From DDI http://www.ddiworld.com/thoughtleadership/pulseoftheworkforce.asp

I have posted to my Three Brain Synergy blog an audio recording taken from our October telephone seminar on the leader a facilitator.

You can access the recording here.

I read this article by Rick Spence in the newspaper this morning about an innovative approach to maximizing customer satisfaction, employee performance and investor support.

It could be your ticket to survive the next slump

By Rick Spence, The Financial PostOctober 5, 2009

This continues my case study of my intervention with a small business to improve people performance.

You can read my previous posts to get familiar with this case and what has happened up to now.

Even though we have been through a nasty recession that has affected their market which is telecom the firm continues to do very well.

I formed a win-win agreement between the president and myself that defines the expected outcome and what he expects from me. I used the same method as I will for the agreements between him and his direct reports.

This enabled the president to walk though and experience the win-win agreement process, which he now understands well and made it easy for him to commit the resources to this next phase.

Over the last two weeks I have meet three mangers to hold one-on-one coaching sessions to clarify their understanding of the process and to begin drafting their performance commitments.

Each performance commitment contains their personal goal related to their classic type and the accompanying goal to overcome the key tendency related to their type. This is highly important because keeping this goal in focus, reminds the person of the qualities of their type and the tendency that holds them back the most. Working on their type related goal keeps them in a mindset of continuous improvement.

The president had already given me his concerns about each person’s performance and with that I had drafted the leadership behaviors to address these concerns as part of the win-win agreement. So my focus now is to clarify the performance responsibilities of each respective managers’ department against which to measure their performance.

There is a direct correlation between the leadership behaviors of a managers and the performance of his department.

It was interesting to see in the interviews that the hardest thing for managers to deal with is people. This is what causes them the most grief and what makes their job hard.

This has not changed in years and is perhaps worse than ever since people tend to meet less in person to take the time to exchange with each other. Yet companies tend to ignore these issues and keep throwing money at system improvements to solve the problem. Or they hold fun team building events thinking that this type of bonding will get people to work better together. People development is not a quick fix but an ongoing commitment.

I still have two more managers to meet before I complete the first draft of their respective win-win agreements and send them for their review.

Once this is done I will meet each one again to confirm and draft the support commitments from their boss.

Stephen Goldberg

visit me at www.threebrainsynergy.com

I like reading articles like the one linked here about being creative in selling. As creatures of habit we often get caught up in doing what we thinks works and is comfortable.

The truth is there are always ways we can improve and reading Rick Spence’s well written article got my creative juices flowing.

Turn tire-kickers into customers. Read, enjoy and prosper!

This weeks question of the week was submitted by someone through a group on leadership on Linkedin.

How does one implement a participative leadership style when she/he is just new in the position, the relationships and knowledge of the team members have not been developed and business needs to keep moving forward?

Last weeks question and answer from know-yourself expert and author Fritz Glaus has been posted on the Three Brain Synery blog.You can post your answers for others to see here by adding a comment.

I have also posted an audio recording of last weeks tele-seminar conference call on Effective Decision Making using the three brain approach. Here is the link.

Leadership and team development question of the week; join the discussion Info ThreeBrainSynergy – Monday, August 24, 2009

Participate in this weeks leadership and team development question of the week. The question is:

What makes real teamwork in organizations so difficult to achieve and maintain and so rare to find in today’s workplace?

To post an answer go to the public forum in the basic membership area. 

This week is our monthly free tele-seminar conference call. The subject this week is:

Decision-Making Effectiveness with ThreeBrainSynergy.

The call is this Thursday August 27th at 2:00PM EST. Register now!

Answer to last weeks leadership & team development question Info ThreeBrainSynergy – Monday, August 24, 2009

Here is Friz Glaus’ answer to last weeks leadership question along with a video interview with Fritz  sharing his views on the subject. Watch the video on You Tube

Leadership question of the week of August 17th 2009:

What type of person and what style of leadership are required in a leader intent on developing a team of managers and/or vice-presidents reporting directly to him who are self-directed and fully autonomous?

I would like to deal with this question in relation to a specific group of business people rather than to leaders in general. The basic leadership  requirement will be the same, but I would like to focus on the specific business leaders that ThreeBrainSynergy is addressing, namely company owners (Presidents or CEO’s) whose innate style of leadership is that of quick action. They decide and act quickly themselves and they expect quick action from the vice-presidents and other executives who report directly to them. They also expect their direct reports to be able to carry out such action without the need for detailed explanations.  Read more

When I meet business owners to talk about my services and learn where they need help I usually write the word problems on the top of the page under results and then draw a vertical line down the page under problems.

I explain that businesses have two types of problems and on one side of the line I write the word Process and on the other side People.

Business owners and leaders need to make sure that the organization can solve process and people problems effectively in order to succeed.

Here is a set of articles sent to me from Wayne Vanwick of the Acheivement Center that can be more useful to business owners.

Good articles on business process & success.  A must read

Stephen

Strong leadership and team development is more crucial now than ever before for your organization if it is to make it through rough waters and to ride the tides of good fortune.

Leadership that drives high performance in an organization does not just happen but is a decision that comes from understanding what motivates and drives people to perform. To help you remove any ambiguity in your thinking about what makes for great leadership we are offering you to participate in our leadership and team development question of the week.

This weeks question is:

What type of person and what style of leadership are required in a leader intent on developing a team of managers and/or vice-presidents reporting directly to him who are self-directed and fully autonomous?

You can post your answer in the public forum on the Three Brain Synergy website. To access the forum, register for FREE as a Basic Member and then log in to the basic membership area and click on Forum. You will see the question, and you can post your answer right there.

We are offering a prize of our complete Know-Yourself e-learning to the first person to post the correct answer i.e. an answer that agrees with the TBS philosophy. This is a value of $197.00. We will post the answer next Monday on August 24th on the forum.

Participating in this discussion will help you to clarify in your own mind what kind of attitude it takes to be the leader of a high performance organization.

Stephen Goldberg

http://threebrainsynergy.com