Giving it all away

This week I had the satisfaction of working myself out of a job. As a consultant it’s part of what I do. I create plans, systems and processes, and engage people in them with the ultimate view that they become part of my client’s business; owned by the employees. There are some similarities to delegating.

Delegating multiplies your effectiveness provided 1) the people you are delegating have the skills to do the job and 2) you have the ability to let them do it their way and don’t have the need to look over their shoulders every five minutes.

The group I handed control to was a team going through a major change. Connecting this group to change meant we had to set up projects that connected and involved them, in a meaningful way, in the new world they were to work in; in other words they needed to take ownership of the process. In this instance a young woman had embrace a leadership role that she was very unsure about.

As a seasoned employee it’s sometimes hard to understand why a task you are so comfortable with should be so daunting to someone else. Sometimes we have to look to our personal lives to better understand how to support people. As parents, partners and friends we can certainly understand what it means to take on new ventures; the exhilaration and anxiety that goes with a challenge. Once we can connect with that experience – we can plan for success.

Here are my 11 steps for effective delegation for managers and employees:
1. Delegation means you transfer authority and the associated responsibility, from an employer or superior (who has the right to delegate) to an employee or subordinate. This means that someone else is now responsible for the work. So – butt out. Provide support and guidance but understand that everyone does things differently. Don’t you hate being micro-managed? Why would you want to do the same and lose the trust of an employee you value?
2. Delegation is an opportunity for both the manager and the employee. It’s a thoughtful process which means you don’t just give away work because don’t enjoy it. You do, however, want to give away work that will stop you from reaching your full potential.
3. Think about the fit. Does the employee have the skills to take on this task?
4. Plan the handover. Define the tasks and how the transition will take place.
5. Take time to communicate the new process to the assigned person; let them know why you are delegating to them. They need to understand what they are getting out of the assignment.
6. Think about training and resources. Will the individual need some training or additional resources?
7. Be extremely clear on your expectations.
8. Get agreement on timelines.
9. Make sure the individual is reporting to you on a regular basis.
10. Is there anyone else who needs to know about the delegation? If yes - inform them. Connect your employee with them.
11. Stay in touch. Provide feedback. Create a safe environment for your employee to grow.

By the way, I am delighted to report that the young woman I mentioned in the third paragraph has taken on the challenge with gusto. In fact she has improved on the process I started her off with. She has the advantage of a manager who meets with her regularly and supports her every step of the way. He trusts her enough to let go, but is caring enough to make sure she is not left alone.

Dalai Lama guides workplace productivity

Some weeks ago the Dalai Lama was guest editor for the Vancouver Sun. In his lead article he commented that our purpose in life is to be happy. Certainly no-one can argue that most of us want to be happy. Just look at the self help section in your local bookstore.

The Dalai Lama then goes on to say that we achieve a greater sense of well-being when we care for the happiness of others. This takes care of the simplistic, and indeed destructive, notion that we can and should strive for continuous personal happiness. In other words, if I understand the Dalai Lama correctly, our happiness is a by-product of our striving for the general good.

Things become a little bit more complicated when we look at the workplace. Should happiness be something we strive for within the workplace? How do we collectively define happiness and what is the greater good within an organizational setting?

These are hard questions to answer. Let’s tackle two of them:
1. Is happiness important in the workplace?
2. What is the greater good in the workplace?

As a result of research by John Helliwell, professor emeritus of economics at UBC, we now understand that the pay cheque is only half the story in terms of employee satisfaction. Just as important is how far you think you can trust your boss. If, on a scale of one to 10, you can give your employer a one-point rise in rank on trust issues, the flood of well-being you'll experience will be equivalent to a one-third increase in income. So – improve trust levels – employees will be happy and performance will improve?

Well, maybe – but didn’t the Dalai Lama also say something about happiness being the by-product of working for the greater good. So what is the greater good in an organization – the vision? Many visions are centred around making more money, selling more product. Perhaps we have to look at the organizational values; the accepted standards and behaviors that hold us together.

Values throughout the western world espouse notions such as; honesty, integrity, respect, loyalty, innovation, teamwork, excellence, accountability, pride. These are all concepts we can relate to and probably adhere to in our personal lives. So if we can connect the organizational values to those of the employees – we have something that is a common good. Something we can work toward together.

I have been involved in not-for-profits where the personal and organizational values were so closely linked that it was hard not to feel like everyone was working for the greater good. It’s a little more challenging when you deliver janitorial services. And yet my friend Steve says the company he works for is hot on values – it’s something he talks with employees about all the time, topmost among them pride and teamwork.

Happiness and values – these are tall orders for a busy organization. If you don’t have a retreat planned when you can build your values or an HR consultant to help you develop strategies to improve trust, try these two simple strategies:
1. Each senior leader take a value that is important to him or her and does three things:
a. Live that value very deliberately – every day
b. Talk about that value
c. Comment on others living that value.
2. Just as the Vancouver Sun did when the Dalai Lama edited the newspaper, ask people to submit stories about themselves or fellow employees who live the values. Display them on the notice board. Give out prizes. You will create a groundswell of goodwill and coincidentally break down silos.

Here’s to happy, value-driven workplaces!

The customer rules

In hard times the customer rules! Check out this Globe and Mail article http://ping.fm/HH6nl

Feathers are soft: communication is a hard core management skill

Recently I came across Ten Tips on how to help your employees manage change in uncertain times from Towers Perrin. It’s good sensible advice like, have a strategy for uncertain times and communicate your strategy effectively. And, help employees understand the context they function within, let them know they area valued and give them an opportunity to air concerns. Have a look at them – I’m sure you will find them useful.

What intrigued me was the fact that the majority of the tips are communication related. We know that organizations that practice effective internal communication financially outperform those that don’t; up to 29.5% increase in market value and 50% higher shareholder returns. Impressive!

I don’t know why people call communication a ‘soft’ skill. Soft suggests something lightweight – like feathers. And feathers have a horrible habit of flying all over the place and being difficult to catch. I like to believe that we can be more targeted and deliberate with our communications. My business partner refers to communication as a fundamental management skill - a far more appropriate term, don’t you think?

Facilitate leader communications for engaged employees

Imagine every manager in your organization fully understanding the communication role they play within the organization? And now imagine those managers with all the necessary tools and process at hand to be highly effective communicators?

My friend and client, Susan, who heads up internal communication for a financial institution, is doing just that and creating communication leaders within her company.

Susan has documented all the communication processes from the point of view of the manager. In addition she has developed a series of simple tools to help leaders take control of those processes in their areas. She is sharing this material in management meetings throughout the organization, and empowering managers to take control of the communication process.

Twenty years ago communicators produced the goods. Today we facilitate the discussion and it’s an exciting place to be.

Saying thank you still the best way to engage

I am in the process of developing a Webinar on leadership communications. There are a number of cool things about the technology, such as being able to hold random polls at any point during the presentation, share multiple documents, work on a whiteboard as a group and surf the web. But my favourite is the thumbs up button. How wonderful to be able to give on the spot praise, something we are short on in our culture. We spend vast fortunes on reward and recognition programs when the most effective and well received strategy is to say “well done” right there and then. Cost to the organization: $0, payback: priceless!

Engage employees by being present in your communications

Great excitement yesterday in our home. My 16 year old, a keen student of the social sciences, went off to the Provincial Legislature to observe democracy in action. She said it was hilarious. “Why?” I asked. “Were the members of the house at one another’s throats.”

Apparently not; one was having a nap, most were busy on their Blackberries – though many were just playing games. My daughter was somewhat indignant – not because of her concern for tax dollar misuse - but rather because the person who was speaking did not have the attention of the house. And she is quite right to be outraged. When we do not pay attention to humans we dismiss them – which may well have been the intent at yesterday’s session.

I remember once sitting with a senior leadership team and one of the leaders was working away on his Blackberry while the CEO was speaking. Apparently he does this with his own staff. The engagement scores within his group are abysmal.

Technology is wonderful it allows us to connect in many more and exciting ways. But we should remember to present in all our connections. If we try and be everywhere at once, we end up being nowhere and sending the message that we do not care.

The shoe fits when the culture lives the values

Today my teenage daughter began her first ever job search. The retail outlets she chose to leave her resume with was eclectic. Her criteria was simple: would I use, wear or eat their products/service and do I feel welcome when I enter one of their stores?

She had no trouble figuring out which stores to approach. A large number of shoe stores featured in her list - which is not surprising from someone who wrote "An ode to the Red Pump" for her poetry unit. Some may say we instinctively know when the shoe fits. But in reality we humans are very good observers and we can tell by the behaviors of others when an environment is at odds with our core values.

Trouble arises when we get conflicting messages and are seduced into thinking an organization is something it is not. Which is why it is absolutely key that organizations are true to their values and don't try and do a "snow" job. With a whole new generation of youth coming into the job market who can afford to go elsewhere - we need to attract the people who fit.

Why we choose to live by the rules

A dear friend of mine shared her woes with me about her teenage son. He is testing boundaries, and the value of rules, in a very trying fashion for his mother.

All social systems have rules; most often they are a good thing and make our lives much easier. I am a Canadian and here in Canada we feel it is important to abide by the law and give everyone an equal opportunity. This means we respect line-ups, patiently wait our turn when traffic lanes merge, and we all experience equally unreasonable wait times for our certain medical procedures. Our tax laws are quite ridiculously cumbersome because they aim to be fair. That is the way we do things here.

And sometimes it’s frustrating. When you have to wait six months or a year for knee surgery – all this fairness seems, well – a little unfair. But for the most part it works and people respect the system.

Organizations too have systems and we would hope that when people join organizations they take the time to understand its values to ensure it’s a place they will feel comfortable in; a place where they can follow the rules.
My husband works for a large Canadian company with a very strong set of values. A small group of employees clearly did not share the same set of values; they broke the company rules – and the mess landed up on the front page of the newspaper.

That little drama has now played itself off of the front pages and out of the public arena. Inside the organization the drama has lingered. The remaining employees are deeply wounded. They were incensed that a few rogue individuals have brought into question their values. These are people who take great pride in what they do and the company they work for. This was a deeply personal and very upsetting experience for them.

I am given to understand that the executives were a little taken aback at the strength of the reaction. They should not be. We are all human and we all have strong emotional reactions when our values are messed with. Why should it be any different at work?

Employees need to feel part of a greater whole. They need to feel their values are in sync with those of the organization. They need to understand the big picture and how they contribute to the organization’s success; common values are a part of that bigger picture.

The heart of change: identifying key behaviours for success

Last week I was in Calgary speaking at the Women’s Leadership Forum . I was fortunate enough to also be a participant and hear what others were thinking and doing.

Here’s a quick overview of what I learned:
1. There is a whole lot of exciting stuff happening out there but you can’t do it all. Find your area of passion and focus;
2. The right-brain is stuff is very important for effective leadership and if you are not yet comfortable with it you need to begin;
3. Our behaviors as leaders are critical to our personal success and that of our organizations.

Let’s talk about behaviors because that is one area I am really passionate about. The first keynote address was delivered by Ron McMillan, co-author of the book Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. Ron and his co-authors studied successful influencers and documented what they did. The book is about the system they discovered through their research.

It’s a well-thought out approach beginning with clarity of vision/results and having really good plans that cover the personal, social and structural elements of change, so that it (the change) becomes inevitable.

Ron also talked about vital behaviors; those key behaviors you need to have in place for the change to take root. And that’s when I got excited. I firmly believe that every change initiative has its own set of associated behaviors. It is our job as change agents to identify those behaviors and build our programs around them.

I’m delighted to see more and more organizations taking the time to identify specific and desired behaviors. See the following article on Farm Credit Union. I’d like to hear about your success stories using behaviors to effect change.

Waiting at airports

I don’t know about you but my regular life seems to be filled to the brim. So when I’m thrown a curved ball – which happens – it brings with it a healthy dose of perspective.


Right now I am sitting in an airport waiting for a delayed flight. I may not be able to deliver the workshop I am flying over for. I can choose to fret pointlessly or I can use my time productively. Not much of a choice!


So here I am writing this blog and doing one of my favorite things – people watching. It’s not often we get to observe our fellow travelers in life. Given the flight was scheduled to leave at 7 am there are a lot of suits and Blackberries.


Everyone is trying to reschedule meetings. The man seated next to me needs to deliver a sealed tender document. There’s a missed funeral and a divisional meeting that’s going to go ahead without its senior leader. Despite all this juggling people are remarkably calm.


It’s astonishing the different stories evolving in this cramped little room; everyone is on a journey – aside from the actual flight we are all trying to make. Hopefully soon we will all be joined in making a common journey. When that happens there will be a great sense of camaraderie and shared experience. Organizations too need to find ways to make sure all their employees are getting on to the same flight.

Generational expectations - implications for the world of work

My 15-year old daughter and I buy music in very different ways. She finds the notion that that someone would buy a physical object that contained a finite number of songs arbitrarily selected by someone else - rather quaint. My daughter is very clear about what her purchases and her expectations are high.

Businesses are beginning to catch on - music sellers, networks and studios are adjusting to a new world view where the customer is not only right, but expects to be able to exercise that judgment with a click of the mouse.

Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor at New York University’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program and the author of a new book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.” http://www.shirky.com/ suggests that the web is not competition for traditional media, but a completely different system that empowers groups and individuals, a place where choice is not only an option, but an imperative.

As a communications professional and engagement specialists I have to ask myself what this will mean for the workplace of the future. Portal-based web sites and customized benefit packages are just the tip of the ice-berg.

I was chatting with a young woman the other day – an engineer. One of her key motivators for becoming involved in volunteer activities within her organization is that she is able to exercise her creative design abilities. Can we expect to see a world where employees and managers co-design the job function? Take that one step further and one can envisage interactive strategic planning. Exciting or terrifying – depends how you look at it.

What's your bed side manner like

This story on healing. A friend was hospitalized and at one point a doctor entered the ward with a group of student interns. The doctor and students did not greet any of the patients or request permission to review their cases. Instead they proceeded to discuss ailments, pointing at body parts and reviewing charts, never once looking acknowledging these people.

Horrible. Yes indeed, amazing that our doctors are still being trained in this antiquated fashion.

Scratch below the surface of many North American corporations and you will find much the same sort of behavior, with employees being viewed as no more then a resource with an associated productivity number.

Healing happens far more effectively when there is a human element to care. Likewise employees are far more productive when their unique skills and talents are acknowledged. If your manager primarily ignores you - your chances of being actively disengaged are 40 percent, where the national average is 18 percent.

When 15 year olds know more

We had dinner last week with a dear family friend who we have not seen for a number of years. One of the topics under discussion was how senior executives isolate themselves from the rest of the organization. Our friend cited the example of a client of his where the executive team was protected by a phalanx of secretaries and assistants – to the detriment of the organization.

My 15 year old daughter (whose experience of the working world is limited) shook her head and made the following comment: “That’s just daft everyone knows leaders are supposed to inspire people and get them to collaborate. How can they do that if they never see anyone?”

How indeed? Gives you pause for thought when a 15 year old intuitively understands what a highly paid 45 year old executive cannot implement.

On shoes and fish

Some weeks ago we had dinner with dear friends. No dinner party is complete without a good story and this one was no exception. The story was told by our host who is a keen fisherman. It involved a salmon – and a pair of Kenneth Coles. Shoes are important to our host. He is the CEO of a large shoe store chain.

Our friend was escaping a very frustrating day at the office. Still dressed to deal he went fishing to relieve the tension, and eventually landed every fisherman’s dream - a 20 lb salmon. (This is his story – not mine.) The Kenneth Coles were mentioned frequently and appear to have stood the test of reeling in a 20 pounder while battling the currents and avoiding large sea-faring vessels.

What’s amazing about this story, other than the fact that I remembered it, is that I now know the name of a brand of men’s shoes. And this is important because I do not buy men’s shoes. Personally I avoid shoe shopping – it’s a painful experience for me. And because I find buying shoes so stressful – I see no need to be involved in the purchase of shoes for others. Good heavens my husband actually enjoys shoe shopping and probably owns more pairs of shoes than I do. I’ve no doubt he bonds with our children while the three of them are out shoe shopping. So why I ask you should I remember any brand of male foot attire?

I remember Kenneth Cole because someone told me a really good story. And if that isn’t a powerful business tool I’ll eat my shoe.

Only 21% of employees engaged

Only 10 percent of employees around the globe believe senior management treats people as the most important part of the organization - this according to a Towers Perrin survey of nearly 90,000 workers worldwide.

The survey goes on to say that just 21 percent of the employees surveyed are engaged in their work, meaning they're willing to go the extra mile to help their companies succeed. Thirty-eight percent are partly to fully disengaged. Towers Perrin has dubbed this the "engagement gap".

Firms with the highest percentage of engaged employees increased operating income by 19 percent and earnings per share by 28 percent.

It’s clear that the performance improvement opportunity for businesses today is in accessing discretionary effort and lessening the “engagement gap”.

People are fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work when they understand how they personally contribute to the organization’s goals and objectves. Supervisors and managers are best placed to make that connection for employees – far more so then say - the employee newsletter.

Are we investing our communication dollars in the right place?

Power to the people

I have a pen pal. Most of our communication is via email with the occasional phone conversation.

My pal Kenny is a busy senior executive who still finds time to talk to me even though he has never seen me and lives half a continent away. Pretty amazing, but then Kenny is rather special.

Kenny is the corporate ombudsman at KeySpan Corp., a Brooklyn, New York-based energy company. Before joining KeySpan he was a Roman Catholic monk.

You’d imagine that going from monk to manager would be quite enough stimulation for a single lifetime but Kenny keeps looking for ways to make corporate life better.

During our last conversation he shared with me his experiences with Open Space. Open Space Technology enables people to create inspired meetings and events. In Open Space meetings participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance. In other words a group of anywhere between 20 and 200 people turn up at a session with no more than a theme - no agenda.

They spend the first part of the day setting up the agenda. People who are passionate about topics related to the central theme volunteer to run breakouts on that topic. Once everyone who wants to run a session has volunteered then they go to separate rooms and the remaining participants use their feet to take them to the subject that excites them.

Wow! Subversive. Talk about power to the people.

There are a whole bunch of things that excite me about Open Space but most of all I like that fact that it is so grounded in the positive. People are voluntarily seeking out what they are enthusiastic about.

Trouble with adopting something like Open Space is that managers have to have faith in their employees. They have to trust that employees really do have the best interests of the company at heart. And that, I believe, is the real challenge to the success of initiatives like Open Space.
I’d like to hear what you think.

Check out Kenny’s book The CEO and the Monk: One Company’s Journey to Profit and Purpose (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), written together with KeySpan CEO Robert Catell and writer Glenn Rifkin.

Tall tales and why we tell them

We changed the format of our blog and for a brief period of time all the blogs I had written since May disappeared. My first thought: “Someone on our team doesn’t like my blogs, they’re trying to get rid of them.”

Utter nonsense of course. It was nothing more than a technical problem. But I am human and like most of you I need to make sense of my world. So when something happened that I didn’t understand, I made up a story, namely that my colleagues hated my blogs and were hell bent on getting rid of them.

We do this all the time, especially in the complex corporate world. If relationships and communication are muddy we create stories to fill in the gaps. And frequently we don’t bother to go and check the accuracy of our interpretation.

But here’s the scary part. We then go and tell friends and colleagues our stories, who in turn tell others and these stories create a new reality.
This is not healthy. The only way to stop it is through open and honest communication. The basis for which is trust; strung together in this way these are four of the most challenging letters in our alphabet.

Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick leaves storytellng legacy

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop died yesterday after suffering a brain hemorrhage. She was 64.

Roddick began her beauty and retailing career in 1976 in a little hippie shop in Brighton England . She set herself apart by underscoring the ethical properties of her formulations, created with natural ingredients, and often sourced from the developing world.

In 2006, The Body Shop was purchased by L'Oreal Group, but remains an independently run company. Today there are nearly 2,000 body shop stores in 50 countries.

In addition to being a visionary entrepreneur Roddick was also a great storyteller. Here is a story from a woman who went boldly where others would not:

“My first shop was between two funeral parlors. They objected to the name Body Shop because of course they had coffins passing by all day. I remember thinking “they can’t stop me, but I can have some fun with this”. So I called the local newspaper - anonymously with the hankie over the mouthpiece - and told them I was being intimidated by “mafia undertakers”. It was my first free publicity and I have never paid for publicity since.”

Anita Roddick, 2007

Showtime of dancing to the same tune

Last week my eleven year old son, together with 79 children ages 9 to19 performed in a Broadway-type extravaganza. It was the climax of an intensive month long program; six hours of practice a day, a faculty of eight instructors, 33 song and dance numbers, 44 lines of dialogue, a total of 900 costumes. It culminated in three highly professional and entertaining performances.

What’s the secret to success of a program like this? In part it’s good old fashioned organization. There was a very well thought out master plan and everything was geared toward achieving that plan.

But to achieve a well thought out plan the players need to be committed and working toward the same goal. That’s where business plans often fail. The senior executives develop wonderful strategies that employees can’t see the rationale for, can’t figure out what it means for them personally and as a result don’t bother to make them happen.

This plan succeeded because every child understood and joyfully supported the end goal. The children may not have been aware of the details of the master plan, but they embraced the destination and their individual roles in achieving the plan. Each child completely understood that he or she was absolutely vital to the final act and by extension the journey.

Just imagine if all your employees felt the same way? Perhaps business has something to learn from the arts.