Yearly Archive for 2010

Leadership Development Vancouver – Upcoming Workshop

Added on December 30, 2010 at 7:04 am

Natalie Michael will be teaching a work shop on new innovations in Succession Management through the BC Human Resources Management Association in Vancouver on January 20, 2011. If you would like to create a leadership development strategy for your organization and build an internal and external pipeline of leadership candidates for key roles, this workshop is for you. You can register at http://www.bchrma.org

Program Summary:

Building internal leadership talent is a growing priority for most organizations. Many companies are seeing a gap between their top level of leaders and the next level and it is a concern giving pending retirements and growth opportunities. They need a well developed leadership development strategy. In this workshop we will help you address this challenge and provide answers to questions like: “How do you identify and develop our high potential leaders? What do you do if you don’t have enough internal talent? What if the leaders you do have won’t be in ready in time to fill upcoming vacancies?”This program will provide a framework for identifying your top succession risks and talking about succession in business terms so that you can get the attention of the executive team. It will also provide an overview of the succession process and key decisions that must be made when designing your program.

You Will Learn:

A process for identifying top succession risks so you can get the attention of your executive team
A framework for succession management including the key steps in the process
Models for assessing employee leadership potential based on the latest research
Key practices in Succession 2.0 such as building an internal and external pool
You will be given a sample succession scorecard to help you measure the success of your program

Career Coaching: What is stopping you from creating a fulfilling career in 2011?

Added on December 28, 2010 at 8:05 am

As a career and executive coach, I often wonder: Why is that many of my intelligent friends and clients are doing work that they do not feel passionate about? Why do people make career decisions that are “kind of” on track with their passions, but are a few degrees off? Why do people make career choices that “sound good,” but ultimately leave them feeling empty? When capable people do not work with passion, it seems like such a waste. If you are feeling like your career is not on the right track, but you have lots of great skills to offer the world, it may be time to “crack the code” and figure out why, so you can create a fulfilling career in 2011.

The Foundation of Career Success

If you want to create a fulfilling career you need to start by reflecting on who you are, what you want, what you are passionate about, and your strengths and preferences. By doing this, you will create a vision for success that pulls you forward and inspires you to change. However, just knowing what you want is not enough. You also need to create a game plan for moving forward and develop a strategy for overcoming any obstacles. From my experience, the obstacles are usually what holds people back. I call obstacles “personal glitches.” Every person has a glitch – that little thing that holds them back that they keep repeating over and over again like a worn out record.

The Three Most Common Career Glitches

In my coaching practice I have found three common glitches that stop talented and amazing people from working with passion. These are taking on too much, pleasing other people instead of yourself, and being triggered emotionally.

Taking On Too Much –Most of my clients are highly productive people that are leading full lives. The challenge is that they have way too much on their plate and they are exhausted. They have little time for doing the things that energize them and that put them in an optimal state – the state you need to be in if you want to do personal exploration and create positive change. Instead, they are tired, running on caffeine and wishing for the day (“Someday”) that they will make the change they want. If these same people do take the time to reflect and create their “working with passion” vision, they need to really self manage and ensure that they don’t continue the cycle of taking on too much, or they will run into a situation where they are loving what they are doing, but they have way too much of it on their plate and it all starts to feel like drudgery again. Taking on too much is a western disease that we need to manage in the same way that we need to manage our sugar and fat intake. Too much of a good thing is just that – too much.

Pleasing Others Instead of Yourself – The second little glitch that holds people back from working with passion and living the lifestyle they want is pleasing other people at the expense of their own needs and values. This is a huge one for corporate executives of all people. There is so much old baggage around what is expected of “leaders” and how they need to be 110% committed and fully engaged with the team, and they need to work long hours and do team dinners etc. What ends up happening is that the job becomes a lifestyle and it dominates all aspects of life. The end result is that the team and organization is satisfied, but you are left feeling fat and out of sorts. Not good. One of the keys to working with passion is figuring out what YOU value and actually have the discipline to create it.

For example, I recently helped a client hire a Vice President in the environmental sector. As part of the search, I talked to a well known mover and shaker in the industry about the job. The client really wanted this fellow on the shortlist. When I told him about the role he said, “No, sorry, I am not interested. I am like a generation Y person now. I want to work less, enjoy life more, and only do stuff I am passionate about.” This is not your typical interview answer. I loved the authenticity and I could totally relate to everything he was saying. He was 47 and living this life. He understood that he needs to say “no” to opportunities in order to say “yes” to what he truly wants.

Emotional Triggers - The third most common glitch that holds people back from working with passion is emotional triggers. Basically, a person is going about their business and trying to implement their vision and live their values and then something happens and whammo! They are in a state of stress or anxiety about it. They feel out out of sorts (which totally contrasts their usual “in control” self) and instead of preserving they go the safe route. Again, and again, and again. Don’t let this happen to you. Emotional triggers are something to manage, they are not something that should stop you. We all experience them and they are typically tied to stressful events or outdated beliefs from the past. Instead of letting them block you, you need to really get to know what your triggers are and work through them.

Questions to Consider To Get Your Career on A Fulfilling Track

• What is your vision of success next year

• What do you need to be doing each month and week to feel good? This could be exercise, time with family and friends, going to movies etc.

• What is the biggest distraction from doing these fulfilling things?

• What would you need to say “no” to in order to say “yes” to being fulfilled?

• Examine the major decisions you have made in your career so far. Which ones put you on a fulfilling track? Which ones fell flat?

• What would you need to stop doing in order to get your career on track?

• What would you need to start doing?

Hear Natalie’s interview on CBC Radio

Added on December 8, 2010 at 3:13 pm

Natalie was a guest on CBC’s “On the Coast” with Stephen Quinn yesterday. To hear her commentary on Carole Jame’s resignation and to learn best practices for quitting your job gracefully, listen to the clip.

http://www.cbc.ca/onthecoast/index.html#interviews

Succession Management Workshop in Vancouver

Added on December 3, 2010 at 10:53 pm

Natalie Michael of the Karmichael Group will be teaching an upcoming workshop on succession management best practices for the BC Human Resources Management Association. This workshop is for Human Resources and Management professionals who are interested in building a pipeline of leadership talent in their organizations. If you are interested in registering, you can do so on the BC Human Resources Management Association website at http://www.bchrma.org

In this workshop you will learn:

A process for identifying top succession management risks in your business
A framework for succession management including the key steps in the process
Models for assessing leadership potential based on the latest research
Key practices in Succession 2.0 such as building an internal and external leadership talent pool
How to build a succession scorecard so you can measure the success of your leadership development program.

We hope to see you there!

How Coaching Works at You Tube

Added on November 28, 2010 at 5:55 pm

If you are considering working with a coach and curious about what the process is like, here is a great little video to give you a sense of what coaching is all about. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY75MQte4RU

Blindsided By Your 360 Feedback? Read this to make sense of your results.

Added on November 6, 2010 at 11:35 am

I got an email last week from a long standing client who was feeling down because he just received his 360 feedback results and there were some comments that took him by surprise. He wanted some executive coaching to help him dissect the gap between his self perception and how others perceived him. There was clearly a gap. When I got his call I could relate. About 10 years ago I was put through a 360 process and although on the whole the results were good, there was one comment that I could not shake. Like my client, I was not a happy camper. I think I cried.

Sadly, many companies have 360 feedback processes, but they don’t realize how tough it can be on leaders to get feedback, especially if the feedback does not fit with their self perception. If you are having your own “360 moment,” here is some information that will help you get through it and learn from it.

Key Principles For Getting Started

When you read your 360 results, it is important to hold the perspective that it is valuable information, no matter what the results say. I would even go as far as saying that it is a gift. This is because it gives you data about how your style impacts others. As a leader with the power to hire and fire people, you may not get this information otherwise, even though it is critical for your ongoing success.

But, in order to get the most out of the feedback experience, you need to be in the right mindset to soak it in. The starting point is to understand some key assumptions about leadership and interpersonal relationships which are inherently built into the 360 process. These are:

People perform and are more engaged at work when they have positive relationships.
When you are lucky enough to have a mutually productive and positive work relationship, this is a huge asset and it should be celebrated and maintained.
If you find that there are areas for improvement in the relationship and you decide to actively work on the relationship, you are demonstrating that you value and respect the other person’s view even if it does not match your own.
To work effectively with others, you don’t have to change your inherent style, but it is valuable to develop versatility. Basically, if you develop a wide variety of skills for handling interpersonal relationships, and you become skilled at interacting with people who are different from you, you will be more effective as a leader.

Do you disagree with any of these four assumptions? If so, stop here and examine why. 360 may be harder for you.

The Feedback Mindset

There are few points in the core assumptions above which are important to emphasize. Namely, that 360 feedback is all about relationships and versatility. Your feedback results answer the question: “What impact am I having on these people?” This is different from “Am I a good leader?” You may be an awesome leader in other situations and with different types of teams, but your 360 results won’t show that. They simply tell you whether or not your style is effective and productive with these individuals. Although this may sound trite, it is a major point. So many people come to me and say, “I just don’t get it! All of my past 360 results have been stellar.” This makes sense. Everyone can be successful somewhere and every style has its strengths and weaknesses. These results just tell you whether or not your style is effective right now.

Why The Disconnect Happens

If you see the results and they don’t match your self perception, a logical question is “why?” David Merril and Roger Reid in “Personal Styles and Effective Performance” explain it well. In their book, they explain that leaders develop behavioural habits. In the most basic sense, people tend to do things that make them comfortable and they avoid things that make them uncomfortable, or cause them tension. Once we discover that a certain pattern of action makes us comfortable and it gets a certain result, we tend to repeat it, especially if it is positively reinforced.

These behavioural habits begin early in life. For example, parents who want their children to be assertive often seek out teachers, friends, and coaches that reinforce this type of behaviour. Soon this accepted type of behaviour becomes so ingrained that a person may not even realize it is a habit. This happens to all of us. We repeat the behaviours that make us comfortable and successful in the past. Later in life we choose activities and occupations that are an extension of this basic style and avoid situations that disapprove of it, or suggest that another mode of behaviour is more effective. We also tend to label people who act differently from us as “bad” and people are similar to us as “good.”

We can keep going along this way our whole life, but if you are a leader you will likely at some point have an “A-Ha” moment which reveals the limitations of your habits. For example, Jim is the CEO of a retail chain. He initially did not want to do a 360 because he knew that he was not having a positive impact on others. There was 100% turnover on the executive team. He tried to justify his position by saying, “I don’t care what these people think. They are all too junior and they don’t understand why I behave the way I do.” I thought to myself, “Umm…they are all you got. Everyone else has left.”

His 360 results revealed that his view of his behaviour “strategic, assertive, results-oriented” was being perceived as pushy, rude, disrespectful and exhausting. Ouch. The good news is that Jim soaked up the feedback and really considered why this disconnect was happening. He realized that although his style was comfortable to him and maybe to senior executives, it was not comfortable for his current team – the people he was relying on to run his company. He had to figure out how to shift his behavoiur so he had just enough pressure to motivate his junior team, but not so much that he was killing morale. It was not that his style was inherently bad or good, it was just that it was not productive in this circumstance.

How To Get The Most From the 360 Process

So, if you are blindsided by your feedback, what should you do to make matters better instead of worse? Here are five tips that I know work.

1) Be like a scientist. When you first open the feedback packet, get yourself in the mode of the objective observer. Tell yourself. “This will be interesting. I get to see how my behaviour is impacting the team and I can learn how to create more productive relationships.” Know that whatever the results say, it is revealing something about you and about the people you are working with.

2) Reduce defensiveness. If you want to get something out of this process and become a more mature, effective leader, you need to self-manage your defense reactions. Do a little inventory of the fight or flight response before opening the packet. “If I don’t like what I hear, will I want to fight back and argue the results? Or, will I withdraw inside myself?” Take a note of your own immediate reaction and then ask yourself, “What is a healthy mature response?” Knowing this up front can help you to self-manage.

3) Aim for Versatility. When you look at the results, ask yourself: “Does this reveal that I am able to successfully lead and interact with different types of people? Am I able to create productive relationships with people who are different from me?” Looking at the results from this lens is the gift of 360 and it clarifies where you need to focus your development efforts. For example, do you tend to feel more comfortable with technical people, rather than highly social ones? If you have some social people on your team, what can you do to make the relationship more productive?

4) Evaluate the Feedback. As you read the feedback, evaluate what the messages are saying. If you have some positional power, people may temper their comments with things like, “He can be opinionated, but I am glad we know where we stand.” Don’t be fooled by this. Ask yourself: “When does my opinion get in the way of team relationships?” On the other hand, if some feedback doesn’t ring true for you, ask yourself, “What could be going on with the other person that would lead to this perception?”

5) Don’t Change Your Basic Style. Add Things On. – Recognize that the goal is to develop more versatility in your style, not change it all together. The goal is to become less “style limited” and to add a broader range of behaviours to your repertoire for better results. If you do this, people will see less style differences between you and them, and they will value your ability to accommodate their preferences. This, in turn, leads to better productivity, more fun, and effective relationships. And, surprise, surprise, that’s the point of a 360!

Succession Management as a Risk Management Strategy

Added on November 1, 2010 at 7:57 pm

Many organizations think of succession management as an exercise in leadership development; however, fundamentally, succession is first and foremost a risk management strategy. If you develop a pipeline of leaders who can take on critical roles in your business, you mitigate the potential risk of not being able to deliver on your business goals. When evaluating the degree of succession risk in your business, consider these dimensions:

Vacancy Risk –Start by evaluating which roles are most critical to your business strategy. Then consider: What is the risk of having these roles vacant? Will there be a negative impact on customers, profits, revenue, or employees? Next, assess the degree of risk for each role. If a role is considered to have a high vacancy risk, focus your succession efforts here first.

Readiness Risk – What is the risk that your next level of leaders will not be ready by the time a new leadership vacancy becomes available? For many organizations with pending retirements, there is a high readiness risk. There is a low probability that their next level of leaders will be ready to take on vacant positions as they become available. If you have a high risk score in this area, you need to focus your efforts on accelerating leadership talent and managing the integration of newly promoted leaders.

Recruitment Risk – What is the probability that you will find external talent in the marketplace to fill your vacancies? If the market is particularly tight, or you require highly specialized skills, there may a high recruitment risk. In this situation, you need to focus on proactively identifying people in the marketplace, and cultivate relationships with them, and you need to accelerate internal leadership development.

Manager Risk – Do your managers have the skills to cultivate leadership talent? Many succession programs assume that managers have the skills to coach and cultivate talent. This is a risky assumption. If you build your succession program around managers with poorly developed coaching and mentoring skills, the program will derail. Spend time understanding your manager’s capability at having development conversation and focus on skill building in this area.

Transition Risk – If you promote someone before they are ready and the hire is unsuccessful, what are the potential risks during the transition? For example, if a leader is in a technical role and responsible for managing critical business processes, there could be a significant risk to the business if the transition goes poorly. Your business processes could fail, or you could lose key client relationships. If key roles have a high transition risk focus on integration plans and job shadowing during this delicate period.

Regulation Risk – Some industries are highly regulated, such as engineering or the medical profession. It is not realistic to “accelerate talent” when there are industry regulations which govern how fast someone can develop their capability. In highly regulated industries, organizations must be very proactive in building their leadership pipeline and take a long term view.

Posting Code: EYAB8XVE2TQW.

What Could Derail Your Career Success?

Added on October 24, 2010 at 7:10 am

I just got certified to use the Hogan Suite of Assessments and one reason that I chose to invest in these tools is that it provides information on what could derail client’s career success and life satisfaction. It assesses 11 performance risks that interfere with a client’s ability to build relationships with others and create cohesive, goal oriented teams. A key premise behind the assessment is that performance risks are common for working adults. If client’s become more self-aware about their own derailers and actively manage them, they can reduce the career impact of the performance risks.

What is fascinating is that although clients may see signs of their derailers in their every day work life, they usually don’t become a problem until the person is under stress, or in a situation that is tapping into their personal resources. Because they are busy coping, they are not actively managing their reputation and proactively self-monitoring. We have all been there. It could be situations like being in a job that is a poor fit and wearing you down, multi-tasking beyond what is healthy, or a situation where you have been in your job so long that you now feel “comfortable” so you stop actively self-monitoring. “They know me now! I can let it all hang out.”

What is interesting is that when people are being derailed, the behaviours can be categorized into three themes. These stem from distorted beliefs about how others will view them.

Moving Away From People – You manage your negative feelings by avoiding contact with other people.
Moving Against People – You manage your own self doubt by dominating and intimidating others.
Moving Toward People – You manage your own insecurities by building alliances.

For example, if a person has a derailer of Skeptism they will demonstrate the “moving against people” behaviour. They will become more suspicious, mistrust others, and they will be more likely to confront other people they suspect of misconduct. On the other hand, people who demonstrate the Reserved derailer will be more likely to move away from people. They will become aloof, insensitive and indifferent to the problems of other people.

It’s important to clarify that just because you have a derailer, it does not mean that it will derail you. You have a much better chance of not getting derailed, if you know what your derailers are and you can develop a strategy for recognizing the signs and managing them before you get “in the grip.” It is kind of like knowing that you have a genetic marker for a disease. If you know you have a high probability of getting the disease, you can take steps to control some of the lifestyle habits before it gets the better of you.

If you are curious to learn more, call me at 778-227-8717 or email me at Natalie@karmichaelgroup.com.

Make good leadership selection decisions

Added on October 7, 2010 at 3:37 pm

The Karmichael Group has recently added a suite of leadership assessments to their service offering – the Hogan Assessments. These tools will allow us to support clients in the selection of internal and external leaders. http://www.hoganassessments.com. The Hogans are used by more than half of the Fortune 500 firms and there have been more than 400 validation studies completed. They are used by the Federal Government in the United States due to their level of reliability and validity.

The Hogan Suite of Tools allows us to gather objective data on leadership candidates. It specifically measures a leader’s natural style, potential derailers, culture fit, and strategic and tactical reasoning. Using this information as part of a robust selection process that includes well defined hiring criteria, structured interviews, and reference checking can increase the quality of hiring decisions by more than 38%. It also clarifies what level of support newly hired or promoted leaders will need during their first 90 days on the job.

For more information on our assessment offering, please contact Natalie Michael at 604-926-8717.

How To Present Your Leadership Development Plan To An Executive Panel

Added on October 4, 2010 at 9:17 pm

How to Present Your Leadership Development Plan To An Executive Panel

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting in a boardroom while six high potential leaders presented their leadership development plans to a panel of executives. The executives made up the succession management committee and the “high potential leaders” were individuals that the executive team thought were the most likely contenders for internal promotions if a job became available. These “high potentials” were asked to present their leadership development plans, so that they could get input from the executives on whether they were focusing in the right areas. It was also an opportunity to obtain resources for training and coaching and to get some practice presenting to executives. Some of the presenters did a great job and others were lack lustre. In case you ever have to do this, here are some tips on what to do and what not to do based on what I witnessed.

Tip One: Prepare

If you have to present your leadership development plan to a succession panel, I would highly recommend that you prepare in the same way that you would prepare for a panel interview. Think about what you are going to say, how you are going to say it, and the kinds of comments or questions that may come up. Doing this will help you be calm and composed – a key ingredient if you are trying to exude “executive presence.”

Tip Two: Be Mindful Of Your Introduction

The best introduction I witnessed was a leader that said: “I want to start by telling you that I am happy to be here today. I am genuinely interested in being an executive in this company and I consider it a great opportunity to be sharing my career goals and development goals with each of you.” Wow. He was the only person who said this and it definitely captured people’s attention. Talk about setting yourself up for success!

Tip Three: Showcase Your Strengths First

Although the topic of “leadership development plans” is usually focused on what you want to improve, make sure you talk about what you are already good at. One woman said: “Although I have a number of leadership strengths such as my ability to develop business strategy, and create a high performing team, I also recognize that there are some areas I need to further refine to prepare myself for an executive role.” When she said this, I thought: “Smart move, lady.” She used the opportunity to remind everyone of the strengths she is currently bringing to the business.

Tip Four: Link to Business Outcomes

When the time comes to talk about your development goals, I recommend linking your plans directly to the company strategy and your day to day business outcomes. For example, one leader said: “Given the amount of change in the business right now, my department needs to become more visible across different functional groups and we need to build our reputation with senior leaders. Given that this is part of my team mandate it is a perfect opportunity for me to build my own skills in relationship development and strategic influence. I want to learn what I can on this topic and apply the best practices in my day to day work.” Everyone around the table got it. Compare this to another fellow who stood up and talked about all the things he is not good at and how he has challenges with morale on his team. When this second fellow was presenting I questioned why he was selected for the program in the first place and I am sure some of the executives were wondering the same thing.

Tip Five: Pick a Presentation Style and Stick To It

When presenting some people read off the page and other people used a more narrative approach. Either method worked as long as you stuck with it. The people who ended up confusing the panel were those who could not decide if they were reading off the page or telling a story. In these cases, the panel kept flipping through the pages wondering if they were tracking the presentation correctly. Just pick one method and commit!

I hope these tips are useful to you. Remember, these presentations are an opportunity for you to showcase your career goals to decision makers in the business. Maximize it, so you can reach your own career aspirations and make some great connections along the way.