My Advice During Covid - Hang On To What's Certain

There is nothing new under the sun...ever heard that phrase. It's from a biblical passage, Ecc. 1:9.

Well, in the time of Covid, you might be thinking...is that true now? These are unprecedented times. We're entering into a new normal (not a fan of that phrase)...but ok, yes things are definitely unsettling and uncertain. And, some elements of life may permanently change...or not. We'll see.

However, there are some very human, historical and universal truths that are settled, certain and will remain unchanged.

While we get tossed about by how we and others are describing this current experience, as someone who lives in the realm of human behavior in life and business, I can say - and I hope this is encouraging- there are some things...and I dare say the most important things... that has not changed and will not change.

This should be comforting news! There are some very important things that are unchanging in the midst of uncertainty that we can hold on to - anchor ourselves to - as we weather potential stormy times ahead. This is true both personally and professionally.

And, what would be an essential and very useful activity is to take the time to recognize and deeply connect to this truth.

So What Has Remained The Same? What's Certain?
Ultimately, who we are as human beings - how we're created and wired - as well as our core human needs, fundamentally do not change.

No matter the context - our human makeup drives everything from how we're managing homeschoolling, being an essential worker to business owners deciding how to navigate their unique challenges.

Specifically in business, whether you are now migrating back to an office or working remotely, your human needs, that of your colleagues, those you lead, your client or customer are still the same.

Though you wouldn't think so by the plethora of "new ways to manage" articles and webinars being offered to be a more effective remote leader/manager. Themes like being more compassionate, having more empathy, developing your emotional intelligence...which can all be categorized as in essence - being more human.

Here's a news flash - 

Human needs have not changed just because we've decided to pay more attention to them and now are spotlighting their value.

In any context, personal or professional, compassion and empathy, for example, have always been needed. The kindness of my banker was needed and welcomed before Covid and will after. A leader's ability to to develop'/have emotional intelligence has been a popular need expressed for years.

Here's what's changed... these human, relational qualities are now positioned front and center - a defining element - to management and leadership success.

How we relate (lead and manage) in a time of crisis and change is now the new success currency, because other elements in working together (onsite office culture and camaraderie for example) covered up or diminished the impact of its weakness or complete absence...affording a palatable toleration.

What has remained the same is the heart, mind, soul and spirit of who we are, what shows up to work everyday and is impacted by those with whom we work. Period. As long as we work with - interact with - another human being, this will not change.

The context may be different, but our human makeup remains the same. And this is what we must become and remain anchored to - hold on to and use as our core guide going forward - no matter what.

Our "new normal" is actually our normal and has been for centuries.

What has remained are those executive leaders, managers at all levels who became effective because they were the most relatable and human and could appropriately work with the human needs in others. They will have the easiest time with the future of work transition, because they have already created meaningful connections with their team that can be transferred or translated anywhere.

They knew creating connection, fostering a productive collaborative community was not based on or held together by physical space but based on the unseen space of heart, mind and spirit.

Ironically, this achievement provided the ultimate conditions for the most productive, profitable teams that could be manifested anywhere at anytime. This is the ultimate in effective leadership.

And that's why I wrote the executive briefing book The Human Quotient. This is what we help leaders achieve - we call it "people acumen" or HQ.  Our experience has taught us that business acumen is weakened without a meaningful level of HQ.

Additionally, we created a blueprint to marry business and people acumen. It's a road map for improving results by cultivating effective leadership and management in a way that can be financially measured through the lens of human behavior science...by amplifying and valuing the human experience.

My advice during this time?...recognize and anchor yourself to that which is not changing...the needs of humanity, yourself, your family, colleagues and friends. Let it stabilize and anchor you as you navigate what's in front of you and what lies ahead.

Consider Working With Us

Achieving successful, sustainable people management - individual & team management - that can be financially measured is our expertise. Through a precisely crafted leadership and management blueprint, we enable executive leaders, along with their extended leader/manager teams, to consistently implement good management practices by developing 9 essential management skills - without major disruptions to their schedule, enormous coaching fees and all consuming consulting initiatives.

The blueprint successfully addresses the need for middle management development...that is managing managers. Our work fulfills how Peter Drucker defines the Effective Executive. 

Our core premise and a fundamental business truth > People management is business management which directly impacts business performance...and effective leadership skills naturally include effective management. Ultimately, business management skills has to include people management skills -it's unavoidable as one directly drives the other.

If this is something you know you need, make a point to learn what we do, how we do it and how you can quickly benefit financially. Go here now.

2 NonNegotiable Fundamentals of Business Building You Absolutely Can't Avoid

There is so much noise in the world of leadership and management today. Go on LinkedIn and just see the breath of information in your feed - kinda makes my head hurt. There's so much discussion about what leaders should be doing, what makes a great leader, etc. Do a search on Amazon or Google about leadership and management and millions of results are revealed.

                        As a key, anchor leader - this ^ is you!

One thing for sure, if you are a senior leader or one that owns a business, there are certain fundamentals you must have in place - above all others. And yet, so many other things are discussed - I call them shiny objects - that don't actively advocate and address these fundamentals.

Two fundamentals in particular are these:

1. If you want to grow a business, you must have a reliable, effective management team or teams. And this is not just in concept only, but a team in which you have complete confidence - one you utterly trust.

2. You are the cornerstone of your business, business unit or department.

What's A Cornerstone
My husband is in construction. He has built many a building in his career from a small home to a skyscraper. One building essential every one of them needed was a cornerstone. What is it?

The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.

This same building practice holds true when building a business, department or team. Everything about you as the key leader - the anchor leader - is reflected in your business or area of responsibility... whether you recognize it or not. Even if you don't see it...it's there. 

You are the cornerstone of your business or area of responsibility.
 Everything about your business is set and acts in reference to you.

Therefore, if there is anything in your business you want to change - you have to start with you. Additionally, whatever those around you actively seek to change, may very well be undone by you. I've seen it happen. 

This is very common when there is management training delivered by some random training company and the middle to lower tier managers"have to go through it", but senior leaders are exempt. 

Then when lower tier managers try to implement what they've learned, it's refused, rejected, not supported or undone by their direct reports. This reflects little to no cohesion or alignment of the leadership and management team values, principles and practices - all of which can be very confusing and frustrating to employees.

In my view, there is a tremendous amount of money wasted in this scenario and yet it's very common.

As an executive advisor, I want to caution you to not take this traditional popular route when seeking to build your management team. Work from the 2 non-negotiable fundamentals and do the following: 

1. Start with yourself. Set the stage and the example. Model what you want to see in others.

2. Be very clear on what you want and expect.

3. Consistently articulate clearly what you expect - leave no doubt.

4. Ensure that your 1st tier leadership is on board.

5. Decide how values and expectations will be deployed and monitored throughout your remaining management team.

To summarize, developing a trustworthy, competent management training begins with you - not HR. This approach is management training done right. If you'd like an expanded explanation of what it takes to ensure successful, sustainable management training - check out our Amazon Short - Top 10 Reasons Why Your Management Training Sucks

The Big Picture

When you take a macro view of your business, with you as the cornerstone in mind, you'll see that leading is not a "top down" scenario, but rather a bottom up - a completely reverse view than how a company is typically seen. Most are seen as hierarchies.

I invite you to see it completely different - see it from the bottom up. Your business or area of responsibility is built on you. A great example of this is the company Uber. If you study the personality and leadership behavior of its founder Travis Kalanick, you'll discover the company culture reflected everything about him. In his case, this was not a positive thing. It cost the company money and eventually cost him his leadership role and ownership. Imagine the business of your dreams being stripped away.

A positive example would be the company Zappos (eventually bought by Amazon just a few short years ago). The company was built on the values of its founder Tony Hsieh. It's a great case study which you can read in his book Delivering Happiness.

So what does your company or business reflect about you? Particularly if you are a small to medium size business, your company brand is your brand and vice versa. Another important question is - does your management team reflect you - the good qualities/practices....and the not so good. Does it reflect your leadership values and strengths and/or your weaknesses?

Ultimately the #1 most important question is - do have the fundamentals solidly in place? Or, are you expending resources - finances and time on important elements of your business -  but not the most important component fundamentals?

If this is something you think or would like to explore more, I invite you to take a look at how we address the core fundamentals through our Effective Executive Blueprint for Smart Management. Click here to learn more - view a short video briefing.

Also if you'd like to have a confidential discussion about what's happening in your business, we offer a complimentary 30 min. Q&A call - you talk, we listen. Click here to connect with us.

Did You Know Your Employees have a Natural BS Detector?

Your employees have a built in, natural "BS" detector? Did you know that? That's why communicating with candor is essential for management and leadership effectiveness.

Candid, direct communication is confusing for many because I think (and you can tell me in the comments how this sits with you) its something that many leaders and managers misunderstand. Many see being candid or direct as mean or rude, vs. helpful truth telling.

I've observed many have come to this view because when candor is experienced it's done in a way that feels harsh, mean or tactless... and they certainly don't want to be that way.

And yet, succumbing to this experience of candor creates a missed opportunity to build trust, credibility, and influence as a leader.

According to Judith Glaser, author of the book Conversational Intelligence (a must read by the way), candor builds trust. In fact it's one of the keys to a high-performing team.

Excerpt:

"Through our research and client projects over the past decade, we have identified that candor is the behavior that best predicts high performing teams and the single most important success factor in transformation and change. Organizations that exhibit high levels of candor produce the highest and most successful performing teams.....by setting the context for candor throughout all of your leadership interactions, you level the playing field.

Neuro-tip: Candor, truth and trust

While the words – candor, trust and trust - are different, the meaning of these words activate the

same networks in our brain. When we display the Prefrontal Cortex, our Executive Brain. This network opens the power of the Executive functions, such as strategic thinking, empathy, foresight, intuition, good judgment and handling uncertainty with less fear. So candor plays a role in elevating our capacity to work through difficult challenges with others – a core activity for change and transformation in organizations."

"Candor is a door to tapping wisdom and for discovering new ways to handle the challenges we face when stakes are high and uncertainty abounds."

Excerpt: Make Candor a Priority By Judith E. Glaser

The key point is what you say and how you say it both matter!

What this also means is your employees can tell when you're not being candid, truthful, authentic or transparent. Their brain in wired to detect and distrust BS. The result? Your ability to influence, to get the best outcomes will be diminished.

Here's two suggestions for all leaders related to candor.

1). Examine your own understanding and relationship to it. Adjust your understanding accordingly and practice it.

2). If you're really having a challenge embracing it or in your delivery style - read the book Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.

// JCS Business Advisors is a holistic business growth consultancy. Through our expertise in human behavior, we partner with forward-thinking senior leaders, entrepreneurs and their HR counterparts to bridge the knowledge & execution gap of connecting people, performance, and profits, resulting in high-performance leadership teams and increase profitability.

 // Email: joann@jcsbusinessadvisors.com // Ph: 888.388.0565 // Schedule a complimentary advisory call and receive a copy of our latest executive briefing. Learn about our "all-in-one" system that develops competent leaders and managers, minimize employee problems while profitably growing your business.

Are You Trying to Get New Results With Old Thinking?

Writer's Note: Though this was originally published on LinkedIn at the beginning of a new year - the insights are timeless.

It's a new year! For many business owners, it's a chance to start fresh, take it to the next level -- kick it into high gear... or whatever other saying suits you to express your desire to make this year better than last.

If any of those are on your agenda, here's an important insight -- if you have a desire to get new results, but in doing so are planning from old thinking, you're in trouble. New results require new thinking. #justsayin

Nurturing fresh thinking is an essential practice for leaders to get new results, which I share about in my latest blog post - What's Your #1 Leadership Asset? (see link below).

Let's get off the "insane train" -- with my updated definition = "thinking the old things over and over, but expecting new and different results".

Why It Matters 
Let's start with an eye-opening leadership truth. "Who you are is how your business, department, or team will go." How you think is how it will go as well. And, here's the kicker -- it's your thinking and feelings (yes feelings) that shapes your decisions and judgment. Your decisions are choices.

Choices, decisions, judgments generate results. 

If you want different results this year, you'll have to begin with different thinking. Choices, decisions, judgments generate results. They can carry profound consequences.

I truly don't think decision-making is taken seriously enough in today's leadership culture. In my latest release Show Me The Money! I talk about the tremendous financial impact decisions have.

And so, here's a coaching tip=> this year keep a decision tracking sheet or journal. Document the decisions you make, why you're making them and the influencers, (e.g. people, emotions, environmental conditions). This is a powerful activity that can foster needed personal awareness and substantially impact your leadership effectiveness in 2017.

A Prevalent Dilemma 
Here's an honest discovery I've made in coaching leaders -- there is a bit of a dilemma regarding this topic. Many leaders are not interested in changing their thinking. They think what they think is the right way to think because -- heck-- they're the leaders -- that's how they got to be leaders. If fact some leaders want to tell you what to think, instead of helping their teams learn how to think.

When's the last time you sat in a meeting and the leader said, "We need and I invite fresh thinking. We need new perspectives, a different way of coming at our challenges or ways to serve our customers. You have free reign to contribute." Unless you're in a creative environment, that's not particularly common.

So this post is a reality check of sorts for all leaders. Nothing will change unless you change and or encourage and allow change - call it a twist on change management.

And here's a bonus warning -- there is a subtle deception in thinking. The act of thinking feels as if you're doing something -- taking action on a problem, making progress towards a solution. When in fact, it could be that you're merely rearranging old thinking. As Albert Einstein once said, " You cannot solve a problem at that the same level of thinking at which you arrive at it." This happens every day in corporate leadership.

So I'm putting on my coaching hat as I say...start your journal, practice asking what other's think, listen and integrate into your weekly ritual ways to refresh your thinking. Make a commitment this year to facilitate a company, department or team culture that encourages great, bold, ambitious, creative thinking!

>  New Offering: Book a live virtual experience: Creative Thinking Session with your team - a fun, 1 hour event that can jump-start problem solving, ideation and critical thinking - plus get a complimentary digital copy of our book Brain on Fire for each attendee! (Great for a virtual lunch & learn) Download the info here: Power Up Your Thinking! | Book here

Read more about refreshing and expanding your thinking with these complimentary topics: The Dilemma of Creative Thinking in the Workplace | 11 Reasons Why Every Company Should Have a Creative Thinking Workshop...at least once a year. |  Read: What's Your #1 Leadership Asset?

Check our book: Brain on Fire: Unleashing Your Creative Superpowers - it's a complementary book to our workshop Creative & Critical Thinking the Next New Skill. 

The #1 Barrier to Substantially Improving Your Operations

Pic credit: http://www.bizscaping.com.au/barriers-to-new-business-ideas

I've written in a previous post that my work regarding leadership and management has evolved over the years. It's gone from teaching and coaching basic management principles, some of which I still use. Mostly, however, it's evolved to helping leaders and managers at every level understand who they are leading and what they need to know to manage more effectively through the lens of human behavior.

The work I do now truly represents my company name, The Human Sphere(tm) and it is the essence
of what causes a company to be successful or not.

What's been most exciting about this evolution is being able to take themes currently popular in the leadership development realm, like emotional intelligence for example, and distill it into it's most practical application for amazing results. It isn't just about what creates good leadership anymore, but how and why.

I've been able to, through individual coaching and peer group development which we call roundtables, work with commonly used leadership words and qualities for which very few people would be able to truly define like: empower, encourage, motivate, engage, inspire and apply them to real-time, everyday work experiences so that the true meaning is understood, manifested and practiced.  It's been thrilling to watch the results!

All of this has forged a unique path for me and the business. It's given me the opportunity to combine a variety of disciplines (psychology, metaphysics, sociology, spirituality, business operations, NLP, behavioral kinesiology) that are of great interest to me into work that is profoundly meaningful and that delivers impressive results for my clients.

The breath of my experience over the years, traveling through-out North American delivering thousands of leadership and management development workshops has given a ground floor and c-level view of what's happening in our businesses... and what isn't.

What isn't has and still is leaving a gapping hole which undermines a company's operational effectiveness and growth. What isn't can be defined as leadership that is not keeping pace with the changes and needs of the workforce.

That gap is created by a leader's lack of understanding of their "human resource" -- more specifically human behavior or how humans operates so to speak. It's a leader's constructive and profitable use of the most important resource a company has -- its human resource. I help them see that human resources is no longer just about the human resource department.

This gap I see as the #1 barrier to substantial and continuous operational improvement.

And through that gap, steadily drips talent and money.

That gap I now fill...for those who are willing to see it and do something about it.  (As Louis Hay once said, "If you want to clean the room, you have to be willing to see the dirt.") I take the most literal understanding of the human resource and transfer it to leaders and managers.

Human resource may be a department and part of org chart, but most importantly it is the folks that walk through your door every day with capabilities they will choose to engage or not.  And to be even more literal, that human resource is the collective elements of an employee's mind, heart, and spirt applied to their technical capabilities.

A leader's knowledge of this and their ability to constructively utilize it is what I've coined their HQ or Human Quotient. It is a holistic approach to leading and managing as well as a holistic view of a company's human resource. In fact how all this is managed can be considered "holistic talent management".

Side Note: With regards to employee engagement, there are 2 key factors that are the greatest influence; an employee's maturity (their willingness to apply themselves to a given situation, job specifics and company culture) and their managers maturity which includes positional competency (their ability to lead and relate in ways that activate and expand that willingness).

The good news is the gap to which I refer, can be easily remedied if a leader or leadership team is willing to do so.

Of note, however, is an additional, very common barrier to acting on this gap and that is tolerance level. I've discovered key decision-makers have a very high tolerance for what is not happening. It's as if that gap is their normal, not realizing operations could be much better and more profitable.

The bottom line is this -- everything that goes on in an organization is influenced, controlled or impacted by a human being. Yet, rarely is that assessed when operational issues occur. Typically what's initially considered is process. But process is run by humans, in fact thinking of and constructing a revised process is done by humans. Every aspect of a business is about what and how humans think and behave...period!



When all of this is finally realized, senior leaders slowly begin to turn their attention to leadership and management development. Still, not necessarily for themselves, but others.

And that's the final gap to address -- the lack of intentional, strategic leadership development at senior and c-suite levels. Unfortunately, a reality not readily considered is a company can only grow as far as its leaders grow. I consistently witness businesses being held back by the weaknesses of its leaders whether in knowledge, thinking or behavior.

So I'm excited to announce that in 2018, we'll be rolling out some offerings specifically for this group! You'll want to subscribe to this blog or to our monthly executive briefing to keep informed. (Click here)

The concluding question then is do you see this gap and are you willing to address it? Please know the effectiveness of your leaders will only go as far as their understanding of human behavior -- the lack of which will be a constant stumbling block in their performance.

Want to talk about your potential gaps?: send an email joann@thehumansphere.com or give us a call - 888.388.0565. Since we're experts, even one conversation will be helpful.

Additional posts related to this one:
Is Happiness a Human Resource?  | Leaders Have Feelings Too! | Does Your Leadership Have Your Talent on Locked Down? | Are Your Leaders Human?


==============================================================================================The Human Sphere™ is a holistic talent management-organizational develoment consultancy that partners with forward-thinking senior leaders to bridge the gap between people, performance, and profits. We focus on business growth through human-focused, results based leadership. // email: joann@thehumansphere.com // Ph: 888.388.0565

Learn More

If you want to learn more and read case studies in detail,  I recommend 2 of our latest executive briefings: 

> Show Me The Money! Solving the Mystery of ROI to Unlock Profits & Increase Company Value - click here to access This is one of the best, easy to read discussions on how to connect human behavior to profits (a critical knowledge point for all leaders).

> I've Been Around the Block a Few Times: Let me Save You a Few Trips and Some Money Along the Way (my 20th anniversary briefing of insights and advice, which includes my top 6 business building tips through the lens of leveraging the human element) - click here for a complimentary digital copy.

Both are full of unique business building strategies and concepts that have proven to impact any company's P/L. Want to improve your people management? Want to generate operational improvement? You'll want to get both!

 Schedule a complimentary advisory call and receive a copy of our latest executive briefing.

It's the Perfect Business Storm - Are You Prepared?

It's coming...are you ready? I remember seeing the movie The Perfect Storm, and still have memories of the climate conditions building that created such a catastrophic event. (If you've not seen the movie, it's worth it to rent!).

The perfect storm I'm referencing is the business storm brewing, the one far beyond the horizon, difficult for the untrained eye to see, yet is building as we speak. 

It's a storm that could potentially whip your business into a frenzy, crippling profits for a substantial period of time. Clearly it's an emerging storm to which every business leader must pay attention.

And, as it's forming, in the spirit of preparation, there are 2 critical sets of questions that needs to be considered.

Here's the first:

Is my company vulnerable to the storm?

And if so, how much?

And if so, in what ways?

The answer to these questions will in fact describe why it's a perfect storm and what comprises it. First, let's look at the definition: a particularly violent storm arising from a rare combination of adverse meteorological factors.

So from a business perspective, what are those rare combination of factors? Here they are: 

1. The now largest population of employees ever that make up the labor pool are millennials. They have a strong orientation and very specific sensibility to relationships with team members, leaders and company culture that define the quality of their work experience.

2. Companies have leaders and managers who are baby boomers, matures and older Xers, many of whom are not oriented this way, don't see the need or appreciate the value of this type of work experience. In fact, many are resisting this new workplace reality!

3. The labor market is tightening. Reported today, the unemployment rate is now at 4.6%.  It's the lowest in several years. That means there will continue to be less candidates from which to choose and when they are hired, many companies don't have the management or culture to retain them -- to in fact give them the experience they are seeking and expecting.

4. A new administration looks to spur substantial economic growth, exacerbating the labor shortage. As the labor market continues to tighten, it will support and validate a generational approach to employment, "If I don't like this job, I can quit and go find another." The millennial generation tends to have no problem leaving a job without having another if their work experience is not satisfying. So, with a tightening market, they know they will easily be able to find a job and company more to their liking.

5. Dated views and beliefs on how to spend money (allocate financial resources) to manage talent for better company performance. (I address this in my latest executive briefing release Show Me The Money!) The old model for spending money is spend on operations, spend a little on employees. The new model is spend more money on employees to have better operations. The new mantra?, "Happy employees = better operations = more company profits."

There are many companies who, in addressing the needs of the largest employee population, have been paying attention to their cultures and their leadership /management effectiveness. They have been diligently working on ways to improve the employee experience with an eye towards recruiting, engagement, and retention.

Those who have been active in this way, whether they are aware or not, are shoring up their business for the storm to come. These efforts are strengthening their company's infrastructure to weather the operational challenges sure to come.

And this brings us to the 2nd set of questions...here we go: 
1. Do you have the kind of culture to retain and leverage the talent of the new workforce?
2. Are you as a key decision-maker resisting reality?
3. Are your leaders and managers resisting this reality?
4. What updated leadership/management development initiates have been implemented to address this need?
5. What new leadership/management competencies will be needed to successfully lead?
6. How have you been collectively preparing your company culture to fully integrate all generations to mitigate poor collaboration which creates operational bottlenecks and undermines profits?
7. Does your financial spend reflect a response to this changing workforce landscape?
8. Are you well insulated from or even remotely prepared for the storm?

The answers to these questions are a valuable resource for your 2017 plans. Consider this post a foghorn warning of the storm to come. We know it's coming!  We just don't know how fast.  This year, many of my clients have already felt the pre-storm raindrops and we're helping them make preparations...are you?

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Learn More About How We Can Help You Improve Your: Leadership, Management, Operations, Profits

> Read our case studies in detail,  I recommend 2 of our latest executive briefings: 

> Show Me The Money! Solving the Mystery of ROI to Unlock Profits & Increase Company Value - click here to access This is one of the best, easy to read discussions on how to connect human behavior to profits (a critical knowledge point for all leaders).

> I've Been Around the Block a Few Times: Let me Save You a Few Trips and Some Money Along the Way (my 20th anniversary briefing of insights and advice, which includes my top 6 business building tips through the lens of leveraging the human element) - click here for a complimentary digital copy.

Both are full of unique business building strategies and concepts that have proven to impact any company's P/L. Want to improve your people management? Want to generate operational improvement? You'll want to get both!

 Schedule a complimentary advisory call and receive a copy of our latest executive briefing.

// The Human Sphere™ is a holistic business growth consultancy that partners with forward-thinking senior leaders to bridge the knowledge gap in connecting people, performance, and profits. We focus on better business building by helping leaders understand and leverage human behavior. This knowledge gap is the most significant reason for operational problems.

// email: joann@thehumansphere.com // Ph: 888.388.0565 //

 Schedule a complimentary advisory call and receive a copy of our latest executive briefing.

Pic Credit: http://www.slideshare.net/HRTechWorld/workforce-technology-2016-the-perfect-storm