Category: Blog | Page 20 | Mariposa Leadership

March 14, 2013 / Blog / HR / Talent Management

Managing Up: Stepping Into Your Boss’s Shoes

One of the most potentially challenging communication situations is the one between manager and employee. Different perspectives can emerge due to hierarchy, accountability, and unclear expectations. Sometimes the key to finding common ground between you and your manager is to change your perspective – to step in your boss’s shoes.

Imagine for a moment what it would be like if…

you had to always keep the whole team in mind?
you needed to think about the budget more carefully?
you had to think about managing your boss’s boss?
you were to remain sensitive to larger internal and external factors impacting decisions?
you were the person who takes the hit if things go wrong?

What would you do differently in how you manage up with this new point of view?

Now take off your boss’s shoes and step back into your own. How can you be a more effective partner with your boss? Effective communication starts with a step back and then strides forward. The better you can relate to the conditions you and your boss face, the more successful the outcomes will be for your boss, for you, and for the team.

About the author:

Patrick Reilly, M.S., is the President Resources In Action, Inc. and an Executive Leadership Coach for Mariposa Leadership, Inc. For more interesting articles and blogs by Patrick, visit www.resourcesinaction.com.

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March 14th, 2013|Categories: Blog, HR / Talent Management|Tags: business, communication, effective leadership, HR Leade, leadership, manager employee relationship, Mariposa Leadership, Patrick Reilly, professional development|

March 12, 2013 / Ask Mariposa / HR / Talent Management

Ask Mariposa: Developing Executive Presence

Susan asks: I’ve been told I need to develop “executive presence”. What does that really mean and how do I go about it?

Edie Heilman, Executive Leadership Coach responded:

Quite often the missing piece in successful leadership is the nebulous “executive presence”. A very bright person with impressive technical accomplishments can often get stalled professionally if there’s the perception that s/he isn’t looking or sounding like other leaders at the company.

A great place to start is to look at the leadership team and those who are advancing and ask yourself “what differentiates them besides their work record?” Most successful business people have strong social intelligence skills. These skills include self-confidence, great communications skills, the ability to read others and empathy. Even these days, there can also be expectations about attire. Once you get clear about the leader profile at your company, you can determine how to further develop your own authentic “presence.” Engage your boss (or whomever gave you the feedback) in the process by telling them about the specific things you are trying and ask for on-going observations. Experiment, get feedback, try again!

To learn more, explore Daniel Goleman’s writings, like the classic HBR article “Social Intelligence Biology”. I also recommend Executive Presence by Harrison Monarth.

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March 12th, 2013|Categories: Ask Mariposa, HR / Talent Management|Tags: ask mariposa, communication, Daniel Goleman, Edie Heilman, executive coaching, executive presence, HR Leade, leaders, Mariposa Leadership|

March 4, 2013 / Book Reviews / Strategy / Wise Talk

Book Review: Playing to Win

Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works
By A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin

Head: (4 out of 5)
Heart: (3.5 out of 5)
Leadership Applicability: (4.5 out of 5)

In Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, authors A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin draw from their years of experience working at Proctor & Gamble and the Rotman School of Management to explain the strategy behind one of the most successful corporate turnarounds of the century. They address how leaders of companies, big and small, can use simple techniques in their own organizations. The authors set out to right the wrong thinking about strategy.

Strategy is not about having a vision, and it’s not about having a plan. For the authors it is about winning. Winning requires a strategy that is managed and joined by a set of five questions. Playing to Win provides a provocative definition of strategy as the answer to these five questions – the same five questions no matter what your industry, size or situation:

What is our winning aspiration?
Where will we play?
How will we win?
What capabilities must we have in place to win?
What management systems are required to support our choices?

Strategy is boiled down to two key factors: 1) Where to play? and 2) How to win? “These two choices,” write Martin and Lafley, “are tightly bound up with one another, form the very heart of strategy and are the two most critical questions in strategy formulation.” Playing To Win answers these questions in a winning way through a simple framework that’s both easy to understand, use, and makes it accessible to all.

Strategy begins with making choices and tough decisions. If this does not happen, you will never have a genuine strategy. But as the book points out, developing a strategy is not difficult, provided that those involved are prepared to address key questions and welcome a diversity of views to identify the best direction for the business. Buy it

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March 4th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews, Strategy, Wise Talk|Tags: leadership, Mariposa Leadership, playing to win, Roger Martin, Strategy, wise talk|

February 21, 2013 / Articles We Like / Coaching Skills / HR / Talent Management / Strategy

How to Create a Memorable Employee Recognition Program

Good business practice involves appreciating and recognizing your employees. Although appreciation should be a natural activity for anyone, the truth is we all have different ways of giving and receiving gifts and appreciation. Some like verbal appreciation, while others like having an extra vacation day. Either way, employes want personal recognition, instead of a standard gift for all. So if you’re not careful, a thoughtless gift may actually backfire on you.

OC Tanner recently commissioned a study conducted by The Cicero Group entitled Optimizing Employee Recognition Programs. This study aimed to discover if awards are a viable form of employee recognition, and if so, whether cash works better than award items.

If your organization is looking to implement an effective employee reward system, I highly recommend reading this entire study as the six pages highlight some interesting findings. The statistics can come in handy when rationalizing employee reward programs to upper management.

The key takeaways for employee recognition programs are:

Award items are better than cash bonuses at contributing to the recognition experience.
Award items should be geared toward desire versus need. If cash is given, it will likely be spent on “need” items, such as bills. Therefore employees will likely forget about the recognition much faster than a more personalized award.
Though you may be rewarding employees with a tangible reward, verbal expressions of appreciation further augment and reinforce recognition and can “increase the degree of effectiveness by roughly 50 percent”.
Create a “tailored selection” of reward items that are unique and personal. This tells the employee that you took the time to offer something of value.

About the author:

Anne Loehr is the President of Anne Loehr and Associates, co-founder of Safaris for the Soul, and an Executive Leadership Coach for Mariposa Leadership, Inc. For more good reads, visit Anne Loehr’s personal blog at: www.anneloehr.com/blog/.

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February 21st, 2013|Categories: Articles We Like, Coaching Skills, HR / Talent Management, Strategy|Tags: Anne Loehr, employee recognition, HR Leade, leadership, Mariposa Leadership|

February 19, 2013 / Ask Mariposa / Coaching Skills / HR / Talent Management

Ask Mariposa: Team Listening Skills

Drew asked:

The CFO of our company is technically fantastic at her job, yet I am hearing from her team that morale is down because she is not that open minded and doesn’t listen well. What are some things she can do?

Barbara Baill, Senior Leadership Consultant responded:

Drew,

It’s great that your CFO has the technical component of the job down. Next, she needs to understand that the leadership components of her role are equally important. This is a common challenge for many who come to a leadership role through their technical expertise. Daniel Goleman, famous for his research in emotional intelligence, has identified that emotional intelligence is critical to effective leadership (refer to HBR, “What Makes A Leader”, Daniel Goleman, November-December 1998). He has identified five components for emotional intelligence for effective leaders: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. It sounds like your CFO could benefit from developing the capacity to show more empathy and build more rapport (social skills) with her people through active listening.

Your coaching of her will be key to her continued growth as a leader. Specifically, first give her straight and compassionate feedback. Appreciate the value of her technical expertise to the business. Second, explain her next opportunity for growth is as a leader of her team. As part of this, she will need to spend more team listening to her team in a way that they feel heard and appreciated. “Expert” executives often feel that their job is to have all the answers. You will need to coach her that her job as a leader is broader than that. It begins by having an engaged and empowered team. The first step in that process is listening to the team, building rapport, and only then, will she be able to motivate them towards a common goal. Through your coaching, you will be increasing her self-awareness as you help her to develop the leadership part of her role.

This is a great opportunity for the two of you to work together to enhance her contributions to the overall business and become an more effective leader.

For more resources on developing leadership skills, refer to previous Ask Mariposa blogs.

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February 19th, 2013|Categories: Ask Mariposa, Coaching Skills, HR / Talent Management|Tags: ask mariposa, Barbara Baill, coaching, communication, Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence, empathy, HBR, HR Leade, listening skills, rapport|

February 15, 2013 / Book Reviews

Book Review: Build, Borrow, or Buy

Build, Borrow, or Buy:
Solving the Growth Dilemma
By: Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell

Head: (4 of 5)
Heart: (3.5 of 5)
Leadership Applicability: (4.5 of 5)

Build, Borrow, or Buy draws from two decades of research into how some companies succeed in developing powerful new business capability, while many others fail. Authors Laurence Capron and Will Mitchell provide us with powerful and essential tools to help leaders decide whether to innovate within (build), work with joint ventures (borrow), or expand (buy) when they need to acquire new resources for growth.

The book provides examples from large corporations, such as HP, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Cisco, as well as smaller companies (from all over the world), which have created sustainable growth strategies reflected in the pathway framework:

Build – When should you develop internally?
Borrow – The untapped potential of strategic partners and joint ventures
Buy – Mergers and acquisitions strategy

The authors argue that there is no one sure fire way of growing, and that firms at different times, and for different reasons, should pursue whatever is most suitable, using their framework to help make the right decisions. Nevertheless, many firms rely on only one model for growing, and suffer accordingly.

Build, Borrow or Buy provides valuable insights for all decision makers. They all have a vital leadership role to ensure that the resource pathways framework will deliver powerful benefits to the success of the business.

Click here to learn more or join our February Wise Talk with author Laurence Capron and submit your questions.

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

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February 15th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: laurence capron, Mariposa Leadership, Strategy, wise talk|

February 12, 2013 / Ask Mariposa / HR / Talent Management

Ask Mariposa: Creating an Employee Recognition Program

Kristine asked:

I’ve been tasked with creating an employee recognition program, whatever that is. Help!

Tawny Lees, COO responded:

Hi Kristine,

How fun! What’s better than helping people recognize and appreciate each other more regularly? Right, now for the hard part – finding a way to create a program so that people will actually participate and value it. First off, you need a plan. At a high level it will probably look something like:

Assess/Scope
Design
Launch
Maintain

During “assess/scope” you will need to get some questions answered to map out the rest of the plan effectively. What’s the impetus for this program? What’s the objective? What’s the budget? Who are the key stakeholders and decision makers? Any time expectations? During “design” you will certainly want to spend time with many employees across the organization to get in their shoes, research, generate ideas, try a prototype and get feedback until you come up with a final program design and approval. See the many resources here on our blog and site about Design Thinking. Within “launch” you’ll want to identify champions in addition to a communication strategy. And then once everything is in place, clear ownership around on-going program maintenance and tweaking is critical. Without on-going ownership, the program will fizzle and could have negative ramifications instead of the positive outcomes you desire. Good luck and have fun with it!

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below.

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February 12th, 2013|Categories: Ask Mariposa, HR / Talent Management|Tags: ask mariposa, design thinking, HR Leade|

January 31, 2013 / HR / Talent Management / Strategy / Wise Talk

Q&A with Cynthia Montgomery on Being The Strategist Your Business Needs

Last week’s Wise Talk with Cynthia Montgomery launched our 2013 leadership theme of Strategy. She talked with Mariposa CEO Sue Bethanis on the different aspects of strategy and how they directly relate to business management.

Cynthia is a Harvard Business Strategy professor and author of the book The Strategist. Check out these snippets of their conversation to gain a deeper understanding of the topic.

In this first snippet, Cynthia talks about the most necessary element behind strategy – purpose:

In this next snippet, she talks about the strategy behind capturing value:

In this final snippet, Sue asks Cynthia what she sees as the most common mistake executive make when it comes to strategy. Listen to her response here:

Click here to access Mariposa Leadership’s Wise Talk archives, and click on “Are you a strategist?” for the full audio of this session.

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

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January 31st, 2013|Categories: HR / Talent Management, Strategy, Wise Talk|Tags: HR Leadership|

January 29, 2013 / Articles We Like / Ask Mariposa / HR / Talent Management

Ask Mariposa: Sending Late-Night Emails to Your Team?

Rob asked:

My team is complaining about the late-night emails I send to them. I tell them that the company policy says they can wait to answer until the morning, so what’s the big deal?

Anne Loehr, Senior Leadership Consultant responded:

The big deal is that according to a recent New York Times article, “Being constantly on actually undermines productivity,” says Leslie Perlow a professor of leadership at Harvard Business School. While you may not expect your team to reply to your emails in ‘off-hours’, the employee may still be “on” by thinking about the emails, which can undermine productivity.

Daimler, a German automaker, has taken several steps to address similar issues for the sake of their employees and their organization’s future success. One step was developing a set of guidelines for managers to help employees create balance.

While you don’t have to create management guidelines, I’d encourage you to consider some simple steps like only sending emails between 7am-7pm on weekdays (you can always queue your emails in your draft folder) and only sending urgent emails after hours. This will help you and your team be more balanced, focused and productive. Now that IS a big deal!

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below.

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January 29th, 2013|Categories: Articles We Like, Ask Mariposa, HR / Talent Management|Tags: HR Leadership|

January 25, 2013 / Blog / Strategy / Wise Talk

January Wise Talk Video Recap with Sue

Click here to listen to and download the full audio recording of yesterday’s Wise Talk on being the strategist your business needs with Harvard Business School Strategy Professor Cynthia Montgomery (@leadstrategy) and Mariposa CEO @suebethanis!

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January 25th, 2013|Categories: Blog, Strategy, Wise Talk|