What makes me NOT want to leave a company/client/shop

One of my friends pointed me to this blogpost from Derik Whittaker,... very obviously but not always as evident.

Many times while you are doing the whole interview dance the company will ask you why you left a former company or client. But how often do they ask you what you need/want to not leave your NEXT place? Sure some times they may ask what makes you happy, or what type of place do you like. But how often to they ask you point blank, what can WE do, what can WE provided for you not to leave this company (assuming you were to hire on)?

• Allow my voice to be heard
• Put me in a position to succeed
• Put me in a position to make a difference
• Make effective communication must be priority
• Manager that will battle to the death for their team
• Team members that challenge me
• Cool technology

success quote

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. -Bill Cosby

STAR method for answering interview questions

Situation * Task * Action * Result

Include these elements to tell a compelling story about what you have done that demonstrates your transferable skills.
The STAR method works best for behavior-based questions that begin with "Tell me about a time when…" or "Describe a situation when…," but this approach is good to use whenever you find yourself sharing an example in response to a question.

Situation: "Recently, I completed a project that involved working with a team…."

Task: "...our task was to implement an emergency preparedness plan for our department."

Action: "My role was to inform staff about the procedures we needed to follow in case of an emergency that required us to evacuate our office. I did this in several ways: by emailing everyone and sending an attachment describing the evacuation plan, exit route, and designated meeting place; by creating a colorful visual display on the bulletin board in our staff work room; and by taking everyone through a hands-on exercise during a staff meeting."

Result: "The result was that when the University conducted a drill for the entire campus, the staff in our office assembled at our pre-arranged meeting place quickly and without hesitation."

Make sure to focus on what your role was when you are describing a team project. Don't forget to give a result or outcome. Even if the outcome wasn't positive, be prepared to discuss what you learned and what you would have done differently.

Personality theories, types and tests

personality types, behavioural styles theories, personality and testing systems - for self-awareness, self-development, motivation, management, and recruitment

Motivation, management, communications, relationships - focused on yourself or others - are a lot more effective when you understand yourself, and the people you seek to motivate or manage or develop or help.

Developing understanding of personality typology, personality traits, thinking styles and learning styles theories is also a very useful way to improve your knowledge of motivation and behaviour of self and others, in the workplace and beyond.

Understanding personality types is helpful for appreciating that while people are different, everyone has a value, and special strengths and qualities, and that everyone should be treated with care and respect. The relevance of love and spirituality - especially at work - is easier to see and explain when we understand that differences in people are usually personality-based. People very rarely set out to cause upset - they just behave differently because they are different.

Put yourself out there

Take a risk. When it comes to connecting with others, challenge yourself outside your comfort zone.
Although this may go against the grain in traditional corporations, initiate emotional engagement with other people, and maybe even a bit of physical contact - within acceptable boundaries of course. It's safest with someone of the same gender, unless you know the other person well.
Physical contact is an immensely powerful thing. Many people really enjoy a good hug - in fact sometimes it's the only cure when people are upset or angry. Physical contact does however carry certain risks in the workplace because of the risks misinterpreting signals, so if in doubt don't use it. Nevertheless there are times when you can trust your instincts and reach out to people in this way, even if it's a gentle touch on the arm, or a pat on the back.

Being friendly though is perfectly safe. Go out of your way to greet a colleague you haven't seen in a while. Be the first to say hello. Never ignore someone because you think they ignored you first - they probably never even noticed you because they were still thinking about the big game last night, or whether they left the oven on.

The world is full of people who wait for the other person to initiate contact. No wonder people don't generally communicate well - they are all too busy thinking they've been ignored, when in fact nothing can be further from the truth.
Everyone longs for the other person to initiate content and give them a big friendly smile.
And that's the way it starts - then you do begin to do it more often, and then other people try it too because they see it's safe and nobody dies, and before long everyone on the floor is happy to make the first move, then it spreads to the whole building. Because everyone realises it's okay to be open and friendly.

Individuals at all levels of an organization welcome being treated as a full person, not just a workmate or a phone extension, or an email address.

So put yourself out there: approach people as people - in a genuinely friendly way - be affectionate and caring - through hugs and pats when it's okay, or simply through a big warm smile.

CIOs Are Looking for Soft Skills

In a survey (from may 2007) by technology recruiters Robert Half, they poled 1,400 CIOs. CIOs were asked, “In which of the following areas do you think your IT staff could most use improvement?”

• Technical abilities............................................................ 25%
• Project management skills.................................................. 23%
• Verbal and written communication abilities............................... 15%
• Organizational skills.......................................................... 14%
• Interpersonal skills............................................................ 12%
• None/no improvements needed.............................................. 3%
• Other/don't know.............................................................. 8%
  

While “technical abilities” were ranked first as a single classification, the combination of verbal and written abilities, organizational skills, and interpersonal skills, in other words those abilities that are typically thought of as “soft skills,” accounted for 41% of the areas that need improvement.
“Technology changes rapidly, making it crucial for IT staff to constantly learn new skills to keep pace with industry advancements,” said Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology. “While it’s ultimately up to the individual to keep his or her technical abilities current, the best employers invest in ongoing professional development for employees at all levels. Professional development programs also can aid a company’s recruitment and retention efforts. In today’s competitive IT hiring market, employees want to work for firms that encourage them to build new skills and assume more challenging responsibilities.”We all know that technical professionals need solid technical skills, and most organizations budget for training programs that help technical pros keep pace with industry advancement. However, in order to take advantage of the technical skills, CIOs are beginning to recognize that they need to upgrade the soft skills of their teams as well.

Decibel Management

Never heard about it? Well me neither but most of you probably know what I mean. Who has had a manager who never listened to what you wanted or needed. A manager who loves to speak without listening to what others have to tell. Someone who makes more noise than sense?

From now on I’ll call it “Decibel Management”

Be an Early Bird and a Late Bloomer.

Never be late. At a networking event the ten minutes before things get under way and the ten minutes after are the real golden moments. So arrive 15 minutes early and stay 15 minutes late.

Creating a Culture of High Engagement and Performance

“The talented employee may join a company
because of its charismatic leaders, its
generous benefits, and its world-class training
programs, but how long that employee stays
and how productive they are while they are
there is determined by their relationship with
their immediate supervisor.”

Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman
First, Break All the Rules

Self Management Checklist

In business world, many people do not need to manage or organise their tasks. Their manager or project manager assigns specific tasks with specific deadlines for them to meet. Many people work effectively in this environment - they produce their work on time with high quality. However this environment may make them to rely on someone to manage the time and tasks for them, which may lead to their failure on other parts in their life. The following article may ease this difficulty. The Counselling Services in University of Victoria has come up with 12 points on how to self-manage yourself and projects. The list is like a mini-project management course - but it is more personal and easier to catch on:

1. Specify a clear goal you want to accomplish.
2. Specify when you’ll do it.
3. Record your hit rate.
4. Make a public commitment.
5. Add an explicit penalty for failure, if you need to.
6. Think small.
7. Specify the amount of product you’re going to produce.
8. Get a timer that beeps every five minutes and chart whether you’re on task, if you find yourself drifting off too much.
9. Arrange for regular contact with your monitor, daily or weekly as needed.
10. Arrange for your friend to monitor your graphing as well as your goal attainment.
11. Get rid of distractions.
12. Recycle.

University of Victoria

Don't Waste Part of Your Team

When you start managing, you learn that every member of your team is important. You try to treat them equally. You want to give them all the same information so they work at peak efficiency. The higher you go the bigger your team gets and before long your team is no longer all located in the same location. This makes it harder to keep everyone "on the same page".

Wasting Talent
When part of your team doesn't get the same information as the others, it is harder for them to do their jobs as well. If they get a key memo, but not until after everyone else has seen it, they may do something different before they get the memo. If you send a two page plan to all your team leads outlining the new strategy they can move ahead as a team. But if there is some ambiguity in the plan and you explain that to one team lead, but not to the others, there is a real chance that they will waste effort executing the plan differently. Perhaps they will overlap. Maybe they will allow gaps. Either way they won't be as effective as if you had gotten them all the same information so they were all “on the same page".

Things To Avoid

• Differential Information Flow
  When you tell people in office more or sooner than those in the field or in other branches, you reduce efficiency.
• Uneven Appreciation
  Don't give more weight to suggestions from people in your office than to those in the field. Nothing will destroy morale faster.
• Preferential Promotion
  The fact that you see the people in the home office more, and see more of the work they do, does not make them better or more productive. If this causes you to promote them faster, or give them the more desirable assignments, you make it more difficult for the different parts of the team to work together.

Better Choices
You want to take full advantage of the talents of all the members of our team. You cannot afford to let any of that talent to be wasted because you don't treat them equally.

• Plan Your Communications
  You need to develop a plan for how you are going to make sure all your communications get delivered to all your people at the same time and in the same degree of detail. The plan will vary depending on your particular circumstances: your company, your job, where the rest of your team is located, etc. The important thing is to have a plan you can stick with under normal circumstances, but during periods of stress as well.
• Schedule Meetings
  Hold regular meetings to give you an opportunity to tell everyone at the same time. Use conference calls to include those in remote offices. If you can use a video conferencing system, do that too. A lot more information is conveyed visually than verbally.
• Get Feedback
  Ask your direct reports in the remote offices if they feel connected. Are they getting the same message in the same detail at the same time as their peers who are physically closer to you? If they aren't, they can suggest changes so they are getting the same information flow.
• Review Your Promotions
  Take a look at the promotions you have made and the commendations you have issued. Are they weighted toward the people in the home office? Are there valid reasons for that? Fix any discrepancies you find.

The job is hard enough without you making it harder on yourself buy wasting some of the talent available to you. Don't let distance blind you to the value of some of your team. Make sure you give equal importance to all the members of your team regardless of where they are located and you will be more successful as a manager.

Play Well With Others:

Develop Effective Work Relationships
You can submarine your career and work relationships by the actions you take and the behaviors you exhibit at work. No matter your education, your experience, or your title, if you can't play well with others, you will never accomplish your work mission.

Effective work relationships form the cornerstone for success and satisfaction with your job and your career.
How important are effective work relationships?
Effective work relationships form the basis for promotion, pay increases, goal accomplishment, and job satisfaction.

source

Tough Conversations : Part 2

The Constructive Conversation:
In one of the modules of the course we discussed a four step process that will assist you in practicing behaviors that lead to a constructive conversation.

The Four Step Process is as follows :
- Analyze the situation
- Plan your message
- Conduct the conversation
- Follow up.

PREPARATION:

1. Analyze the situation
   -Is there a performance gap
   -What is the gap?
   -What is known and not known?
   -What action is required?
   
2. Plan your message
   -Consult HR
   -General Information
   -Concerns
   -Solutions
   -Expectations
   -Consequences

APPLICATION:

1. Conduct the conversation
   -Book a time and meeting room
   -Anticipate possible emotional reactions
   -Ask open-ended questions
   -State clear consequences
   -Keep it simple
   
2. Follow up
   -Document and monitor action plan/perfomance improvement
   -Provide support without removing responsibility
   

Tough Conversations : Part1

Last week I was on a training about tough conversations,...what I've learned ->

What makes a conversation tough?

5 Aspects of Tough conversations:

1. Dealing with unpredictable employee emotions
   solution : prepare yourself
   
2. Dealing with your anxiety and discomfort
   solution : accept being uncomfortable, don't avoid
   
3. Discussing difficult topics.
   solution : be prepared, get facts
   
4. Reconciling different perceptions
   solution : Keep in mind following point to get to the real issue
   - different info because we notice things differntly,have access to different info
   - different interpretations because we're influenced by past experiences,...
   - conclusions reflect our self interest because we look for information to support our views
   
5. Facing confrontation
   solution : can be an opportunity to learn, isn't always negative, may be uncomfortable,..

Company Culture

What It Is And How To Change It
Company Culture

A culture is the values and practices shared by the members of the group. Company Culture, therefore, is the shared values and practices of the company's employees.

Company culture is important because it can make or break your company. Companies with an adaptive culture that is aligned to their business goals routinely outperform their competitors. Some studies report the difference at 200% or more. To achieve results like this for your organization, you have to figure out what your culture is, decide what it should be, and move everyone toward the desired culture.

Company cultures evolve and they change over time. As employee leave the company and replacements are hired the company culture will change. If it is a strong culture, it may not change much.

However, since each new employee brings their own values and practices to the group the culture will change, at least a little. As the company matures from a startup to a more established company, the company culture will change. As the environment in which the company operates (the laws, regulations, business climate, etc.) changes, the company culture will also change.

Assess The Company Culture
There are many ways to assess your company culture. There are consultants who will do it for you, for a fee. The easiest way to assess your company's culture is to look around. How do the employees act; what do they do? Look for common behaviors and visible symbols.
Listen. Listen to your employees, your suppliers, and your customers. Pay attention to what is written about your company, in print and online. These will also give you clues as to what your company's culture really is.

Determine The Desired Company Culture
Before you can change the company culture, you have to decide what you want the company culture to look like in the future. Different companies in different industries will have different cultures. Look at what kind of a culture will work best for your organization in its desired future state. Review your mission, vision and values and make sure the company culture you are designing supports them.
Here are some characteristics of company cultures that others have used successfully.

• Mission clarity
• Employee commitment
• Fully empowered employees
• High integrity workplace
• Strong trust relationships
• Highly effective leadership
• Effective systems and processes
• Performance-based compensation and reward programs
• Customer-focused
• Effective 360-degree communications
• Commitment to learning and skill development
• Emphasis on recruiting and retaining outstanding employees
• High degree of adaptability
• High accountability standards
• Demonstrated support for innovation

Align The Company Culture
You need to align your company culture with your strategic goals if it isn't already.
Develop a specific action plan that can leverage the good things in your current culture and correct the unaligned areas.

• Brainstorm improvements in your formal policies and daily practices.
• Develop models of the desired actions and behaviors.
• Communicate the new culture to all employees and then
  over-communicate the new culture and its actions to everyone.

Only a company culture that is aligned with your goals, one that helps you anticipate and adapt to change, will help you achieve superior performance over the long run.

Benefits of an Open Door Policy:

An Open Door Policy for all employees? This means, literally, that every manager's door is open to every employee. The purpose of an open door policy is to encourage open communication, feedback, and discussion about any matter of importance to an employee. An open door policy means that employees are free to talk with any manager at any time.

By helping to solve problems, managers benefit by gaining valuable insight into possible problems with existing methods, procedures, and approaches. While there may not be an easy answer or solution to every concern, your company's employees have the opportunity at all times, through the open door policy, to be heard.

Delegate, Don't Just Dump

Most managers don't know how to delegate. That's not really surprising, because no one ever delegated anything to them. How else are they going to learn?

Many times, managers dump their work onto someone else, but there is a big difference between delegating and dumping. When you delegate something to a subordinate it should serve two purposes.

• First, it must lighten your load so you can concentrate on more important issues.
• Second, it must help the receiver learn and grow.

When you delegate, as opposed to dumping, you give the other person the same authority to complete the task as if you had done it yourself. If the task means signing a requisition, the person to whom you delegated the task must have the same authority to sign that requisition as you have. That doesn't mean you delegate all your authority to that individual, only that you have to give them the authority to do what you would have been able to do.

For instance, if you can sign requisitions up to €10,000 and the delegated task means signing a requisition for €2,000, the person to whom you delegated must be able to sign that €2,000 requisition, but not necessarily one for €3,000.

Remember, though, that you can delegate the authority, but you cannot delegate the responsibility. It is up to you to see that the person is adequately trained before you delegate to them and is adequately supervised after you delegate. They won't necessarily do it the same way you would have, and they probably won't do it as well to begin with. That doesn't matter. Keep them from making any major blunders as they get the feel of the task and you will have successfully delegated. You will have lightened your load and you will have helped one of your people develop further.

WHAT IS SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP?

After reading the "One minute manager" of Kenneth Blanchard i found this paragraph one of the most interesting,...

The Situational Leadership method from Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey holds that managers must use different leadership styles depending on the situation. The model allows you to analyze the needs of the situation you're in, and then use the most appropriate leadership style. Depending on employees' competences in their task areas and commitment to their tasks, your leadership style should vary from one person to another. You may even lead the same person one way sometimes, and another way at other times. Blanchard and Hersey characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of direction and of support that the leader gives to his or her followers, and so created a simple matrix (figure).

Leadership Behavior of the Leader
· S1 - Telling / Directing
- High task focus, low relationship focus - leaders define the roles and tasks of the 'follower', and supervise them closely. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way. For people who lack competence but are enthusiastic and committed. They need direction and supervision to get them started.

· S2 - Selling / Coaching
- High task focus, high relationship focus - leaders still define roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions from the follower. Decisions remain the leader's prerogative, but communication is much more two-way. For people who have some competence but lack commitment. They need direction and supervision because they are still relatively inexperienced. They also need support and praise to build their self-esteem, and involvement in decision-making to restore their commitment.

· S3 - Participating / Supporting
- Low task focus, high relationship focus - leaders pass day-to-day decisions, such as task allocation and processes, to the follower. The leader facilitates and takes part in decisions, but control is with the follower. For people who have competence, but lack confidence or motivation. They do not need much direction because of their skills, but support is necessary to bolster their confidence and motivation.

· S4 - Delegating
- Low task focus, low relationship focus - leaders are still involved in decisions and problem-solving, but control is with the follower. The follower decides when and how the leader will be involved. For people who have both competence and commitment. They are able and willing to work on a project by themselves with little supervision or support.

Effective leaders are versatile in being able to move around the matrix according to the situation, so there is no style that is always right. However, we tend to have a preferred style, and in applying Situational Leadership you need to know which one that is for you.

emotional intelligence (EQ)

emotional intelligence theory (EQ - Emotional Quotient)

Emotional Intelligence - EQ - is a relatively recent behavioural model, rising to prominence with Daniel Goleman's 1995 Book called 'Emotional Intelligence'. The early Emotional Intelligence theory was originally developed during the 1970's and 80's by the work and writings of psychologists Howard Gardner (Harvard), Peter Salovey (Yale) and John Mayer (New Hampshire). Emotional Intelligence is increasingly relevant to organizational development and developing people, because the EQ principles provide a new way to understand and assess people's behaviours, management styles, attitudes, interpersonal skills, and potential. Emotional Intelligence is an important consideration in human resources planning, job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection, management development, customer relations and customer service, and more.

The EQ concept argues that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow; that there are wider areas of emotional intelligence that dictate and enable how successful we are. Success requires more than IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which has tended to be the traditional measure of intelligence, ignoring eseential behavioural and character elements. We've all met people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially and inter-personally inept. And we know that despite possessing a high IQ rating, success does not automatically follow.

emotional intelligence - two aspects
This is the essential premise of EQ: to be successful requires the effective awareness, control and management of one's own emotions, and those of other people. EQ embraces two aspects of intelligence:

• Understanding yourself, your goals, intentions, responses, behaviour and all.
• Understanding others, and their feelings.

emotional intelligence - the five domains

1. Knowing your emotions.
2. Managing your own emotions.
3. Motivating yourself.
4. Recognising and understanding other people's emotions.
5. Managing relationships, ie., managing the emotions of others.

By developing our Emotional Intelligence in these areas and the five EQ domains we can become more productive and successful at what we do, and help others to be more productive and successful too. The process and outcomes of Emotional Intelligence development also contain many elements known to reduce stress for individuals and organizations, by decreasing conflict, improving relationships and understanding, and increasing stability, continuity and harmony.

Top 10 ideas about what employees want from work

Every person has different reasons for working. The reasons for working are as individual as the person. But, we all work because we obtain something that we need from work. The something obtained from work impacts morale, employee motivation, and the quality of life. To create positive employee motivation, treat employees as if they matter - because employees matter. These ideas will help you fulfill what people want from work and create employee motivation.

1. What People Want From Work
   Some people work for personal fulfillment; others work for love of what they do. Others work to accomplish goals and to feel as if they are contributing to something larger than themselves. The bottom line is that we all work for money and for reasons too individual to assign similarities to all workers.
   
2. How to Demonstrate Respect at Work
   Ask anyone in your workplace what treatment they most want at work. They will likely top their list with the desire to be treated with dignity and respect. You can demonstrate respect with simple, yet powerful actions. These ideas will help you avoid needless, insensitive, unmeant disrespect, too.
   
3. Provide Feedback That Has an Impact
   Make your feedback have the impact it deserves by the manner and approach you use to deliver feedback. Your feedback can make a difference to people if you can avoid a defensive response.
   
4. Top Ten Ways to Show Appreciation
   You can tell your colleagues, coworkers and staff how much you value them and their contribution any day of the year. Trust me. No occasion is necessary. In fact, small surprises and tokens of your appreciation spread throughout the year help the people in your work life feel valued all year long.
   
5. Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret
   Without it, you have nothing. Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. When trust is present, everything else is easier.
   
6. Provide Motivational Employee Recognition
   You can avoid the employee recognition traps that: single out one or a few employees who are mysteriously selected for the recognition; sap the morale of the many who failed to win, place, or even show; confuse people who meet the criteria yet were not selected; or sought votes or other personalized, subjective criteria to determine winners.
   
7. Employee Recognition Rocks
   Employee recognition is limited in most organizations. Employees complain about the lack of recognition regularly. Managers ask, “Why should I recognize or thank him? He’s just doing his job.” And, life at work is busy, busy, busy. These factors combine to create work places that fail to provide recognition for employees. Managers who prioritize employee recognition understand the power of recognition.
   
8. Top Ten Ways to Retain Your Great Employees
   Key employee retention is critical to the long term health and success of your business. Managers readily agree that their role is key in retaining your best employees to ensure business success. If managers can cite this fact so well, why do many behave in ways that so frequently encourage great employees to quit their job?
   
9. Team Building and Delegation: How and When to Empower People
   Employee involvement is creating an environment in which people have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs. Team building occurs when the manager knows when to tell, sell, consult, join, or delegate to staff. For employee involvement and empowerment, both team building and delegation rule.
   
10. Build a Mentoring Culture
    What does it take to develop people? More than writing “equal opportunity” into your organization’s mission statement. More than sending someone to a training class. More than hard work on the part of employees. What development does take is people who are willing to listen and help their colleagues. Development takes coaches, guides and advocates. People development needs mentors.