Utveckling är en av de absolut viktigaste sakerna för anställda idag. Det visar undersökning på undersökning. När bemanningsföretaget Xtra ställer frågan till 1300 svenskar i olika yrken och branscher om viken den viktigaste löneförmånen är blir vidareutbildning det vanligaste svaret (31 procent).

Mest viktigt är det för högskoleutbildade där 42 procent tycker att kompetensutveckling är den bästa löneförmån de kan få. Bland de som gått grundskola var siffran 22 procent. Yngre tycker också att vidareutbildning är viktigare än äldre. För de över 60 år ligger siffran bara på 23 procent.

Näst viktigast anses möjlighet till fysisk aktivitet på arbetstid vara, vilket 15 procent har svarat. Personer i företagsledande ställning verkar inte skatta träning på arbetstid lika högt, endast 6 procent i den gruppen uppger fysisk aktivitet som den viktigaste förmånen.

Förmåner i all ära, men om man tvingas välja är det mer pengar på lönekontot som gäller. På frågan om vad man skulle välja en löneförmån eller höjd lön som motsvarar samma värde, då svarar hela 74 procent lönen.

Topplistan – De populäraste löneförmånerna:
- Vidareutbildning och kurser 31,3%

- Fysisk aktivitet på arbetstid 15,1%

- Företagshälsovård 8,3%

- Sjukförsäkring 6,7%

- Tjänstebil 6,3%

- Mobiltelefon 5,6%

- Julbord 1,7%

- Julgåva 1,2%

- Vet inte 23,8%

Källa: SvD.se, april 2012
Länk

Interview with Joe Payne, CEO, Eloqua

Situation:
A company is the leader in an expanding market. To sustain growth, they must transform how their people operate so that they better address and serve the needs of their target customers. How do you transform company culture?

Advice from Joe Payne:
We have a saying at Eloqua: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. More important than this year’s product strategy is the culture you build that let’s employees make decisions on the fly because they know “that’s how we do things at Eloqua.” Look at how you pay and reward your people. We all receive bonuses on the same team metrics: company sales, profitability, and customer satisfaction. If the team wins, we all win.
We are not a democracy, but everyone has a voice. Although we make decisions as a business, we avoid top-down management. We push as much authority and accountability as far down the organization chart as we can. You can only do this well with a strong culture.

We adopted a mantra to guide our way, “Get it done – Do it right”, and a set of metrics to make it part of our culture. We created a two-by-two grid, with “Get it Done” on the Y-axis and “Do it Right” on the X-axis on which all employees, including the Executive Team, are plotted. If rated in the top right quadrant, that employee is doing well. If someone finds himself or herself plotted in the Upper Left quadrant (getting it done, but not doing it right), that person has one quarter to improve. Lower Right people get two months. Lower lefters are out that day.
We can measure “getting it done” using standard quantitative metrics, but “doing it right” is more qualitative. We ask questions like, “Is the person a positive source of energy for the team? Does she go above and beyond for other staff and for customers?” We provide examples to help evaluators plot individual performance.
Once we instituted this matrix, one of our top selling sales reps was evaluated as being in the top left quadrant. When he only paid lip-service to changing and didn’t correct this behavior after a quarter, we let him go, numbers and all. This decision was both a major “wow” and a major win for the company.

Culture and culture change start at the top.

Source: ceo2ceo.com, Joe Joe Payne, December 2011
You can contact Joe Payne here
Link

Ett ständigt diskussionsämne i mitt arbete med executive coaching, ledar- och ledningsgruppsutveckling är lönens betydelse för den individuella prestationen.
Om du är en av dem som brottas med denna frågeställning i ditt dagliga arbete rekommenderar jag följande artikel ur dagens Svenska Dagbladet:

Bara en tredjedel nöjda med sin lön
Vi mäter oss hela tiden med andra och löneskillnader har betydelse för produktiviteten, men bara till en viss gräns. Därefter kan de få motsatt effekt. Och jämförandet gör oss inte nöjdare. Två tredjedelar av svenska folket anser att de har lägre lön än de förtjänar.

Den ödmjuka skara som tycker att de har högre lön än de förtjänar består av 2 procent av svenskarna.

Betydligt vanligare är att tycka att man har lägre lön än man förtjänar. Det uppger 67 procent av svenskarna i en internationell undersökning om social ojämlikhet, International social survey program (ISSP). En förklaring skulle kunna vara en utbredd felaktig lönesättning i Sverige. En annan det djupt mänskliga faktum att de flesta människor överskattar sin egen förmåga när de jämför sig med andra. Det finns studier som visar att en majoritet jämför sig med de högst presterande kollegorna, vilka man anser sig vara mest lik.
– Det är mänskligt, men det sätter också fingret på hur viktigt det är för ledningen att kommunicera. Vad är det vi ska göra, varför har just du den här lönen och vad behöver du göra för att få högre lön, säger Magnus Sverke, professor i arbets- och organisationspsykologi vid Stockholms universitet.

Få vill tjäna under det som är medianlön i Sverige, som var 25 300 kronor år 2010. Men den bistra statistiska sanningen är att halva befolkningen måste göra det.

Lönen har ett stort symbolvärde, menar Magnus Sverke. Om någon får en löneökning som de inte tycker står i proportion till vad de gör eller vad deras kollegor får i löneökning kan det få negativa konsekvenser. Det finns en risk att personen drar ner på sin prestation eller slutar att hjälpa andra.

Samtidigt som en majoritet tycker att inkomstskillnaderna i Sverige är för höga är det en nästan lika stor majoritet som tycker att de själva borde tjäna mer, visar siffror från ISSP-studien som genomförs av Sociologiska institutionen vid Umeå universitet.
– Som individuell arbetstagare finns inget skäl att inte vilja ha mer betalt. Däremot kan man på samma gång vara bekymrad över hur de samlade inkomstskillnaderna ser ut. Det är inte nödvändigtvis något motsägelsefullt i det där. Inkomstfördelningen i Sverige beslutas ju inte av någon politisk instans utan påverkas av en rad faktorer som marknadsförhållanden, kollektiva förhandlingar och många andra saker, säger Stefan Svallfors, professor i sociologi vid Umeå universitet.

Sammantaget visar studien att det finns ett stort missnöje med lönen hos många människor, som skulle kunna ha negativ effekt på hur engagerade människor är på jobbet.
– Lönen är betydelsefull, men kanske inte alltid så betydelsefull som man tror. Arbetsglädje, stimulerande arbetsuppgifter, bra arbetsmiljö, bra ledarskap, känslan av att göra något vettigt – det är viktigare än lön för att skapa engagemang och bra prestationer, säger Magnus Sverke.

Hur motiverande lönen är beror också på hur ens arbetsuppgifter ser ut. Är prestationen lätt att mäta är det också lättare att förstå vad som krävs för att öka lönen.
– Om du är dammsugarförsäljare är det glasklart att ju fler sålda dammsugare, desto bättre prestation. Men inom vård, förskola, skola eller tjänstemannayrken är det mycket svårare att mäta vad som är en bra prestation, när den är färdig, när den har tillräckligt hög kvalitet. Därmed krävs mycket mer när det gäller lönepolicy. Ledningen måste ha konkreta lönekriterier och en dialog om vad som är bra lönekriterier. Utan det kan du aldrig få en acceptans för varför en viss person har en viss lön.

Oavsett yrke kan lönen vara en bekräftelse på att man är en duglig person, ett vuxenbetyg. Det kan tära hårt på en del att se en kollega få 100 kronor mer, medan andra inte bryr sig om sådant.
– Visst kan lönen ha betydelse för självkänslan, men självkänsla kommer från så mycket. För en del kan det ha större betydelse att man känner att man gör ett bra jobb eller att man får uppskattning från kund, patient, elev eller brukare, säger Magnus Sverke.

I de flesta studier om löneskillnader har man bara tittat på anställdas löner och inte inkluderat företagsledningen. De senaste åren är trenden att företagsledares löner ökat kraftigt, medan de anställdas löner inte ökat i samma takt.
– Det finns en väldig symbolik i det. Om man kommunicerar att vi måste hålla igen på lönerna och att vi inte har råd att betala ut mer än så här stor procentsats i potten medan det händer betydligt mer på chefsnivå har man ett legitimitetsproblem. Det kan skapa ett missnöje, säger Magnus Sverke.

Fredrik Heyman, docent i nationalekonomi och forskare vid Institutet för näringslivsforskning, har gjort en forskningssammanställning för att se om det finns något samband mellan lönespridning inom företag och produktivitet. Jobbar folk bättre om somliga har betydligt mer betalt än andra?

Vid ett positivt samband tänker man sig att skillnad i lönegrupper ger de anställda anledning att arbeta hårdare och förkovra sig för att höja sin lön. Enligt den teorin ger högre lönespridning högre produktivitet för företaget. Men det kan också vara så att stor lönespridning leder till konflikter och att folk låter bli att samarbeta eller kanske rentav saboterar för varandra. Det kan ha en negativ inverkan på produktiviteten.

I sammanställningen är det fler studier som pekar på ett positivt samband mellan lönespridning och produktivitet än som finner ett negativt eller neutralt samband. Men det är svårt att dra en generell slutsats eftersom sammanställningen bygger på studier från olika länder med olika lönebildningssystem där data och tillvägagångssätt skiljer sig ganska mycket åt.
– Det som många hittar och som är lite intressant är att när löneskillnaderna är väldigt små så har ökade löneskillnader positiv effekt, men över en viss nivå blir det i stället negativ effekt, säger Fredrik Heyman.

Går det att räkna fram vetenskapligt den optimala lönespridningen för att folk ska prestera på topp?
– Ett tråkigt svar är att det nog är väldigt svårt. Även inom ett land kan man tänka sig att det finns en lönestruktur som är bra inom en bransch, medan andra passar bättre i andra branscher. Men det är intressant att både väldigt marknadsliberala länder och länder som har mer reglerad ekonomi har kommit fram till att det förefaller finnas en brytpunkt där ökad lönespridning inte har några positiva effekter.

Det kan förstås vara svårt att i en undersökning bryta ut vad i produktiviteten som beror på just lönespridningen.
– En invändning som folk har haft är att det skulle finnas andra icke pekuniära motiv till att jobba som yrkesstolthet, göra rätt för sig och olika värderingar som inte riktigt kommer fram i det här ramverket där man tänker sig att lönen är drivkraften.

Källa: SvD.se, Anna Asker, 15 maj 2012
Läs hela artikeln här på SvD.se
Läs gärna “Lönen inte drivkraften” (SvD.se) här och “Tjänar så sjukt mycket mer än jag är värd” här.

Within the framework of executive coaching, I often discuss work priorities with my clients. Here is an article on this subject:

The roots of depletion
Because Johanna’s international travels are relentless, she and I often conduct our coaching sessions via her company’s high-definition video conferencing. Recently, I watched as she dropped into frame with a grunt and smiled at me wanly. Her look prompted me to ask, with sincere concern, “How’re you doing?”

Her shoulders fell. Her eyes welled up. Her chin sunk to her chest. Then her hands covered her face. She was quiet a long time, then whispered, “Oh, Tom, I’m so tired.”
Johanna is not fragile. She loves working at the senior level of one of the world’s largest technology companies. But this day, she was worn out and beaten down.

She told me how, during a meeting in India with a dozen department heads, she was unable to come up with a solution to a simple problem. “My mind was like a mush ball, Tom. I just couldn’t pull my thoughts together.”
I asked what was contributing to her depletion. She recited a litany I’d heard before: unending organizational changes and strategic realignments; the departure of her boss who’d been a close friend; the rigors of her international schedule; the demands of her division president to be connected 24/7, even on vacation.

When she finished, I asked, “And what about you, Johanna? How are you contributing to your exhaustion?”
She stared at me as if I’d spoken gibberish. Then she began to turn her thoughts inwards. After a pause, she said, “I’m a perfectionist.” I said nothing. After another pause she said, “I can’t say ‘no’.”

I still said nothing.
Then she said, “I haven’t taken care of myself at all.”

Savoring silence
Johanna’s case is extreme but not unfamiliar.
Twenty years ago when I first began coaching, one moment often repeated itself with many of my clients. After I’d taken my seat at their meeting table, they would close their door, then stop, savoring the silence. Often they’d exhale deeply, relaxing and preparing themselves for a conversation radically different from the rest of their day.

These days, I rarely see that moment of savoring. This is not because my current clients are less engaged or less introspective. Not at all.

Nowadays, the outside pressure that mounts while they’re in the coaching conversation is heavier than it used to be; they incur a real cost by carving out time for coaching. So clients these days often attack their conversations with me using the same energetic commitment they devote to all their other tasks.

The coaching is no less powerful than it was. But often it takes longer for executives to loosen their layers of analytical, logical and objective thinking in order to access their more thoughtful, intuitive and subjective selves.

I believe companies are less rich when their leaders feel compelled to stay in “doing” mode at the expense of exercising their “being” mode.

Before I go further with my ideas about this, I’d like to pose a riddle to you. Ready?

Two girls, Marjorie and Margaret, were born at the same time, on the same day, in the same month, of the same year, to the same mother and father. Yet they are not twins. How is this possible? Can you figure this out?

Two conditions for insight
Jonah Lehrer, in his new book, “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” says that moments of insight most often occur when two conditions are present. First, the person seeking “an answer” stops pursuing the answer, and second, the person is relaxed.

As an example he cites one particular practice at 3M, consistently one of the most innovative companies on the planet.

Their designers have one hour a day to work on anything they’d like, the only stipulation being that they must share their results with their colleagues.

Over and over, when 3M’s people turn their attention away from their work projects and focus on whatever strikes their fancy—whether it’s a hobby or taking a nap!—answers to problems bubble up effortlessly and unbidden.

A simpler example, Lehrer says, is the wealth of ideas that come to us while we’re in the shower. Our minds are untethered and relaxed. And answers present themselves.

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But if you saw one of your direct reports taking a nap in the sun, would your first thought be, “Good choice! I bet some real value will come from that”?

I told Johanna I wasn’t surprised that she was unable to find a simple solution to the situation in India: she hadn’t been able to disconnect and relax for a long time, so her batteries were drained.

Johanna and I discussed many ways she could begin to replenish herself. She ended up adopting four of the ideas we discussed. Here they are:

1 Resist firefighting
Constant connectivity pulls all of us in many different directions these days. Dozens of opportunities for distraction pop up in front of us every hour. Resisting all those bright, shiny objects requires clear vision and strong purpose.

One strategy Johanna used to help her define clear vision and strong purpose was to begin every day with planning—even before she checked her email!

She became rigorous about tying small actions to larger goals. If an activity didn’t tie in, she moved it down the list to wait for later.

Another strategy was to create an email folder she called “Tier Two” for non-urgent messages. She found she could put over half her inbox in that folder.

2 Engage without worry
“The Hurt Locker” won six Academy Awards in 2008, including Best Picture, for its gritty depiction of a bomb squad defusing explosive devices on the streets of Baghdad. The movie’s tension is built-in: what could be more tense than watching professionals try to achieve extreme calm while doing work that has life-or-death consequences? We understand that the bomb technicians can only survive if they learn to shut out the implications of their actions and single-mindedly focus on the task in the immediate present.

That’s not so different from what is required from executives in this era of overwork and too few resources.

There’s always more work than can be completed. Worrying about tasks piling up behind you doesn’t help you chip away at the task at hand. As with the bomb technicians, thinking about anything other than what you’re doing reduces your effectiveness in the moment.

Focus on the task in front of you without worry. The future will arrive soon enough!

3 Good enough is good enough
Johanna’s high standards are a core part of her self-image. She believes they’re a major factor in her success. Anything less than excellence is painful to her.

She began to ease up on herself and accept that there was a new norm in the world. For example, she began to accept that having more work than she could finish was not a character flaw. She began to accept that not everything had to be finely polished—sometimes good enough really was good enough. She began setting priorities more quickly and delegating more often, which allowed her to move faster through her work.

Sometimes good enough really is good enough.

4 Trust “down time” to be productive
Johanna used to love reading poetry and fiction. But with work piling up like flights waiting to land in bad weather, she felt too guilty to give herself the gift of reading for pleasure.

After we discussed the concepts in “Imagine, How Creativity Works,” she let go of that guilt and bought “What the Living Do” by Marie Howe, a favorite poet. To her surprise, while reading one of the first poems in the slim volume, she got an idea for an activity at an upcoming off-site. She was so amazed that her very next action was to call me to crow about it. She felt unleashed.

She began to encourage her direct reports to schedule personal time for themselves. And she began to follow her own orders.

On a related topic, do you know why I asked you that riddle about Marjorie and Margaret?

Because, if you didn’t know the answer, and if you wanted to try to figure it out, you had to stop reading and activate a completely different part of your brain. If you pondered the riddle for more than a few seconds, you probably felt the shift. (Or perhaps you felt too pressured to allow the shift to happen, so you just kept reading without getting engaged in the riddle. I certainly do that sometimes.)

Being conscious of when those mental shifts happen is a wonderful awareness.

If you’re stuck in “doing” mode and not experiencing shifts into “being” mode, or if, like last month’s The Distracted Executive, you are in constant delivery mode and not enough in receiving mode, you may benefit by consciously creating more daily mental shifts. All too often my clients tell me they don’t feel the shift into relaxation mode until the fourth day of a seven-day vacation!

And, if you have not seen that riddle before, the answer is: “Because they’re two of three triplets.”

Can you take an elevator ride without checking your phone? Can you concentrate on one task for a sustained period? Can you play and enjoy yourself, guilt-free? If so, you’ve collapsed many of the hurdles that our current world places between us and The Look & Sound of Leadership™.

Source: Essentialcomm.com, May 2012
Printable version
Podcats

When I work with executive coaching and personal leadership development, I often discuss these two challenges with my clients:
- lack of sufficient funds
- lack of sufficient time

Both of these “deficiencies” limits the ability of a manager to act. Most managers I work with feel that the problem of limited time available is increasing year by year. it becomes increasingly difficult to make time enough and it becomes more important to really focus and prioritize what is most important to achieve the established goals.
Here is an article about how you can increase your effectiveness in using time more efficiently:

Donner du temps au temps,” the late French President François Mitterrand used to say. “Give time for time.” The notion being that you need to make time in order to appreciate the ultimate gift we have been given: time on this earth. Every day, we make conscious and less conscious choices on time allocation. Some uses of our time are routine — dropping off kids, eating meals, or going for a daily run. In between those routines, we look to our agendas to see what we are meant to be doing, whom to meet, when and where to go next.

Most of us will spend more than one-third of our lives and more than half of our waking adult hours in our workplaces. A natural concern, and one worthy of a New Year’s reflection and resolution, is how can we be better, more honest and more efficient with that time. Here are five gut-check questions to see if you are making the greatest impact with your work time:

1. Are you working towards a purpose?
The foundation for a time allocation strategy starts with your personal purpose and passion. In my forthcoming book, Heart, Smarts, Guts and Luck, my co-authors and I discuss the notion of being connected to the “Heart” of a business — to its root purpose and its “why” as opposed to its “what” and “how.” It is almost always easier for someone to state what they do for work than explain why they do what they do. This should not be the case. The Heart-driven business-builder has little hesitation in explaining her “why” to you. She understands that her business has a purpose bigger than product, and that she is in pursuit of something more than just making money. Companies with a clear purpose include Patagonia, Ikea, Nike, and Southwest. In his McKinsey Award winning 2010 HBR Article, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Clay Christensen writes, “Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.” And, yet as he observes, too often people’s allocation choices end up being different from their intentions.

2. Are you running hard, but not getting ahead?
Some people may get lucky, but most successful people I know work hard. However, one should not confuse hard work with progress. My business partner says: “The good news is that you are running hard and making great pace. The bad news is that you’re lost.” Why is that? It is easy to identify the things you want to accomplish in life — from making an impact on the lives of others to raising a great family. But as Christensen observes, we often default to short-term tasks even when many of them may not connect to our bigger goals. What can you do to ensure that you’re not only running hard, but in the right direction? The next question is a good place to start.

3. Have you done a calendar audit lately?
Do you have a real sense of where you spend your time? I have found it useful to calibrate where I think I spend my time (strategy planning, people and mentorship sessions) and where I actually spend my time (administrative planning, board meetings). Look back on the past month in your calendar and compare how you spent your time with your strategic priorities. Most often, we are not as aligned as well as we think. We end up doing the things that we are better at, simple things, things we enjoy, or things that seemingly just have to get done at that moment, instead of the things that are most meaningful and impactful. Identify your top five priorities for the calendar year and look at any given month to see how your time mapped to those priorities.

4. Are you booking sufficient think time?
Don’t fall into the trap of scheduling meetings and not scheduling “think time” to achieve what you want in those meetings. In a prior blog post, I spoke of the three purposes of meetings — to inform, get input, or get approval. Make sure to schedule time to think about what you want to accomplish in a meeting and do the necessary prep work. I have worked closely with my assistant to schedule preparation time for any meeting in my Outlook calendar. For most meetings there is at least a 1:2 ratio of prep time to meeting time, and it can go upwards of 20:1. If a meeting is an hour you probably need 30 minutes to prepare. For critical meetings you may need 20 hours of preparation for each hour. Know the type of meeting you are having and block sufficient prep time.

5. Are you multi-tasking your way to lower productivity?
These days, almost everyone has a “second screen” to look at while they are working. The notion of the quiet time described above rarely exists. Even if you get good at booking time for meeting preparation, don’t just be vigilant about keeping that time slot. You also need to shut off devices, hold off calls, and yes, close your Outlook (those email message alerts constantly popping up in a corner of your screen). These are distractions. Focus on the task at hand when you have scheduled the time to do so.

As we fast approach 2012, my New Year’s resolution is to be disciplined with my time. It is too easy to just say yes to meetings. It is too easy to confuse working hard with progress. It is too easy to feel the need fill the white space on a calendar. Or, worse, to not know what to do during unscheduled time because you have not had the chance to think, or are too busy multi-tasking. For 2012, consider a change and work towards the goal of better time allocation. It is possible. Focus on the goal versus just using up time. Indeed, embrace the gift of unscheduled time. It’s time to make time for time.

Source:
Harward Business Review, December 2011
Author: Anthony K. Tjan (for more information)
Read the article on HBR.com here

As the business world has become ever-more connected and fast-paced, identifying efficiencies is vital to success for any company, across multiple industries. With increasing interconnectedness, the most important capital for the majority of companies in the Information Age is human capital.
The new generation of human resources professionals will need to evaluate their peers and colleagues to identify the most efficient way to deploy their knowledge and abilities in service of their organization’s goals. On top of that, demand for human resources professionals is expected to grow about 22% by 2018, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics.

The following five tips are for new professionals entering this growing field who want to build their foundations in the human resources profession. They also serve as reminders for seasoned professionals at any point in your career.

Deepen your business knowledge to enhance your contribution to your business partners in these seriously challenging times
The efficient deployment of a company’s human capital cannot be achieved unless you understand the business that your company is in, and how your specific skillset can help to identify the best way for your company to progress in their business goals.

In a technology organization, for example, this means taking the time to meet with the development team to learn how they create and sustain new products, as well as the sales team to get a sense of how they organize their operations. The more knowledge you have of how your organization’s managers work, the better you can assess ways to provide training programs that enhance their weaknesses or identify the talent that would best support their initiatives and management style. Lastly, I’ve discovered in most situations, our line executives are willing to invest time with their HR leaders helping them learn the business.

Expand your network with social media and use it
As the saying goes, success is not about what you know, but who you know. For the human resources professional, this is even more apt; your professional network will give you a leg up on identifying the best talent and training staff for your organization. Social networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have become indispensable tools for growing a person’s professional network, enabling professionals in many industries to organize, grow and maintain contact with their networks much more easily.

In a way, using social media for professional growth echoes the days when a young apprentice would travel to a new city with a letter of reference – except social media provides reference networks on a larger scale – enabling people to approach their professional contacts through platforms like LinkedIn to gain introduction to influential people in their industries.

Of course, all of this is useless if you just place a profile online and don’t actually use the connectivity of your preferred networks. While the constant flow of new information available every second on social networking platforms can be overwhelming, even a small amount of time spent reviewing contact news and updates – say 10 minutes a day at least – can reap incredible benefits.

Mine your network for thought leadership and learn
From a knowledge perspective, who you know can also help you expand what you know. Groups on Facebook and LinkedIn can serve as supplements to the traditional lunchtime professional seminar, in terms of both meeting new contacts and spreading information. Well-curated groups on both networks enable a constant, fluid exchange of professional information. This will also help you quickly synthesize any trends or broader issues as you get access to more people and information.

Just as you’d go to professional lunches with colleagues to identify problem spots and share experiences, (and they may be pitifully or productive in your locale) discussion groups on social networks can provide an active forum to table real-world problems, and help you discover methods, solutions or resources you might not otherwise find.

Be BOTH a value contributor and a game changer
Effective use of your mental capital and networking ability can be extremely useful to a human resources professional. The ability to discover the right talent and address your company’s specific business problems are what you are judged on.

But there’s a difference between being an order-taker and a creative influencer on your company. In an episode of the television series Mad Men, the reason for an account executive’s promotion is explained to a rival as, “the rare gift of making [clients] feel as if they haven’t any needs.”

That same gift is true of the most successful human resources professionals. They anticipate the needs of their organizations’ department heads, ensure that they are cared for, and provide creative solutions before there are any problems that need to be addressed. You will be more valued, and your job will be more interesting!

GROW your thinking, your skills and your leadership like there is no tomorrow
Business around the world has changed dramatically over the 30 years that I’ve been in the human resources profession. And it won’t ever stop changing. Those who treat their careers, in any function, but especially human resources, as a constant educational course, will be the ones who see the changes well before they occur. They will be able to find the early adopters and influencers in their organization’s field and will be invaluable educators for their existing staff.

As you approach a field where demand is on the rise, human resources professionals will need to distinguish themselves as true strategic partners for their current or prospective employers. By treating their function as an ever-evolving area of study and taking advantage of the reach of social networking to improve their professional network, new human resources pros can set themselves down the path of distinction.

Source: About.com, May 2012
Author: Bob Calamai (more information)
Link

When I help my clients to handle the increased speed of change and strategy implementation, I often talk about the following three categories of companies:
- companies that make things happen
- companies that see things happen
- companies who wonder what happened

In the last category, we find companies like Carnegie, SAAB, GM, Lehman Brothers, Nokia, and not least Kodak.
Read more about the background of Kodak’s case below:

Kodak has recently declared bankruptcy. Usually, when this hits the news it is analyzed by the numbers people who, looking at five years’ worth of financial data, give their quantitative and financial explanation of the failure. More qualitative types will go back 10 years sometimes, and even go beyond finances to talk about strategy, CEOs, competition, and the like. Recent well-done Financial Times articles (here and here) go back even further for Kodak. And yet people still fail to see Kodak’s real problem.

The Kodak problem, on the surface, is that it did not move into the digital world well enough and fast enough. Recent articles dig a bit more and find that there were people who saw the problem coming — people buried in the organization — but the firm did not act when it should have, which is decades ago. Kodak faced the technological discontinuities challenge, first clearly articulated by my colleague Clay Christensen: a new technology has fierce competitors, low margins and cannibalizes your high margin core business. And Kodak did not take decisive action to combat the inevitable challenges.

Everyone thinks of all this in terms of strategic decisions either avoided or made poorly. What no one seems to do is go back and ask: Why did Kodak make the poor strategic decisions they made? In 1993 they brought in from the outside a technology expert to be CEO. George Fisher was believed to be almost as good as Jack Welch or Lou Gerstner. Great CEO, people buried in the hierarchy who had all sorts of good ideas, and still poor strategic decisions. Why?

Answer: The organization overflowed with complacency. I saw it, maybe in the late 1980s. Kodak was failing to keep up even before the digital revolution when Fuji started doing a better job with the old technology, the roll-film business. With the complacency so rock-solid, and no one at the top even devoting their priorities toward turning that problem into a huge urgency around a huge opportunity, of course they went nowhere. Of course strategy sessions with the BIG CEO went nowhere. Of course all the people buried in the hierarchy who saw the oncoming problems and had ideas for solutions made no progress. Their bosses and peers ignored them.

How can CEOs learn from Kodak’s failure? Historically, Kodak was built on a culture of innovation and change. It’s the type of culture that’s full of passionate innovators, already naturally in tune to the urgency surrounding changes in the market and technology. It’s these people – those excited about new ideas within your own organization – who keep your company moving ahead instead of falling behind. One key to avoiding complacency is to ensure these innovators have a voice with enough volume to be heard (and listened to) at the top. It’s these voices that can continue to keep a sense of urgency in your organization. If they are given the power to lead, they will continue to innovate, help keep a culture of urgency and affect change.

As Kodak became more successful, complacency grew, leaders listened less to these voices, which made complacency grow some more. It can be a vicious cycle. It certainly was at Kodak. And if you don’t address it first… good luck.

Source: Forbes.com, John Kotter, may 2012
Link
Information John Kotter: John Kotter is the chief innovation officer at Kotter International, a firm that helps leaders accelerate strategy implementation in their organizations. He is also the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.
Link Kotter International

Working with Management Team Development, Executive coaching and ledarship development I often get into discussion on how to improve all these endless meetings. Here are some very hands-on advices:

There is a cartoon I recall seeing “if you are lonely, call a meeting.” Given the meeting madness of many organizations, there appears to be a lot of lonely people in companies. People estimate they spend approximately 2-3 days of their work week in meetings. Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, and using salary data from Glassdoor.com (www.glassdoor.com), the weekly cost of meetings for a 10-person team is approximately $23,760. If you have 100 people in your company, this comes to almost a quarter of a million dollars per week spent on meetings. This price tag does not factor in the opportunity cost of not accomplishing other tasks, missed sales calls or lost customer face time.

Meetings are here to stay. This we must joyfully embrace. Well-organized meetings have real value. They stimulate dialogue, create fresh thinking and move the business forward. The discipline to conduct them effectively must be developed as a core competency of your team. The question is… given the resource impact and cost, how can you quickly improve the probability of having a successful, productive meeting?

A successful meeting ensures the right people are invited and the material is presented as effectively and judiciously as possible. It is respectful of your time and enables you to contribute in a meaningful way or makes you smarter. Too often this is the exception than the norm, which put me on a quest to identify a quick process to improve the odds.

The answer lies in asking four questions:
1. What is the purpose — decision, information sharing or brainstorming?
2. What is the issue…in five words or less?
3. Who has already weighed in and what did they have to say about it?
4. What will surprise me in this meeting?

1. What is the purpose of the meeting?
Defining the type of meeting is a critical but often missed first step. It guides the organizer—regarding the format, information needed, and who should be invited — and sets expectations for the participants. Typically, meetings can be classified into one of three types:

• Decision-making meeting: The goal is to produce a final decision. It is not the time for new information or to request additional analysis. In this meeting, you will finalize the path forward—i.e., yes or no, and if yes, how. Prepare: Brief deck or memo for pre-reading (e.g. less than 10 slides).
• Information sharing meeting: Here the meeting host means to share new, interesting, relevant facts and figures. There is no call to action and no preparation on the part of attendees required. Initially everyone but the presenter is in listening mode; once the presentation is complete, the presenter asks for questions of clarification. Prepare: Short deck or memo (11- 25 pages).
• Brainstorming meeting: Perhaps the most anticipated but difficult meeting where you expect to generate ideas via a working session. At this phase, data synthesis is incomplete and report content is a work in progress. Ideally, everyone should be involved in the back-and-forth. Prepare: Varies depending on lifecycle of the project.

2. What is the issue…in five words or less?
To quote William Shakespeare, “Put your discourse into some frame.” One of the biggest skill gaps is the ability to conceptualize the problem or frame the issue. Start your next meeting with a quick exercise, have each person articulate in five words or less what you are trying to solve. If you get inconsistent answers or long replies there is lack of clarity on why you are meeting. By clearly articulating the issue, you will get a good idea of the information you need, the people you should talk to and will ensure everyone is working towards the same goal.

3. Who has already weighed in and what did they have to say about it?
This gives your meeting request credibility. Assuming you talked to the right people and perhaps secured stakeholder feedback and support in the process, it makes it easier for those attending the meeting to engage in the dialogue. It also exposes if you missed inviting a key person or if there are interim steps you need to take before meeting. It reduces revisiting existing conversation and moves the dialogue forward.

4. What will surprise me in this meeting?
Surprises are wake-up calls to your brain. Surprises are bias killers. People want meaningful dialogue and want to hear new information. Asking “‘what is surprising” in a meeting will spur new discussion and uncover fresh learning. The secret to uncovering these answers is to apply a prism to the discussion in a meeting. Just as a prism separates a light into parts, the question “What surprised you?”’ serves as a prism to separate meaningless information to expose new learning from relevant numbers. The reason is simple: The question exposes outliers in the data, draws connections between seemingly unrelated conclusions and opens new avenues of discussion with your colleagues.

Finally, a word about meeting duration. Today’s e-mail and calendar applications usually set meetings to a :60 min default. Think about what that means. One hour is roughly 10% percent of the average businessperson’s workday. So, the question becomes: Is the meeting truly important enough for you to ask everyone to give up such a large chunk of their workday? Furthermore, one-hour meetings are harder to schedule. So, think it over carefully, to determine if an entire hour really needed, or could if you achieve the objective in :30 minutes or via e-mail.

The ideal meeting begins before anyone sits down at the table. The next time you receive a meeting request ask the four questions, it will save you time and help you manage the fire hose of requests.

Source. Forbes.com, may 2012
Author: Christopher J Frank is Vice President in Global Marketplace Insights at American Express. He is co-author of Drinking From the Fire Hose: Making Smarter Decisions in a Data Overloaded World (www.firehosethebook.com)
Link
Read more about how you can improve your meetings at Gr8meetings.se

På en hälsosam arbetsplats trivs människor. De är friska, motiverade och presterar bra eftersom de känner att de gör en viktig arbetsinsats. Allt flyter på – men så plötsligt händer det något som gör att ett samtal är oundvikligt.

Även om du som chef är redo att ta samtalet är det inte helt ovanligt att det dyker upp ett par arbetsuppgifter som inte kan vänta. Resultatet blir att du måste skjuta på det. Igen… Många chefer tycker att det är jobbigt att prata med sina anställda om svåra ämnen, men det behöver inte vara så tungt. Om du förbereder dig, genomför det på rätt sätt och är beredd på konsekvenserna.

Kommunikation är kärnan
Kommunikation är kärnan i allt ledarskap och din förmåga att kommunicera blir extra vik­tig vid t.ex. uppsägning, omplacering, missbruk och hantering av olika personalproblem. Mycket av framgången i ditt ledarskap handlar om vem du är som person, vilka sociala förmågor du har utvecklat och vilka värderingar och förhåll­ningssätt du använder dig av.

Det är nu det börjar
Även om du förbereder dig länge och har full koncentration mentalt och faktamässigt, är det viktigt att komma ihåg att samtalet är inledningen av en process som måste få ta tid. Den som berörs behöver utrymme för att ta till sig, sortera och förstå. Att ge personen en möjlighet att bearbeta budskapet är en fråga om respekt. Det är inte ovanligt att den som kallat till samtal känner att budskapet förmedlats på ett kristallklart sätt och att det lyckades i och med att problemet beskri­vits. Samtidigt startar bearbetningen för den som hör det för första gången. Var lyhörd för tankar och reaktioner och låt personen landa i det du har sagt – och ta sedan en ny diskussion tillsammans om lösningar. Först då kan någonting gott och konstruktivt på sikt komma ur samtalet.

Olika svårigheter uppstår
Dina medarbetare är människor, vilket innebär att de till och från brottas med olika svårigheter i livet. Ibland påverkar detta deras möjligheter att utföra sitt arbete i den utsträckning som behövs. Som ledare är det din uppgift att hantera sådana situationer på ett humant och etiskt sätt, samtidigt som det inte hindrar en effektiv verksamhet. Det kan handla om tillfälliga kriser i livet, personliga förmågor, missbruk eller andra känsliga frågor. Om man inte får möjlighet att uttrycka och sätta ord på det man känner och tänker, kan det sätta sig i kroppen. Huvudvärk, muskels­märtor, magont och sömnsvårigheter är ofta tecken på lagrade och olösta problem eller svårigheter i arbetet. Både från ditt och medarbetarnas håll.

Var närvarande och försök inte släta över
Många har ett behov av att försöka mildra starka känslor och komma med konstruktiva lös­ningar. Det går sällan. Våga vara när­varande utan att ge råd i det inledande skedet, bekräfta att du ser och förstår personens reaktioner, men fokusera på en konstruktiv lösning inför nästa samtal. Att få konstruktiv feedback, om än negativ, ger människor en möjlighet att utvecklas. Det är ofta när den negativa/kon­struktiva feedbacken passerat bäst före-datum som ett samtal blir svårt. Var tydlig med budskapet och undvik att linda in det! Allt negativt blir inte min­dre negativt av att du lindar in budskapet och det du har att säga. Motstånd har sällan en saklig grund, svårigheterna ligger oftare på ett känslomässigt plan. Därför blir frågor som – ”Vad hindrar dig från att…..?”, ”Vad vill du egentligen uppnå?”, ”Vad skulle hända om….?” rele­vanta.

Lyft problemen i tid
Genom att våga tala på ett klokt och respektfullt sätt, ger du både dig själv och dina medarbetare en möjlighet att komma vidare och inte fastna i något som med tiden kan bli ett stort bekymmer för er båda och i vär­sta fall även för verksamheten. Om du inte tar tag i de problem som du ställs inför så kom­mer du att ödsla energi på något som inte bidrar till vare sig din egen eller verksamhetens utveckling. Du riskerar även att underminera din roll som ledare genom att dina medar­betare uppfattar problemen och ser att du ingenting gör för att komma tillrätta med dem.

Var beredd på oväntade hinder
Ledarskap i allmänhet och förändring i synnerhet kräver analys, rationella beslut, strukturella förutsättningar och genomtänkta planer. Hur logiskt och rationellt du än har förberett en förändring kan den försvåras eller stoppas upp av tillsynes irrationella eller oväntade faktorer. Det kan vara du själv som i någon situation reagerar oväntat, blir ner­vös eller rädd, känner att du tappar energi eller blir oväntat arg. Det kan vara en underställd chef, en kollega eller medarbetare som plötsligt reagerar oväntat. Ibland, till exempel vid en uppsägning, kan en facklig representant vara ett viktigt stöd för medarbetaren. Rör samtalet kritik är det i de flesta fall bäst att möta medar­betaren ensam. Om ytterligare en person deltar kommer medarbetaren att känna sig i ett större underläge vilket gör att han/hon lättare hamnar i försvar. Resultatet blir då att ni hamnar i en konfrontation istället för en dialog.

Se lösningar i situationer
Påbörja en kartläggning av situa­tionen för att förbereda dig och använd tydliga exempel. Fundera sedan över hur du skall lägga upp samtalet och vilka känslor som kan väckas. Det är inte ovanligt att tankar kring samtalet finns med dig under en lång period. De tar utrymme och energi ifrån annat, samtidigt som din hjärna bearbetar det som väntar. Visst skulle du själv bli arg, ledsen och känna dig förd bakom lju­set om du kände ”varför har ingen sagt något tidigare?” Det kan bero på en missriktad hänsyn, men om problemet inte tas upp, finns det inte heller en chans att förhålla dig till det.

Sammanfattningsvis – tänk på det här
• Boka samtalet i god tid innan det ska äga rum. Ge medarbetaren tid att tänka efter.
• Försäkra dig om att du har varit tydlig och att medarbetaren har förstått vad du har sagt. Gå inte igång och argumentera för att försvara dig.
• Öppna frågor inbjuder till berättande svar. Använder du slutna frågor som kan besvaras med ett ja eller ett nej får du inte den information du behö­ver för att föra samtalet vidare.
• Fastna inte i vad som har hänt, vem som bär skulden eller vem som sagt eller gjort vad. Konstatera om delade meningar råder och att ni ser problemet ur olika perspektiv. Någon absolut sanning existerar inte och ingen kan vara helt objektiv.
• Undvik att ha ett bestämt svar i tankarna när du ställer en fråga och prata inte för mycket själv. Uppmuntra medarbetaren att prata eftersom det är han/hon som skall vara i fokus – inte du.
• Var uppmärksam på vad medarbetaren förmedlar med kroppsspråk och tonläge.
• Ge medarbetaren gott om tid innan du kommer med förslag på lösningar. Respektera den tid det tar att bearbeta budskapet och se problem.
• Lyssna och bekräfta att du har förstått, men värdera inte. Om du värde­rar riskerar du att medarbetaren känner sig pressad och säger det du vill höra.
• Försök inte ställa en ”diagnos”. Beskriv i stället de händelser eller beteenden som fått dig att kalla till samtalet.
• Bli inte kurator eller terapeut. Din uppgift är att (om behov finns) se till att medarbetaren söker hjälp för sina problem.

Källa: Bonnierledarskap.se, Julia Siwertz, april 2012
Länk

In my work with Executive coaching and Management team development, I come daily to the challenge: How should I cover everything? Much to often the hours are consumed by operational, and often urgent, tasks.
My clients usually find a need for more time for long-term and strategic issues. Usually we together define specific situations and tasks that is not urgent and try to transform these situations into time for more strategic focus.

Within this topic – read the article below wwith a few simple tips on how to create more time.

Just think what you could do with an extra hour or two each day: you could finally stick to an exercise routine, or spring-clean the house, or write your novel, or learn the guitar, or get a new qualification.

I can’t magically make all your days 25 hours long. But I can help you find more hours in your day for the things that really matter.

1. Get Out of Bed Earlier
If you normally get up at 7.30am, try getting up at 7am. That half-hour might not sound like much — but it could be time that you use to meditate, to exercise, to read that book you’ve been meaning to finish, or simply to get your day off to a calm and organized start. The first hour or half-hour of the day is often a great chance to work on something important, before other demands crowd in on you. And if you need your beauty sleep? Just get to bed half an hour earlier.

2. Use Your Commute Productively
How much time do you spend commuting every week? Unless you work from home, you’ve probably got at least a couple of hours each week when you’re traveling between your home and your workplace.

3. Use your commuting time for something useful
If you drive, you could listen to audio books. If you take the bus or train, you could read a book rather than grabbing a free newspaper. And if your workplace is quite close by, you could try walking or cycling to work — this builds exercise into the natural rhythm of your day.

4. Tackle the Important Tasks First
Once you get to work, take a few minutes to prioritize your tasks. Get the important ones done first (not the easy ones, or even the urgent ones). You can afford to spend at least an hour working on big, important tasks rather than on all those little urgent ones. If you work like this, you’ll usually save time: the urgent tasks will still get done, and you won’t spend hours procrastinating over the important ones.

5. Don’t Check Email So Often
Your colleagues and clients can wait for a few hours — or even a day or two — for you to reply to their emails. If there’s something truly urgent, they’ll pick up the phone. Keep your inbox closed when you’re working, and only open it when you’re ready to spend 30 minutes or so dealing with emails. It’s much more efficient to batch-process your emails than to keep popping in and out of your inbox to deal with individual ones.

6. Reduce Interruptions
If colleagues have a habit of hanging around your desk to chat, or if the phone is constantly ringing, you might find that it takes you half the day to finish a simple task like writing a letter. Constant interruptions don’t just eat up time — they also break your concentration. When you’ve got a big task to focus on, let your calls go to voicemail. If you have an office door, close it. If you work in a cubicle, wear headphones: having them on makes it less likely that people will try to strike up a conversation (you don’t have to listen to anything through them).

7. Stay Focused on Your Work
You might have heard the saying “procrastination is the thief of time.” When you want more hours in the day, procrastination can be a real problem. A few minutes chatting, browsing the web, updating your Facebook status, and so on, can easily turn into hours of wasted time over the course of a day. When you’re working, work. If your concentration is slipping, take a proper break: go and get a glass of water, or stretch your legs a bit. And if you’re facing a difficult task, try breaking it into small steps or stages so that it’s easier to tackle.

8. Go Home on Time
If you’re supposed to finish work at 4pm, but you never make it out of the office door until 6pm at the earlier, then it’s no wonder you don’t have enough hours in the day. In some jobs, it is difficult to get away on time (if all your colleagues work late, you might feel obliged to do the same). But if you’re staying because you only ever seem to get any work done in a mad dash at the end of the day, then your working habits need to change.

9. Delegate Some Chores
Perhaps you seem to be the only person in your household who’s capable of unstacking the dishwasher or ironing the clothes. If your evenings get taken up with a long list of chores, see whether you can delegate some of those. Your partner, housemates, or kids can pitch in and help out. Even if you just free up 20 or 30 minutes every evening, you’ll have a bit of extra time to spend on something important to you.

10. Eat Dinner at Home
Although going out for dinner might seem like it saves time (after all, you don’t have to cook) — you’ve got the time cost of traveling to the restaurant, ordering the food, waiting for it to arrive, paying the bill … and it might well be faster just to cook and eat at home. If you don’t have much time to cook during the week, try making extra portions at the weekend so that you can freeze some. That way, you’ve got an almost-instant meal (and one that’s probably healthier and cheaper than a restaurant meal, too). Limit Your TV Watching If you put the TV on as soon as you get in from work, it’s easy to end up spending hours slumped on the sofa. Instead of watching whatever happens to be showing, try watching just one or two programs each night. You might also want to have at least a couple of TV-free evenings; a great chance to read a good book, or to work on a project around the house.

Source: Business Insider, 30 April, 2012
Link
Read more here