Possible roads for our lives to take– Part 2: Lonely Riders vs. Organizational Human Beings

 

By Juha Saukkonen
JAMK Senior Lecturer

The development of societies and firms has not only been the magnitude/size of their operations but also the ways they are organized and managed.  New organizational forms and structures, new functions and levels of command and control have taken place as a natural part of advancement.

One debate area is: Are we already seeing the end of this era of organization, or will it go on its evolutionary path? So we come to the next important crossroad that can affect the management of resources on society or company (+personal level).

Will future be the one of Lonely Riders or Organisational Human Beings?

The proponents of continuing era of organizations is basing their statement on few key principles:

1. Organizing is a natural human act. Our ancestors joined their forces and divided the tasks in order to hunt, cultivate the land etc. A sole human acting alone had little chance of survival.
2. People are social by definition. They need a group to belong to, and an organization also offers basic soil for feeling safe
3. In an organization you are in constant interaction with others, offering a platform to share, learn and have an impact on others

The ones opting for Lonely Riders believe that people will be increasingly acting in an unit of one. The strong metaphor is taken from good old Wild West films, where John Wayne (originally named Marion Morrison!) rode to the town that was  in trouble,  cleared the town of “bad boys”, put back his still smoking revolvers and rode into the sunset (to a new town in pain…).  How does this relate to the (working) life of the future, then? Potentially, people want to concentrate on “doin’ the right thing” instead of sitting in meetings, writing company-widely distributed memos, filling out forms that keep the bureaucracy alive. On the other hand, the ones having special skills and competences will productize them (and themselves) and sell the expertise to a larger and varying clientele, instead of staying in the payroll of one company alone. “Johnwaynism” may be also be driven by the need to better balance life at work and off.  Work harder when private life allows that, then shifting down when necessary.

How do YOU stand in respect to these possible futures on this line between Lonely Riders and Organisations?

 

Grow Your Stars — Don’t Buy Them

An interview with Boris Groysberg, Professor, Harvard Business School. Many star performers hired from outside don’t perform as expected at their new company. So, develop stars within your company; for example, through strong training and mentoring programs.

Pushing The Right Button

By Chuck Csizmar

Source: http://www.hrmtoday.com/human-capital/compensation/pushing-the-right-button/

Not every employee is capable of selling products or services to potential customers. The selling process requires an employee to possess a particular set of interactive and persuasion skills, as well as a compatible personality profile (garrulous, self-confident, unafraid of rejection, etc.). While some employees enjoy the challenge, most want no part of it and only a minority are neutral about the idea. For those tasked with a selling job, it’s typically a reflection of individual personality that would generate success or struggle.

For compensation practitioners, having the right person involved in the selling process can be more important than the compensation program itself, because dangling potential rewards in the face of the wrong person can be a waste of money and represents lost business opportunity.

It’s All About Motivation

Success in the selling process depends on the right motivating elements aimed at the right employee personality. To do this correctly within a sales compensation program requires the design to take that into account, to focus financial rewards toward whatever engages, whatever motivates the employee to perform in the manner the organization wishes.

Costly mistakes can be made when an organization assumes that all employees will react in the same fashion to the same stimulus.

Have you considered what motivates your sales employees? Chances are that not everyone would have the same answer.

• Money: Everybody’s first response is that all you have to do is offer the opportunity for a cash bonus and the employees are off and running. But in chasing the almighty dollar, employees could also drive your company in the wrong direction – even off a cliff – because they may take the path of least resistance (difficulty) and greatest financial reward. If those activities fail to align with what the company needs to assure business success, money is not only wasted but used to reward behavior that could be detrimental to the company.

Do you really want to reward the sale of a money-losing or low margin product?

• Mission: Especially prevalent with not-for-profit organizations, many employees have a “fire in the belly” belief in what the organization espouses, be it products, services or awareness. This internal value system often provides motivation enough to ensure concerted efforts. In such a scenario, money is deemed less important (though not dismissed) as a motivator. Employees are already motivated by the worthiness of the organizations mission.

Helping others or helping a cause can be reward enough for some employees.

• Brand identification: If you identify with the organization’s offerings and have a belief in what you are selling, you’re already halfway to becoming an effective sales representative. For these employees the ingrained belief in what they sell is already present; they just need a bit of training.

Employees are proud to be associated with a particular product or service. They’re always wearing the logo shirts and are the organization’s biggest fans.

• Self-motivation: Here the employee possesses an internal reserve of self worth that helps to make excellence its own reward. It’s a state in which success in one’s endeavors is self-fulfilling. The reward system for these employees is often a nice addition, but isn’t necessarily the prime motivating factor.

A certain level of performance would be forthcoming, no matter what financial rewards are offered.

• Challenge: The mindset here is the joy of climbing the hill, especially if there’s a pot of gold at the peak. Similar to self-motivation, some personality profiles relish a good challenge, and if you provide a reward for goal attainment, so much the better.

For such employees, the game is always afoot. They enjoy breaking down barriers, solving problems and grabbing for the brass ring.

• Competition: The fierce desire to be better than others; where winning (which means that others lose) is critically important. Note: such employees might not be effective team players.

Sometimes this motivational factor is less about achieving company goals than simply doing better than other employees. Like a loose cannon, these players may have their own definition of winning, which may not be synonymous with yours.

The takeaway point here is to understand what motivates your employees and then to place your rewards in front of them in a fashion that leads and directs their behavior.

If you design your incentive program with the wrong assumptions about what engages your workforce, you’ll risk missing your targets, misspending your financial assets and perhaps not even achieving the required level of success – regardless of the money paid out in rewards.

Designing A Better Carrot

When putting together the elements of your incentive program it would be worth your effort to focus rewards in a manner that recognizes the type of activity and performance you’re aiming for. That sounds like a simple and straightforward concept, yet is all too often missed by plan designers.

• Change in behavior: Providing an incentive opportunity should hinge on performance that you would not ordinarily receive. Don’t waste money paying extra for what you can gain for free.

• Longer term focus: Building relationships is often just as important as making a quick sale. Repeat and additive sales are much easier to achieve than finding a new customer.

• Worthwhile rewards: If the reward isn’t deemed worthwhile (“why should I put myself out for so little?”) the motivational factor will be diminished – leaving you with only employee self-motivation to rely on. In such a case your incentive plan would be viewed as worthless.

• Reasonable targets: If the employees don’t see their performance targets as “reasonably attainable,” their effort and engagement will suffer. They should have an expectation that they can succeed and that they can reach their target. Without that belief, no incentive plan in the world will be able to stimulate the right degree of motivation.

To motivate sales employees to achieve a win-win solution, where they deliver the right performance and achieve financial rewards while the company achieves operational success, you have to push the right buttons. But always be mindful that it’s not as easy as simply waving a dollar bill.

Chuck Csizmar is the Founder & Principal of CMC Compensation Group,an independent global compensation consulting firm whose expertise lies in helping companies manage the effective and efficient utilization of financial rewards for their employees. He also maintains a popular blog on compensation at his website www.cmccompensationgroup.com.

Creating A Culture That Promotes Problem-Solving Delegation

By Tanveer Naseer (Business coach, Writer, and over all Nice Guy)

Source: http://www.tanveernaseer.com/how-to-delegate-problem-solving-to-your-team/

In my coaching work, one common issue I see – especially in newly minted managers – is learning how to be successful in delegation. That’s not to say that these managers aren’t comfortable or are unwilling to delegate; most are more than happy to hand off assignments to their various team members. The problem is more of learning not to simply delegate tasks, but to delegate responsibility to those they lead.

One clear example of this form of delegation is problem-solving. Given how most managers are promoted to these positions based on their past accomplishments and level of expertise, it’s only natural that they feel responsible for trying to solve whatever problems their team encounters. Besides, it’s hard to turn people away who come to you asking for your help as this is a sign that they not only value and respect your insights, but that they trust your abilities to help resolve the situation.

Unfortunately, what this inevitably creates is a culture where, at best, your employees have an unwanted dependency on management to fix problems when they arise, or at worst, employees who basically clock-out when they arrive at work because the organization’s culture has removed any expectations on them to contribute their own problem-solving capabilities to the process.

Instead of being the go-to person for when your employees encounter an obstacle, why not be the leader who empowers them to solve it on their own? Why not give them the resources to solve the problem instead of allowing them to leave it on your plate? By implementing the four steps below, you can create a culture that not only promotes delegating more than just basic tasks, but one which encourages your employees to be active participants in your organization’s problem-solving process.

1. Be the first to show trust in the relationship
When leaders don’t hand out responsibility for solving issues to those they lead it’s often because they don’t want to risk losing control. And yet, if one thinks about it, empowering your employees to take charge for solving a problem doesn’t abdicate you of your role as their leader. Rather, it serves to free you from having to address one more detail that draws your focus away from the bigger issues that you should be addressing.

So how do we let go of this need to solve all the problems your employees come across? The first step is to trust them to solve it by giving them both the resources and latitude to tackle the problem. Granted, for someone whose used to putting out the fires, this can be a scary proposition. That is until you remember that you hired your employees to do this job. So why not let them do it?

2. Tell your employees to offer some possible solutions when they bring up problems
While trusting your employees to solve problems on their own is a major step forward, it’s also important that you follow this up with the clear message that if they bring problems to your attention, they also need to have at least one possible solution.

The reason for this is two-fold. First, it’s important to remember that like you, your employees are used to simply going to you with their problems and then expecting you to solve them. So, simply telling them that they now have to solve their problems on their own will feel like you’re just adding more work to their plate.

On the other hand, if you welcome their bringing problems to your attention – along with a possible solution for how to address it – they’ll not only have an easier time making this transition to solving problems without having to run it by you first, but both of you will begin to appreciate how capable they are of solving these issues on their own.

3. Give your employees space to do things differently and make mistakes along the way
We’ve all read about how we need to shift our perception of failure from being something to avoid to being an opportunity to gain a sense of clarity and understanding about what’s missing in our assumptions.

If your organization is to gain any benefits from failure, you need to show your employees that you trust their ability to figure out how to address the problems they’re facing. And if things do go wrong, rather than simply blaming them for ‘screwing up’, use it instead as a teachable moment where your employees can learn why the failure occurred and what you can collectively do to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

4. Show your employees that they can manage just fine without you
In his book “Management Challenges for the 21st Century”, Peter Drucker wrote that “most of us, even those of us with modest endowments, will have to learn to manage ourselves. We will have to learn to develop ourselves. We will have to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution.”

As leaders, one of the most effective ways we can facilitate and encourage our employees to reach their full potential is by empowering them to not only see that they can come up with viable solutions to the problems they’re facing, but by showing them that we’ll provide them with the necessary resources and support to implement their ideas.

In so doing, leaders can instill a sense of confidence and assurance in their employees that they can manage things just fine, without having to call upon those in charge to figure out what they have to do next.

As organizations begin to shift from the rigid hierarchical management of the past to the more open and collaborative models going forward, the time is fast approaching where leaders can no longer presume that they alone are capable of addressing the problems their organization is facing. Instead, what’s required from today’s leadership is creating a culture where delegation goes beyond simply handing out tasks to providing opportunities for others to take the lead.

Such cultural changes will prove to be a critical factor to determining an organization’s long-term viability and chances for continued success in the years to come.

Dealing with Office Politics – Navigating the Minefield

by MindTools

Picture from http://www.motifake.com/115911

“There’s too much wrangling and maneuvering going on – I just hate this office politicking”. “Joe, well he’s a smart political mover – knows exactly how to get what he wants and how to get on.” Whether you hate it, admire it, practice it or avoid it, office politics is a fact of life in any organization. And, like it or not, it’s something that you need to understand and master to be sure of your own success.

“Office politics” are the strategies that people play to gain advantage, personally or for a cause they support. The term often has a negative connotation, in that it refers to strategies people use to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater good. In this context, it often adversely affects the working environment and relationships within in. Good “office politics”, on the other hand, help you fairly promote yourself and your cause, and is more often called networking and stakeholder management.

Perhaps due to the negative connotation, many people see office politics as something very much to be avoided. But the truth is, to ensure your own success and that of your projects, you must navigate the minefield of Office Politics. If you deny the ‘bad politics’ that may be going on around you, and avoid dealing with them, you may needlessly suffer whilst others take unfair advantage. And if you avoid practising ‘good politics’, you miss the opportunities to properly further your own interests, and those of your team and your cause.