Vedere Consulting
There's a sweet spot where fulfillment and productivity intersect. My blog is dedicated to helping leaders find it for themselves and their employees. --Plum Cluverius,Executive CoachMonday, April 12, 2010
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Monday, April 5, 2010
The Perils of Pay for Performance
In the early 1960’s, a psychologist named Sam Glucksberg conducted an experiment testing the effects of extrinsic rewards on creativity. He divided his subjects into two groups and gave them a puzzle to solve that required identifying a new function for a common object (in this case a box with tacks in it). Half the group was told that they were being timed to determine a benchmark for how long it took to solve the puzzle. The other half was told that they would receive a cash award if they finished in the top 25% of the group and a higher cash award if they finished first. Which group do you think finished the puzzle faster?
If you guessed the group with the cash incentive, you guessed wrong. It took them an average of 3 ½ minutes longer to get the puzzle. Yes, that’s right. 3 ½ minutes longer. Why? Because extrinsic rewards tend to narrow our focus. We look toward the goal, which makes it more difficult to see the wider implications. Solving the problem in the experiment required a wide focus, an openness to new solutions.
Other psychologists have done similar studies that have tested this effect on creativity. What they have found is radically changing our idea of what motivates exceptional performance. It is not, according to Daniel Pink in his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, (http://www.danpink.com/) the cash bonuses, the commissions, the high salaries, the pay for performance many companies use to incent employees. He says these types of rewards work fine if the task follows a set of guidelines or rules and is repetitive. But for creative work, for solving problems that haven’t been solved before, for dealing with complex issues where guidelines don’t work, science is showing us that rewards and punishments not only don’t work, they sometimes actually do harm by lowering performance or incenting unethical behavior.
In a second experiment cited by Pink, economists Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini studied the effects of punishment on parents whose children attended 20 day care centers in Haifa, Israel. The closing time for the centers was 4:00 p.m. If parents were late, a teacher would have to stay with the child until the parents arrived. Gneezy and Rustichini began the study by recording the number of times parents were late picking up their children. At the end of four weeks, the researchers were allowed to charge a fine for late parents. Because a punishment had been imposed, the researchers expected the number of late parents to decrease, but to their astonishment, the opposite happened. After the fine was imposed, the number of late parents actually increased, eventually climbing to a level twice as high as the pre-fine level. What Pink concluded is that the threat of punishment crowded out the motivation parents once had to treat their children’s teacher fairly. “The fine,” he says, “shifted the parents’ decision from a partly moral obligation (be fair to my kids’ teacher), to a pure transaction (I can buy extra time). There wasn’t room for both. The punishment didn’t promote good behavior; it crowded it out.”
Pink says our organizations, for the most part, still operate under the assumption that the way to increase desirable behavior is to reward it and the way to decrease undesirable behavior is to punish it. Our pay systems are built on this foundation. But science is telling us that there’s a cost, and the cost is diminished performance, less creativity, lowered intrinsic reward, more short-term thinking, and organizations where good behavior can get crowded out and shortcuts, even cheating, are encouraged. This doesn't mean that equitable pay is unimportant. Unequal or unfair pay creates a distraction. But for creative work, extrinsic rewards often backfire.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
If you guessed the group with the cash incentive, you guessed wrong. It took them an average of 3 ½ minutes longer to get the puzzle. Yes, that’s right. 3 ½ minutes longer. Why? Because extrinsic rewards tend to narrow our focus. We look toward the goal, which makes it more difficult to see the wider implications. Solving the problem in the experiment required a wide focus, an openness to new solutions.
Other psychologists have done similar studies that have tested this effect on creativity. What they have found is radically changing our idea of what motivates exceptional performance. It is not, according to Daniel Pink in his new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, (http://www.danpink.com/) the cash bonuses, the commissions, the high salaries, the pay for performance many companies use to incent employees. He says these types of rewards work fine if the task follows a set of guidelines or rules and is repetitive. But for creative work, for solving problems that haven’t been solved before, for dealing with complex issues where guidelines don’t work, science is showing us that rewards and punishments not only don’t work, they sometimes actually do harm by lowering performance or incenting unethical behavior.
In a second experiment cited by Pink, economists Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini studied the effects of punishment on parents whose children attended 20 day care centers in Haifa, Israel. The closing time for the centers was 4:00 p.m. If parents were late, a teacher would have to stay with the child until the parents arrived. Gneezy and Rustichini began the study by recording the number of times parents were late picking up their children. At the end of four weeks, the researchers were allowed to charge a fine for late parents. Because a punishment had been imposed, the researchers expected the number of late parents to decrease, but to their astonishment, the opposite happened. After the fine was imposed, the number of late parents actually increased, eventually climbing to a level twice as high as the pre-fine level. What Pink concluded is that the threat of punishment crowded out the motivation parents once had to treat their children’s teacher fairly. “The fine,” he says, “shifted the parents’ decision from a partly moral obligation (be fair to my kids’ teacher), to a pure transaction (I can buy extra time). There wasn’t room for both. The punishment didn’t promote good behavior; it crowded it out.”
Pink says our organizations, for the most part, still operate under the assumption that the way to increase desirable behavior is to reward it and the way to decrease undesirable behavior is to punish it. Our pay systems are built on this foundation. But science is telling us that there’s a cost, and the cost is diminished performance, less creativity, lowered intrinsic reward, more short-term thinking, and organizations where good behavior can get crowded out and shortcuts, even cheating, are encouraged. This doesn't mean that equitable pay is unimportant. Unequal or unfair pay creates a distraction. But for creative work, extrinsic rewards often backfire.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
Labels: Leadership Development
Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Getting Through a Job Transition Successfully
“I can’t seem to focus—it’s taking me three times as long to get anything done.” “One day I feel fine, the next I’m in a panic.” “It’s strange, the day just seems to go by and at the end of it I haven’t accomplished anything I set out to do.” “No one will hire me, I’m too old.”
A number of my clients are going through a career transition. Sometimes they are the ones making the decision, other times someone made the decision for them. What all of them have needed is a clear understanding of what happens to them emotionally when they make this kind of significant change.
Why is that important? Emotions are the drivers of our behavior. We move and act based on how we feel. Any kind of change produces all kinds of emotions, and some of those emotions make it difficult to do anything. When we enter the unknown, as we must when changing a job or a career, most people don’t know what to expect emotionally. They don’t know that there are predictable patterns of emotional states that are a natural part of the transition process. They believe they are alone, that no one else is experiencing what they are going through. Worse still, they may believe that something is wrong with them.
William Bridges (http://www.wmbridges.com/ )has written several books about the emotional stages of transition and his work has helped my clients and many others make sense of the myriad of emotions they experience as they move from the old to the new. He first distinguished the transition process (the emotional response to change) from the change process (the actual change that is triggering the emotional response) and divided the transition process into three phases: ending, chaos or the neutral zone, and new beginning.
In the ending stage of transition, one has to come to grips with the fact that with change something has to go away. People experience a sense of loss and all the emotions that go with it—denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and resignation, acceptance. In the chaos stage (Bridges now calls it the neutral zone) people have accepted that something has ended but they don’t know what the new job or career will look like. This middle period is full of ups and downs—at times it seems like there is nothing to hold onto. People are upbeat one day and depressed the next. It becomes difficult to focus as familiar markers go away. It’s sometimes hard to get up in the morning or to get motivated.
It sounds pretty miserable, doesn’t it? But there’s an upside to the chaos. It’s an incredibly creative period. The old blinders are off and people can see their situation in new ways and develop solutions that were unthinkable before. I have watched clients come up with innovative ideas for networking and marketing themselves or their businesses—things that would never have been on their radar screens under normal circumstances.
The third period is called the new beginning. This is the stage where the future starts to take shape and people can see where they are headed. It has some challenges too, as people struggle with developing the confidence that they can take on this new role. But the path is much clearer and in general the emotional roller coaster has smoothed out.
I have found four things to be of tremendous help in moving through the stages of transition. The first is to recognize that the ups and downs of the transition period are normal and usually temporary. You are not alone—and you aren’t crazy! The second is to question your negative assumptions. If you think your age is an issue, consider this. Research has shown that energy and vigor are more important than age to employers. Pay attention to what you accept about yourself and your situation as true. Is it really? Experiment with alternative, more hopeful, assumptions. Third, focus on what you do well rather than your shortcomings. Creativity is expanded in a positive frame of mind. Fourth, create a schedule or routine to replace the old one you had while working. Include satisfying and fun activities as part of the mix. Bring some things into your life you couldn’t fit in while you were working.
Understanding and working with the emotional side of change helps make positive change possible. It makes it easier to navigate the unknown.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
A number of my clients are going through a career transition. Sometimes they are the ones making the decision, other times someone made the decision for them. What all of them have needed is a clear understanding of what happens to them emotionally when they make this kind of significant change.
Why is that important? Emotions are the drivers of our behavior. We move and act based on how we feel. Any kind of change produces all kinds of emotions, and some of those emotions make it difficult to do anything. When we enter the unknown, as we must when changing a job or a career, most people don’t know what to expect emotionally. They don’t know that there are predictable patterns of emotional states that are a natural part of the transition process. They believe they are alone, that no one else is experiencing what they are going through. Worse still, they may believe that something is wrong with them.
William Bridges (http://www.wmbridges.com/ )has written several books about the emotional stages of transition and his work has helped my clients and many others make sense of the myriad of emotions they experience as they move from the old to the new. He first distinguished the transition process (the emotional response to change) from the change process (the actual change that is triggering the emotional response) and divided the transition process into three phases: ending, chaos or the neutral zone, and new beginning.
In the ending stage of transition, one has to come to grips with the fact that with change something has to go away. People experience a sense of loss and all the emotions that go with it—denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and resignation, acceptance. In the chaos stage (Bridges now calls it the neutral zone) people have accepted that something has ended but they don’t know what the new job or career will look like. This middle period is full of ups and downs—at times it seems like there is nothing to hold onto. People are upbeat one day and depressed the next. It becomes difficult to focus as familiar markers go away. It’s sometimes hard to get up in the morning or to get motivated.
It sounds pretty miserable, doesn’t it? But there’s an upside to the chaos. It’s an incredibly creative period. The old blinders are off and people can see their situation in new ways and develop solutions that were unthinkable before. I have watched clients come up with innovative ideas for networking and marketing themselves or their businesses—things that would never have been on their radar screens under normal circumstances.
The third period is called the new beginning. This is the stage where the future starts to take shape and people can see where they are headed. It has some challenges too, as people struggle with developing the confidence that they can take on this new role. But the path is much clearer and in general the emotional roller coaster has smoothed out.
I have found four things to be of tremendous help in moving through the stages of transition. The first is to recognize that the ups and downs of the transition period are normal and usually temporary. You are not alone—and you aren’t crazy! The second is to question your negative assumptions. If you think your age is an issue, consider this. Research has shown that energy and vigor are more important than age to employers. Pay attention to what you accept about yourself and your situation as true. Is it really? Experiment with alternative, more hopeful, assumptions. Third, focus on what you do well rather than your shortcomings. Creativity is expanded in a positive frame of mind. Fourth, create a schedule or routine to replace the old one you had while working. Include satisfying and fun activities as part of the mix. Bring some things into your life you couldn’t fit in while you were working.
Understanding and working with the emotional side of change helps make positive change possible. It makes it easier to navigate the unknown.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
Labels: Career and Job Transition
Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
How to Build Your Emotional Intelligence
“Emotions . . . are at the root of everything we do, the unquenchable origin of every act more complicated that a reflex. . . In all cases, emotions are humanity’s motivator and its omnipresent guide.”
--Thomas Lewis,MD, Fari Amini, MD and Richard Lannon, MD, A General Theory of Love
If you want to motivate people to give you their best every day and inspire them to keep moving forward despite the inevitable obstacles that get in the way of achieving a goal, you have to know how to touch them on an emotional level. That requires emotional intelligence, the capacity to identify and understand one’s own and others emotions, and to manage oneself in relationships. There is a plethora of information on emotional intelligence, but when it comes to developing emotional intelligence, the material that appeals most to me comes from Learning in Action Technologies, www.learninginaction.com, a Seattle-based company specializing in EQ related assessments, workshops, teleclasses, and coaching.
Learning in Action focuses on the basic building blocks of emotional intelligence. The competencies and skills Daniel Goleman and others use to predict leadership performance flow from these capacities. If you want to improve your ability to use your emotions intelligently, it makes sense to work on these foundational capacities first. These are:
Self Reflection is the ability to recognize your own experience—your thoughts, feelings, wants, bodily sensations and actions. Self reflection is the capacity to observe yourself in the moment and to use your internal experience to inform what you do. Much of our internal experience is so automatic that we remain unconscious of it. As we build our capacity to observe our own reactions to a situation, we can consciously choose how to act instead of responding automatically (and often ineffectively).
Self Regulation and Self Soothing is the capacity to calm ourselves when we experience tension and to soothe ourselves when we experience emotional pain. By calming ourselves in healthy ways, we clear our brains so we can assess the situation more accurately, identify more possibilities for action, and choose more wisely. With this capacity, we are able to regain a sense of balance on our own, without requiring others to change.
Empathy is the ability to recognize what someone else is experiencing, to see something from their perspective, and to accept that perspective even if you don’t agree with it. It is being able to put yourself in someone’s shoes. Empathy is both the ability to accurately assess what someone else is feeling and to feel for them—to care about their experience.
Learning in Action has developed an assessment to measure these capacities, the EQ in Action Profile, and a handbook of practices for strengthening each area. The EQ in Action Profile uses videotaped scenarios to measure how you respond to stressful situations rather than self report or a 360 assessment. The handbook offers 150 suggestions for strengthening your EQ fitness, and is available to individuals who have taken the assessment.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
--Thomas Lewis,MD, Fari Amini, MD and Richard Lannon, MD, A General Theory of Love
If you want to motivate people to give you their best every day and inspire them to keep moving forward despite the inevitable obstacles that get in the way of achieving a goal, you have to know how to touch them on an emotional level. That requires emotional intelligence, the capacity to identify and understand one’s own and others emotions, and to manage oneself in relationships. There is a plethora of information on emotional intelligence, but when it comes to developing emotional intelligence, the material that appeals most to me comes from Learning in Action Technologies, www.learninginaction.com, a Seattle-based company specializing in EQ related assessments, workshops, teleclasses, and coaching.
Learning in Action focuses on the basic building blocks of emotional intelligence. The competencies and skills Daniel Goleman and others use to predict leadership performance flow from these capacities. If you want to improve your ability to use your emotions intelligently, it makes sense to work on these foundational capacities first. These are:
Self Reflection is the ability to recognize your own experience—your thoughts, feelings, wants, bodily sensations and actions. Self reflection is the capacity to observe yourself in the moment and to use your internal experience to inform what you do. Much of our internal experience is so automatic that we remain unconscious of it. As we build our capacity to observe our own reactions to a situation, we can consciously choose how to act instead of responding automatically (and often ineffectively).
Self Regulation and Self Soothing is the capacity to calm ourselves when we experience tension and to soothe ourselves when we experience emotional pain. By calming ourselves in healthy ways, we clear our brains so we can assess the situation more accurately, identify more possibilities for action, and choose more wisely. With this capacity, we are able to regain a sense of balance on our own, without requiring others to change.
Empathy is the ability to recognize what someone else is experiencing, to see something from their perspective, and to accept that perspective even if you don’t agree with it. It is being able to put yourself in someone’s shoes. Empathy is both the ability to accurately assess what someone else is feeling and to feel for them—to care about their experience.
Learning in Action has developed an assessment to measure these capacities, the EQ in Action Profile, and a handbook of practices for strengthening each area. The EQ in Action Profile uses videotaped scenarios to measure how you respond to stressful situations rather than self report or a 360 assessment. The handbook offers 150 suggestions for strengthening your EQ fitness, and is available to individuals who have taken the assessment.
Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery
Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
What Every Leader Should Know About How Teams Work
In the mid-1990’s, researcher and business consultant Marcial Losada built a board room where corporate teams met to conduct typical meetings—planning and strategy sessions, etc. But there was a twist. The room was equipped with one-way mirrors where Losada and his assistants tracked every behavior that occurred in those meetings. As a result, Losada was able to build a mathematical model that delineates the factors that create a high performing vs. a low performing team with unusual precision.
Losada used three criteria to determine the performance level of the teams he was studying: profitability, customer satisfaction and evaluations by peers, superiors and subordinates. Using these indicators, Losada found that 25% of the teams he studied were high performing, 30% were low performing and the remainder had mixed success.
Losada plotted the moment by moment data he had collected on all the teams, and when he compared the high performing and low performing teams, there were striking differences. First, the high performing teams had a much higher percentage of positive statements to negative statements—or positivity ratio—than the low performing teams. High performing teams had a positivity ratio of 6:1, compared to below 1:1 for low performing teams. Mixed performance teams had a positivity ratio of around 2:1. In addition, high performing team members connected to each other more frequently, they were attuned to each others’ mood and thoughts, than the other two teams. High performing teams balanced advocacy (defending your point of view) and inquiry (asking questions) and the number of statements that were self focused or other focused. The low performing teams asked almost no questions and showed very little outward focus and had much lower levels of connectivity.
What was even more telling is that teams that maintained a positivity ratio of at least 3:1 (three positive statements for every one negative statement) were able to sustain the characteristics of high performance and top level results over long periods of time. They continued to flourish even in difficult times. They remained open to new ideas, they were flexible and creative, and they were resilient in tough times. The results were very different for the other types of teams. They floundered under pressure. The mixed success teams were able to be creative and open, but when faced with difficult challenges they tended to regress to a lower level of functioning—they became inflexible and stuck in a rut. Team members stopped asking questions and focused on defending their positions. The low performing teams spiraled downward to a stalemate, where nothing got done.
What every team leader needs to know is that there is a tipping point, a precise point where teams head in different directions—either toward openness, flexibility, creativity, resilience and success, or toward closed, internal thinking, stalemate and failure. A tipping point is the point at which an entity changes dramatically, like ice changing to water at precisely 32 0F. Losada calculated that the tipping point for teams is a positivity ratio of 3:1. Any positivity ratio between 3:1 and 11:1 will produce the characteristics of a high performing, self correcting team. Below that ratio and teams will flounder, especially in tough times.
There is more about Losada’s research in Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson, www.positivityratio.com .
Plum Cluverius is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
Losada used three criteria to determine the performance level of the teams he was studying: profitability, customer satisfaction and evaluations by peers, superiors and subordinates. Using these indicators, Losada found that 25% of the teams he studied were high performing, 30% were low performing and the remainder had mixed success.
Losada plotted the moment by moment data he had collected on all the teams, and when he compared the high performing and low performing teams, there were striking differences. First, the high performing teams had a much higher percentage of positive statements to negative statements—or positivity ratio—than the low performing teams. High performing teams had a positivity ratio of 6:1, compared to below 1:1 for low performing teams. Mixed performance teams had a positivity ratio of around 2:1. In addition, high performing team members connected to each other more frequently, they were attuned to each others’ mood and thoughts, than the other two teams. High performing teams balanced advocacy (defending your point of view) and inquiry (asking questions) and the number of statements that were self focused or other focused. The low performing teams asked almost no questions and showed very little outward focus and had much lower levels of connectivity.
What was even more telling is that teams that maintained a positivity ratio of at least 3:1 (three positive statements for every one negative statement) were able to sustain the characteristics of high performance and top level results over long periods of time. They continued to flourish even in difficult times. They remained open to new ideas, they were flexible and creative, and they were resilient in tough times. The results were very different for the other types of teams. They floundered under pressure. The mixed success teams were able to be creative and open, but when faced with difficult challenges they tended to regress to a lower level of functioning—they became inflexible and stuck in a rut. Team members stopped asking questions and focused on defending their positions. The low performing teams spiraled downward to a stalemate, where nothing got done.
What every team leader needs to know is that there is a tipping point, a precise point where teams head in different directions—either toward openness, flexibility, creativity, resilience and success, or toward closed, internal thinking, stalemate and failure. A tipping point is the point at which an entity changes dramatically, like ice changing to water at precisely 32 0F. Losada calculated that the tipping point for teams is a positivity ratio of 3:1. Any positivity ratio between 3:1 and 11:1 will produce the characteristics of a high performing, self correcting team. Below that ratio and teams will flounder, especially in tough times.
There is more about Losada’s research in Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson, www.positivityratio.com .
Plum Cluverius is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.
Labels: Teamwork
Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Leader's Toolkit: Situational Leadership
One of the questions my clients ask most frequently is how to develop their people more effectively. Often they ask it because they are stuck solving problems for employees for the better part of the work day—and then are forced to work extra hours to get their own work done. I always recommend the Situational Leadership Model, a tool I have shared with leaders for over 30 years. Clients tell me it is the most practical model they ever learned.
Developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in the late 1960’s, Situational Leadership provides a roadmap for effective employee development, delegation and performance management. It identifies two key leadership behaviors, giving direction and providing emotional support, which followers need in varying amounts if they are to successfully learn or complete a task. It then demonstrates how the two leader behaviors are combined to create a variety of leadership styles. What makes the model so practical is that it shows leaders when to use the different styles for maximum impact. If, for example, you have an employee who turns in sloppy work that you have to review and correct before it goes out, the model will help you diagnose the leader behaviors you are currently using that aren’t working and identify the leader behaviors that will probably be more effective.
The key to successful diagnosis is to identify what leader behaviors the follower needs in order to be productive. This is determined by identifying the follower’s development or readiness level—that is, how competent (do they have the requisite knowledge and skills) and committed (are they confident they can be successful and do they think the task is important) the follower is. Blanchard labeled four development or readiness levels: the eager beginner (little knowledge and skills but some level of commitment), the disillusioned learner (some knowledge and skills but somewhat discouraged or uninterested), the capable, but cautious performer (significant knowledge and skills but lacks confidence or commitment) and the self reliant achiever (high levels of competence and commitment). Click here for images of the model: http://images.google.com/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=situational+leadership&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=YqFpS5izO4aelAf7oKyRCA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCoQsAQwAw
Each of these four development levels requires different leader behavior. The eager beginner needs a lot of clear direction, the disillusioned learner needs direction and emotional support. The capable, but cautious performer (often an underachiever) frequently gets, but does not need, a lot of direction. Instead, they require supportive leader behavior to determine what will help them recognize the importance of the task or develop more confidence in themselves. The self reliant achiever needs little direction or support from the leader.
Strong leaders match their leadership styles to the needs of the follower they are trying to influence. Dysfunctional leadership occurs when leaders use more directive or supportive behavior than needed (overleading) or less directive or supportive behavior than needed (underleading).
Going back to our employee who turns in the sloppy work, the leader should first assess—either alone or by talking with the employee—if the problem is a lack of skill, a lack of confidence or commitment, or both. If the problem is a lack of skill, the leader needs to give clearer direction, guidance and feedback. If the problem is a lack of confidence or commitment, the leader needs to give more emotional support by asking questions, giving praise and encouragement, and explaining how the task fits into the big picture.
To learn more about how this works and for a free diagnostic tool, contact Plum at www.vedereconsulting.com or go to the source: Paul Hersey at http://www.situational.com/?_kk=situational%20leadership&_kt=800c4946-eeed-432e-a65c-1ea085df15ff&gclid=CPP98eHH1p8CFR6dnAod-WIvaQ or Ken Blanchard at http://www.kenblanchard.com/Issues_Organizational_Development/Effective_Leadership_Solutions/One_to_One_Talent_Management/Management_Situational_Leadership_Training/ .
Developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in the late 1960’s, Situational Leadership provides a roadmap for effective employee development, delegation and performance management. It identifies two key leadership behaviors, giving direction and providing emotional support, which followers need in varying amounts if they are to successfully learn or complete a task. It then demonstrates how the two leader behaviors are combined to create a variety of leadership styles. What makes the model so practical is that it shows leaders when to use the different styles for maximum impact. If, for example, you have an employee who turns in sloppy work that you have to review and correct before it goes out, the model will help you diagnose the leader behaviors you are currently using that aren’t working and identify the leader behaviors that will probably be more effective.
The key to successful diagnosis is to identify what leader behaviors the follower needs in order to be productive. This is determined by identifying the follower’s development or readiness level—that is, how competent (do they have the requisite knowledge and skills) and committed (are they confident they can be successful and do they think the task is important) the follower is. Blanchard labeled four development or readiness levels: the eager beginner (little knowledge and skills but some level of commitment), the disillusioned learner (some knowledge and skills but somewhat discouraged or uninterested), the capable, but cautious performer (significant knowledge and skills but lacks confidence or commitment) and the self reliant achiever (high levels of competence and commitment). Click here for images of the model: http://images.google.com/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=situational+leadership&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=YqFpS5izO4aelAf7oKyRCA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CCoQsAQwAw
Each of these four development levels requires different leader behavior. The eager beginner needs a lot of clear direction, the disillusioned learner needs direction and emotional support. The capable, but cautious performer (often an underachiever) frequently gets, but does not need, a lot of direction. Instead, they require supportive leader behavior to determine what will help them recognize the importance of the task or develop more confidence in themselves. The self reliant achiever needs little direction or support from the leader.
Strong leaders match their leadership styles to the needs of the follower they are trying to influence. Dysfunctional leadership occurs when leaders use more directive or supportive behavior than needed (overleading) or less directive or supportive behavior than needed (underleading).
Going back to our employee who turns in the sloppy work, the leader should first assess—either alone or by talking with the employee—if the problem is a lack of skill, a lack of confidence or commitment, or both. If the problem is a lack of skill, the leader needs to give clearer direction, guidance and feedback. If the problem is a lack of confidence or commitment, the leader needs to give more emotional support by asking questions, giving praise and encouragement, and explaining how the task fits into the big picture.
To learn more about how this works and for a free diagnostic tool, contact Plum at www.vedereconsulting.com or go to the source: Paul Hersey at http://www.situational.com/?_kk=situational%20leadership&_kt=800c4946-eeed-432e-a65c-1ea085df15ff&gclid=CPP98eHH1p8CFR6dnAod-WIvaQ or Ken Blanchard at http://www.kenblanchard.com/Issues_Organizational_Development/Effective_Leadership_Solutions/One_to_One_Talent_Management/Management_Situational_Leadership_Training/ .
Labels: Leadership Development
Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
What Is Your Positivity Ratio
Have you ever gotten up in the morning and things just seemed to go wrong from the time you woke up until you went to bed? It’s almost like one thing cascades into another making you more and more frustrated and irritable. You’re drowning in a sea of negativity.
You don’t have to live this way, says psychologist and researcher Barbara Fredrickson, PhD. You can change your mood, and when you do, you change your life. She’s done the research to prove it. For years, Fredrickson has investigated the value of positive emotions—joy, serenity, gratitude, curiosity, amusement, etc. in both controlled laboratory experiments and in field studies. She’s measured the effects of positive emotions on the way people think and catalogued their impact on people’s skills, traits and well being. What she’s found is that positive emotions have a purpose beyond just feeling good for a moment. Positive emotions expand our ability to respond to daily crises and problems with creativity and resilience. Basically she says that fear closes down our minds and hearts, it makes us dumber and less able to respond to a crisis. Positive emotions open them, so that we see our problems more clearly, and are able to make more creative and nourishing choices about what to do next.
In addition, the more we experience positive emotions, the more we change and grow, becoming better people and developing the tools we need to make a better life. That is, over the long term, we become more satisfied and fulfilled.
A fascinating part of Fredrickson’s work is the positivity ratio, the number of positive emotions compared to the number of negative emotions we experience each day. If our positivity ratio is 3:1 (3 positive emotions to one negative emotion), we reach a tipping point where we receive all the nourishing benefits of positive thinking. Below that ratio, we tend to descend into negativity. Most of us have a positivity ratio of 2:1 or worse. (If you want to find yours, you can take a free quiz at www.positivityratio.com).
We can improve the ratio by experimenting with ways to inject positivity into our days. And this isn’t something you can fake. In fact, you can pressure yourself to be positive and that just adds to the negativity! Instead, look for sources of beauty and pleasure. Look for small opportunities to engage in nourishing activities. Notice your negative interpretations of events and find a more positive perspective. There are a number of tools on Fredrickson’s website. Take advantage, and let yourself flourish.
You don’t have to live this way, says psychologist and researcher Barbara Fredrickson, PhD. You can change your mood, and when you do, you change your life. She’s done the research to prove it. For years, Fredrickson has investigated the value of positive emotions—joy, serenity, gratitude, curiosity, amusement, etc. in both controlled laboratory experiments and in field studies. She’s measured the effects of positive emotions on the way people think and catalogued their impact on people’s skills, traits and well being. What she’s found is that positive emotions have a purpose beyond just feeling good for a moment. Positive emotions expand our ability to respond to daily crises and problems with creativity and resilience. Basically she says that fear closes down our minds and hearts, it makes us dumber and less able to respond to a crisis. Positive emotions open them, so that we see our problems more clearly, and are able to make more creative and nourishing choices about what to do next.
In addition, the more we experience positive emotions, the more we change and grow, becoming better people and developing the tools we need to make a better life. That is, over the long term, we become more satisfied and fulfilled.
A fascinating part of Fredrickson’s work is the positivity ratio, the number of positive emotions compared to the number of negative emotions we experience each day. If our positivity ratio is 3:1 (3 positive emotions to one negative emotion), we reach a tipping point where we receive all the nourishing benefits of positive thinking. Below that ratio, we tend to descend into negativity. Most of us have a positivity ratio of 2:1 or worse. (If you want to find yours, you can take a free quiz at www.positivityratio.com).
We can improve the ratio by experimenting with ways to inject positivity into our days. And this isn’t something you can fake. In fact, you can pressure yourself to be positive and that just adds to the negativity! Instead, look for sources of beauty and pleasure. Look for small opportunities to engage in nourishing activities. Notice your negative interpretations of events and find a more positive perspective. There are a number of tools on Fredrickson’s website. Take advantage, and let yourself flourish.
Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery
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