Training – Page 3 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

When budgets get cut, how do you handle investing in your people?

October 3, 2019/0 Comments/in Career, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: When budgets get cut, how do you handle investing in your people?

All training and development is the first thing we cut: 15%
We cut some training and development but leave critical stuff in place: 28%
We cut some “nice to have” training but really protect the core offerings: 40%
We cut elsewhere because people are truly our most important resource: 16%

Continue investing in people. It’s encouraging to see a strong commitment to training even in the face of economic challenges. Your people always need to grow and develop. You made a commitment to help them do that on the day you hired them. They see it when you take those things away and it enters their decision-making process as to where they want to work the next day. Understand there is a huge cost to pulling back on their development. Their performance will eventually suffer. That will spill over into your business’ performance. That will lead to worse economic performance and more budget cuts. The downward cycle is obvious. Do all you can to protect your investments in your people. Your competitors are. They’re also telling your people to come join them in an organization that continues to invest in development. Investing in people is one of the wisest decisions you can make.

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

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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What’s your approach to onboarding new managers?

June 20, 2019/0 Comments/in Career, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: What’s your approach to onboarding new managers?

We have a rigorous, comprehensive onboarding program: 15%
We provide some initial onboarding then leave it up to that manager: 42%
We provide bare-bones onboarding: 23%
We throw them in the deep end and let them fend for themselves: 20%

Setting them up for failure. It’s distressing to see 43% of your organizations do little to no onboarding of your managers and expect them to succeed in their roles. If your front line associates get more training than managers and executives you’re bringing on, that’s a major problem. You’re not setting these people up to succeed if you don’t get them acclimated to the culture, set expectations, and teach them critical things they need to know. While you might say “I’m too busy for that and they’re smart enough to figure it out on their own,” ask yourself how much busier you’ll be when they quit or get fired and you have to hire a replacement and pick up the slack in the interim. Make the time to get your people properly onboarded. They’ll be happier and more successful when you do.

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!

Breaking the Four-Minute Mile In Business

June 3, 2019/0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Ryan Shaw

You may not be the next Roger Bannister, but you can be the person who coaches him or her. Here’s how.

Today’s post is by Steve Farber, founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute.

Do you ever fantasize about being the first person on Mars or the next Steve Jobs? How about something more in the athletic realm, like the runner Roger Bannister, who famously broke the four-minute mile in 1954? He went the distance faster than anyone had done before him and achieved something once thought impossible. Surely you know him and his story well.

But have you ever heard of Franz Stampfl? He’s the unsung hero of track and field, an Austrian coach who mentored many of the athletes who gained fame for beating that record in the years since Bannister.

I recently read an archived profile of Stampfl in Sports Illustrated and was very impressed, but not by his aggressive approach or his specific coaching techniques. What struck me is that he transmitted love to those he was mentoring. You wouldn’t think that would be the important ingredient in getting people to run faster, but it was. One of the athletes, British two-time Olympian Brian Hewson, was quoted as saying: “I never realized it was possible to work so hard in training and love every minute of it until I was coached by Franz. He makes running appear like an expression of beauty instead of a tough grind.”

Training Managers In The Visualization Of Data

April 15, 2019/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Ryan Shaw

From MBAs to managers, leadership through effective presentation and communication is key. The visualization of data empowers the curation and communication of results, problems, and ideas. Well-designed data graphics make the insights interpretable and actionable.

Today’s post is by Dr. Kristen Sosulski, author of Data Visualization Made Simple (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

From MBAs to managers, leadership through effective presentations is an essential skill. With the enormous amount of data that managers use to inform decisions, show results, and classify problems, data graphics are a simple, yet efficient means to communicate these data findings. It is a way of showing quantitative information visually. At its core, data visualization is the process of creating data graphics for the purposes of exploration, communication, or decision-making. Knowing how to visualize data as charts is a competence that managers can develop with training.

When I first started teaching data visualization in both academic and professional settings, the all too common initial response from the learners was that it was likely that someone else, such as an intern, would be creating their data presentations. Although they thought this was a valuable skill to learn, some felt that the task was not something that an aspiring manager would spend their time doing.

Three Best Practices to Obtain and Retain Top Talent

November 19, 2018/0 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

The top talent your organization needs is bullish on the future. Here are three best practices we found to obtain and retain your best employees.

Today’s post is by Mark Miller, author of Talent Magnet (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Top talent is bullish on the future. Many would say they’ve already been there in their imagination and are excited about the prospects.

In late 2017, my team and I, with outside assistance, finished a research project where we sought the factors that attract what I like to call top talent. That private research gained insight from more than 7,000 people, collected through various methods across the U.S.

One of our findings is the fact top talent has more of a future bias than their fellow employees. So much so, a brighter future is one of the attributes they consider when evaluating an organization or job opportunity: “Will this place and role help me prepare for my future?”

What is the role of leadership then?

Our research identified three best practices to help top talent realize their preferred future while serving the organization along the way.

Champion Growth

If your goal is to help top talent grow into a brighter future, you can do countless things over the months and years to assist these most talented people. But, there may be nothing more critical than your continuing efforts to champion growth.

Champion is not a term you hear often as a verb; however, in this context, it is the perfect word. To champion growth means you will fight for, defend, promote, affirm and assist others as they attempt to grow. Not only that, you’ll do all of this with tremendous energy, enthusiasm, passion and fervor.

Everyone needs a champion when it comes to growth.

As a leader in this role, you may serve as a resource or assist in securing resources. You can also nurture and facilitate growth by expecting every person to have a written development plan, and don’t miss the power of encouragement along the way.

One of the most satisfying parts of your job as a leader should be helping others reach their full potential, often far beyond what they believed was even possible. Wise leaders understand to become a talent magnet they must champion growth.

Provide Challenge

3 Reasons Millennials Hate Your Performance Review

October 8, 2018/0 Comments/in Books, Career, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

New research on performance management shows that the traditional performance review is failing millennials. It’s too infrequent, it’s too impersonal and it doesn’t feel valuable to them. However, when done properly, the feedback managers give to their millennial employees can promote positive change and career growth.

Today’s post is by Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce and, as with any generation, the ways they work and perform have been closely studied. Millennials are often considered as the generation that requires constant feedback. They are always looking to see how they’re doing — even if that means receiving criticism. Researchers for The Truth & Lies of Performance Management, a report commissioned by Box of Crayons, found that, on average, Human Resources leaders responded that 30% of managers are good at coaching and 32% are poor. That leaves 38% of managers somewhere in the middle. Whatever the generation, feedback has value and, when done properly, can promote positive change and career growth.

Because of this type of less-than-positive interaction with their managers, the annual performance review is failing the career-driven millennial. What’s the bottom line? It’s too infrequent, it’s too impersonal and it doesn’t feel valuable to them.

It Happens but Once a Year

A 2015 TriNet Perform study by Wakefield Research surveyed one thousand full-time employees in the United States who had been born after 1980. It found that while 69% of millennials relied on reviews for their career growth they considered their companies’ review systems to be flawed. When it came to performance reviews, 62% of respondents said they have felt “blindsided” by a review, 59% often felt their manager was unprepared to give feedback and 22% had even called in sick because of anxiety over their review. Clearly, the traditional model of performance review isn’t working as well for the millennial generation as it did for earlier ones.

The survey also indicated that 85% of millennials believed they would feel more confident in their work if they had performance conversations with their managers on a more regular basis. These are opportunities to check-in about the challenges facing an employee as well opportunities to hear about what’s going well. And these conversations are unfettered from the stress that comes with the yearly performance review.

It Lacks Specific Detail