Leadership Lessons: Motivating Team Members

Motivating all Generations

Oprah has topped the list of celebrities whom hourly workers, including teens, are motivated by to make their day more fun. Kathy Gurchiek, associate editor for HR News, reported in a September online brief results of more than 2,300 people completing the SnagAJob.com online survey conducted recently. Oprah was the top choice ahead of Angelina Jolie and Will Ferrell among workers in the age groups 18 to 24, 25 to 44, and 45 and older.

What does this mean? Perhaps nothing, but it is another indication of the inter-generational workforce and the little quirks that are emerging that may affect how we motivate, hire, and retain employees.

Some Perspective

The SHRM® Generational Differences Survey Report indicates that 51% of HR professionals felt that employees of different generations work effectively together. However, managers need to employ a variety of leadership styles to be better equipped to deal with potential conflicts and motivate employees.

Authors Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman in their book, When Generations Collide, say that effectively managing the new workforce depends on understanding the values and experiences distinguishing different generations:

• Traditionalists, born prior to 1945, value loyalty and prefer a top-down approach to management. Information is something provided on a need-to-know basis.
  
• Baby boomers, born 1946-1964, are optimistic and idealist. Success comes from challenging authority and creating open lines of communication.
  
• Generation Xers, born 1965-1980, are more skeptical. As latchkey kids and/or the product of broken homes, they grew up in a time of political and corporate scandals. They distrust institutions and value individualism.
  
• The Millennials, born after 1980, will change employers during the span of their career and they will change the type of work they do.

Understanding this diversity also means adjusting recruitment and retention strategies and training managers to motivate appropriately. Doing so will reap bottom-line results in the years to come.

The concept of how managers lead and motivate is complex and undergoing a major shift. The manager creates the environment - a climate positive for success. In reality motivation springs from within, but it is fostered in an environment in which people motivate themselves through reinforcement of confidence, trust, and satisfaction.
A Solution

When high performers have unresolved motivation issues their performance declines, or they leave for another job. When poor performers are not motivated to improve, they drag the team down and reduce productivity.

Competent leaders must motivate and empower the new generation of workers.

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Essential Skills of Communicating" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Resolving Conflict

Engaging Employees by Resolving Conflict "Those in conflict are unable to sustain a productive and stable exchange," according to Craig Rashkis, a mediator who has a master's degree in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University's Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. In his article Workplace Conflict and the Importance of Resolving Early, he explains that the amount of organizational resources spent on resolving workplace conflict early on is typically less than the resources used in just half a day of trial when defending a lawsuit. Perhaps more importantly, Rashkis lists benefits which include:

• Increased morale and productivity
  
• Greater employee loyalty
  
• Greater retention
  
• Clarification of organizational purpose and policy
  
• Increased profitability
  
• Better reputation
  
• Success through superior products and services
  

Some Perspective

Conflict is not always easy to identify and must be distinguished from disagreements which can be a part of enthusiastic discussion or caring for the situation at hand. Conflict is associated with anger and frustration.
Effective leaders work from a viewpoint that keeps diverse work teams centered and successful. They know how to use courage and resolve to achieve goals and work with others. It's fairly shocking that according to research of 840,000 employees from the U.S. and U.K., 43% of employees report being disengaged on the job by their third year of employment because they become discouraged or dissatisfied in some way. Conflict in the workplace can only add to this and further disengage employees.

When leaders start to identify and then deal with situations that seem to cause conflict, issues can be resolved fairly and effectively.

There has been much reported about the new and growing diversity in the workforce. As this continues to be a factor, leaders need to be trained to recognize that personality traits and ego can largely influence the initiation of conflict.

Being aware of this and having the right skills to recognize and deal with conflict quickly and effectively will address the root cause, rather than getting bogged down in inflammatory outbursts, irrational eruptions, and inappropriate behavior. Without early resolve, this can become a continual cycle leading to the disengagement-- that we've already defined-- and broken commitment to individual performance.

By using effective techniques in communication and management, leaders help team members understand other points of view in order to move beyond the conflict.

A Solution

Your organization can impact a more positive bottom line characterized by productivity and profitability by improving morale and creating more functional and engaged employees. As Rashkis indicates, "The single most important benefit of resolving workplace conflict early is avoiding its debilitating and potentially disastrous effects." Resolving Conflicts is a program by Vital Learning, offered in both a traditional classroom format or online, that can teach your managers and team leaders the skills to recognize and deal with potential conflict situations early. Some organizations use the blended learning approach using a combination of online and more traditional approaches to deliver the training.

Take this simple quiz to find out if your leaders have the right point of view to deal with conflict. My managers and team leaders...

1. Accept conflict as inevitable in all work situations and deal with it in order to maintain focus and productivity.
2. Recognize the positive and negative impacts of conflicts and leverage situations to everyone's advantage.
3. Distinguish between the two sources of conflict so that the situation can be resolved fairly and effectively.
4. Establish a cooperative atmosphere to resolve conflicts when they arise.

If you answered any of these with a "No", it is likely that your organization needs some work in this area create a more engaged and sustained workforce in productivity and loyalty to your organization.

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Essential Skills of Communicating" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Delegating, Empowerment, and Strategic Alignment

Getting your organization strategically aligned through delegation

There are good habits that we hope all of our supervisors and managers have to help them handle the often powerful and complex challenges of leadership. Bill Gates once said:

"Virtually every company will be going out and empowering with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes - thinking through how their business can change, how their project management, their customer feedback, their planning cycles can be quite different than they ever were before." --Bill Gates

Some Perspective

Leaders who regularly delegate are strategically aligned with their employees to improve business processes and provide feedback. This engages employees so that they are reciprocally aligned with their leaders.

Delegating demonstrates trust and encourages development. When you have these two factors at work in your organization, you have a positive environment in which empowered employees are focused on organizational goals.

By delegating responsibilities and projects with clear communication, the bonds of the team are strengthened, manager-employee relationships are improved and a synergistic relationship results. This ties managers and employees together in strategic alignment for the achievement of business goals. A Solution One of the most powerful tools a leader will ever have is communication. There is no replacement for being able to communicate well in the delegation process. Leaders must be able to communicate the "what" and the "why" of every task they delegate. Without taking the time to communicate correctly, misunderstandings occur, workloads become unbalanced, bonds are broken, processes stall, and strategic alignment with goals never occurs.

Therefore, to delegate and empower appropriately, managers and supervisors must learn the following skills:

• Explain the need for delegation.
  
• Use delegation of tasks to motivate.
  
• Explain tasks and ask team member's view (getting feedback).
  
• Specify responsibility and authority (empowerment).
  
• Confirming team member's understanding and set up time review (process improvement).
  

In a perfect world everyone is going out and empowering as is alluded to in our quote from Bill Gates; however, delegating does more than that. It develops people who are able to work through processes and make things better. Then as people develop, they move through the corporate ladder. Delegating expresses confidence in team members and motivates them to achieve strategic goals and redefine their own potential. Delegating creates your leaders of tomorrow, who already are strategically aligned with leadership and goals. What could be better than that?

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Delegating" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Communicating Up

Communicating upward to avoid productivity spiraling downward...

Interaction today comes in two ways: human-to-human and human-to-information. As a natural extension of the Information Age, the Interaction Age has come with messaging capabilities and real-time conferencing; however, with so much technology at our fingertips, it is easy to lose sight of what makes for productive communication between team leaders and employees. Of particular concern is the kind of communication that focuses on upward communication that leads to productivity and high performance.

Some Perspective

Great team leaders actively listen to employees. They also actively encourage employees to talk to each other, to customers, and to their leaders. The good news is that most people already have the skills to communicate to their team leaders; they simply need to apply them to their manager. This is the power of human-to-human dialogue that constitutes interaction. With it, employees are able to see the vision for the company and come closer to a sense of ownership in the company initiatives. In addition, this new interaction breeds an environment of teamwork, organizational flexibility, and corporate agility.

For employees to communicate effectively, they need to have a broader understanding of their manager's style and the work environment. For example, one manager may need communications provided in an "executive summary" format as an overview, while another requires more of the detail behind the summary. In any case, employees need to feel empowered with this understanding to alert their managers when issues, concerns, problems, as well as opportunities arise. Employees, who are engaged in the kind of interaction that uses 1) an understanding of style and 2) a process for communicating effectively, create a powerful framework that produces results and a positive working environment.

Take Jack for instance. Before receiving training on a process for communicating with his manager, he was stymied by what seemed to be impossible weekly meetings with his boss, Denise. It seemed to Jack that they were always butting heads because Denise constantly needled him for more details. Jack felt like she didn't trust him.

After training, he learned that everyone has a communication style and that his boss's style was different from his own. Jack deduced that their weekly interaction was not necessarily negative nor a personal attack; it was just Denise's need for more detail. Jack now has a greater understanding of what is required to satisfy his team leader's communication style and move the conversation forward to reach their objectives. Now, Jack looks forward to his weekly meetings.

A Solution

It's actually pretty simple. When employees are trained how to communicate up, they are more committed to the organization and naturally ask for more feedback from their team leader. Everyone takes the next step, listening to each other and responding appropriately. The environment changes, and old problems clear away to be replaced by productive interactivity and passionate employee involvement.

"Communicating Up" is a program by Vital Learning that can teach your managers, team leaders, and employees to be engaged in positive interaction. This program will help your people:

• Enter meetings with well-thought out and clearly stated objectives.
  
• Clearly link objectives that support plans and goals.
  
• Move conversations toward questions that focus on understanding gained when your objective is reached.

These are just a few of the powerful tools for communicating up interaction. Putting your training plan in place to address the Interaction Age will keep the human-to-human communication on track and move it toward productive goals.

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Essential Skills of Leadership" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Coaching Job Skills

High tech + Low change = No productivity

Singularity is the term that technologists and futurists use to describe the point at which rapid technological progress leads to a quick, completed transformation of the human experience. Are your employees prepared to embrace rapid technological changes and experience singularity?

Based on the rate of past improvements, some believe that technological advances are likely to be exponential in the coming decades. For those who work in HR and training, the impact is huge. A report issued by the Society for Human Resource Management, 2015: Scenarios for the Future of Human Resource Management, brings this to the forefront as an issue to be considered now.

Some Perspective

The rapid turnover of technological knowledge may well require that employee education be embedded and coached as a part of everyday working life. A shortage of supervisors, team leaders, and managers, who are capable of coaching employees in the face of increasingly complex technologies, is quickly becoming a reality.

Take the example of Steve. He's a supervisor for a cereal processing plant. He's faced with the addition of three new machines and the need to hire new staff. It's also budget time. He's finding that he has little time to coach his current team members through job tasks related to the new machines, much less showing the new team members what to do. It's all happening too fast.

Steve's team is not likely to be productive and may be destined to fail. Why?

A Solution

In order to achieve results every coach must go beyond simply showing how to perform a task. Coaching must involve observing, analyzing, demonstrating, and developing relationships with team members. This process is essential to help team members adjust and adapt to rapid changes, and it creates a foundation of trust and respect that is essential for optimal performance.

To achieve this, your managers and team leaders should be trained and prepared to:

• Understand why coaching is important and how it supports company goals.
  
• Prepare for a coaching session using observations and analysis plans for a successful dialog.
  
• Hold a coaching conversation which improves an individual's performance and productivity.
  
• Use coaching as a way to build a valuable sense of teamwork, communication, shared goals, and collaboration.
  

While rapid change, speed, and innovation continue to transform the workplace, it is imperative that leaders are ready for this challenge with the right coaching skills that help team members work appropriately and productively.

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Coaching Job Skills" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Retaining Winning Talent

Managing talent for greater success...
If your organization is focused on growth, profitability, customer loyalty, new product introductions, employee engagement and shareholder value to name a few, you must also be in the process of managing your talent. This is a strategy that allows you to not only develop new leaders, but also retain the exceptional talent you hire. It is a tightly woven process, and what you do to retain talent must be threaded throughout all you do.

Some Perspective

The fine art of retaining talent has an effect on your ability to deliver business value. A recent survey by McKinsey & Company asked senior executives of global companies to rank obstacles that prevent them from having talent management strategies. Among the most critical, as defined by executives' response rates, were:

• 54% - Senior managers don't spend enough time on talent management
  
• 52% - Line managers are not sufficiently committed to people development
  
• 51% - Silos discourage collaboration and resource sharing
  
• 50% - Line managers are unwilling to differentiate high from low performance
  
• 47% - Senior leaders do not align talent management and business strategies
  

Here's one more statistic for you. A recent study showed that 85% of HR executives stated that the single greatest challenge they've had was their organization's ability to compete for talent.

If your organization is one of those facing obstacles with talent management, and you're concerned about your ability to compete for talent, then consider a plan to train your organization on how to effectively retain your best talent.

Most people can understand that turnover is costly in replacement expenses, but it also impacts productivity when other team members see good people leaving the organization.

Picture this scenario: Ray was an executive for a hotel chain that had lack-luster performance. Attrition of leadership was high in the organization. He decided to conduct an analysis of risk factors in retaining top talent. He identified new strategies and tactics such as creating an emerging leaders program, training future leaders, and providing more on-the-job training for line supervisors. As a result, they have recruited better talent and, more importantly, have retained that talent resulting in the value of their stock growing by more than 50% in the last five years.

A Solution

By training your managers, you will help them realize their ability to combat turnover in the organization. You will be giving them the tools they need to create a proactive and productive environment that values key talent.

"Retaining Winning Talent" is a new program from Vital Learning that teaches managers about the process of retaining talent.

Managers will understand that they need to be concerned with team member retention and how to identify individuals at risk. Managers will be able to:

• Describe the scope, severity, and cost of attrition
  
• Determine the risk of attrition for each team member Identify which retention factors motivate each team member
  
• Increase each team member's engagement and commitment
  
• Build and implement an effective
  
• Retention Action Plan for their entire team

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Retaining Winning Talent" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Blended Learning

Two for one... From a training perspective, sophisticated technologies provide endless opportunities for the delivery of training. They offer just about every combination you can think of between the classroom and online. In a recent study on lifelong learning trends, students preferred a moderate amount of technology in their learning programs, viewing it as supplemental to classroom instruction.

Technology can be one of the major keys to success when applied properly. It satisfies the need to keep employees engaged; it satisfies customers both internally and externally; it also offers employees learning opportunities.

Some Perspective

Originally, most people thought "blended" learning would save them time in the classroom. What we are finding is that rather than saving time, blended learning offers higher value and more effective training. Thus, when participants complete an online module prior to an upcoming class, they come to class armed with the basic terminology and skill points. This knowledge positions them to be ready for discussion and practice. With blended learning, they have the additional advantage of returning online for reinforcement and practice to further ingrain their new skills. This is what real blended learning is all about.

In a recent study conducted by the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA), more than 80 percent of Chief Learning Officers indicated that online learning strategies would play an increasing role in their companies over the next two or three years.

Studies also indicated that learners appreciated trainers, who used the technology wisely to guide participants through online learning and add value to the process.

It is also important to have high quality and alignment with the content -- There needs to be a strong connection between the material taught and the practices and objectives of the organization. When training and business practices are in sync, productivity and improved performance are not far behind.

A Solution Look for organizations that provide both online components and classroom elements that mirror each other. These components might include fully- accessible online videos and skill practice exercises that can support the classroom component and that can be replayed by the learner at a later time for reinforcement of the skills learned. The flexibility of the online component should allow you to structure the learning segments for use before and after the classroom portion of the course.

At Vital Learning Corporation we have readily available programs in formats that allow you to transition and blend traditional classroom training with online. Blended learning has gone strategic. Is it time for your organization to follow?

The Vital Learning curriculum is designed to meet your training and budgetary needs. Want to learn more about "Blended Learning" or the complete Vital Learning leadership development curriculum? Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org