Brian Anderson BA Search Group
Executive coaching has become "the" leadership development method for some very good reasons. However, there are two myths about coaching that should be dispelled.
Myth #1: If you fix the individual, the problem goes away.
Sometimes an executive will be labeled as "the problem" when, in fact, their disruptive behavior is often a symptom of systemic problems within an organization. The "problem" executive may not be entirely blameless. However, it's all too easy to blame organizational problems on a "problem child" rather than look at the more complicated and messy issue of how employees and executives relate with each other.
For example, I was asked to work with a senior executive who had been identified as being abrasive, complaining and generally difficult to work with although extremely technically competent. Sound familiar? This, by the way, is the most common reason cited in the research on executive coaching for referring a derailing executive for coaching.
In this case, after I conducted interviews with the senior team, important observers and next level down employees, it became apparent that this executive was outspoken, impatient and could be interpersonally clumsy and rude at times. However, a good deal of her unproductive behavior grew out of her frustration with a lack of "honesty and directness" between members of the executive team. These were a group of "nice" people who were passive aggressive with each other. They had a hard time "telling it like it is." Rather than openly disagree in meetings, executives would simply ignore, stonewall, or use subterfuge to shoot down initiatives they did not support. The so-called "problem executive" would, for example, leave a meeting thinking that she had buy-in only to find out later that her colleagues didn't assign people to support her project as agreed. She would then aggressively confront the offending executive, who would deny and then complain to the CEO about the other executive's rudeness, etc.
You get the picture. Obviously, the problem was bigger than the "identified patient" to use a term from family therapy. Yes, she needed to learn how to be more diplomatic and effective in her communication. And, just as importantly, the executive team needed to learn how to be more direct and honest with each other. If the executive team did not face "their" problem, fixing or replacing the executive would have been a short-term solution only to reappear in the form of another identified patient later on. Or, worse yet, the company could flounder because the executives couldn't/wouldn't come to grips with the issues the "problem" executive saw and forcefully, but ineffectively, communicated.
Myth # 2: Executive coaching is primarily a tool for helping derailing or derailed executives.
Helping derailed executives used to be the primary focus of executive coaching and is still often the first use of coaching for many companies. Most of my calls from companies who have never used an executive coach before are calling about providing help for one of their executives who has derailed. In the past five years or so, however, in Fortune 500 companies and quickly moving beyond those, coaching has moved from a remedial tool to the primary method of developing executives, especially for star performers and high potential executives. Why? Three primary reasons:
1. Coaching star performers is a better and less risky investment. Executives have figured out that by employing the same methods, time and energy that are used to bring a derailed executive back on track to develop star employees, the end result will be that those star employees (proven winners) will end up performing at an even higher level. Think Tiger Woods. Tiger has a coach because he wants to play at the top of his game...all the time. Tiger doesn't rest on his laurels.
2. Coaching embraces the "adult learning model," by providing just in time, just-what-I-need, individualized training for very busy executives. Busy executives do not want to spend unnecessary time attending generic one size fits all leadership development workshops where, if they are lucky, maybe 10% of the information they will receive will be relevant to their particular situation and needs.
3. According to the research on employee retention, one of the most important reasons top employees stay with companies is that they are provided with opportunities to learn and grow. Executive coaching is experienced by employees as a terrific benefit with long-term payoffs.
Key take-away:
Think of executive coaching as a tool within the broader context of leadership development. It's not the end all.
Conduct a thorough assessment of the situation not just of the "identified patient" when problems (symptoms) occur before considering a solution.
Consider using executive coaching as a tool for developing and retaining high potential and star performers. Not only will you get more bang for your buck by lifting good people to a higher level; you will be employing one of the most effective methods for retaining key employees…providing them with developmental opportunities. Great employees stay with companies where they can learn and grow.
Brian Anderson
Principal / Founder BA Search Group an executive recruiting, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market. www.basearchgroup.com
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
The six steps of great motivators
How many people do you know wake up in the morning planning on being ineffective in their job? I haven’t met a manager or executive who doesn’t want to be seen as an effective leader. Yet, we all know there are some people who just seem to get more out of their employees than other people can. They know how to motivate people. How do they do it? Is it a talent that you are born with or something you can learn? The answer is that it is an art, skill and attitude that you can learn if you work at it. According to the research on executive effectiveness and what I’ve learned coaching executives and managers in all sizes of companies, when you boil it all down there are six important steps to being a high powered motivator.
1. Generate and Sustain Trust The number one ingredient for becoming a top flight motivator is "generating and sustaining trust," according to Warren Bennis, in his classic, "On Becoming a Leader." When I’ve spoken to line personnel I frequently will ask, "What’s the one thing you admire about your boss? Invariably, they will respond that "I respect my boss." When I dig deeper, they will say something like, "She or he wouldn’t ask me to do something that I know they wouldn’t do." Or, "I never get the feeling that my boss treats me or anyone as an inferior." Great motivators generate trust through leading by example or "modeling the way" according to James Kouzes and Barry Posner, noted authorities on leadership. Leaders model the way through their personal example and their observable dedication. They also act quickly to stop behaviors that breakdown trust and collaboration, e.g., unethical behavior, backbiting and unproductive complaining. In the wake of Enron, leaders are under increased scrutiny. Therefore, walking the talk is crucial, as it should be. When a boss treats people with respect, employees become energized and want to follow in his or her footsteps. They want to excel…for their boss and for themselves.
2. Have the Right People The second ingredient is to be sure you have the "right people on the bus," according to Jim Collins who wrote the best selling business book, "Good to Great." While researching what made great companies great he discovered that they all had a particular type of leader at the helm. He discovered that the best CEOs were those who hire highly competent people, people who don’t need to be actively managed. However, you have to be self confident enough to be able to hire people who may well be smarter than you. If you can do that, then your primary task will not be thinking about how to motivate them but how to help them do their job. Therefore, learning how to interview and assess potential employees well should be taken very seriously. It’s a learned skill. Do not leave picking top people to chemistry. People are easily fooled by their "gut" feelings. Picking top people requires a more rigorous process that helps you avoid "interview bias errors." For example, the primacy effect: interviewers invariably rate the first or last interviewee as best simply because by nature of the order they are interviewed, they are freshest in our memory. If you haven’t received training in a systematic behavioral interview process… get it! If your company doesn’t use a systematic behaviorally oriented interviewing process….lobby to have one!
3. Inspire a Shared Vision The third ingredient is "inspiring a shared vision." Kouzes and Posner found that highly effective leaders see their vision, and then they communicate it in a manner that taps into and engages the dreams of their constituents. Effective leaders really do rally the troops. Inspiring a shared vision can be done at all levels of management. It’s not just the job of the CEO. Line supervisors, who are not responsible for developing the "vision" for the company can, nevertheless, use that vision to inspire their subordinates. It requires helping line employees see that the company is doing is something of value and how what they do fits into the big picture. Top motivators help employees connect the dots between what they do and where the company is going.
4. Enable Others To Act Fourth, top motivators enable others to act. Top motivators tend to be comfortable in their skins and don’t need others to make them feel important. It’s paradoxical but, the more successful and effective an executive is (those who build great companies that is), the more humble they are. In fact, they make you feel important because they take you seriously. Top motivators don’t cast a large shadow that prevents others from being in the light. They are not publicity hogs (e.g., Donald Trump). They also foster a team effort by promoting collaboration through relationships and supporting personal development.
5. Prepare Successors for Success Fifth, Collins found that great leaders encourage others by preparing their successors for success. They are not afraid of losing their jobs to an upstart. They do this by giving their subordinates plenty of developmental help (e.g., coaching, training, etc.) and by allowing their subordinates to shine. Kouzes and Posner call this attribute, "management of respect." Great leaders notice and celebrate their follower’s contributions and achievements.
6. Search for Opportunities Lastly, challenging the process: Effective leaders search for opportunities, experiment and take reasonable risks to help their organizations. Effective leaders don’t hunker down during difficult economic times…they take reasonable risks. Doing the same thing over and over may be safe but, it doesn’t motivate people very much. Frankly, it gets boring. Top motivators are constantly asking, "Can we do this better?"
The De-Motivators Keeping these six tips in mind, there are also five de-motivators to avoid or change. Otherwise, you may be doomed to failure. Specifically, Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman, who wrote "The Extraordinary Leader," discovered by analyzing the data from over 25,000 360-degree (multi-rater) feedback results for managers and executives that there were five "fatal flaws" that you must avoid or change in your behavior and attitude. These are sure de-motivators and career derailers:
1. Inability to learn from mistakes
2. Lack of core interpersonal skills and competencies
3. Lack of openness to new or different ideas
4. Lack of accountability and excessive defensiveness and
5. Lack of initiative. "What is fascinating about the five fatal flaws is that these traits reflect a pattern of inactivity. It is not the pattern of someone who is doing too much of something, but the pattern of someone doing way too little.
" Excessive defensiveness and having poor interpersonal skills are the most frequently cited issues that cause managers to be referred to executive coaches. And, of those, excessive defensiveness is the most difficult to turn around while being the biggest de-motivator.
Employees will stop bringing suggestions for improving processes to any boss who is excessively defensive and shoots the messenger. Interestingly, those executives frequently come across as super confident (they overcompensate) when in fact they are really insecure.
Their fatal flaw makes it impossible for them to ask for help much less admit they need it. Whereas, people with poor interpersonal skills often want to learn and can become more adept if they work hard at it. Any one of these flaws can put the brakes on energizing employees. The best employees will become frustrated and quit while those less competent may stick around because they are afraid to quit. The upshot, poor managers end up with poorly motivated, compliant and less competent employees. Not a recipe for success.
The Next Step Let’s return to the traits of great motivators. Imagine, if you will, that the 6 traits of great motivators are 6 pistons within the leadership engine. Ask yourself, am I firing fully on all 6 cylinders? How do you know? Top flight leaders proactively and continuously monitor their performance and make necessary improvements. How? The best practices behind performance management and leadership development are based in the use of objective, scientifically valid assessments e.g., 360 multi-rate feedback surveys and business based personality inventories. However, taking multi-rater evaluations is not for the faint of heart. If the survey is conducted well (and they are too frequently poorly designed and conducted), you will solicit confidential input (without a guarantee of confidentiality people rarely give accurate feedback) from a wide variety of sources, some of whom will probably be critical of your performance. In essence, you will need to do what pro athletes do…review your "game tapes." With good feedback data you will avoid spinning your wheels taking executive development courses/training that feel good (the leadership fad du jour) but have nothing to do with your particular developmental needs. Once you get accurate and useful feedback, you will be able to construct a program to hone your strengths, overcome or work around barriers and supercharge your effectiveness and performance. Therefore, if you want to become a great motivator, be courageous and get an honest and objective assessment of your capabilities. Then, fix any fatal flaws and put into practice the six steps of great motivators.
Brian Anderson
Principal / Founder BA Search Group an executive recruiting, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora market.
1. Generate and Sustain Trust The number one ingredient for becoming a top flight motivator is "generating and sustaining trust," according to Warren Bennis, in his classic, "On Becoming a Leader." When I’ve spoken to line personnel I frequently will ask, "What’s the one thing you admire about your boss? Invariably, they will respond that "I respect my boss." When I dig deeper, they will say something like, "She or he wouldn’t ask me to do something that I know they wouldn’t do." Or, "I never get the feeling that my boss treats me or anyone as an inferior." Great motivators generate trust through leading by example or "modeling the way" according to James Kouzes and Barry Posner, noted authorities on leadership. Leaders model the way through their personal example and their observable dedication. They also act quickly to stop behaviors that breakdown trust and collaboration, e.g., unethical behavior, backbiting and unproductive complaining. In the wake of Enron, leaders are under increased scrutiny. Therefore, walking the talk is crucial, as it should be. When a boss treats people with respect, employees become energized and want to follow in his or her footsteps. They want to excel…for their boss and for themselves.
2. Have the Right People The second ingredient is to be sure you have the "right people on the bus," according to Jim Collins who wrote the best selling business book, "Good to Great." While researching what made great companies great he discovered that they all had a particular type of leader at the helm. He discovered that the best CEOs were those who hire highly competent people, people who don’t need to be actively managed. However, you have to be self confident enough to be able to hire people who may well be smarter than you. If you can do that, then your primary task will not be thinking about how to motivate them but how to help them do their job. Therefore, learning how to interview and assess potential employees well should be taken very seriously. It’s a learned skill. Do not leave picking top people to chemistry. People are easily fooled by their "gut" feelings. Picking top people requires a more rigorous process that helps you avoid "interview bias errors." For example, the primacy effect: interviewers invariably rate the first or last interviewee as best simply because by nature of the order they are interviewed, they are freshest in our memory. If you haven’t received training in a systematic behavioral interview process… get it! If your company doesn’t use a systematic behaviorally oriented interviewing process….lobby to have one!
3. Inspire a Shared Vision The third ingredient is "inspiring a shared vision." Kouzes and Posner found that highly effective leaders see their vision, and then they communicate it in a manner that taps into and engages the dreams of their constituents. Effective leaders really do rally the troops. Inspiring a shared vision can be done at all levels of management. It’s not just the job of the CEO. Line supervisors, who are not responsible for developing the "vision" for the company can, nevertheless, use that vision to inspire their subordinates. It requires helping line employees see that the company is doing is something of value and how what they do fits into the big picture. Top motivators help employees connect the dots between what they do and where the company is going.
4. Enable Others To Act Fourth, top motivators enable others to act. Top motivators tend to be comfortable in their skins and don’t need others to make them feel important. It’s paradoxical but, the more successful and effective an executive is (those who build great companies that is), the more humble they are. In fact, they make you feel important because they take you seriously. Top motivators don’t cast a large shadow that prevents others from being in the light. They are not publicity hogs (e.g., Donald Trump). They also foster a team effort by promoting collaboration through relationships and supporting personal development.
5. Prepare Successors for Success Fifth, Collins found that great leaders encourage others by preparing their successors for success. They are not afraid of losing their jobs to an upstart. They do this by giving their subordinates plenty of developmental help (e.g., coaching, training, etc.) and by allowing their subordinates to shine. Kouzes and Posner call this attribute, "management of respect." Great leaders notice and celebrate their follower’s contributions and achievements.
6. Search for Opportunities Lastly, challenging the process: Effective leaders search for opportunities, experiment and take reasonable risks to help their organizations. Effective leaders don’t hunker down during difficult economic times…they take reasonable risks. Doing the same thing over and over may be safe but, it doesn’t motivate people very much. Frankly, it gets boring. Top motivators are constantly asking, "Can we do this better?"
The De-Motivators Keeping these six tips in mind, there are also five de-motivators to avoid or change. Otherwise, you may be doomed to failure. Specifically, Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman, who wrote "The Extraordinary Leader," discovered by analyzing the data from over 25,000 360-degree (multi-rater) feedback results for managers and executives that there were five "fatal flaws" that you must avoid or change in your behavior and attitude. These are sure de-motivators and career derailers:
1. Inability to learn from mistakes
2. Lack of core interpersonal skills and competencies
3. Lack of openness to new or different ideas
4. Lack of accountability and excessive defensiveness and
5. Lack of initiative. "What is fascinating about the five fatal flaws is that these traits reflect a pattern of inactivity. It is not the pattern of someone who is doing too much of something, but the pattern of someone doing way too little.
" Excessive defensiveness and having poor interpersonal skills are the most frequently cited issues that cause managers to be referred to executive coaches. And, of those, excessive defensiveness is the most difficult to turn around while being the biggest de-motivator.
Employees will stop bringing suggestions for improving processes to any boss who is excessively defensive and shoots the messenger. Interestingly, those executives frequently come across as super confident (they overcompensate) when in fact they are really insecure.
Their fatal flaw makes it impossible for them to ask for help much less admit they need it. Whereas, people with poor interpersonal skills often want to learn and can become more adept if they work hard at it. Any one of these flaws can put the brakes on energizing employees. The best employees will become frustrated and quit while those less competent may stick around because they are afraid to quit. The upshot, poor managers end up with poorly motivated, compliant and less competent employees. Not a recipe for success.
The Next Step Let’s return to the traits of great motivators. Imagine, if you will, that the 6 traits of great motivators are 6 pistons within the leadership engine. Ask yourself, am I firing fully on all 6 cylinders? How do you know? Top flight leaders proactively and continuously monitor their performance and make necessary improvements. How? The best practices behind performance management and leadership development are based in the use of objective, scientifically valid assessments e.g., 360 multi-rate feedback surveys and business based personality inventories. However, taking multi-rater evaluations is not for the faint of heart. If the survey is conducted well (and they are too frequently poorly designed and conducted), you will solicit confidential input (without a guarantee of confidentiality people rarely give accurate feedback) from a wide variety of sources, some of whom will probably be critical of your performance. In essence, you will need to do what pro athletes do…review your "game tapes." With good feedback data you will avoid spinning your wheels taking executive development courses/training that feel good (the leadership fad du jour) but have nothing to do with your particular developmental needs. Once you get accurate and useful feedback, you will be able to construct a program to hone your strengths, overcome or work around barriers and supercharge your effectiveness and performance. Therefore, if you want to become a great motivator, be courageous and get an honest and objective assessment of your capabilities. Then, fix any fatal flaws and put into practice the six steps of great motivators.
Brian Anderson
Principal / Founder BA Search Group an executive recruiting, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora market.
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