisions based on cause-and-effect and ROI analyses. However, this should be done no matter the shape of the economy as HR, to this point, has struggled to show a return on investment.

 

In other words, there is never a better time than the present to invest wisely for the future.

 

For more from Scott and Shane, please see www.strategicmanagementdecisions.com