Dear Madeleine,

I have been managing people for years. All the companies I have worked for have provided solid training. I’ve always felt like I knew what I was doing—until now.

The last training course I completed was packed with great content, but it ended up making me feel totally overwhelmed. I agreed, in theory, with everything that was being taught, but I just don’t know how I can do everything I learned. I have a huge job and was doing it well, but now I am doubting and second-guessing myself.

Can you please help me to figure out—

 Where to Begin?

_____________________________________________________________________

Dear Where to Begin,

The biggest requirements for continual growth are a desire to learn and a growth mindset, both of which you seem to have in spades. So you have that going for you. Everything else is figure-out-able.

There are a couple of rules of thumb around how to change. Keep these in mind as you decide what to focus on.

1. One of the top reasons people don’t achieve goals is that they have too many of them.
2. Anything you decide to stop doing, start doing, or modify will require sustained attention—so choose no more than three things to work on at a time.
3. Find a way to track your changes so you know objectively that you are making progress. You might take a look at James Clear’s article on the benefits of tracking your habits. He is trying to sell you a journal, but you can use an app or make your own.
4. Get support for any changes you are trying to make. Tell people you trust—maybe your manager or a friend at work. The more you talk about it, the more top of mind it will be for you.

Now for what to change. I recommend you take a big step back and schedule some time to think, maybe outside of working hours so you aren’t interrupted. Sit down with your course materials and follow this process.

Before starting your review:

• Jot down some notes on how you have grown in the past.
• Ask yourself: Are there any areas where I have grown in the past that could use a little more attention?
• Also: Before I started the course, were there things I did, or habits I had, that I knew were keeping me from being as effective as I could be? What were they?
• Consider asking your boss or your direct reports for feedback on what they think might make you more effective as a manager or leader. This, of course, can be a can of worms—and in my experience, most managers already know what people will say. It is also true that feedback says more about the person giving it than the person getting it.

Now begin your review of your course materials. Look for answers to these questions:

• Did I learn anything that might help me with behaviors or habits I hadn’t been aware of going into the course? Start a list.
• Of all of things I learned, which felt the most relevant and/or pressing? Add these to the list.
• Did I formulate any clear intentions at different junctures of the course? If so, which still feel pertinent?

Once you have your list, it is time to choose. Some things will feel much more doable than others. I recently debriefed a 360° feedback report with a client and at one point he said, “Yeah, that’s never going to change.” I laughed, because, well, that kind of clarity is useful. And it may or may not be true in the long term, but it is definitely true right now.

Here is what you want to look for: What can I do that will make a difference and won’t require a personality transplant or heroic efforts?

I call these things “low hanging fruit,” and there is no shame in starting here. Most high achievers think they need to tackle the hardest things first; but in the case of professional development, this is simply not true.

Keep your list to revisit when you have made enough headway with your initial choices. The items on your list may or may not feel relevant to you in the future.

So give it some thought, make some choices, start with the low hanging fruit.

Tell others, get support, track your efforts. Be kind to yourself and give yourself credit for effort.

Remember: You can do it all—just not at the same time.

Good luck!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 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.

Dear Madeleine,

I am seeking your guidance. I am studying for a BA in human resource management and will be completing my degree program within the next six months. I must submit a final research paper.

I need to find a topic and put a plan together fast, but I am struggling. Will you assist me in finding the perfect topic that will make me successful?

Unsure

________________________________________________________________

Dear Unsure,

I appreciate the question. I am a little at sea as to how to answer it, though. My areas of expertise are coaching in organizations (helping leaders use coaching skills, scaling coaching, and moving an organization toward a coaching culture) and the neuroscience of leadership. I am not an expert in HR, although I do work with many human resource, organizational development, and learning and development professionals.

That being said, I urge you to choose a topic that is of great interest to you. Ask yourself: What has captured my imagination in my studies?

I suggest you speak to a couple of HR professionals to understand what the frustrations are in their jobs. What problems do they face that you might research? I Googled “top challenges HR managers face” and all kinds of interesting things came up. Here is a link to a report by Deloitte on trends in workforce management that may spark an idea for you.

I can tell you that in my work coaching leaders, the challenges that seem to come up most often these days are:

• Attracting the best talent
• Interviewing to assess the best culture and job fit
• Retaining the best employees
• Helping people get clear and stay clear about their goals and objectives
• Optimizing a team and getting people to work well together to accomplish results
• Helping people manage the sheer volume of change
• Helping people manage the stress of political mayhem, climate challenges, and the pandemic
• Encouraging people to take care of themselves while still getting the job done
• Managing conflict—both for themselves and among their team members

I hope this gets you started. I hope one of these areas will strike a chord with you.

Good luck!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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 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.

So what’s going on? Well, leaders can sometimes be unaware of what they should and should not be doing. And this lack of awareness separates good leaders from great leaders. Great leaders know that leading is a never-ending journey that can be filled with treacherous obstacles.

So what do you need to know to become a great leader?
 

1. People are unpredictable

Your direct report may not necessarily react the same way each and every time to you. And you yourself may also change from day to day. So always using the same style of leadership may not always yield the best results. Instead, great leaders tailor their approach to each task, situation, and individual to effectively meet the direct report’s needs. So find out how your direct report is doing and what’s going on in his/her life, and then use that knowledge to better inform how you lead him/her.

2. It takes skill

It’s easy to fall into a routine. That’s why we have habits. But as people are unpredictable, you must also be flexible in your style of leadership to be able to match in each unique situation. The best way to do this is to have a learning-oriented mindset, by being on the lookout for new approaches, practicing other styles of leadership to be more flexible, and keeping up-to-date on what’s going on with your direct reports, your organization, and beyond. A great leader will always say, “I have so much left to learn in being a leader!”
 

3. It takes time

Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t able to immediately improve your effectiveness as a leader. Remember, it’s a life-long journey. As with anything, leadership takes time and patience to perfect. And this means you should constantly be trying to improve and grow as an individual. There’s no finish line, but instead a continuous evolution of who you are as a leader, being able to serve your direct reports more and more effectively with each passing day.
 
Image Credit: 1 | 2 | 3

• Benefit from innovation – Everyone has a different style, learn from the top talents why they do things the way they do.
• Help understanding the ‘big picture’ –  These individual’s know how the work they does fits into the wider organizational strategy, they can answer questions like, ‘what benefit does the work we do have on the end customer’ or ‘why do we spend so long on X process and not on Y’.
• Highlighting pitfalls – We often talk about ‘trial by fire’ or learning through making mistakes. This is all part of learning within a role, but shadowing a top performer will help the learner understand the potential pitfalls and hopefully lessen the risk of something going wrong.
• Relationships and getting the most from others – Not only will shadowing build a network for the learner, but it will also allow them insights into other people that they would not find out about immediately. Perhaps they will be working with is generally slow at responding to requests and so the top performer always picks up the phone rather than emails. Or, that the person likes extra information provided on certain tasks and that produces a better quality of output and less time spent asking questions that could have been addressed upfront.These may not be written down, but you are hearing about the top performers experience and how they have got the most from the team around them.

It’s so important that any learning isn’t just reading a manual of process steps. It also isn’t enough to put a learner with an average achiever. If you want individuals to gain both the skills that can be verbalized and those that cannot you need to get them to shadow your top performers.
Don’t let that tacit knowledge go to waste – if you don’t use it, someone else will.

• I received a well rounded view of various different aspects of business. I can now liaise with different departments at a higher level.
• How to work in a team of peers when there is no authority.
• Most importantly my masters taught me about work ethic, discipline and striving to do well.

Will it help my career? – I’m not so sure.
People keep asking me, so what are you going to do with your MBA when you finish. Will you get a promotion? Will you get another job? Will it earn you more money? I honestly hadn’t thought about it. So I thought my trusty friend the internet would help me out.
Ronald Yeaple’s study found post MBA pay was 50% higher than pre MBA pay. After 5 years of completing an MBA pay increased by 80% compared to post MBA Starting pay. This data is from a well ranked university in the Forbes top 50. However looking on the internet a lot of high paying jobs do state on the applications that an MBA is desirable.
In 2013/2014 539,440 were enrolled in postgraduate degrees in the UK. Although that is less than a third of undergraduates, it shows there is still fierce competition. In the US 100,000 MBA’s are awarded annually. Jobs remain relatively constant, so if you are doing an MBA to stand out, there are a lot of other people doing it too.
Do you think MBA’s are worth it? Please share your experiences on how your MBA has helped you or hasn’t.

Have you ever wanted to take Data Analysis for Genomics at Harvard? Well probably not, but now you can as the class starts in early 2014. If Poetry in America: Whitman is a course that more interests you, sign up now as class begins on January 15th at the edx MOOC.

Various MOOC offerings

Corporate America is now jumping at these ideas and are giving incentives for their employees to take these course and have incorporated them into their corporate training programs. In a recent survey by Future Workplace, 70% of HR and Learning professionals said they saw opportunities to integrate MOOCs into their own company’s learning program.

There are many, but here are my favorite.
https://www.coursera.org/
http://www.udacity.com/
https://www.edx.org/
If you enroll in a course, I wouldn’t run out and by a Harvard alumni sweater, but you can still get America’s highest quality education for free. Many questions are still surrounding the MOOC. Will the MOOC transform the way we look at education? Are schools and universities ready to accept these free online courses as transferable credit? What impact will MOOC’s have on the cost of education? Although many of these questions are yet to be fully realized, we know that they are growing and aren’t going away anytime soon.
Gus is a Learning and Performance Professional at the Ken Blanchard Companies and is currently finishing his PhD in I/O Psychology. He can be reached at gus.jaramillo@kenblanchard.com

***

Cheryl DePonte is a Human Resources Learning and Performance Specialist at The Ken Blanchard Companies and has over 15 years experience in the fields of organizational effectiveness and human resources development.

Recently, I decided to try some new ways to be more productive and less stressed:

1. Spa water – in a scientific study, those who were fully-hydrated had improved mood and were less sleepy. So, I decided to try drinking spa water (sometimes called “infused water”) and I’m hooked. You get your water in for the day and it’s flavored without all the calories and chemicals. Refill as needed and enjoy. Here is a wikihow on how to make spa water:

How to make spa water

2. Concentration Music – it is said that listening to baroque classical music has been scientifically shown to improve mood, productivity, and concentration. So, I decided to give it a whirl and wouldn’t you know, it works! I get more work done faster and more precisely while being relaxed the entire time. Gotta love classical music! Here is a sample for your listening pleasure:

3. A Timer – scientific studies also show we have a limited attention span for tasks. This time has varied in studies anywhere from 10 minutes to up to 40 minutes. So, I set a timer and only worked on a task for a specified period and then took a break. I also used a timer to go back and forth between tasks. This has worked wonders for getting many more things done in a day than I could have imagined. A link to a fabulous, easy-to-set online timer:
Online Timer
These tips for containing the crazy work well for my own personal work style and help me to be a more calm, productive, and focused leader.
Share with us your tips to contain the crazy, increase productivity, and reduce stress. No matter how unique they may be, please share! What works for you?

As a leader, how do you judge which learning modality will lead to the most effective, quality learning experience? How do you appeal to learners on your teams at differing levels of technological savviness without discouraging their development? Or, worse, avoid humiliating anyone who is not as technologically savvy while simultaneously avoid disengaging your digital learners? Preventing yet more training materials being set up on a shelf never to be used again is key!

Steps you can take to lead your team to effectively use technology to learn include:

1. Understanding how your team learns – Become intimately familiar with how your team learns. Do you offer a learning product on a flash drive only to find you run out before you can order more or are you scheduling face-to-face classes on their behalf with little resistance? Are your most productive employees viewing recording links from live stream workshops because they want to learn in their own time in the comfort of their office? How your employees learn will help you intuit in what form content should be delivered to increase learning. Don’t discount your own observations regarding what your employees seem to gravitate toward.
2. Determine their favored modalities – Fit how the content is offered to the learner by offering it in various forms such as audio, video, face-to-face, and asynchronous. Have a workshop that you know learners on your team will love but know it’s in a format they won’t be interested in learning from? Encourage your employees to determine if they would be interested in learning the same content in a different modality. If the content is off the shelf, inquire as to whether it is offered as mp3, asynchronous, and face-to-face format. Purchase and offer multiple forms and see which format your team seems to prefer. Learn from your purchases and take note of what your employees want more of and most often request.
3. Then…limit options – mp3 audio books, asynchronous learning groups, virtual book clubs , CDs, DVDs, hard-copy libraries, face-to-face workshops…the list goes on as to how employees learn and you could potentially intimidate and confuse learners by creating modality overload. Most important after determining how your team learns is to introduce new technology and options slowly by choosing their favored modality. Then, let them get comfortable with change by limiting the options offered to those two or three favorite modalities the team gravitates toward. Don’t get caught up with the new, shinny technology if you know your employees will most likely not be interested in learning in that particular format. Perhaps you have determined your team enjoys reading hard-copy books, listening to CDs, and asynchronous learning. Invest in these three modalities by allowing your employees to show you this is how they most feel comfortable learning. If the content is then offered as a webinar with live chat, don’t spring it on the team. Wait to allow them to lead you in their own learning.
Understanding how your employees learn will help increase the benefits derived from learning in modalities that best fit the learner and resultantly most benefit the organization.
***

Cheryl DePonte is a Human Resources Learning and Performance Specialist at The Ken Blanchard Companies and has over 15 years experience in the fields of organizational effectiveness and human resources development.

• Job Factors – Autonomy, Meaninful Work, Feedback, Workload Balance, and Task Variety
• Organizational Factors – Collaboration, Performance Expectations, Growth, Procedural Justice (process fairness), and Distributive Justice (rewards, pay, and benefits)
• Relationship Factors – Connectedness with Colleagues and Connectedness with Leader

Without question, all of these factors are vital toward achieving an engaged and passionate workforce. What jumps out at me, and with most other’s research on the subject, is that the focus areas all tend to be very, for lack of a better word, work-centric. Whether you subscribe to the notion of work-life balance or work-life integration, my belief is that, in addition to these crucial work-centric factors, any number of outside personal factors may significantly influence an individual’s level of engagement and passion at any given time. And yes, this may even include an individual’s reaction to the weather outside.
It’s important to remember that regardless of your industry, you’re in the people business. Your colleagues and customers are human beings who are affected by other life experiences, both good and bad, besides those that occur while they’re working. We are individuals with unique needs, wants, situations, and emotions. In future posts in this series, we’ll further discuss situations and possible solutions to achieve a deeper understanding of what drives the engagement and passion of the unique individuals who make up your workforce.
Follow me on Twitter: @adammorris21 | Add me on Google+: gplus.to/AdamMorris21

• What worked well for you in the past that you’ve gotten away from? Did you have a system or process that worked well for an old task or job that could be applied to your current job or a current task? Do you no longer flex your leadership style as well as you used to?
• What have you learned in the past that you never put into practice? Have you ever read a book or article and thought, “I need to do that,” but never did? Have you ever taken a class, loved the subject, but forgot about it the minute you put the textbook up on the shelf?
• What were you once very passionate about that you’ve since abandoned? What activities or hobbies significantly contributed to your overall happiness and well-being that you no longer participate in?

I challenge you to sit down and do some brainstorming around this subject. What ideas, practices, methods, systems, and behaviors from the past can you breathe new life into? Once you’ve identified them, bring them home where they belong.

Follow me on Twitter: @adammorris21 | Add me on Google+: gplus.to/AdamMorris21