Category: Leadership

Simplicity: As situations become more complex, simplicity is a powerful tool. How do leaders eliminate the clutter to create success?

Simplicity creates clarity and empowers leaders to remove the roadblocks to success.   www.jaywren.com

The Clarity of Simplicity

Simplicity creates clarity.

• When leaders speak with simplicity, their message is easier to understand.
• Simplifying their schedule creates clarity on the things that leaders must do to be effective.
• Creating simple strategies clarifies the mission and reduces mistakes.
• Simplifying product mix and services creates clarity in the purpose of the company.
• The clarity of simplicity throughout an organization empowers the organization to do the big things that count the most.

Simplicity and Priorities

The most important things don’t automatically become visible.  Simplicity helps leaders see what is important.

To speak effectively, leaders eliminate the words and ideas that are not important.  Therefore, the only thing left to say are the simple things that effectively make the leader’s point.

Likewise, leaders must know the actions that are distractions and the actions that are essential.  They eliminate everything that is a waste of time.

On a grander scale, leaders of large companies simplify product mix to the products that guarantee the greatest success in sales, market share, and profits.  Simplifying successful product mix by eliminating the products that detract from the company’s successful products is one of the greatest and most important challenges in leadership.

Stating the Purpose Increases Simplicity

Employees must know what to do.  Without stating the purpose, leaders leave employees to find their own purpose and to work on projects that take them further away from the goal.

In product development, the first step is to state the purpose of not just the project but, also, of the product.

Case Study Statement: “The purpose of the project is to create a hand soap.  The purpose of the new hand soap is to increase market share through increased product effectiveness.”

This step simplifies the focus and makes developers stick to the mission.

From there, developers and project managers must use this focus to create a project plan.  With this plan, developers and project managers can stay on task and measure progress against milestones.

Simplicity Reduces Stress and Increases Engagement

Focused people have a present-moment experience that eliminates the stress of a cluttered mind.  Furthermore, a focused mind is more engaged in work and less engaged in distracting thoughts that create fear and regret.

People: What are the steps for building teams? How do you know which person is best for the work you need done?

If a company has great people at all levels, great goods and services will follow. ~ www.jaywren.com

The Challenging Work of Selecting Great People

As a recruiter who worked with wonderful human resources people and hiring managers, I know the challenges people face in making great hires.  Over the years, I built a check-off list of traits I considered when making referrals.  Using this list, I increased my placement to referral rate.  Furthermore, I increased the long-term success of the people my clients hired.

Here is that check-off list that you as an HR or hiring manager may want to use.  If you believe that anyone in your company will find this list helpful, please share it with them.

1. Intelligence

I believe in hiring smart people at all levels.

As a junior Navy officer, I had a petty officer working for me who had an MBA.   He edited the ship’s newspaper on the carrier USS Midway.  Although he was intelligent to do my job, he didn’t want to pressure of a Navy officer.

Every secretary I hired had the intelligence to do my job.  These people just didn’t want a job with the responsibilities I had.

However, their intelligence gave them the ability to make decisions and recommendations.  I was fortunate to have these bright people work for me.

2. Professional Skills

There is very little exception to making great hires without fundamental skill sets. If you are hiring a coder, the person must know how to code.

If someone already has the skills to use the applications and processes that your company uses, the person will become effectively more quickly. Furthermore, this person will save your company money from lost time in training a new hire.

3. Soft Skills

I have three articles on this subject. If you are not familiar with soft skills, these articles might be helpful.

15 Leadership Soft Skills that Create Greatness

The Top 6 Soft Skills

Job Searching: Hard Skills and Soft Skills

4. The Ability to Grow

Ideally, you are hiring someone who can grow into a bigger role and expand into dissimilar roles within your company. The ability of employees to grow helps a company make long-term hires.

5. Current Compensation

Hiring someone who is at a pay grade lower than you are paying will allow you to reduce costs. Furthermore, you will be able to give the person raises for a longer time without having to promote the person into a higher pay grade.

6. Cultural Skills

A person who has cultural skills is someone who can work with people across diverse cultures.

As companies grow, the challenge in dealing with diversity becomes greater.

For great long-term hires, human resources managers and hiring managers must hire people who can adapt to changes within the company. Often those changes involve cultural diversity in the workplace.

7. Team Skills

People who have team skills, know their own role as a team member.  Furthermore, they can support other team members when needed.

If you look closely at a baseball game, you will see that players work in pairs.  The pitcher knows when to race behind home plate to back up the catcher.  The right fielder knows when to move behind first base to back up the first baseman.

If you have ever watched a base runner caught between two bases, you will see players from several positions form a team to trap the runner.

Each player knows what to do in their primary role and their back up role.

8. Mental Stability

Hire people who can make sound decisions in their work and in their personal lives for the long-term.

In an interview process, you are looking for examples over the course of years of how your prospect has made solid decisions in a variety of rolls.

9. Commitment

People who have commitment can make things work in challenging times.

Jobs are not always fun.  Sometimes, they are stressful, challenging, and demanding.  Every job brings its own set of problems.

However, people who start with a commitment will find ways to adjust and still be healthy when riding out difficulties.

10. Flexibility

Some people are naturally flexible. The boss tells them they are working late on Friday.  They think nothing about working late on Friday.

However, in the alpha society of the competitive organizations, strong leaders make decisions based on what they believe is in the best interest of the company.  Their flexibility stops where the interest of the company begins.

11. Motivation

Motivation generates the energy to create a positive mind set in even the toughest times.  When the job is easy and exciting, motivation is easy and exciting.  However, when challenging times come along, the best people find the motivation to rekindle their own spirit and encourage other people.

12. Resilience

The resilience issue centers around situations in which the prospect had stumbled and bounced back.  Ask the prospect about tough times and how they worked through them.

13. Reliability

This trait appears easy to check when doing references.  However, the evidence of reliability is readily available in the prospect’s resume.  Has the person worked for a company for ten years and had progressive responsibility? The logical conclusion is that the prospect is reliable.  On the other hand, if the prospect has ten years of moving laterally through several companies, you should see a red flag on the person’s reliability.

14. Integrity

Once, in the evening after my secretary had left the office, I went to her desk drawer to find a pen.  This drawer was also where she kept the stamps.

When I opened the drawer, I saw a note that read, “I owe Jay 2 stamps.”

The note reinforced what I knew every day.  My employee had solid integrity.

15. Punctual

Before making a job offer, you must know without a doubt that the prospect is punctual.  Nothing damages morale more than having to deal with people who are always late.

16. Presentable

Defining presentable is part of creating a company culture.  The players on Wall Street dress differently than the leaders in Silicon Valley.

There are no universal standards.  The people you hire must be able and committed to adapting to the standards of your company.

17. Work Ethic

People who love to work, make a manager’s job much easier.  It is easier for a manager to turn off the lights and tell an employee to go home than having to plead for a worker to stay late.  Make it easy on yourself. Hire people with a magnificent work ethic.

18. Love of the Job

Hiring people who will love their work is one of the wisest decisions in the hiring process.  There is no greater motivator than passion.  People who love their job can make up for shortcomings in some of the other areas.  These people intuitively focus on doing their work to the best of their ability.

Complaints are a grievance issue, not a management feedback issue. Knowing the difference is important to becoming a strong manager.  www.jaywren.com

Why do weak managers confuse complaints with reporting a problem? How can we train managers to build teams with an effective flow of information?

The Difference

Reporting a problem is feedback that something isn’t working or conditions are deteriorating.  At the same time, complaints are feedback that something is unsatisfactory, but complaints come more in the form of a personal grievance or personal criticism.

People who report problems seek to prevent or correct problems.  Complainers seek an audience for their issues or resolution to personal problems.

Weak Managers

One trait of weak managers is that they don’t want to hear anything negative. They are too busy, too distracted, or too emotionally off-balance to deal with problems.

This management style lends itself to negative, sometimes hostile management relationships with people reporting to these weak managers.

Furthermore, these managers don’t learn about the information they need to know to manage their responsibilities.

How to Train Managers to Deal with Complaints and Problems

Strong managers create a list of conditions that they need to know.  When I was a bridge officer, my commanding officer had a list of standing orders.  These were the things that the bridge officers needed to tell the captain to keep the ship safe.

In other conditions, the commanding officer had temporary orders for a scheduled event.  For example, call the captain when the admiral arrives today.

However, complaints were never in the plan of the day.  The captain didn’t want to hear that the soup was not to your satisfaction or that someone cut you off in line at the ship’s store. He welcomed feedback.  However, he wasn’t interested in personal, negative issues.

In a business environment, managers may want the production supervisor to contact them when they first see a sign that production may start to fall behind.

Another condition might be that a manager wants to know as soon as anyone sees that a project might come in over budget.
A key part of notifying management is to tell them before it is too late to make corrections.

Have a Format for Reporting Problems

Employees need to know how to report problems.

Some managers simply want a notification when a potential problem appears. Other managers may want recommendations when a person is reporting a problem.

In every case, smart managers train employees how to present problems effectively.

Keep It Simple.

When reporting a problem, don’t jumble the report with other information. Just state the problem and, when expected, a solution to the problem.

Have Priorities for Problems

Smart managers may have conditions on when and how to present a problem.

Highest priority are the wake-me-up problems. In the middle of the night, wake me up before the roof starts leaking or before the equipment breaks down.

Wake-me-up directives typically apply to potentially catastrophic problems.

The Safe and Open Environment

Managers should show an open, receptive attitude.  As a business owner, I tried to create as free and safe an environment as possible.  My employees felt safe in knowing when they could make decisions and solve problems.  Also, they felt safe to tell me when a problem would arise.

The best managers assure that employees no one will criticize them for making a mistake in calling out a problem.  Everyone has 20/20 hindsight.

Leadership soft skills: What are the leadership soft skills that create great employees and successful companies. How can you develop these skills?

The most successful leaders not only develop technical skills; they also develop powerful leadership soft skills.
~ www.jaywren.com

15 Leadership Soft Skills that Create Greatness

“That some achieve great success is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

There are countless leadership qualities that lead to success.  Throughout my career as a recruiter, I have made notes on leaders I admire.  These leaders have these soft skills.

1. Confidence During Periods of Uncertainty

The ability to build trust is the single most important leadership soft skill.  Furthermore, without trust, morale fails, engagement and commitment fail, and turnover rises.

Maintaining confidence in periods of uncertainty takes personal courage.  Furthermore, leaders must focus on their mental and emotional balance to restore their own confidence in periods of uncertainty.  This leadership soft skill takes maintenance as well as continued growth.

2. Integrity that Creates Trust

Without Integrity, leadership fails.  Relationships fail.  For example, integrity in water tightness keeps ships afloat.  Structural integrity in a bridge is makes bridges safe to cross.  Personal integrity among the people in an organization builds trust in working for an organization.

Furthermore, ensuring integrity takes honest appraisal. In the case of structures, it takes regular inspections. In the case of an organization, integrity is part of regular reviews.

3. Skills to Create Greatness in Others

Leadership is not about creating personal greatness.  What good is a leader if that leader can’t create greatness in the members of the team?  A lack of this ability to create greatness in the others undermines the long-term future of an organization.

4. Command Skills to Lead

There are many ways people can take over a group.  Charisma, boldness, persuasiveness, dominance are just three characteristics that people use to take command.  However, without commands skills, leaders cannot exert control.

With command skills, the actor can become the director.  Likewise, the secretary can become the office manager.  The vice president can become the CEO.

Command skills are leadership soft skills you can develop.

5. Enthusiasm to Inspire Energy in Others

Being around people without enthusiasm can turn optimism drain the energy from the entire team.  On the other hand, people with enthusiasm can create energy in the people without them.  Sometimes somethings as a smile can inspire energy in others.

6. Ability to Walk the Talk

Insisting that workers arrive on time while the leader is unpredictable about the time they arrive to work creates resentment in the workplace.

Furthermore, any instance where leaders don’t follow the rules harms employee morale and trust.

7. Realistic Optimism to Accept Change and Avoid Costly Mistakes

Being optimistic about the direction of an organization is important to motivating employees.  However, not being realistic about a failed project wastes time and money.  People who are unrealistic about the need to change are like people swimming out to sea.  If they have optimism, but keep the right perspective of the practicality of an idea or a project, their realistic optimism gives them perspective on what will work and what will not work.

9. Open-mindedness to Listen to Others

Some leaders just can’t listen.  They don’t understand the proverb that two heads are better than on. In so doing, they do not gain the collective wisdom of the team. The best leaders hire people who can expand the intelligence of the company.  Furthermore, these leaders listen to people who can make the company smarter.

10. Stamina to Endure Extended Periods of Demanding Work

For some people, stamina seems to come naturally, especially for young people.  However, people who do healthy things can increase their stamina. These people reduce or cut alcohol and tobacco from their lives. The eat foods that help them store energy.  They exercise.

Furthermore, they take breaks to rest to restore cover their energy.

11. Instincts to Know When to Trust Their Inner Voice

This inner voice exists in most people.  Additionally, learning to listen is a skill most people can develop.  Many top-level executive have said that their inner voice guides them through decision-making better than analytical thinking.  They can make bolder steps and continue to have confidence when they have listened to their inner voice.

12. Emotional and Mental Maturity to Keep Perspective

“The sky is falling” mentality is dangerous.  This mentality of thinking of is the theme in the famous children’s folk story, “Chicken Little.”

There are many versions of the story. According to one version of this folk story, a nut falls on Chicken Little’s head. The chick becomes hysterical and goes on a quest to alert others and gather followers on his trip to notify the king. In this version, a fox joins the group, leads them to his den, and eats them.

Hysteria leads to panic.  From there, panic incinerate the clear thinking to handle problems in perspective.

13. Courage to Speak Out

The captain might become disturbed to know that the ship is leaking.  Having to disturb the captain, especially an intimidating captain, takes courage.  However, the consequences of not telling the captain that the ship is leaking has catastrophic consequences.

14. Humility to Give Credit to Others.

Having to work for leaders who selfishly takes credit for everyone’s work becomes quickly annoying, even demoralizing.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins discusses the results of studying 1,435 good companies. From those companies, Mr. Collins and his team of researchers selected 11 companies that had gone from Good to Great over a 40 year-year period.

In the end, Jim Collins and his team of researchers found that humility is critical for successful leadership.

15. Flexibility to Work with Others

People who can’t work with other people have no value as a leader.  Some people play important roles in a company without working with others.  However, these people can’t lead teams.

Trust: What makes this trait so valuable to leaders? What is the role of this trait in the relationship between leaders and their teams?

Building trust can take years; losing trust can happen in an instant. ~ jaywren.com

Creating Trust

There several traits that make leaders great.   Intelligence.  Emotional maturity.  High energy.  Decisiveness.  But the foundation of leadership sits atop the confidence between leaders and their teams. Leaders must have confidence in their teams. Team members must have confidence in their leader. Furthermore, team members must have confidence in each other.  Through training and direction, leaders can help team members build relationships based on trust.

The Benefits

Confidence in leadership strengthens a team.  Every organization has periods of greater challenge.  These periods create uncertainty.  Furthermore, periods of uncertainty create stress.  However, people will tolerate greater uncertainty and pressure in an organization where there is confidence in the reliability of leadership.

The Pillars of Trust

Guidelines

For people to trust their leader, they must know what leaders expect them to do.  Furthermore, they need to know how to do their job.  They must know the deadlines and what methods to use.  Guidelines must be specific and clear.  Furthermore, guidelines help team members engage and trust the process for completing their work.  The clarity of guidelines creates confidence that team members are doing the things leaders expect of them.

Relationships

Relationships in management run uphill and downhill.  It is not enough that team members have confidence in their leader.  Great leaders must have confidence in all the members of their team.  Furthermore, these leaders must remove team members who are not trustworthy.

A Safe Open Door

Team members must know that they are safe in giving feedback that is vital to the operation of the team.  Furthermore, team members must know that the door to management is open.

The guidelines must specify which things team members take to the team leader.

Confidential and Personal
This is the way that I treat confidential and personal information: 1) Qualified to know. 2) Need to know. For someone to receive information, they not only must have the qualifications to know. They must have a need to know. These requirements reduce the risk of leaders saying things that necessarily exposes their confidentiality between themselves and their employers. Compromising the trust of employees over confidential or personal information can undermine the stability of an organization.