Training – Page 13 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Optimizing Supervisor Training for Business Success

June 20, 2018/0 Comments/in Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

The ongoing, effective coaching, training and managing of supervisors should be a part of every organization’s performance management program

Today’s post is by Marta Moakley, JD, MA, Legal Editor at XpertHR.

Conscientious employers emphasize comprehensive supervisor training in order to minimize the organization’s overall liability risks. However, the depth and breadth of supervisor training options must be carefully considered for strategic, compliance, performance, and financial impacts.

For example, merely mimicking a peer’s practices could result in a laundry list of training “needs” that result in paltry returns on the organization’s investment. In addition, overbooking training sessions in a way that does not allow the material to truly sink in for supervisors could result in a trainee’s surface-level understanding of concepts.

This may be perfectly acceptable for a limited number of subject areas (for example, a supervisor need not know the intricacies of wage and hour law so long as he or she can respect a rest break). However, for some crucial concepts (e.g., the understanding of a supervisor’s role within the organization), a supervisor’s firm grasp of what is truly at stake is essential for an employer to be able to ensure compliance with legal and ethical responsibilities.

Surface-level comprehension of a supervisor’s role may result in a “jack of all trades, master of none” scenario, where a supervisor may:

Know something about coaching, but not excel at it;
Be aware of a corporate policy on workplace romances, but ignore it; or
Fail to pass on to HR important information regarding a safety violation, until it is too late.

For an organization to succeed, it should adequately invest in its supervisors in order to support and advance employees. Developing customized training curricula, which furthers business mission statements and goals, for both new and seasoned managers will assist in those individuals achieving mastery in their leadership roles.

Achieving Mastery

Avoiding an organization replete with “Masters of None” demands that decision makers focus on what is truly important to the organization. This includes:

Building the Bonds of a High-Performing Team

April 25, 2018/0 Comments/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

We’d all love to lead a high-performing team. The good news is there are several deliberate steps you can take to bring in the right people, strengthen the bonds between them, and build trust among them. If you can do all that, you’re well on your way to having a high-performing team.

You think you’re well on the way toward building and leading a high-performing team. You’ve got a clear vision and mission and a nice set of prioritized initiatives. You have all the right people. But what starts differentiating a regular team from a high-performing team is chemistry and trust between the members of that team. These intangibles are some of the most critical elements of building that team. They’re also some of the most elusive ones to build and to capture.

In terms of building chemistry between the members of your team, you need to understand it’s about personalities and shared beliefs.

Hiring for Fit

Make sure everyone on your team is involved in the interview process. Candidates will show different sides of themselves to different people. Sometimes those sides can be unattractive detractors from what you’re trying to build. I’ve had a couple of experiences like this in my past.

When I was a consultant, we were hiring a new consultant for the team. That person interviewed very well with the other members of the consulting staff. At the end of the interview process, we all got together in the team room and we talked about this candidate.

All of us were very excited about hiring him. Then we stopped and we asked our front desk receptionist what she thought of him. She said, “He was incredibly rude, he spoke down to me. He acted like I didn’t matter.” That individual did not get an offer of employment from us.

He’s probably still wondering why he didn’t get an offer because he knew he did a great job interviewing with the rest of the consultants. When we looked at the situation, we said “Do we want a person on our team who will be disrespectful of somebody else we work with?” The answer was clear.

Assessing Personalities

How important is it that training content be fully customized for your organization?

March 22, 2018/1 Comment/in Leadership, Poll, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How important is it that training content be fully customized for your organization?

Not at all. It’s about the methods, not the customization: 56.1%
Not at all. It’s about the methods, not the customization: 25.3%
Very. We demand the majority of training be customized: 9.9%
It’s critical. We won’t conduct training unless it’s customized: 8.7%

Beware of Customization. The vast majority of you are looking for customization of your training. While this is absolutely true of technical training related to your business processes or industry-specific skills, beware of customizing all your training. As someone who’s offered training services on soft skills for well over a decade, I’ve seen the downside of customization. When you’re training people on core skills like leadership, communication, problem solving, decision making etc., if you customize the session with custom case studies and examples, two unhealthy dynamics occur. First, participants tell you everything that’s inaccurate in the example. Second, they focus on solving the example versus learning the method at hand. Those dynamics can ruin an otherwise productive training session. Avoid the temptation to customize everything. It’s not always a good idea, and in many cases it can defeat the purpose of conducting the training in the first place.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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Stop Being a Leader and Start Being a Team Member

March 21, 2018/0 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

To get an appreciation of the work your team does and what it takes to be a successful team member, step out of your leadership role and take on a role on your team for a day. You might be surprised by what you learn and how much fun you have.

A few years ago I was very lucky to be reminded lately of what it’s like to be a team member instead of being a team leader. It was fun, refreshing, and insightful. Too many times as leaders, we forget what it’s like to be led instead of doing the leading.

I tried to achieve some balance in my life by taking a few days off to go fishing on Lake Erie with my son. We chartered a boat for three days – just the two of us. If you’ve never been walleye fishing on a trolling boat (we hadn’t) it’s a bit different than you would expect – and a lot more work than we bargained for.

The crew consisted of the Captain (Nate), the First Mate (Ed), my son, and me. When we showed up at 6AM, it seemed like a normal charter – we sat there trying to wake up while Nate and Ed prepared the boat for departure. We headed out onto the lake in search of the delicious toothy critters and watched the glowing horizon with anxious excitement.

That’s when we got the surprise of the trip.

Nate and Ed got out 10 fishing poles. By my math, there were only two anglers aboard. “Gee, that’s gonna be a lot of lines to manage” I thought to myself. Little did I know…

Balancing Risk and Empowerment in Decision Making

November 15, 2017/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Decision making is a trade-off between risk and time. As leaders, we need to create an environment where our people feel free to make decisions but that we don’t let them create too much risk.

As leaders, we say we want our people to be empowered and to go out and make decisions. We say we’re okay with them making mistakes and we’ll still support them making decisions on their own.

But not really.

I’m lucky to have a huge leadership lab in the form of the SmartBrief on Leadership weekly pulse poll. Every week I ask a leadership-related question and thousands of people respond to those polls. Sometimes I get a little sneaky and conduct my own experiments over the period of a few weeks. I conducted one of these experiments recently.

First I asked “Would you rather have a team member make decisions and make mistakes or make no decisions and leave that up to you?”

Unsurprisingly, all us empowering leaders were eager to give our team members the latitude to make decisions and make mistakes. 96% of respondents said they’d rather have a team member make a decision even if they make mistakes. A measly 4% of respondents wanted the team to leave all decisions up to them.

I observed we want our team members to take the initiative, take action and move things forward, even if they make mistakes. It is incumbent upon us as leaders to ensure that, when they do make mistakes, we realize we gave them the latitude to take action — handling the mistakes in that context accordingly. While we need to hold them accountable for the mistake, we also need to ensure they learn from it and do so in a way that we don’t make them afraid to make more mistakes in the future. Heck, I believe so strongly in this notion of decision making and empowerment that I dedicated a whole chapter of One Piece of Paper to the topic (grab a copy here and check out Chapter 13).

The following week I conducted the second part of my experiment.

What is your preference with respect to leadership training?

November 2, 2017/0 Comments/in Leadership, Poll, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: What is your preference with respect to leadership training?

– I’d like to attend leadership training in-person: 75%
– I’d like to take leadership training by video course: 7%
– I’d like to do “on the job” versus formal leadership training: 14%
– I’d like to construct self-led leadership training: 4%

Live still thrives. While we hear a lot about “blended learning,” “scalable and distributed” offerings, and online training, your learners have a very clear and strong preference for in-person training. Why? As someone who has trained literally thousands of people in our classroom courses, I know it’s about the interaction and focused learning. Being in a room focused on one subject for 4 to 8 hours gets your brain in the right space to learn. You also have immediate access to an expert trainer who can answer your questions. While video and distributed learning are solid reinforcement mechanisms, clearly the classroom still rules.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Is your organization rigorous about succession planning?

October 19, 2017/0 Comments/in Career, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: Is your organization rigorous about succession planning?

– Yes. We have a thorough process for succession planning: 10%
– Kind of. We do succession planning only for key roles: 38%
– No. When there’s a hole, we’ll figure it out: 52%

Waiting for a crisis. It’s scary to think that over half of you don’t have a plan for what happens when someone departs your organization. A key player going down can cause massive disruptions to your business, lost customers, operational risks and a host of other issues. Leaders are responsible for the smooth operation of their organization. This means sitting down and doing contingency planning for events they know will happen. Every person will leave their role whether to quitting, promotion or reorganization. Spend some time laying out a backup plan for when each team member departs. It’ll help you fill those open spots more quickly when the crisis eventually occurs.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Stop Worrying about People Leaving and Start Greening Your Own Grass

October 2, 2017/3 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Instead of worrying about your people leaving and having problems with your Millennial population, invest in their development in a personalized and meaningful way.

Today’s post is by Lee Caraher, CEO and Author of The Boomerang Principle (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Today, the managers’ lamentations of “Millennials aren’t loyal!” and “why should I put any time into training these people when they’re going to leave soon and I’ll have to start all over again?” are loud and frequent. Job hopping, disloyal Millennials seem to be at the center of all complaints in talent discussions no matter what region or industry.

The conversation is misplaced. In general, Millennials have learned by watching their parents and the news that no company will automatically “take care” of any one employee over the long haul. Moving from place to place and position to position is a well-informed career strategy for this generation.

The day we hire someone, we know they are going to leave; what we really don’t want is someone to leave before we want them to. Stop worrying about good people leaving “early” and start worrying about mediocre performers staying. Focus on ensuring that the “lowest” performers have the training, mentorship, and feedback loop they need to improve and thrive. The byproduct of this approach will be that the higher-performers will stay longer in this type of green-your-own-grass environment.

Green Your Own Pasture

Mentoring

The number one request by Millennials in the workplace is help finding a mentor – over 73% rank “getting a mentor” as “extremely important.” This isn’t that surprising when we factor in the close relationship so many Millennials have with their parents through and after college. They are used to, and seek, beneficial relationships with older people from whom they can get input.

By matching up our teams into mentor-mentee relationships we are providing a significant dynamic for everyone that helps maintain an association to our organizations.

Specific and Timely Feedback

How often are you held back by self-limiting beliefs?

September 21, 2017/0 Comments/in Career, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How often are you held back by self-limiting beliefs?

– Never — I believe I can do anything: 10%
– Sometimes — A few of my beliefs hold me back: 61%
– Often — Self-limiting beliefs get in my way frequently: 23%
– Always — I’m the biggest barrier to my own success: 5%

Set yourself free. Self-limiting beliefs rob you of opportunities and keep your organization from being as great as it could. When you run into these situations, consider the source of the belief, the likelihood of bad things happening if you take the action you’re afraid of, and the upside of overcoming that fear. Ask yourself if the source of your fear is realistic or rational. Once you get to the root of that fear, it’s much easier to overcome. After you confront the fear and take action, you can build momentum when you see your fears haven’t played out like you thought. It’s this constant positive reinforcement that will help you overcome your self-imposed limits.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

What it Really Takes to Run Your Own Firm

September 13, 2017/1 Comment/in Career, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Sales, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

People tell me all the time “I want to do what you do.” They have some glorified vision of what it means to be an entrepreneur. The day to day grittiness of it is something that few understand. Here’s a view into that day to day.

Entrepreneurship is a great life – as long as you’re prepared for what that means. Running your own firm isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The day to day activities are the ones few people understand or appreciate. Add to that the complexity of running as simple a business as possible and you can have a real nightmare on your hands if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.

Recently I had occasion to speak with Will Bachman, the founder and Managing Partner at Umbrex about what it takes to run a successful training firm. I guess I’m allowed to declare my firm as being successful considering we just celebrated our 13th birthday and we continue to grow every year.

We discussed my experience as an entrepreneur covering topics ranging from getting your business model right, dealing with clients, and making sure you’re taking care of yourself so you don’t run yourself into the ground.

Listen to the podcast here:

You Wouldn’t Fly with a B Player Pilot so Why Have One on Your Team?

August 21, 2017/2 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

While we all want teams full of “A Players” we seem to be saddled with lots of B and C players. Instead of resigning yourself to that fate of mediocrity, be more demanding and fill your roster with A Players instead.

Today’s post is by Rick Crossland, author of The A Player (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

In many businesses, managers are often resigned to the thought that having B and C Players on the team is just the way things are. The B and C players are meant to round out the team, and not everyone can be an A Player, right? Besides, isn’t it impossible to find all A Players anyway?

Well not so fast on throwing in the towel and tolerating B and C Players on your team! Let’s look at it this way: would you want a B or C Player surgeon performing your next surgery? Didn’t think so! How about a B or C Player piloting your next trip? No way! The point is, when the situation is critical or life threatening, we demand that A Players are doing the work. Why then do companies tolerate B and C players on their teams? Isn’t the work they do for your customers critical as well?

Leadership begins with the role of building a team to make the business thrive. When looking for team members, each company needs to establish their own set of qualifications and expectations that define the A Player in its industry. Upon deciding who to add to their team, leaders need to select only candidates that meet these criteria.

The question is: are you actually settling for B and C Players in the rush to fill a role? The key to having an awesome team is defining A Player performance and demanding it from 100% of your team members and new hires.

Let’s start by laying out the basics: What are the differences between A, B, and C Players?

An A Player can be described as a top performer in the top 10% of the industry for the specific compensation offered. An A Player is wholesome, driven, and possesses a strong work ethic. The A Player is the person who gives it all to the job. This person strives to have passion for their job and to be successful. In short, these are the employees you would enthusiastically rehire.

The B Player is someone who has trouble meeting deadlines, regularly failing to meet expectations, and providing more problems than solutions. In other words, their performance just skates by. Most companies and leaders tolerate the Bs and accept them as average. This leads to only mediocre company performance. As someone aspiring to be an A Player leader, your job is to coach these Bs into becoming A Players.

The C Player is the employee who just works for a paycheck and does not see a goal or possess pride for what they do. C Players also fail to meet expectations and deadlines. Just like the Bs, your job as the leader is to coach them up to being a full-fledged A, or coach them out to find a role where they can become an A Player.

Most companies think that B and C Players are needed to fill out their team based on the law of averages. Some executives have the misconception that they actually need B and C players to offset their A Players. Nothing could be further from the truth! A Players are the ultimate team players and exist at all levels in the organization. A Players crave being in the presence of other high performers. It’s the B and C Players that drive the A Players away. Here’s why:

Dealing with the Me, Me, Me Millennial at Work

August 7, 2017/1 Comment/in Books, Career, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Millennials are easier to lead and manage than you might believe. You just need to understand their needs for more frequent coaching, feedback, and mentoring if you want to get the best performance out of them.

Today’s post is by Lianna Willoughby, managing director of Open Mind Strategy, LLC.

Millennials are me me me maniacs.

Millennials were told by their parents that they could have whatever they want, be whatever they want and given trophies for everything from being excellent to showing up. They took their parents focus to heart deciding it was all about “me me me,” therefore in a professional setting one might assume they think that everything they do is perfect and they only want praise.

However, they actually crave critique. In the workplace, millennials desire constant feedback and constructive criticism to feel they are on the right course. 42% of millennials want feedback EVERY WEEK at work. More than TWICE the percentage of any other demographic according to Harvard Business Review. In addition to regular feedback about how they are doing on specific jobs, they want advice on how to advance in their career, and they highly value mentoring relationships.

Their desire for professional constant connection may also be fueled by their “always on” tech orientation. Coming of age with social media and text messaging, it is not a complete surprise that they have become accustomed to immediate responses of all kinds – good and bad – and expect it in all aspects of life, including in the workplace.

Understanding this aspect of the millennial mindset is essential to their job performance and overall happiness at work. Constant feedback, including constructive criticism, can be leveraged across many situations in the workplace – while activating a team, when communicating throughout the project process and after completion, debriefing what went well and the areas for improvement.

An example of an ineffective managing technique would be if a manager briefed a millennial employee on an assignment and then provided ample space and time for him or her to figure out how to handle the request. While the manager may feel that they are demonstrating their trust in the employee, the employee may be left feeling uncertain and uncomfortable.

Often, managers and leaders of millennial talent think a top-level overview of a situation is enough, however millennials’ desire for understanding “why” requires a constant flow of detailed, in the moment exchanges.

That said, millennials do not need to be hand-held and babied. They just need to be supported and acknowledged via regular check-ins- both on a project level and on a career path level.

There are many ways to help satiate millennial’s craving for constant feedback. As a leader of a research and consulting firm that spends a lot of time with millennials in the office and in the field, I recommend considering the following: