DO YOU KNOW HER? A LESSON IN SUCCESSION PLANNING

I always enjoy this time year, the beginning of a calendar, which is usually the beginning of a fiscal year for many companies, where they are finishing up their performance appraisals from last year as well as any strategic planning for the coming year. Part of the strategic plans is taking a more critical look at their succession plans. In the past, succession plans were reserved for senior management, and usually, they were more of ascension plans. In today’s competitive talent world, all positions, specifically those that are critical to running the business must have succession planning efforts placed behind them. With this level of rigor required, many succession planning efforts are usually made by committee. Also, people considered for new positions often have a smaller body of work to show those making succession decisions. This scenario was not the case for senior leadership as most people occupying those positions usually had a much larger body of work for people to feel comfortable about their decisions. Without a large bodywork, many succession planners must rely on their experience and intuition. In today’s modern, and yet litigious world, this is often a very uncomfortable place to reside.

Carly Speaks

Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity to listen to Carly Fiorina, the ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard and most recently a presidential candidate. Regardless what you think about Ms. Fiorina, she certainly does have a large body of work as well as a significant amount of experience. The topic of her discussion was on leadership required for our current society. She spoke about various ideas on modern leadership, but one area caught my attention, and that was of succession planning. Her premise was that modern leaders must have a good understanding of the talent that surrounds them as well as the ability to take notice of the potential. She spent a lot of time talking about how modern leaders must see the possibilities and not the constraints of a situation. She also made an interesting discernment between managers and leaders. She was first careful to say that managers are very much needed, as well as leaders. However, each fulfills a different role. Ms. Fiorina stated, “managers deliver results within the conditions and constraints given, while leaders change the conditions and constraints to deliver the results they need.” Her statement is close to the quote that Peter Drucker stated, “managers do things right, while leaders do the right thing.”

So, what does all this have to do with succession planning? All of this adds up to the preamble of a view on succession planning that Fiorina brought to the talk. Not only do leaders must have an appreciation for the possible but they also must facilitate familiarity. When dealing with lower level positions in an organization that requires succession planning, and usually by committee, the one hindrance for accomplished people to move forward is that they are not familiar to those that make succession decisions. Not only must a leader have an opinion about the potential within someone, but once they see that potential, they must be able to socialize that person to others. Remember, we’re talking about people that do not have a large body of work to rely on, to be noticed.

So, what do we do?

So very often a lot of these famous leaders and executives talk about what someone should do. However, they rarely talk about how to do it. It was interesting that during the speech she addressed that particular issue and said that her practice, as an executive, was to talk about all the people that were in line for succession at the company. Regardless if it was next quarter or five years from now because she felt as if she needed to familiarize everyone with the people queued for upcoming positions. She said they would talk about the person’s current position and their current results as well as skills and potential skills. They talked about both their hard (i.e. technical) and their soft skills (i.e. interpersonal communications). What I then thought about that when she said that this group would meet to talk about these things is that somebody in the group needed to know about the people that they were indeed advocating. This aspect of familiarity is what we often do not address. If we are considering someone for succession, we are placing our vote of confidence as well as our reputation that this person will do what you said they would deliver; that we trust them. Another challenge in the succession planning models of today.

Deutsch, Coleman, and Marcus (2006) state that the erosion of trust equates to missed expectations. It would be reasonable to suggest that to increase trust we must meet or exceed expectations. To test this assumption, we can utilize extreme such as telling a lie. Telling a lie is probably the most extreme way to miss an expectation. I think it’s safe to say that if somebody tells us a lie we probably don’t trust them. However, if someone says that they’re going to do something and does it, it’s fair to say that we have an opportunity to increase our trust for that individual. By connecting the previous discussion on betting our reputation on someone in the organization to advance, we must also be able to trust them.

Putting it all together

Be a leader – See what is possible and seek other’s potential. Don’t work within the constraints and conditions but redefine those constraints and conditions to achieve optimal results.
Invest in others – Understand people’s motivations, desires as well as professional aspirations. Build trust with others through meeting and exceeding their expectations.
Familiarize yourself with others – When you hear people talking about sponsoring others or advocating for someone else what that means is that they are allowing others, in the decision-making process, to familiarize themselves with you. If you are a leader, hold frequent and consistent meetings where the leadership team gets to know everyone else’s protégé.

Looking at your succession efforts, how are you familiarizing yourself with potential successors? Let me know via Twitter @DrTomTonkin — #FiorinaSuccession.

DOES YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL PERSONALITY MATTER?

What does that even mean, organizational personality, and why should we care? If you are concerned about high attrition/low retention in your organization, then this is a “must-read” blog post. See how your organizational personality affects employee engagement.

I was talking with my friend; we will call him Phil, well, that’s because that is his name. He mentioned that he felt that his relationship with his boss was starting to wane. When I asked him what specifically he did to bring their relationship to a standstill, he couldn’t give me more than his perception of who his boss was and not based on anything that his boss did. It was his perception of who his boss was that changed Phil’s engagement. I wonder if this was true of employee engagement. Would an employee engage differently based on their perception of the organization’s personality? Let’s add some science to this discussion.

Are you a ‘Happy’ Organization?

Stephen Linstead and Heather Höpfl (2000), authors of “The Aesthetics of Organization,” suggest that giving human qualities to an organization may give us greater insight to some of the issues we may face with particular talent management concerns. For example, beautiful organizations are found to be attractive and harmonious while ugly organization, the opposite of beauty, are found to be alienating and fake. Comic organizations take deliberate actions to provoke laughter. Unfortunately, comic organizations are born from an unexpected release of fear. Once we have an understanding of different organizational personalities, we may see a metamorphosis. These authors maintain that a comical organization is what happens to an ugly organization when it evolves. Comical organizations are like beautiful ones, however, while beautiful organizations are the opposite of ugly one, a comical one may embrace its ugliness in a charming and self-deprecating way.

If we anthropomorphize organizations (give organizations human qualities), we may be able to diagnose talent attrition issues better and generate better solutions to increase retention. For example, you would not want to hang out with an angry person, would you? They are usually negative and see the glass half empty in almost all topics of conversation. Well, let’s say that your organization is “angry,” and the culture is that of being jaded and sarcastic, you wouldn’t expect people to hang around very long.

Let’s do an exercise right now. How would you describe your organization? What one word captures the personality of your organization? Overbearing? Happy? Joyful? Once you have that word, what “behavioral” evidence (remember, we are anthropomorphizing your organizations) do you have to make your claim? Is it unfair policies? Perhaps an espoused meritocracy that is mostly based on biased practices with little advancement led from effort and accountability. Whatever behaviors may be embedded in your culture, there is something you can do to improve these “personality traits.”

It’s really about culture

I think you guessed it by now that these “personality traits” all transcend into the organizational culture. Organizational culture is all of those shared norms, beliefs and values that linger in the fabric of the organization. Some of these values are embodied in the policies and procedures while others are an unintended consequence of these same policies, procedures and practices.

Edgar Schein, an organizational culture icon and a personal academic hero of mine, suggests that there are three major components in interpreting organizational culture, artifacts, espoused values and basic underlying assumptions (Schein, 2010).

Artifacts – These are the visual organizational structures and processes. These are usually hard to decipher as they are out of context and require us to see the whole picture before we can see their value.
Espoused Values – These are the strategies, goals and philosophies of the organization, the justification for their actions.
Basic Underlying Assumptions – Unconscious, taken for granted beliefs. These are our thoughts and feelings, the ultimate source of our actions.

Let’s get practical

Given these lenses, we can see that an LMS (artifact) does not make a learning organization (espoused values). A performance appraisal process (espoused value) does not make for a fair compensation structure (basic underlying assumption), and mobility applications (artifacts) do not make an organization agile (espoused value). However, they can give us clues on how to potentially make it better.

Years ago, I was working is a midsized organization looking to revamp their performance appraisal process. Their thought was that by instituting a new performance appraisal process, they could drive change into the organization. There is some merit to this thinking if the espoused values and underlying assumptions line up.

When investigating their current state, I saw an existing performance appraisal process that included the necessary forms and other assets (artifact). Sure, it could use some improvement, what performance appraisal process couldn’t use some help? However, when I dug deeper, the sentiment was that performance appraisals were a chore. They barely had them yearly, and the managers that did not do them were put on the dreaded “list.” We all know the “list” (espoused value leading to an underlying assumption, being on the list is bad): The one that goes out to everyone and your boss depicting your insubordination towards the appraisal process (okay, a bit dramatic, but you get the idea). This motivation drove many to do the appraisal motivated by not being on the list as opposed to the benefits of having a productive discussion with your subordinates (espoused value).

There were also unintended consequences to the process. Given that managers did not want to spend any more time than they needed to, all of the assessments of employees landed in the middle of the scale because it was easier and faster than giving specific feedback. The consequence? High performers were not recognized; low performers were given a bye. High performers left as they did not feel valued and low performers stayed and continued to perform the same way since their performance endorsed a standard practice. Okay, how do we fix this?

We need to reframe what we value. In this case, the organization wanted to value talent, and losing talent was a bad thing. So, perhaps connecting the “list,” an espoused value, to losing talent and not to executing on an appraisal process might be a good start. At first, this appears to be a negative approach. However, we’re undergoing a cultural “you’re missing a thesis statement” here. A thesis statement tells the reader what you’re going to say, as well as helps them navigate through the transformation; these steps are just that, steps, and temporal at that, they are not forever. We need to transform the culture one step at a time. Once people do not want to be on the list for losing talent, they will then start to adopt practices that inhibit the loss of good talent like practicing good performance appraisal processes, a consequential benefit.

Three Steps to Adjusting your Organizational Personality

Identify your Organizational Personality and Associated Behaviors – Go through the exercise earlier in the post. What is one word that describes your organizational personality? What behaviors do you see that would give this impression? Are they the policies, procedures and practices themselves, or the unintended consequences from these?
Map these behaviors to the three levels of organizational culture – Some of these behaviors will map to artifacts such as people leaving early (or late). Others will map to espoused values, such as staying off “the list.” Lastly, some of these behaviors are underlying assumptions, such as getting a raise less than 5 percent means I’m not valued.
Work backward and change your assumptions – Many times we start with artifacts, such as purchase an LMS, and assume we will all become great employees. We need to understand the basic underlying assumptions and reframe them so we can transform our culture.

Examine your organizational personality. Can you make it better? You sure can. Let me know via Twitter @DrTomTonkin with the hashtag #OrganizationalPersonality.

References
Linstead, S., & Höpfl, H. (2000). The aesthetics of organization. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

WHAT DO BROKEN WINDOWS AND YOUR LEARNING EXPERIENCE HAVE IN COMMON?

If you are in the learning space and follow the trends as of late, you’ve seen that the market is shifting from a focus on learning management systems to learning experiences. This assertion is not a dismissal of learning management systems, but more so a focus on the experience that a learner may encounter. The fact remains that regardless of focus, we all have experienced learning to some degree. Starting at a very young age, we were given goals and expectations through rote exercises, and as we matured through the educational system, we became familiar with rubrics and lectures. The same can be said for corporate education. When you’re first hired, you were given a set of learning tasks during your onboarding, most likely including compliance training as well as awareness of corporate policy. All of these “experiences” influence the way you perceive learning.

The Tipping Point Theory

In a recent webinar, “Creating the LMS experience: It’s the new way of delivering learning,” my team at Cornerstone tackled the importance of context and how it influences your learning experience. During the webinar, we discussed Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point framework. In essence, the framework answers the question, “How did the popular shoe, Hush Puppies, become a raging sensation in the mid-90s after almost being an extinct product?” Gladwell suggests that there are three components in creating a Tipping Point: “The Law of the Few,” “The Stickiness Factor,” and “The Power of Context.” Because of the complexities of each, we only discussed the second point in the webinar, “The Stickiness Factor.” This component was also one that Gladwell was a bit vague in operationalizing and needed some attention. For the sake of expanding on the entire notion of a learning experience tipping point, this article touches on only the third point, “The Power of Context.” It specifically addresses the theory of the “Broken Windows” and how it applies to the learning experience.

Is It a Crime to Learn?

Gladwell borrows the theory of the “Broken Windows” from criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Killing to frame his “Power of Context” tipping point component. The term, ‘broken windows’ came from the metaphor that suggests that if a window is broken (in a neighborhood) and left unrepaired, those that walk by it conclude that no one cares nor is in charge. From there, anarchy ensues. Wilson and Kelly suggest that crime is a direct result of broken windows.

Gladwell suggests that this is the basis for “The Power of Context” in the Tipping Point and this is something that we can also apply to our learning experience. A very classic example would be that of compliance training. I’m sure all of us have gone through an onboarding process at a new company that requires one to go through compliance training. What images do you have when I say the words “compliance training?” Yes, I thought so. These would be the “broken windows” in a learning experience. Explicitly, if this is the kind of training I can expect for my development, how compelling and engaging will it be? What might other “broken windows” do you have in a new learning experience?

Triadic Reciprocal Causation… Huh?

To best decompose and understand the learning experience in a fundamental and social way, we reach to Albert Bandura’s theory, Triadic Reciprocal Causation: Simply put, the three components that create a social learning experience—person, behavior, environment—all influence each other and create the overall learning experience. It is the quality of each the determines the effectiveness of the experience. Specifically, each of these three components has specific areas for consideration:

Person – Understanding s person’s preferences, intelligence, thoughts, as well as personality, all have influence and how effective they are in their learning.
Behavior – Actions and verbalization, as well as nonverbal actions, influence the person’s learning effectiveness and experience
External environment – The corporate culture as well as physical material and other people have strong persuasive power for the overall learning experience.

Purely from a diagnostic perspective, we should evaluate not only each of these learning experience components, but also how they influence each other. For example, if the person is highly motivated, intelligent and has a personality to learn, but they are embedded in an environment that is not a learning culture and the physical resources are not available, the overall learning experience would be Ineffective.

As a concluding call to action, ay I suggest that you listen to a webinar recording that Brett Wilson, Practice Leader of the Thought Leadership and Strategy group at Cornerstone deliver on this same topic for even greater clarification.

So, given the three components, what would you say is the status of your learning experience? I would like to know, so let’s start the hashtag #LXState and message me @DrTomTonkin.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point : how little things can make a big difference (1st ed.). Boston: Little, Brown.

BUILDING A SELF-DIRECTED ORGANIZATION

There are two critical challenges the modern Chief Learning Officer (CLO) faces. The first is that our educational system continues to manufacture dependent learners or learners that require direction, an authority figure and continuous specific feedback. The second challenge is that most private and public sectors take much of their learning cues from formal educational institutions. Though we are in a stage of focusing on the adult learner, many of the strategies and processes we utilize emanate from traditional educational paradigms.

Dissecting these two issues, we can conclude that they are not sustainable. If organizations need to continue to cater to dependent learners, not only are the learners themselves stagnant, but the company will also be outperformed by those who are less dependent. Second, by continuing to adopt the same educational paradigms, we will continue to enforce the dependent learning habits of our employees, and the cycle will continue.

Breaking the Mold

To break the cycle, the main intervention we need is to understand the self-directed stages of an employee, and how to move the employee through these stages.

Gerald Grow provides a framework for our understanding of how to assess a particular learner and a compatible teacher. I use both ‘learner’ and ‘teacher’ to suggest that these are nominal placeholders for employee and supervisor. The following is a quick summary of each of the stages of Grow’s self-directed learner model.

Stage One – Dependent – A dependent learner is one that requires a very direct set of instructions that usually come through informational lectures and repetitive drills. Dependent learners also expect immediate feedback on their performance, and flourish with a teacher that has authority in the subject matter.
Stage Two – Interested – Interested learners start to understand their purpose for learning but still require guided discussions, as well as specific learning goals. Instead of requiring informational lectures, now they move through inspiring discourses. An interested learner does well when the teacher plays the role of motivator or guide—one that touches on emotional need to learn.
Stage Three – Involved – Involved learners are now maturing in their learning prowess as they have an appreciation for the greater picture of what they’re learning and why. They do well with facilitator/learner discussions as well as group projects. They like their teachers to be more of facilitators that allow learners to be more independent.
Stage Four – Self-Directed – A self-directed learner is one that is capable and motivated to take on whatever is required as it pertains to learning a subject. Often, self-directed learners are lifelong learners that enjoy the learning experience even without purpose; they transcend that need. They enjoy independent study as well as creating work products such as white papers. They do well with teachers that are more consultants and resources.

Understanding each one of these stages helps us, subjectively, qualify ourselves as well as others around us to a learning stage. The interesting thing about self-directed skills is that they are not immutable. We can shape people to become more self-directed. I would also place an extra word of caution, as the goal is not to necessarily reach stage four for any given individual, but for them to be able to improve and maximize their potential. Moving from stage one to stage two is a huge accomplishment and should be celebrated.

A corollary to this relationship between the learner and the teacher explains why some employees flourish better under one leader versus another. The key takeaway to this corollary is that we must understand how to best align our learner to the teacher, or at least the teacher’s behavior, as it comes to leading the employee. A dependent learner that has a teacher that is more of a consultant will not perform well and ultimately will become discouraged, making the teacher frustrated as well. That relationship would suffer, and the performance of the employee would never materialize. Aligning teacher-learner expectations is the key to improving overall organizational performance.

Intervention in Practice

It’s fair to state that I will not have enough time to develop a comprehensive intervention plan to overcome learning dependency; however, I can provide a few areas for consideration for those that are looking to move to a more independent learning structure.

Assessment – Self-direction is something that is not only observable, but also quantitatively measurable. Thus, I would suggest assessing everyone in your organization so that they may understand their particular learning dependency style. There are several good assessments on the market.
Intervention – Through detailed research in this topic area, we know that the number one way to ameliorate the dependent learner state is to equip line managers. Thus, you should institute a training curriculum that allows the manager to identify each employee’s self-directed state and to provide the guidance and support needed to move an employee to higher levels of self-direction.
Development Plans – Lastly, each employee should have a self-directed development plan that helps the employee understand how to learn better, not necessarily what to learn. Most corporate training development plans lead to special content matters as well as subject areas for improvement. Those are certainly necessary; however, tailoring the delivery can improve the employee’s self-directed skills.

UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

For the last several years, I have presented numerous times on the topic of employee engagement because it continues to be a topic of interest. Like anything else that you immerse yourself in, I have learned much and continue to notice specific patterns emerging in the industry. Engagement continues to be a challenge to solve, yet I would suggest that within the confines of this blog post, we might find some answers. Curious? Read on.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Going back to the late 1970s/early 1980’s this same question came about: what are the behaviors that employees exhibit such that an organization could flourish? In a 1983 research article in the Journal of Applied Psychology by Smith, Organ and Near, researchers answered that question, and uncovered behaviors they named Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (yes, a mouthful). Organizational Citizenship Behaviors or OCBs, for short, are behaviors that are exhibited by employees during their job and throughout their career. Smith and friends found two specific OCBs: compliant behaviors and altruistic behaviors. Compliant behaviors are those that describe your job description. They are the behaviors required of you to keep your job and are socially expected. For example, being punctual is a compliant behavior as you are expected to be on time for work and deliver your projects on time. Altruistic behaviors, on the other hand, are those behaviors that are not expected from you. They are not part of your job description. An example of altruistic behavior is helping someone else finish their project or mentoring someone in their new job role.

Somewhere along the line, the term engagement replaced the term OCB. I understand why—OCBs sounds rather academic and doesn’t flow nicely. However, with that replacement, I also believe we lost some of the term’s meaning and power. If we were to connect the industry definition of “engagement” with the definition of OCBs, I would think we are talking about altruistic behaviors, or maybe exceptionally performing your compliant behaviors. Josh Bersin operationally defines engagement as what one does with their discretionary time, which is the closest definition to the original one.

So What?

It’s nice to know these things, but as talent management practitioners, how can this be helpful to us? I can assure you there are many research articles and studies that provide some clear views on this topic as to how it can help organizations thrive. Many assessments will measure the type of behavior employees exhibit in organizations as well as other studies that have taken these two types of behavior and expanded them into more specific categories. There are entire consulting organizations devoted to this area. Yet, for this blog post, I conducted my own study, right here, at Cornerstone.

Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges

Here, at Cornerstone, we have the functionality (in our product) to provide badges, or public recognition for a job well done. To the naked eye, it appears to be a morale booster based on social ideals. Specifically, it’s a feed found in your universal profile that colleagues can access and leave a comment. Mechanically, your superior is notified by email, and there is a record of the positive feedback in your performance file. It seems like it’s a good idea overall; however, I would suggest that this strategy is the key to growing and developing our organization and it could be yours as well.

Drinking Our Own Champagne

Since this is a public view, I took the liberty of sampling over 100 employees (randomly) and counting how many badges they earned and categorizing them by either compliant behavior or altruistic behaviors (each badge usually comes with a description of work done from the person giving the badge to the recipient). I categorized compliant behaviors with comments that describe their actions as fulfilling their job. Often these comments spoke about how well they did their job; nevertheless, it was all about doing their job. On the other hand, altruistic behaviors addressed those actions that had nothing to do with their job on a day-to-day basis. For example, presenting on a topic during our Development Day (Cornerstone’s employee development day) certainly qualifies as altruistic behavior. I also captured the employee’s region, their function (i.e., sales), what date they received their badge and their start date with Cornerstone. These are all public attributes in their universal profile, and I wanted to see if any of these items affected their compliant versus altruistic behaviors.

What Did I Find?

At first glance, I found some not-so-startling results. For example, people whose tenure was longer had more badges, attributable to time in the company. Another not-so-riveting finding was that people that worked together often on projects gave each other badges more often than those who didn’t work together (however, more on that latert).

Then came some subtle, but more useful findings. For example, shortly after Development Day, those that presented and earned an altruistic badge often received a compliance badge shortly thereafter (a pattern), suggesting that people that exhibited altruistic behaviors got better at their ‘day jobs’, or maybe they were recognized for being altruistic, which we know increases employee satisfaction (both the recognition and the ability to do what they love). Another interesting finding was that those employees that had what we call high social equity (employees are often seen in the limelight for consistent, overachieving performance), had more altruistic badges than compliance badges.

This finding may suggest that people that are looking to solve problems, regardless of their job description, are more valuable to the organization and their peers than if they were just doing their job. After all, one does not achieve high social equity without the performance to back it. Understanding these cause and effect relationships (arguably, we need to do some more studying) helps us to create more employee engagement programs that induce altruistic behaviors and, therefore, their associated benefits.

How Else Could You Use This Information?

Doing a similar analysis could yield several other factors that would help in your talent management strategies. Below is a set of talent strategies that I also categorized by either organizational goal or talent goal.

Is there a theme to the altruistic efforts? Maybe there is a job function being underserved/underutilized that would optimize your performance. (Organizational Goal: Recruiting)
Does an individual employee exhibit exceptional skill outside of their job description that would be helpful to others in the organization as well as to the organization? (Organizational Goal: Talent Mobility)
If this latent skill is something that the individual wants to do, maybe you can incorporate it into their job description. (Talent Goal: Employee Satisfaction)
If this skill demands a full-time job, maybe moving that person into a new role may increase their engagement. (Talent Goal: Career Mobility)

There are probably many other areas that we could explore with this paradigm, but the moral of this story is that a small change in how we see and act on employee engagement may have a tremendous and lasting impact on the organization and its employees.

TOWARD GENDER DIVERSITY: MEN AND WOMEN ARE EQUAL, BUT NOT THE SAME

The gender diversity discussion continues. It also appears that everyone, men and women, want to solve the inequality problem. I sincerely believe that we do; however, before we can solve this problem, we must first must define the problem.

You see, I believe we have a fundamental, semantic problem that needs exposure before proceeding. Men and women are equal, but not the same.

Rethinking Our Conversations About Equality

The idea of ‘sameness’ suggests that two or more people (or things) are identical, while equality addresses the fact that two or more people (or things) are identical in quantity, size, degree, or value. In the case of gender equality, we are talking about men and women being identical in value. Yet, it is fair to say that men and women are not the same, identical. We certainly are not physically the same. We are not emotionally the same and many other areas. We are different, but we are equal in value.

In discussion, we often intermingle these two terms, equality and ‘sameness’. When women hear men say that women are not the same, they most likely hear that they are not equal, therefore hearing that they are less valued. Men, on the other hand, hear from women that they want to be treated as equal, however, filtering that are ‘the same’. The cycle goes on, over and over. We are not in synch with our language. To exacerbate the issue, women believe that they need to be ‘the same’ to compete with men. They start to behave in unnatural ways (un feminine or more masculine) to keep up with men. Some male leaders support this action as it is easier to deal with another person, male or female, that is similar to them. After all, we like to hang out with people that are the same as we are. Again, this sends out mixed signals to those that are trying to ‘play the game’.

Gendered Differences in Networking

Specifically connecting this notion to that of networking, brings about a renewed discussion. Women and men will network differently (not the same), but can achieve an ‘equal’ result. This is best measured based on an outcome and not process; based on results and not effort. If you have followed any of the networking gurus, you know that networking should be intentional, with purpose, to achieve a goal. If we connect our networking to a desired outcome, we will see that both men and women can achieve via different methods.

In a recent study that I personally conducted and is in the midst of being published, I uncovered ten essential dimensions to networking. This same study concluded that the outcome of these ten dimensions were not gender sensitive, however, the road to results did suggest gender differences. One of these dimensions was the level of diversity in one’s network: The more diverse the network, the greater is its associated effectiveness to achieving the desired outcome. This diversity came in two flavors, demographic and professional. Demographic diversity suggests categories such as gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic factors, while professional diversity suggests categories such as vertical industry (i.e. Healthcare), levels (i.e. CEO), and tenure. One of the main reasons to network is to achieve greater levels of performance, whether for ourselves or that of the company. If that is the case, then let’s put this idea to the test.

For example, in another study that I conducted and published[1] found that a woman’s locus of control is statistically significantly lower than a man’s LOC. Specifically, women believe that they have less control over their circumstances than men. Given this premise, women tend to network in smaller groups and seek other women that have the same value systems as they do; however, men are shallower in their networking and see the practice of networking as a way of getting ahead and aren’t too concerned with matching value systems, therefore are more successful when networking in larger conferences.

Embracing Gender Diversity to Drive Innovation

One of the last bastions of competitive advantage is that of innovation. Everett Rogers, well known innovation expert and author of the seminal book, The Diffusion of Innovation, suggests that there are two essential and critical ingredients to successful innovation, diversity of thinking, and group communications. At face value, this appears to be a simple task, however, with further examination, we find this to be much more difficult to attain. The challenge here is that people that are diverse in thinking do not ‘hang out’ together since we, as humans, have a tendency to fraternize with people like ourselves. We tend to bond with those that are like ourselves and it’s that same bonding that gives us great group communications. Conversely, groups that are highly diverse are challenged to communicate by the simple reason that they are diverse, they have different value systems, backgrounds and aspirations. Bottom line, in general, diverse groups have poor communications and groups that communicate well have little diversity.

Many leaders, both male and female, are missing a tremendous opportunity for greater performance in their organizations, by not nurturing diversity. Leaders must embrace and encourage diversity by creating a platform and infrastructure to nurture and grow diversity. It’s fair to state that the first and most powerful area for diversification is that of gender diversity. Gender diversity starts with the understanding that men and women are equal in value, but not the same.

I look forward to your comments and interactions below. You may also connect with via LinkedIn or Twitter, @DrTomTonkin.

[1] Tonkin, T., (2013). The Effects of Locus of Control and Gender on Implicit Leadership Perception. International Leadership Association (ILA) Women and Leadership Affinity Group Inaugural Conference, 2013 Conference Proceedings Pacific Grove, CA

CHANGE IS COMING TO YOUR COMPANY—HERE’S HOW TO PREPARE

Every company, across industries, of all sizes, is exposed to disruption. According to research from NextGen Personal Finance, the accelerating pace of change is decreasing the average lifespan of most companies. Some predict 50% of the S&P 500 will be replaced in the next decade.

This disruption can come from a variety of places, with common catalysts being mergers and acquisitions, technology and regulatory changes. But no matter what prompts the change or transformation, adapting is challenging for any company. There’s a famous statistic that 70% of all change initiatives fail due to employee resistance and a lack of support from management. Making a successful change, therefore requires improving in those areas.

Enter: Dr. Tom Tonkin is a Senior Principal with Cornerstone’s Thought Leadership & Advisory Services department and an expert on change management. He has been helping companies navigate it for over a decade.

“We all should have some understanding of people’s behavior and change, no matter what job we do,” Tonkin says.

With 2020 set to see even more disruption, we asked Dr. Tonkin to share some of his learnings about why change initiatives fail and how a different mindset can lead to better outcomes.

Let’s start with that data point: that 70% or more of change initiatives fail. What are companies getting wrong?

That number has been around for decades. The first reason people get it wrong is because they fail to see that change is a people thing. The second reason is they approach it with the wrong mindset. Instead of being prepared that something probably is going to go wrong—and they just have to figure it out and communicate it and get through it— they fold their arms and say, ‘I can’t believe this happened,’ and get outraged and start blaming people.

You also say that people tend to mistake—or not know the difference between—change and transformation. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Some of my customers try to give me a 64 page transformation plan. And I tell them no, that is a change plan. Change is just doing things better, faster, cheaper. You’re going down a pretty well-known path so you can plan out every single step.

A transformation plan is closer to three pages because you likely know the first two or three steps, but after that it’s kind of fuzzy. You’re just going to have to work it out when you get there. Usually, the reason people will transform is because the pain of remaining the same is greater than moving to something different. That’s the only time you’ll actually change into something else, or transform into something else. That’s true for organizations. If I’m hemorrhaging my revenue, and I am losing in the competitive environment. Doing stuff faster and cheaper and better is not going to be able to help me.

What’s your advice for executives leading these initiatives—whether it’s a change initiative or a complete transformation?

We often say things in business, “Then the organization struggled,” or, “The company was lacking skill.” But that’s a mischaracterization. The accountability and responsibility is abstracted away. Organizations don’t struggle, people struggle. People lack skills. And companies don’t change or transform—people do.

My clients will come to me and they’ll say something like: “And then we had a bad quarter, and then I was just really upset.” I stop and I ask them, “Well what was it about your leadership that made that happen?” Their first reaction is like I’m blaming them. But the reality is the minute you push off the blame or try to rationalize something, not only have you pushed off the blame, but you’ve also pushed off the solution. As a leader, that’s not where you want to be. If you take the culpability, what you’re also doing is you’re taking on the ability to solve the problem too.

If business leaders don’t necessarily know how they’re going to transform, how should they be preparing for a potential transformation?

The best time to start a transformation is when there’s no need to. When your margins are good, when things are happening, when your clients are happy, and you have some foresight. That’s when to start thinking about doing something different.

Think about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly: Before the caterpillar goes into the cocoon, it eats a lot to get all of that energy to go through the process. Sometimes what I’ve seen is, people can’t go through a transformation because they run out of resources. They run out of time, they run out of money. Then all of a sudden, it’s like, well, we failed in the transformation. Well, I don’t know if you failed in the transformation as much as you weren’t prepared for one.

What do you find is the most impactful for helping executives rethink their approach to change and transformation?

Most people approach change initiatives like okay, I’ve got these plans, I’ve got this Gantt chart and I’ve got all of these documents and communication plans—we’re going to do this right. The minute you come to the appreciation that guess what, we’re people. We have different expectations; we have innovators and laggards. We’re probably going to land on some challenges that we’re going to have to deal with. The minute you land there you’re going to be successful. It’s really hard to land there, because you have to admit to yourself and to everybody around you that something’s going to go wrong.

For more advice from Dr. Tonkin and other HR leaders about how to manage change and transformation at your company, download Cornerstone’s 2020 Transformation Guidebook here.

Making the Most of Your Campus Visit

Visiting a college is the most effective way to learn about campus culture and student life. Want to make the most out of your college visits? Take the time to meet as many people as possible, and check out everything from the dorms to the dining halls.

Here is our campus visit checklist:

Explore the Campus

Take a college tour
Interview with an admissions officer
Sit in on a class that interests you
Talk to current students about what they like and dislike about the school
Visit the freshman dorms, bookstore, career center, and dining halls
Walk or drive around the town or city where the college is located

Student Life

Find out if students primarily live on campus or off campus
Scan bulletin boards to learn about campus life
Visit the school’s website to find events and activities
Read the student newspaper and any campus blogs
See what students and graduates are saying on the college’s social media pages

Access to Professors

Ask if your professors host office hours
Inquire about the professor-student ratio, ask about TA support and qualifications
Find out how many students participate in research during their undergrad experience
Meet a professor who teaches in a subject that interests you

Experiential Learning & Career Advising

Learn what percentage of undergraduate students gain internships
Find out if there are scholarships/fellowships available for summer or post-graduate opportunities
Find out how many classes provide out-of-the classroom learning opportunities

Financial Support

Learn about available scholarships
Pick up financial aid forms

Food on campus

Sample the offerings! Dine on campus
Find out how many eateries are on campus

List of Hot Jobs You Can Land with a Finance Degree

The financial services field is a great option for individuals who have a passion for numbers and helping people. Having the right career information about possible professional paths can help you determine if the industry is right for you and which job you should consider. Below is some key information about some of the most common financial services jobs you can get with an associate degree in Financial Support Services.

Sales Agent in Financial Services – Working directly with clients is a big part of this job. Your title might be client manager, financial services representative, financial specialist, investment officer, personal banker, relationship manager or another option but your main duty will be to determine the financial services needs of the client and recommend a solution. Additional responsibilities could include reviewing business trends to advise a client on future fluctuations, making presentations on financial services to attract new clients and preparing forms or agreements to finalize the sale of a financial service product. Strong verbal skills, customer service, critical thinking and persuasion are all part of this career. Additionally, you will want to be sure you have a good grasp on math, principles of economics and accounting, and sales and marketing. Many of the positions in this career require an associate’s financial services degree or an equivalent associates degree. The national median salary is $71,720.

Financial Manager – In this role, you might manage and facilitate the activities in a branch, office or department. There is some flexibility in work environment as financial managers are found in banks, brokerage firms, risk and insurance departments and credit departments. Financial managers earn a national average of $109,740 depending upon their experience levels, work setting, geographic location and other factors. Some of your daily duties could include establishing and maintaining customer relationships, processing loan applications, recruiting staff members, establishing procedures for custody or control of assets, records, loan collateral, or securities to ensure safekeeping, or preparing financial and regulatory reports in accordance with established laws and regulations. To handle these responsibilities successfully, financial managers need a background in human resources, accounting, economics, mathematics, sales and marketing, in addition to having a variety of soft skills related to being a good manager. A good option to earn these qualifications is completing a bachelors degree in finance, especially since employers often require a degree.

Personal Financial Advisor – As Baby Boomers approach retirement, the career field of personal finance could be a rewarding and growing area. You will advise people on financial plans, including cash management, insurance coverage, investment planning, or other areas that help them achieve their financial goals. As a personal financial advisor you will also evaluate clients based on their current income, expenses, insurance coverage, tax status, financial objectives, risk tolerance and other information to create a financial plan for them. After creating the plan you may meet with clients regularly to assess whether life changes, economic changes, environmental concerns, or financial performance necessitate a shift in the plan. Since you are dealing with customers regularly, having strong interpersonal skills is key. Having a deep background in business, accounting and finance and being well rounded educationally are also important. Many employers will require you to have a bachelor’s degree in order to be considered qualified. Nationally, the average income for a personal financial advisor is $67,520 yearly.

If you are interested in enrolling in a degree program that will set you on the path for one of these careers, contact Bryant & Stratton College. An admissions representative can tell you more about our degrees in financial support. You can learn more by calling 1.888.447.3528.

Get Rid of That Boring Resume

Stuck in a resume rut? If you’re using the same resume over and over and over blank resume template and only updating your most current job, your resume is probably boring! Here are three ways to breathe new life into it right now.

1. Walk in the resume reviewer’s shoes.

It’s very possible that the person reading your resume is not someone who is an expert at it and may not even want to be the one reading it at all. He or she may be a department manager who has a vacancy and wants to hire someone fast so he can get back to managing a sales team or leading an IT project. Faced with a stack of hundreds of resumes for one position, he may only review each one for 15-30 seconds. So, boring isn’t going to fly.

“The ones that are easy to read and stick out from the others are usually the ones that get a call or inquiry,” said Danyelle Little, editor-in-chief of TheCubicleChick.com.

2. Start with a professional profile.

Personal branding is critical. As a job searcher you must be aware of, and more importantly communicate to employers, who you are and what you have to offer that is unique to you and relevant to them. A well-written and focused resume can do just that. Rather than starting with an objective statement that says Here’s what I want, consider starting with a professional profile that answers the question Why should I hire you?

Summarize in 3-5 bullets why YOU are THE person for THIS job. Include how much experience you have in the field, what job-specific knowledge or skills you bring to the table, and industry-specific awards, certifications and professional memberships. Remember it’s only a few lines, make them count!

3. Focus on your own unique results.

Once the personal brand is established, present clear and consistent evidence of being who you say you are and having delivered to past employers what this employer needs most. You don’t necessarily have to start all over creating content. Give your current content the once over, one sentence at a time.

Ask yourself, besides key words for the job, have I mentioned the challenges I faced based on my experience and work environments? Does every sentence begin with an action verb? Have I specified how much, how many, how often, and other quantifiers that make my accomplishments unique and not something that will be read in any generic job description or in the next three resumes? Instead of listing the usual skills to put on a resume like this list below, include examples of how you use these skills:

Analytical/Research Skills
Interpersonal Abilities
Communications Skills
Leadership/Management Skills
Planning/Organizing

A better list would be more like:

Analyzed and researched top ways to …
Coordinated with co-workers to create …
Communicated with clients on …
Lead a team of …
Planned and organized the…

“Don’t pad your resume with buzzwords and fillers. HR and hiring managers read right through that. Instead, stick with meaty content that keeps the reader interested in learning more about you,” said Little, who has worked as a brand ambassador with Toyota, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Verizon and T-mobile. “It’s the results and accomplishments that get their attention.”

Bryant & Stratton College offers career resources to students as well as professional development courses. Contact the Admissions office or, if you are already a student, check out the Career Resources section of our website.

DEAR REWORKER: MY COWORKER THINKS HE IS THE VOICE OF HR

Dear ReWorker,

We are a small company. We have no HR department, but we do have a jerk. A jerk who is a director and has decided that he is the voice of HR. Nobody appointed him to this role.

He frequently dips snuff at his desk, which is a shared table with eight coworkers. He throws temper tantrums exactly like a three year old, ranting and cursing at employees and vendors alike. He\’s a serious liability to the team.

His behavior needs to be curtailed ASAP. He does not report to me, so my hands are tied. He is wise enough to change his tune when senior management is in the office. Do you have any helpful suggestions? If only we could hire an HR person!

Sincerely,

Had Enough

___________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Had Enough,

While it\’s true that a great HR person—who can leap tall buildings with a single bound and enforce the dress code on the way up—could handle this guy pretty easily, that great HR person is pretty mythical. Someone who is good at bamboozling senior management is likely to be pretty talented at hiding his bad behavior from HR as well.

While you don\’t have an HR person, you do have yourself—and sometimes that is enough. Let\’s start with the snuff dipping. First, go to him privately and ask him to stop doing it at the table. If he refuses, every time after that, just say, \”John, you need to do that outside. It\’s disruptive and unsanitary.\”

When he points out that it isn\’t cigarette smoke, and you shouldn\’t be offended by it, just calmly repeat that it isn\’t appropriate for the office setting. Your co-workers will likely join in. The fear people often face, when attempting to call out co-workers for inappropriate behavior is that the tables will be turned and they\’ll get in trouble for nagging—or worse, bullying. But if the behavior is truly inappropriate, your actions can be clearly explained to senior management as valid requests.

The temper tantrums should be reported to senior management. You\’re right—they are damaging, not only to employee morale but to your vendor relationships. So, first report the problem. Second, walk away when he starts his temper tantrums and ask your co-workers to come with you.

Big picture: Don\’t let a toxic employee ruin your job, but more importantly, don\’t let it ruin your business. Involve senior management if having a crucial conversation with the employee himself doesn\’t work. A healthy work environment should be one of their foremost concerns.

Your ReWorker,

Staff Spotlight: Senior Admissions Representative Elizabeth Evans

Sometimes things around the office can get a little hectic, especially for our admissions team.

Between helping students get into class, speaking with interested students who are ready to enroll and handling any other responsibilities each day, our admissions representatives have a lot on their plates.

That’s why Senior Admissions Representative Elizabeth Evans can be found at the river by her house from spring to fall relaxing with a fishing pole in the water.

“I love to go fishing,” she said. “Well, I love to sit on the bank and pretend I know how to fish. There’s something relaxing about ending the day watching the sun set over the river.”

Elizabeth also shares something in common with each and every one of our online students, she took online classes with Bryant & Stratton College as well. She enrolled in a Paralegal Certificate program just over a year-and-a-half ago and lived the life of an online student as she worked towards completion.

Of the many lessons she learned, the one that stood out the most to her was the importance of knowing your day-to-day schedule each week. She noted that having a plan of attack for each day and week will ensure that you manage your time properly and get all of your work done in a timely manner.

“As an online student you’re faced with new tasks and responsibilities that you didn’t have previously,” she said. “But if you’re prepared from the get-go, you’ll know exactly when you will have time to get work done and will be set up for success.”

Elizabeth’s first-hand experience as an online student has paid off in each and every relationship she forms with students. She said that working closely with her students is her favorite part of her job and playing such a large role in a stranger’s life is extremely rewarding.

For over three years Elizabeth has been helping guide students towards their educational goals. Hopefully you’ll have a chance to build a relationship with her just like so many students before you.

Alpha! Bravo! Charlie! Ed Dennis Joins IAVA\’s Storm the Hill teams fight to end veteran unemployment.

Ed participated in the 2011 Storm the Hill as an individual veteran, not as a representative of the College. He was part of a select group chosen from hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans across the country that applied to participate in Storm the Hill 2011. The group was made up of individuals with a diverse array of military service and personal experience who offered lawmakers a unique understanding of the issues facing the veterans’ community. Bryant & Stratton College Online is proud of his dedication to the veterans’ community as well as active-duty and military students. Read more about his Storm the Hill 2011 experience below.

I just returned from actively participating in Storm the Hill 2011: (www.stormthehill.org) which is sponsored by IAVA, a non-profit and non-partisan organization dedicated to improving the lives of today’s veterans, as part of an advocacy team focused on veterans’ employment issues. In 2010, the unemployment rate for veterans was 11.6 percent, compared to the national average of 9.7 percent.

The event discussed IAVA’s 2011 Policy Agenda, which addressed the most urgent challenges facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families. IAVA annually surveys 90,000 Member Veterans and drafted the priorities from the survey results as well as in coordination with partner Veterans Service Organizations and community-based nonprofits nationwide. As an Iraq war veteran, I feel fortunate to have participated in this great event to increase awareness with our nation’s leaders about the unemployment challenges facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Times are tough for everyone, but veterans are more likely to be unemployed than Americans as a whole. Education and employment opportunities are essential for today’s veterans to be the next ‘Greatest Generation.’ Unfortunately veteran unemployment has been above the national average for a couple of years. If this trending in the unemployment rate continues, we will fall behind our peers and the leadership and management abilities gained by those who served our country won’t be maximized in order to take America out of our current financial crisis. – Ed Dennis , Military Relations Manager

Storm the Hill 2011 on YouTube: The Thunder Rolls

Alpha! Bravo! Charlie! Ed Dennis Joins IAVA\’s Storm the Hill teams fight to end veteran unemployment.

Storm the Hill 2011 on YouTube: The Thunder Rolls

Alpha! Bravo! Charlie! Ed Dennis Joins IAVA\’s Storm the Hill teams fight to end veteran unemployment.

Storm the Hill 2011 on YouTube: The Thunder Rolls

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Carly Speaks

So, what do we do?

Putting it all together

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Are you a ‘Happy’ Organization?

It’s really about culture

Let’s get practical

Three Steps to Adjusting your Organizational Personality

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The Tipping Point Theory

Is It a Crime to Learn?

Triadic Reciprocal Causation… Huh?

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Breaking the Mold

Intervention in Practice

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Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

So What?

Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges

Drinking Our Own Champagne

What Did I Find?

How Else Could You Use This Information?

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Rethinking Our Conversations About Equality

Gendered Differences in Networking

Embracing Gender Diversity to Drive Innovation

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Let’s start with that data point: that 70% or more of change initiatives fail. What are companies getting wrong?

You also say that people tend to mistake—or not know the difference between—change and transformation. Can you talk a little bit about that?

What’s your advice for executives leading these initiatives—whether it’s a change initiative or a complete transformation?

If business leaders don’t necessarily know how they’re going to transform, how should they be preparing for a potential transformation?

What do you find is the most impactful for helping executives rethink their approach to change and transformation?

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Here is our campus visit checklist:

Explore the Campus

Student Life

Access to Professors

Experiential Learning & Career Advising

Financial Support

Food on campus

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