Why Most Leadership Development Activities are a Waste of Time

It all starts off with noble intentions and great expectations.  Organizations invest thousands to send a manager off to some Leadership Development Training, with high hopes of getting a return on their investment, and of seeing some measurable change in managerial performance.

The normal result is a large invoice for the training and related costs, and a new PowerPoint slide hung on the wall, with some convoluted model or diagram that’s supposed to change our lives, and solve all organizational ills.

How do managers and organizations get is so wrong?

They have the right idea, but they make the same mistake that any of us that has ever been on a diet before has made.  We think that some temporary action, and new package on an old bit of knowledge will make a difference.  Here’s a blinding flash of the obvious:  if you want to lose weight, eat more veggies, eat less of everything else, and try to exercise more.  Most importantly, make these changes habits rather than a temporary intervention.

Organizational and Leadership Development is no different.  Figure out what behaviours you want your managers to display, and take action to make those behaviours into habits.  This is incredibly easy conceptually, but much harder in practice.  You need to look at your reward systems, development systems and processes.  Part of your answer may include training, but only then as part of the solution.

We did some work with PepsiCo, who are generally well recognized as very competent at Leadership Development Activity.  Their development model calls for 10% Leadership Training, with the balance of development activities taking other forms such as coaching, job-shadowing, special assignments, and secondments.

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely believe that quality leadership is the stargate to better production, increased quality, improved safety, and better cost control.  I just think that organizations that attempt to bridge their leadership quality gaps via training are taking the easy way out, and burning shareholder money to boot.

Just like most of us don’t need another diet book, but rather the discipline to use one of the 44 we already own, leaders don’t need another day in a classroom – they need help making habits out of the things they learned last time.

Business Training Seminars? Watch Children’s TV

Because I am a freak of nature, I can’t remember what happened yesterday afternoon, but I do remember the name of Marsha Brady’s first boyfriend (Harvey).  For the uninitiated, Marsha Brady was the stuck-up, know-it-all character from the early 70s sitcom, The Brady Bunch.

This, along with Gilligan’s Island, Mr. Rogers, The Electric Company (incredibly starring Morgan Freeman, and Rita Moreno), The Partridge Family and Sesame Street, formed the basis of some fundamental lessons that guide me in business and in life to this day.

Here’s what I know:

Gilligan’s Island: In a survival situation, where life and death are at stake, people will still revert back to comfortable roles.  Gilligan was always an idiot, Mary-Ann bakes Coconut Cream Pies (when she wasn’t busy getting baked herself – google Dawn Wells), and Ginger could easily manipulate anyone with a Y chromosome to get her own way.

Mr. Rogers: Most importantly, he liked me just the way I am, but also, interestingly the only civil servant (the mail man) had a two-decade old problem balancing his meds.

The Electric Company: Who knew reading could be so much fun?  And… always treat those around you with respect.  You never know when one of your co-workers is going to win an Oscar, Grammy, or Tony award (see the stars listed above).

The Partridge Family: Sometimes you can fake it till you make it.  For evidence ask Susan Dey to sing, or watch Danny Bonaduce strum a bass guitar.  For those who don’t know – The Partridge Family managed to knock the Beatles off the number 1 Billboard Chart, even though they were lip-syncing to the work of studio musicians.

Sesame Street: I’m not sure about this one – even as a five-year-old, I had a hard time accepting life-advice from a six-foot tall, ambiguously gay canary.  Perhaps the lesson from Sesame Street is that it is always, all about marketing.

Enjoy

How to Get Ahead — Don’t Be an Idiot

Every now and then Jed or I will be sitting across the table from someone who will confide in us that he really wants to be promoted into the next job.  Sometimes, he may not know what that next job is, but he really wants it.  “How do I get ahead?”, he may ask of us.  This got me to thinking:

Boot-licking – Constant, shameless, thorough and quality bootlicking.

Eliminate the competition by quietly and carefully sabotaging their every move.  If you think they might be higher in the standings than you for the next role — take them out.

Sewering Your Boss —  Maybe if you make her look stupid enough, they’ll fire her, and put you in her role.

Constantly Champion Your Own Virtues – If people don’t know how wonderful you are, it’s about time you told them.  Don’t be afraid to repeat, ad nauseam.

Sorry – I seem to have lost my inner-monologue.

It’s frightening how many people think that one or more of the above will work.  We see it time and time again, even if people don’t fully admit to employing some or all of these techniques.

There is no doubt that occasionally a boot-licker will slip between the cracks and have some success for a limited period of time.  Maybe even a year or two.  However, there is always a reckoning.  This is not to say that the most qualified person always gets the job – organizational politics are a fact of life that people need to accept.  I don’t know of any organizations that are pure meritocracies.

But people who attempt to prosper by insincere means most often meet their demise with the same level of intensity as they played the game.  What comes around goes around – even though it may take longer than many of us might like.

So how do you get ahead in your career?  Start by not being an idiot.  If you can’t manage that, you’re not going to get ahead anyway, so you might as well cut your losses now.  (Oops – there’s my inner-monologue again).

If you want some other ideas, download our latest podcast on How to Get Ahead – Wily Manager Style.

In the meantime… let’s be careful out there.

Micro-Managing: A Great Way to Get Fired

OK – we’ve all done it.  Decided to do something ourselves because its easier and faster than holding the appropriate person to account.  Maybe you’ve even done it with your children.  Micro-managing – the gift that keeps on destroying.

Every manager has been warned against this, so let’s look at why it happens, given the most common excuses most managers give for doing so:

It’s faster to do it myself.  It probably is faster… the first time.  But if you look at the amount of time it will take you to teach or correct someone else in the execution of a task, versus the amount of time it will take you to do it on an ongoing basis, the answer is clear.

I can do it better. You probably can… for a while.  However, if you insist on doing every individual task yourself, you will become quickly overwhelmed, and will end up doing some (high) proportion of those tasks poorly.

My people aren’t capable. If this is the case for any amount of time, you are clearly not doing your job as a manager.  It is your job to develop people.  Occasionally you truly don’t have the right talent, in which case you have to make changes to your talent bench.

I need to keep close to the details. Actually, you probably don’t.  As a manager, it is not your job to be expert at everything.  It’s your job to create experts, and be able to ask some semi-intelligent questions of them.

If I don’t do all these tasks, I won’t be useful anymore. Listen to yourself.  If you’re that insecure in your role as a leader, you need to examine whether you should be in a management role at all.

The bottom line is that micro-managers sap the productivity out of organizations by failing to capture the discretionary effort of their employees.  They don’t develop people, which is a primary function of a leader.  They also limit their own career mobility by trying to make themselves indispensible in the role they are in.

Micro-management is a self-destructive behaviour, and a great way to get fired.  Then you’ll have lot’s of time.

Help! I’m a Micro-Manager

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What’s Wrong With Being a Micro-Manager?

  • You are creating unnecessary work for yourself and others, and therefore wasting resources
  • You could be negatively affecting turnover
  • You are destroying discretionary effort and thereby reducing productivity
  • You will burn yourself and others out

How People Become Micro-Managers

  • They were great individual contributors, but never transitioned to being a leader
  • They have perfectionist tendencies
  • They are insecure in their role as a leader
  • They are control-freaks

How do I Address This?

1. Clearly Define Expectations

  • Put written performance agreements in place
  • Define the boundaries of people’s jobs and determine what level of authority they can have

2. Experiment With Giving People More Authority

  • Define outcomes; allow people to determine methods
  • Start small if necessary
  • Ask for progress reports

3. Leadership Development

  • Find ways to improve your ability as a leader.
  • Dedicate time to focus on leadership issues as opposed to the detail or the work

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It’s a Jungle Out There

I found this clip on YouTube that is a hilarious/sad commentary on many workplaces.  Happy Viewing.

You’re Fired! How to Fire an Employee

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Before You Fire

  • Have you done everything reasonably possible to have the employee succeed?
  • Has the employee been warned that their poor behavior or performance will lead to termination if not corrected?  Are these warnings in writing?
  • Consult with your legal council and HR to determine whether the termination is ‘with just cause’ or ‘without just cause’
  • In cases of ‘with cause’ have you completed an investigation and got the employees side of the story?
  • With the help of Legal or HR prepare the letter or ‘separation agreement’

Be Respectful

  • Have the conversation as soon as possible after making the decision to terminate
  • Select neutral territory, preferably where you can be as discreet as possible
  • Plan to allow the employee to depart with as much dignity as possible
  • Provide appropriate transitional support

Doing the Deed

  • Have someone with you to witness the conversation, preferably HR or another manager
  • Keep the discussion quick and to the point
  • Don’t defend or debate the decision

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Is There Hope for Introverts?

Other than questioning someone’s parentage, is there a faster way to insult someone than calling him an introvert?  Isn’t introversion something that we need to cure people of by sending them to the Dale Carnegie Course?

Many organizations have invested in some form of psychometric instrument that indicates whether people have a preference for introverted or extroverted behaviour, but that hasn’t stopped the vast majority of people from throwing around these terms without actually having a clue as to what they mean.

People hear “extrovert”, and they think: outgoing, friendly, social, capable, productive, normal.

People hear “introvert”, and they think: shy, withdrawn, anti-social, illusive, dysfunctional, wall-flower.

The problem with these descriptions is that neither is particularly accurate, and it infers that people are capable of only one set of behaviours exclusively.  There is also a connotation that Extroverts will excel in business to a much higher degree than Introverts.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins reveals the qualities that his research has shown as effective in running great organizations.  Interestingly, many of the qualities of “Level Five Leadership”, are found more naturally in people with Introverted preferences.

You might also be surprised who may be a closet-introvert:  High-profile leaders, television personalities, sports stars, maybe even one of your friends, neighbours, or family are introverted.  They’re everywhere, so beware – you never know when they’ll want to slink into the back corner of a meeting room, and silently wish everyone would stop talking at once.  Or perhaps pray that someone will listen to them for 20 seconds before interrupting them.  Worse yet, they may think about something before responding to a question creating that awkward few seconds silence.

So you may be wondering where I fit on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Grid.

As someone who spends a lot of time talking to groups of people, and a person who worked in television (for a short and spectacularly unsuccessful period of time), I am rarely accused of being an Introvert.

I prefer to label myself as a Recovering-Extrovert.  We might need to create a new scale for measurement.

High Impact Development

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The most significant development for managers and executives takes place ON THE JOB (i.e. not through training or coaching/mentoring).  However training is what is most commonly offered.

Why most training is useless:

  • 86% of people who attend training do nothing to apply what they have learned
  • Typically only 10% of non-customized course content is relevant to an organization

Don’t default to training activities for yourself or your directs when building development plans!  If you do use training, think about what you are going to do to ensure that what is taught is actually applied.

High impact development activities include:

  • Special project/Task force: Discrete project assignment aimed at a specific outcome.
  • Fix-it: Turn around, restructure and stabilize a failed operation, project, or organization, or customer relationships.
  • Start-up: Building something from nothing or almost nothing.
  • Small strategic assignment: Examples include doing a competitive analysis; writing a proposal for a new product, system, etc.; writing a speech for someone higher up; writing a policy statement or summarizing a new trend/technique and presenting it to others.
  • Deepening functional skills: Changing from a generalist type assignment to a more specialized job/role that requires/builds very deep functional expertise.
  • Stretch job beyond ‘hip pocket’ functional skills: Changing job/role/career to a functional discipline fundamentally different from previous work experiences; may include a cross-functional assignment.
  • Significant change leadership: Leading the efforts to design and implement major change to the company’s key business processes and core capabilities.
  • Mentoring: Receiving personal coaching, counsel and perspective from a valued/trusted and influential leader.  Being a mentor for someone else.
  • Build a team: Assembling & aligning a team of unique talent and skill sets to achieve a stated vision and strategy.  Maybe a project team.
  • Coaching assignments: Teach someone how to do something they are not expert in; design a training course.

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Giving Quality Feedback

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Why should you give feedback?

  • To confirm a course of action, performance or behavior
  • To correct specific behavior or performance
  • To have a behavior or performance carry on
  • Use as a performance management tool to enhance performance

There are 5 steps for giving quality feedback:

Step 1: Context Tell them what you’re going to tell them

  • Tell them what’s coming – don’t leave them guessing
  • Don’t just start talking, and leave them to figure it out on their own
  • “I’d like to offer some feedback on…”

Step 2: Clarify Describe in specific, measurable and observable terms and tell them why it’s important

  • Generalities don’t work
  • Have your facts straight
  • Describe observable behaviors
  • Use measures wherever possible
  • Tell them why this is important
  • What is the impact on you and on others?
  • How does it relate to high level goals and objectives

Step 3: Create Ask for feedback on the feedback and brainstorm actions to improve or do better

  • Ask lots of questions
  • Guide them through the feedback
  • Give an opportunity to respond
  • Brainstorm actions to improve or do better

Step 4: Confirm Agree on action steps forward, and determine exactly what will happen next

  • Make sure you agree on what will happen next, even if it is to maintain the status quo
  • Reinforce continued good performance
  • Describe what future outcomes you’d like to see

Step 5: Close Express confidence and support

  • Everyone should leave the meeting with a clear idea of what they need to do next
  • Reinforce your confidence in the recipients ability to be successful
  • Describe how you will support them in their efforts to improve

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