Training – Page 5 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Rethinking Gen Z and Millennials in the Workplace

April 27, 2020/0 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Millennials and Gen Z workers are passionate and searching for meaning in their work. It’s time to ditch the lazy and entitled cliches society attributes to these generations.

Today’s post is by Heidi Ganahl, author of SheFactor (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

News flash: the promising new grad you just hired is already looking for her next job.

The numbers don’t lie – Generation Z and Millennial women are only staying at their jobs for an average of 18 months. In comparison, the national average for salaried employees is 4.6 years, according to an Economic News Release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The American workforce has changed dramatically since Millennials came on the scene. This phenomenon has left many of us wondering why the ways we engage, reward, and retain employees have not changed with it.

Today, especially with a historically low national unemployment rate, companies cannot afford to lose their ambitious new talent. The costs of turnover and training can add up in ways that go beyond the measure of profit margins. Reputation, recruitment, and employee turnover can add up to about half of an employee’s annual salary. Let that sink in for a moment.

If you want to retain Millennials, your organization’s leadership must give them better reasons to stay.

Becoming a Net Exporter of Talent

April 8, 2020/0 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Developing your team so well that they begin being poached by others and letting them go to those other teams is exactly how to develop your organization.

Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS

Want to build your team? Get rid of the people who are on it. I don’t mean go about firing people in a flurry. Become what I call a “net exporter of talent.”

You need to develop your people to the point that they’re ready for new challenges. Build their skills. Make them more valuable to the organization. Grow them and build upon their responsibilities. And once you can stand back and admire the fruits of your labor, send them somewhere else to work. Actually, if you’ve done a good enough job developing them, others will be trying to poach them from your team.

Madness you say? Don’t be too quick to judge. The benefits of becoming a net exporter of talent are many. Before we get into them, let me elaborate on how to become said exporter. First, recognize almost everyone on your team wants to grow. Your obligation as a leader is to provide those opportunities and help people succeed in them. Once you’ve expanded the skills and scope of your team members, you’re ready to begin.

What portion of your team’s work is done remotely?

October 10, 2019/0 Comments/in Career, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: What portion of your team’s work is done remotely?

Over 90%. My team is all over and we use calls/virtual tools for almost everything: 12%
60-90%. We do a substantial amount of work remotely: 10%
40-60%. Around half of what we do is done remotely: 12%
20-40%. We don’t do a lot remotely. Most work is face to face: 18%
Less than 20%. We are almost always working together in person: 48%

Remote work is substantial. While two-thirds of you still do most or all of your work face-to-face, it’s hard to ignore how much work has shifted to being remote. While the nature of your business obviously dictates how large or small the opportunity is to work remotely, ask yourself if you’re actively pursuing those opportunities. Remote work can improve productivity (e.g., it eliminates commuting, improves morale, etc.) and cut costs. Given the quality of tools available for video conferencing, document sharing and collaboration, and workflow management, moving some of your work to remote channels is an opportunity you can’t ignore. Take a moment to review your business processes and see which ones can be changed and supported by remote work. Run a pilot. Monitor results. You might be very pleased with what happens.

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

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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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

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

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

Are You Being Too Nice as a Manager?

October 1, 2018/0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Being nice to your team members to spare their feelings can actually cause bigger issues than you might expect. You’re doing them a disservice if you’re not providing clear, actionable feedback they need to improve their performance.

Today’s post is by Janet Britcher, author of Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

With today’s workplace climate receiving more scrutiny about management behavior, it might be more tempting than ever to follow this motto as if it were good advice.

But is it a good thing?

Joyce was a nursing manager who lived by this motto, until she had a problem with a staff nurse Doreen, who provided care in patients’ homes. Doreen was a longtime employee, so she was knowledgeable about patient care as well as internal processes. However, when Joyce called her to ask her to see one more patient that day, Doreen said no, it would be inconvenient, even though she was not yet at the required number of daily patient visits, or hours in the day. Doreen’s response left Joyce stunned and speechless.

Other staff overheard the conversation, and other staff had to pick up for Doreen. In the past, even Joyce sometimes took on Doreen’s unfinished work, to be a good team player, resulting in overwhelm and resentment. The department knew Joyce was tolerating Doreen’s uncooperative behavior and lack of productivity. When a manager is too nice in this way, it does a disservice to the conscientious cooperative employees, who were beginning to transfer out of her department. This left Joyce more burdened.

When leaders are so concerned with harmony that they won’t confront poor productivity, success is sacrificed. How can a leader inspire and empower and still set clear goals and ensure achievement of them? As any sports team or music group knows, empowerment without guidelines creates chaos, not success.

The Remedy

Leadership Tips for Turning Around a Slacker’s Performance

July 18, 2018/2 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

Enhancing the Employee Coaching Experience

July 2, 2018/2 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

As companies look for ways to which they can both attract new employees and retain talented workers already on staff, job coaching strategies have taken on a renewed focus.

Today’s post is by Sean Gordon is the Chief Executive Officer at HireNami.

Employees want to feel like they’re given the opportunity to be properly assessed in their work by being trained to their full potential. Managers are responsible for overseeing the growth of the company by way of employee growth, but often are tasked to the brim or constantly shifting between company locations. Given these circumstances, how can a company ensure proper coaching for employees?

Online employment coaching steps in to fill the void. Through versatile software platforms and methods, coaching has never been easier or more efficient. Let’s look at what online coaching provides and some ways that a company can benefit from its use.

Making Use of Online Coaching

Online coaching platforms have completely transformed how managers interact with employees. They offer the ability to organize a coaching program aimed specifically at improving the perceived areas of underperformance for a given employee. Rather than leaving coaching up to meetings between manager and employee at set time intervals, the coaching experience becomes a training program that constantly evolves to the needs of the employee. Workers can submit practice projects in the web platform for review, and managers can give specific notes geared towards improvement.

Employees that feel as though they are underperforming can receive guidance on how to become more efficient in areas of weakness. Rather than getting a performance review that states where they need to improve with no clear direction on how to do so, online coaching can give managers the chance to set up lessons, instructional videos and advanced tests on these vulnerable areas to give an employee the chance to actually reach their potential.

Furthermore, the top performers in a company can battle complacency by engaging in programs devoted towards developing leadership skills and other competencies for continued development. This can help the reputation of a company’s brand, as it will be seen as a place that people pursue a career, not just a job.

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