Superman or Manager; which are you?

How would your team do without you? Are you overwhelmed with the pressure of keeping up with everyone's work problems? or Have you ever dealt with an organization or a department that comes to a halt once the team leader isn’t around? And many times the CEO or manager is overworked, stressed and convinced he doesn’t have the right people on his team or they have no initiative?

It’s easy to fall into this trap particularly if you are a functional expert who is good at delivering on the technical/operational aspects of your job (and got promoted to manager because you are so good at your job). Many people in this situation have not made the transition from doing the work themselves to getting your team to do the work and cant grasp the fact that the output now required in terms of people not function.

There are of course a million and 1 reasons why some managers seem to end up doing all the work for their team; including – fear of failure, a need to be needed, a need to ensure things are done perfectly, etc. However, work grinding to a halt every time the manager is away is a wasteful unsustainable model and is counter-productive in the long run.

In this insightful article, the writers at Mindtools.com explore the issue of ‘Preventing Manager Dependency.’ Click here:  http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/preventing-manager-dependency.htm#np

Here’s an interesting video showing practical ways to help your people tackle the issues themselves whilst still providing the required leadership.

Achieving better business results with employee engagement

This creative short animation from the folks at explania.com explains the key issues involved in creating and leveraging engaged employees for sustainable business success. please click play to view the animation below:


How to use Employee Engagement to boost your business - Explania

Differences Between Skills & Competencies | eHow.com

To meet the demand from business leadership to clearly estimate of value expended on training both in terms of spend and time, strategic hr management's reaction has been to identify specific competencies and skills in 'tangible' terms that can be observed and measured in terms of transfer to the workplace and impact on the business.

Enter the competency brigade...these days everything HR does is competency driven.In designing learning programs (and indeed, all people related issues), there is the drive to be competency based.

I have been asked about the difference between skills and competencies. Simply put, skills are subsets or inputs to competency. I found an article on eHow that gives a fairish definition of what the difference is. Read it up below.


Differences Between Skills & Competencies | eHow.com

Developing an innovative mindset

Innovation and creativity have long been practically synonyms in my mind. I got to thinking about the concept of innovation during a discussion with a prospect who was exploring ways to engender an innovative mindset in her team. After our chat I set out to explore the subject and came across the article below. The writer certainly improved my understanding of both terms. I think a clearer understanding of both concepts is important if the objective is to find effective ways to get our teams to adopt a more innovative mindset. Reactions to ideas shared in the article are welcome.

Innovate or Create ?

Copyright © 2011 Julie Austin

After spending the day speaking to several different groups about creativity and innovation I realized how hard it was to convince people that they are both important. Even though creativity and innovation are two different things, they also go hand in hand.

To be innovative you have to be creative. It you want to come up with ideas, you have to think outside of your own head. (a better way of saying 'think outside the box'). You are going to have to get out of your comfort zone if you want to come up with an idea that no one has ever thought of before. Sometimes you have to go way out of that comfort zone, and that's scary for many people. Even the most creative people tend to get stuck in a rut. Even the most creative people fall into patterns that work for them. Most humans will follow the path of least resistance. Sometimes it works if you're trying to figure out the fastest way to get to work. The process of creativity will require you to go down roads you have never been on before. And that can mean it might just take longer to get where you're going. People tend to want instant results and creativity takes its time.

Adults, unlike children, are afraid of failing. The process of creativity is all about failing. It's trial and error. In order to get a good idea you will sometimes have to make a total fool out of yourself.It was harder than I thought to get a room full of businessmen to jump up on stage and make fools of themselves. You can't learn about creativity without actually doing it yourself. It can't be learned from reading a book. Just like you can't learn to be an actor, comedian, or public speaker from reading a book. You have to just do it. But that was easier said than done. In corporations we tend to avoid being silly and saying something stupid in front of our peers, and even more important, our boss. This is where great leadership comes in. A good leader will allow their employees to go into creativity and innovation brainstorming sessions without having sensors on.
Most people teach innovation without also teaching the techniques of creativity. You have to learn both if you want to truly innovate and come up with something that has never been done before.

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Julie Austin is a multiple business owner and inventor. Her product, swiggies, wrist water bottles, were a NASDAQ product of the year semi finalist and are sold all over the world. Her book "The Money Garden: How to Plant the Seeds for a Lifetime of Income" is about creating multiple business streams of income. http://www.createforcash.com/

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com/

Management training tips and guides

Quite a few managers get thrust into that role without formal preparation and sometimes, an unclear understanding of the dynamics of making the best of their team responsibilities. This situation is noticeable with new managers who have a challenge making the transition from being a highly regarded sole contributor to a team leader.

People struggle with change. That’s a fact of life. For a team member who is getting a new supervisor, the instinctive reaction is uncertainty and in some cases, anxiety and resistance. The manager needs a good handle on the people aspect of his role, clarity of purpose (he needs to understand what the business requires from his unit, and set clear goals in the short and long term for his team), and the right skill set to lead, motivate and communicate with his (or her) team for effective performance.

Many managers struggle with the challenge of enforcing performance standards and objectives whilst being approachable and considered a partner by members of the team. This challenge is not peculiar to new managers. Some experienced managers have struggled with this problem for years and are not as effective as they should be because of this gap in skills. And the problem isn't restricted to our market. 

Here's an excerpt I came across:  "According to the 2009 Skills Gap poll from ASTD (/American Society for Training and Development), organizations are experiencing gaps in these skills:

·         leadership and executive skills

·         basic workplace competencies that are the building blocks of successful performance in any job such as literacy and numeracy

·         professional or industry-specific skills

·         managerial and supervisory skills

·         communication and interpersonal skills

·         technical, IT, and systems skills

·         sales skills

·         Process and project management skills.

In addition, it is agreed these additional skills are needed for sustained high performance in the knowledge economy:

1.    Adaptability—the capacity to change in response to ever-shifting conditions in the economy and the marketplace, and to quickly master the new skills that such changes require

2.    Innovative thinking and action—the ability to think creatively and to generate new ideas and solutions to challenges at work

3.    Personal responsibility for learning—the willingness of individuals to take responsibility for continually improving their work-related capabilities throughout their careers. "

So how do we change this? In my opinion, there are several approaches to tackling the issue:

1.    Organizations have a responsibility to prepare members of their workforce for leadership. Whilst not everyone will become a manager, it is important for every member of the workforce to understand the concepts of leadership, followership and self management. They need to be encouraged to actively develop and exercise these skills not only in  preparation for a more senior role, but to improve productivity levels. Business these days requires a strong entrepreneurial mindset from all employees. This self driven behavior assures the ability to anticipate and meet customer needs whether or not "Big Brother' is watching!

2.    Managers and professionals need to take responsibility for developing their management and leadership skills with the understanding that this is their primary tactic to competently perform on the job and add value to themselves personally, career wise.

3.    There has to be a deeper understanding by organizational leadership, training and human resources managers of competency gaps across the workforce. Too often, there is a failure to leverage our training spend for the highest return because the basis for determining training needs and their solutions is flawed.

4.    The approach to addressing these and other skills gap needs to be guided by the understanding that classroom training can only be a part of the overall solution. Adults innovative handling for training to have any serious impact on changing behavior. Putting the individual in a management training class for few days is certainly not all that needs to be done if we want to deal with the issue conclusively. Adult learning best practices derived from years of research and observation from the field of psychology and learning are tailored around the following concepts:

i)      Training needs to engage all forms communication with the human mind (visual, aural and kinesthetic). In other words, people need to have to experience concepts in different formats for effective assimilation.

                                              

ii)     Learners need to be given the responsibility to process concepts for quicker understanding (the interactive approach). The learner tends to make more of an effort when he understands that the onus for finding the answers lies with him and other members of the class.

iii)    People tend to remember what they've practiced. People should be given the opportunity to learn and practice these skills across all parts of the business. Cross postings – opportunities for people to work outside their primary function for a set period can be a great tool to achieve this.

iv)   Repetition is key to internalization. A 'blended approach to learning and learning re-enforcement is critical. Skill development is best approached with the mindset that the classroom setting whilst great for sharing concept fundamentals, needs to be enhanced by the provision of training across channels (online, offline, and on the job). 

v)    Learning has to be directly relevant to the work situation and to the learner (and not learning for its own sake).

vi)   Measurement of training impact is important both from the individual and organizational perspectives. Pre and post training evaluations motivate learners to take training more seriously.

vii)  Choices in training courses, material and facilitation need to validated against the principles of active learning. Its important to ensure that the training is delivered according to global learning standards.

viii)  Training, and the subsequent behavioral outcomes need to be tied to performance. A learner who knows that his overall performance will be assessed on several levels including training participation and demonstrated behavior change has strong motivation to learn and apply skills acquired in the workplace