Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions

Alex had been working for a large financial institution for three years as a human resources consultant. This was her first position after completing her Masters and she was determined to be a rising star.  Everything was going well until the day her manager gave her some very devastating feedback during a meeting. “My manager explained that I was being perceived as high maintenance by the senior HR team and business leaders we support. It was the last thing I expected and not the brand I wanted to convey.” Alex’s manager explained that she was very pleased with her quality of work, attitude, critical thinking, decision-making and project coordination. The feedback and  perception of high maintenance came from the simple fact that when she was given a project by senior managers in her client group, Alex would constantly check  in with the managers, asking questions, probing for additional detail on what to do and how to do it.  The result was that she was perceived as a person who could not make decisions on her own, needed a large amount of hand holding, and was not confident in her abilities to manage the project.  One manager explained that for the amount of time she spent guiding Alex, giving her feedback on every little decision, and answering daily questions, she could have handled the project on her own more efficiently.  Alex was also told by her manager that one individual said she would not use Alex again as it was too much work to have her manage a project. 

Alex thought that by being this detailed, asking questions and checking in with the managers daily she was being diligent.  Alex worked with her manager to shift how people perceived her and changed her approach to managing projects. She was now on her way to again being regarded as a “high potential” employee at her company. 

Two things took place to ensure Alex was able to get back on track: a) Alex had a manager that was willing to give her honest feedback and, b) Alex was open and willing to take the feedback and apply the necessary action plan to improve her brand.

The following are things that are crucial to the success of your brand/reputation regardless of the level of position or the type of profession you choose:

• Credentials. This is what is on your resume. It's your educational and background experience. You can strategically build your credentials to prepare you for opportunities. Credentials are also about your skills and competencies.  Do people perceive you as having the right skills to do what you’re doing? 
• Track Record - Your record of past successes contributes to your credibility. Ask yourself, are you seen as a good risk? Remember that not everyone will be familiar with your track record, especially as you move within a company or pursue a position with a new company. Look for opportunities to make your wins more visible to your audience. Do you have a reputation for following through on assignments? 
• Authenticity - This is about conguency between what you say and what you do, speaking truthfully, accepting failure, apologizing when mistakes are made, and behaving ethically. People respond to authenticity in others with more openness because they know what they can expect from them, and know they can trust them.
• Demonstrate Respect - Hear others’ perspectives. Really listen and adapt based on what you hear.
• Trust - Be credible to others, you need to be seen as trustworthy. There are different levels of trust: trust that you will do your job effectively; trust that you will not mislead me; trust that your motives are genuine; trust that you will not hurt me. Trust is an outcome of authenticity.
• Relationships - People are more receptive to those they like and with whom they have a relationship. As you move within an organization, your relationships with your colleagues and peers become increasingly important, as more and more of your work is done through people rather than as an individual contributor. The more relationships you can build within your organization, the more likely it is that you will have people who are willing or open to helping you achieve your ideas. Additionally, the more likely it is that you will know the people who are sitting across the table from you on the cross-functional team or committee. And knowing your audience goes a long way when it comes to influencing others.

I wrote a blog a few months ago called 9 Executive Resume Do's and Don'ts. The commentary was in part driven by my fatique over words like experienced and accomplished when it comes to ways executives and resume writers like to describe success and tenure in the workplace. My feelings around dull resume copy struck me hard yet again the other day when I was asked to join an interview with an impressive C-level executive. At the end of our interview, I asked to see his resume. I hadn't had a chance to look at it before because the meeting was some what impromptu.

This man is active in 7 boards. In the course of his 25-year career he has sat on 15 boards. He has founded and launched 4 successful technology companies and runs his own assett management firm. This is a man who has impact, who drives innovation, and who knows how to ignite financial success.

Having impact, driving innovation, igniting financial success ... wow! It gets better, he is a philanthropist, a mentor to growth companies and, he works as a volunteer with all kinds of youth focused organizatons. Shaking this man's hand alone you know you're making contact with an individual who is full of energy and spirit. A man who cares about the world around him and who knows how to build businesses, launch companies, and build teams.

So, I took a look at his resume. There it was as the lead in to his profile " An experienced executive. " Arghhh. Then in the middle of his profile it read " accomplished leader." The rest of the resume was begging for some life. Here's a precise of what I told him.

Dynamic verbs and adjectives help individuals portray who they are, what they are capable of, how they work and create impact. In essence, words that have energy have spirit, just like the human beings they are paying tribute to. 

I strongly recommend taking a close look at who you are and the footprint you have made in your career.  Audit your existing resume, profiles, and biography, try to find opportunities to inject life, spirit, or energy into your document. Take the plunge and see how it feels to create copy that truly reflects who you are, but remember to strike a balance when you compose; being too "out there" can potentially be just as ineffective as being too common. For example: 

Common: A senior execitive with over 25 years experience leading global technology companies.

Revised using dynamic verbs and adjectives: Relentless technology executive who leads Canadian startups to global success by taking risks and never being afraid of failure.

You are the builder of your brand and the spirit behind your personality. The resume, bio, or profile you own and write should be an accurate reflection of what you offer and who you are.

If you've made a name for yourself by coming to the rescue—you’re part of the problem, not the solution! When I talk about toxic teams, I always talk first about how our teams have come to need crises to get anything done (check out that blog post here). Most people in the audience nod knowingly. Inevitably, there are a few people looking away sheepishly.  Leaders are finally becoming aware of the cost of lurching from one crisis to the next, never learning or making another crisis less likely. Even when leaders are ready to turn the corner on heroic behavior, they don’t know what to say to the hero. Here’s what I say.

“Thank you very much for jumping in to save the day. Your ability and willingness to do [x] to keep the train on the rails was a lifesaver. Now, I want to make it clear that if it happens again, I will take it as a sign that you have failed to learn and to build the capability of your team to prevent these types of emergencies from happening in the first place.”

Both halves of this message are critical. First, you need to recognize the effort. It is incredibly demoralizing for someone who does something heroic (like come in on Christmas day to get your server restarted) to be chastised for what they thought was helping. You need to say thank you, at least to meet the hero where they are in their own mind.

Second, you need to make it clear that heroic behavior isn't acceptable.  You need to unequivocally discourage heroic behavior in the future and make it clear that it is one’s responsibility to make changes and build capacity to avoid having another crisis. As my friend Bob Noftall always says “give me a solution that doesn’t involve you.”

At some level, heroic behavior can be common among people who have been promoted beyond the level at which they are comfortable adding value. For the leader who was a great “doer” but is not a great developer and delegator, it may be their only chance to feel they are adding value. In this case, exploring what they believe to be their role and helping them redefine their leadership value can go a long way toward reducing heroic behavior in your organization.  
 

I recently met with a woman that was referred to me by a former colleague – I was excited to meet with her because her background was so diverse and she had extensive international experience.  Jane arrived in my office filled with enthusiasm and great stories. She was also very well researched on my background, Knightsbridge, and the Canadian market place. The only thing she had forgotten was to spend time reflecting on herself and what her value proposition is and how it fits into the Canadian marketplace. Instead she spent the time we had together giving me a laundry list of experiences and skills. Jane never once revealed how her background would add value or what she really wanted from her career.  After our meeting I reflected on how individuals regardless of whether they are applying for a position internally or externally should not forget the importance of linking their specific expertise, skills and knowledge to the business needs.  I believe that in order to move forward we must invest the time in self reflection so there is clarity on what is important to us so we can be fully aligned and have “laser focus” on what we want and what we have to offer.  If you do not know what you want or what your full value is to the job market or the company you work for, you can not expect anyone else to know either.

Understanding the value you bring to your job, your manager, your team and the job market is a very important part of career management and career accountability.  I challenge you to take one hour out of your day to see if you really understand your value proposition and how it aligns to the needs of the organization (you work with or wish to work with) and the people you work for and with.  A great way to have a deeper understanding of your value proposition and be fully engaged in your career is to seek out your manager and colleagues for feedback. Ask the questions below.

• How do I personally contribute to the team/department?
• How do I present myself in meetings and at company events?
• What is my reputation across the company, marketplace, or with my team?
• What is the one thing that I could do differently that would have impact in how others see me?
• What do I believe are my interests and motivators?
• What new skill or knowledge do I need to acquire in order to grow my career?

Now compare. Does the feedback from others align to how you see yourself?  If not, where are the gaps and what changes do you need to make? 

Actions to Help you Reflect

• Assessments. Assessment tools are very valuable when you are in the process of understanding what your value proposition is. You may have done many assessments over the years and feel you don’t need to do any more; however, they are a great reminder of what skills, competencies, characteristics, and abilities we have.  Especially if we have lost our way on the Career path!
• SWOT Exercise. SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a tool that organizations use to create a powerful one-page summary of the critical factors in their current business environment. Doing your own personal SWOT analysis will give you insight into who you are, how you operate, what is standing in your way and where you can grow. Keeping your SWOT analysis up to date will help you to stay in the moment of where you are in your career.

Leaders need to understand leadership in an integrated way.

I have been noticing a subtle and important trend in my client work. As organizations try to strengthen their leadership, they do so from a limited perspective. More specifically, they tend to view leadership in a fragmented way. This means they focus on the role of the CEO, or the Executive team, or the needs of middle and frontline managers. They think about the parts of leadership. Few think about their organization’s leadership as a system.

This became clear to me recently when I was working with a client in the energy sector. The CEO was an exceptional leader and had created a very strong Executive team.

In a discussion with this team, they expressed their frustrations and concerns about the leadership effectiveness of their direct reports -- the next level down. The executives believed that their direct reports weren’t demonstrating enough accountability, nor stepping up to perform at a more senior level of leadership. It was starting to become a barrier to their success.  

As a result, they wanted a leadership development program designed to enhance the leadership capability of this target group of leaders.  I could feel that at this point of the meeting, the team believed they had expressed their needs, and the discussion on this topic was over. It wasn’t. I wanted them to better appreciate their organization’s leadership system more fully.

You see, the team broke down their problem into a single part -– the capability of their direct reports.  I began to expand their thinking by asking questions about how the Executive team interacted with their direct reports. This is where an important insight emerged. 

They realized that as an Executive team they tended to operate in an isolated manner from the other leaders in the organization. In fact, as one executive commented, “it’s like we’re running leaps and bounds ahead and away from the rest of the leaders in our company.” As we explored those remarks further it became clear that the next level down was rarely involved in strategy conversations and business planning with the Executives. They were essentially relied upon to execute the game plan. While this served the company well in the past, it wasn’t going to work in the future.

There was a clear need to increase the leadership effectiveness of the direct reports, but we also identified that the Executive team needed to do a better job of bringing their direct reports closer to them. This insight came about because the executive team began to think about their leadership as a system, rather than just the individual parts.  By thinking about leadership as a system, they eventually established a better way to solve their problem.

Over the next series of blogs I will keep exploring this idea of a leadership system. This will help you think about your company’s leadership challenges in a broader and more integrated way.

Great team leaders get their teams to manage themselves.  Here's how.

In my previous post, I shared a link to a great article written by Linda Hill and Ken Lineback. These authors suggest that great leaders need to lead through their teams. By leading hrough the team they mean that the leaders should let the team manage the behavior of individuals, rather than doing it all themselves. In that post, I shared some of the reasons why I believe that this is the future of effective team leadership--and a great story about how Chicago Bulls Coach Phil Jackson did it. But it’s easier said than done. Today, I’m focusing on how team leaders can enlist the team, with a little inspiration from basketball.

1.  Set the Rules. Call a meeting to talk about team norms. If you’re forming a new team, it’s easy to use this exercise to establish the ground rules right from the beginning. If you’ve been working as a team for a while, take some time to talk to team members about what’s working and not working. Then share what you’ve heard and ask for the team to set some rules going forward. WARNING: You can’t call this meeting and then dictate your own rules—let the team decide.

2. Call the Fouls. Have an explicit conversation about what will be done when someone does something that violates the team norms. If you don’t do this, team members will watch as people break the rules and become cynical and disengaged without doing anything to fix the problem. If the team is very hierarchical, you might even need an escalation process.

3. Use Proper Equipment. Use props, humor, and recognition. I’m a big fan of using props as visual reminders of productive and destructive behavior. I have already written about The Role of Humor in Dealing with Tough Team Issues, so here I’ll share some of my favorite team effectiveness props:

• The “Action Bear” teddy bear adopted by a team that needed to log action items and to remember to follow up at the next meeting;
• The Ping Pong Paddle for the team that wanted to call out when people started “ping ponging” and interrupting and stopped listening; and my personal companion…
• My plastic Stinky Fish…protector and defender of all who raise the undiscussable issues that need to be discussed.

4. Review the Play. When in doubt, ask.  It would be great if agreeing on ground rules, setting expectations for checking destructive behavior and using props and humor did the trick. Often they will. When they don’t, you can’t let the team off the hook. Instead, call out the behavior and ask the team how they want to handle it.  “I have noticed that 3 people have interrupted in the first 10 minutes of this meeting. How do you want to handle that?”

It’s takes time and a lot of self-control on the part of the team leader.  If you’re committed, you can enlist your team to manage itself—then you can focus on providing team leadership…but that’s another story.
 

How do you position yourself as a leader within your business unit or department? That’s a question I recently received from a high potential leader in a client organization.

Marie was a strong individual contributor with aspirations to assume more senior leadership roles in her professional services organization. She also demonstrated an ability to effectively lead project teams and was responsible for managing a small delivery team. She now wanted to take her leadership game to the next level.

I started by saying that one of the most effective ways to position yourself as a leader is to support your manager's success. “Don’t make this about you and your goals, make it about helping your manager succeed. You need to figure out how to zig where your boss zags.” The idea really intrigued her.

I continued to explain that most senior leaders today have so much on their plates. They are implementing multiple strategic priorities and even the exceptional ones can use some help. 

If you find yourself in the same position as Marie, here are some ideas to help you figure out how you can zig where you boss zags:

1. Meet with your manager. Discuss this idea and explore his or her strategic priorities and deliverables.  Identify the areas where your manager could benefit from some additional support. 
2. Determine what your manager is naturally good at. Some senior leaders are strong big picture thinkers, and don’t get into the details. If you are detail oriented, then there are probably numerous ways that you can help. Others have a strong market focus, and need help on driving internal operations. Determine those strengths. Then define how your unique capabilities might be able to complement those of your manager. The key here is for both of you to leverage your strengths to drive strong results.
3. Develop a game plan.  In some cases, there will be obvious and tangible ways for you to help out.  In other cases, it might be more subtle. For example, Marie realized that her boss was trying to launch a sector strategy to increase business development activity. Given his multiple priorities he was struggling to get this initiative started. Marie identified that the best way for her to help him was to set up some planning meetings, work with the sector team, and start to build positive momentum. She would work behind the scenes, but her contribution would be invaluable to him and the team.
4. Review Your Progress. Once you start implementing your plan, make sure you meet on a regular basis with your manager to assess your impact, and discuss new ways for you to support the success of your manager.

The first step in managing your career is to really assess and evaluate yourself. This is an introspective look at what interests and motivates you, the strengths you bring to your work, your limitations or development needs, your career accomplishments, and your future goals.

Depending on your job or profession, you will need to ensure that both your hard and soft skills are in demand and of value to the organization and/or marketplace. Taking the time to learn which skills your industry is currently seeking or recruiting for is one way of understanding what areas you may need to invest time and/or money on.

This process of evaluation should be an ongoing journey that never stops, even when you have finished school or mastered a skill. You will always have to re-evaluate to ensure that your skills are up to date and in demand. You will have to take the time to understand not only what the company you work for values, but also what is considered valuable by the job market. You can accomplish this on an ongoing basis speaking to recruiters, reviewing job boards, and if you are currently working, becoming curious about your current company’s competitors - what type of skills and attributes do they require from their employees?

Here are 4 strategies that you can use to help you gain insight about yourself and help you manage your career:

• Do self assessments
• Ask for feedback from managers, work colleagues, your network
• Examine past performance reviews for insight
• Journal your accomplishments – did the project or accomplishment inspire and/or interest you where you aligned with the work and the accomplishment?

Use the above mentioned strategies to help you  manage your career and evaluate your skilss on an ongoing basis -- preferably once a year; during times of transition with the company or in the marketplace; and when you're not feeling aligned with your current work. Below are some examples of ideal opportunties for you to re-evaluate your skill set:

• If the reporting structure of the company changes and you find yourself with a new manager, you will have the opportunity to review your skills and attributes based on what he/she determines is needed for the business.
• On-going transition in business, mergers and acquisitions will also give you the opportunity to ask or research what the new expectations are for employees.
• The ever-changing marketplace (new technology and processes, emerging markets and businesses) require your skills and motivators to be in line with the expectations of the marketplace and the expectations of the employer.
• During times that you are feeling you are not aligned to your work and need to reconnect with what is important and what drives and inspires you.

I read an interesting HBR blog recently called Good Managers Lead Through the Team. The authors, Linda Hill and Ken Lineback shared the idea that great leaders lead through their teams, rather than trying to directly influence the behavior of individuals. I was really impressed with the idea and wanted to devote some space to it here on the Team Effectiveness blog.

As I thought about the concept of leading through the team, one very famous story came to mind.  It was the 1993/1994 NBA season and Coach Phil Jackson was putting together a new team after the retirement of Michael Jordan.  In the absence of a superstar player, Jackson understood the importance of creating a strong team. In game 3 of the semifinals, down 2-0 in the series, tied with seconds left in the game, Jackson called a play where Pippen would inbound the ball to the rookie Tony Kukoc. Instead of lining up at the end of the timeout, Pippen sat down on the bench and opted out. If he couldn’t be the hero, he wasn’t going to play at all. (Kukoc made the play and won the game.)

Now that story is legend for sports fans, but the story that followed is the one that is of interest to students of team effectiveness everywhere.  Jackson and his Bulls had just won the game but he had an important decision to make about Pippen. He could have ignored it—having won the game or he could have come down hard on Pippen making it clear that such behavior would not be tolerated. But he didn't do either of those thigns. Instead, he let the team handle Pippen. By doing so, he sent a strong message to not only Pippen, but to all the members of the team about his expectation that they live and die as a team.

Most leaders don’t have the patience or the inclination to let the team manage individual behavior. They believe it’s their role to provide clear direction on what is (and is not) acceptable and then to “enforce” those standards through individual performance management. This confines the team to being a collection of relationships with the leader, which significantly decreases the likelihood that the whole will ever be greater than the sum of the parts.

3 Reasons to Let the Team Manage Individual Behavior

1. Mitigate the impact of “managing up”: Far too often when I’m working with teams, the poorest team players are also the ones who expend an inordinate amount of energy managing up. If the team leader is the only one in a position to provide feedback on unseemly behavior, this destructive behavior is likely to go unnoticed and unchecked.
    
2. Create accountability: Another all too common problem with teams is team members wait for their leader to “fix” things that aren’t working. If the team leader makes it clear that everyone on the team is responsible for setting and enforcing the rules, it creates an environment where team members take accountability for team effectiveness—and likely for other aspects of performance too.
    
3. Compensate for leader’s blind spots: Team leaders have their own styles with strengths and weaknesses that impact team effectiveness. If that leader is fully responsible for the standards of acceptable behavior, it’s more likely that their blind spots will negatively affect the team. If the whole team is responsible, the result is likely to be a more balanced approach and a more effective team.

In my next blog, I’ll share some ideas about how to engage the team in managing individual behavior.
 

There’s a great story of leadership resolve emerging from this year’s National Hockey League (@NHL) playoffs. One of the first round series match up was between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers. Going into the playoffs the Penguins were favoured to win the Stanley Cup. Sydney Crosby was back in full form and the entire team ended the season strongly.  All signs were pointing to a long playoff run.

Unfortunately, the Penguins didn’t succeed and were eliminated in the first round. They came up against a strong opponent in the Flyers - a team that had something to prove. 

Last year the Flyers were knocked out of the playoffs after losing four straight games against the Stanley Cup champions, the Boston Bruins.  The year before the lost in the Cup finals.

So the pressure was on. In the end, one player stood out and was a key factor in the Flyers’ success. That player was Claude Giroux (@28CGiroux).  He did everything possible on the ice from scoring goals, to delivering punishing hits, to inspiring his team and fans. He demonstrated tremendous resolve because he did not shy away from the pressure of the situation. In fact, during a media interview he told the reporter that he actually loves pressure and believes the way to win is to embrace it. As a result, Giroux has emerged as the team’s natural leader and so far is the leading scorer in the playoffs.

This is exactly the kind of resolve that leaders need to demonstrate. It’s moving beyond resilience and reacting to pressure as you encounter it, to fully embracing it and taking your performance to a higher level. 

As I wrote in my previous blog, leaders do need resilience, but it’s not enough. Leaders need personal resolve - that sense of inner purpose, drive and tenacity that helps one rise above the pressures, rather than being buried by them. 

Leaders with strong resolve are able to discover strength in the midst of challenge. They find a way to generate positive energy from adversity and convert it into forward momentum. Leaders with resolve also look to glean lessons from their experiences that in turn help them more effectively deal with future pressures.

So how would you rate yourself on your leadership resolve? Is it time you started to embrace the pressure in your leadership role?

“(People) in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.” Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)

When making a hiring decision, the time you invest in developing a solid set of well defined Attributes, Behaviours, and Competencies, can be critical to making the best possible selection of a candidate. Defining the ABCs that characterize the critical factors for success in the role and applying those factors as screening criteria separates best-in-class hiring practices from practices that are prone to error. As Machiavelli pointed out, appearances often form the basis of poor judgement.

Experience suggests that a well defined set of Attributes, Behaviours, and Competencies (skills) considered critical to successful performance and cultural fit of a candidate can form an effective and defensible method for guiding hiring managers to an effective hiring choice. These factors are often grouped under the title of “position attributes” or “critical competencies” for the role.

Failing to establish these factors can lead to highly subjective and non-defensible candidate selections, which can be both costly and painful for any organization. To paraphrase an old quote, sometimes we get the employees we deserve!

So what do the ABCs look like?

A good list of ABCs should be descriptive enough to form a strong impression of the type of person who would be highly successful in the position. They don’t have to be highly scientific, nor overly detailed. They do need to bring together sufficiently descriptive statements of the essential behaviours, personal attributes, and competencies that can be used to form situation-based questions to be asked of each candidate and to form the basis for a standard assessment of each interviewee.

Following the ABC approach

Setting up ABCs to define a position is not a difficult task. Well disciplined organizations and high-quality executive search firms will often follow the time tested practice of first interviewing key stakeholders for their input on the critical success factors for the role, evaluate those against similar roles for additional insight, and craft the draft ABC list and test it for accuracy and completeness; before completing the position profile, posting and interview questionnaire.

Once the profile and ABC criteria based questions have been developed, the criteria can be summarized for external advertising and used to pre-screen incoming candidate applications. Executive search firms and human resources teams regularly develop rating grids for pre-screening, interview question responses, reference questions, and short-list/finalist candidate overall evaluation.

In addition to ensuring adherence to the ABC critical success criteria throughout the process, this approach minimizes the potential for discriminatory selection decisions and establishes an effective audit trail to support the end hiring decision.

It’s simply good business. Simple as ABC. Just ask Niccolo.
 

In my previous post, I shared a common team effectiveness problem—people who say “yes” to too many things.  It’s an easy mistake to make, but saying yes has stretched us too thinly and compromised the quality of our work and the quality of our lives. In today’s world, a good team player needs to “Know When to Say No.” In the Knightsbridge team effectiveness process, we teach the following framework for how to say no.

Delete: There are things that you just need to delete from your task list. These are things that don’t add value for you, or for the organization.  For me, this includes lots of meetings that I’m only invited to as a courtesy. Once it’s clear that I’m not adding value—or it’s value that overlaps with someone already in the room, it’s better for me to make the tough choice to say no to that meeting. To identify opportunities to delete ask yoursefl: “To what extent is this still relevant?” “How are you using these outputs?” “What would be the impact be if we stopped this?”

Delay: Sometimes you need to delay action. When “issues” arise, people can catastrophize and cause crazy amounts of work in the process. It’s important to assess the core issue and to wait for the flailing to stop before jumping into knee-jerk action. I experience this when I’m traveling on business.  Frequently I’ll pick up a day’s worth of messages at the same time. It’s not all that uncommon to get one message recorded in the morning that says “urgent” and asks me to do x, y, and z and then another recorded 2 hours later saying “no need to worry, we’ve handled it.”  They got the job done and I didn’t add to the mêlée by trying to get involved.

Distribute: Some work is best done by someone other than you. Taking on work that you could do—but slowly and with questionable quality—just doesn’t make sense. If someone is more efficient and effective, distributing the work to them is better than doing it yourself. As a senior member of our consulting team, I’m often a go-to person for meeting with new clients. I’m often not the best person to represent the team, given the issue at hand or the industry of the client. What work do you do that would be better distributed to someone else?

Diminish:  Perhaps the most valuable strategy for saying “no” is not to say it outright. The diminish strategy pares work back to its core to reduce the effort required, without losing the essential elements that are adding value.  One area where I see opportunity for this technique is reporting. With many of my clients, their reporting requirements mean they spend more time reporting on the results they achieved than on actually achieving them. To diminish work, ask questions such as: “What are you trying to achieve?” What is the most important part of this?” How could we make this more manageable?”

A friend of mine was the VP of IT within one division of a large computer company. His people were constantly complaining to him that they were stretched too thinly, that they didn’t have time to add the value they wanted or to think proactively about the business. The culprit was a list of 18 monthly reports to head office. He stopped sending one report each month until someone noticed. How many months do you think it took before anyone noticed?  It was 9. So by getting rid of 8 reports, he was freed up to focus on the work he really needed to be doing.

Saying “yes” is important when it’s the right work and you’re the right person. Otherwise, delete it, delay it, distribute, or diminish it. Your team will be stronger for it.

In our work with leaders, my colleagues and I at Knightsbridge have come to understand that resilience has two sides: a maintaining and recovery side. 

You demonstrate resilience when you are able to maintain your optimal levels of performance by:

• Being able to hold your own in tough situations;
• Managing your emotions, behaviours and thoughts when under pressure;
• Keeping a clear focus and sense of optimism during stress; and
• Persevering in spite of hardships and difficulties.

You also demonstrate resilience when you are able to recover from challenging events. This often happens when you are able to:

• Get yourself back on your feet when you have experienced significant setbacks and disappointments;
• Transform or reframe your experience in ways that move you forward rather than keep you stuck; and
• Overcome the setback and focus by identifying and learning lessons for the future

As I discussed in my last blog, leaders do need resilience today. So how do you become a more resilient leader? It starts with increasing your self-awareness of how you typically respond to pressure and adversity.  Here are some questions we ask leaders to reflect on in our leadership development programs:

• Do you tend to see the negative or the positive of a situation first?
• Do you tend to minimize or catastrophize what is happening to you?
• Do you internalize the situation (put it all on yourself) – or externalize (look everywhere but yourself)?

It is important to gain self-awareness of your typical response because how you react as a leader impacts those you lead and in turn impacts how they react to pressure. You can imagine how a group will respond when their leader always sees the negative first, or has a tendency to catastrophize events, or "loses it" in the face of adversity. 

So the key to resilience begins by having a balanced perspective. Responding in an extreme way can undermine your leadership effectiveness.  A better way is to strive to maintain a healthy viewpoint on events happening around you while you weigh the pros and cons and seek a positive way forward. 

What strategies do you use to maintain and strengthen your resilience?

The first step in managing your career is to really assess and evaluate yourself. This is an introspective look at what interests and motivates you, the strengths you bring to your work, your limitations or development needs, your career accomplishments, future goals and your definition of success.  I will cover step one in the next two blogs.

What is your definition of success: money, position, being recognized for a job well done? 

It is important to take the time to evaluate and reflect on your definition of success and you will need to adjust your definition as circumstances in your life changes (marriage, children, aging parents, transition). What factors you should consider when choosing a career will be dependent on your definition of success.
 
Uma  took the time to redefine success during a period of transition and was shocked to find out that the reason she was currently feeling like a failure at work had nothing to do with her performance and everything to do with how she was defining job success. Uma has always been considered  a star performer from the time she graduated. Her managers would always rate her at an “exceed expectations” level in her job. However, during the previous two years she was given a “meets expectations” rating by her manager.  This was devastating to her. After going to a career coaching session she came to the understanding she needed to rethink her expectations of performance and success for that period of her life.

The reality was her father was diagnosed with dementia and her mother was critically ill. Her ability to perform at the previous level was not a possibility with the emotional and physical toll both illnesses had on her life, not to mention the fact that she now spent a good deal of time in hospitals. She could no longer put in the hours nor had the time to participate in new strategic initiative projects at her company. When she came to terms with adjusting her expectations and what success looked like in her life at the present time she was able to feel proud of how she had handled both her work and her personal life.

Career Management Action: Take the time to write down what your definition of success is today. Re-evaluate this definition every two to three years or when you life circumstances changes.

From our earliest days at work, we are sent the strong message that good team players say “yes” when they are asked to do something.  Really good team players step up and volunteer without even being asked.  We’ve socialized team members to stretch themselves to the breaking point, all in service of “taking one for the team.”

In my experience as a manager, I find the compulsion to say yes is so strong that new employees will take on more and more work and stop only when they finally (and inevitably) drop the ball. The result is a difficult, embarrassing episode, which for some brief period of time causes them to avoid saying yes to a few things. But before I know it, my really keen team members are back saying yes to everything.

Alarmingly, this tendency to want to be helpful and to take on more and more work doesn’t lessen much even with time and experience. The same talented, aligned, and engaged people keep saying yes to too many things. The result is chronically poor execution, perpetual violations of work-life balance, and levels of stress and anxiety that make the whole team a powder keg waiting to blow.

It’s not just the over-eager team member who is to blame. Team leaders must take accountability for the role they are playing in spreading team members too thinly.  Lack of prioritization and unwillingness to make tough decisions about what is more—AND LESS—important leaves team members feeling no alternative but to add something else to their already full plates. Often, this is the result of team leaders who don’t have the courage to manage up. They grudgingly accept more and more work from above without challenging or asking for prioritization.

I once worked for a boss who left her employees in tears because of her expectations that they say yes to everything. One afternoon around 3:00, our Executive Assistant came to me in a state. Her husband was picking her up at 4:30 for an appointment and she had just discovered a pile of five items left on her desk by the boss. Each item had a sticky note on it with the word “urgent.” When she explained that she had to leave and asked for prioritization, the boss’ response was “they are all urgent.” No one on our team (except perhaps the boss) was surprised when she resigned 3 weeks later.

We have got to get over our view that good team players say yes. It is driving us nuts, reducing our effectiveness, and resulting in poor quality work. In my next blog, I’ll share some ideas of how to “Know When to Say No.” 
 

I was recently in a meeting with a client discussing his company’s leadership development needs. This company is undergoing transformational change and its leaders are facing tremendous pressure. My client explained that a key focus for development was to improve the ability of leaders to be resilient. He then asked me for my thoughts. 

I agreed with him. Resilience is important for effective leadership, but alone it isn’t enough. He was surprised by my response. 

When I look around and see the challenges and pressures that leaders face in organizations, it’s easy to understand why resilience would be important. Organizations need leaders who can:

• demonstrate an ability to recover quickly from setbacks and difficulties,
• respond to changes in their work environment, and
• manage their own personal reactions to stress and that of their direct reports. 

That's why resilience is a hot topic right not. Yet traditional views of resilience are a lot like those old inflatable Bozo the Clown Punching Bag toys.  The ones you can punch and punch and they just keep bouncing back up for more. 

I believe many leaders think that this is what resilience is about. You keep taking the punches and your job is to bounce back up for more. The problem with this scenario is that you simply keep returning to your original point. Where little learning takes place and over time you can get worn down by the repeated punches. That’s why I believe resilience will only take leaders so far. 

Leaders need to go beyond resilience. They need a real strong sense of personal resolve -- a sense of firmness of purpose and strong tenacity to lead their organizations.

It’s not just about bouncing back, it’s about learning to “bob and weave” to avoid the punches. It’s about having an unwavering or almost stubborn ability to see the way forward in a different, more sustainable way. Despite all the challenges and obstacles that may come their way, leaders with resolve have a conviction to keep driving and take their performance to new levels. In fact, real resolve also involves learning to get energized by the challenges and hardships. 

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I demonstrating resilience or resolve in my leadership role?
• Do I feel like a Bozo the Clown Punching Bag some days -- always bouncing back to the same place and not feeling like I’m making any real progress?
• Do I believe I have the resolve and tenacity to see the way forward in my organization?

Let me know your thoughts.  In my next blog, I’ll discuss strategies to improve resilience and resolve.

Recently, I was taking an Executive Team through the Knightsbridge Team Inoculation Process. This is a four module process that helps teams fix underlying issues and then sustain high performance. In advance of the third module, my colleague and I had conducted interviews with the members of the team to understand what issues they wanted to tackle during the session.

I was standing in their boardroom, looking at their comments projected on the screen when one comment really struck me. One of the team members had said that they hoped that through the session the team could to learn to be “brutally honest” with one another. There it was…right in front of me. In their minds, conflict was “brutal.” Now you have to understand that this is a team of some of the nicest human beings I have ever worked with. These are people who are committed to their very important work of caring for some of the most fragile people in our society (they work in healthcare).  I understood immediately the key to why the team was struggling to master conflict: They were thinking of feedback, candor, and authenticity as brutal.

Healthy, productive teams believe that feedback is precious…and that it is helpful. In stark contrast to people who believe it’s “not nice” to say something negative about a person, good teammates believe that it’s not nice to see someone go off the rails and NOT to say something. The most important thing is your intent in giving feedback and how you deliver the feedback to optimize the impact.

Intent: When you see a teammate do something that you believe is harmful (to themself or to the team), your mindset needs to be one of assistance. “I don’t know if she realizes how that came across, I should help her understand how it sounded.” “I would want someone to tell me if I was in the same situation.” It’s also important not to catastrophize. Your mindset should be positive and supportive.

Impact: It is not enough to have a positive intent.  You have to think about how to deliver your feedback so that it lands positively. Frame your feedback by talking about the situation. Use specific, behavioral observations not judgments, and then share the impact you think the behavior had. Finally, open up the conversation so the person can respond.

Examples: “Jean, when we were discussing Marie’s new project and you gave reasons why it wouldn’t work before she finished describing the approach, the team stopped listening to Marie before she could show that she had addressed the issues. How do you think this might have affected Marie?” “When you were presenting your update to the team and you used 27 slides, I saw several people pull out their Blackberries. I felt badly that the real progress wasn’t appreciated. How could you emphasize your key points differently next time?”

I don’t know too many people who enjoy getting constructive feedback in the moment. Most of us like to continue under the illusion that we did a good job. I also know that most people come to trust and rely on the people that care enough about them and have the courage to deliver tough feedback.  They would never describe what their teammates offer as “brutal honesty.”  Instead, they aim for genuine, supportive honesty. And that kind of honesty is a gift.
 

Sue is a first generation Canadian of Asian heritage. She remembers her parents told her that it was important to ensure she secured a university education as it was the key to success and job security. “My father also told me if you have a degree you will always have a job. "I did all the right things. I went to university for business, found a job with a large company, and I stayed with that company. I received 5 promotions in 10 years. To my family I was a huge success. However, I was given my walking papers and a package 3 weeks after celebrating my 10th anniversary and 9 months after my most recent promotion. The department was being eliminated and they did not have another position for me. My father asked me what I did wrong."

Sue is no different than many employees. Our beliefs and values are most likely formed because of the advice and guidance adults of influence pass on to us. Some of us are told education is the key for success; others are told to work for a large company, the government or a bank, and the expected result is a position/job for life.  The truth is that in a very volatile marketplace in the 21st Century, there is no one ingredient for success. You need to apply a number of strategies and approaches to ensure your marketability. You are the only person that can secure life-time employment.  

Over the next few weeks I will share with you 5 simple steps that will help you manage and own your career.

To get started, ask yourself in this day and age is it realistic for Sue to believe that because she had a degree, she is owed a position for life?

Test Your Beliefs About Employment & Your Career:

• What was the first piece of advice your parents/adults gave you about working?
• Do you know if your beliefs are in line with the expectations of the workplace?
• Are your beliefs relevant? What challenges will they potentially create for your career in the future?

The true test of your beliefs about employment and whether or not they still apply in today's workplace is to ask yourself, “Would you give this advice to the next generation?”

My purchase of an iPhone and an iPad last month got me thinking about touch screen mobile devices, creativity and our right brains. It also got me thinking about how both devices have enhanced how I interact with people in world around me.

Having been a BlackBerry user since 2000, switching to an iPhone was compelled by a desire to work with a greater array of social media tools and by my desire to engage the world around me with aesthetically pleasing photo apps like Facebook's Instagram.

Texting on a touch screen I was warned, can be an absolute nightmare, and it was. I've since learned an entirely different way of interacting with my device. There's a surrender that takes place as you struggle to allow auto-complete to remember the words you use. Given the need to text quickly, you eventually have to just  "do it" and hope as you text over and over, that you'll make less and less mistakes. It takes about 3 weeks, but eventually the typos become fewer and farther between. You also start to say more with less, the approach to texting becomes almost iterative.

Through all of this I felt a pull on my brain, the more inuitive flow and interaction lead to an a-ha moment, "I'm using my right brain." The right brain is the hemisphere that guides creative thinking, it is more intuitive and tends to look at the whole rather than the parts, being drawn towards aesthetics and feeling. The left brain is logical, analytical and tends to look at the parts rather than the whole having a heavy reliance on accurance and objectivity. So I decided to do some research, went to Google and typed in " iPhone and right brian thinking." And the result was a mecca of iPhone and smart phone apps for right brian development and testing, and even a portal of apps geared towards Executives and C-Levels. See the recommendations made by Appolicious.

Upon further investigation, I found countless articles speaking to how right brain thinking improves workforce productivity and workers who have access to mobile devices and applications over the course of their on and off work hours are actually engaged in visual thinking and thereby more likely to contribute to their employers overall levels of innovation. The concept of mobile Enterprise Mind Mapping , though new to most of us, is said to become the future of coporate innovation. If you check out apps like Zeptopad you'll see how touch pads ignite creative ideas and sharing. Wacom is a forerunner in fostering this kind of thinking, they actually teach courses on how to engage in Visual Communications, mostly with tablets.

It mattters not if you work with an iPhone or an Android etc. What does matter is that you take note of how the new generations of mobile devices can change the way you work and live. With the advent of tablets we're just hitting the crest of a wave. I'm not saying that you should ditch your current smart phone, but I am saying you should try one and literally feel how it ignites a different way of thinking and getting involved with the world around you.

Photo by Suphakit72.

According to Wikipedia, the role of the advocatus diaboli (devil’s advocate) was established in 1587 as the official lawyer appointed by the Catholic Church to provide evidence against the canonization of a candidate (the appointing of a Saint). The job was to be skeptic, to poke holes, and generally to keep the standards for canonization very high. As is common in the legal profession, the devil’s advocate was expected to argue strongly against canonization regardless of their personal opinion of the merit of the candidate.

Today, it has become common and acceptable to express unpopular opinions by first invoking the role of devil’s advocate. Unfortunately, it’s so common that many people strongly bemoan the devil’s advocate on their team. We are seldom getting the benefit of the devil's advocate on our team effectiveness. I want to provide a few guidelines for making the devil’s advocate role effective on your team.

• Focus on the evidence. The devil’s advocate was not there to speak ill of the candidate being canonized. Instead, they were to focus on the quality and veracity of the evidence of miracles. The devil’s advocate was there to point out alternate, non-divine, explanations for the observed outcomes. To be a good devil’s advocate, question the evidence and offer alternate conclusions based on the same data.
• Don’t hide behind the term. If you actually don’t agree with the evidence being presented, you are not questioning it just to test. If you believe the evidence at hand is faulty or that it is being used to draw erroneous conclusions, just say so. Your credibility will suffer if you can’t confidently bring a dissenting opinion to the table.
• Take the other side sometimes.  If you are always the devil’s advocate, just opening your mouth might cause others to get their backs up. You need to leave the role to someone else. If no one is forthcoming, trying asking. “I’m getting tired of always being the devil’s advocate, is there someone who would be willing to play that role today?”
• Rejoice if you’re unsuccessful. As a high ranking member of the Catholic Church, the devil’s advocate was ultimately happy if they were unsuccessful in their attempts. More evidence of miracles on earth was considered a good thing. The same should be true for you. If you are unsuccessful at poking holes in the support for a given course of action, embrace it.  Otherwise, you’re a naysayer, not a devil’s advocate.

I’m always glad to see someone willing to introduce healthy conflict into a team. Done as it was intended, the devil’s advocate role can reduce groupthink and the risk of everyone thinking alike. Interestingly, the advocates diaboli was abolished by Pope John Paul II in 1983, leading to a 10-fold increase in canonization.