Our Blogs
11/11/2011 Getting Emotional About Training
I recently met a former colleague of mine who had been responsible for the merging of two business units. How had the merger gone, I asked? How effective had the training been in developing a unified corporate culture, sharing business practices and creating a sense of excitement about the future?
His answer was short and to the point: “it doesn’t feel that different” he said.
This rather negative answer got me thinking about how important it is to have some kind of emotional element in training today, especially in circumstances such as a merger or acquisition where there is so much at stake and where there is likely to be considerable uncertainty and potential emotion. Surely, training that just ticks the boxes but which fails to tap into those emotions can make the situation even worse?
Over the last several weeks, parents from across the country have seen their children start school for the first time – their first formal training environment so to speak. For many children, their sense of wonderment and amazement as they start to learn is something we won’t forget.
The same should be the case for training as well. If training is too perfunctory, there’s no united vision and sense of excitement whether it be for new entity, such as a merger, or in the day-to-day job you carry out. That’s why emotion in training is so important.
Research shows us that emotion can have an incredibly powerful impact on memory. In the L&D world, emotion has a wonderful capacity to bring training alive and really ensure that, through memory, what is learned in training is then reinforced and practiced in the workplace.
Edutainment, for example, is a case in point. Many people’s best learning experiences come when they are engaged in activities they enjoy and care about. While in my view, edutainment may have gone too far in the past in diverting away from learning objectives, the emergence of new types of serious gaming and virtual worlds are ensuring that emotion remains at the forefront of training while ensuring that the eventual training objectives are not diluted.
Yet, it’s not just technology developments that are helping to facilitate the use of emotion in training. It’s about the trainer as well and their ability to capture the imagination and expectations of their audiences. Trainers, just as reception primary school teachers, need to be able to get their audiences to like them, empaphise with them, and relate to them on a personal level.
Most of us remember our favourite teacher and how they helped guide us through our formative years. Can we as trainers acquire the same status as well?
04/11/2011 Don’t Let Unconscious Incompetence Rear Its Head
Reading, listening and watching the daily diet of economic gloom and pessimism coming out of media outlets these days and you might well be forgiven for taking a bunker-type mentality when addressing the management of people within your company.
Part of this bunker-type approach can tend to be a ducking of performance issues – not telling employees the truth about their performance for fear of rocking the boat or because you feel guilty about the pressures you are putting them under in asking them to do more with less.
Fall into this trap, however, and there’s a real danger that the notion of unconscious incompetence may rear its ugly head – a state of being where individuals are lacking particular skills or knowledge but are not aware of this deficit and don’t see the need or relevance of developing new attributes. It’s only through recognising a need to acquire new skills and knowledge that they can move onto the next stage.
The best-selling author and speaker, Marcus Buckingham put it well when he said that “as a manager your noblest, most helpful & most caring task is to tell someone the truth about their performance. It is also the hardest.”
There’s no doubt that it is hard and can occasionally be unpleasant but it is all part of being a manager in good times and in bad.
Economic doom and gloom and a bunker “we’re all in this together” mentality is no excuse for employee performance dropping. Being honest with your employees is also an essential part of looking at the long-term vision of the company and your employees’ future well being.
04/10/2011 Grow your own
The recent departure of Steve Jobs from Apple has put the spotlight on succession planning once again and has highlighted the importance of companies growing their own leaders to ensure a smooth transition for key roles.
Yet I find it staggering to believe that research shows that only around one in four companies have formal succession planning processes in place. So the real concern for me is that if succession planning isn’t featuring on the corporate agenda, then not enough is being done to manage and develop the next generation of leaders.
As we know all too well, many of the so called baby boomers are nearing retirement and talented individuals who could potentially take up the reins don’t always have the confidence to hit the ground running. Coaching and mentoring can very often provide the vital skills that are needed to help people step up to the next level.
It appears that Apple seems to have managed a smooth leadership transition with former COO Tim Cook taking over as CEO. This success is down to good planning and Apple’s strong focus on talent development through initiatives such as its innovative university. This is perhaps hardly surprising for a company whose success has been borne out of innovation.... but let us not forget that there are plenty of high profile companies that have reacted far too late.
Mapping out the future can’t wait, nor can training for tomorrow’s leaders.
23/09/2011 Work-life balance – time to readdress the balance
I watched an interesting BBC report recently about people staying connected to work during their holidays. Most people are working longer hours these days, making holidays even more precious and for many of us the only real time to sit back, relax and recharge our batteries. The problem is that technology has enabled a 24/7 workplace and a culture of working anywhere anytime which is a double edged sword.
In the UK alone, a recent survey by Origin Storage of 1,000 office workers in the City of London found that 73% will check in with the office while on holiday while 62% admit their boss expects to be in touch with them while on holiday. This is a global issue. Research by Robert Half recruitment among 1,600 executives in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand found that 60% of executives filter through their work email while on holiday while a staggering 90% of employers in Singapore and Hong Kong expect their employees to be connected during a holiday.
All of this has got me thinking that if work is encroaching to such a degree on private and family life, then more needs to be done to redress the balance by letting family and private life encroach on work. The current situation is not sustainable as a one way street.
At the very least, I think employers must ensure they provide clear guidance both to managers and employees on acceptable and expected practices for issues such as holidays. There are a number of ways that we can help redress the balance, for example by providing time off in lieu, flexible working and allowing employees to deal with personal issues in work time. Many companies are doing a really good job at this.
The thing that is perhaps the greatest barrier is the whole issue of trust. A flexible working survey by Regus earlier this year among 17,000 senior business people in 18 countries found that although 59% of businesses allow some level of flexibility to workers regardless of their seniority, age or service record, 40% declare that only senior staff are sufficiently trusted. This form of selection automatically excludes many employees that would benefit from a more family friendly work environment such as young families and junior talent that businesses may have gone to great lengths to attract.
The time has come for companies to be more innovative in their approach to helping employees achieve a better work-life balance. Those who fail to take appropriate steps run the risk of lower productivity and disengagement despite the increasing numbers of hours that managers and employees are working these days.
16/09/2011 A leadership crisis in the making?
A recent survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) paints a rather worrying picture for the development of our next generation of leaders.
According to the CIPD survey of 367 leaders and 56 UK HR professionals, six in 10 leaders and HR professionals aren’t particularly enamored with their company’s leadership development programmes, and around two in 10 think that they are downright
ineffective. Hopefully those in question will do something to sort out the problem before it is too late, particularly given that only a third of UK leaders and one in five HR professionals rate the quality of leadership within their organisation as ‘high’.
These findings certainly make a clear case for more leadership development and show that more needs to be done to ensure that leaders and future leaders are getting the right training – training that is relevant to the individual and businesses’ needs. The recession has no doubt had a significant bearing, but it is in hard times such as these, that leadership needs to come to the fore.
What leaders rate as important skills and qualities among their peers in the next three years also makes for interesting reading. These were driving and managing change (69 per cent), making difficult decisions (34 per cent) and executing organisation strategy (32 per cent). Three drivers of leadership quality were also highlighted in the findings – leadership development, talent management and management culture.
While money remains tight at the moment for most organisations, investing in developing leadership talent now will not only pay dividends in the short-term, but will go a long way to safeguarding businesses in the future. Those companies that put their efforts into shaping employees into the next generation’s Sir Terry Leahy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs will be heavily rewarded.
01/09/2011 Managing new graduates
Graduates today are seeing a tougher recruitment environment than there has been for years. This being said, however, this month will still see tens of thousands of new individuals entering the workforce for the first time.
Yet, what will greet them? And will their expectations marry up with the reality of the modern-day corporation?
I have a feeling that for many people, the answer will be no. Why? Because today’s graduates are entering the workforce with higher expectations than any previous generation. They expect to be doing challenging work from the start, having a clear understanding of how their career is mapping out in front of them, and also expect the kind of work life balance that their fathers and grandfathers never enjoyed.
And they are unlikely to put up with any drop below these expectations for long. According to a recent report by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), over half of graduates intend to leave their current role in the next two years and four in ten graduates are not satisfied with their career advancement in their current organisations.
The research also found that, of the 1,900 graduates surveyed, more than half expected to be promoted to a management role within three years of starting work. Tellingly, one third of managers said that the greatest challenge when working with graduates was managing their expectations.
So what does these mean for employees and their current development programmes?
It clearly means that there is a potential disconnect between employer and employee expectations which needs to be better managed on both sides.
How can this be achieved?
While there are a myriad of other issues, for me the most important factor is a clear, transparent and open dialogue between employer and employee and a clearly structured development and L&D process.
Such a process should be able to diagnose individuals’ skills and potential skills gaps, highlight how they stack up against the company’s corporate objectives, and then form the basis for a clear development path for every individual with key milestones along the way. In that way, all graduates know – for better or for worse – where they fit within their organisations and what they need to do and improve upon to progress
It’s not rocket science and it forms the basis of any successful talent management programme, but you’d be surprised how often it can be neglected.
There are always going to be graduates who become disillusioned quickly and look elsewhere. However, transparent and honest feedback and a clear progression path can go a long way to ensuring that expectations aren’t as significantly out of sync as was previously the case.
26/08/2011 Calling time!
It’s time for managers to reconnect with their teams.
Recent research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) paints a rather worrying picture of the lack of trust and confidence in managers today. Their survey of 2,000 employees across the UK reveals that over half (55%) don’t think their manager possess sufficient ability to do their job, while managers believe they are good at what they do. This has led to a ‘competence gap’ which is undermining the productivity of UK workplaces.
Data like this raises all sorts of questions. As employers, what are we doing to ensure managers are qualified to lead? And are we giving them the skills to engage and get the buy-in they need from their teams?
Our own research concurs with this apparent lack of confidence in management ability.
When we asked 2,500 employees across Europe who they prefer to work with for their on the job training, the resounding answer was a coach or tutor. In fact, managers are the last person employees turn to today, with just 14% of learners turning to their manager compared to 48% preferring support from a coach or tutor. Managers could and should be more involved.
Clearly, somewhere along the line during the recession, employees lost faith in their managers and it’s time now that we do something about it. It’s amazing how training can reenergise managers and give them the focus, motivation and confidence they need to reach out and reconnect with their teams.
Management and leadership skills were certainly a casualty of the financial crisis and more resources need to be directed into coaching and relevant training programmes to boost performance, morale and loyalty. Companies who ignore management skills, do so at their peril!
Developing leadership skills: less talk, more action...
Leadership is arguably one of the most written about HR topics. What makes a good leader? What processes do you need in place to spot leadership potential? What are the best ways to nurture and develop leadership talent?
While organisations today recognise the importance of developing leadership talent, I am starting to wonder if enough is actually being done to safeguard today’s businesses for the future. Some research we have just conducted highlights that the problem is definitely more acute in Europe.
When we polled 132 learning professionals at the recent ASTD conference in North America we found that while job related technical skills are currently the primary focus for 40% of respondents, for nearly a quarter (23%), HR and leadership skills is the key focus of employee training, making this the second most important area for training amongst US/International organisations.
In contrast, our 2011 annual European L&D survey found that after job related technical skills, training in Europe is being focused more on areas such as professional efficiency, communication and languages as well as financing, purchasing and logistics. In fact, HR and leadership development accounts for just 11% of training amongst European learners – down from 18% in 2010.
It seems that the development of leadership skills is valued more highly in the US marketplace as a key enabler for achieving long-term business growth and success.
So what can we do to counter the problem? Firstly, as L&D professionals, we need to make sure that we prioritise the development of leadership skills. If we don’t take action now, we won’t have a pipeline of talent for the future.
Let’s not forget that many high level positions are currently occupied by the so called baby boomer generation (people born between 1946 and 1963) and as this generation nears retirement new talent needs to come through to take over. Yet a lack of investment in developing leadership skills means in many cases the next generation are not ready to fill the gap or don’t have the confidence to take over the reins. Furthermore, the financial crisis of the last few years with dramatic company downsizing, also saw some employees promoted to managerial level years too early and without the appropriate skills.
The future is going to see a whole new dynamic in terms of leadership capabilities. Without doubt we are entering an era where technology will be even more tightly woven into every aspect of our lives as it continues to drive a shift in how consumers behave and hence the way that companies do business. Leaders of today and tomorrow need to understand this paradigm shift and take action to ensure their companies remain competitive.
