Dear Madeleine,

It’s the new year. All my friends and colleagues are talking about New Year’s resolutions. I got nothin’.

I am plugging away at my work goals, but they don’t change much. I like my job. I am good at it. I am not gunning for a promotion. I go to the gym and eat right. I pay my bills. I stay in touch with my family. I like my friends, and we get together and have fun. I am fine with everything else in my life.

I am just questioning the obsession with constantly needing to set new goals to get better. Is it me? What am I missing?

Bah Humbug

____________________________________________________________________

Dear Bah Humbug,

You’re fine. You can give yourself permission to enjoy the life you have created for yourself, which sounds very nice, indeed.

This “New Year, New Me!” time of year is a chance for people who want a change to tap into the collective psychic energy for inspiration and motivation to do something difficult. Maybe it’s something they’ve tried to do in the past and haven’t had success with.

There is no law that says you have to be constantly improving starting the first week in January. You’ll know when you are ready for a change, and it might be in June of 2027.

My point is that it will be there for you when you are ready.

Love, Madeleine

PS: For those who are resolved to make change now, here’s some advice I gave an earlier reader: Not Sure about New Year’s Resolutions? Ask Madeleine

And for those focusing on work goals, check out some advice I shared in a recent article: From Vision to Achievement: How Clear Goals Drive Performance

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

It’s a timeless truth that bears repeating: Good leadership starts with a vision. Why? Because leadership is about going somewhere. If you don’t know where you’re going, your leadership doesn’t matter. Great leaders understand this and mobilize others by coalescing them around a shared vision.

A compelling vision will help you and your team get focused, stay energized, and achieve results. Your vision will also keep everyone going during times of adversity.

Can a Team or Department Create a Vision When a Company Doesn’t Have One?

Yes! Vision can start anywhere. You don’t have to wait for the rest of the organization.

Creating Your Team Vision

There are three aspects to a compelling vision: your purpose, your picture of the future, and your values. If you are a team leader, help your team create a team vision by working together to define and establish these three elements.

Purpose.  To begin, start by asking, “What is our team’s reason for existence?” Your team’s purpose will answer this question.

When writing your team’s purpose, don’t simply describe your roles and activities. For example, if you’re in the automobile business, don’t say, “Our team exists to sell cars.” That purpose is hardly inspiring. Take a cue from Tesla, whose purpose isn’t simply to sell cars; it’s “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Notice how those words inspire excitement and commitment? An inspiring purpose makes work meaningful and fun. It also helps everyone stay the course when things get tough.

Picture of the Future. What is your team’s picture of the future? What do you want to be true in the future that is not true today? Picture the end result of your efforts.

Your team’s picture of the future should be something you can actually see when you close your eyes. Don’t define your picture of the future in vague terms, such as “being great.” Use precise words that bring an image to mind. Walt Disney’s picture of the future for his theme parks was to “keep the same smile on people’s faces when they leave the park as when they enter.”

As you and your team work together on your picture of the future, keep it positive. Focus on what you want to create, not what you want to get rid of.

Finally, don’t get bogged down in describing the process for getting to your envisioned future. Just focus on a visual image of the end result.

Values. Values are deeply held beliefs that certain qualities are desirable. They define what is right or fundamentally important to your team. They provide guidelines for decisions and actions.

What will be the core values by which your team operates? Here is a small sampling of some values you might consider: integrity, knowledge/expertise, accountability, success, relationships, kindness, humor, creativity, innovation, dependability, service to others. There are countless others.

To determine your team’s values, answer the question, “How will we behave on a day-to-day basis?” Then describe the behaviors that demonstrate what that value looks like when it is being lived.

Be careful not to select too many values. Zero in on a maximum of six. Also, your values must be rank ordered to be effective. Why? Because life is about value conflicts. When conflicts arise, people need to know which value gets the highest priority.

Once your team has agreed on the shared values, it’s up to you as the team leader to model these values in your behavior and to encourage the other team members to do the same.

A Worthwhile Investment

Teams with a shared vision work in harmony and generate positive energy that creates extraordinary results.  These are the teams that others notice, admire, and emulate. If your team is working without a vision, take the time to create one. It’s an investment you won’t regret.

Editor’s Note: For a deeper discussion of vision and how it can focus and energize your team, read Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life by Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner.

Dear Madeleine,

I hate New Year’s resolutions and I don’t feel like making any this year. I have had some success with them in the past, but this year I just feel overwhelmed with everything I have on my plate. Still, I feel so much pressure to make some.

What do you think?

Cranky

Dear Cranky,

I’m with you. Forget it. No NYR’s for 2020. None. Zip. Nada. ZERO. Okay?

Where is this pressure coming from? Your community? Family? Work? Your own self? Does it matter? No, it doesn’t. The pressure is totally manufactured.

Sometimes you just have to let things go. Set a new goal, go for a new habit, stop something bad, or start something good when you are good and ready and not a moment sooner.

Look, the whole construct is totally made up. Completely and totally made up. You can do whatever you want. The gift of NYR’s are that they inform you of what is really important to you.

For example, if you set the same resolution every year—let’s hear it for ”lose 10 pounds!”—it is data. It tells you that you care about it, you cared last year, and you still care this year. Unless right now, you don’t. I am still working on resolutions I originally set for January 1, 2000 because they are still important to me. I have absolutely mastered one out of the three, but they all still matter, and I still care. But it is just information. That’s all.

The number one reason people don’t achieve their goals is that they have too many of them. So. let it go, Cranky, you are off the hook. I said so.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am so frustrated with myself. At the beginning of the year I set a whole bunch of goals. Then Q1 whooshed by and guess what I have done? Nothing. I stayed really focused for about two weeks and then forgot all about my resolutions.

One of my big goals was to have regular one on ones with everyone on my team, and it just isn’t happening. Something always seems to get in the way.

I feel like such a loser. I am never going to be the manager I want to be. I am racing around like a squirrel and everything seems like the most important nut. How can I reset and be successful?

Need to Try Again

Need to Try Again,

I love your metaphor. I can really relate! I’m so sorry you feel like a loser, though. I can sense the downward spiral you’re in.

The first order of business is to reverse the spiral so you can start thinking straight and get yourself back on track. To do this, make a quick list of every way you are winning—things you’re doing well, projects that are going according to plan, tasks you’re great at, goals you’re reaching, goals your direct reports are achieving. I’ll bet it’s a decent list.

The main reason you feel terrible is that you aren’t winning at some new goals. Just ponder on that for a moment. Then, if you’re still feeling like a loser, add to the list all the things you’re grateful for. It will literally change your brain chemistry.

Now let’s take a look at those new goals. How many are there? I’ll bet you an acorn you have too many. The number two reason people don’t achieve their goals is that they have too many of them. The number one reason is that they set unspecific, unclear goals.

I challenge you to choose one goal. Only one. Let’s go ahead and choose having regular one on ones with your people, since you brought it up. You may decide to choose something else on your list, but you can use this thought process.

Ask yourself: What is driving your desire to do this? What makes it important right now? Are you sure your people even want one-on-one meetings with you? What will the benefit be for them? For you? Decide for yourself what a good job looks like—how will you know you’re successful?

Then get support—who can help you with this? The obvious choice for this is your people. Ask your direct reports to take responsibility for their own one on ones. They can each put their own regular time on your calendar or otherwise make sure the meeting gets scheduled.

Finally, once you decide you’re going to commit, then really commit. Once the one on ones are scheduled, they are sacred. Nothing gets scheduled over them. (Okay, we all know that probably isn’t going to work, but you make sure the meeting gets rescheduled.) If you schedule them for every week, nobody will mind if you end up having to miss one, or even two. Then at least your people get two one on ones in a 30-day period, which maybe isn’t ideal but it isn’t bad—and it’s a lot better than none.

Take 7 minutes at the beginning and the end of each week and review your calendar to make sure those one on ones are there, and move them if needed. If you start feeling overwhelmed, remind yourself of why you decided to schedule them in the first place.

Now you can see how much work it is just to get on track with one thing—and you had a whole laundry list! No wonder it didn’t work. Get one thing nailed down, whatever it is. Get it into your daily actions, and at a certain point you will not be able to remember a time when you didn’t do it. Then you can add something else.

Calm down, take three deep breaths and choose. One thing. You can do this.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

What is your opinion about New Year’s resolutions? I have a list of goals as long as my arm for the New Year, and I realize I am probably overdoing it. How do I know how much is enough, and how much is too much?

Feeling Ambitious

________________________________________________________________________

Dear Feeling Ambitious,

There is something so inspiring about the feeling of a fresh start, isn’t there? But we know good intentions alone aren’t going to get us where we want to go. A ton of research has been done on the topic of goal setting and achievement. The newest entry to the field is from Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit. His most recent book, Smarter, Faster, Better, is a fairly standard take on the topic but fresh for today. To be fair, though, he stands on the shoulders of Steven Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) and Hyrum Smith (The 10 Natural Laws of Time and Life Management). These two books caused me to radically change my life twenty-five years ago. Both Covey and Smith insist that every choice you make must be rooted in your deepest values in order for you to be successful. For example, losing weight won’t work if you are doing it to please someone else. A goal must be important to you or you are not likely to accomplish it.  

Here are a few quick tips if you aren’t up for a stack of books—although a little Googling will uncover many good summaries!

• Pick one big thing. Probably the main reason people don’t achieve their goals—other
  than lack of deep personal commitment—is that they have set too many. So your angst
  that you may be loading up on goals is probably spot on. As you swing back to
  normal after a big holiday season, you are already behind, so you must manage
  your own expectations. Choose one big thing and let the rest go.
• Get Support. Lots of it. Change is hard, no matter what it is—and if you’re
  trying to break an addiction like nicotine or sugar, it is doubly hard. The
  brain craves anything that causes a predictable release of dopamine, so you’ll
  need more support than you think you do. Tapering off can help, as can support
  groups, a buddy, keeping a journal, daily acknowledgment, or asking for help
  from your guardian angel or whatever you know to be your higher power.
• Break it Down. You have one big goal. Break it down into small sub-goals or daily
  commitments. Ask yourself: What can I do,
  every day, to keep myself on track? Make a chart and check off something every
  day. (I’m sure there’s an app for this, but I’m committed to reducing my screen
  time, so I go with paper.)
• Be Clear.
  You may have heard of the SMART model—it’s been around for years and still offers
  good guidelines for goal setting. Here’s the way I learned it: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timebound. Other interpretations for the model exist but I won’t go into a long analysis here, because so many have done it so well. Again, Google can shed more light on this if you’re interested.

I mention the SMART model because I have observed in myself and in my coaching clients that specificity has tremendous power, and so does a timeline. It’s fairly easy to set a SMART goal with something like losing weight, because we can use numbers. With other things, it can get foggy. So specificity and clarity are key. For example, “I want to get better at my job” is not going to help you. “I am going to achieve ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on the following three competencies at my job” will take you much further.

Note: before you start, you must ask yourself: How will I know I am successful in the end? You can only really celebrate your success if you have answered this question in the beginning.

• Make it Compelling: Now let’s loop back to my first point, which is that you really
  have to care about doing the work to
  achieve your goal. You can’t do it for your spouse, your kids, your dad, or
  anyone else, no matter how much you care about them. So, choose something you really, really want. It doesn’t matter
  if it isn’t a big deal to anyone else, or if it isn’t going to make you a
  better person. If you really care, there is a chance you will succeed.

I will leave you now so that I can decide how to be nicer, more productive, a more patient mom, a more inspiring boss, thinner, healthier, and a more committed recycler. I only wish I were kidding.

Here’s to miracles for all of us in the New Year!

Love, Madeleine

PS. I was kidding. Kind of. But seriously, my big goal in 2019 is for this “Ask Madeleine” column to be more widely read. So I am asking for your support. If you like my column, please share it every week with three (3) other people whom you think would like it. Thank you so much!

About the author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

In working with clients on setting One Minute Goals, Blanchard would often have managers and their direct reports identify their top five goals separately and then compare them.

As Ken Blanchard tells it, “Any similarity between the two lists was purely coincidental—especially later in the year.” In most cases, the work priorities were rank ordered quite differently by manager and direct report, with some important goals missing.

Digging into causes, Blanchard found that a day-to-day emphasis by managers on tasks that were urgent, but not necessarily important, was often to blame. Managers tended to focus on short-term issues when delivering feedback, which caused important long-term goals to fade into the background. Only when performance review came around were the long-term goals reidentified. Of course, by then it was often too late to make any real progress. The result was missed targets and, often, hard feelings.

Don’t let this happen with your team. In addition to setting clear goals at the beginning of the year, take some time, at least quarterly, to check in on what you are emphasizing as urgent.  Maybe priorities have changed.  Maybe the goals are outdated.

Good goal setting is not a once-a-year process.  In the best organizations, goals are reviewed on a regular basis and updated as needed.  Once goals are set, be sure to continually manage and review performance to stay on track throughout the year.

Dear Madeleine,

I have not once in my life kept a New Year’s resolution. And yet, here I am once again thinking about all I want to accomplish and feeling demoralized. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? How can I be successful this year? Does anyone ever succeed at sticking to a resolution? Help!

New Year’s Loser

Dear New Year’s Loser,

I am glad you asked this question because I have an explicit opinion on this topic. There is a lot of research on New Year’s resolutions. You can Google it—but for all intents and purposes no one really sticks to New Year’s resolutions. Okay, maybe 8 percent of people do, but my guess is that’s even a stretch. The whole thing is a nasty set up to ensure we all start the year feeling terrible about ourselves.

I say, let’s cut it out. No goals in 2017. None.

NO GOALS for 2017.

Wait. What? “That’s crazy!” you argue. “I have to set goals or I will never achieve anything and I will wake up in three years sitting in this exact chair with this exact life.” Not true. Life has a way of carrying you along and will provide plenty of occasions for you to rise to. And you will rise to these occasions by committing to becoming more effective, nicer, better organized, or by learning something new.

Life will provide you with many reasons to change. You will lose weight or go to the gym when you get sick of not fitting into any of your clothes or when your doctor says you have to. You will quit that terrible habit (smoking, running late, watching “Real Housewives” shows) when you are so compelled that you will get help from any possible corner—your family, your friends, a support group, a clinic, or all of the above.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that we always choose the things that are hardest to do—the stuff we have already failed at, often several times. So now we are actually conditioned to fail at those things.

The only way to change that mindset and break the pattern is to set New Year’s resolutions that are fun and easy. Seriously. Some of my most successful resolutions have been exactly that. For example:

• Never stand in a line if I can help it
• Drink good champagne any time I get the chance
• Spend a minimum of five minutes a day rolling around on the floor with my dogs

You will set a goal to do something new, different, and difficult when you are good and ready to do it and not a moment sooner. In the meantime, find something fun and easy to commit to in 2017. Easy means, well, not hard. Effortless. Something that is literally so easy and pleasant that you will actually do it.  And only one thing. I mean, you have enough going on.

Try it. Win at your New Year’s Resolution this time. And do it again next year. Do it every year. You won’t believe how this can add up to a life filled with joy, amusement and pleasure. And really, what more could we ask for?

Happy New Year and Love,

Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

How about you? Is there anything about yourself that you want to change for the better in 2017?

If so, here are some suggestions I picked up from Ken Blanchard about keeping my commitment to my good intentions. I know they will help me.  See if they might help you also.

1. Write your goals down. Research shows that people who write down their goals accomplish significantly more than people who do not write their goals. As Ken shares, “In the working environment, writing goal statements is a common practice. However, many times when people are setting personal goals, they think about what they want to do but they don’t write anything down.”
2. Review your goals on a regular basis. Ken suggests reviewing goals each morning and reflecting on how you did each evening. “Give yourself the gift of thinking about your day for a few minutes. What did you do during the day that was consistent with your resolutions, and what got in the way?”
3. Ask others to help you stay on track. We all need help accomplishing our goals. Find an accountability partner—someone you can check in with on a regular basis. “Accomplishing the goal is usually more difficult than we think it will be, yet we rarely ask for help from others who can support us. Be systematic about checking in with your helpers. Set up a specific time each week to talk about how you are progressing. This can be as simple as a ten-minute phone call or even a quick text.”

In 2017, I will be more patient and loving, and will embrace the curve balls life throws my way. I won’t sweat the small things in life and I’ll trust that the big things will work themselves out. I plan to be more centered on who I am, not on what others think of me. I’m not interested in being someone else’s perception of what they want me to be. I want to be a better version of myself.

Okay, step 1 accomplished—writing goals down—now on to steps 2 and 3!

Why don’t you take a minute to reflect over the year and ask yourself who you will be in 2017.

Now take your first step!

My client expressed reservations about goal setting. In the past he had articulated a vision for what he and his business would accomplish, but then a lot of interesting things happened that resulted in his taking his business in a completely different, wonderful direction. He said he didn’t want to be penned in.

And you know what? I totally understand that. When I first learned about goal setting, I had the same reaction: so many of the extraordinary things in my life seemed to happen by magic.

But since I learned about goal setting, I have accomplished much more than I could have imagined. And I have seen the way the universe seems to line up behind people who communicate a clear vision and set specific goals to get them moving toward its realization.

So how to deal with this feeling of being hemmed in?

Well, first, set big goals. If your goals are big enough, there should be no reason to feel hemmed in by them. James Cameron says “If you set your goals ridiculously high, and fail, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” This has certainly been my experience.

For example, I set a goal to write and publish a New York Times bestseller. So I wrote a book and got it published. It was not a New York Times bestseller, despite the best efforts of my co-author and me. But I wrote a darn book. And got it published. That is so much better than not writing a book.

Second, if you still have the feeling you might be limiting yourself—or the universe—there is a little trick you can use to manage that feeling. I learned it from my colleague Cheryl Richardson.

Next to each goal that you create, write: This, or something better.

This statement acknowledges that, although you take full responsibility for creating great things in your life and are the captain of your own ship, you are open to any ideas and assistance that may come your way. It opens the door for happy accidents and pleasant surprises. It means you don’t always have to have all the answers—that answers sometimes come from somewhere else.

I cannot explain why it is so, I just know that clarity of purpose and action are rewarded. Confusion and inaction are not. So set an almost-ridiculous goal—and then say This or something better. Get moving. Anything is possible.

About the Author

Madeleine Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Most leaders stink at setting goals.

Why? It’s pretty simple actually: We confuse tasks with goals.

To illustrate my point, take a look at these statements and see if you can determine which are goals and which are tasks:

1. Reduce my body weight to 182 pounds or less by March 3.
2. Find two friends to exercise with by January 15.
3. Keep a food journal for the next 30 days to track my caloric intake.
4. Exercise 3-4 times a week for the next six months.

You may be wondering why it’s even important to distinguish between goals or tasks. After all, if stuff is getting done, isn’t that what matters? Well, you can be productive in accomplishing a lot of tasks, but if those tasks aren’t connected to accomplishing goals that positively impact the organization, then you’re spending your time focused on all the wrong things.

Here are a few key points on how to tell the difference between goals and tasks.

Goal Statements

A goal statement describes the desired outcomes to be accomplished by an individual within a specific time period. The outcomes set standards for quality, quantity, timeliness, cost, or percent of change required. An effective goal statement includes the elements of: Achieves…Outcome…When.

The “achieves” portion of the statement should include at least one strong action verb. The “outcome” describes the result of different, repetitive, or accumulated activities or provides a range of acceptable results. The “when” includes a specific date or timeline that allows you to know when you’ve accomplished the goal. Statements 1 and 4 above are examples of effective goals.

Task Statements

A task statement outlines steps of activities that should be completed in order to achieve a goal. Usually, these statements will contain a set of steps that must be followed. The task is how specific outcomes will be reached. An effective task statement includes the elements of: Performs Activity…How.

The “performs activity” portion of the statement describes a discrete action that can be done in a short period of time, usually doesn’t include a performance standard, and is a step that is directly related to achieving the goal. The “how” portion of the statement lists smaller, specific actions and usually contains the word “by.” The task statement is usually part of an action plan. Statements 2 and 3 above are examples of tasks.

All good performance starts with clear goals. Whether you use the SMART goal approach (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Trackable) or some other model, focusing on the elements of an effective goal—Achieves…Outcome…When—will help you focus your energy and efforts in the right direction—achieving outcomes that positively impact the performance of individuals and the organization.

Randy Conley is the Vice President of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. His LeaderChat posts appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

To test a theory they had developed, the researchers used a ring-toss game and gave each group the following instructions: Take these three rings and go into the adjoining room. You will find a stake on a stand in the center of the room. Practice getting the rings on the stake.

The researchers then watched through one-way glass to see if the high performers approached the task of practicing differently than the low performing group. They noticed a striking difference.

The group identified as low performers didn’t do much goal setting for themselves. Some members of the group saw the stake in the center of the room, walked right up to it and placed all three rings on the stake and left the room–they set goals that were too easy and not very motivating.  At the other end of the spectrum, some members of the low performing group saw the stake in the center of the room, moved away from it as far as they could and tried to hit the stake from all the way across the room–they set goals that were too difficult or even impossible to reach.

The behavior of the high performing group was distinctively different. The members of the high performing group saw the stake in the middle of the room and placed themselves a couple of feet away for their initial toss. If they missed, they tried again, or moved a little closer. If they made it, they moved a little farther away for their next toss. This group set practice goals for themselves that were just the right amount of difficulty.  They went to great lengths to keep themselves engaged in the task by setting goals that took them just to the edge—or a little beyond—their present capabilities.

How are your goals looking for the coming year?

As you set goals for the coming year, it’s important to find the right amount of difficulty. Have you set goals for yourself that are too easy? Too easy may seem like a smart play but it is unlikely to bring out your best performance.  Chances are you’ll put the task on auto-pilot and follow a routine similar to the previous year.  Have you blindly agreed to goals that are too difficult? You’ll probably deem the task as unrealistic, not make a serious effort toward attaining it now, and hope to reset properly later on.

Get yourself off to a fast start in 2016. Set goals that are just the right amount of difficulty.  Challenge yourself to higher levels of performance.  Goals that are just out of reach are usually the ones we are most compelled to achieve!

PS: Still working on your 2016 goals? Could you use a little encouragement? Join Ken Blanchard for a free webinar on January 27. Managers and teams from around the world will being joining Ken for a hands-on goal setting class where everyone will set their goals for 2016. The event is free courtesy of Cisco Webex and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here.

I’ll bet you have heard about how a large percentage of New Year’s goals are no longer priorities—or even remembered—by the end of January.

Here’s a formula that can help. I’ve used it successfully with clients and it might also help you succeed in reaching your goals.

SMART Goals multiplied by Connection with Values and Purpose multiplied by Taking Relevant Actions equals Impact

Let me explain how this works, using as my example a client who works for an international development institution whose mission is to alleviate poverty.

SMART Goals. At the beginning of the coaching engagement, my client, his supervisor, and I (as his coach) agreed that one of my client’s goals during our coaching engagement would be to expand his influence outside his specific area of expertise. During our first session, we carefully validated that the goal was SMART: Specific, Meaningful, Attainable, Relevant, and Trackable. In our discussions, my client also realized that the goal was fully aligned with one of the competencies for his position: influence across boundaries. Therefore, it was definitely Meaningful and Relevant for both my client and his organization.

To make the goal more Specific, Attainable and Trackable, my client determined it would be helpful to envision actions that would support the goal. Although he understood the idea, he had difficulties imagining useful actions. Among the roadblocks we identified and overcame during an envisioning exercise was that one of my client’s key values—honesty—seemed to be in conflict with his concept of influencing people outside his own function. He felt that influencing across boundaries might mean interacting with his colleagues in a less than transparent manner.

Connection with Values and Purpose. In our discussion of the connection between my client’s goals and his values and purpose, he realized that the main purpose of his work—helping others less privileged—was integrated with the organization’s purpose of alleviating poverty. At that moment of realization, my client’s energy shifted. He started to see how, by improving his leadership influence across boundaries, he could mobilize resources—relational, technical and monetary—to expand his organization’s project support and implementation.

That moment in which my client connected his goal with his values and purpose brought him to an Optimal Motivational Outlook: which is where people move from extrinsic, or imposed, reasons for doing tasks to intrinsic motivators that are based on values and purpose.

In coaching terms, the combination of SMART goals with connection to values and purpose is what we call the thinking or the being of what we want to do.

Taking Relevant Actions. This factor of the formula is what we in coaching call the doing of what we want to do. No relevant actions means no impact. In this case, after my client shifted to the Optimal Motivational Outlook, he was able to easily identify five actions consistent with his desired impact. For example, one of the actions was to participate in technical groups both within and outside the organization to share and expand his knowledge about projects and potential market opportunities. We co-determined examples of groups that my client could join as well as the timing by which he could complete this action.

My client understood the relationship between the elements of the formula when noticing their multiplicative effect on the impact.

What are your goals for 2016? Have you connected them to a higher value or purpose? Creating this connection can help you work through potential roadblocks, just as it helped my client. Use this formula when reviewing your goals for the coming year and create the impact you want in 2016!

About the Author

Antonio Estrada, MBA, Engineer and Certified Professional Coach is a member of Blanchard Coaching Services network of executive and leadership coaches.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

At work our team has been stuck trying to choose between spending money on one strategy and finding out more information about an alternative choice. It’s been on our meeting agenda for almost a month now and, really, it’s not that big a deal.

Ever been there? The more you think about the options, the more it seems like a tie. One is just as good as the other, but you can only pick one. So you pick nothing. You procrastinate. Well, not exactly—because after all, you are doing something: you’re thinking this over. Right?

This dilemma has been around for a while.

Fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan suggested that if you put an ass (the donkey type, not the human type) between two identical piles of hay, it would be unable to choose between the two and would die of hunger. This became known as the Paradox of Buridan’s Ass, whose picture you see above. (We can’t guarantee the authenticity of the photo.)

Even further back—in 350 B.C., to be exact—Aristotle proposed that a person who is equally thirsty and hungry and has to choose between food and drink might stay exactly at that position and starve to death.

More recently, the character Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof had trouble making decisions because of his annoying habit of always saying “…but on the other hand, this, and on the other hand, that …” Fiddler opened in New York in 1964.

You may notice that all these observations happened long before multi-tasking as we now know it, incoming cell phone calls, being buried in emails, etc. By the way—should you pay to drive in the car pool lane today, or stay right where you are?

So what’s a procrastinator to do? Here are three suggestions:

1. Just do something. Anything. Have you ever noticed that if you are trying to push a stalled car off the road, it’s very difficult to get it moving initially? But once it is moving, it’s relatively easier to keep it going. Physicists call this “static friction.” It’s harder to move things that are currently stationary than things that are already in motion. You might think of it as activation energy.
2. Don’t delay. There is a business theory that delay is better than error. Actually—no, it isn’t. First of all, the opportunity you’re putting off now will not be identical to what might be the case in the future. It will likely become more complex as you hold off taking action. Conditions change, and dilemmas usually intensify. Secondly, doing something provides you with some helpful information because you’ve got observed data. Call it a “pilot,” if you prefer. Keep in mind that very few decisions are absolutely final. During implementation, there will be opportunities for adjustment.
3. Pick a small first step and add that to your to-do list. Don’t write “Income tax.” Write “Get forms,” or perhaps “Gather expense receipts.” The smaller the line item, the more doable it will seem. And put a deadline on it.

Of course, having a goal is helpful. In fact, it’s downright essential. But it’s not enough. Progress is all about taking action. Goals without action are merely dreams. So if you’re serious about productivity and execution, you’ve got to get active. As Einstein said, “Nothing happens until something moves.”  Inactivity breeds discouragement. In real life Buridan’s ass acts and sounds a lot like Eeyore.

Finally, to close the loop after you’ve done something—even an eensy, teensy, stupid little something—celebrate. Even if your celebration is merely a private party in your brain that you hold for yourself. Take a breath, smile in satisfaction, and feel good. And then move on. Come on, we don’t have all day here.

About the author

Dr. Dick Ruhe is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

More than 700 of the magazine’s subscribers were asked what they wanted out of their individual meetings with their managers and how that compared to what was really happening.

Questions were asked on a wide variety of issues related to one-on-one meetings—including frequency, duration, and topics discussed.  In three key performance management areas—goal setting, goal review, and performance feedback, employees identified a serious gap between how often they discussed these topics versus how often they wish they were discussing them.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Goal Setting Conversations—Some 70 percent of people want to have goal-setting conversations often or all the time, but only 36 percent actually do. And 28 percent say they rarely or never discuss future goals and tasks.
• Goal Review Conversations—Some 73 percent of people want to have goal review conversations often or all the time, but only 47 percent actually do. And 26 percent say they rarely or never discuss current goals and tasks.
• Performance Feedback Conversations—Some 67 percent of people want to have performance feedback conversations often or all the time, but only 29 percent actually do. And 36 percent say they rarely or never receive performance feedback.

IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERS

The performance management literature is clear on the importance of setting goals, providing feedback, and reviewing performance on a frequent basis. How is your organization doing with helping managers get together with direct reports to set goals, provide feedback, or discuss direction and support where needed?

If people haven’t been meeting as regularly as they should, use this survey data as a starting point to encourage managers and direct reports to schedule their next one-on-one soon. People want and need to have conversations with their immediate supervisors. It’s one of the foundations for strong, productive relationships that align people with the work of the organization in a satisfying and meaningful way. Don’t wait—your people and better performance are waiting!

PS:  You can see all of the data and charts by downloading the article PDF from the July/August issue of Training magazine.

Eventually people get there—but it comes with a cost, says Ann Phillips in an interview for The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter.

“It’s one of the toughest types of issue to address because on the surface everyone’s putting on a brave face and pretending that everything is okay. But if you scratch a little underneath you’ll see the level of dissatisfaction that’s costing organizations billions of dollars in untapped productivity, creativity, and innovation.

The biggest problem getting in the way of managers delivering the direction and support people need is an overestimation of their current skills.  As Phillips explains, “Leaders often believe they are providing direction when they tell people to ‘Do this, and then do that, and be sure to get it done by this date,’ but that is only part of providing direction—and probably the lowest form of the behavior.”

The same is true when it comes to supportive behavior, says Phillips. “Managers feel as if they know what supportive behavior is and usually have their own ideas about what it looks like. But without instruction, most people default to behavior that consists mainly of encouragement.

“People are good at encouraging others with phrases such as, ‘You can do it. We’re glad you’re here. We believe in you. Use your best judgment.’ But they miss out on all of the other supportive behaviors that are just as important such as listening, sharing information, and facilitating self-directed problem solving.”

“So folks are good at telling people what to do and then cheerleading them on to accomplish the task. And that is the one-two, ‘I want you to do this, and I know you can handle it’ combination that most people are getting in terms of direction and support from their managers. On the surface this may seem reasonable, but it is a style that only works well for direct reports who are already accomplished at the task. For people who are new to a task or are running into problems or are unsure of themselves, it’s a style that actually hinders progress—and can be damaging to overall growth and development.”

For managers looking to increase their ability to offer direction and support for their people, Phillips has three key recommendations.

Recognize your own default settings. Most leaders are unaware that they have a default setting when it comes to leadership even though assessments show that 54% of managers use only one style when it comes to providing direction and support for their people—either Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating. Each of these styles is great if it is a match for what a direct report needs. Each is also a hindrance if it is the wrong style for the situation.

Expand your repertoire of directive behaviors. Leaders need to think beyond just issuing directives and holding people accountable. Phillips encourages leaders to become more skillful at goal setting and putting in the time to provide day-to-day coaching as needed..

Expand your repertoire of supportive behaviors.   Leaders need to improve listening skills and be willing to share information to facilitate self-directed problem solving. This includes listening with the intent to learn, to be influenced, and to understand—not just respond. People recognize that information is power, yet many managers still try to maintain control by keeping information to themselves even though it undermines employee development.

Start today

Phillips notes that, “Managers have the ability to bring out so much more from their people. Find out where your people are at with their tasks. What do they need from you in terms of direction and support? Improve your skills in both of these areas and see what a difference it makes.”

To learn more, read Phillips’ original article on Direction and Support: It’s harder than you think! or check out her free on-demand webinar, People Management 101: Providing Direction and Support, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

For goals where momentum has stalled, the two authors recommend reconnecting with the vision and purpose behind that goal and also looking at the resources and structures that have been put in place to support goal achievement.

As they explain, “In a quickly changing business environment, it’s easy to lose sight of exactly what we are doing and why it matters. Focusing on a clear vision and purpose is the first step to staying on track.”

Then take a look at the resources that have been allocated to achieve those goals.  As they explain, “We often see situations where great strategic direction is set but little is done to work out the structures and processes that need to be in place to put the plan into operation. This type of leadership resembles a classic case of “all hat, no cattle”–a big declaration about what you’re going to do and what needs to happen, but little attention to implementation, identifying resources, and making sure that people are deployed properly to create the results you’re looking for.

As you look at resources, it’s important to keep an open mind and consider where you might be allocating resources that are not getting you the results you need.  When it comes to sorting through initiatives, the Blanchards recommend taking a rose gardener’s approach.

“An everyday example of this is probably visible in your neighborhood. Next time you’re walking or driving down your street, look at roses growing in people’s yards. You’ll find that the gardeners with the most beautiful roses are the ones who most aggressively prune their bushes.

“When you prune a rose bush, you are providing the plant with a way to concentrate its resources to create the best-looking roses on the strongest branches. If a rose bush is not pruned, the result is a diluted response and less than spectacular flowers.

“It’s tough to prune, but you have to do it–and you have to do it frequently and consistently. That’s where a clear vision comes back into play. Being confident about where you are going gives you the willpower to cut back on things that aren’t helping you reach your goals. Eliminating what’s not necessary will free up additional resources and time so that goals become attainable and new opportunities can emerge.”

Don’t continue down a path that isn’t taking you where you want to go. Midyear is a great place for a midpoint correction. Evaluate where you are. Reconnect with your purpose and vision. Identify distractions and energy drainers. Break from what you are doing–before the situation demands it.

To read more about the Blanchards’ thinking on making a mid-course correction, check out their column in Fast Company, Half of 2013 is Gone, So Where are You Headed? 4 Steps to Get You in the Right Direction

For example, even if you are familiar with the differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, it hits home when you see examples of how setting intrinsic goals not only gives you a greater probability of achieving them, but also experiencing self-actualization and sustainable vitality.

On the other hand, extrinsic goals, more often than not, lead to depression and unhealthy physical symptoms. Regretfully, the goals most of us set are extrinsic goals–both personally and professionally.

What can you do differently?

Focus on setting intrinsic goals such as…

• Personal growth (improving listening skills or practicing mindfulness)
• Affiliation (nurturing a mentoring relationship or enhancing relationships with others)
• Community (contributing to something bigger than yourself or making a difference)
• Physical health (losing weight as a means for increasing energy or changing your eating habits as a way of lowering blood pressure)

Avoid extrinsic goals relating to…

• Social recognition such as increasing Facebook friends or LinkedIn contacts to improve your social or professional status
• Image and appearance such as losing weight to look good at your reunion or losing weight to be more attractive
• Material success such as earning more money, buying a powerful car, or moving to a prestigious neighborhood

Prompt intrinsic goals for others

Managers, teachers, and parents need to gain goal setting skills that prompt intrinsic goals based on optimally motivated, higher-level values. Individuals will benefit, but more importantly, it is a way to immediately begin shifting the values practiced in our organizations, educational systems, and communities.

If you find yourself challenging these notions, it is probably because most of us are conditioned to believe that setting goals for things we want (or think we need)–such as obtaining more money and the stuff we can buy with it–are part of “the secret” to success.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of research studies by the family of Self-Determination Theory thought leaders are proving that conventional thinking is simply wrong-headed. The real secret is that extrinsic goals do not provide the energy, vitality, and sense of positive well-being required to achieve most goals. And even if you happen to achieve the extrinsic goal, it doesn’t yield the sustainable joy, happiness, satisfaction, or energy you thought it would.

But perhaps more importantly, there is an undermining effect with extrinsic goals. In other words, extrinsic goals (social recognition, image and appearance, material success) tend to extinguish a potentially intrinsic experience. What we really yearn for is something we cannot buy or achieve through extrinsic goals.

As I sat in dozens of research presentations, I was thrilled with the compelling evidence demonstrating how the quality of the goals you set determines the quality of your experience. As a leader of others, if you remember that the value behind the goal determines the value of the goal, it can open up a distinctly different approach to setting goals that becomes a powerful and sustainable mechanism for positive well-being, engagement, and employee work passion.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

Feeling a little overworked and under-resourced yourself?  Check out what the experts recommend.

Make time to think. Mark Sanborn, president of Sanborn and Associates and best-selling author of eight books including The Fred Factor and You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader, suggests a simple ritual.

Whenever Sanborn is in his office in Denver, he’ll schedule some time to visit his favorite coffeehouse with one intention in mind–some quiet time to think. In Sanborn’s experience, most executives don’t think as much as they react to their environment.

It’s harder than you think, says Sanborn. “Within the first 10 seconds, you’ll think of a phone call you need to make or a meeting you need to attend or something else you need to do. You will find, as I do, that proactive thinking about your business and your life is far more difficult than it seems.”

In Sanborn’s experience, taking the time to think and evaluate your progress will almost always turn up a couple of areas where you are spending time on projects and activities that are not generating much in the way of return. The question now is what to do about it.

Learn to say no. Charlene Li, author of the New York Times best seller Open Leadership and founder of Altimeter Group, says that achieving focus means knowing what you will do and also what you won’t do to achieve a particular strategy.

As Li explains, “In so many ways, it’s the very first and most important thing. In order to get more done, you actually have to do less things but–very importantly–the most important things.”

Leadership coach, speaker, and writer Tanveer Naseer shared that this can be tough, especially when there are so many seemingly important tasks in front of today’s leaders.

For Naseer, the answer to maintaining his focus is to discipline his attention. In addition to getting more done, Naseer has also noticed a great side benefit: consistency, because everything he does is centered around a common objective instead of a reactionary response.

Communicate efficiently. Elliott Masie, an internationally recognized futurist, analyst, researcher, and organizer who heads The MASIE Center think tank recommends frequent—but shorter meetings. Masie believes that leaders often default into 30 or 60 minute meetings when something much shorter would suffice.

“When was the last time you scheduled a five-minute–or better yet, four-minute–meeting with a colleague or direct report? At first it might feel as if there’s not enough time to collaborate, but in a busy organization, five-minute conversations might work well. Used correctly, that five minutes could focus on working on a theme or a title for a new product, or talking about the upcoming meeting you are going to.”

Avoid organizational anorexia. Finally, consultant, speaker, and multimedia designer Steve Roesler recommends that leaders take a closer look at the whole concept of doing more with less to make sure they haven’t slipped into a distorted view of what’s normal. Roesler believes that many organizations have reached a stage of organizational anorexia—basing their success on just being as lean as possible. That might make them appealing to Wall Street, but it’s shortsighted and potentially dangerous to their long-term health.

Roesler’s advice?   If you’re a manager, next time the phrase “do more with less” pops into your head as you begin a meeting or make a speech, pause for a moment. Consider what your objective is. Then, instead of simply reacting with a doing more with less shrug, say:

“Here’s our situation. This is what our strategy is all about and here’s what our company is all about. How can we achieve the goal that goes along with this strategy and be as satisfying to our customers as we possibly can, make this as profitable for ourselves as we possibly can, and [yet] keep our costs down?

“While we’re doing all of this, who can be included and what can we do with this particular situation or project so we’re building talent at the same time?”

As Roesler sums up, “If you’re the person in the room who stands up and does that instead of using the [doing more with less] phrase, people are going to know that you’re the one who is the leader.”

To read Scott and Ken Blanchard’s complete column for Fast Company (and their archived columns also) check out Doing More With Less: 4 Ways to Cope (and Even Succeed) in a Downsized World.

Alexa took her current post in 2010.  That year she led her group to earn Best Retail Operation for the region, going from worst-to-first in a single year.  Along with a public award, Alexa received a “Far Exceeds” rating on her annual performance appraisal.

Unfortunately, at the time of her next review, Alexa’s group was slightly below its Key Performance Indicators (KPI) targets and so her boss rated her performance as only “Meets Expectations.”  It turned out to be a case of poor timing as the group rebounded and by year’s end had once again won Best Retail Operation.

An important and tangible difference

For Alexa, the difference between “Meets Expectations” and “Far Exceeds” was important—and tangible.  In her company, a rating of Far Exceeds meant the employee had a greater chance of a promotion in the next 12 months, a greater opportunity to participate in juicy cross-functional projects that C-level executives track, and a larger base salary and bonus package for the coming year.

Alexa’s boss apologized for the 2011 rating and said he would make it up to her in the 2013 review.  Unfortunately, the damage was done; Alexa interpreted her boss’s decision as unfair given her history of taking a last place group to first place in less than a year, and then repeating that high performance.  Her boss said nothing could be done.

The impact of that interpretation was that Alexa went from being highly interested and innovative in her role to being more or less disinterested—just going through the motions.  She said, “You rate me as Meets Expectations, and I will meet expectations.  Nothing more.”

Leading with Optimal Motivation

When  talked with about  this, Alexa was immovable, so deep was the sense of betrayal.  In considering ways to help her, a purely rational, left brain, traditional business analysis of this situation would have us evoking some version of the Nike slogan—Just Do It.  In other words, “Alexa, change your attitude, accept your boss’s apology,  and get back to it.”

But, that’s probably a fantasy at this point.  Alexa now perceives the performance management system as unfair, so she feels hurt by it and wary of it.

Our Optimal Motivation process suggests a different approach.  Instead of suggesting that she just get over it, we would recommend that Alexa’s leader’s work would be to address how Alexa feels, and  to help her reconnect with her passion for delighting customers, her passion for making the workplace amazing for her employees, and the important financial and competitive contribution her group makes to the welfare of the entire organization.  Her manager, then, would be engaging with Alexa in a series of Motivational Outlook Conversations.

What Would You Do?

That’s our approach (and we would be happy to talk with you more about that) but for now, let’s make this interactive.

• What would you do to help Alexa return to the proverbial sunny side of the street?
• How would you engage her manager?
• What changes do you think her manager would want to make so that she or he is successful with Alexa?

Use the comments feature.  It would be great to hear your thoughts and how you would address this situation.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

Consider these five statements. True or False?

1. Money cannot buy you happiness.
2. Money may not buy happiness, but it will buy things that make you happy.
3. The more money you have, the happier you are.
4. Seeking wealth, status, or image undermines interpersonal relationships and connectedness to others.
5. Pursuing money or other materialistic values results in feeling pressured and controlled.

Did you answer True to #1? Most of us have held a programmed value since childhood that money doesn’t buy us happiness. If it did, we reason, we wouldn’t see rich people with substance abuse issues, struggling with their weight, or defending themselves in court against character or behavior accusations.

Ironically, I find that people also answer True to statements #2 and #3. Despite believing that money cannot buy happiness, they believe that money can buy things that make us happy and that the more we have, the better off we are. But that isn’t logical. If money doesn’t buy you happiness, how can having more money buy you happiness?

Research supports the notion that money and happiness are related, but not in the way you might think. If it were true that money buys the things that make us happy and that the more we have the happier we are, then we would expect happiness scales to increase when per capita wealth increases. But that isn’t the case in the United States or any other country in the world. Pursuing and achieving material wealth may increase short-term mood, but it does not increase one’s sustainable happiness.* Both statements #2 and #3 are False.

Not only does money not buy happiness or the things that make you happy, but the more that materialistic values are at the center of your life, the more the quality of your life is diminished. This lower quality of life is reflected in a variety of measures including low energy, anxiety, substance abuse, negative emotion, depression, and likelihood to engage in high-risk behaviors. 

The Problem with More

Interestingly, when individuals are asked what level of wealth they need to be happy, both the poor and the rich respond with relative amounts of “more.” No matter how much you have, you always want more—more money, belongings, toys, status, power, or image. But here’s the thing: No amount of riches will buy security, safety, trust, friendship, loyalty, a longer life, or peace of mind. Moreover, thinking you can buy these things destroys any real chance of experiencing them.

Therein lies the problem. We’ve been programmed to believe that our well-being depends on the quantity of what we have. There is a current TV commercial where a little girl tries to explain why more is always better—which is the message the advertiser is trying to convey because that’s what they are offering you—more. The irony is that the little girl simply cannot explain why more is better. It really is funny. But it disproves the very point the advertiser is hoping to make. More is not always better—it is simply a belief that most of us have yet to challenge. 

Quality Over Quantity

What if we were to turn the table and focus on quality over quantity? Consider your answer to statement #4. Did you answer it True? One of our most basic and crucial human needs is for relatedness with others. This longing for connectedness is obvious in the explosion of social media and online dating services. The lack of relatedness is detrimental to everything including the quality of our physical and mental health. Research indicates that relatedness is thwarted by the pursuit of materialism.* Yet we rarely link materialistic values and goals to the undermining of interpersonal relationships that influence the quality of our life.

Statement #5 is also True. If you follow any of the popular culture regarding the effects of extrinsic motivation, or what we call suboptimal Motivational Outlooks, you understand the negative impact that feeling pressure or control has on creativity, discretionary effort, and sustained high productivity and performance. And yet, organizations are hesitant to generate alternatives to pay-for-performance schemes and incentivizing behavior, despite the proof that those systems based on materialistic values generate the pressure and control that undermine the quality of our work experience—and our results. 

Our Values Shape Us

And here is a great sadness. When you operate from materialistic values, it not only undermines your well-being, it also negatively affects the health and well-being of others. When our focus is on material pursuits, we become less compassionate and empathetic. Our values shape the way we work, play, live, and make decisions. And those decisions impact the world around us.*

Each of us has an amazing opportunity with the understanding gained through recent research and the evolution of human spirit. We can shift our focus from the value of materialism to the more empowering values of acceptance, compassion, emotional intimacy, caring for the welfare of others, and contributing to the world around us. Not only will this shift in focus improve the quality of our own lives, it will also create a ripple effect that ultimately will improve the quality of life for others. For the reality is that the most important things in life cannot be bought. Indeed, they are priceless.

* For supporting research and more information on this topic, I highly recommend the following resources:

• The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser
• The Handbook of Self-Determination Theory Research by Deci and Ryan
• The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz
• Website:  www.selfdeterminationtheory.org

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

The quick answer is:  It’s about both you and your team. There are two ways to look at your new role.

First, it’s about you. It’s about you in terms of your ability to show the way, provide hope, stay optimistic, and be a positive role model. It’s about your willingness to listen well to your people and hear their concerns and new ideas. It’s about you having the courage to say what needs to be said—to your people, your peers or your boss—on behalf of your team.  It’s about you using your corporate machete to create career paths for your people through your company’s jungle. It’s about teaching and explaining (again) and supporting and encouraging (always).  It’s about noticing the true condition of your most valuable corporate resource—the people under your care.

Second, it’s about them. Are your people’s roles and goals clear?  Do they have a voice and a forum with you to express themselves? Your direct reports are ambitious. They want to know they can trust you with their careers and that you have their best interests at heart. They want to know their time with you is well spent. They want to know the vision and the plan. They want to learn and grow. It’s about them and whether they stay—stay working for your company, stay with you in your department, stay loyal, stay engaged, stay positive, stay current, and stay successful.

No one says becoming a good manager is easy. But it’s not so tricky if you believe at your core that your job is to help others succeed and that, by so doing, you too will succeed. Ken Blanchard asks this question to those who aspire to leadership: “Are you here to serve or to be served?”  Your response to Ken’s question will set the tone for your new management career.

For new managers, there are many ways to leave a positive mark.  Look at what your people need from you and look inside yourself for ways to meet their needs. Ironically, meeting their needs will, in turn, meet your needs as a new manager.

About the author:

Cathy Huett is Director, Professional Services at The Ken Blanchard Companies.  This is the second in a series of posts specifically geared toward new and emerging leaders.

This is so foolish, he explains.  Instead, Stahl-Wert recommends that leaders “Look at ways to raise up the people capability, not try to pressure productivity.”

Stahl-Wert is one of 40 thought leaders who will be joining Ken Blanchard for a Doing Still More With Less Leadership Livecast on April 24.  A free event, this online webcast will bring together thought leaders, via video, to look at ways to engage and support people while meeting the increased performance demands of the current business environment.

Charlene Li, author, consultant, and founder of Altimeter Group who will be joining Stahl-Wert as a part of the webcast says that identifying the vital, critical work that will get you and your organization the results you are looking for is the first step.

“In order to get more done, you actually have to do fewer things, but very crucially, the most important things—and just as essential, make sure all the people around you understand what it is you will do and also what you won’t do.”

Jane Perdue, a principal with Braithwaite Innovation Group suggests that leaders begin by asking themselves some key questions.

“Are we doing the right work, with the right people, in the right way, at the right time, in the right pursuit of company initiatives, and are we using the right information and the right tools to make it so?”

Find a minute to reflect

For leaders looking to reexamine their own work, Ken Blanchard recommends taking a minute to reflect and get organized.

“The reality today is that leaders have to find quiet time to think through what’s really important to do. Today more than ever, you have to identify the 20 percent that is going to give you the 80 percent. You have to find out what is vital when you’re looking at everything you have to accomplish. In order to do more with less, you have to focus your energy on the work that is the most important.

“The next step is to prioritize that work and turn it into measureable goals. Identify three to five things you can get done on a consistent basis. Get your life organized so you can focus and help others organize their lives.”

“Doing more with less means that managers and their people have to be partners. It can’t be ‘my way or the highway,’” says Blanchard. “You have to empower your people. Micromanaging is a thing of the past. Managers can’t be on top of everything.”

There is a silver lining though, explains Blanchard.

“The good news is that if handled correctly, these tough times can actually lead to increased employee motivation. If leaders can create more autonomy by giving their people what they need when they need it, building competency and stronger relationships along the way, they will increase employees’ sense of well-being and overall performance.”

You can read more about what Blanchard and other key thought leaders have to say in this new article from Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter. To learn more specifically about the free April 24 webcast, Doing Still More With Less, check out this link.

For those of us who work at home or remotely, or even in an office, it’s a great time to refocus on what we do—consciously or subconsciously—that looks like work but often isn’t.

Here are three ways that people pretend to work.

Attend meetings

Our egos tell us that it is critical to stay fully informed on any project that has the potential to even slightly impact us. Even though meetings are largely ineffective, attending lots of them keeps you very busy. When you attend lots of meetings your calendar stays full—and yet you accomplish very little. This is perhaps the best way to pretend to work without really working.

Be hyper-responsive on emails and phone calls

Don’t read or think too much about each email, just respond quickly. In fact, responding to emails while passively attending a meeting can ensure that neither activity is truly productive. When you keep your email up all day and respond immediately, you can feel a great sense of “pretend” accomplishment. Since sending emails results in receiving more emails, you can honestly say, “I got 150+ emails today. I am exhausted!” This is probably very true.

Focus on speed and quantity, not quality, of communication

The accepted best practice around emails is this: If the third email hasn’t clarified the issue—pick up the phone. Ignoring this rule means you can have long strings of emails that show activity without really accomplishing work. Make sure you have an email trail that recaps every action taken. This ensures that you can always justify your lack of productivity by pointing to a flaw in someone else’s email.

Have you been caught by any of these strategies? Although I don’t know anyone who deliberately uses these strategies to avoid work, I suspect we have all had extremely busy days when we questioned our productivity and accomplishments.

Just in case you want to be very productive (which you do), here are some tips:

• Carefully choose which meetings, and how much of each meeting, you will attend.
• Focus on the quality of your communication, including reflecting or researching before you respond.
• Let others know your priority to set aside times for focused concentration, professional development, process improvement, and idea generation. Let people know when you will and won’t be available to respond quickly.

Using these strategies will require less energy, less activity, and fewer emails, and therefore will result in higher productivity.

Well, okay … you can still pretend to be tired, even if you‘re not!

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

The first common characteristic focuses on relationships and support. People say that their best boss cared about them, gave them opportunities, and created a great working environment.  They made work fun and they were supportive.

Second, there is the performance and expectations aspect. People will share that their work was demanding, meaningful, and that their boss expected a lot from them.  They also share that their best boss saw qualities in them that they didn’t necessarily see in themselves.

In an article for Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter, I share some examples from Gallup, Southwest Airlines, and  WD-40 Company to make the case for adopting a high support—high expectations workplace. You can read the complete article at this link, but in the meantime, here are some takeaways for creating this dual focus environment.

1. Set challenging goals. Expect the best from people by setting goals that stretch their abilities. Look beyond what people can currently do and set a stake in the ground at the next level of achievement. Hard goals encourage growth, demonstrate trust, and develop competence. Be sure to set these goals as a partnership—it conveys respect and garners buy-in.
2. Meet regularly. Conduct brief, focused meetings on a weekly basis to discuss progress against goals, identify roadblocks, and brainstorm solutions. Demonstrate your commitment to an employee’s success by sharing one of your most precious resources—your time and attention.
3. Provide feedback. Celebrate and recognize achievements. Provide redirection when necessary. Feedback shows that you are paying attention as a leader, consider the work important, and are invested in the employee’s development.

Leaders become “best bosses” by expecting a lot from their people AND also providing high levels of support along the way.  Look back at your own experience and you’ll probably discover that your best boss brought out the best in you because he or she expected a lot and also supported your growth and development. That’s the one-two punch that creates high levels of engagement and performance!

I often hear, “You are so disciplined.” My response is: “Not at all. Despite loving meat and fish, I have never waivered.” Don’t get me wrong–in the beginning I risked my health because I hadn’t learned how to compensate for a meatless diet. And there were times when the lack of vegetarian options frustrated me (and still do). But being a vegetarian has never come into question. Still, with so many people asking me how I made the dramatic transition, even I wondered, “Why has this been so easy?”

All these years later I think I have an answer, if not the answer. I truly believe this answer will help you and me to embrace any significant change or adapt an important new behavior.

The answer begins by not focusing on discipline! The nature of discipline is to make yourself do something you don’t want to do. The implication of discipline is that you feel imposed, forced, or obligated to do something and must dig deep to train or control yourself into action. The need for discipline puts you at a suboptimal starting point. I think there is a better way: The skill of Optimal Motivation.

Activating Optimal Motivation shifts your focus from what you don’t want to do, to what you want to do. Three elements of Optimal Motivation include:

• Recalling your developed values and sense of (work or life) purpose
• Recognizing how the change or new behavior satisfies your basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence
• Reflecting on your sense of positive well-being that comes from changing or adapting a new behavior.

I didn’t realize it 30 years ago, but I had naively used the skill of Optimal Motivation by tapping into my values and purpose for being a catalyst for good, satisfying my psychological needs by making a choice that deepened my relationship with all living things, and instead of focusing on what I was giving up, experiencing how good it felt to do what I was doing. The only thing that could have derailed my successful change effort was my lack of competence. But learning about nutrition became a priority so I could continue with those positive feelings. No discipline required.

So my question to you is this: If you have Optimal Motivation, do you need discipline? Or is discipline a signal that you are embarking from the wrong starting point? Maybe discipline is simply what others say you have when you act based on your values, purpose, and basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

In a special presentation on Performance Planning: 5 ways to set your people up for success, Hester will be exploring how leaders can improve performance by identifying potential gaps that trip up even the best of leaders.

Participants will learn:

• How to set clear goals
• The lazy leadership habits to avoid
• The 3 keys to “connecting the dots” and diagnosing development level

The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 500 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, John will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  John will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

I started experiencing back pain around the time I turned 50. When I went to the doctor she told me, “John, you are at that age where every morning you will wake up with pain somewhere.” Wow! Talk about a wake-up call. Luckily, she didn’t leave it at that. She also gave me some specific stretching and strengthening exercises to help with the pain—and when I take the time to do them, they do help.

The reality is that without care and attention, things break down – our bodies, our minds, and our relationships. As we start this new year, I suggest that we each increase our capacity by taking time to regularly renew ourselves in each of the four dimensions of life – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

• Increasing or maintaining your physical capacity includes getting regular physical activity, taking time for rest and relaxation, eating a balanced diet, and doing other activities that revitalize the body and give you energy. For many, getting too little sleep is a culprit. Remember what Andy Rooney said: “Go to bed. Whatever you’re staying up late for isn’t worth it.”

• To increase your mental capacity, consider activities such as keeping a journal, reading, taking up a hobby, or continuing your education—anything that broadens and strengthens the mind. Be a student of whatever field you choose. Read voraciously. Mark Twain stated: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”

• Activities that increase your emotional capacity can include regular social activity with friends and family, learning to listen with empathy, valuing the differences in others, increasing your circle of friends, and forgiving yourself and others. Forgiveness can be a power tool for increasing emotional capacity. As Lewis Smedes said: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

• Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, authors of The Power of Full Engagement, define spiritual capacity as “the energy that is unleashed by tapping into one’s deepest values and defining a strong sense of purpose.” Your spiritual capacity is a powerful source of motivation, focus, and resilience. You may build your spiritual capacity by connecting with nature, reading inspirational literature, living in integrity, listening to uplifting music, engaging in meditation and/or prayer, or other activities that nourish the soul.

Author Rumer Godden may have said it best: “Everyone is a house with four rooms:  physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  Unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.”

What are some things you plan to do in the new year to renew yourself?

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies who specializes in performance and self-leadership.  

Wondering if you might be making some of these common mistakes in your own goal setting with employees?  Here’s what Hester warns against.

• Goals are not realistic. Stretch goals are great, but if they are out of reach they become demotivating and can even cause some employees to engage in unethical behavior to achieve them. In addition to making sure a goal is attainable, goals should be monitored and adjusted as needed during the year.
• Setting too many goals. When employees have too many goals they can easily lose track of what is important and spend time on the ones they “want” to do or that are easier to accomplish whether or not they are the highest priority.
• Setting goals and then walking away. Goal setting is the beginning of the process, not an end in itself. Once goals are set, managers need to meet regularly to provide support and direction to help employees achieve their goals.
• Setting a “how” goal instead of a “what” goal. Goals should indicate “what” is to be accomplished—the end in mind—not “how” it should be accomplished.

3 Ways to Improve Goal Setting

For managers looking to make their goal setting and performance planning more effective, Hester recommends focusing on three key areas.

Approach goal-setting as a partnership. Recognize that performance planning is not something that you should do alone. This is something to be done in partnership with your team member. It’s a collaborative process. So the manager needs to know what the employee’s key areas of responsibility are, what is expected in the role, and what they want to see in terms of performance. The key is to have that discussion with the employee.

Make sure the goal is SMART (or SMMART). Anytime you set a goal, objective, or an assignment, you need to make sure that it meets the simple SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). Hester also believes that there should be a second “M” in the SMART acronym to account for employee Motivation. This means the manager needs to additionally ask, “What is it about this goal that is motivating? What difference does it make in the organization, or to the team, or to the individual employee?”

Diagnose competence and commitment levels. Finally, managers need to consider an employee’s individual competence and commitment level for a task. It’s a common mistake to assume that because a person is a veteran employee, they will be experienced at any new task that might be set before them. This is often incorrect. It’s important that a manager find out about experience with a specific task and then partner with the employee to determine what they need in terms of direction and support to be successful with this particular assignment.

To learn more about Hester’s advice for improved goal setting and performance with your people, be sure to check out the article Goal Setting Needs to Be a Partnership.  Also be sure to check out Hester’s January 23 webinar on Performance Planning: 5 ways to set your people up for success—it’s free courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Which of the following statement(s) best describe(s) you when it comes to New Year’s resolutions at work?

1. Don’t set them—it is a waste of time
2. Set them—and it is a waste of time because I don’t take them seriously
3. Set them, take them seriously, but am regularly disappointed in myself
4. Set them, take them seriously, and have figured out how to make them work
5. Set them for personal matters, but not professional or workplace situations
6. Refuse to live my life this way, and/or …
7. Sick of hearing about them—enough already!
8. Other (There may be other categories. Let me know what you come up with so I can add it to the list.)

No matter how you feel about resolutions, one thing as inevitable as the arrival of the New Year is the advice forthcoming about how to write resolutions. For example: Write resolutions more like SMART goals that are specific and measurable, motivating, attainable, relevant, and time-bound, making them more achievable.

Resolution-setter, or not, I encourage you to consider a different focus this year. Let’s say you have notions for workplace resolutions such as …

• Be more timely when it comes to _____ (fill-in-the-blank with expense reports, budgets, performance reviews, etc.)
• Provide better customer service
• Make a greater contribution
• Achieve greater work-life balance
• Speak up in meetings
• Be more upbeat in the office

All of these so-called resolutions might benefit by being written as a SMARTer goal statement. But before you even attempt that, try shifting your focus to the question of “Why?” Ask yourself this key question: “Why did I create this resolution?”

Can you answer with one or more of these answers?

1)      This resolution aligns with important values I have established.

2)      This resolution helps me fulfill my work-life purpose.

3)      The mere pursuit of this resolution brings me joy.

Any one of these three answers is going to result in a more resolute resolution. So before you start following the good advice about rewriting your resolutions as goals (or the less-good advice to incentivize yourself with rewards or perks) consider first asking “Why did I create this resolution?” and tie it to your values, purpose, and sense of joy.

At the end of the day (or week or year), you are more likely to experience an optimal Motivational Outlook and positive results when you channel energy to those things that have a meaningful why behind them.

Here’s to an optimally motivated New Year!

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

For the past several weeks (and several weeks ahead for procrastinators) managers around the world have been meeting with their direct reports to review last year’s goals, measure performance, and determine pay increases.

If you are in the middle of performance reviews with your people, here are two radical ideas inspired by a recent article Scott and Ken Blanchard wrote for Fast Company, The Best Gift Managers Can Give Their Employees This Season.

In the article, Scott and Ken identified that two of the most important ingredients missing in today’s manager-direct report conversations are growth and considering the employee’s agenda.

In some ways, that’s not surprising considering the cautious way most companies have been operating during our slow, tepid economic recovery.  “Just lucky to have a job,” has become institutionalized after four years of a weak employment picture and little or no growth in many industries.

But 2013 feels different.  There’s a small, but flickering sense of optimism in the air.  (Maybe it’s because that Mayan calendar scare is over—it is, isn’t it?)

Are you ready to move forward?  Here are three new ways of thinking.  How could you add these components into your next performance management or goal setting conversation either as a manager or direct report?

1. Think growth.  Yes, GROWTH!  It’s time.  People can only tread water for so long.  Eventually, you have to start swimming somewhere.  Developing new skills in your present job—and seeing the next step on your career path are both important factors that lead to happiness, well-being and better performance at work.  What can you add to your list of skills during the coming year?  What move can you make (even a small one) that will get you one step closer to your next career objectives?
2. Think connection. Who can help you along the way?  There is only so much that you can do on your own and left to your own devices.  We all need some help.
3. Think helping others. The late Zig Ziglar (who passed away earlier this year) was famous for identifying that, “You can get just about anything you want out of life as long as you are willing to help others get what they want.” But it has to begin with you.  Who can you reach out to this week or next?  Who can you help take the next step toward their career plans?

In their article for Fast Company Scott and Ken Blanchard share an important paradox for anyone in business to remember.  The more you give, the more that comes back to you.

Add a little bit of giving into your work conversations in 2013.  Talk about growth issues with your direct reports.  Find out how you can help.  You’ll be surprised at how much comes back to you during the course of the year.

Typically this time of year people are feeling more emotional than usual. This is an opportunity for us to bring a little peace to people that we care about and help them relax and enjoy the holiday season versus being overwhelmed by it. It is important to know that the emotion zone in the brain is the same as the memory zone.  You can leverage emotions to create lasting memories.

So, how do you bring a little peace?

P stands for Prioritize and focus. Help people (including yourself) prioritize and focus on the tasks and goals that are truly important. When people are overwhelmed they are usually taking on unnecessary tasks, producing worry that keeps their brain on spin. Creating laser-like focus reduces stress.

E stands for Energize to act. Help those around you with the one or two steps that they need to take in order to get started on their task or goal. Getting started is half the battle and task completion will increase as people just take that first step.

A stands for Acknowledge emotion. What happens when we don’t acknowledge emotions? They can get bigger and bigger and less manageable. Sometimes just the mere acknowledgement of someone else’s emotion, or even your own, can provide relief and support. Remember the last time someone did this for you and you said, “Phew, so glad to get that off my chest!”

C stands for Cherish Successes. Try to notice where others are doing things right and call it out. Listen to people and really make them feel special for who they are and what they have achieved. Cherishing success can be a wonderful gift that you can give to those around you this holiday season.

E stands for Enjoy the holidays. Don’t forget to stop and enjoy the moments and the people that matter. Be grateful for all that you are blessed with by doing random acts of kindness. Sometimes it’s the little things we can do for people that really make a difference.

So give the gift of peace! Happy Holidays!

About the author:

Vicki Halsey is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.  You can read Vicki’s posts as a part of our customer service series which appears on the first and third Thursday of each month.

Peter Drucker said the only valid purpose for a business is “to create a customer.” Yes, profits are necessary, but Drucker adds that “the customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment.”

What does Wiki Answers say? According to Wiki, “the purpose of a business is to fill a need. Money comes after.”

These are all well and good. And yes, profits ARE necessary.

However, in Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, the ghost of Jacob Marley warns Ebenezer Scrooge of the perils of focusing only on profits at the expense of his responsibility to others.  He tells Ebenezer:

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

So… what is the business of any leader? To make a difference in the lives of others– employees and their families, customers, suppliers, and even shareholders.  Yes, we need to ensure the organization is profitable AND do well by our fellow men and women.

During this holiday season, what can you do to demonstrate that mankind is your business? Let me know your ideas.

About the author:

John Hester is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.  You can read John’s posts on the second Thursday of every month.

A best-selling business book (and one that I had never heard of until earlier this month) addresses a key piece of the accountability issue.  Leadership and Self-Deception was first published in 2000 and then re-issued as a second edition in 2010.  The book has sold over 1,000,000 copies since it was published and sales have grown every year since it was first “discovered” by HR, OD, and change practitioners.

What makes the book so different (and hard to describe) is that it looks at work behavior as fundamentally an inside-out proposition.  We basically act out externally what we are feeling inside.  Bad behavior externally—doing just enough to get by, compliance instead of commitment, and putting self-interest ahead of team or department goals—are justified because of the way that that colleagues, managers, and senior leaders are acting in return.

The folks at The Arbinger Institute, the corporate authors of the book, call this “in the box thinking” and they believe it is the root cause of many of the problems being experienced at work today.

Is your organization stuck “in the box?”

Wondering if negative attitudes inside might be causing poor accountability on the outside in your organization? Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself.

• Where are the trouble spots in your organization?  Where are people getting the job done but it seems to always be at minimum level of performance—and with a low sense of enthusiasm and morale?
• What are the possible attitudes and beliefs among members of that team or department that make them feel justified in their behaviors?  Why do they feel it is okay to narrow the scope of their job, focus on their own agenda, and do only what’s required to stay out of trouble—but not much more?
• What can you do to break the cycle of negative thinking that keeps people “in the box?”

Climbing out of the box

Surprisingly, the answer to breaking out of the box starts with expecting more of yourself and others. People climb into the box when they decide to do less than their best.  The folks at Arbinger describe this as “self-betrayal” and it sets in motion all sorts of coping strategies that end up with self-focused behaviors.  Don’t let that happen in your organization.  Here are two ways that you can help people see beyond their self interests.

1. Constantly remind people of the bigger picture and their role in it.  Set high standards and hold people accountable to them.
2. Second, and just as important, provide high levels of support and encouragement for people to do the right thing.  Make it easy for people to put the needs of the team, department, and organization ahead of their own.  Look at reward, recognition, and compensation strategies.  Look at growth and career planning.  What can you do to free people up to focus on the needs of others instead of themselves?

Change behavior by changing beliefs

Accountability is a tough issue to address because most people feel justified in their actions and opinions.  Don’t let your people self-justify their way into lower performance.  It’s not good for them and it’s not good for your organization.  Lead people to higher levels of performance.  Help people find the best in themselves.

That’s not surprising.  What you’ve just described are some of the common feelings people have when their work environment isn’t quite as engaging as it could be—including a need for meaningful work, collaboration, connectedness, and feedback.  If you’re feeling a little bit out of the loop—or suspect that some of your colleagues or co-workers are, here are three ways to loop yourself back in.

1. Revisit your team or departmental goals.  What are the top priorities for the team this quarter, this month, and this week?  Get a sense of the bigger picture.  Where is everyone’s focus?
2. Identify your role.  Where do you—and your work—fit in?  Make sure your tasks and projects are aligned and have a clear line of impact on what is important to your unit.  You don’t want to be spending your time on things that are tangential or irrelevant.  I know that sounds basic, but it is surprising how many people find that their work has drifted.  Bring yourself back in by tightening up your focus.
3. Take action today.  What is an action step that you can take today to move yourself back in line with your team?  Are there roadblocks or obstacles that are keeping you in place?  What are they?  Do you need additional resources or authority to move forward?  Don’t stop there—the magic is in taking an action step that moves the process forward.

A three step process of identifying purpose, defining your role and taking action is a great way to reconnect with your group.  There are many benefits that will flow from this process.  You’ll find yourself with a sense of purpose, a clearer sense of where you fit in, and a bias for action that will get you moving again.

Get started this week on a fall check-up.  It’s a great way to reenergize yourself.

Here are the top reasons Fournies heard most often and which he described in his book, Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed To and What You Can Do About It.  As you review the list, consider what you believe might be some of the root causes and solutions for each road block.

In Fournies’ experience, the root cause and solution in each case rests with the individual manager and employee.  Fournies believes that managers can minimize the negative impact of each of these potential roadblocks by:

1. Getting agreement that a problem exists
2. Mutually discussing alternative solutions
3. Mutually agreeing on action to be taken to solve the problem
4. Following-up to ensure that agreed-upon action has been taken
5. Reinforcing any achievement

Are your people doing what they are supposed to be doing?

What’s the level of purpose, alignment, and performance in your organization?  Do people have a clear sense of where the organization is going and where their work fits in?  Are they committed and passionate about the work?  Are they performing at a high level?  Take a look at the conversations and relationships happening at the manager-direct report level.  If performance is not where it should be, chances are that one of these roadblocks in getting in the way.

PS: You can learn more about Ferdinand Fournies and his two books, Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed To and What You Can Do About It, and Coaching for Improved Work Performance here at Amazon.  Both books are highly recommended for your business bookshelf.

The best managers learn how to tailor their management style to the needs of their employees.  For example, if an employee is new to a task, a successful manager will use a highly directive style—clearly setting goals and deadlines.  If an employee is struggling with a task, the manager will use equal measures of direction and support.  If the employee is an expert at a task, a manager will use a delegating style on the current assignment and focus instead on coming up with new challenges and future growth projects.

Are your managers able to flex their style?

Research by The Ken Blanchard Companies shows that leadership flexibility is a rare skill. In looking at the percentage of managers who can successfully use a Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating style as needed, Blanchard has found that 54 percent of leaders typically use only one leadership style, 25 percent use two leadership styles, 20 percent use three leadership styles, and only 1 percent use all four leadership styles.

Recommendations for managers

For managers looking to add some flexibility into the way they lead, here are four ways to get started:

1. Create a written list of goals, and tasks for each direct report.
2. Schedule a one-on-one meeting to identify current development levels for each task.  What is the employee’s current level of competence and commitment?
3. Come to agreement on the leadership style required of the manager.  Does the direct report need direction, support, or a combination of the two?
4. Check back at least every 90 days to see how things are going and if any changes are needed.

Don’t be a “one size fits all” manager

Leading people effectively requires adjusting your style to meet the needs of the situation.  Learning to be flexible can be a challenge at first—especially if you have become accustomed to using a “one size fits all” approach.   However, with a little training and some practice, you can learn how to accurately diagnose and flex your style to meet the needs of the people who report to you.   And the best news is, even while you are learning, your people will notice the difference.  Get started today!

Other recent articles you may be interested in:

Most employees performing significantly below their potential—but does anyone care?

How important is good management? This McKinsey research might surprise you!

Figure 1: Output increases associated with improved management practices. From Management Practice & Productivity—Exhibit 4.

The results are detailed in the white paper, Management Practice & Productivity: Why they matter.  The research team scored companies on 18 topics in three broad areas: performance management; talent management, and shop floor operations.

Surprising disconnect in most companies

The researchers were surprised to find that even though good management practices are well known and the correlation is clear, the reality is that many firms are still poorly managed.

To examine possible causes of this disconnect, respondents were asked to assess the overall management performance of their firm on a scale of one to five.  The researchers found that part of the problem was an inflated opinion of current management practices. In most cases, respondents over-estimated how they scored on the objective management measures.  This situation applied in all regions and across all firms.

The researchers found this lack of self-awareness striking. It suggested that, “…the majority of firms are making no attempt to compare their own management behaviour with accepted practices or even with that of other firms in their sector. As a consequence, many organizations are probably missing out on an opportunity for significant improvement because they simply do not recognize that their own management practices are so poor.”

How would you score the management practices in your company?

Here are three well-known manager behaviors essential to good performance.  Consider the degree to which these practices are used in your own company. Remember that the key is not knowing about these practices, but actually using them.  How would you score your organization when it comes to actually implementing these performance management basics?

1. Performance Planning: Employees have written goals that clearly identify their key responsibilities, goals, and tasks.
2. Performance Coaching: Employees meet with their supervisors on at least a twice per month basis to discuss progress, identify roadblocks, and get the direction and support they need to succeed.
3. Performance Evaluation: There are no surprises when it comes to annual reviews. Managers and direct reports are “in-synch” because performance against goals is being measured on a regular basis instead of once a year.

Don’t let an indifferent attitude toward implementing good management practices keep you and your organization from performing at a high level.  Take action today.  Good management matters!

To read the entire report, check out Management Practice & Productivity: Why they matter

Sometimes it’s just the opposite.  The long term looks so confusing and unclear you decide that maybe it’s best to just focus on something you know and can control.

Both of these approaches are damaging long term for individuals and the organizations they work in.  When people become so task-oriented that they lose sight of the bigger picture the result is misaligned work, the creation of individual and departmental silos, and poor teamwork and collaboration.

This is especially true with long-time employees.  Business authors Scott and Ken Blanchard highlight this in their most recent leadership post for Fast Company.  As they explain, “Leaders and organizations generally do a good job of clarifying goals as they are getting new people up to speed. With long-time employees, however, leaders often assume that the employee instinctively knows what’s important. As a result, leaders generally don’t spend the same amount of time and energy communicating clear objectives to seasoned employees that they do with new hires.”

The result?  A high level of misalignment in most organizations.

“We did a study a number of years ago with a large petroleum company in North America that shows how rarely this clarity occurs. We asked more than 2,000 employees and their managers to share their goal expectations with us. To begin, we asked the employees to rank the top five things they felt they were responsible for. Then we asked the managers to list and prioritize the five things they were actually holding each of their direct reports accountable for. We saw only a 19% agreement across the population of 2,000 people!”

Is misalignment holding you back?  Here are three strategies for creating more alignment in your organization:

1. Make sure clear agreements are in place. All good performance starts with clear goals.  It’s a process of creating clarity about why we’re here, what we’re doing, and how we’re going to work together.
2. Make sure everyone’s eyes stay on the ball. This includes regular one-on-one conversations with direct reports that include feedback and evaluation of how each person is doing against established targets.
3. Catch people doing things right. Help people notice and experience the incremental successes they are having. It’s easy to slip back into old habits.  Provide clarity and encouragement on a regular basis.

Don’t let a short term focus keep you—or your organization—from long-term success.  Take a minute this week to lift your head, look around and check for clarity and alignment.  Also, to learn more about the impact that misalignment can have on performance, be sure to check out Scott and Ken Blanchard’s post at Fast Company, If Your Employees Are Squabbling, Your Company’s Probably Standing Still.

In a special presentation on Leading from Any Chair in the Organization, Bob will be sharing three actionable steps on creating a culture where everyone feels a sense of ownership, empowerment, and ability to make a difference.  The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 500 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Bob will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Bob will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

He shares that fact and some of the causes as a contributing author in Performance Management: Putting Research into Action. Using the results of a Metrus Group survey he identifies six gaps that get in the way of organizational alignment. While each factor on its own isn’t enough of a problem to explain the overall poor alignment figure, Schiemann believes that it is the cumulative effect of each gap that explains the overall misalignment.

How would you score?

Take a look at some of the key alignment factors that Schiemann identifies below.  As you look at the numbers from other companies, ask yourself, “How many of these alignment factors could I cumulatively answer “yes” to on behalf of my company?”

From Performance Management: Putting Research into Action (2009) page 53, Figure 2.2 “Why Strategies and Behavior Disconnect: Percentage of Rater Agreement.” The percentages represent the cumulative agreement of raters for each element and for the ones above that element.

Strategies for closing the gap

For leaders looking to close the alignment gap in their organizations, Schiemann recommends seven key steps:

1. Develop a clear, agreed-on vision and strategy.
2. Translate the vision and strategy into clear, understandable goals and measures.
3. Include and build passion for the vision, strategy, goals among those who are implementing them.
4. Provide clarity regarding individual roles and requirements and link them across the organization.
5. Make sure that people have the talent, information, and resources to reach the goals.
6. Give clear, timely feedback on goal attainment.
7. Provide meaningful incentives to encourage employees to develop or deploy sufficient capabilities to achieve the goals.

All good performance begins with clear goals

No organization can perform at its best with only 14% of its people rowing in the same direction.  Take some time this week to check in with your people.  Are their key goals and work objectives in line with the overall strategy of your organization?  Do they see how their work fits in and do they have the tools, resources, and authority to get the job done?

Take the time to set (or reset) a clear direction today.  It can save a lot of time, work,  and wasted effort down the road.

Ask most bosses what their management style is at work and you’ll hear them talk of a supportive style that features active listening, coaching, and problem solving.  From their point of view, they feel that they are very active in providing high levels of direction and support to their people on a regular ongoing basis.

However, ask most employees what type of management style they are experiencing and they will tell you it’s more like concentrated periods of attention at the beginning and end of a cycle (think goal setting and performance review) with long stretches of time in between where they are basically left on their own.

This isn’t a problem if the employee is a self-directed, self-reliant high achiever on a task.  For employees with this level of competence, clear goal setting and an occasional check in to evaluate progress may be all they need.  But what about employees who are new to a task, developing new skills, or pushing to stretch themselves?  For these employees, goal setting and evaluation isn’t enough.  They also need direction and support along the way.  It doesn’t have to be a lot, but it does have to be present in some degree if you want them to make progress toward goals and feel cared for along the way.  Otherwise they can feel alone, abandoned, and on their own.

How are you doing with meeting the needs of your employees?  Here are a couple of things you can do this week to open up lines of communication and provide people with the direction and support they need to succeed.

1. Talk to them.  Set up time this week for a quick one-on-one to discuss where your people are at with their goals and tasks.  Even though the context of the conversation is being framed by what they are currently working on and how it is going, be sure to provide some room for them to share obstacles they may be facing and how you can help.  Watch for non-verbal signs—especially if you get an “everything’s fine” initial response from them.
2. Evaluate their development level with each task.  As they discuss each of the tasks they are working on, consider if this is something that is routine for them or a bit of a stretch.  If it’s routine, listening and support are all that is necessary.  If it’s a stretch, listen even more closely and consider how you can provide additional resources that can speed their progress.
3. Repeat on a weekly basis. Close out the meeting by setting up some time to meet again the following week to do it again.  Better yet, make it a recurring appointment on your calendar.  It doesn’t have to be a lot of time.  15-20 minutes will usually get the job done.

Time matters

Very few employees will tell you that they meet too much with their supervisor to discuss their issues.  (Micromanaging to discuss the needs of the manager is another story.)  But many will tell you that they haven’t had a discussion with their boss in weeks or months.  Sure, time is precious, but it is also the way that we signal interest, importance, and value in what people are working on.  Don’t let your relationships at work atrophy.  Set up some time to talk with your direct reports today.

But most leaders don’t know how to create that environment, explains Bob Glaser, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. “Many leaders would prefer to deal with what they know instead of taking a risk with what they don’t know. As a result, leaders don’t think outside the box to look at other options. They know things are not where they need to be, but they are not able or willing to deal with it, or move in a new direction.”

The result is sub-optimized performance, says Glaser. “If you don’t have engaged employees, then they are not really going to take care of customers….they just do what they need to do, day to day, and not much more.”

“It’s normal behavior during economic downturns,” shares Glaser. “But it causes people to focus more on protecting their turf as opposed to looking for innovative new ways to contribute to the organization. It’s a self-serving, ‘circle the wagons’ type of attitude that is counterproductive to the organization.”

Breaking the cycle

While you may not be able to influence the organization as a whole at first, most managers have a sphere of influence where they can make decisions and where they can impact results and outcomes. Inside of this team, group, or department, managers can change the environment that will allow employees to be more engaged. For leaders up to that challenge, Glaser recommends a three-step approach.

1. Create a micro-vision. Leaders need to have a vision of what they want their team, their department, or their group to look like when they are performing at a high level of excellence. Focus on both results and the behaviors that will drive the results.

2. Get everyone involved. Next, involve people in shaping that vision for the department, group, or team. When it’s done right, it’s not just the leader’s vision, but it is the collective vision of where the group wants to go. Work together to create solutions where everyone feels that they can contribute, that they can make a difference, and that they are owners of at least that part of the organization.

3. Reward and recognize desired behaviors. Everyone is operating under a huge scarcity mentality. That takes its toll. People are stressed, working hard, and they’re trying to do the right thing, but their efforts just seem to maintain the status quo. Without explicit rewards and recognition to move in a new direction, it’s not going to happen. Be sure that you explicitly define expected behaviors and then measure alignment with the expectations.

Are your people growing—or just trying to survive and get by?

Ready to start growing again?  Begin by putting fear on the back burner and focus instead on moving in a positive direction encourages Glaser.  “Rally people around an organizational vision and show them how they contribute to the vital work the company is involved in.

“When everyone understands how they contribute and how their work makes the organization better, when leaders can put their own self-interest aside and focus on the needs of others, it can have great impact on morale, engagement, and results.”

You can read more of Glaser’s thoughts in this month’s main article of The Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter.  Also check out a free webinar that Glaser is conducting on May 23, Leading from Any Chair in the Organization, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies

The same thing can happen when it comes to matching your leadership style to the needs of the people you’re leading. In this case, leaders often overdress by over-supervising (providing too much direction and support) or under-dress by delegating (providing too little direction and support) when their help is most needed.

How do you make sure that you’re always in style in both instances? Here are a few tips:

Make sure that you understand the situation. Being in style starts with information. What can you find out about the event that would give you clues to what would be most appropriate? When it comes to clothing choices, ask yourself: Who is going to be there? What is the situation? Where is it being held?

When it comes to leadership style, the same questions, slightly altered, can help in a management situation.

In this case, ask yourself: Who am I meeting with today? What are their specific needs in this situation? Where are they at in terms of competence and commitment for the goal or task? Find out as much as you can about the situation so you can match your style to the needs of the person you are working with.

Develop some flexibility—give yourself some options. Knowing that you need a certain style doesn’t help you if you don’t have that available in your wardrobe. The same is true when it comes to your leadership style. You need a variety of options that you are comfortable wearing. Most leaders play only one note—in essence, they wear the same style regardless of the situation. As a result, they are only in style a portion of the time.

This means that they might be on track when it comes to delivering a high direction style to someone new to a task, but completely off-track when they try using that same style with a highly-experienced, long time employee.

The best leaders have a full wardrobe at their disposal and are comfortable suiting up in a variety of styles to match the occasion.

Double-check that you’re on track. Once you’ve identified what you think is the perfect choice for the situation, be sure to double-check. Ask others, “Here is what I’m thinking would be appropriate in this situation, how does that sound to you?” Watch for a positive response. It might be subtle, so watch carefully. Some visible signs such as a release of tension, return of a confident look, or even a smile will tell you that you are moving in the right direction. If you don’t see that, return to step one—maybe you need some additional information to understand the situation more completely.

Creating a comfortable, natural leadership style takes work. But if you focus on the situation, develop your skills, and work together with people to make the right choices, you’ll find that you can develop an authentic, lasting style that will serve you well in any situation.

Scott Blanchard referred to this book and the importance of making sure everyone in your organization understands its prime objective as I interviewed him for an article that will be appearing in a leading business publication later this summer.  Scott is an Executive Vice President with The Ken Blanchard Companies and the co-founder of Blanchard Certified, a cloud-based leadership development program.

During the interview I asked Scott about accountability and a leaders role in it.  It’s an issue that comes up often, especially for new leaders.  They find it difficult to hold people accountable for results and to call them on it.

Blanchard caught me by surprise when he suggested that accountability is often a by-product of an alignment issue.  In his experience, accountability issues usually stem from an employee not truly understanding  the role that they play in helping the organization achieve its prime objective. He explained that the best leaders are the ones that make an organization’s prime objective crystal clear and then make sure that everyone knows how their individual roles tie-in.

One of the tools that Blanchard likes to use is an impact map that creates a very powerful line-of-sight where people can understand the results they are being held accountable for, the behaviors that achieve those results, and how those results contribute to the success of the organization.

Accountability

In Blanchard’s experience, accountability rears its head when people don’t have line-of-sight alignment and aren’t bought into the bigger picture.

As Blanchard explains, “We’ve been exploring extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation and what we’ve found is that holding people accountable pales in comparison to creating conditions in an organization where people are intrinsically motivated. You cannot crack the whip enough, or hold someone accountable enough, to achieve the kind of results you can if people understand the vision, care about it desperately, and see themselves as a part of it.

“Create that kind of alignment and you won’t have to worry about accountability.  Instead, employees will start holding you accountable as a leader to clear the way and help them get things done.”

Accountability issues?  Check alignment first

Cries for accountability are usually a clear indicator that things are out of alignment within an organization. Is accountability an issue in your organization?  If so, double-check for alignment first.

When people understand where their organization is going—including the role they play in it—they step up, work less selfishly and they tend to make better business decisions on behalf of the company. That’s because they can see the impact of every decision and how it impacts overall results.

Alignment helps people attain a sense of accomplishment. That’s a foundational concept and a key aspect of a satisfying job and a satisfying life.

What’s your approach to accountability?  In the organizations Blanchard works with that are outperforming competitors, they are not talking about accountability.  In these organizations accountability comes naturally from inside each of their employee’s hearts and heads.  You can do the same. Get the alignment right and you’ll get the accountability right.  Start today!  It’s good for the company and good for the individual.

There has to be a better way—right?

There is, and I’ll walk you through it.  Grab your to-do list and we’ll walk through this together.

Prioritize your list.

Take out your to-do list and scan through it.  If you don’t have a list and are just keeping it in your head, take some time to write it down.  There’s only one thing worse than a long to-do list. That is a vague, anxiety producing bunch of ideas you’re trying to keep straight in your head.  Get them out of your head and down on paper.  I’ll wait for you.

Okay—let’s take a look at that list now.  My list has 15 items on it.  How many does yours have?  Our first step is to prioritize the list by importance.  Give each of your tasks a letter grade of A, B, or C depending on how important it is.  We’ll try to get to everything on the list eventually, but let’s make sure that we focus on the important ones first.

I’m finished—are you?  In my own case, prioritizing my list gave me 8 A’s, 2 B’s, and 5 C’s.  I’m feeling a little better already—the eight A’s seem manageable and the five C’s really aren’t that important.  How did your list shake-out?

Identify where you are at.

Now, take a second look at the A’s.  Where would you say you are with each of these tasks?  At Blanchard we use a model where you identify yourself at one of four development levels with a task depending on your commitment to getting it done and your ability to get it done.

• Enthusiastic Beginner—you’re excited about the task but don’t really understand how to get started.
• Disillusioned Learner—you understand the task and have some skills, but aren’t very excited about it at all.
• Capable, but Cautious Performer—you’ve got the skills to do this, but your commitment and confidence wavers sometimes.
• Self Reliant Achiever—you’ve done this task successfully in the past and you’re confident you can do it successfully again.

What’s your commitment and competence for each of the “A” tasks on your list?  Are you just dragging your feet on a task because you’re not motivated, or do you really not know where to begin?  Are there obstacles in the way that are outside of your control?  Identifying where you are at with each task will help you with the final step.

Ask for help. 

In some cases, you probably have everything you need to knock off a task.  These are the tasks where you know what to do and you’re confident and committed to getting it done.  The first step of Prioritizing probably helped surface these tasks on your list.  You have everything you need so get those tasks done this week.

Some of the other tasks might have a trouble spot.  Either you don’t know what to do, have some issues with it, or have encountered some obstacles that are keeping you from making progress.  Talk to your manager about these.  Discuss where you are at with these key tasks and enlist their help.

If it’s been a while since you talked, keep the conversation focused on where you are at with each of the goals and what you need in order to achieve them.  Ask your manager to help you get what you need to succeed.  Be specific and ask for either some direction on accomplishing the task if you don’t have the knowledge you need, some support if you are encountering obstacles, or some encouragement if you are not sure how this task matches up with departmental goals.

Tackle that to-do list.  But don’t feel that you have to go it alone. Work is a group activity.  No man is supposed to be an island.  Prioritize your work, identify where you are at, and then ask for help when you need it.  It’s in everyone’s best interest for you to succeed.  Get started today!

The Three R’s of New Year’s

1. Revolutions – Circle back and review the resolutions you set for yourself last year. Furthermore, circle back and review any other important non-resolution goals you set for yourself last year. And while you’re at it, circle back and review any other big accomplishments from the past year – include wins AND losses that provided vital learning opportunities.
2. Revelations – Celebrate your successes! So often we get hung up on not fully achieving our resolutions and goals that we fail to realize just how much positive progress we’ve actually made towards them. This is especially true of resolutions which, for most people, tend to be extreme stretch goals. Don’t forget, they’re called “stretch” goals for a reason. For example, if last year you set out to lose 20 pounds but ended up only losing 10 pounds, you’ve still made positive progress worth celebrating. Be proud of the progress you’ve made toward your goals and celebrate what you have achieved, don’t dwell on what you haven’t achieved.
3. Resolutions – Now that you’ve reviewed and celebrated, it’s time to reset. Build off of what you’ve learned from reviewing the past year to determine how you can improve your approach and move closer to achieving (or fully achieve) your goals. When crafting your resolutions for the coming year, make sure that they’re authentic and meaningful to you. There’s a great post on this over at the PsychCentral blog offering 9 Tips for Setting Authentic New Year’s Resolutions.

As the year draws to a close, make sure not to skip steps 1 and 2 before crafting your resolutions. It’s important to review all of the valuable lessons you’ve learned and to celebrate all of your successes. You’ll be amazed at the great year you might not have realized you had! These two additional steps will put you in a positive state of mind and help set the tone for you to develop more meaningful, authentic, AND attainable resolutions.

Congratulations on all that you accomplished in 2011, and best wishes for an even more prosperous 2012!

Adam Morris is a featured blogger at Why Lead Now, one of LeaderChat’s sister blogs, focusing on the next generation of leaders. Follow Adam on Twitter @adammorris21.

To get at that, they shared five key questions from WD-40’s annual engagement survey and asked the audience how many of these statements they would personally agree and/or strongly agree with.  Here are the questions (and the percentages of positive responses.)  See how this stacks up with your experience.

In my organization/company…

1. I am treated with dignity and respect. (78% agree/strongly agree)
2. Employees work passionately toward the success of the organization. (52% agree/strongly agree)
3. I am allowed the freedom to openly discuss an alternative point of view concerning issues at our company/organization with my supervisor. (71% agree/strongly agree)
4. My supervisor respects me. (77% agree/strongly agree)
5. I know what results are expected of me. (68% agree/strongly agree)

Then Ken Blanchard asked one additional question to highlight the connection between performance management and culture.  After the initial results were shared, he asked, “Do you believe that you, as an employee, benefitted from your last review with your supervisor?”

Over 58% of the 500 people in attendance said “no”.

Blanchard and Ridge used this final question as a springboard to share their thoughts on what makes up a successful performance management system for employees.  They identified three key components.

1. Clear, agreed-upon goals.
2. Consistent day-to-day coaching designed to help people succeed.
3. No surprises at performance review.

The core of their message was that it’s all about trust and respect.  Organizations that treat people as valued team members by taking the time to structure jobs their properly, provide direction and support as needed, and focus more on helping people succeed instead of evaluating them, are the ones that create engaging work cultures that bring out the best in people.

What’s possible?

But does it work?  That’s where Garry Ridge’s experience at WD-40 really caught my attention.  After working at this for the past 10 years, Ridge answers, “absolutely” and he has the numbers to back it up.

Check out these responses from WD-40’s most recent survey on the same questions Ken Blanchard asked the audience.

1. At WD-40 Company I am treated with dignity and respect. (98.7% agree/strongly agree)
2. Employees at WD-40 Company work passionately towards the success of the organization. (98.6% agree/strongly agree)
3. I am allowed the freedom to openly discuss an alternative point of view concerning issues at WD-40 Company with my supervisor. (98.3% agree/strongly agree)
4. My supervisor respects me. (98.0% agree/strongly agree)
5. I know what results are expected of me. (97.7% agree/strongly agree)

The numbers at WD-40 are at least 20 points higher in all categories and an eye-popping 46-points above the audience survey response when it comes to question number two, “Employees at WD-40 Company work passionately towards the success of the organization.”

Ridge also has the bottom-line impact numbers you’d expect with the company experiencing consistent growth over the time period and record sales for the most recent fiscal year.

How about your organization?

Strong performance management is a basic key to success but its implementation is very uneven in today’s organizations.  Some companies have strong processes in place while others leave it up to the discretion of the individual manager. 

What’s your company’s approach to performance management?  How is it working? 

If you could use a more consistent, proven approach, check out the process that Blanchard and Ridge suggest in their book Helping People Win at Work.  It can be implemented at any level in an organization.  To see the complete presentation Blanchard and Ridge conducted check out the webinar recording posted up at Training Industry by clicking on this link.

Good performance management is a basic to better performance.  Don’t let an uneven approach create inconsistent results.  Your people deserve better.  Conduct a performance review of your performance management system today.

This is a dilemma for most managers according to Scott Blanchard in a recent blog post for Fast Company magazine.  Blanchard explains that it is only natural to assign tasks to the most accomplished people on your team. The challenge is to balance a short-term need for immediate results with a long-term view for the growth and development of your people.

Finding the perfect balance

Drawing on some of the core concepts from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Blanchard explains that managers need to balance routine work that is easily accomplished with challenging new tasks that provide variety.

How can managers find the right balance?  Here are three strategies that Blanchard recommends:

• Become more aware of your goal-setting habits.  Have you optimized the challenge inherent in each person’s goals or tasks, or have you fallen into the habit of overusing and under-challenging your best people? Have you focused more on your own needs instead of theirs by giving them routine work you know they can accomplish successfully with little intervention on your part?
• Focus on both the long and short term.  Manage the urge to assign a task to a proven winner to ensure quick completion versus assigning the same task to someone who is brand new and may require some direction and support. But don’t go overboard. You don’t want to focus solely on employee development and compromise organizational effectiveness. Balance is the key.
• Create variety for yourself and others. According to Warren Bennis, the most effective managers are the ones who actively engage in clear periods of reflection as well as action. Balancing task variety is one of those projects that requires some discipline and awareness to think through.

Blanchard also reminds readers that most people become bored because they’re doing boring tasks—not because of a character flaw. Instead of moving away from a person you might see as a complainer, see that person instead as someone who is not really “in flow” and work with him or her to find out what the right mix could be. It’s a management basic that creates the long and short term impact that works best.

PS: To read more of Blanchard’s thinking on creating the right mix in your work environment, check out, Helping Your Employees Find Their “Flow” at Fast Company.

The bad news is that you may have brought the problem on yourself by the way you structured compensation, rewards and bonuses.  

Once you set people on a path of extrinsic rewards, you will need to prepare to keep increasing the pay, bonus, or promotions every year, or be prepared to disappoint people when you are not able to do so.  (A situation many companies find themselves in today.) 

Here are a couple of ways to minimize the downside when using these traditional forms of extrinsic motivation.

Keep things in perspective. You want to reward and encourage people who attain the goal—but you don’t want it to become the goal. You don’t want to hear people saying, “I’m just here for the money.”

Make sure the goal is self attainable.  If you are going to use extrinsic motivators, make sure that attainment is completely self controlled by the employee.  You don’t want a manager or supervisor dangling the reward in front of an employee like a carrot on a stick.  This is a coercive strategy that just encourages boss-watching and brown-nosing with people spending half their time making sure the boss notices what they are doing.

Deepen the experience. The tough economic times of the last two years have shown how shallow the employer—employee relationship has become in many organizations.  As Warren Buffet reminds us, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.”

Look beyond money (but still provide it) and then shift the discussion to linking individual work goals into larger organizational goals.  The task is to move people away from short-term transactional thinking and into something larger and more sustainable.  

Learn more

For specific strategies on how to make this happen in your organization, be sure to check out the following articles by Scott and Ken Blanchard at Fast Company

The Role Money Plays in Engaging Employees

Maintain A Startup Attitude for a Passionate Office

Managers: Set People Free to Promote Growth and Get Results

PS: On January 25, The Ken Blanchard Companies will be hosting a Leadership Livecast on the problem of Quitting and Staying.  Have you successfully addressed quitting and staying in your organization? Can you share it in five minutes or less?  Videotape yourself and send it to us.  You could be a featured speaker!  Click here for details.

As Reynolds explains, “Leaders often think that people should know something through their own devices and so they don’t give them feedback, or clear expectations, or redirection toward the target that they (the leader) are looking for.” These managers are often surprised later when they find out that their people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

By avoiding the situation and not addressing it early, managers will tend to create a lot of emotion around the issue when they finally deal with it. At that point, the tendency is to come down hard, and say things like, “You’re doing this wrong; fix it!”  Once that happens, resistance goes up.

With newer managers, Reynolds will often see behavior swing to the other side of the scale. Now the emotion centers on the relationship and how the feedback may damage it. As he explains, “Younger managers want to project a positive image and have people like them. When feedback gets tied up with emotion, these younger leaders find it difficult to give corrective feedback or to hold people accountable.”

Advice for Senior Leaders

For senior leaders recognizing these symptoms in their organizations, Reynolds recommends a 3-step approach:

• Take a look at your organization’s culture. Culture drives organizational behavior more than anything else. Make feedback a priority, recognize people who are good at feedback, and let people know that feedback is something that is valued and encouraged.
• Provide training. People can only do what they know how to do. It’s unreasonable to ask people to do something at which they don’t have the training or skill set to be effective.
• Model what effective feedback looks like. Demonstrate what positive and redirecting feedback looks like for the people reporting to you.

Read more about Reynolds’ advice for improving feedback in your organization here.  Also be sure to see the information about a free webinar Reynolds will be conducting on October 19, How to Deliver Feedback in a Way That Gets Results.  It’s a complimentary event, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Why? 

Changes in technology, attitudes, and the nature of work eliminate the need for supervisors who only see their job as telling people what to do and then evaluating performance at an annual review.

If that is what’s happening in your organization, consider asking senior leadership to create a higher standard for managers.  Setting goals and conducting performance reviews are just the beginning of a middle manager’s job.  Their real value is in their ability to access resources, remove obstacles, and provide day-to-day coaching for the people who report to them. 

If your manager is not providing you with the support that you need to succeed, here are three things to ask for (and a proven way on how to ask for it.)

What to ask for

1. A clear sense of how your job impacts key departmental goals. Everyone needs to know that their work is meaningful and to have some clear alignment between what they do and what the organization is trying to accomplish.  If you can’t point to a key departmental objective and how your work is impacting it, you do not have the alignment that should be in place.
2. A well defined job that includes some routine and some challenging tasks. In a healthy work environment, you will typically have 3-5 goals that you need to accomplish.  If your job is structured properly, some of those tasks will be very achievable with your present skills while others are more of a stretch that you cannot accomplish with your current skill set and resources. This mix is an essential component of a satisfying job that also encourages career growth.
3. A clear agreement with your boss about where you are at and what you need to succeed.  For tasks where you are self sufficient you need an agreement with your boss to give you the autonomy you deserve to accomplish the task as you see fit.  No one likes being micromanaged on tasks they are capable of achieving on their own.  For tasks that are beyond your current skill level and immediate resources, you need an agreement for the direction and support that will help you access the budget, training, and expertise you need to get the job done.

How to ask for it

• Use “I need” statements.  One of the most powerful ways you can get the help you need to accomplish your work goals is to use “I need” statements.  For example, “In order to process customer orders more efficiently, I need a higher level of access into our customer database,” or “In order to create the type of social media campaign and metrics that we are talking about, I need some additional training.”  For best results, pair any “I need” statement with three possible solutions.  Very few bosses will turn down this type of request—especially when it is in pursuit of legitimate departmental goals.

A good middle manager or front line supervisor takes strategic directives and turns them into results.  Is that the role your immediate manager is playing?  If not, expect more.  Use “I need” statements to make sure that your job is aligned,  that you have a mix of routine and stretch goals, and that you have an immediate supervisor committed to helping you access the resources you need to succeed.

Good middle managers will never be obsolete.  That distinction is only reserved for managers who see their role as assigning tasks and evaluating others.  That truly is obsolete, not just for the next generation of employees, but for all employees.

In a recent article entitled Top Challenges for New Managers, Phillips explains that many people are promoted into managerial positions because they were great individual contributors. Because they had so much success with a certain way of working—be it strong planning or attention to detail or great execution skills—they may have a difficult time understanding that other people don’t necessarily work that way.

For these managers (and others who may be new to leading others) Phillips identifies three additional challenges:

Doing the work yourself. It’s not easy for new managers to let go and trust that the work will get done without their direct intervention. When things don’t work out as planned—or are taking longer than expected, new managers tend to step in and do the work themselves rather than work through the process and learn how to let others run with the ball.

Not setting clear roles and goals. This is especially challenging for new managers who have been promoted from a group of their peers.

“Managers need to walk a fine line,” explains Phillips. “You want to maintain the relationship, but you have to separate yourself so people see you no longer as a peer, but instead in your new role as a manager.

“All good performance begins with clear goals and all good relationships begin with clear roles. If a manager is promoted out of their peer group, they need to sit down with their former coworkers and talk about how their roles have changed. ‘Here is how I am going to behave differently and here is what I expect in return.’ Otherwise there are always misunderstandings and surprises.”

Balancing accountability and caring. Sometimes new managers think you have to choose between people and performance.  Phillips recommends that new managers balance high expectations with equally high levels of support and caring.

“People need to know that you have their best interests in mind, that you are setting them up to win, and that you mean them no harm. Things are always going to come up. When people know that you truly care, that can cover a lot of situations and people will forgive your mistakes and continue to follow you.”

To learn more about Phillips’ advice for new managers, read Top Challenges for New Managers here.  Also, check out a free webinar that Phillips is conducting on September 22, A Primer for New Managers: Respect, Trust, and Accountability. It’s a free event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard, coauthor of Coaching in Organizations and Leading at a Higher Level will be discussing three strategies for getting people off to a fast start in a new role in a special presentation of On-Boarding: How to Shorten Ramp-up Times for Employees.

The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 600 people expected to participate. Immediately after the webinar, Madeleine will be answering follow-up questions over at our sister blog, The Coaching Source for about 30 minutes.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

8/22/11 update: Recording of this event is now available online. To learn more, visit On-Boarding: How to Shorten Ramp-up Times for Employees

How are you doing with the double challenge of accomplishing your own work while still managing the work performance of others?  If you’re afraid you’re seeing a little seagull behavior in yourself lately, here are three ways to get back on track with a more helpful approach:

1. Make sure you know what your people are working on.  Manager’s shouldn’t be surprised at what their people are working on but this often happens because goals are unclear, or are not in alignment with overall department objectives.  Make sure that everyone in your group has a clear set of 3-5 objectives and that they are mapped to a specific organizational objective.
2. Identify everyone’s development level for their specific tasks. A good group of goals will include tasks that are familiar and routine to an employee plus one or two stretch goals that will require some growth on their part. Review each of your direct report’s goals.  Which tasks can they easily accomplish on their own—and which tasks will they need help with?  Their development level on each task will determine the proper amount of input you’ll need to provide.
3. Schedule regular meeting time.  A weekly check-in for 20-30 minutes can do wonders for putting out all of the small daily brush fires that occur before they turn into raging infernos.  A little bit of structured time to review how your people are doing in each of their key areas is a great way to get started.   Don’t turn this into a weekly evaluation though.  Let the employee guide the conversation.  The idea here is to create a safe space for employee’s to ask for help when needed.

Even when people work together in the same building, it is still surprising to see how little conversation can occur between managers and their direct reports.  With today’s increased workload, it is often easier to keep your head down and your door closed.  Don’t let that happen to you and your people.  Schedule some time to meet with your direct reports on a regular basis.  It can save a lot of screeching and wing-flapping later on.

In a recent article entitled Three Keys to Effective On-Boarding, Madeleine Homan-Blanchard, cofounder of Coaching Services at The Ken Blanchard Companies identifies three ways managers can help new employees (or existing ones in new roles) get off to a fast start.

• Explain the local culture. There are many subcultures at play in any organization, and it’s the manager’s responsibility to explain how this particular team operates. Whether managers share it formally or informally, the existing culture and values need to be made extremely clear to new people.
• Share expectations.  A second strategy that Homan-Blanchard recommends to speed up the individual on-boarding process is for managers to spell out very clearly what the expectations are for the new employee. This gives new people a sense of safety because they know exactly what they are dealing with and what they will be evaluated on.
• Map relationships. Finally, Homan-Blanchard recommends that managers help people understand who the people are inside and outside of the department that they can go to for help if they need it. As she explains, “Many times this won’t be obvious on the organizational chart so it is very beneficial for a manager to say, ‘It might look like these three people are the ones to go to for that type of question—but if you really want to get this done here’s the person you want to talk to.’”

With a little extra time at the beginning of the process, managers can help eliminate some of the “deer in the headlight” hesitancy and confusion that trips up a lot of people when they first start a new role.

To learn more about Homan-Blanchard’s advice for getting people off to a fast start in your organization read Three Keys to Effective On-Boarding.  Also check out a free webinar that Homan-Blanchard will be conducting on August 17, On-Boarding: How to Shorten Ramp-up Times for Employees

The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 600 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Vicki will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

 Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Vicki will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Now posted! View recording of 6 Keys to Creating Learning Experiences that Inspire and Engage

When you first employ people, relationships start off very clear. Both you and the new employees have a clear sense of what they are supposed to do. Over time, however, many work roles begin to evolve into something different based on direction, redirection, praisings, and reprimands. It’s a multi-faceted process that includes where the employee wants to go with their career, how clear the manager has been with spelling out goals, and the type and amount of performance feedback that the employee has been receiving along the way.

Sometimes, managers and direct reports can find themselves in a completely different place from where they first started. Here’s a way to see if that’s happened to you.

Try this test

Take a minute to identify the five things or results, in descending order of importance, that you hold an employee accountable for. List the most important goal as #1, the second most important goal as #2, etc. Now, ask that employee to write down the five things or results he or she feels most accountable for. Don’t reveal your list until the employee is finished writing. Now compare the two lists. To what degree do the two lists match in terms of priority and content? If you are like most companies we work with, you’ll find that the two lists only have about a 20 percent agreement.

Alignment is key

An aligned purpose and clear expectations are the foundation of an effective work environment. All good performance starts with clear goals. Make sure that your people’s work is on track and on target.

PS: You can read more about Ken and Scott’s thoughts on managing performance—and see all of their previous blog entries at Fast Company, here.

As a leader, it’s important to make sure you’ve set your people up for success before you transfer responsibility and accountability. Here are some of Blanchard’s key points to make sure you’ve done your part.

Share what to do, with clear guidelines

A big part of being a manager is saying, “I’ve done what I can do, and now I need to turn it over to people so they can be accountable and responsible for their own performance.” The reality is that managers can’t watch their people all the time, so at some point their people are going to have to act on their manager’s behalf, consistent with the way that their manager wants them to act. This requires the manager to provide a clear picture of the desired outcome.

Make it a gradual process

Autonomy, when correctly implemented, is a gradual and appropriate empowering and loosening of the reins on people to enable them to take responsibility for what they are doing. For example, if you are a parent, you know that sooner or later your children are going to be out in the world, living and making decisions outside of your expressed views.

If parents don’t let their kids do anything independently and develop their own skills before they turn 18 and leave for college, then they’re asking for trouble. Parents, as well as managers, need to slowly loosen the leash and give more autonomy over time. Otherwise they’re going to see some real disasters because they haven’t built up a person’s capacity to be autonomous.

Employees aren’t children, of course, but this example provides some context that all of us can relate to.

There is a big difference between providing autonomy and abdicating management responsibility. If managers just let people loose without skills, abilities, and boundaries, then they are abdicating responsibility and setting people up to fail. Autonomy needs to be a slow and steady process. Your goal as a manager is to help people learn their job inside and out through thorough training, and then, as they demonstrate competency, give them the autonomy to be flexible. Autonomy without competence is really risky and dangerous, and lack of autonomy when someone is competent can be insulting and demotivating.

Look for the right time

The challenge for a manager, then, is to identify the point at which to turn the job over to the employee. This is the leap of faith when supervisors move from a coaching role to a more consultative role with their people. Parents, again, are familiar with this when they watch their kids drive away to college–they take a big gulp and hope that they’ve prepared their kids to take care of themselves when they get to the campus.

In my own case, I have been known to give people responsibility too soon–sending them out before they really have all the competence and skills necessary. Other people I know have a tendency to hang on too long–then they miss the opportunity to give people a chance to really spread their wings and succeed or fail on their own merit. When managers hang on too long, they can create either dependence, or a sense of frustration, anger, and resentment in employees because the employees feel they are being micromanaged. As a manager, you want to get it right as often as you can, but be aware of the possibility that you may be either too slow or too fast in turning people loose.

In matters that aren’t life and death I would recommend a bias toward turning people loose early. In more critical circumstances you may have to hang on for a more extended period of time, but eventually you still need to let them go off on their own.

To read more of Blanchard’s thoughts on empowering your employees, check out his complete post here at the Fast Company Leadership Experts blog.

Trust in relationships is comprised of four elements: Ability, Believability, Connectedness, and Dependability (TrustWorks!® ABCD Model). Part of being an able, competent leader is knowing how to get things done. Yet with today’s flat organizations and wide span of control, it’s impossible for a leader to know the answer to every problem that crops up.

A leader has to rely on problem-solving and decision-making skills to facilitate work getting done in the organization. Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, who recently announced his candidacy for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, has said that he succeeded in business for over 40 years by asking the right questions of the right people about the right problems to get to the right solutions.

Trustworthy leaders also make sure employees receive the right amount of direction and support to be successful in their jobs. The leader owes it to the employee to set clear goals and performance expectations up front, and then give regular, timely, and meaningful feedback on performance along the way so the employee stays on track to achieving the goal.

If you feel like you have room to develop your facilitation skills in order to get things done in the organization, consider the following:

• Work on developing your meeting management skills. Encourage participation from others, solicit ideas, incorporate suggestions, record action items and hold yourself and others accountable to following through on commitments.
• Develop your coaching and leadership skills. Make sure you’re setting clear goals and giving frequent feedback to team members, not just at their performance review. Learn and use Situational Leadership® II so that you’re giving employees the right amount of direction and support they need to achieve their goals.
• Utilize problem-solving and decision-making techniques such as brainstorming, SWOT, or Force Field analysis.
• Perform an After Action Review of a recent problem-solving or decision-making situation. Ask these questions: What did we set out to do? What actually happened? Why did it happen? What can we do better next time?

Building trust is a process that takes time and effort, but can be accomplished through the use of specific behaviors. Continued focus on developing your facilitation skills to get work accomplished in the organization will help you create a track record of success and will earn you the trustworthy reputation of someone who can “Git-R-Done!”

This is one in a series of articles on the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model and building trust in relationships and organizations. Be sure to “like” TrustWorks!® on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @TrustWrks.

When that happens, the net result is competing priorities, wasted effort and diminished engagement.  If that’s what you are experiencing, here are a couple of strategies to explore depending on your level in the organization.

Senior Leaders—as a senior leader, you should be in the best shape when it comes to alignment.  If you are feeling a little adrift, make sure that you know where your organization is going and what specific strategies have been put in place to get there.  Senior leaders play a key role in setting the overall vision for the company.  Without a bigger vision to serve, people will default to focusing on personal needs.  As a senior leader, make sure that people have something greater than themselves to align with.

Middle Managers—you’ve got the biggest challenge—but also the most experience—in dealing with multiple priorities. Keep one eye on senior management for new directions, while also keeping an eye on direct reports to make sure they know what is expected of them.  Your challenge here is to avoid falling into an either/or trap.  Who do you serve?  Both groups.  Ask questions of senior leaders to make sure you understand strategic directions clearly.  Encourage questions from direct reports to make sure they have the direction and support they need to bring those plans to life.

Frontline Contributors—you share some of the same challenges as middle managers wondering if you should focus on your boss’s agenda or meeting customer needs.  In the best organizations, these goals should be one and the same.  If they are not, don’t fall into the either/or trap yourself.  Find a way to serve both groups.  And if you find yourself feeling out of step, talk to your immediate manager about connecting the dots between your work and department initiatives.  You don’t want to find yourself spinning your wheels on low value work that doesn’t make a difference.

The bottom line

At all levels, people need (and want) to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  When the organization isn’t aligned, self-serving behavior starts to seem like a reasonable alternative to fill the gap.  Don’t let that happen in your organization. As a leader it is important to create a strong vision and show people how their role contributes. Nip any either-or thinking and remind people that it is possible to focus on customers, supervisors, and yourself at the same time.

Jesse Lyn Stoner, a leading expert on the topic of visioning, and coauthor with Ken Blanchard of Full Steam Ahead!: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life believes that when team members set these foundational pieces in place, there is less wasted time, less conflicting priorities, and less interpersonal conflict because team members trust they are all moving in the same direction, guided by the same values.

In a recent article for Ignite!, Stoner recommends a three step approach to getting people aligned and working together effectively.

Be specific in setting values that will guide the way the team works together. All new groups need a set of common rules that will define expected behaviors. Identifying common values can be a challenge for teams when they first come together because the words alone can mean different things to different people. The key is to define the words with specific examples. For example, what does transparent, responsible, and “good team player” mean to you?  More importantly, what exactly does it mean to others in the group?

Keep your customer in mind. It’s easy to fall into the trap of defining your group’s work in terms of what you produce in the way of products or services.  Effective leaders define their team’s purpose from the viewpoint of those who benefit from their services and products.  For example, a marketing team shouldn’t define their work as creating brochures, staging events, and promoting consistent branding.  Instead, the team should see its work as “providing a steady stream of new leads for Sales associates.”

Focus on accountability to bring your vision to life. Once a team has identified its purpose, values, and picture of the future, Stoner recommends that the team publish their vision.  And probably more importantly, check in with internal and external customers on a regular basis to see how you are doing in achieving your team’s stated purpose.

The vast majority of work teams never live up to their potential.  Don’t waste the opportunity to get the best from the people you bring together.  Taking a little extra time up front to define and publish expectations can make a huge difference in the long run.

Click here to read more about Stoner’s thoughts on Unify Your Team through a Common Vision or learn more about a free webinar that Stoner will be conducting on Purpose, Passion, and Meaningful Work—how to get where you want to go

On one of those occasions, the president slipped through a side door in the church and took a seat in the minister’s study, located just to the side of the sanctuary. There he propped the door open, just wide enough to hear Dr. Gurley.

During the walk home, an aide asked Mr. Lincoln his appraisal of the sermon. The president thoughtfully replied, “The content was excellent; he delivered with elegance; he obviously put work into the message.”

“Then you thought it was an excellent sermon?” questioned the aide.

“No,” Lincoln answered.

“But you said that the content was excellent. It was delivered with eloquence, and it showed how hard he worked,” the aide pressed.

“That’s true,” Lincoln said, “But Dr. Gurley forgot the most important ingredient. He forgot to ask us to do something great.”

As leaders, it’s important that we remember to ask our people to do something great.  People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  It’s a basic human need.  Too often, as leaders we hesitate in asking our people to do a little more, try a little harder, push a little extra.  The fear is that we are asking too much.  Is it possible that the real problem is that we are asking too little?

People perform best when they are working toward meaningful goals that are difficult, challenging, and worthwhile.  Leaders don’t do their direct reports any favors when they reduce job roles down to easy-to-perform tasks that can be accomplished with a minimum of effort.  Set hard goals for your people and watch them shine.

You’ve Set Challenging Goals, Now the Hard Part

Why don’t leaders set hard goals for their people and hold them accountable for achieving them?  Why is everyone so skittish about confronting sub-par performance?   The answer lies in another Lincoln quote I ran across last month.

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”

Leaders cannot just set hard goals, call it a day, and consider their job done. Leaders also need to be willing to step up to the bar with a servant’s heart and be willing to provide the direction and support that people need when they are stretching themselves to achieve difficult goals.  This is the leader’s half of the equation and this is the part that has caused so many people to back away from accountability.

If the leader doesn’t feel right about the amount of time they’ve spent meeting with their direct reports, spending time with them inquiring about progress and providing direction and support on a regular basis, it is pretty embarrassing to ask the employee how they are doing.

When leaders are doing their part, when they are exhibiting a willingness to help as Lincoln identifies, then they have the right to hold others accountable.  That is the second half of the equation that makes Lincoln so well-loved around the world.  People recognize that Lincoln expected the best from people, but was also willing to go to the extra mile to help them.  One without the other is only half the story. Great leadership means asking people to do something great—and then being there with the direction and support people need to succeed.

“Money”…”Clutch”…”Nails”…Maybe you’ve used (or heard) one of those phrases to describe someone who seems to deliver when it matters most. It’s the go-to person that everyone trusts to get the job done on time, on budget, and with good quality. Why do those people engender so much trust from others? It’s pretty simple, right? They produce results!

We rarely have the conscious thought of building trust when we go about our daily jobs, but the fact is that our track record of results, or the lack thereof, contributes dramatically to how much we’re trusted by others. One of the quickest ways to erode trust with people is to not be productive in your role and provide positive contributions to your team and organization.

Producing quality results is a direct result of your ability, which is the first element of building trust in the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model: Ability, Believability, Connectedness, and Dependability. Using effective goal setting practices, consistently achieving goals, and getting quality results causes others to have confidence in your ability which leads to higher levels of trust.

In order to produce quality results, it’s important that you have a clear road map of where you’re headed. Having clear goals will help you understand what you’re trying to achieve – what an “A” looks like. Yet it’s easy to be “busy” and “productive” and not achieve the goals that matter most. That’s why you need to make sure you’re focused on the right priorities which will guide your day to day business activities so that you stay on track to achieving the right results.  If you feel there are systemic or resource issues that are affecting your progress, it may be helpful to conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to help identify the roadblocks and devise strategies on how to remove them.

At the end of day, you want others to have such a high level of trust and confidence in your track record of producing results that you’re the go-to guy or gal – you’re MONEY!

This is one in a series of articles on the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model and building trust in relationships and organizations. Be sure to “like” TrustWorks!® on Facebook.

• Establish goals, objectives and performance standards. “People need to know what is expected of them,” he explains. “All good performance starts with clear goals. If employees don’t have dear expectations, they sit and quit, meaning they show up for work but do not give their best because they are unsure of what to do.”
• Provide day-to-day coaching—or what Ridge calls execution. This is where a manager observes and monitors the performance of his or her people, praising progress and redirecting where necessary. At WD-40 this process includes a series of formal, quarterly conversations during which employees sit down with their supervisors to discuss how things are going.
• Take a partnership approach to performance reviews. As Ridge explains, “What we do is have a one-on-one conversation during our quarterly meeting and review each person’s assessment of himself or herself. If the leader disagrees outright with an employee’s self assessment, we always ask, ‘What’s going on in your life and your business that is not allowing what we expected to happen? How can I help?’ No finger-pointing is tolerated. It’s a partnership. We don’t play the blame game, because we know leaders are accountable and responsible, too.”

When Leaders Help People Win At Work, Both the Organization and the Employees Benefit

Is employee performance a shared responsibility in your organization?

“When employees have clear expectations, meaningful work and day-to-day support, it impacts their level of engagement,” Ridge explains. ”At WD-40, our engagement score is 93 percent, which means that 93 percent of our people globally get up every day and go to work doing meaningful work–work they find is adding value to them and the company on a daily basis.”

To learn more about Ridge’s approach to performance management, be sure to check out Building a Performance-Based Culture in this month’s issue of Chief Learning Officer.

All good performance starts with clear goals.  Here are three questions to make sure you are heading in the right direction:

1. Are your goals aligned with departmental and organizational objectives?  Your organization has probably finalized its 2011 strategic planning.  Take a moment to make sure that your individual goals are in alignment with the organization.  You don’t want to be working tangentially or at cross purposes.
2. Are you trying to do too much?  7 or 10 goals are too many for any person to truly focus on.  Instead, choose the 3 to 5 goals that will have the most impact.  That should be a lot clearer now with seven weeks of the new year under your belt.
3. Are you getting feedback on how you’re doing?  By now, you and your manager should have had at least one conversation on how you are progressing toward your goals.  If not, schedule a one-on-one to discuss.  Feedback is a critical component of good performance.

In most organizations, goals are set at the beginning of the year, filed away, and not seen again until it’s time for performance review.  The result is poorly aligned work and unpleasant surprises at the end of the year.  Don’t let that happen to you.  Revisit your goals often, talk to your immediate manager about them on a regular basis, and adjust them as necessary to meet the changing needs of the organization.

In a recent webinar for The Ken Blanchard Companies, WD-40 CEO Garry Ridge asked participants to assess their performance review system.  Over 400 people shared their thoughts in three key areas. Here are their responses to each question.  How would you have answered these same questions on behalf of your organization?

Our organization’s performance review system provides valuable feedback and direction to employees. 

•         Strongly agree               (24%)
•         Slightly agree                (54%)
•         Slightly disagree            (13%)
•         Strongly disagree          (  8%)

Employees don’t receive surprise feedback at the end of the year that they never received during the year. 

•         Strongly agree               (38%)
•         Slightly agree                (35%)
•         Slightly disagree            (19%)
•         Strongly disagree          (  6%)

Our performance review system builds trust between managers and their people. 

•         Strongly agree               (18%)
•         Slightly agree                (47%)
•         Slightly disagree            (22%)
•         Strongly disagree          (10%)

A good performance management system provides employees with feedback and direction that they can use throughout the course of the year to improve performance.  A poor one focuses solely on evaluation.  When that occurs, employees are often surprised by their year-end assessment with detrimental impact on trust and morale.  Don’t let that happen in your organization.  Find ways to help people win along the way by providing clear goals, day-to-day coaching, and frequent, informal feedback throughout the year.  

 To learn how Garry Ridge has created just such a system at WD-40, be sure to check out the on-demand recording of 3 Keys to Effective Performance Management.  You’ll hear about the results of the polling and Ridge’s prescription for success.

1. Performance Planning

All good performance starts with clear goals. Clarifying goals involves making sure that people understand two things: first, what they are being asked to do—their areas of accountability—and second, what good performance looks like—the performance standards by which they will be evaluated. Most organizations do a good job on performance planning and set very clear goals. However, after goal setting, what do you think happens to those goals? Most often they get filed, and no one looks at them until they are told it’s time for performance reviews. Then everybody runs around, bumping into each other, trying to find the goals.

2. Performance Coaching

Leaders often assume that their work direction conversations are so clear that there is no need for follow-up or that they are so busy that they can’t take the time. Many managers do that very same thing. They hire people, tell them what to do, and then leave them alone and assume good performance will follow. In other words, they abdicate; they don’t delegate. This sets up the old leave alone/zap management style. To counteract this, schedule and hold progress-check meetings. You will be able to catch problems before they become major and significantly increase the probability that your direct report’s performance on the goal will meet your expectations. Progress-check conversations enhance the quality of your relationships, build trust and commitment, open lines of communication, and diminish the amount of time spent fighting brush fires.

3. Performance Review

This is where a person’s performance over the course of a year is summed up. If steps one and two have been done properly, the year-end performance review will just be a review of what has already been discussed. There will be no surprises. Instead, managers and direct reports will be reviewing and celebrating the tasks they have already been working on. When progress-check meetings are scheduled according to development level, open, honest discussions about the direct report’s performance take place on an ongoing basis, creating mutual understanding and agreement.

How is your organization doing in these three key areas?

Clear goals, solid day-to-day coaching, and “no surprise” performance reviews are hallmarks of a great performance management system. Think about your own organization, and your own conversations with managers and direct reports you work with. Are there areas where you could improve?

PS: If you would like to learn how one organization has put these practices into use, be sure to check out today’s webinar of 3 Keys to Effective Performance Management. WD-40 CEO Garry Ridge will be sharing how he has created a high involvement, high performance work culture that has increased performance and engagement levels. The session is free and is being broadcast today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific (5:00 p.m. GMT).

It made Ridge ask himself, “Why don’t we do that in business?”

Ridge turned the idea over in his mind and eventually partnered up with Blanchard to write the 2009 best-selling business book, Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A”

In addition to writing about the subject, Ridge put the concepts into practice. Similar to what Ken Blanchard had done as a college professor, Ridge set out to do the same with the employees at his company, WD-40. He would give each employee a copy of the final exam at the beginning of the year—in the form of annual goals—and then have managers and supervisors partner with their employees to help them get an “A”

As Ridge explains, “In most organizations, after goals are set, managers file the goals away and don’t think much about the people’s performance until they realize they have to do their annual performance reviews. The only other time they think about their people’s performance is when something goes wrong. These managers tend to manage by exception. When a red flag goes up, they go to work and start managing.”

At WD-40 Company, the agreed-on final exam is just the beginning. Now comes the key step: the leader has to keep up his or her end of the partnership relationship on a day-to-day basis, by helping in coaching and supporting the individual to get an “A.”

Leaders and direct reports get together to analyze the employee’s development level on each of his or her goals and determines the leadership style that is a match. This process helps employees ask for the help they need from their managers as they move toward their “A” in each of their agreed-upon goal areas. It provides the basis for the day-to-day coaching of team members.

“You’ll hear people say, ‘I think I’m getting an “A” here, but I think I’m getting a “B” here.’ And then we want to talk about the B’s. We will ask, ‘What is getting in the way of you doing great work? Is it something within the company? Do we need to get some help? Are things just crappy out there? Do we need to adjust a little bit?’

“And so we have these check-in meetings four times a year. And there are no surprises. You know exactly where you are.”

What’s the focus of performance management in your organization? 

Setting goals and monitoring progress is only part of the story.  Helping people achieve their goals is where the action is really at. 

To learn more about Garry Ridge’s approach to performance management, be sure to check out a complimentary webinar Ridge is conducting on February 17 titled 3 Keys to Effective Performance Management.

How can a leader reinvent himself or herself? 

A. I think a leader reinvents himself or herself by constantly wanting to learn.  When you stop learning, you might as well lie down because you’re dead. I think every leader ought to set a personal goal each year about what will they be able to put on their resume next year that they didn’t have last year.  It might be learning a new language.  It could be learning a new computer program.  Constantly put yourself in a learning mode.

What does it take to be a good leader?

A. The biggest thing it takes to be a good leader is humility.  People with humility don’t think less of themselves—they just think about themselves less.  I think Rick Warren said it well in his book, The Purpose Driven Life.  The first sentence of that book is a whole leadership training program.  He said, “It’s not about you.”  We can accomplish that if we can get leaders to realize that they are there for the mission, for their clients, for their people, and not for themselves.

Can a leader also be a good coach?

 A. Yes, coaching is a definite part of leadership.  There are two parts of leadership.  One is the visionary direction part of leadership which is, “Where are we going?” and “What are we trying to accomplish?”  That has to be the responsibility of the traditional hierarchy.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t involve other people, but people look to the president, department chairman, and other traditional leaders to make sure that everybody knows where they are going.

The second part of leadership is implementation, which is “How do we live according to the vision, direction, and values that we have established?”  With that you have to turn the traditional hierarchy upside down.  So now the leaders who played a major role in setting the vision are at the bottom cheerleading, supporting, and coaching.

This is where the coaching process comes in because in developing your people there are three parts: Performance Planning where you are setting the goals and objectives; Day-to-Day Coaching when you are helping people win and accomplish their goals; and then there is Performance Evaluation.

In most companies, the majority of time is spent on performance evaluation with managers focused on judging people’s behavior.  Some companies do a pretty good job of goal setting but then they file the goals away until somebody says it is performance review time and then they run around looking for the goals. The thing that is least done is the day-to-day coaching, so coaching is a very important part of leadership.

What can you do from a personal leadership perspective to help your people and your organization perform at a higher level in 2011? 

Successful leaders recognize that profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people.  What can you do to create that type of environment within your organization? The New Year is a great time to start!

PS: Ken Blanchard will be conducting a free webinar with Colleen Barrett, president emeritus of Southwest Airlines, on January 26.  It’s based on their new book, Lead with LUV.  To learn more, or to register, visit Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success at the Blanchard website.

Although most managers agree with the importance of setting goals, many do not take the time to clearly develop goals with their people. As a result, people tend to get caught in the “activity trap,” where they become busy doing things, but not necessarily the right things. In his book Leading at a Higher Level, business author Ken Blanchard recommends that managers set SMART goals with their people. SMART is an acronym for the most important factors to remember in setting quality goals:

Specific and measurable. You don’t say to somebody, “I want you to improve.” You have to be specific about the area that needs improvement and what good performance looks like. Being specific reinforces the old saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Therefore, goals have to be specific, observable, and measurable.

Motivating. Not every job people are asked to do will be super-exciting, but having motivating goals helps. Sometimes all people need to know is why the task is important. The “why” explains how the person’s task fits in with overall job performance and the goals and objectives of the unit, division, organization, and customer.  It clarifies how the task supports higher-level outcomes. People want to know that what they do makes a difference. That’s motivating.

Attainable. It’s a false assumption that to motivate people you have to set goals that are unattainable. What really motivates people is to have moderately difficult but achievable goals.

In a classic research experiment on achievement motivation, researcher David McClelland asked people to throw rings at a stake from any distance they chose. McClelland found that high achievers positioned themselves the appropriate distance from the stake through experimentation.  If they threw the rings from a certain spot and made most of their tosses, they moved back. If they missed most of their tosses, they moved forward. Why? McClelland found that high achievers like to set moderately difficult but attainable goals—that is, goals that stretch them but are not impossible. People who set goals that are too easy or too difficult don’t want to be judged or held accountable.

Relevant. Eighty percent of the performance you want from people comes from the 20 percent of the activities they could get involved in. Therefore, a goal is relevant if it addresses one of the 20-percent activities that make a difference in overall performance.

Trackable and time-bound. As a manager, you want to be able to praise progress or redirect inappropriate behavior. To do that, you must be able to measure or count performance frequently, which means you need to put a record-keeping system in place to track performance. If a goal consists of completing a report by June 1, the chances of receiving an acceptable, even outstanding, report will increase if interim reports are required.

Goals energize people when they are set correctly. Make sure your people know what they are being asked to do (their areas of accountability) and what good performance looks like (the performance standards by which they will be evaluated). It’s a great way to get your people off to a successful start!