Do you have the 10 critical talents?

Entrepreneurial thinking and doing are the most important capabilities companies need from their employees.  As the competitive pace increases, it becomes more and more critical.  ~Reid Hoffman

I don't have to look far to find studies and statistics claiming that we continue to have a talent shortage, even though unemployment has not yet returned to levels prior to the 2008 recession.  I wonder if part of the challenge is that the type of talent we all seem to want and wish for is far rarer than we realize.

Reid Hoffman recently wrote in a LinkedIn Talent Blog, "Entrepreneurial employees possess what eBay CEO John Donahoe calls the founder mind-set.  As he put it to us, 'People with the founder mind-set drive change, motivate people, and just get stuff done.'"

Gallup has studied this phenomenon in more detail and recently published the book Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder to help all of us better understand exactly what we are looking for and why it's so hard to find it.  Gallup reported:

The single most important factor for America's economic survival remains as mysterious as life on Mars.  But maybe that's because it's so unusual.  Preliminary Gallup research discovered that high entrepreneurial talent is much rarer than high IQ:  Only about five in 1,000 people have the aptitude for starting and growing a big business.  In comparison, 20 in 1,000 have IQs high enough to be accepted into Mensa. 

The 10 talents of successful entrepreneurs are:

• Business Focus: You make decisions based on observed or anticipated effect on profit.

• Confidence: You accurately know yourself and understand others.

• Creative Thinker: You exhibit creativity in taking an existing idea or product and turning it into something better.

• Delegator: You recognize that you cannot do everything and are willing to contemplate a shift in style and control.

• Determination: You persevere through difficult, even seemingly insurmountable, obstacles.

• Independent: You are prepared to do whatever needs to be done to build a successful venture.

• Knowledge Seeker: You constantly search for information that is relevant to growing your business.

• Promoter: You are the best spokesperson for the business.

• Relationship-Builder: You have high social awareness and an ability to build relationships that are beneficial for the firm's survival and growth.

• Risk-Taker: You instinctively know how to manage high-risk situations.

We may not be lucky enough to be one of the five out of a thousand to possess all 10 talents.  Gallup says to increase your likelihood of success, identify strategies to manage areas of weakness, or acquire skills and knowledge to deal with your lesser talents.  Or best of all, form partnerships with people who have a different set of entrepreneurial talents.

In the old economy—the stable one—efficiency was the cardinal virtue.  In the new economy of fierce competition and rapid technological change with markets constantly shifting, entrepreneurial thinking is the new gold standard.

6 Ways to Appeal to Millennials in the Workplace

My career will be more about enjoying the experience than earning money.  ~Millennial employee

This week I conducted two training sessions at a manufacturing plant.  The first was with a group of emerging leaders and the second was with the leadership team.  Or, said another way, the first was with mostly millennials and the second was with mostly baby boomers.  And this represents many, if not most, of the organizations I work with today.

According to HBR, in two years millennials—the people born between 1977 and 1997—will account for nearly half of all employees worldwide.  So it's time we baby boomers started to make an effort to understand the differences and provide a workplace that is welcoming to both of these generations.  Following are a few key findings from a study conducted by PWC entitled Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace that I found helpful.

Help millennials grow: Managers need to really understand the personal and professional goals of millennials. Put them on special rotational assignments more frequently to give them a sense that they are moving toward something and gaining a variety of experiences.

Feedback, feedback and more feedback: Millennials want and value frequent feedback. Unlike the past where people received annual reviews, millennials want to know how they're doing much more regularly. Give honest feedback in real time — and highlight positive contributions or improvements on key competencies.

Set them free: Millennials want flexibility. They work well with clear instructions and concrete targets. If you know what you want done by when, why does it matter where and how they complete the task? Give them the freedom to have a flexible work schedule.

Encourage learning: Millennials want to experience as much training as possible. If your organization is more focused on developing high potentials, or more senior people, then you could risk losing future talent if you fail to engage millennials with development opportunities. Consider allocating projects to talented millennials which fall outside their day job. Let them connect, collaborate, build their networks – and most of all innovate.

Allow faster advancement: Historically, career advancement was built upon seniority and time of service. Millennials don't think that way. They value results over tenure and are sometimes frustrated with the amount of time it takes to work up the career ladder. They want career advancement much quicker than older generations are accustomed to.

Expect millennials to go: It's inevitable that the rate of churn among millennials will be higher than among other generations, especially since many have made compromises in finding their first job, and this should be built into your plans.

It's a new day in the workplace; a day that embraces and encourages millennials to become the leaders of the future.  The way of the baby boomers worked for the baby boomers.  But our time is passing, quickly.  We need to make way for the millennials and equip them to lead, their way.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, "I am successful. I behave this way. Therefore, I must be successful because I behave this way!" The challenge is to make them see that sometimes they are successful in spite of this behavior.  ~Marshall Goldsmith

One theory (I'd like to say fact but I'll withhold that temptation and stick with theory) nearly everyone agrees upon is that the most effective leaders don't have a specific behavioral profile or personality type.  The most effective leaders are those who know how to adapt their behavior to given situations and circumstances.  That's why when researchers and psychologists make a list of the U.S. Presidents and assign a behavioral profile to each one, there is no pattern.  The profiles are all over the map.

Marshall Goldsmith, without a doubt, is one of the most credible authorities on this topic.  He's the author or editor of 34 books, has written two New York Times bestsellers and a Wall Street Journal #1 business book of the year.  He's a top-ranked executive coach and one of the top ten most-influential business thinkers in the world.  So when Marshall Goldsmith says things like, "I tell my clients, 'it's a lot harder to change people's perception of your behavior than it is to change your behavior,'" it's got a boatload of reliability behind hit.

If all of this is true, and I'm going to assume that it is, then why do so many leaders resist or outright refuse to better understand how they are perceived and look for ways to change their behavior?!  I've had both MD’s and PhD’s refuse to complete some type of personality or behavioral profile.  I've had president's of organizations refute the findings of employee satisfaction surveys and 360 assessments with rationale like, "the survey was completed at the same time they may have been filing their taxes so they must have been in a bad mood."  

Who we are is who we are.  It is not good or bad, helpful or hurtful.  However, if we don't recognize that because who we are remains somewhat constant as the situation or circumstances around us change, we are going to run into trouble. 

Example: someone who is highly detailed and scrutinizes everything may be great in an entry-level accounting or finance position.  But, once promoted to manage others, that same behavior, if still practiced with the same intensity, could be viewed as micromanaging and severely hinder their ability to manage and lead others.  We must adapt.  And, we won't know how to adapt if we don't let others tell us how our behavior is perceived. 

If we want people to change their perception of our behavior, then, we need to change our behavior.  It's both that simple and that hard.   Sometimes we're successful in spite of ourselves.  Image what we could accomplish if we willingly welcomed a better understanding of the impact of our own behavior!

Would you join me in a social experiment?

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life.  A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage.  A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach their potential.  ~John C. Maxwell

This week I heard someone describe what happened when they intentionally took a break from watching the news.  After taking a hiatus from the news for a number of days, when he returned to watching the news, he was overwhelmed by all of the "bad" news.   

That made wonder, what if we did an experiment.  When I watch the national news I intentionally watch it to the end so I can hear the "feel good" story, or the "good" news.  What would happen if the news was flipped?  What if the "good news" was the first 20-25 minutes and the "bad news" was the final 5-10 minutes?

I don't know what would actually happen, but it makes me ask, have we become a culture that craves the negative, or the bad news, more than the good news?  I have to believe that ratings influence what we see on the news, so we play a role in this. 

And since it's also election season, could that be why politicians run so many negative ads against their opponent?  Because they know it's the negative or "bad" stuff that we are wired to remember?

What does this have to do with leadership?  Well, are most organization leaders also falling into this bad news/negative trap?  What do employees hear from their leaders?  Do they hear the "good," or is most communication they hear from leadership filled with the "bad?"  A number of years ago I recall a leader in a staff meeting say he was going to present the good, the bad, and the ugly.  What did the employees remember after that meeting?  The ugly, that's all I heard about for several weeks.

I'm not suggesting that leaders should be Pollyannaish in their communication.  But what we remember most, what we respond to (i.e., TV news ratings) is the "bad news."

Actual research has been conducted around this very idea.  Based on psychologist and business consultant Marcial Losada’s extensive mathematical modeling, 2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interaction necessary to make a corporate team successful.  This means that it takes about three positive comments, experiences, or expressions to fend off the languishing effects of one negative.  Dip below this tipping point, now known as the Losada Line, and workplace performance quickly suffers.  Rise above it—ideally, the research shows, to a ratio of 6 to 1—and teams produce their very best work.

Imagine what might happen to organizations, and dare I say countries, if we all started following the premise of the Losada Line?  So for the next week, will you join me in intentionally out-weighing the bad with the good at a ratio of 6 to 1?  Let's try it and see what results from our counter-cultural social experiment.

It won't make any difference because...

It all starts with the leader!  ~anonymous person talking on the phone while on the sidewalk

"They want to have an off-site retreat with leadership, but it won't make any difference because it all starts with the leader."  This is what I heard today from a passerby talking on her phone while I was walking back to the office from a breakfast meeting. I didn't mean to overhear, but she was talking rather loudly and I could certainly sense her frustration.  Based on her comment (and tone) I drew the conclusion that this leader isn't aware of the impact they are having on their leadership team.

Her astute observation reminded me of something I read recently on Forbes.com. 

The National Advisory Council of a prestigious west coast business school was asked what single quality they thought would be most valuable for their graduates to acquire as they graduated.  The answer was self-awareness. 

For us, the most important element of self-awareness, especially for those who lead organizations, is a clear understanding of the impact they are having on the people around them.

I've come across a number of definitions of self-awareness, but this definition seemed so obvious that I had overlooked it.  And it reflects the frustration of the young woman this morning who seemed quite aggravated that the "leader" she was referring to does not have a clear understanding of the impact they are having on the people around them.  And, she's right; an off-site retreat probably isn't going to change that a whole lot.

Authors Bolman and Deal describe it like this in How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing. "One of the most basic and pervasive causes of leadership failure is interpersonal blindness.  Many leaders simply don't know their impact on other people.  Even worse, they don't know that they don't know.  They assume that other people see them pretty much the way they see themselves, then they blame others when things go wrong."

How do we know if we need to work on our self-awareness?  Here's something I've tried with leadership teams and I now use it as one barometer for self-awareness.  I challenge them for the next week, or two, to look for situations where their interaction with someone could benefit from them leaning in to the other person's strengths.  Said another way, observe your own behavior and the impact you have on another person.  Then alter your behavior so the other person realizes a greater benefit from having had contact with you this week.  Then I send them off.  Those who struggle to find any scenarios where they could have changed their behavior for another’s benefit are those who may need to work on their self-awareness.

If you, as the leader, aren't self-aware (the single most valuable quality for a leader), all of the off-site retreats you can pack into your schedule aren't going to change your team's effectiveness.  

What's the key to unlocking potential?

The way forward is to name it, reframe it, and provide support to improve it.  ~Michael K. Simpson, author of Unlocking Potential

Have you ever wondered why there are pockets of an organization that really excel and then others that just seem to struggle or feel stuck?  Both extremes seem to have the same basic knowledge or skills so what's created the chasm of performance between the two?  Two things that get overlooked or simply under-valued: behavior and attitude. 

Michael K. Simpson, author of Unlocking Potential: 7 Coaching Skills That Transform Individuals,Teams, & Organizations describes it like this:

Every organization contains pockets of great performing teams, but interestingly, no discernible difference exists in the basic know-how of the good performers versus the great performers.  The key differentiators boil down to two things great performers have been coached to do:  execute well and concentrate on reducing inconsistency in bad behavior. 

The best predictor of future performance is mostly determined by past performance.  Identify the existing islands or pockets of excellence within an organization.  To leverage top performance, leaders should find out what the top performers or high-performing teams are doing to produce high-quality results.  Leaders must not only capture their strategies but uncover the key competencies, the new and better behaviors, and the attitudes of those who are fully engaged.  Using examples and stories of what excellence looks like can inspire and educate others. 

Ask team members how they can improve their strategic performance, and then provide feedback and support.  Establish an environment in which leaders are trained to coach individuals and teams in ways that build upon their strengths and passions.  If an individual or a team is stuck, talk about the problems, give appropriate feedback, and address options and opportunities, rather than allow the issues to fly under the radar.  The way forward is to name it, reframe it, and provide support to improve it.

Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."  We could modify that slightly and say, "Be the change you want to see in your organization."  If pockets of an organization have differing behaviors and attitudes, I would venture to say that at least 90% of the time those pockets are modeling their leader.  The person leading a department, division, team, or entire organization, can't coach toward one type of attitude and behavior and then model another.   Well, they can, it's just not going to have the outcome they were hoping to achieve.

By all means, I agree with Simpson, that the way forward is to name it, reframe it, and provide support to improve it.  However, I might add one more tweak.  I would suggest the way forward is to name it, reframe it, model it, and provide support to improve it.

What issues are flying under the radar at your organization?  What needs to be named so you can begin the way forward and unlock potential?

Be competitive or achieve success?

Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.  ~Vince Lombardi

This week I heard a story on NPR that did, and didn't, surprise me.  It was a follow-up to the now infamous and wildly successful ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  As the story reported, it's been 75 years since baseball great Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with the disease.  But there is still no cure or even hopeful treatment, only experimental trials. 

The story reported, one of the possible reasons why there still remains little hope for those with this disease is the "hypercompetitive" nature of the research field.  "Many excellent grant proposals get turned down, simply because there's not enough money to go around.  So scientists are tempted to oversell weak results.  Getting a grant requires that you have an exciting story to tell, that you have preliminary data and you have published.  In the rush, to be perfectly honest, to get a wonderful story out on the street in a journal, and preferably with some publicity to match, scientists can cut corners."

While listening to this interview I also learned that scientists tend to keep their failures to themselves.  If a study doesn't prove successful, it's not worthy of publication or of sharing with the broader research field.  That means instead of systematically ruling out what doesn't work; we may very well keep researching and trying the same unsuccessful experiments over and over.  Because staying individually competitive has taken precedence over collective success for the field to find a cure or treatment for ALS.

I wasn't surprised by this because a number of years ago I did some work for a leading research scientist for HIV/AIDS and heard a similar story.  Data wasn't being shared or collected on a massive basis in order to more quickly rule out what wasn't working; hence, making the process for success slow and cumbersome.

Being competitive or achieving success is not always a mutually exclusive choice, but sometimes it is.  I frequently hear leaders say they believe their organization benefits from internal competition.  Maybe that's true, but maybe it's not.  If it means staff are individually withholding their failures or are overselling weak results, then I'd have to ask if that's really helping or hindering the organization's overall collective success?

Maybe this perspective especially caught my attention because I know someone who recently passed away due to ALS.  It made me wonder, if we could get over our own individual competiveness and really focus on collective success in the field of ALS, could that have made a difference for her?

What's more important to you, to be competitive or achieve success?