Culture Building ...
Stephen Covey’s, The Speed of Trust, chronicles the 4 cores of credibility and the 13 behaviors of high-trust leaders. Without credibility, there is no trust. Without trust, engagement and culture building falls flat.
Engagement is more than traditional notions of job satisfaction. It consists of an active commitment to doing
the job well and helping the organization achieve goals and implement
strategies. Engaged employees take
ownership of their roles within the organization.
The
challenge: The levels of employee
engagement in many organizations have reached crisis lows. A recent global survey of 30,000 employees in
15 countries reveals that only 34-percent of employees identify themselves as
fully engaged, while 50-percent are completely disengaged. Nine percent are engaged by their
organization but not by their job, and 7-percent are engaged by their job but
not by their organization.
The
question: Do you know where those in
your organization fall in terms of engagement?
Follow-up question: Have you
identified what it’s costing you to not know the answer and/or not be employing
strategies to positively impact the situation?
Beyond
integrity, intent, capabilities, and results – what behaviors are you employing
each and every day to build relationships?
How do you score on: talking
straight? Demonstrating respect? Creating transparency? Righting wrongs? Showing loyalty? Delivering results? Getting better? Confronting reality? Clarifying expectations? Practicing accountability? Listening first? Keeping commitments? And, extending trust?
Application: Which of the above 13 behaviors, if employed
by you over the next 30-days, may create a more positive workplace
culture? One at a time to focus on is
fine…Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Put Me in Coach ...
Developing executive and leadership talent in organizations is a challenge. From succession planning, to developing those identified for future leadership roles within the organization, often the question arise on ‘who’ and ‘when’.
I’ve often been requested to assist in
assessing the ‘who’ and the ‘when’. So,
who is a candidate? Bottom-line, those
who you count on to achieve results with, and through, people in your
organizations are candidates. The ‘when’
is often determined by the timeframe in which you require the individual to
perform at a higher or next level in the organization.
Coaching can take on several forms, based
on a needs and skill gap analysis.
Although most coaching is behavioral, technical, functional, or
strategic is also employed. Typically, a
leader (or respected team around the leader) has identified some key area(s) for
strengthening. A coach, like a surgeon, comes
in focused on those key behavioral or skill initiatives. Over the past 20-years, our coaching with
organizations has taken on everything from assisting organizational successors
in articulating their strategic vision, to ‘how to’ give speeches, to addressing
key behaviors which will enhance a strong leader’s performance.
A board chair of an organization we
recently worked with, chronicled in a thank you letter why the board was
pleased with the decision to utilize an external coach. “There was great confidentiality and
trust. No one felt as though they were
being put under the microscope or feared discussions going on their permanent
record.” The chair revealed in past
internal coaching attempts, issues seemed to be whitewashed and gritty issues
remained unaddressed. In addition, the
leaders in the organization recognized, although they always had good
intentions of developing current and future leaders, no existing leader had the
time to devote to coaching. All the
existing leadership talent in the organization were over-committed.
Application: ‘Who’ do you need to function at a higher
level? ‘Who’ are you counting on for
leadership results? ‘When’ do you need
those results?
