Coach’s Corner – Responding to the most Frequently Asked Questions posed by our A-CHIEVE! publication readership…

QUESTION: What is the best way to deal with a difficult employee?

RESPONSE: Oftentimes the leader asking the question is hoping for a simple “terminate the person” reply. The reality is that termination is not necessarily the right solution at that particular point in time for several reasons. As we probe further, we oftentimes discover one or more of the following conditions:

• Clear and concise expectations, deliverable accountabilities and meaningful performance measurements have not been co-established by the leader and employee. Caution: a job description typically does not fill this void because: 1) content speaks to generalities vs. specifics; 2) the employee’s role may have evolved based on business needs and therefore, might not even resemble the original job description; and 3) job descriptions rarely include metrics. We recommend presenting the data in an easy-to-understand, easy-to-reference Performance Scorecard format, so expectation specifics, including deliverables and metrics, are crystal clear.

• Clear, concise, timely and actionable performance feedback has not been discussed with the employee. Caution: conducting semi-formal or formal performance reviews even as often as once per quarter does not fill this void if: 1) on-going performance discussions are not occurring as a natural part of engaging the employee on a regular basis; and 2) the employee is not provided with specific examples of both desired and undesired behaviors plus expected results. We recommend presenting the data in an easy-to-understand, easy-to-reference START | STOP | CONTINUE format, so expectation specifics are crystal clear.

•  A leader/employee stand-off. Both parties have dug in their heels, each embracing his/her own position (point of view) vs. both parties engaging in open, honest and candid dialogue in an attempt to discover the root cause(s) of the leader/employee disconnect, which is the first step toward co-designing a workable solution. Caution: someone must assume the role of ‘adult’ in this type of scenario. We recommend that the leader be the adult and with that, adopt the right constructive conflict attitude plus demeanor which includes:

– Actively listening to vs. tuning out the employee
– Being inquisitive & curious vs. close-minded & defensive
– Posing probing questions vs. taking positional stands
– Being personable vs. warlike
– Focusing on the facts vs. being drawn into or contributing to an emotional swirl
– Seeking out the truth vs. embracing untested beliefs, assumptions & conclusions
– Engaging in discussion richness vs. discussion rightness (aka I’m right – you’re wrong)
– Solving problems vs. winning positions
– Using positive, consistent word choice, tone & body language vs. negative, incongruent language

• A leadership opportunity for self-improvement. The world is continuously evolving and so must our leadership thinking, approaches and capabilities continue to evolve. Caution: one of the most challenging aspects of working with an employee that we perceive as being ‘difficult’, is being able to look past the employee’s persona, keep an open mind, sort through their messaging and, in doing so, objectively ask ourselves “What is it about our leadership style and/or approach that may be unintentionally contributing to the employee’s negative attitude and/or behaviors? As an example, a criticism that we frequently hear as we’re helping teams improve their performance results, is leadership inconsistency – where the leadership team is saying “X” but doing “Y”. When that occurs, team members become disenfranchised to a degree where some become quietly frustrated…others drift into a state of apathy…and a few act out and quickly become our ‘problem employees’. We recommend interjecting a healthy dose of self-reflection when working with a difficult employee because we may actually be contributing to the dysfunction without even realizing it.

There is a time and a place to terminate employees who make choices that are not in the best interests of achieving organizational goals and objectives and advancing organizational agendas, but let’s make sure that, as responsible leaders, we have performed ALL of our due diligence before we arrive at that conclusion.

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (July 2011).

When we first read Harvard Business Review’s “The Big Idea: The Age of Hyperspecialization”, the graphic that came to mind was a knowledge worker assembly line – very similar to a manufacturing industry’s production assembly line, but with workers contributing a very narrow slice of intellectual capital (or narrowly defined skill set) based on each person’s area of expertise. For those of you who may not be familiar with the term ‘hyperspecialization’, it is defined as extreme specialization. What exactly does that mean? 

If we were to dissect an employee’s job description, we could typically break down each role into component parts. As an example, let’s dissect the Project Manager’s (PM) role since many organizations are familiar with this job function. Traditionally PMs are chartered with delivering a discrete body of work while attaining timeline, budget, advertised outcome and customer satisfaction targets. Generally speaking, while many PMs excel in building work breakdown structures, assigning activities and tasks to the right subject matter experts and managing their teams to task completion, PMs are also expected, by default, to: 

• Create highly collaborative and engaging team environments
• Manage customer, key stakeholder, executive management, team member and vendor expectations
• Navigate through ambiguity, political landscapes and various other organizational complexities
• Arbitrate team conflicts
• Hold team members accountable to time and cost estimates plus quality outputs
• Develop then execute project management deliverables requiring capabilities such as the following:   

 …all of which are not ‘typical’ PM wheelhouse strengths. To further exacerbate the situation, the PM is additionally responsible for creating the project’s Scope Definition, which is the single most crucial project deliverable because it positions the project for out-of-the-gate success or failure. In today’s tumultuous business climate, unlike years gone by, scope development requires that the PM consider all of the before-mentioned moving parts from a systems thinking/cause and effective relationships perspective plus vet out and wrap in two oftentimes overlooked success criteria: 1) solution usage; and 2) anticipated business value. Whew! Not only is that a lot to take on, but many of the required talents aren’t prevalent within the PM ranks. We know this based on data. Depending on whose survey results you embrace (Forrester Research, Gartner Research, Carnegie Mellon, Standish Group, and the list goes on and on), projects continue to fail at a rate of 30% to 80%, year-over-year, with the 10+ year pattern continuing to fall at the feet of the Project Managers. As Benjamin Franklin would say “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Obviously, the wide swath of expectations that we have layered onto the Project Manager’s role isn’t working and is therefore, ill-conceived as evidenced by the results. It’s time to take a step back and reassess.

With the advent of hyperspecialization, what if organizations were to recalibrate the Project Manager’s role, breaking the work currently performed by one person into more specialized components fulfilled by several people (percents of people, either employees or consultants, whichever approach is more feasible given your particular organization’s talent pool plus construct), with the end goal of leading to organizational improvements in project outcomes – specific to increased quality, speed and value and decreased costs? As an example, for medium to large-scale projects, particularly those projects of strategic importance, what if organizations were to engage a part-time:

• Systems thinking expert
• Business results expert
• Finance/cost accounting expert
• Communications expert
• Human behavior expert  

…as project team members, consolidating ‘experts’ where feasible, meaning, you could find systems thinking, business results and finance/cost accounting expertise all rolled into one credible resource, and even then, only draw upon the resource on a percentage basis. Could the benefits of implementing such an approach offset the costs? If your answer is intuitively “yes”, because you know that your organization is struggling in the project management delivery arena, how would you sell your organization on the hyperspecialization approach? In the case of the Project Manager, it shouldn’t be too difficult to:

Taking hyperspecialization to yet the next level, consider Boeing’s hyperspecialization-on-steroids example, where the world’s largest aerospace company engaged 379 ‘major’ suppliers to build the 787 Dreamliner. While initially hailed as the epitome of subcontracting, the end result proved otherwise, when the parts failed to come together as seamlessly as envisioned, and delays ensued. Other organizations have successfully plunged into the world of hyperspecialization – as both service providers and customers – and are reaping the benefits. TopCoder, a community of 300K freelance developers representing 200 countries, touts Acatel-Lucent, FaceBook, LendingTree and PayPal as customers who tee up ‘competitions’ (identify complex business problems requiring innovative, technology-based, expert solutions), where TopCoder developers openly compete with their colleagues to create the ‘ultimate solution’ in order to win the contest. It’s not unusual for customers to reward competition winners with six or even seven figure payments. Beyond the monetary incentives, the winning developers advance in TopCoder’s highly publicized ‘top contributors’ ratings plus continue to select only those competitions that align with their passions plus areas of specialization. But like the Boeing example, quality control and seamless integration are key when operating in a world of power brokering at the task level. 

For those organizations who want to reap the faster, better, smarter, cheaper benefits of knowledge worker hyperspecialization, the best place to start is a three-pronged approach:

• Select a job that is a competitive advantage enabler; 
• Map both the primary and secondary tasks associated with that particular job; and
• Identify which tasks could be performed with higher quality, at a greater speed, or at a lower cost by a specialized resource(s).

You may find, like the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, that their most highly skilled knowledge workers were spending 20%-40% of their day on data entry, web research, basic spreadsheet analysis and PowerPoint development tasks. Pfizer offloaded these tasks to several specialty firms to optimize their knowledge workers’ capabilities. Or, using the previous Project Manager example, you could find that engaging specialty resources to perform the work that falls outside of the typical PM’s core capabilities, will result in less project failures and increased business value.

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (July 2011).

What is ShareVis?

ShareVis is a user friendly point-and-click solution that sits on top of (and integrates with) SharePoint for organizations who are serious about operating Faster, Better, Smarter, Cheaper.

Why ShareVis?

• Automate your most complex business processes in hours vs. weeks and months
• Define successful repeatable steps that deliver consistent positive outcomes vs. reinventing each and every time and hoping for the best 
• Provide easy access to forms and documents that everyone can leverage vs. wasting time searching for and/or recreating documents

• Create pipeline transparency for high-value processes vs. operating in ‘a black hole’ (as an example, it’s a great project pipeline intake, management and delivery solution)
• Establish and measure against targeted outcomes and clear accountabilities vs. manage against subjective, evasive and nebulous expectations   
• Optimize your existing SharePoint investment in a value-add, cost-effective, goal-attainment way vs. sinking more programming code dollars into a hard-to-use base product

• Manage ‘by exception’ through automated alerts and dashboarding vs. trying to manage everything through information overload
• Become self sufficient where business/non technical people can easily create workflows, dashboards, alerts, forms and document management and collaboration communities
• Increase IT”s value proposition by offering a high impact, easy-to-use business solution that is not IT programming dependent

• Significantly reduce your future SharePoint development costs (low/no code)
• Reduce your programming rework expenses as you upgrade to future SharePoint versions
• Take advantage of ShareVis’ ’licensed per server’ vs. ‘licensed per user’ model

Why aren’t more consulting companies advertising ShareVis?

Many consulting/contracting companies are not pushing ShareVis like we are because ShareVis significantly lessens an organization’s reliance on SharePoint developers – which is the ‘bread and butter’ for many consulting/contracting companies. We’re introducing our clients to this product because our goal is to provide our clients with faster, better, cheaper, smarter solutions that materially accelerate business goal attainment. At the conclusion of virtual or on-site ShareVis Training (which we offer), the Business and IT can be 100% productive in ShareVis/SharePoint Day 1. Eric Hutchinson, our SharePoint/ShareVis expert plus certified trainer, is credited with many accomplishments including his recent SharePoint-as-a-business-solution/ShareVis Training roll-out to Kaiser Permanente’s 13 regions/2,600 users.

Who uses ShareVis?

ShareVis’ client list includes American Airlines, Lockheed Martin, Heinz, Sony, Pfizer, US Bank, Fujifilm, The Library of Congress, United States Special Operations Command, Edwards Airforce Base, Elgin Airforce Base plus many more large, mid size plus small businesses across a variety of industries.

Want to learn more about ShareVis?

Please contact us if you’d like to schedule a ShareVis demo plus allow us the opportunity to automate one of your complex business processes so you can experience ShareVis’ easy-to-use and quick-to-implement feature-rich capabilities. Contact us at 440.248.7488. 

Course content includes instruction, best practices, tips, techniques plus relevant hands-on exercises to help you become ShareVis self-sufficient. Topics include:

• Introduction to ShareVis
• Exploring ShareVis Designer
• Anatomy of a Workflow
• Document-Based Workflows with automatic document updates, DocEx
• Form-Based Workflows with role based Web views, FormEx
• Extending Workflows with Plug-Ins
• Connecting Workflows to Lists and Libraries
• Connecting Workflows to External Data Sources
• ShareVis for Ninjas – Advanced Features
• Putting it All Together
• ShareVis and PowerShell

Contact TechEdge at 440.248.7488 or email ShareVis Course Instructor Eric Hutchinson at ehutchinson@techedgellc.com.

With most everything in life, it’s all about ‘striking the right balance’ vs. allowing the pendulum to swing too far to the left or right. The same holds true in the leadership world as it applies to our strengths. If we turn up the dial too much on any one strength, oddly enough, that strength can quickly morph into a debilitating liability. Case in point – have you ever had the opportunity to work with colleagues who would generally be described as having “it’s my way or the highway” or “I’m right – you’re wrong” attitudes and when they don’t get their own way, they act out? And act out they do either overtly or covertly – from sabotaging your goals to misrepresenting your ideas to spreading malicious rumors about you to fighting you every step of the way. And even more confusing, while you’re observing all of their crazy behaviors, they’re adamant about having the best interests of your organization at heart and even take you to a place of martyrdom as they claim that they’re only fault is either caring too much or being too passionate about their work. Our advice – don’t be fooled! These colleagues are not passionate – they’re obsessed – and they need a healthy dose of ‘tough love’ coaching.

How a person arrives at a place of obsession is not always readily apparent and even though it would be interesting to figure out what makes him/her tick, it’s really irrelevant. As a co-worker, your job is not to diagnose them. What is important is to understand how to work with them (if they don’t report to you) and to establish crystal clear expectations (if they do report to you.) Obsessed colleagues either never truly understood or at some point lost sight of their professional boundaries. They have incorrectly assumed that their belief system unilaterally outweighs the belief systems of their colleagues. They are operating from a place of high emotion, close-minded thinking, one-sided facts and an insatiable appetite which compels them to do whatever it takes to force others to see, accept and abide by their beliefs ‘or else.’ They are driven to win at all costs.

So how do you handle an Obsessed Colleague (OC)? The answer is different depending on whether or not the OC reports to you. If the OC doesn’t report to you, we recommend the following Do’s and Don’ts:

When working with OC’s, the goal is to help them move beyond their emotional (obsessive) state of mind to a rational state of mind otherwise you’ll be spinning your wheels which can become very frustrating. This isn’t always easy. The best way to stop their emotional swirl and break through their hard-headedness, is to ask open-ended questions. Keep probing because this will not only sidetrack OC’s from “winning at all costs,” but it will also force them into thinking about other possibilities. Asking them questions about their position can be a very effective strategy, especially if you believe that their position is half-baked, somewhat flawed or materially the same as the position you’re proposing – with regard to expected results. Pointing out incomplete theories and/or flaws or insisting that your position is better than or just as good as the OC’s position, will only cause OC’s to further dig in because they have a need to be right. But, if you ask questions such as:

• “How would that work?” (have the OC walk you through each step)
• “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
• “What are all of the facts or circumstances that you considered?”
• “How would you compare/contrast all options – what are the pluses and minuses of each?”

– and continue pursuing that line of thinking to where the OC discovers that his/her position is incomplete, flawed or multiple positions will work, then you might be able to get some movement. 

Now let’s say that the OC reports to you. You will need to leverage the same Do’s and Don’ts in your day in/day out discussions, but additionally, you will need to engage in ‘tough love’ coaching sessions – yes, sessions with an ‘s’ because it will take several sessions before you start seeing positive OC behavioral changes (if the OC chooses to change, which is an entirely different story.) OC’s don’t become obsessive over night, so it will take time for OC’s to first hear what you’re saying, then truly understand what you’re saying, then actually do something about it. As part of your coaching sessions, you must clearly and succinctly define the OC’s boundaries, e.g.:

• Your role is to recommend – not decide
• Your role is to facilitate – not be the center of attention
• Your role is to consult – not dictate
• Your role is to collaborate with your colleagues – not force them into submission
• Your role is to encourage fresh, critical and diverse thinking – not squealch everyone else’s ideas
• Your role is to positively enlist your team – not order or bully them around
• Your role is to acknowledge your colleague’s strengths – not continuously point out their faults
• Your role is to help your team grow and develop – not create “mini me” clones

For each role, you will also need to provide specific behaviors that the OC must ‘start’ and ‘stop’ modeling and be as clear as possible to mitigate potential misunderstandings. As an example, if the OC is assigned a facilitative role but isn’t modeling facilitative behaviors, you would introduce expectations similar to the following:

The above is your ‘getting started’ plan. It is certainly not your ‘do-this-one-time-and-the-person-will-miraculously-change’ plan. With an OC, you must stick with it. Many OC’s seem to muster up all sorts of energy as they eagerly look for opportunities to outmaneuver you. The goal is to keep OC’s on a short leash and apply immediate correction when they stray, but also reward them through verbal or written acknowledgement when you see (or hear about) them modeling positive behaviors. If the OC is highly skilled and you can help him/her get on the right track, the person might become a highly contributing member of your team. If, however, you’ve invested a reasonable amount of time trying to coach the person, and he/she keeps resisting your coaching and/or rationalizing his/her behaviors, you’ll need to coach them out of your organization. You can’t afford to invest significant coaching time on high maintenance employees to the detriment of your high performers who both appreciate and can benefit from your coaching efforts.

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (May 2011).

Part 1: The SharePoint Matchmaker, You Are 

One of the most common questions I’m asked from IT and business leaders alike is how do they make the case for SharePoint in their organization? Most people who use SharePoint understand its potential to solve common business problems. But they have difficulty communicating the real value of SharePoint to the executives in their company making the budget decisions.

So where do you start? You begin by becoming a SharePoint Matchmaker. Don’t like the new role? How about Business Analyst? A SharePoint Matchmaker is essentially a business analyst focused on the business and technology of SharePoint. If you happen to be a business analyst already then this is going to be fun! (No, really – fun!)

What or whom are you matching? You are matching whatever it is that is of #1 importance to the key decision makers and influencers in your company, e.g., your most vocal internal customers…your just-make-it-happen CEO…your ever-vigilant CFO…and your deliver-faster-better-cheaper boss, with a SharePoint solution that helps him or her or them attain their business goals. The key to selling your matchmaking idea is to first discover then clearly articulate (in Business English — not tech talk) how your SharePoint solution will either fulfill an unmet business need or eliminate a business pain point or, if you’re incredibly innovative, achieve both simultaneously! Identify that sweet spot where need or pain meets effective business solution and watch the SharePoint romance unfold!        

What fuels the SharePoint attraction? If your company is like many others and is trying to do more with less, then SharePoint 2010 has many features that will help you make the case for SharePoint. For example, a common organizational goal, particularly in this economy, is keeping headcounts flat. Or maybe you’re now managing more relationships with vendors, clients, partners, etc. than you used to, so you need a simple yet effective way to keep track of relational expectations, commitments and results. There are many ways SharePoint can not only make your job, your boss’, your team’s and the C-level Suite’s jobs easier, but SharePoint can save your organization time and money. I’ll delve into how SharePoint can save your company big bucks and how you make the SharePoint Return on Investment (ROI) pitch to your CFO in the next part of our 3-part series, “Show Me the Savings”.

Back to matchmaking…the following breaks down a few examples of business objectives and their corresponding SharePoint solutions. Use this as your ‘getting started’ guide to determine which components of SharePoint 2010 will support your company’s business objectives.

In part two of our 3-part SharePoint love story, “Show Me the Savings,” I’ll break down both the hard and soft ROI that you’ll need in your role as matchmaker to secure buy-in!

The Backdrop…Erin is a high performer who unwittingly joined an organizational culture that lacks, ducks, avoids, circumvents (provide the adjective of your choice) accountability. To make matters worse, the organization publically admits its accountability shortfalls, but doesn’t take corrective action. For Erin it seems that everywhere she turns, things are broken, performance targets are missed, measurement systems are ‘gamed’, productivity is lost, commitments aren’t kept, responsibilities are shirked, mediocrity is embraced, due diligence isn’t performed, excuses are accepted, employees spin their wheels (some care, some don’t) and the highest levels of leadership allow the insanity to continue by turning a blind eye. 

Erin’s Dilemma…Erin is professionally driven to collaborate closely with others, permanently resolve problems and help her organization and team deliver tangible, positive results to their end customers. She also feels very blessed that she has a job in this tenuous market. Unfortunately, in her own organization, Erin feels like a salmon swimming upstream, against the current, hitting roadblocks at every turn. Because she can’t break through the obstacles no matter what or how hard she tries, she is questioning her effectiveness, beating herself up, losing self-confidence and feeling frustrated, agitated, angry, hopeless and demoralized. Erin is also overwhelmed because at every twist and turn, she sees yet one more problem that a responsible party needs to fix, and with few ‘responsible parties’ stepping up, Erin continues to take on more and more because, first and foremost, she truly cares about the end customer and second, the problems aren’t ‘rocket science’ to fix. With a little critical thinking and a little time investment and a little tweaking, great things could be accomplished by her team and within her organization – on behalf of their end customers. Erin asked us for our advice.   

Our Advice…Erin, and other high performers like Erin who find themselves in similar situations, can immediately do the following:

Stop…

Start…

Continue…

Carving out your niche where you can affect change, being direct as you’re negotiating the work you take on and living and focusing in your ‘making a difference’ space will give you a sense of accomplishment, restore your self-confidence, provide evidence (to yourself and to others) that you’re highly effective plus give you peace of mind (which is critical!), so you can then go back and tackle the next set of goals and continue producing tangible results. Overall you will be happier, healthier and more effective as a person and as a professional. 

If you try the above and it doesn’t work because the person you report to truly doesn’t ‘get it’, then it could be time to look elsewhere. There are many organizations out there that are hungry for and would proactively embrace your high performing talents!

When was the last time you took a hard look at not only your rock star performers, but also those leaders and team members who are serving in über pivotal roles that could either create or destroy your value proposition? If your answer is any one (or combination of) the following:

• I can’t remember.
• What’s the big deal!
• I don’t have time for that.
• This economy is so bad, no one can find a job.
• My team loves me – no one would ever leave – and if they did, I’d just replace them.
• As long as we keep the guys and gals on the front line happy, since they interact with our customers, we don’t have to worry about anyone else behind the scenes.
• Let Joe the guy who is reporting to me, worry about that!
• So, I’ll just hire someone else if ultra-talented, amazingly gifted, highly artistic Becky quits because she’s got that ‘artists’ temperament thing about her, so the heck with her!

…stop and reassess.

Did you know that productivity decreased by almost 2% in the 2Q2010 before rebounding in 3Q2010 and even with high unemployment, voluntary turnover is rising? After falling 1.4 million from its November 2006 peak to its September 2009 trough, the number of voluntary quits rose by 326,000 between September 2009 and September 2010. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 9, 2010). Are these statistics telling us that employees might be reaching their limits and starting to seek out new opportunities? And if yes, do we really believe that our rock stars and pivotal people – who truly define our company’s DNA – are exempt from these statistics? The answer is a resounding “No!”

OK, now what? The first place to start is by defining your ‘value chain’ via ’value chain mapping.’ The term itself was first popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, and was used in the context of analyzing physical assets in production environments. The model was later adapted to accommodate intangible assets and service organizations. The goal is to zero in on those factors that influence your customers in their decision to choose your team’s offerings. You might actually be surprised with the results because some factors may be intuitively obvious while others are not – especially when it comes to behind-the-scenes factors! As an example, one might conclude that the most pivotal people in a medical practice are those that provide front line service to patients, e.g., the receptionist, nurses, physicians. But what about the back room tech guy, Lou, sitting in a 4-sided cube in a non descript data center miles away, who is the only person on staff who knows the ins and outs of the Electronic Management Records (EMR) system that the physician is 100% reliant upon to provide an accurate and complete patient medical history in order to render a precise diagnosis plus appropriate course of action? Can you imagine the negative ramifications (including death) if Lou, being highly talented but disengaged, failed to notice or didn’t act on an early morning error message informing him that the Allergy and Immunology software module wasn’t properly ‘technologically linked’ to the EMR, and later that day the physician wrote a prescription for Patient X, not realizing that the patient would suffer a severe allergic reaction?

Yes, Lou would be considered pivotal. The next question becomes, what are you proactively doing to not only identify folks like Lou, but also assess their level of engagement plus a strategy?

We recommend the following steps:

Step 1: Identify your value chain(s)

Step 2: Identify and assess those pivotal team members who belong to the value chain(s):

Step 3: Assess then segment Step 2′s pivotal team members into the following performance categories:

Step 4: Assess each pivotal team members’ level of engagement:

Note: with Steps 2, 3 and 4, assign a simple rating system that will help you determine where to focus first as you proceed with Step 5. As an example, if Jenny is Moderately Pivotal, High Maintenance and Actively Disengaged, your leadership time would, most likely, be best spent identifying a ‘Jenny Succession Plan’ coupled with a ‘Jenny Exit Strategy’ vs. investing time in trying to move Jenny out of her High Maintenance and Actively Disengaged zones.  

Step 5: Create a Pivotal Talent Engagement Strategy which can differ by industry and company and will certainly differ by person. This is certainly the most time intensive step, but the payback can be HUGE and the risk of not taking steps to identify, assess and address your pivotal people can also be HUGE. Your strategy will include elements such as (using Lou as the example):

Once you’ve created and have begun executing your Pivotal Talent Engagement Strategy, you’ll need to regularly assess your strategy’s effectiveness at an individual level. If you have constructed your Culture of Accountability, the assessment piece is not ‘in addition to’ what you’re already doing as a high performing leader.

If you’d like to receive more information regarding how to identify, assess and retain Pivotal Talent, just let us know!

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (April 2011).

“High performing organizations (HPOs) use information to help people improve by giving people abundant, timely and helpful data about their performance on a regular basis, individually and as a group.” (Harvard Business Review)

We would ask you to consider amending the author’s statement by suggesting that, as leaders, we focus not only on helping our people improve, but helping them optimize their potential. But how does one realistically go about doing that in our running-to-the-next-fire, never-having-the-time-to-take-a-breath, pressure induced leadership lives? The answer – create a Culture of Accountability. Embarking upon this mission certainly takes a bit of strategizing, planning, defining and implementing, but once you start working the puzzle, creating momentum and declaring incremental successes, the inertia becomes self-perpetuating and each building block becomes self-sustaining.

This begs the question…how does one construct a Culture of Accountability? We would suggest the following 12 Critical Steps and have provided a brief explanation of each:

#1: Lead by example

You must demonstrate that you’re accountable to all aspects of exceptional leadership, not just those aspects that are the most desirable to you or that you’re most comfortable with. The sign of a true leader is how you conduct yourself during stressful or difficult situations. If you fight, flee or avoid vs. constructively tackle your responsibilities head on, you will lose your credibility with your customers, colleagues and team. If you fail to hold yourself accountable (which includes you holding your team accountable), you will only get so far in creating a Culture of Accountability. It’s that simple.

#2: Invest the time required

“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice…” (John Burroughs, Essayist) Mr. Burroughs eloquently captured the essence of this step. Enough said.    

#3: Engage your team in architecting and executing your Accountability Strategy

There is no better way to build accountability commitment than to actively engage your team in architecting then executing your Accountability Strategy. Referring back to February’s A-CHIEVE! edition, leaders are more likely to attain their goals when they create a condition where their employees feel that they’re a part of the team, feel that they’re respected and valued and feel that they’re learning and growing. Include them.    

#4: Know what your customers expect

While this concept may seem intuitively obvious to most, it is still elusive to some. We frequently encounter one of three scenarios: 1) teams confuse ‘managing customer expectations’ with ‘making customers happy’; 2) teams are more concerned about their needs vs. their customers’ needs; and 3) teams erroneously project their own needs onto their customers and fail to discover what’s really important to their customers. Find out if your team truly knows what your clients expect. Never assume.

#5: Translate your customers’ expectations into well-defined products/deliverables, services and processes

This isn’t as tricky as it might sound if approached in bite-size pieces. The first place to start is by identifying then defining a handful of key products/deliverables, services and processes that are most critical to your team’s success – as seen through your customers’ eyes. By virtue of identifying the tangibles and processes that enable or yield consistent, positive outcomes or results, you can now establish clear, objective, performance-based expectations. Our best advice here – start simple – don’t boil the ocean.

#6: Establish meaningful product/deliverable, service and process performance targets/measures

The most common mistake we see is that organizations tend to go ‘measurement crazy’ – too many, not the right ones, difficult to track/collect, easy to game, you-name-it – or we see the reverse – nothing can be (or is being) measured. The best way to establish meaningful performance targets is to walk in your customers’ shoes. If the performance target isn’t truly meaningful to your customer, ask yourself “Why are we measuring this – what’s the business value?” If you can legitimately answer that question, great, and if not, don’t measure it.          

#7: Assign the work to those who have the right skills

We totally get it…sometimes you must deal with the cards that you’ve been dealt, and you may not have the right members on your team. The question becomes:

Today you may not have the right talent on your team, but it’s your leadership responsibility to change that. 

#8: Equip your team with the tools to be successful

‘Tools’ covers a broad spectrum and although we’re not a technology software firm, we frequently recommend Microsoft’s SharePoint software to those clients who are intent on creating a Culture of Accountability. The product suite includes value-add features that translate into ‘accountability techniques’, e.g., process workflows and automated forms, alert notifications, built-in service levels and performance dashboards. We’re also a huge fan of ‘managing by exception’ (vs. managing everything) and this tool supports our leadership philosophy. Having specifically designed SharePoint solutions tailored to ‘holding teams accountable’, we ALWAYS recommend that our clients ‘start simple’ when choosing this path. Don’t get overly complex.    

#9: Evaluate the evidence

If you have followed Steps 1-8, you’ll arrive at Step 9 in a great place, meaning, you’ll have the data you need at your fingertips so you can accurately, effectively and objectively evaluate your team. You will be in a position of ‘knowing with certainty’ vs. relying on ‘gut feel’ and others’ perceptions. This is especially important for those of you who have team members who believe that their performance is ‘off the charts’ when it really isn’t. Don’t take anyone’s word for how performance-effective your team members are or aren’t. Let the evidence (data) speak for itself.      

#10: Hold your team accountable

Now that you have the performance evidence, engage in constructive dialogue with your team members throughout the course of the year – not just during 6 and 12-month performance review windows. For those team members that are meeting or exceeding performance targets, look for ways to reward them through professional development and growth venues. Help them achieve their true potential. For those team members that are falling below their targets, find out why and help them move the performance pendulum in the right direction or help them find a ‘right fit’ role within your organization or help them with their exit strategy. The greatest gift you can give to your team members is the gift of honesty. 

#11: Celebrate Successes

For those of you who avoid celebrating successes because you personally don’t need a “thank you for a job well done”,  remember that all people are not created equal in this regard. You will have some team members who quickly move on to the next goal…some who thrive on a simple “thank you”…and some who are counting the days between now and the celebratory party. Remember – this isn’t about you – this is about your team and their needs. Thank them and go celebrate!

#12: Embrace Continuous Improvement

The best way to create a Culture of Accountability is to introduce thoughtful change at a realistic pace . Start simple, gain traction, demonstrate a few wins, then keep on going! The goal is not to take on too much too soon, unintentionally creating chaos, then discover 3-6 months down the road that your team is overwhelmed and has become paralyzed and the great work that you started comes to a screeching halt. “Slow and steady wins the race.” (Aesop, Fabulist)

If you’d like to receive more information regarding how to build a Culture of Accountability including how to leverage our SharePoint Jump-Start© Accountability Program, just let us know!

Check out this article plus more in A-CHIEVE! (April 2011).

• Coach’s Corner where you can submit your questions to our CEO Gwen Walsh, who will personally respond.
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• Our Human Connectedness slidedeck and learn why this topic matters to your organization.

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