Control What You Can Control

Gas prices are kinda high. Segments of the economy are hurting. Segments of the economy are flourishing. International tension seemingly abounds. Can you control any of these things? If you can, call me. Now.

Instead of getting caught up in the harried hype of the day, focus on what you can control. I am choosing to focus squarely on items that will impact productivity, efficiency, and morale. Where are you focusing your energies?

Creating Followership

By Doug Van Dyke, President of DVD Consulting Incorporated, www.dvdconsulting.com

Raymond admires Ivan’s leadership abilities. The two leaders have worked for the same company for eight years and have collaborated on a number of projects and initiatives. During that time Raymond, a capable leader, has struggled with creating buy-in and enthusiasm with his team during turbulent times and regarding tougher projects. Ivan on the other hand, has seemingly experienced no problems with leading his team through troubled waters or engaging their efforts during tough projects. The end results are acknowledged kudos that Ivan’s team is consistently more productive than Raymond’s. In addition, the positive impact of Ivan’s team on the organization has netted Ivan several promotions that have distanced him from Raymond’s level of management – a level they once shared. What magic touch does Ivan possess that Raymond somehow lacks? The answer, my friends is not magic. The answer lies in Ivan’s ability to create Followership.

Good old Webster’s defines followership as “the ability or willingness to follow a leader.” Those leaders who enjoy followership can savor something more valuable than gold. In fact, in his search for gold, Raymond dissected Ivan’s ability to create followership. Along the way, he learned about six qualities that Ivan possesses.

1. Consistency. Ivan is as steady as they come. When team members have excelled, Ivan consistently rewards them – and the act of rewarding is very public. When team members make costly errors, they have come to expect a private conversation with Ivan. The conversation is centered in fact, and corrective action is always specific. In fact, Ivan is so consistent with his leadership that when things happen (good or bad) when he is away, his team members joke about how he will react. Sure enough, when Ivan returns he reacts as predicted – to the delight of his team. An important note: what Ivan’s consistency has led to is leadership in absenteeism. What I mean by this is that even when he is away, Ivan’s values, and his leadership culture, still govern his team’s behavior.

2. Coaching. Ivan’s team members joke with him that he has a coaching problem. He seems to always be coaching. He notices the little things and frequently complements team members on things they are doing right. Even on items that they are supposed to be doing right in the first place. When he notices results or behaviors that are not up to his standard, he is quick to privately mention the unsatisfactory outcomes to the team member. He also consistently cites the impact of the results on the team, as well as the specific outcomes he expects in the future. He is exuberant when praising, and calm when correcting.

3. Courage. Six years ago Ivan experienced some unfortunate health issues stemming from a non-work accident. Many people in similar circumstances do not recover from what Ivan faced. His team visited him in the hospital and they were very concerned about his condition at the time. From the time he saw his team, his family, his friends, Ivan was consistent with his message: I am going to work again; I am going to get my life back. What courage. Ivan sent a focused, consistent message to everyone he knew that nothing could keep him down. And nothing has. It should be noted that he did not need a catastrophic event to display his courage; he exhibits that same courageous behavior when times are tough at work. And you know what? His people follow his lead. They heed his words and direction because they believe in him.

4. Combativeness. Ivan is a very nice person. But those who know him are not lulled into a false sense of Koombaiya by Ivan. He is not afraid to mix it up for things he believes are needed or are right. What separates Ivan from many leaders who are perceived as combative all the time is the fact that Ivan possesses good judgment. He knows how to pick his battles. And when he chooses a battle, he goes about winning it in a strategic way – he seeks to have every side win.

5. Compassion. Empathy flows from Ivan. He has the ability to place himself in the other person’s position and to therefore, look at situations from different perspectives. He makes some unusual decisions as a result. But ultimately, his consistent sense of fairness plays out as the right path to have taken. Ivan has not always been so compassionate. It is an emotional intelligence trait that he has worked on a great deal over the years. He is a leader seeking to constantly improve himself, as well as his team and their results.

6. Creativity. Long ago Ivan embraced the fact that the business world changes quickly and you are either on the bus for change or you are off it. He seeks to not only be on the bus, he likes to drive it. As such, he constantly searches for fun, innovative ways to reward his team members. He participates in formal brainstorming sessions with his team and their clients in order to glean fresh ideas that can yield competitive advantage. Because he is consistently creative, Ivan’s team is consistently energized. They do not know what new things he will come up with, they just know he will consistently surprise them – pleasantly so.

So there you have Raymond’s discovery – that a host of qualities beginning with “C” have catapulted Ivan to top of his game. In the process, Ivan has built respect and loyalty from his team. Think Ivan is unique? Think again. Look deep into the mirror. I think I see a bunch of “C’s” swimming around your head. Grab ‘em and make ‘em work for you today!

Doug Van Dyke is a speaker, consultant, and executive coach. Doug’s recently released book is entitled Leadership Simplified. To energize your leadership team call 941-776-1121 or visit www.dvdconsulting.com.

© 2008 DVD Consulting, all rights reserved.

Attention Boomers: The Future Rising (The Gen Y Effect)

Justin is 29 years old and has worked at your company for one year. He is competent, savvy, and hip. He does a good job, and his computer skills are through the roof – he is a team member you don’t want to lose. The trouble is, he is about to leave your employ. He is not unhappy with you, his boss, or the type of work he does. He has simply stopped learning at your company and he feels ready for ‘the next level.’ Sound familiar?

Your young wonder employee is part of Gen Y, a group of over 73 million Americans born between 1977 and 1994. Generally speaking, Gen Y’s are talented, hard-working, and flexible. Are they a disloyal bunch? Not really; but they typically possess a deep distrust of corporate America.

Let’s take a deeper look at Justin’s background. He grew up with computers, video games, and short attention spans. He has baby-boomer parents. In fact, when he was barely a teenager he witnessed his father being laid-off for no apparent reason. Remember the early 1990’s when ‘reorganization’ entered the business vernacular? Justin’s family and his life were thrown into upheaval as result. As he grew older he realized that pragmatically, he needed a job. He is also wired to continuously learn – so as to position himself favorably for his next job. As such, he has worked for three companies in the past six years. Have you noticed your Justin’s thirst for knowledge and new tasks? In addition, if he likes him/her, Justin tends to bond with his immediate boss. On those instances when his immediate boss is promoted or reassigned, Justin soon reassigns himself – to a new employer. His thin bond to your company is broken when his boss departs.

So what is a leader to do in order to retain valuable, young workers? Well, I am not a psychologist, nor have I conducted a study on this issue, but (shockingly) I do have an opinion on the matter. Here is my take on building a wall around good Gen Y talent:

1. Training. Since Gen Y’s crave learning, set up a training program that keeps them in learning mode for years, not weeks. They may stay with your company merely because they are learning more and more things that will help them with that next job.

2. Task Variety. Ensure that Justin and his age-peers have a healthy variety of tasks and/or distractions with which to keep them busy. Remember, these folks grew up with video games – they are the ultimate multi-taskers (think good A.D.D.).

3. Communication. We can’t have a Doug Van Dyke newsletter without the word communication, can we? Well, it is well-placed here. Strive to open up communication with the Gen Y’s. Let them know what is going on with the company so that they feel a part of something bigger than their immediate department.

4. The Boss Connection. No, it’s not Bruce Springsteen’s latest record. It’s tapping into your team member’s tastes and determining if they respect their supervisor. If their manager is going to change positions or leave the company, keep Gen Y’s informed. Also, ask them for their thoughts on the best way to keep morale and productivity high while a change of leadership is taking place.

5. Have a Plan. Create and maintain a roadmap for Justin’s career and learning track. Ask for Justin’s input regarding his future career journey. Track the plan over months/years. Tracking Justin’s accomplishments shows that you are serious about Justin and not offering promises that are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

6. Make it Fun. Games, small incentives, and celebration go a long way with the Gen Y crowd. For example, at one of Capital One’s sales centers they used a plastic tomato to track team members who were succeeding. Every time someone made a sale they would stand up and call for the tomato, which would be tossed their way from whomever had it previously. Randomly throughout the day, the supervisor would walk into the center and say: ‘who’s got the tomato?’ The bearer of the tomato would then be rewarded with movie tickets or a free lunch at a local restaurant. The bottom line is to be light and creative, and do something your team will enjoy.

As you read this, you may be throwing your hands up in the air and wondering if all the focus and effort is worth it. My friends, Gen Y (all 73 million of ‘em) are the future. A bright future I might add. And a bright future is always worth a healthy investment!

Email: The Proper Habits

Carl is about to send an important letter to a client via U. S. mail. He has taken his time crafting the letter. He preens his fine prose and signs his name. He double checks the mailing address and finally affixes the proper postage and places the letter in his mail bin. One month later Carl comes across a copy of the letter. He notices a typo. He is mortified. In this example most of us would be mortified. Yet, so many of us are sending out important correspondence via email that contains two or more errors – and we don’t think twice about it. Why not?

Email is an extremely valuable communication tool. If used carelessly or overused, however, it can be hazardous, expensive, and cause confusion. Various studies have determined that companies lose anywhere from 2% to 15% of their business from sloppy or incorrect email correspondence. In addition, according to a survey by Forrester Research, approximately 30% of 294 companies they spoke with had dismissed a staff member in the past twelve months for violating email policies. Thirty-eight percent of companies surveyed said they read or analyzed outgoing email messages. These facts highlight that we, and our colleagues, need to be on top of our game when communicating via email.

So how do we stay on top of our email game? Easy, follow these eleven tips for your email peace of mind.

1. Use spell-check and a thesaurus. Certainly you already do this. If not, you are the last person on the planet not to do so. Although spell-check is great, it doesn’t catch everything and, alas, it is pretty dismal with regard to correcting grammar. Needless to say, re-reading and correcting emails prior to sending them is a hallmark of a healthy professional. The next two points also tie in closely to this concept.

2. Print out important client or internal correspondence prior to hitting Send. Perhaps you are saying, ‘Hey, Al Gore would be appalled - I don’t want to waste paper.’ Well, I am sorry to bring out the environmentalist in you, but consider this: man has been reading documents on paper for over 500 years. Our brains have become accustomed to and adept at reading words on parchment. It is only in the past 15 – 20 years that we have begun to read a large amount of text in electronic format. As such, we don’t catch errors as readily in electronic form as we do on paper. If you don’t believe me, try a little test. Next time you have an important email message ready to send, print it out and thoroughly review it. I will be stunned if you don’t find at least one typo and a sentence or two that you reconstruct.

3. Find a ‘proof buddy’ to review important correspondence. There is nothing wrong with having another set of eyeballs review important correspondence. An objective opinion will help you confirm that your message will be interpreted in the manner that you intend.

4. Do not use email as your only channel of communication. Yes, it is easy and quick. But if you get too informal or use it exclusively to communicate with others, you will become a one-dimensional communicator. Remember: email carries no auditory tone of voice or body language.

5. Be Succinct. Emails longer than a paragraph or two are typically not read right away. Also, use good judgment with regard to when it is time to take your fingers off the keyboard and move them to the dial pad. After two or three email iterations, especially if multiple people are involved, it is probably time to pick up the phone and talk to someone.

6. Have a clear message. As much as possible, have the subject line describe the true topic of your email. Also, decode your message and seek to avoid acronyms that might be confusing to part of your audience. In other words, say what you mean or really want to see happen.

7. Only copy relevant team members. Be certain about who really needs to be on the "to:" and the "cc:" line. Too often people cc far too many people. This creates confusion – for uninterested parties, as well as for relevant receivers.

8. Encourage questions or feedback. By welcoming thoughts and opinions you show that you are open-minded and collaborative.

9. Take a breath and control your anger. Emails that contain anger and/or sarcasm are rarely productive. Rather than send them, take a deep breath and a short break and attempt to calm down. Then, pick up the phone or make a personal visit. If you are upset, an email message is typically not the best means of communication.

10. Keep jokes to a minimum. I love to laugh – we all do. Email is a great way to quickly distribute fun and fanciful items – after hours. During business hours however, play it fairly straight. Sending too many jokes can dilute the fact that you are a serious professional.

11. Plan time for emails. It is easy to retrieve and send quick emails on the fly. However, many of us receive requests that take some thought or action prior to responding. Build some time into each day that is dedicated to email correspondence. Often times, just the act of allocating a portion of your day to email can reduce the stresses and strains you experience.

Well there you have it, eleven habits that, if followed, could very well give people the perception that you are an electronic-communication genius. Now, where did I place that tasty YouTube sniglet?

Put Me In Coach

Welcome to the exciting conclusion of Put Me In Coach. During part one, we covered two of the four major areas that lead to coaching success. This entry details the remaining items that will assist leaders in becoming great coaches.

#3 Growing People
The cornerstone of coaching is the ability to develop talent. It is not easy, but the best coaches I know embrace the following:

1. Coaching is constant. Developing people is not an occasional or one-time event. Rather, coaching is an activity that powerful leaders do every day. If you want your team to consistently perform at a high level, make certain you observe behaviors and proactively coach daily.

2. Ownership. It is the coach’s responsibility to drive development activities. While team members certainly have a huge stake, the learning process should be driven and monitored by the coach.

3. Have a plan. The creation and sharing of a formal coaching plan is a crucial step in the development process. It is a compliment to the casual coaching that you offer each day.

4. Partnership. Once a formal coaching plan has been discussed with a team member it is important to seek their buy-in. You may ask them to demonstrate their commitment by signing the coaching plan and/or craft a summary of each coaching session.

5. Tailor. While you may possess a particular coaching style, a good coach is often a chameleon. It may be necessary for you adjust your coaching style so that it fits seamlessly with a team member’s personality, skill level, experience, and potential. More than likely the members of your team have varied levels of the above traits. As such, their needs will call for you to adjust your approach in order to be the most effective coach for them.

6. Time Allocation. It is a brutal reality, but a coach only has so much time to offer team members. As such, it is critical that coaches ‘force rank’ team members in order to clearly understand who the high performers are and who possesses high potential. By allocating the lion’s share of your time to these categories you will be maximizing your team’s potential results. Note: spending an unfair share of your time coaching underperformers is unfair to the people who are producing and will ultimately stunt the results that your team will realize. Picture a basketball game: who does the coach talk with most during the game, the people on the bench or the people scoring the points?

#4 Communication & Feedback
The hallmark of an effective coach is their ability to deliver feedback that sticks. In addition, it takes discipline, organization, and solid observation skills to be able to offer feedback on a regular basis. There are six steps to consider in this part of the process:

1. Ask and tell. The first step in delivering feedback is to ask team members what they expect to receive. Also, if you have a preferred style or method, share your thoughts with the people you coach. Let them know what to expect from you, and tell them what kind of behavior and results you expect.

2. Catch people doing something right! It is our strengths that make us successful. As such, be observant of other’s strengths, best practices, and achievements. Once positive behaviors or outcomes have been observed, promptly give the team member positive reinforcement.

3. Mind the math. My experience has shown that people tend to respond to feedback that is slanted to the positive. A ratio to keep in mind is three pieces of positive feedback to every one piece of constructive feedback. Now, if someone has totally screwed up, it certainly is appropriate to delve more heavily into the constructive. Under normal circumstances, however, a 3:1 ratio (positive to constructive) works nicely.

4. Tone & Body Language. It is critical that the tone of voice and body language that you use while coaching is consistent with the message that you are delivering. Good eye contact, a confident tone, and open body language, coupled with the appropriate words and timing can add up to a powerful coaching lesson that deeply resonates with a team member.

5. Be specific. Saying ‘good job’ or ‘please do better next time’ to someone has minimal impact. Yes, it lets them know that you are aware of their performance, but it does not give them something specific to repeat or correct. As such, seek to highlight specific behaviors that team members exhibit, as well as the specific results they achieve. If you deliver constructive feedback make certain that you also describe the correct behavior and enhanced results you expect.

6. Raise the bar. High performing professionals enjoy being challenged. Do not hesitate to challenge team members to perform at a higher level. Something to consider is asking the people you coach to seek to be incrementally better today than they were yesterday. Building a mindset of continuous, incremental improvement can lead to a culture that is focused on quality and performance.

Blog-a-licious

“I feel the burn.” That’s what Bob said to his peers after being crowned the text message king of his department. The burn he was referring to was in his thumbs, because he just equaled the world record for text messaging, an astonishing 35 words per minute – without any errors mind you.

Different means of communication are springing up all the time. So today, we take a look at two of the most popular: text messaging and blogging.

Text messaging has grown in popularity and in the process has become a big deal. So whether you have hitched your electronic horse to this bandwagon or sit idly on the sidelines, you should be aware of some hazards and benefits of this frenetic activity.

The hazards:

1. It’s fast. Sometimes professionals fire off a text message, look at their phone, and then verbalize expletives because they misstated some facts or sent it to the wrong person. Text messaging often catches people when they are busy, distracted, or in the heat of the moment. Sometimes our response is not consistent with our usual manner or language. Thus, our correspondence comes across as odd and unprofessional.

2. Plain Jane. Unless your text messages are being run through your computer or server they may not have the professional appearance of your typical email responses. This can be construed as rushed or unimportant to the receiving party.

3. No Spell check. Again, if your text message is not run through your computer or server it may not be privy to spell-check and grammar-check. This can be catastrophic to people who spell like, well, me.

The benefits:
1. It’s fast. You receive a message, and next thing you know, you have fired off a response. Just like that – boom, it’s done. Nice.

2. Responsive perception. Who does not value the perception of being a quick responding professional? No one, that’s who – and the perception you seek may be enhanced by the ability to quickly respond to customers and team members who need and value your input.

3. Filled in cracks. By responding to messages promptly you minimize the risk of forgetting about a message or accidentally deleting it – and thus not responding at all. Any tool that can reduce the odds of something falling through the cracks is worthy of investigation.

So it’s up to you to decide if text messaging business correspondence is for you. For now though, we move our attention to the world of blogging.

Blog-a-licious

A web log or ‘blog’ is a website where an article, concept or idea is displayed and then additional entries (comments) are displayed in reverse chronological order, following the original entry. According to Technorati, a blog search engine, as of December 2007 there were in excess of 112 million blogs worldwide, and I expect the number of blogs to double within the next two years.

Blogging is a means of communication that is gaining incredible traction. If you do not already maintain a blog, the concept is most worthy of your investigation and consideration. Setting up and maintaining a blog is easy. It is something you can set up yourself or delegate to your favorite technologist or geek.

The question then becomes, just why the heck would I want to blog anyway? A fair question that is best answered by listing the benefits of blogging:

1. It serves as a convenient method to connect with an array of people regarding your thoughts, their feedback, and ancillary concepts and ideas that are sparked by the resulting interchange.

2. It spurs responses from a broad audience. Because people can respond to a blog, yet remain anonymous, there are great numbers of people who are comfortable participating in blogs. Remember, when the possibility of confrontation has been taken out of communication, the scope and size of the audience skyrockets.

3. There is a rawness and authenticity that makes a blog a very real experience. Due to the anonymity factor, people do not hold back. You will receive verbiage that reeks of sincerely and, occasionally, peppery language.

Are there drawbacks to blogging? Possibly a few:

1. You don’t know what you are going to get. There are quite a few whack jobs out there and a nice cross-section of them will undoubtedly visit your blog. Be prepared for a few entries that will make you say ‘hmmmn.’

2. Minimal editing. While there are tools that you can employ to edit or truncate certain blog entries, you must be very selective about editing the responses you receive. Be careful about too much editing – blog enthusiasts can smell censorship a mile away.

3. Cruelty. Because people can respond to blogs and remain anonymous, certain respondents tend to be more critical or cruel than they would be otherwise. If you don’t have thick skin, don’t blog.

Communication is king and the new big gorilla on the block is the blogger. Whether you are an entrepreneur or in the corporate world, I strongly encourage you to blog – take some melanin as well, it thickens the skin.