Better Results Faster

Early onboarding wins are essential, especially when they’re related to results, personal wins, and emotional deposits. Early result wins There is almost always a conversation at a new employee’s six-month mark. It starts with the question, “How is she doing?” If the answer is “Great. Wonderful. Kind of off to a slow start, but going to be fabulous.” she’s toast. She may not find out...  Read More

We ran a master class today at the Onboarding Talent conference in Chicago. One of the hot buttons was values and how important it is to confirm and communicate shared values at every step of the way in onboarding, both ways. Aligning values One of the critical components of a recruiting brief is values. It's important to be clear on what the organization's values are and to write them down...  Read More

While there are all sorts of different ways to think about communication, for most of us, concentrating on three communication points can make a dramatic difference in our effectiveness. It leads to better preparation, better delivery, and better impact. Better Preparation Sometimes preparing for an interview, speech, one-on-one interaction, or any communication event can be overwhelming -...  Read More

Two people used those two words with me over the past week, with very different meanings. Wilder Baker - Why Not Had breakfast with Wilder to talk about his ideas for his upcoming CEO Boot Camp dinner talk. (He's going to be awesome.) One of his stories is about how he positioned his advertising agency with a "Why not" point of view with great results. Attitude matters. R. Michael Ryan -...  Read More

Looking for a job is stressful at best and sometimes debilitating. Looking for a job in the recent environment has shaken a lot of peoples’ confidence, leading to a vicious cycle. People with their confidence shaken have a harder time getting a job and a harder time onboarding into a new organization. They’re scared, and try to control things they can’t control and have a harder time adjusting...  Read More

The first thing my new boss explained to me on my first day was that my top priority was managing the production of the new advertising campaign – and getting it on air for Thanksgiving.  When he showed me the shooting boards, my heart dropped.  The advertising was terrible. Fortunately, I resisted my natural instincts to prove to him how smart I was (and how dumb everyone else was) and went...  Read More

Onboarding is disruptive – by design.  Sure, we talk a lot about the need for new leaders to assimilate into the organization, to adapt, to build relationships and the like.  All those are true.  They are important as ways to smooth the underlying disruption inherent in the situation not avoid the disruption. The only reason for anyone to hire anyone anywhere, any time is because that new person...  Read More

Sometimes letting people trust their guts is a very good thing.  Sometimes it’s not.  Here’s one way to think about the difference. Conscious Competence Model Consider the conscious competence model.  People learning new things move from: unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence to unconscious competence The move from unconscious competence to...  Read More

Well into the 1980s, decisions at The Walt Disney Company were driven by what people thought Walt wanted.  I used to think the company was living in the past and this was an awful way to make decisions.  Now I’ve come to realize the company was living in the past (Walt died in 1966), but this was and continues to be a particularly good way to make decisions. If you and I have different points of...  Read More

Four important ideas from Wharton professors last week: Be decisive - Michael Useem Save more earlier - Olivia Mitchell Buy stocks - Jeremy Siegel Advertise on TV - Peter Fader Applause please.  I just saved you four hours.  Actually, the conversations each of these professors put around these ideas were compelling and well worth participating in.  But I digress.  I'm waffling.  I'm not...  Read More

“ …making progress in one’s work – even incremental progress – is more frequently associated with positive emotions and high motivation than any other workday event ”.  So says Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in “What Really Motivates Workers” in the Jan/Feb 2010 Harvard Business Review based on their research with 600+ managers. So what? Amabile and Kramer go on to explain that this means...  Read More

Risk is the possibility of suffering a harmful event.  Recently, we’ve all seen that managing risk is not the same as ignoring it or avoiding it, and that even managed risk still includes the possibility of harm.  Think in terms of identifying risks, having contingency plans ready in case the risk comes to fruition, and implementing those plans as the new reality as appropriate. Identifying...  Read More

I was struck by Simon Sinek's TED video on How Great Leaders Inspire Action.  (Those of you who are not familiar with the TED videos should stop reading right now and click through to www.TED.com and get familiar with them.  Many of them are truly astounding.) One of Simon's core concepts is that people don't buy what you do.  They buy why you do it .  He describes a golden circle with "why"...  Read More

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan [i] lays out a methodology for leaders and their teams to get done in 100-days what normally takes six to twelve months.  In a crisis, this time frame is woefully inadequate as leaders and their teams need a way to get done in 100-hours what normally takes weeks or months.  That way follows. Start with the basic premise that leadership is about...  Read More

Judo onboarding is the art of adapting well to changing circumstances and using someone else’s momentum to further your aims as you onboard into a new job. There are three basic ways to go into a new organization, easily remembered with the pneumonic “ACES” A – Assimilate CE – Converge and Evolve S – Shock More on this in that amazing book, The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan .  For now,...  Read More

How can managers create more time? They can’t.  All they can do is reallocate it.  While individuals are limited to reallocating their own time, managers have more leverage because they can take advantage of others’ time as well.  How they do that is one of the main differences between more effective and less effective managers. Everyone can sort across: 1) things they choose to do themselves,...  Read More

Not content with its contributions to the global banking crisis, Iceland decided to wreck havoc on Europe’s travelers by flooding the air with volcanic ash. I had the good fortune to be in Vilnius, Lithuania when travel was shut down and got to meet a wonderfully diverse set of people as I worked my way by train and bus (without any reservations) from Lithuania through Poland, the Czech...  Read More

Most acknowledge the value of focusing efforts on what’s most important.  Yet few of those same people are prepared to decrease their efforts on other things.  The math doesn’t work.  Since time and other resources are limited, you cannot really increase effort in one area without decreasing it in other areas.  This is why it’s so important to come to grips with what you want and what you are...  Read More

Not content with its contributions to the global banking crisis, the powers that be in Iceland decided to wreck havoc on Europe’s travelers last week by flooding the air with volcanic ash.  I had the good fortune to be in Lithuania at the time and got to add a few countries to my itinerary, meeting all sorts of interesting people along the way, instead of flying directly home.  (I traveled...  Read More

One important onboarding best practice is to pay attention. When I was 14 years old, I had lunch with the headmaster of the Eton school in England.  After a glass of sherry in his office, we went into lunch.  We entered a 600-year-old room with vaulted ceilings and about 100 students all dressed in academic gowns, standing absolutely still and silent while we processed up to the head table.  As...  Read More