The Mark of a Leader - Did Cam Newton Quit?

A lot has been written and spoken about Cam Newton's performance at Super Bowl 50 ... and he's come in for a lot of criticism. So having let the dust settle I thought I'd take a look at Cam Newton's performance from the standpoint of him being a leader and not just quarterback of the Carolina Panthers.

Now I admire Cam Newton's ability as an NFL quarterback, I like the way he plays the game, the Dab dance celebration, his enthusiasm is infectious. I mean he's the NFL MVP this season .. what's not to like? 

However, the more I reflect on the Super Bowl, the more I feel that unwittingly Cam Newton may have taught us all a salutary lesson in leadership.

Two instances stick in my mind - the pivotal sack and stripping of the ball by Von Miller in the fourth quarter and the press conference after the game. Let's consider the sack first.

It's late in the fourth quarter, the Panthers trail by six points and are backed up in the own end of the field. The ball is snapped, Newton drops back to pass and the Denver Broncos defence, as they had all game, converge on Newton with Von Miller stripping the ball away. The ball is loose on the ground, bodies flying to recover and Newton hesitates .... the Broncos recover the ball and a couple of plays later they score a touchdown and the game is over.

Newton later gave his reasons for not diving on the ball, all well and good, however, it got me thinking ... if the play had happened at the other end of the field with the Panthers threatening a game tying touchdown would he have dived on the ball then. We will never know for sure, but I have to admit I think he would. I feel that the Denver defence had got to Newton not just physically but mentally and at that point in the game he was at a loss what to do. So far this season everything had gone Newton's way, he was the MVP of the league, but at that point in the game he wasn't as sure of himself and he backed away from the challenge before him.

Lesson #1 - Toughing it out when the going gets tough

As a leader it's easy to be on the top of your game when everything is going well, everyone looks up to you, your team members and peers praise you. However, when the chips are down and things are not going well, it's easy to shrink back and look to others. But this is exactly the time when your colleagues are looking to you to stand tall.

Okay onto the second instance, the post match press conference. All season Newton had been a charismatic and talkative player in front of the press, in fact leading up to the Super Bowl he'd led the press like a modern day pied piper. However, following the game he sat with his hoodie pulled up, one and two word answers to the press corps questions. His reasoning, he doesn't like losing. Now I'm familiar with the old adage - show me someone who likes losing and I'll show you a loser, but as the leader and public face of the Carolina Panthers there was an onus on Newton to stand-up and answer the questions that came his way, instead he came across to me as a sulking star, if he'd had a stuffy he probably would have thrown it.

Lesson #2 - Not standing up and taking responsibility

There are times as a leader when you need to stand up and be counted. It may not be easy or pleasant but it comes with the territory to step up and take responsibility. Many of us who've been in leadership roles may often have wished that we could pull a hoodie over our head, but circumstances and our teams needed us to step forward. People remember the leaders who do and those who don't. I remember one organization I worked with when a senior leader left work early the day his team were told they were being laid off, leaving it to his deputy to make announcement and manage the fall out. At least Can Newton hadn't stooped that low!
  
Lesson #3 - Learn from your mistakes  

Hopefully Newton learns from this, as leaders we don't always get it right, however we can learn from our mistakes and seek to be even better next time around. Leaders aren't perfect, they're often doing the best they can with what they have in front of them.

The Fallacy About Group Consensus in Consultation

I was working with a group recently and the discussion turned to a recent consultation exercise the organization had run last year. Many of the group were unhappy with the outcome decided upon by the Senior Management Team, a familiar refrain "Management didn't listen to us!" was heard around the room.

I probed a little deeper about what had happened ... "We were asked for our views" I was told, "But Management didn't listen...", "I didn't agree with their decision ...", "It wasn't the outcome I wanted ...".

"What were you expecting from a consultation exercise?" I asked. It transpired that what many people expected was to be asked their opinion and then management to implement a proposal that everyone agreed on, even though not everyone agreed on THE solution. It seemed to me that people had got themselves a little bogged down in what consensus following a consultation exercise actually is.

So I referred people to the explanation of consensus provided by Chris McGoff in his book "The Primes". Chris describes consensus as the following ...

"Process Satisfaction: Was the process used explicit, rational and fair?

Personal Treatment: Were you, personally, treated well? Did you have ample opportunity to be heard, to make your opinion known and to consider others opinions?

Outcome Satisfaction: Can you live with the outcome and commit to supporting the decisions of the group?"

Note the distinction in this last point between "live with" and "agree with". You don't have to agree with everything, but can you live with the decision?

Having explained Chris McGoff's thought process I asked them to review the recent consultation process in light of the Consensus Prime. Upon reflection the group, with a couple of exceptions, believed that the process had been fair, they had been listened to and they could live with the outcome. As one participant commented if "I'd known that consensus didn't necessairly mean agreement, this would have been an easier ride".

So perhaps a learning point for all ... be clear what you mean by consensus when consulting with your employees.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts.

Are Appraisal's finished?

Picture this, it is the final quarter of the year and a manager's mind turns towards annual ritual that is the year end appraisal. Now I don't know about you but many employees and their managers dread this event. Research I undertook in 2012/3 found that of the 30+ companies I spoke to, respondents indicated that they felt that the appraisal systems utilized in their company was disproportionately expensive to administer, overly complex and a bureaucratic box ticking exercise that often failed to deliver value.

Although it was never intended this way, too many employees found that performance feedback from their manager wasn't always forthcoming during the year and it wasn't unusual for performance issues to be raised at the year end and the conversation would deteriorate into an 'argument' over a numeric performance rating, rather than a constructive discussion on past and future performance. Interestingly this was more prevalent in larger companies, with complex performance management systems, in comparison with smaller companies with a less formal. As one respondent said, "We don't really have a performance management system, I simply review individual and team objectives with my team each week and we work on areas which need extra support or assistance."

But since then have organizations taken the opportunity to rethink the way organizations assess and manage performance?

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) highlighted that midway last year services firm Accenture decided to scrap the annual appraisal for it's employees, joining companies such as Microsoft and Gap in moving towards a more informal methodology for feeding back on performance achievement. In addition companies such as Google, Facebook and Netflix have scrapped appraisals entirely. 

However, those companies doing away with formal appraisals aren’t abandoning performance management entirely. A culture of more regular, informal feedback was often the approach being used. By managers pointing out problems as they arise, employees have the opportunity to address issues proactively to make an immediate difference to the business. In our workshop Managing the Unmanageable www.managingtheunmanageable.ca we focus on developing and supporting managers to do just this in a supportive way.

However simply getting rid of appraisal reviews won't solve the problem, as CIPD, CEO, Peter Cheese says: “If you’ve got managers who think their job is telling people what to do, and beating staff up all the time, then just stripping out the formal procedures won’t work. You’ve got to build the organization’s dynamics to create a more trusting environment.”

What's your experience of annual appraisals?

Can Managers be “fixed”?

Author Peter Drucker wrote extensively on the subject of management and yet he remained skeptical of management – “So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.”

“He head-butted an employee – ‘because he was annoying’.”

“She stood over an employee for two hours until she agreed to sign an appraisal she disagreed with.”

“He kept kissing people on top of their heads.”

Just some of the submissions to a People Management survey earlier this year, looking at what HR thought of managers in their respective organizations.

Managers often get a bad reputation, somewhat driven by the type of comments highlighted above and a feeling in some quarters that managers don’t add value.

But are we being totally fair if we subscribe to this view?

In most instances a manager’s role is pretty diverse; managers are asked to communicate vision, act as a coach, mediate in disputes and assume accountability for business results - often with the background of being promoted into a managerial role having been a technical expert in their previous role, rather than necessarily having demonstrated leadership and management capability.

Is it any wonder that a number of managers then underperform.

So what can we do to help managers in the workplace?

Organizational Culture – culture and values are intrinsically linked to management behaviours, do the priorities set at the C-suite level encourage the type of behaviours you want from your managers or the opposite? There is not necessarily a right or wrong in terms of your organization’s management culture, however there should be synergy across the organization. It is also worth remembering that in tough economic times the need for “good” management is probably more important than in times of plenty.

Good management can turn organizations from good to great, help drive change and engage and empower employees.

Management Capability – consider some form of management training, ideally as people come into the job – don’t wait 20 years to enroll someone on their first management program, you wouldn’t allow a bus driver to drive a city bus without passing their driving test! At Bluegem Learning we have worked with managers from a wide range of businesses internationally to help build management capability on a range of subjects from what motivates people, performance management, coaching, how to have difficult conversations and personal resilience to name but a few. And the results ….

By using the techniques learned on one of our programs, one participant reduced absenteeism in her team by 15%, saving her organization $18,000 over 3 months.

A second participant improved production by 10% during a production run and brought the project in ahead of time and under budget after using the coaching techniques practiced on another program.

http://www.bluegem.ca/featured_programs.htm

Self Awareness – look at increasing managers self awareness of how they behave in the workplace and how they can interact even better with others. There are a range of useful tools on the market, one I particularly like is the MiRo behavioural assessment - managers gain insights into behaviour, motivations, communication and relationships, make better decisions, deal with change and personnel more effectively. So what do people say …

“Using MiRo in our team building activity has allowed us to understand ourselves, our colleagues and the dynamic that drives our team. Everyone found the results both accurate and enlightening, and together we have created strong strategies for moving forward as a high performing team.”

http://www.bluegem.ca/miro_behavioural_assessment.htm

Proper Incentives – ensure that the rewards and compensation system you have in place rewards the behaviours you want displayed by your managers and isn’t puling people in the opposite direction. People will only demonstrate particular behaviours if there is a good reason. If a Sales Manager simply receives a target-related bonus where is the incentive to focus on motivating and developing their team, however if the latter is built into their bonus package, how much more of an incentive does it become to demonstrate those behaviours?

Is Authenticity as a Leader Over Rated?

I have been reading a book entitled “Act Like a Leader, Think like a Leader” by Herminia Ibarra which has raised some interesting considerations about what “authenticity” means as a leader and also what Ibarra considers to be the new rules of management, which I’ve outlined below.

People become leaders unofficially – at one time there was a distinct moment when people became leaders, an official promotion, along with a change in job title and a new office. However now, people may find themselves in a leadership role somewhat unexpectedly. The expectations of your job change, perhaps you are asked to take responsibility for other staff working on a project with you. Somehow overnight you are now responsible for managing and developing these people, without necessarily having been prepared for this paradigm shift in responsibility.

Who is responsible for your development, you or the organization? – many people interviewed by Ibarra for her book, expressed dissatisfaction with the way in which their organizations are supporting their development and are finding their own ways to develop more effective, in some cases people found that their own managers did little to assist them during this transition. In some ways I have heard echo’s of this in my own work, recently I spoke with a group of managers in an organization who on average had waited 5+ years to get a place on their organization’s Leadership Program. Obviously the need for just in time learning is as important as ever and people can’t wait for 5 years to receive the development they need. It is little wonder therefore that people choose their own developmental path.

And finally … Is Authenticity as a Leader Over Rated – Ibarra’s point here is that authenticity in itself isn’t a bad thing, but rather that people have differing opinions as to what authenticity is. As she puts it – authenticity means being true to yourself – but it doesn’t necessarily mean having to be as you’ve always been. Overtime your values may shift, you may be influenced or be inspired by others thinking. As you move into a leadership role and interacting with others who aren’t necessarily like you, to be effective you may need to experiment with new approaches and get out of your comfort zone. As a result you may act differently than you did in the past, which doesn’t mean you’re not being true to yourself.

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs. 

"Touch my Justin Bieber poster again and I'll sue!"

Workplace conflict can often start in a fairly innocuous manner but the consequences can be serious as highlighted by 40% of respondents to a recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, "Tracing Workplace Conflict".  

An employee in one organization was dismissed after Facebook "banter" got out of hand and he "liked" a comment about an unpopular manager being beaten over the head with a chair.

Barbed comments between two chefs about vegetable preparation ended in a fist fight and a hospital visit for the two protagonists.

Another business came to standstill for three days over a dispute over stolen milk from the refrigerator. The company ended up buying six new refrigerators, one for each department. 

These examples illustrate the importance of dealing proactively with conflict and not allowing the situation to fester. The impact on productivity, motivation, morale and the culture of the organization can't be underestimated. 

A certain amount of conflict in an organization is inevitable, and the most common ..... a clash of personality or working style. You are after all putting a group of people together who may have conflicting personal objectives and are not necessarily selected for their teamworking skills. Just ask the manager of a sales team I recently worked with, the concept of collaboration was not one that came readily to this team.

Often communication or a lack of it is the flashpoint for conflict - language and the body language that accompanies it is often at the root of many misunderstandings. This is exacerbated with the increasing absence of face to face contact in the workplace, you can't judge from the other person's reaction whether you're on the right track or not from a voice message, text or e-mail.

Line managers nervousness in dealing with conflict is also a contributory factor to escalating problems. From my experience in 25 years of working with a range of organizations, managers are often promoted for their technical expertise and not necessarily their people skills. They are placed in positions of authority, without the necessary skills or confidence to deal effectively with these situations and as a result they don't.

So how do we deal effectively with conflict in the workplace?

Well timing is everything. Taking a proactive approach to adress issues early on will pay dividends but requires line managers to be skilled and confident to take action. We may find that mediation and conflict resolution become a core skill for all managers as they take up post, so that they can deal with matters informally and effectively.

This is often preferable to formalizing the process too early by bringing in the HR "big guns", which can lead to an increase in grievances where every problem leads to a formal complaint and investigation. Did I mention the time and financial cost the formal process can take?

A third option is to utlize a mediation service, either internal or external, that can lead to a positive outcome. However, this approach needs to take place without prejudice and from a position of balanced power i.e. mediation won't be effective if the approach is " ... if this doesn't work I resort to legal action".

Here's my six simple steps to dealing proactively and effectively with conflict in the workplace:

1. Discuss the situation in a respectful manner
2. Be specific as to the problem
3. Discuss how the conflict impacts on you, the team or the project
4. Ask for the other parties perspective on what's causing the conflict
5. Ask for a proposed solution
6. Agree on the action to be taken

Click here for further information on how I can help managers become proficient at tackling those difficult situations at work.

Are HR Business Partners a Dying Breed?

Two decades ago David Ulrich published his book Human Resource Champions outlining his ideas on how Human Resources could realign itself to meet the needs of the business it supported.

In it's core the HR Business Partner model is pretty straight forward, a centralized or out sourced HR Services function focusses on the transactional stuff, subject matter experts e.g. benefits, policy etc provide the knowledge and business minded HR partners embeded into business units, add bottom line value.

To what degree this has actually happened is up for debate and to be fair the three dimensional approach to HR wasn't necessarily Ulrich's design, he was concerned with framing HR in a way that would free the more business savvy, strategically minded to focus on adding value to the customer.

One prominent view is that despite a change of title the reality is that many HR business partners remain part of a function that is reactive rather than proactive, focussed on procedure and transaction orientated. From my experience the HR business partner approach has worked better in larger organizations where transactional work can be outsourced (not always popular in itself) or undertaken by shared services, elsewhere where HR either can't articulate its transformation to operational units or where line managers are unwilling or unable to take on additional responsibilities that were the work of HR the idea can become a non-starter.

So what can be done?

One consideration is to match the model for HR in a business with the structure of the company itself i.e. if the company is centralized and functional then HR should follow the same model, this would be a view shared by Ulrich who seems frustrated that the people have not evolved the idea rather than taking a cookie cutter approach.

Linked to this is being realistic, what does the company want & need from its HR function, in many cases, as mentioned earlier, line managers don't want or aren't able to take on the more transactional nature of the HR role. In my experience corporately in HR this would translate itself into line managers happy to take on the responsibilities they wanted, hiring and firing for example, but not wanting the rest i.e. payroll & benefits, complaints, trade union negotiations.

Some commentators have suggested that HR managers can be upskilled, re-tooled and rebadged, so that they are highly articulate influencers, with commercial and business savvy, an extensive knowledge of HR best practice, well qualified with a sound experience of both HR and Operations. No mention of these people having a "S" emblazoned on their chest! 

Are we being too unrealistic in our desire for the HR business partner? I'd love to hear from HR business partners and their Operations colleagues, how do you see it?

I am Canada’s “Champion of Great Leadership” I work with companies developing leaders to optimize the performance of their teams. 

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs.

Men paid 29% more than women?

In my earlier post "Women work for free ...", I highlighted the recent Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) 2015 National Management Salary Survey that revealed that women earn 22% less than men, meaning that they’re unpaid for 1h 40m a day.

I've had a few people ask me for further details i.e. was this the same in every industry and if not how much of a differential was there. I've delved a little deeper into the report and here is a breakdown by key industries.

29%   Accountancy - average male salary £47,034, average female salary £36,432

22%   Banking - average male salary £25,377, average female salary £20,800

21%   Energy - average male salary £27,452, average female salary £22,674

19%   Purchasing - average male salary £29,555, average female salary £24,796

18%   Sales - average male salary £23,562, average female salary £19,898

18%   Education - average male salary £21,216, average female salary £17,922

18%   Hospitality - average male salary £18,497, average female salary £15,665

13%   Retail - average male salary £16,851, average female salary £14,951

Source: Reed

One of the difficulties the report highlighted in conducting pay audits was the ability to compare 'equal value work', especially in the private sector. Using job roles as a basis wasn't enough and full job evaluation would be required first.

WOMEN WORK FOR FREE 1H 40M A DAY

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) in the UK have just released the details from their analysis of the 2015 National Management Salary Survey of 72,000 UK managers reveals that women working in equivalent full-time roles earn 22% less than men, meaning that they’re unpaid for 1h 40m a day – a total of 57 working days every year.

The CIPD have produced the following infographic - below which explains their findings.

New regulations coming into force in 2016 will require large organizations to report how they pay men and women. 

How does your company compare here in Alberta? Is gender equality in terms a reality or not? I'd love to hear your views.

Check out our range of Leadership Training programs at Bluegem Learning - Leadership Programs

Is the conflict you need to resolve hot or cold?

Mark Gerzon drew on 20 years of experience of conflict management in his article in Harvard Business Review back in June 2014, in which he explored the concept that before you can start to resolve a conflict you need to first establish whether to conflict is Hot or Cold.

Mark defines "Hot" as "when one or more parties are highly emotional and doing one or more of the following: speaking loudly or shouting; being physically aggressive, wild or threatening; using language that is incendiary; appearing out of control and potentially explosive."

"Cold" he defines as "when one or more parties seem to be suppressing emotions, or actually appear “unemotional,” and are doing one or more of the following: muttering under their breath or pursing their lips; being physically withdrawn or controlled; turning away or otherwise deflecting contact; remaining silent or speaking in a tone that is passively aggressive; appearing shut down or somehow frozen."

He goes on to explore specific strategies for dealing effectively with each possibility. To read the full article visit:

https://hbr.org/2014/06/to-resolve-a-conflict-first-decide-is-it-hot-or-cold&cm_sp=Article-_-Links-_-Top%20of%20Page%20Recirculation

Stop! You're doing it all wrong!

In the second of his articles playwright, theatre producer and corporate coach, Ken Cameron describes the process of "Forum Theatre" that we utilize on the workshop "Managing the Unmanageable", a revolutionary approach to skills development.

"You wouldn’t think that a style of theatre developed by a Brazilian political activist would turn out to be a useful tool for business leaders around the world. But it is.

Managers who know that they are facing a difficult conversation with a challenging or unmanageable team member, have learned the value of role-playing. But Forum Theatre allows you to take role-playing to an extra level.

In Forum Theatre a scenario – in this case a difficult workplace conversation – is shown twice. During the replay, any member of the workshop is allowed to shout 'Stop!', step forward and take the place of the participant who is struggling. They then have to show how they would change the situation to enable a different outcome.

In our workshop we go one further, and use professional actors to make the role-play as close to the real situation as possible without having the real people in the room with you.

The strategy is the closest you can get to having the real conversation." 

Bluegem Learning will be partnering with Ken Cameron from Corporate CultureSHIFT in hosting "Managing the Unmanageable" - an introduction to the art of having difficult workplace conversations, on February 26, 2015 at the Kahanoff Centre in Downtown Calgary. 

This will be a highly interactive experience for managers & supervisors using Forum Theatre as an experience to build capability and confidence. For further details checkout 

www.managingtheunmanageable.ca

Does Your Team (Metaphorically) Run Away When You Start Speaking?

Stop Letting Fear & Discomfort Prevent You From Having Those "Difficult Conversations" at Work.

I'm delighted to announce that Bluegem Learning will be partnering with Ken Cameron from Corporate CultureSHIFT in hosting "Managing the Unmanageable" - an introduction to the art of having difficult workplace conversations, on February 26, 2015 at the Kahanoff Centre in Downtown Calgary. 

This will be a highly interactive experience for managers & supervisors using Forum Theatre as an experience to build capability and confidence. For further details checkout www.managingtheunmanageable.ca

Ken is a highly talented and successful playwright and theatre director, who uses his twenty years of creative and corporate experience to coach business leaders on how to access their creativity and increase their profitability.

In the first of a series of articles relating to this workshop Ken talks about having "The Conversation".

"People naturally fear change.

And as mammals whose brains were forged on the savanna in the company of large speedy predators, we are programmed to run away from what we fear.

The way the brain works is worth acknowledging when its time to have “That Conversation” with your Team.

There are many things we are programmed to fear.  We fear things that threaten our existing status. We fear ideas that demands new skills which leaves us feeling uncertain. Change might imply a new corporate structure, which has an impact our ability to make autonomous decisions. It may mean that new employees arrive while familiar faces depart, affecting our relatedness. And change is almost always perceived as being unfair to some and privileging others.

You can see that with so many triggers so close at hand, it’s easy to elicit a flight response and cause your employee to shut down just s your trying to being “That Conversation” about their performance.

Wouldn’t it be better to assuage those triggers: and make them work for you?

I’m pleased to be participating in a workshop with Russell Stratton of Bluegem Learning called “Managing the Unmanagebale” that gives leaders the tools to have “That Conversation” properly."