Training – Page 17 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

The Secret Ingredient in Successful Hiring Practices

March 30, 2015/1 Comment/in Career, Guest Blogger, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

While many dismiss luck as an element of the hiring process, it can account for performance more than you think. The good news is, there are ways to make your own luck.

Today’s post is by Tony Beshara, Ph.D., creator of The Job Search Solution and president of Babich & Associates

Most hiring authorities will not admit that luck plays an important role in the hiring process. In fact, most of the literature about hiring warns against relying too much on luck for a successful outcome. In my experience, however, luck is the secret ingredient.

The average hiring experience involves four hours of face-to-face meetings and, at best, an hour or two of testing, paperwork, contacting references and running background checks. In spite of the best intentions and exhaustive screening, the hiring process in and of itself doesn’t actually reveal what a potential employee will be like – or how they will perform. Our files are full of as many stories about people who far exceeded expectations as those who failed despite stellar qualifications.

For many new hires who fail, they may feel uncomfortable in the company culture or find themselves in over their heads. For those who succeed, they may have found a source of inspiration and feel driven to new heights of achievement.

Experienced senior managers understand the interplay of life and work, as well as the unpredictable factors and shifts in attitude that affect performance. Sometimes the most promising new hire becomes your worst nightmare: time-waster, incompetent, dishonest – or all three. And sometimes the sleeper becomes the super-star.

Leadership Tips for Turning Around a Slacker’s Performance

February 4, 2015/0 Comments/in Books, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Do you have a Slacker on your team who isn’t pulling their weight? Your leadership challenge with them is unlocking their motivation. They have the talent. You have to get them to apply it!

The following is an excerpt from Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (you can get your copy here). This post focuses on how you can turn around the performance of a Slacker on your team.

Dave has a great résumé with the right education and expertise from brand name schools and employers. When he accepted your job offer, you felt like you made one of the best hires of your career.

Since Dave got the job, however, his talents haven’t translated into the results you expected. He’s a smart guy with great communications skills – at least his verbal communication skills. He’s outspoken in team meetings and has many ideas, most of which seem to have potential. Interestingly enough, however, those ideas relate to other peoples’ responsibilities. Dave’s willingness to comment on how others are doing or not doing their jobs is drawing complaints from your team. He has much less to say about his own area.

When it comes to written communications, Dave doesn’t have much to say. Getting him to produce reports is frustrating. He’s never met a deadline he didn’t renegotiate.

Dave is content knowing how to do the job instead of actually doing it. He seems to think he’s paid for being smart instead of for being productive. His failure to deliver is frustrating everyone. You hate the thought of losing someone as talented as Dave, but his lack of results is alarming. His teammates have picked up his slack. You’ve dedicated more of your leadership capital than you’d like harping on him to get his work done. There’s no doubt that Dave is a “Slacker.”

Approaches for Leading a Slacker

5 Steps Leaders Can Take to Fill the Digital Skills Gap

February 2, 2015/0 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Jeff Fernandez – co-founder and CEO of Grovo.

Leading a company is much like managing a sports team, as each member of the collective must not only have the requisite individual skills to fill a role, but must also be thoroughly equipped to work within a larger system in order to have the best opportunities for success.

The function of leaders in these organizations is to ensure that the talent under their management fits both descriptions, but the importance of effective leadership can often go under-appreciated. Even the most capable team members will find themselves ill-equipped to compete within a well-run organization if they lack the proper guidance, and perhaps nowhere is this concept more evident in the business world than with the growing digital skills gap in the American workforce.

Responsible for up to $1.3 trillion in lost resources for the nation’s companies each year, the digital skills gap is one of the most volatile threats to the viability of a business. Despite untold sums of money being poured into the latest technologies by organizations across industries, only 1 in 10 employees in the country rate themselves as “proficient” in using common digital tools such as email, employee management systems or collaboration utilities.

In fact, a recent McKinsey poll indicated that 21 percent of the average American work week was wasted due to inadequate digital skills, leading to a $10 million average yearly loss for a firm with at least 1,000 employees. This costly gap is only expected to widen as new technologies become available, and so companies who take a passive attitude toward keeping their practices current will quickly find themselves outpaced by those with more foresight.

Closing the digital skills gap starts at the top of an organization. Company leadership must devise a comprehensive plan to enhance the overall digital literacy and skill set of their workforce, developing skills their employees will need in the future as well as identifying any lacking skills in their current roles. Training practices and goals should be regularly evaluated to ensure they are still relevant and beneficial to individual employees based on their evolving responsibilities.

The first steps for any company to take when addressing their digital skills gap are simple:

3 Key Skills You Must Have to Lead a High Performing Team

September 24, 2014/1 Comment/in Entrepreneur, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

As the leader of a high performing team, you’re personally responsible for making sure your team has the required set of skills to succeed and execute against all the initiatives on your prioritization list. You need to evaluate your team’s mission, look at the key initiatives, and then map out the skills and capabilities required to succeed. Once you’ve done that, you have to assess your existing team and see which skills they have, which ones they don’t, and which team members might be detractors from what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re lucky, you too might have a Bean curd person of high skill on your team already. (Seriously, when I saw that pic on flickr when I was searching for “skill” I simply had to use it).

You also have to think about and understand your team’s culture which is driven by the vision of what you’re trying to achieve as well as the broader organizational culture. Quickly figure out “Do my team members fit within that culture?” We’ve all seen people who are great performers and can get the task done, but they don’t work well with other members of the team. You need to either help them fit in or find people who are going to be more appropriate fits for the team.

To successfully build this team, you have to think about several types of skills that are required for delivering outstanding performance:

1. Technical skills. Perhaps it’s coding, doing analysis, writing, or creating documents – every team needs a specific set of technical skills to turn out the products and services it is responsible for.

2. Functional skills. Skills like problem-solving, strategic planning, decision-making, communicating, and presenting are examples of functional skills your team members might need to have.

7 Steps to Building a High-Performing Team

September 3, 2014/0 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

We all want to lead high-performing teams but where should one begin? Not every team has the ability to be high-performing but I guarantee it won’t be high-performing if you don’t focus on getting it there.

In my experience, there are 7 steps to building a high-performing team. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been a member of and to have led high-performing teams over my career and they all share the same seven characteristics.

If you’d prefer to watch a full video course on how to build your own high-performing team, you can do so by CLICKING HERE and checking out the course over on lynda.com. There’s over 2 hours of explanations and stories on how to build your own high-performing team. In the meantime, here’s an overview of the seven steps you need to consider when building that team. Under each step are some thoughts on the things you have to do or be able to do to achieve the goal of that step.

1. Setting Direction for a High-Performing Team

– Know the difference between a vision and a mission. Understand techniques for crafting them and sharing them.
– Translate a vision and mission into a shared purpose for the team and drive behavior through that shared purpose.
– Link the vision and mission to priorities and translate priorities into projects/initiatives. Use initiatives to drive resource planning and focus because focus leads to success.

The Importance of Being an Improvisational Leader

September 1, 2014/3 Comments/in Books, Career, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Fred Cook is the CEO of Golin and author of IMPROVISE: Unconventional Career Advice from an Unlikely CEO (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Every night at clubs like the Improv in Los Angeles and Second City in Chicago, aspiring comedians make improvising look easy. Drawing from the archives of their own experiences, these professionals use cues from the audience and their fellow performers to craft a coherent narrative that leads to a logical conclusion and entertains along the way. Improvising requires skill and practice, especially in the business world. I should know. I’ve been doing it all my life.

Today, I am the CEO of Golin, an award-winning public relations agency with 50 offices around the globe. I have worked with some of the country’s most fabled business leaders, such as Apple’s Steve Jobs, Disney’s Michael Eisner, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. I have introduced the world to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Pokémon and seedless watermelon. But my career was not always so glamorous.

Before joining the corporate ranks at the age of 36, I talked my way into a job as a cabin boy on a Norwegian tanker; peddled fake Italian leather goods to unsuspecting tourists; ran a rock-and-roll record company; started a service chauffeuring drunks home from bars; worked as a doorman at a five-star hotel; substitute-taught in Los Angeles’s worst schools; and winged it as a novice tour guide. These jobs taught me how to improvise.

Improvisation, like evolution, is a critical survival tool. Based on prehistoric genetics, evolution has allowed us to adapt to long-term changes in the biological world. Relying on present knowledge, improvisation enables us to adjust to real-time changes in the modern world. Life is too fast and too complicated for strict ideologies to determine our fate. Our future leaders must learn to play it by ear.

The Power of Self Reliance for Adversity in Modern Times

July 9, 2014/1 Comment/in Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by thoughtLEADERS instructor Jan Rutherford who is leading another Self-Reliant Leadership Crucible expedition this October. Check it out and sign up for the program if you’re courageous enough to do so…

What role does character, courage and virtue play in business achievement, and how should we deal with the difficulties, obstacles and adversity we inevitably face?

Napoleon held, “Adversity is the midwife of genius.” An alternate expression for adversity is crucible, and the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘crucible’ as “a melting pot, for metals, etc.,” and adds that it can be figuratively used for a “severe trial.” The term crucible represents a difficult test or challenge; some sort of place or situation where we may face the intense heat of a severe trial, one that forces us to change or make difficult decisions. As Jules Evans says, “God sends adversity your way like a boxing coach sending you a sparring partner.”

Socrates and many philosophers influenced by him believed there was a strong connection between how we interpret the world and our own physical and mental health, and he believed we have the power to heal ourselves. The reason Napoleon saw adversity as a benefit was because the virtues of wisdom and knowledge stem from resiliency, dominion and discipline.

Answering the questions about virtues amidst adversity takes time, energy, courage, humility and discipline – i.e., self-reliance. One of the most important components of our own personal development is the desire to build our character to serve others: inner growth for outer service.

How to Solve Big Problems by Creating Small Problems

March 26, 2014/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Innovation, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

We all face large, ambiguous problems every day. The real challenge is getting our arms around that problem and understanding what’s really driving the issue. Until we can do that, we’ll never be able to solve the challenge we’re facing. To break those big issues down into smaller ones, I’d like to introduce you to a problem solving tool called the logic map.

If you’re really interested in getting better and faster at problem solving, you can either check out our problem solving course or you can learn our entire problem solving method in video form in 39 minutes and 3 seconds at lynda.com. Just CLICK HERE to check out the video version of the course. Now, let’s explore creating and using a logic map…

At one point, I worked for the financial services firm, and we had a program where we were making offers to consumers. And when that program first launched, we were making about $5 million a year. The problem was, after a few months, we started losing $5 million a year. This was a huge issue. And there were a lot of things that could contribute to it. We used the problem solving process to get a better understanding of what issues are really driving the problem before we rush off and solve it.

We broke it down into what’s called a logic map. We looked at technology. We looked at training. We looked at systems. We looked at hiring. We looked at processes. And we broke that really big problem down into smaller issues that we could bite off and actually solve. Now the good news is, once we broke the problem down, we identified the core issue, followed the rest of the problem-solving process, and turned that program around from losing $5 million a year to actually making $20 million a year a few years after that.

Let me walk you through what a logic map is, and how you can use it to break down your own problem solving. Read more

Are you up for the challenge of a leadership crucible?

March 5, 2014/1 Comment/in Career, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

As leaders, we rarely get the time for self-reflection and development. When we do, we need to ensure the experiences we have can fundamentally alter our trajectories in a positive way. I’ve found that those types of experiences require immersion in a challenging environment because those situations teach us a great deal about ourselves in a very short period of time. Today I’d like to highlight one of those experiences.

The instructors I have the privilege of working with are practitioners of what they teach. They bring a healthy dose of the real world to the podium. Speaking of real-world, our instructor Jan Rutherford is leading the Self-Reliant Leadership Crucible expedition this summer. I had a chance to sit down with Jan and his partner for this expedition, Brad Billingsley, to ask the about their venture.

Mike: What’s a crucible and how does it define you as a leader?

Jan: A crucible is a difficult test or challenge; a place or situation that forces people to change or make difficult decisions. We all face adversity amidst physical, mental, and emotional challenges, and I wrote a book, The Littlest Green Beret, about the adversity I faced becoming a Green Beret at five feet four inches and 114 pounds. That adversity – crucible if you will – made a significant impression on my perspective about what makes a leader. The Self Reliant Leadership Crucible is about bringing the book to life through the practical application of self-awareness; relying on yourself for self-development; having the discipline and ability to endure hardship to strengthen one’s resolve; and achieving a balance between independence and the interdependence to accelerate your personal growth.

Mike: What were you hearing from business leaders that made you think people would want to spend seven days backpacking in the Wyoming wilderness?

6 Leadership Wishes for You in 2014

December 30, 2013/3 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Innovation, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s time to start screwing up writing the date on your checks! 2014 is almost here. Wow that went fast.

On the cusp of this new year, I’d like to offer you some things I wish for you as a leader in your organization. These are all things that I’ve either witnessed firsthand, seen clients go through and learn from, or have heard from all of you as feedback on various blog posts throughout the year.

I know you can’t possibly tackle all these things and I’m betting you’ve already got a long list of new year’s resolutions to break before the end of January. That said, I hope some of these thoughts, wishes, and suggestions make it onto your priority list and you give a few of them an honest try over the course of the coming 12 months. Hopefully the benefits of doing so are abundantly clear when you see the subject matter.

Enough prattling. Here are my wishes for your 2014:

Prioritize. You can’t possibly get it all done (regardless of what “it” is). There aren’t enough hours in the day or people on your team to accomplish everything on your list. So make a list, check it twice (oh wait… that was for Santa), and sequence things in order of priority. Be comfortable with the fact that the things on the bottom third of the list simply won’t get done. Accept it. Because if you’re getting it all done, you’re either not being aggressive enough or you’re doing a slipshod job and just checking things off rather than delivering quality results.

Learn. You should end the year smarter than you started it. To do so, you’ve got to carve out the time to learn new things. There are some great resources out there for you to learn more efficiently and effectively. To help get you started on some easy, bite-sized learning, here’s a 7 day free trial at lynda.com (you’re welcome). They do awesome video-based training on all sorts of topics (and I’ll soon have classes on there too!). Go learn something new.

Read. This ties to the point above on learning. Making time to explore new subjects, get different perspectives, and find new ways of thinking about things simply makes you a better leader. You’ll have more ways to look at and think about problems, more resources for dealing with challenges, and you’ll likely save time by finding new ideas in interesting places rather than spending tons of time on your own trying to create new ideas. To give you a head start, here’s a list of 12 great books every leader should read.

Best of thoughtLEADERS 2013: The Greatest Posts EVER

December 17, 2013/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Project Management, Sales, Social Media, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s time again for our year in review list of the BEST posts we’ve published in 2013. It’s time for the 2013 edition of The Figgies which are the awards we give ourselves for writing awesome blog content (here are the 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 editions of those awards).

This is an annual event at the thoughtLEADERS Blog. This list is comprised of our most viewed, most forwarded, quirkiest, most provocative work. There’s also a kicker bonus post on the list just for good measure. Enjoy. Share. We’ve loved writing them. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I don’t ask a lot of you folks so I have two small requests as your holiday gift to me (you are getting me something, right?):

1. Invite all your coworkers, friends, and family to come check out the blog and become readers. The only way we all get better is by raising everyone’s game. I’m not asking a lot here. If you found this blog helpful at all this year, here’s your chance to return the favor for all our hard work. Just email folks and tell ’em to come take a look.

2. Pick up a copy of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful Personal Leadership (especially if you’re looking for last-minute holiday gifts for bosses, team members, or your mom – she’ll love it). I talk a lot about the book because I’m evangelical about the topic. Buy it. Read it. In the words of Roland Smith (former CEO of Wendy’s/Arby’s) “It could change your life.” To get a sense for what the book is about, read this free ChangeThis Leadership Manifesto which is based on the book. If you like the manifesto, you’ll love the book.

Thanks for your incredible support in ’13 and best wishes for ’14! We hope to be a part of your future success!

Enough blahbitty blah. Here’s the best stuff we’ve written all year:

3 Steps for Protecting Your Most Important Asset

October 14, 2013/1 Comment/in Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest post is from Joel Garfinkle, thoughtLEADERS instructor, executive coach and author of Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Are you protecting your most important asset? No, it’s not your buildings, your equipment, or your investment accounts. It’s your people. Especially those rising stars whose contributions affect your bottom line and your future success.

The true cost of losing an employee goes largely unrecognized in many companies. Yet that cost is significant. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, it can cost you $3,500 to replace one employee who earns just $8 per hour. Other estimates place costs at 125% of an entry level employee’s wages, 150% of a mid-level manager’s salary, and as much as 400% for higher level managers and executives. You do the math!

Are you paying attention to this cost? Some managers shrug off this expense as a normal cost of doing business. Because there is no mechanism in place to compute the actual cost, the reality of the loss does not get reported to top management or discussed in terms of its strategic impact. But you can change all that.

Here’s the caveat: you need to be proactive. Don’t wait until turnover costs spiral out of control before you develop and implement a retention program. Start by mentally separating your employees into three categories:

– top performers
– mid-level performers
– lowest performers

While you may ultimately need to replace those in the third category, let’s concentrate on the other two. There are three important ingredients in an effective employee retention strategy: Read more