I just completed delivering a six week leadership workshop on Styles of Leadership and Team Development with a new client in the telecom industry. There were six half-day sessions spread over the six weeks.

I met the owner earlier this year to discuss opportunities to improve the people side of business rather than the processes or systems. Most small business owners are caught up in keeping their sales funnel full and on managing the processes to deliver the goods.

This company is small with about 50 employees in total and most of them working out of the home office in Montreal. There is a sales office in Western Canada and in Europe.

The organization is quite flat in structure with only six people in management roles including the president/owner. Most of the managers had never had any formal training in leadership and had been promoted to these positions as the company grew.

I curently use only one approach to leadership development, the Styles of Leadership & Team Development program developed by Fritz Glaus. I do this because it has contributed to producing the best results for my clients. It is part of a complete approach to help the business owner or CEO free himself from the day to day decisions regarding how the company of organization operates. This allow him to act on new opportunities and use his talents to solidify the organization in whatever way he sees best.

It takes a leader or business owner that is at the point of realizing that greatness is about bringing out the best in people and helping them fully understand and use their qualities to the benefit of all. This then required the leader to start by understanding himself and his direct reports.

The Styles of Leadership and Team Development program incorporates the types of people approach that Fritz Glaus has applied to the training workshops. The program also lay the framework for people to be open to change and continuous personal development. They learn that we all have strengths and weaknesses and this is normal and not to be feared.

During each session over the last six weeks I could see the managers opening up a little more and making attempts to apply what they were learning. Before the third session one of the direct reports of one of the managers participating in the workshops came to me with a big smile and said that she could already see some change from the managers, especially the person she reported to.  She said that they were making a distinct attempt to communicate more often and recognize people’s efforts and contributions.

The program integrates the types of people approach to self-knowledge and understanding of others with the principles of participative management and continuous improvement. Each person identified a key restrainer that interfered with fully using their qualities and set a goal to lessen the impact of this restrainer on their performance.

I met with president a week after the last session and he said that he could see the managers making an effort to apply what they learned. He could see them holding more effective meetings and using the problem solving techniques that were taught.

The next phase of the mandate is to establish win-win performance agreements between the managers and the president. The system we developed has the manager, with our help, formulate a win-win performance commitment with his boss along with support commitments from his boss.

I had the first meeting with the president to begin this process and will submit a new post about that soon.

Stephen

Today is the last day of April and the sun is shining, which is a good way to end the month. Things are looking brighter in the economy and people I speak with seem more positive about short term opportunites to grow their businesses. The forecast for May looks bright and sunny so it’s a good time to get out there and break new grounds for business development.

Last week I interviewed Mario Lapointe, president of SMT-ASSY on the personal development and sales training process he went through that resulted in doubling his sales in just one year. This was after having experienced flat sales growth for the previous five years.

I recorded the interview conference call and I am making it available on my website here.

You may say they’re delusional, but some experts contend there are early signs of an economic recovery. If an economic turnaround is, indeed, at hand, companies and their leaders need to be positioned to make the most of it, and beat their competitors at winning increased business when it happens, says Suzanne Bates, author of “Motivate Like a CEO: Communicate Your Strategic Vision and Inspire People to Act!” and president and CEO of Bates Communication. Here are Bates’ top tips for making the most of the recovery:

Read the full article from Training Magazine

How much should you be paid for what you do? The answer is relative to how much value you produce for your company and your clients. Value can be defined in many ways but it could also be very specific and tangible. The most obvious is the sale person whose performance can be measured by sales volume.

The revenue a sales person produces can be restricted by what they are comfortable with and how much they feel they are worthy and capable of earning.

Are you a million dollar a year sales professional or a $2 million a year producer? The difference begins in your own mind. You will only produce what you believe you can or are worthy of. Even if there are opportunities in front of you, if you believe you are limited to a certain sales or earnings figure, you will shoot yourself in the foot from acting on those opportunities and selling more.

This is a known fact among writers and promoters of personal development and it is nothing new. Napoleon Hill wrote about this in his best seller Think & Grow Rich first published in 1937, over 70 years ago.
The same principles of personal development apply to sales people and especially business owners today. If you want to expand your business, you must first expand your thinking.

This is easy to comprehend but not easy to apply, because our thoughts are habits and we all know how difficult it is to change a habit. Mental habits are even harder to change than physical ones.

The good news is that it can be done and the results are tangible. You must however be willing to work on yourself and that begins with knowing yourself and discovering how to leverage and expand your strengths and tap into using more of your potential.

I used these principles to coach Mario Lapointe of SMT-ASSY and that led to him doubling his sales in one year and even more now. This is happening while his competition is struggling and in some cases going out of business.

You can hear this directly from Mario as I interviewed him on video recently.

Watch the video here

Stephen

I recently video taped an interview with a client, Mario Lapointe, president of SMT-ASSY, a firm that specializes in electronic component assembly and testing.

Mario had been through sales and management training and coaching with me over a one year period. The initial process consisted of a 2-3 hour coaching session each week for about 13 weeks. After that it went to monthly sessions and then quarterly meetings for up to 1 year.

During the first 13 weeks Mario had to do some reading and complete exercises in a workbook, as well as listen to recorded material on personal development and sales.

I used the self-paced sales development program ACCISS as the learning tool to change personal perceptions and assumptions.

This worked very well for Mario who was hungry to learn, grow and get results. And results he got. Mario explains the results in the video, which essentially saw him double his sales in 1 year. What he doesn’t mention in the video, is that he also freed himself from the day to day operations enough to start a new business producing a business magazine, Business Newsmakers, with a unique marketing twist.

Last week I was speaking with a business owner who told me that one of his short term projects is to hire new talent to replace people who have not lived up to his expectations. He said that the current economic crisis that has caused large employers to reduce their workforce has created opportunities for him to build a better team.

He said that when the job market was hot he could not replace people because he could not find and afford people that would do a better job. Now that more people are out of jobs and ready to work for less than the large employers were paying, he now sees himself in the position to make the moves he wanted to for some time.

Those that are looking to hire to either replace staff or to act on new opportunities must go through a hiring process that will end with a decision of who is the best candidate to choose. This is a process than can be very tricky and is not always easy and never foolproof. And if you are not careful you can make the same hiring mistakes as in the past and end up with no improvement.

Imagine going though the whole hiring process, which can be quite costly and time consuming and then finding out six months later that the new person is no better than the person you replaced. Or your new project opportunity is not getting on track and it is draining your resources because the new hire is not getting up to speed fast enough.

Let’s take a quick moment and review the hiring process to make sure you maximize the opportunities to hire that star performer.

• Aggressively market the position in the right places and with great sales copy that rises above the ordinary. Instead of saying what the job requires, sell the job as a career position that can fulfill someone’s idea of a dream job for their specific talent.
• Have the candidate write you a letter stating why they would be the ideal candidate for the job and how their employment will benefit your firm. Those who really want the job will take the time to do this well and will save you time in qualifying each resume.
• Form a team to conduct interviews and make the hiring decision. That way you have different perspectives and you force yourself to be more objective. Studies show that most hiring decisions are made in the first 5 minutes of an interview but diverse opinions can counter this tendency.
• Take your time but don’t take too long either to make a decision. Invest a good amount of time getting to know the person, not just an hour. You will be spending a lot of time working together so take the time before you commit to know what you’re getting.
• Test and assess your candidates for both technical job skills and for job fit. A technical test could be to ask the person to prepare a balance sheet if the person is applying for a financial role. Be prepared with a test task that is typical for your department or new project.

Assessing the person for total job fit is comprised of matching knowledge and skills, along with attitude and value and as well, thinking style, personality and interests. This can only be determined with any accuracy using assessments.

The The Profile XT from Profiles International measures thinking style, personality in terms of behavioural traits and six occupational interests. It also matches the person’s scores against a customized job profile for the position. This is the most powerful kind of assessment because you are matching someone to the requirements of the job.

On Thursday March 12th at 1:00 PM EST I will be hosting a webinar to present how to hire star performers and make the best hiring decisions using the best resources available today.

Please register for the webinar as space is limited by sending an email to info@optimusperformance.ca. You will receive the log in information. By email.

This webinar is essential if you want to make better hiring decisions and build a high performance team for the future.

Stephen Goldberg
Be Free to Work Less, Earn More, Enjoy Life

Motivate Teams to Achieve and Perform

The key for creating a high performance organization that produces outstanding results is people. Even in a poor economic climate like we are witnessing now, we can still have high performance in our organizations. In fact we must always strive for this and it needs to be a habit of thinking that we can always improve and do better.

The benefits of striving for a high performance organization is, ORGANIZATIONAL LEANNESS, TEAM AUTONOMY, SPIRIT OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE INTIATIVE AND OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.

This translates into a better work climate, increased employee retention, reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, lower stress and increased profits.

Just the other day a friend dropped by the office and expressed discontent with the organization for which he was working. He said the problem was poor leadership right from the top. Managers do not inspire people and have them participate in decisions. He compared this with a previous employer where he considered the president a great leader. That president knew people by name, was accessible to people and showed charisma.

The style of leadership we use has a tremendous impact on the people we manage and lead, more so than we can imagine. Leaders often do things without thinking about the impact it has on the motivation of employees to fully engage their talents for the betterment of the company.

Leaders need to understand the best style of leadership to use with each person to create a high performance organization. Any type of leader can learn this and put it into action.

I have been working with several companies to help leaders create a high performance organization. The process begins with leadership development. One such company is Prisma Pressure Sensitive Products. General Manager Falk Kyser said that working with me through our Leadership Styles and Team Development program has helped him better understand people and how to use their talents strategically. I have I created a video featuring Falk and manager Dru Davis speaking about the impact improved leadership is having on their organization. You can view the video in a previous post here.

Here are three tips about the best leadership style to use to motivate others to give their best and collaborate with you.

1. Use the appropriate style of leadership for the situation and person. The style of leadership to use is dependent on several factors; time, urgency, commitment of those involved and the type of person you are working with. You must understand how and when to use each style so you gain peoples’ commitment to action.
2. Establish unwavering trust with your direct reports. There are a several key things you need to be aware of in your behaviour that either builds or lowers. When trust is low, they will probably resist doing what you want and may lack initiative to improve things.
3. Know each person well that you work with directly and what motivates them and why they tend to behave the way they do. A simple process is needed to make this easy and effective.

A client specialized in a specific medical practice called me last week and said that after going through the Leadership Styles and Team Development training program with their team, productivity is up 20% over the previous year and the staff are now meeting and making decisions on their own on how to keep things organized and effective.

These are the kind of results we need in our organizations if we are to tackle the huge problems and threats that many of us are facing today. Continuous investment in the talents and abilities of people that we work with enables our organizations to find new creative ways to solve old problems that keep re-surfacing with a new way.

Stephen Goldberg

I can talk forever about why one should invest in leadership and team development training. In my opinion self-development is the key to creativity, flexibility and sustainability. When each person in an organization is making an effort to learn and grow and is supported by his boss, it will have a tremendous impact on the organization in ways that we can only imagine.

Here is a video I made based on interviews with a client who is committed to personal, leadership and team development. The name of the company is Prisma Pressure Sensitive Products in Montreal Canada.

Earlier this year I had conducted team development training in an organization and was now doing some follow-up sessions. The purpose of these sessions were to see what improvements management and employees had made towards better teamwork.

This is an interesting case because I have worked on and off with this organization over the last 8 years and watched them grow from a 20 employee company to now more than 100. I wrote an article titled Are You the Go-To Person in Your Organization? about them in my newsletter earlier this year and the Montreal Gazette newspaper picked up on it and interviewed me for an article on the topic .

This blog post and case study in part continues the story of Stefan, the person who was so against working with me on people development eight years ago and is now director of operation and the go-to person in the organization. He is the one who the owner is relying upon to drive more efficiency and teamwork.

After being promoted to his new position late last year, I met Stefan again and he admitted to the challenges he was facing in having people work together well and cooperate. The company builds highly sophisticated testing machinery that incorporates multiple technologies that must all fit and work together. To complicate matters each machine is highly customized to the customers needs and because of rapidly changing and advancing technologies the customers usually wants the latest advancements designed into their product.

I conducted workshops over several weeks with almost all employees except those who were traveling abroad on projects. It was easiest working with the employees and most difficult with the managers and supervisors. The reason was because the roles and authority of managers were not well defined and thus they seemed more apprehensive about what they would actually be able to apply.

The owner of the company seems to be the root cause of this because it seems he feels more in control of people when they need to have their decisions validated. In reality this causes slower and poor decision-making, which ends up in production delays and multiple design problems.

I think this is strongly linked to the motivation and tendencies of the owners’ type which in our learning program we call the Inspirator. You can read some articles about this by Fritz Glaus, my partner at Three Brain Synergy on my Optimus Performance website in the tips’n tools section under training.

What is strange is that even though the owner has preferred ambiguous role definitions and authority levels he has gradually removed himself from the day to day operations and this has opened up an opportunity for Stefan to institute new management approaches. However, the influence of the owner is still quite apparent and thus I was my concerned about how much of the teamwork learning would be applied. Also the participation in the workshops by the managers was less enthusiastic than with the groups of employees.

To my surprise the feedback from the employees six months after the training was quite positive. Everyone attested to some change for the better in the climate of the organization. The main reason they felt was because they now knew each other better due to the simplicity of the types of people approach that was integrated in the teamwork program . They also said that the communication skills such as active listening proved to be essential tools in working together and solving some major technical problems with past projects.

This is good news for this company as the owner who is the main driver and procurer of new business has sold some major contracts and has made large capital investments to expand the facilities and production capabilities in order to deliver the projects on time.

The biggest challenge I see is that too much is still riding on the shoulders of the go-to person , Stefan. He needs to delegate more authority and decision making to the managers or teams as some departments do not have defined managers and Stefan is actually acting as the manager. This can work if he allows them and expects them to make decisions without him. To do this he needs to make sure they have the right information and the proper resources including knowledgeable and skilled people. The greatest danger here is that Stefan becomes more overloaded and may become unable to keep things on track because too much is dependant in him driving things and making the decisions.

There is a great deal to learn from this case study and I expect to return there in the spring to conduct more teamwork sessions with new employees that have been hired over the last six months.

Stephen Goldberg

Know Yourself, Grow Yourself

Find out which type of person you are

Free lesson demo at www.threebrainsynergy.com

Last week I concluded the last session of team training for a new group of employees working for a customer who has had all their employees go through this training.

In this last session I focused first on the responsibilities of team members and how it coincided with the stages of team development. At each stage there are new responsibilities that each team member needs to commit to putting into practice in order for the team to function at that stage and to progressively move towards the highest and most productive stage. This requires new skills to be learned and practiced.

In most organizations when we speak about the responsibilities of employees we usually refer to tasks that each person needs to do to in their positions. But task completion according to set standards of quality and quantity is actually the requirement of just the first stage of team development and does not really signify that teamwork is taking place.

To move into the next stages of team development requires basic skills in communication, conflict resolution, mutual coaching, providing feedback, problems solving and presentation skills.

Although these are quite basic most employees in most organizations have not learned these skills to the level where they are practicing them daily. This is a big problem and a big impediment to productivity and a direct cause of lost opportunities for increased organizational performance.

I then introduced the principles of mutual coaching based on the Three Brain Synergy approach. The main difference with this approach versus teaching standard coaching skills is that it involves recalling the type to which the person you are coaching belongs. This gives the coach and person coached, a platform to establish mutual understanding and trust and to engage in a productive coaching conversation.

When the person who needs coaching shares their situation or problem with a team member it creates an opportunity for that team member to take on the role of coach and to help the person find a solution for their problem and commit to an action. The coach can then suggest a follow-up step to discuss the outcome and make sure the person is making progress.

When everyone learns the simple coaching steps and they start developing greater team spirit, an extremely positive and productive climate of mutual help and support is created. This will greatly contribute to sustained motivation and retention of good team members. Who would want to leave such a working environment save those who are resisting personal growth and want to hold onto old negative attitudes? Who needs these negative people in their organizations anyway?

I then went on to cover team problem solving techniques that included brain storming, nominal group technique and force field analysis. I had them apply these techniques to come up with solutions a to what new behaviors top management needed to adapt to improve team spirit in the organization.

I made sure each person had a chance to practice being the facilitator of one of the problem solving steps. After going through the techniques. I helped them develop practical recommendations to present to the president who was scheduled to join the session for the last hour.

When the president arrived each person took turns presenting their type, the tendency they were working on to improve and the goal they had set to achieve the improvement.

One person had volunteered to present the recommendations from the problem solving exercise and this went very well. The recommendation was for the presdient and his management team to increase positive feedback and to involve employees in decision making that directly affected their work tasks.

The president received the recommendations very well but did not make any commitments other than to thank them for their work and that he was happy with the outcome of the exercise and how they each presented their individual goals with such clarity.

I closed the session with a review of the learning objectives and the handing out of their certificates of attestation. They were quite happy to pose for the traditional group photo.

Team training graduates