Management Training Thailand - Talent Technologies » Leadership

Make your HR strategic using this simple concept

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 06:45:08 +0000

Almost every company of 100 employees or more has a Human Resources department.

Yet, over the decades, the role of the HR function in companies has changed. As HR Departments evolved from ‘Administration’, to ‘Personnel’, to ‘Human Resources’ and now to ‘Talent Management’, it’s clear that expectations have changed.

CEO surveys have shown that almost all business leaders want their HR departments to be more strategic. Specifically, to add ‘intangible value’ to the organisation instead of preoccupying themselves with the purely functional low value-add tasks such as processing payroll or sending procedural memos by email.

But there is a problem with this expectation. Or should I say, two problems. Two major problems.

Unstrategic HR

The first is that the HR discipline itself – HR as taught in Business Schools and Universities – hasn’t evolved and is as unscientific as the days when universities taught that the sun revolved around the Earth.

The second is that because the ‘science’ or understanding is flawed, the people going into the HR function are ill-equipped to tackle the challenges of modern business, and when they do, most of their results can’t be measured.

The result: HR will never be strategic until it first understands the situation, namely, the science and understanding of what a human being is, and how it operates.

Ecce Homo

Complexity – medieval style

When scientists taught (for centuries) that the Sun revolved around the Earth, they did so because that was what they wanted it to do (because The Bible said so) rather than that was how it was (and is).

It is like trying to understand human beings and human doings, before understanding their beings!

Unfortunately, the HR discipline then tries to justify its doings by generating more and more elaborate and complex theorems, with little or no practical use, in the same way the scholastic professors generated more and more complex charts to prove that the Sun really did go around the Earth in medieval times.

Why understanding the human being first truly matters

The key is to understand and then conceptualise – based on research – the human being before we start to work on what we would like that human to do.

This is essential if we value the following:

employee motivation
leadership
productivity
teamwork
effective communication
customer experience, and
employee retention…

…among the other factors on companies’ ‘wish lists’ that we often receive.

By creating a simple concept that brings together what we have learnt from observation, we are then able to empower our managers and employees, set up our talent management system in a people-friendly way, and deliver on the intangible objectives in the bulleted list above.

This in turn leads to enhanced profitability, better customer satisfaction, greater efficiencies and more valuable innovation, among the other factors that drive a company’s bottom-line results.

‘Character Factor’ – The human being as a concept

In the diagram below, we see four spheres radiating out.

The Human Being – ‘Character Factor’

(click on image to enlarge)

Sphere One – Consciousness and Will

At the core, we see Consciousness and Will. This is our nature to be aware or sentient, and to be able to choose which actions we take. The key theme here is choice. We can choose what we see and hear and experience. We can choose how we act every time.

Sphere Two – Personality & Talent

Unfortunately, the HR discipline’s understanding of human nature ends with the first sphere. So often, we hear again and again the erroneous belief that all humans are capable of all things.

This is why competencies are popular. Management can create a wish list of what it wants its employees to be and then… hey presto… most employees fail to be that ‘model employee’ management wants.

This is because individuals are exactly that: unique. They are not nor can they be robots. This concept may seem simple to grasp and agree with, but the sad fact is that, with so many of their competencies, corporate head offices again and again try to create that robot.

This is where the second sphere comes in. It’s a fact that, because the brain is subject to 2 million pieces of information every second, it cannot process it all!

We learn that growing older. Watch a baby. It’s brain is overwhelmed by the dazzle of information it receives. Growing up is more about cutting out, not putting in. So what happens? In order to function, the brain selects, and creates synaptic ‘information superhighways’ in order to enable us to process information (a function of the consciousness) and act (a function of the will). By doing so, we change from being a ‘vegetable’ (baby state) to a functioning ‘human resource’.

This forming of the ‘synaptic connections’ in our brains or ‘hard wires’ creates our Personality and Talents. By our late teens, we have fully cut out whole areas of our potential future, but we have also refined other areas in which we are uniquely gifted.

Sphere Three – Values and Behaviours

This is where HR typically gets busy again. In most cases, HR tries to change this sphere while ignoring the second sphere of Personality & Talents. All the spheres are interconnected, in the same way that gears in a car are on a cog. Ignoring the sphere of Personality and Talents is like trying to take a car from 1st gear to 3rd without going into 2nd. The result? The car stalls.

We need to understand behaviours in the sense they are almost always and effect, not a cause.

It’s nigh impossible to ask people to ‘behave’ in a certain way over an extended period of time. But it is possible to put a person in a role (eg close to their Talents) that evokes positive emotions that in turn evoke positive behaviours, or train them to understand emotions, for example through our breakthrough Emotional Intelligence programme.

In order to be strategic in the ‘intangible’ field of behaviours, CEOs and HR professionals need first to understand what can be achieved, and how effectively, within the sphere of Values and Behaviours.

Sphere Four – Perception and Beliefs

This sphere relates most to the outside world. Because of the process of growing up involves ‘cutting out’ data and information as we have seen, we often react to the world making quick judgements in order to function ‘more effectively’.

We all know that at least some of the judgements we make, based on our perceptions or beliefs fo what we see or think we see, are flawed.

This is why it’s important to train ourselves to open up the ‘space’ between perceiving and acting, so that we can increase our choices in life. Importantly, this also helps managers and employees deal better with the stressful situations that they experience day-in, day-out as part of their jobs – stress that undermines their capability and effectiveness.

How to apply Character Factor

Over the coming weeks, we will look at ways of applying ‘Character Factor’ effectively in the following ways:

→ To simplify companies’ HR and Talent Management systems and improve results

→ To help with key corporate objectives such as employee retention ‘Stay’, employee motivation ‘Strive’ and creating a great workplace ‘Say’

→ To enable companies to identify and groom leaders early, and create meaningful and engaging talent paths within organisations

We hope this article has been of interest. As ever, feel free to comment below – we’d love to hear your feedback!

For more information on our training programmes, including Emotional Intelligence and Talent Factor, contact us here

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Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-EastAsia

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Carlos Ghosn at Sasin – main points

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 07:00:52 +0000

Yesterday featured a talk by the ever-effervescent Carlos Ghosn at the Sasin Graduate School of Management.

As we have come to expect from Mr Ghosn, it was a great talk, lively, with some probing questions from the floor. Titled Managing in a Time of Crisis the good news for those of you who missed the talk is that we have the main points for you here:

1. Great managers get people to do what they don’t want to do with enthusiasm. This is especially true during a crisis.

2. Going through crisis or change, the key is to have limited priorities and objectives. Too often management bombards its people with numerous, often conflicting, priorities. The more priorities you have, the less impact they will have.

3. Don’t have a plan B. Plan Bs tend to invite complacency as the workforce fails to commit wholeheartedly to plan A, because it may hope there is a fallback option. Instead, says Ghosn, say There is no plan B!

4. Crisis is a great opportunity to transform your organisation. And always remember: every crisis has an end. In the middle of a crisis we often forget that.

5. In a crisis, conflict is not the worst thing: indifference is. With conflict, at least people are buying in emotionally. With indifference, they have not!

6. The more complex the change is, the more simple you need to be, leading to the key point that…

7. A manager’s job is ‘out of complexity to make things simple, and out of chaos to make things clear’.

Our Take

Ghosn’s management philosophy chimes closely to the approach we like to take with our clients, which includes the ’3 S’s’ of:

Simple. Any initiative, message or change you are trying to deliver must be as easy for a front-liner to grasp as for the CEO
Specific. Any initiative, message or change must also be specific to each role or individual for which it is intended, and concepts must clearly relate to the contexts those individuals are in (as opposed to the contexts the CEO or strategist finds themself in!)
Strategic. The initiative must, of course, deliver the strategy and that must ideally be measurable. Too many initiatives have elements that are not strategic!

We hope the above is a useful summary for those of you who missed the talk, and strongly recommend you seeing Carlos Ghosn the next time he comes to Bangkok!

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Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia

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Talent Technologies in Big Chilli Magazine

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:14:18 +0000

Great to see our article Encouraging the Heart featured in the latest issue of the Big Chilli magazine!

If you didn’t catch the article, we’ve uploaded a pdf of it here

From Good to Great

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:42:32 +0000

It is now eight years since Jim Collins penned the results of his research into what causes ‘mediocre’ companies to make the leap from Good to Great.

Taking over five years to complete, the research project is perhaps one of the most in-depth ever conducted in business.

One of the most interesting findings of the study is that the key difference between ‘Great’ companies and their ‘Good’ counterparts lay in ‘intangible’ factors – areas such as ‘talent’, ‘leadership’ and ‘discipline’: areas that companies in Asia typically struggle with.

How Good to Great relates to you

The conclusions drawn are not only relevant to companies, but can also be used by people in their careers. Take the Hedgehog Concept, for example.

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‘Great’ organisations are those able to engage their employees ‘bottom up’, with a keen awareness of their talents and natural abilities:

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Whether someone is the ‘right person’ has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background or skills.

(First Who, then What)

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Working with his research group of over a thousand multinational companies, Jim Collins discovered that the ‘Great’ companies attached huge significance to an individual’s natural abilities (as opposed, say, to the unnatural demands and expectations many companies make, for example through competencies).

On an individual level, this makes sense. To be effective, it’s essential for us to be clear on:

What we are most deeply passionate about
What we can be best in the world at
What drives (or can drive) our economic engine

Where these three intercept, lies our ‘Hedgehog Concept’.

Discovering your ‘Hedgehog Concept’

Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your vocation

Aristotle

There are many ways (including by experience!) that you can discover your ‘Hedgehog Concept’. But by far the quickest, and arguably the most effective way, is through the world’s ‘gold standard’ talent assessment: the Highlands Ability Battery.

The Highlands Ability Battery helps you identify your talents (natural abilities) objectively through a ‘battery’ of worksamples. Over 90 years of research by the Johnson O’Connor Institute using MRI machines have shown these to link to the ‘hardwired’ synaptic connections that identify our talents and the Hedgehog factors such as ‘what we can be best in the world at’ and ‘what we might be deeply passionate about’.

In other words, the Highlands Ability Battery helps us identify our strengths – the number one factor, as discovered by huge surveys incorporating hundreds of thousands of employees in different companies and countries, that drives our engagement at work.

Good to Great starts with you!

If you would like to find out more about the Highlands Ability Battery, and how it can help you make the leap, feel free to contact us here!

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**Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia*

Avoid these traps when making decisions

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:36:46 +0000

Do you recognise these decisionmaking traps?

Organisations are little more than the sum of the decisions made by their people. Yet while many of us may believe that decisionmaking is ‘rational’, here are 7 common emotional traps that can result in poorly-conceived decisions…

Trap #1: The Bandwagon Effect

This is the idea that it’s okay to follow the herd because so many other people share the same belief. It’s irrational because it places its faith in the safety of numbers, while completely disregarding the facts of a situation.

Trap #2: Risk Aversion

People to have a strong preference for avoiding losses over potential opportunities and gains. This is also a cultural trait as identified by Geert Hofstede – more prevalent in Asian societies. The result is a widespread aversion to make decisions, execute on plans and strategies, and a lack of desire to look out for opportunities

Trap #3: Outcome Bias

This happens when we judge a decision by its outcome rather than the quality of the decision itself and alternative possible outcomes.

The outcome is always ‘the best of all possible worlds’.

Trap #4: Recency Bias

This is when we weigh recent data more than experiences further out… often a consequence of adrenaline addiction!

Trap #5: Anchoring

This is when we rely too heavily on data that is readily-available when making a decision.

Trap #6: Belief in the Law of Small Numbers

This is when we base our conclusions on a slice of data that’s too small. It’s the equivalent of making mountains out of molehills…

Trap #7: Confirmation (and disconfirmation) bias

Confirmation bias happens when data backs up an a priori belief we have. Disconfirmation bias happens when we do not like information that contradicts our beliefs…

Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia

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The ONE THING every company can learn (and apply) from Apple

admin — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 09:48:36 +0000

The Ipad’s out mostly to rave reviews, and last week Apple overtook Microsoft in terms of market capitalisation.

While people wonder about the magical money-making machine that is Apple, and others rave about Steve Jobs’ management capability, including no lesser figures than Rupert Murdoch, it would be a mistake to ignore the effectiveness of the ‘golden goose’ that is the organisation itself.

It’s not Jobs’ vision for the products that we need to appreciate most, but his vision for the corporate culture that creates them.

Take this excerpt from his recent interview:

I have one of the best jobs in the world. I get to hang out with some of the most talented, committed people around, and together we get to play in this sandbox and build these cool products. Apple is an incredibly collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple? Zero. We’re structured like a start-up. We’re the biggest start-up on the planet. And we all meet once a week to discuss our business.

What can other companies learn from this?

One key learning is that you do not need a complex organisational ‘system’ in order to thrive.

Apple’s core value driver is innovation. And you can’t have innovation without collaboration. And you can’t have collaboration without trust.

Too few companies trust their own people

When companies install elaborate systems, processes or competencies, one of the things they are saying, tacitly, is that they don’t trust their people.

These systems are like a loudhailer from above: ‘You must do this… You must behave this way…’. Usually, these systems are generalised, not specific, and rolled out on a global level. They’re usually created ‘inside out’ as opposed to ‘outside in’ – to serve management as opposed to the customer.

Apple’s different. Mistakes aren’t prevented, they are encouraged (a key factor of innovation). People working there have a clear ‘shared vision’ for the customer they are trying to create, and use sandboxes to come up with new innovations to create them. Other organisations put in place complex systems, and these in turn become sandboxes for employees to try to figure out what the company wants them to be. They are akin to an admission that the company has no idea, outside-in, what the customer wants, and is unable to articulate that simply and in a truly actionable way.

Test your system now, using these three criteria

1. Is it Simple?

Look at your company’s KPIs, competencies and non-technical processes. Are they simple and easy-to-understand? For you? And for an emerging market front-liner?

2. Is it Specific?

Are the collection of the above specific to you, and to your situation, or are they generic and disconnected from you personally? Is what you are being asked to do based on reality, or on some ivory tower dream?

3. Is it Strategic?

Do your company’s processes and competencies clearly connect you to the customer, or is that connection somewhat fuzzy or downtight unclear?

‘We’re structured like a start-up’

When companies start putting in layers and layers of structure, systems and rules, the reasons they are really doing this for are sometimes as follows:

Senior management wants to cover itself in the case of something going wrong. ‘Hey, we told them what we wanted…’
HR feels it needs to do something new to justify its existence.
Senior management thinks HR needs something to do to justify its existence
Senior management doesn’t understand how to ‘get to hang out with some of the most talented, committed people around’, still less to hire them
Too few managers have been given the tools by senior management / HR to help select the ‘right’ people. Instead, mis-hires abound and people problems propagate, leading to the mistaken conclusions that more elaborate systems can correct the problem.

**What you can do to get your system working for you**

If you would like your system to help your people deliver on the company strategy, then feel free to contact us here.

We will start ‘outside-in’ with an analysis of your customer value drivers, and the present customer experience and your desired customer experience.
We will articulate this in the simplest way possible as ‘value’ and ‘engagement’ drivers
We will work from the front-line back, ensuring that the system supports and doesn’t hinder your employees, giving them tools not rules
We will ensure that your system creates a Customer Focus, not a fixation or fragmentation from a ‘company only’ perspective.

Talent Technologies :: Taking your Talent to a Higher Level

Encouraging the Heart

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 09:11:31 +0000

It’s almost surreal to see Bangkok returning to normality, with the smoke already cleared, the roads free of checkpoints, and buildings once besieged and inaccessible, open for business.

With the exception of the ruins of Central World Tower & Siam Theatre, it’s almost as though nothing has happened.

But while the repair efforts kick into action to restore Bangkok to its former glory, there is no question that more damage has been done than meets the eye.

While what we can see may be easy to repair & replace – infrastructure like buildings and roads and facilities – there is no question that the foundations of people’s spirits in Thailand have been very seriously damaged – and that it will take time and much deliberate effort to heal these wounds.

The Feelgood Factor

The first week back to work is usually the easy part. There’s typically a ‘feelgood factor’ as employees get back into their old rhythms and catch up again with friends.

But this feeling is likely to wear off before long. All the old ‘societal’ problems will return – politicians renewing old rivalries… people in public office not observing the law… and tensions within families. No matter what political sympathies your colleagues may hold – all these factors are likely to weigh on their spirits and morale again when they eventually happen.

During the month or so of the ‘Thai crisis’, admissions to hospitals on stress-related illnesses soared by over 40%. This is the ‘real damage’ which can’t be rectified easily, and will take time to heal. And if your colleagues are suffering from stress, there is little doubt that it will impact their performance at work.

As always, it’s what we ‘can’t see’ that matters most. But there’s plenty you can do to help promote a vibrant workplace.

**3 things you can do to ‘Encourage the Heart’**

There may be little that we can do to change Thai society. However, doing a little may do a lot to life inside our companies.

Why does this matter? Because the reality of modern life is that, second to sleeping, our place of work is where we spend most of our time.

These first two initiatives (below) are examples taken from Talent Technologies’ The Leadership Challenge – the world’s bestselling leadership training programme.

Initiative #1: Get a Bragging Board going!

It’s often offputting when people brag about themselves. But one sure way to ‘Encourage the Heart’ is when you hear someone else bragging about you – about your efforts or actions, about something you did – in a positive way.

It’s typical to see companies focus on results. This may include sales, reduction of downtime, or project milestones being met.

But too often they ignore the cause of those results. They fixate on the golden eggs, but forget the goose.

Those results may be made up of many infinite events – most of which we can’t see. So a great way of Encouraging the Heart is by setting up a Bragging Board, where your employees can ‘shout out’ their thanks to their colleagues, in a very public way.

Starbucks has bragging boards in its customer area – why don’t more companies have them in their social areas too? Inside a company, bragging boards are far more authentic than customer bragging boards ever can be!

Initiative #2: Be a Friend

As Daniel Maeder, of the Department of Economics of Labour in Switzerland, has said, ‘Organisational diagrams don’t matter at all. Be sure to treat employees as human beings and not as functional workers.’

There are fewer places in the world where this is evident than Thailand – a culture with a collective spirit and where ‘affiliation’ is highly important.

But how does ‘working among friends’ impact results?

In a study featured in the Harvard Business Review, ‘Does Friendship improve Job Performance?’ J.A. Ross found that, even working on the simplest of decision-making tasks, groups of friends were over 20% more effective than groups of acquaintances were.

We would hazard a guess that friends working together are more than twice as effective than mere acquaintances in Thailand.

One way you can promote friendship among your colleagues is by becoming more vulnerable – opening up your heart by disclosing things about yourself, your hopes & your dreams, your family & friends, & your interests & pursuits.

When we’re open we become more vulnerable – and this vulnerability makes us more human and more trusted. If neither person in a relationship takes the risk of trusting, at least a little, the relationship remains stalled at a low level of caution & suspicion.

So go out for lunch with your colleagues, not just to ‘shoot the breeze’, but to open up, and disclose some of your deeper feelings, as well as discover theirs.

Initiative #3: Discover your colleagues’ Talents

The one thing any manager can do to get instant results from his staff is by discovering the person’s innate talents and putting him or her in a role that matches it.

From separate studies of hundreds of thousands of employees in different workgroups worldwide, both Gallup and the Corporate Leadership Council have found that this is the #1 driver of workplace performance.

Yet, as Gallup have also found, fewer than one out of five employees have the opportunity to work to their talents!

The result: disengagement, stress and bahaviours that negatively impact corporate performance.

Talents are not ‘intelligence’, ‘experience’ or ‘competencies’. They are our innate abilities which cannot be learned. So if you are in a job that grates – the likelihood is that you’re not working to your talents (or playing to your strengths, which is when you identify and maximise them).

Yet there is only one tool in the world that scientifically identifies your talents: the Highlands Ability Battery.

One great way to Encourage the Heart then, is by identifying your colleagues’ talents using the Battery, and then making sure they are working in their most effective roles. Is a person naturally Strategic or Tactical? Is a person more of a Specialist or Generalist? How well does a person Connect at Feeling Level (because of his or her tonal memory) and which role in the company maximises this?

Answering these questions delivers long-term engagement, as the above studies have found, and now is a great time to do that!

‘Together We Can’

Following the terrible stress of the last weeks and months, there is now a groundswell of feeling which is resulting in genuine shows of altruism, community spirit and comradeship.

But this feeling always needs to be encouraged, otherwise it will fade, and ‘Together We Can’ or something similar become just an empty slogan.

This is why, at work, we always need to be looking at new ways of Encouraging the Heart.This not only happens through what we say but, more importantly, through what we do.

I hope the three ideas above are a start, and offer two small steps (and one bigger one) which can be readily implemented!

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Talent Technologies offers management training programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia. The above initiatives come from The Leadership Challenge and Talent Factor. Please contact us here if you would like more information.

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Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia

Culture Challenge: Taking initiative & ownership

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 05:13:58 +0000

Having team members ‘take initiative’ and ‘take ownership’ is a theme that recurs in many companies based not only in Thailand but also other parts of Asia.

When we discuss these characteristics, managers often identify ‘culture’ as being central to the equation, without perhaps knowing how to tackle the problems they encounter when employees seem not to follow actions through to conclusion or proactively consider ways of helping their company.

Without wishing to espouse a ‘one size fits all’ approach to dealing with problems of ‘initiative’ and ‘ownership’, we thought looking at the #1 root cause, and solutions to it, may help.

‘Locus of Control’ is the key

Following surveys of hundreds of Thai staff at supervisory and management level, one characteristic that stands out is that the vast majority has an ‘external’ (as opposed to ‘internal’) locus of control.

Externally-focused people will expect things to happen to them, tend to be more fatalistic, and deep down believe that humans have no control over their destinies and that life is largely a matter of chance.

Internally-focused people, by contrast, believe that life is what you make of it, human agency has a large part to play in a person’s destiny, and if you want something enough and bend your will to achieve it, you can get it.

As we have seen, in Thailand a large percentage of management teams fall into the latter camp. So how do you explain this?

The importance of Beliefs

One favourite explanation is that the belief system (predominately determined by Buddhism but also including concepts of astrology and outright luck) is one explanation of a high external locus of control.

It’s worth noting, at this point, Theravada Buddhism does not, by itself, encourage a bias either way. To take the concept of ‘kharma’, for example, this accepts both that all living things are a product of the past (external locus), but also that our decisions, choices and actions shape our future (internal focus).

Where Buddhism is essentially balanced on this scale, it’s hard to see an obsession with astrology as being anything other than an external locus of control preoccupation.

Physical Environment

Another factor that affects our attitude towards responsibility and action is the physical environment we grow up in and (more importantly) the beliefs and habits that grow from this.

In an agricultural society (which most SE Asian countries were 50 years ago), those beliefs and habits are caused by the realities associated with producing a good crop.

In the tropics, due to the realities of the weather patterns in the seasons, there is less the individual can do to boost crop yields than, say, in more temperate climates. Hence a bias to a more external locus of control? – This is a matter for debate.

As more workers transition from agricultural labour to industrial or service-oriented labour, often these beliefs remain, and are more embedded in the case of countries having a collective culture (like Thailand, for example).

Does this mean that your staff are a product of their circumstances and their past?

What you can do to promote initiative & ownership in your team!

Faced with the dilemma above, managers could take an equally fatalistic view and claim that ‘that’s the culture’ or ‘it is what it is’ and do nothing.

Alternatively, they may be more ‘internally focused’ and take the view that ‘life is what you make it’!

Managers with the latter belief system may want to do the following when faced with initiative and ownership problems:

Action 1: Discover & unlock passions

Most trainers will tell you that ‘setting goals’ is the key. But goals that do not resonate last as long as the words that leave one’s mouth.

The key instead is first to discover each individual’s passions, and if the individual cannot identify those through reflection, then to start with interests. This is a personal process which has nothing to do with the organisation the individual works for, yet is fundamental to his or her overall performance.

When this process is complete, only then can we start articulating goals that resonate to the ‘whole person’ (not only the ‘robot’ that is our working lives).

>> If you’re interested in this approach, check out our Productivity Factor Programme, found here >>

Action 2: Discover & mobilise Talents

There is a lot of confusion surrounding what ‘talents’ are. There need not be, since there is only one tool that objectively discovers each individual’s talents: the ‘synaptic connections’ formed at birth that determine which tasks and roles our minds most want to perform. That tool is the Highlands Ability Battery.

Study after study has shown empirically that the connection between a person’s talents and the job that person does is the #1 determinant of happiness in the job and engagement to that job. And more engaged indviduals are more likely to take initiative and ownership, as those studies have shown.

So instead of finding out which college or university a person went to, or what they studied or even what job experience they had as a predictor to job effectiveness, instead discover that person’s talents, and match the job to the person.

>> If you would like to discover your team’s talents and innate drivers, you may like to look at Talent Factor. Details of the one day programme can be found here >>

Action 3: Articulate and practise the behaviours expected of Leaders

There is almost as much confusion with regard to defining ‘leadership’ and ‘leadership behaviours’ as there is with regard to concepts such as ‘talent’, ‘culture’ and ‘motivation’.

Because of the research conducted by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner over three decades in dozens of countries, and captured in their book The Leadership Challenge, again, that confusion need not exist.

Kouzes and Posner have discovered the five key behaviours that team constituents expect of their leaders worldwide. As part of our Leadership Challenge Workshop, we train participants in those concepts and how to turn them into action.

Summary

If you would like to enhance the initiative and ownership of your team or individuals in that team, it’s essential to start of with a proactive mindset yourself!

Beliefs, behaviours and habits can all change. In order to do so one must first understand the concepts that need to change (‘head’), engage the desire to change (‘heart’) and then create a set of practices over 28 Days that ensures that change happens in the workplace (‘hand’).

Talent Technologies’ management training programmes feature all the elements above to help you create happy, bright and effective teams in Thailand and Asia!

Please also feel free to add your comments below – we’d love to hear your views on this subject!

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Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia

Difficult Conversations

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:51:55 +0000

Given the stresses of the recent situation in Thailand, one tool professionals may find useful as a soft skill is that of being able to manage conflict. Specifically, being able to address an issue through holding a ‘difficult conversation’.

Over the last week, we have had clients in two situations, each of which is causing them serious stress:

One manager’s direct reports have fallen out due to politics. Specifically, one employee supports one ‘shirt colour’, while the other does not.
Another manager’s team is still in ‘Songkran mode’, and also distracted by external events, instead of focusing on their work.

The natural inclination among Thais (linked to the cultural trait of ‘risk aversion) is to avoid confrontation.

However, avoiding confrontation does not mean the conflict has been avoided, or that the problem impacting morale, performance or productivity, has been solved.

While it may be instinctive to hope that the problem ‘goes away’ or ‘sorts itself out by itself’, many of us in management are aware that very few problems do so, which is why it helps to use the skill of holding a difficult conversation.

What is a difficult conversation, and how can we handle it?

A difficult conversation is one where stakes are high (or are perceived to be so), opinions are firmly held, or emotions run strongly.

We can handle these conversation in the following ways:

Not at all (i.e. avoiding it)
Face the conversation but handle it poorly
Face the conversation and handle it effectively

Dialogue, not debate, is the key

The #1 mistake most managers make in handling the situations above, is that they approach them from a point of view of authority, where the best the employee can hope for is to have a debate – and lose it. Unfortunately, this usually makes the conflict worse.

Instead, in any difficult conversation the key is to move to a dialogue, where your first objective is to create ‘a pool of shared meaning’.

A difficult conversation is not a negotiation as such, where the objective is to try to get the best deal for yourself. Instead, in a dialogue (as if you are having a conversation with a friend) you try to achieve a positive, lasting relationship.

The difference is subtle, but important.

Dialogue... or debate?

In a difficult conversation, the questions we need to ask are as follows:

What do I want for myself in this?
What do I want for others?
What do I want for the relationship?
How would I really behave if I wanted those things?

Emotional Objectives

Our first objectives are almost always emotional. In a difficult conversation, we need first to create a safe ‘space’ where both sides can contribute their views and thoughts. In other words, we need to create a feeling of mutual respect and trust. Trust is usually promoted through the peer (in the cases above the manager) showing vulnerability.

We then need to create a feedback loop, leading to agreed action.

STATE your path

To do so, in Conflict Management we use a simple and effective acronym called STATE your path:

Share you facts first – in a non-controversial, objective way

Tell your story. ‘Based on the facts I see…’

Ask for others paths. What are their facts? What is their story?

Talk tentatively

Encourage testing. ‘Can you tell me what I’m missing here?’

When you have completed this process, you should have a ‘pool of meaning’ that you both have achieved together. In many cases, the person you are having a dialogue with will immediately contribute his or her ideas for action – which means you have made progress in your difficult conversation.

Situation #1 redux

In situation #1 given above, the manager needs to resist the temptation of ‘disciplining’ or ‘scolding’ his reports.

It is important to discover their story (Ask their Paths).

The presumed manager’s objective is to increase his reports’ awareness that, as manager of the team, his objective is to ensure that the team performs greater than a collection of mere individuals. His presumed objective would be to elicit (find out) whether each individual felt that raising politics at work could contribute to that success, and in which way? (Listening openly as his reports do so). Usually, most employees would conclude it does not. From here, the manager could explore the triggers creating the urge to raise politics, and seek to elicit the new behaviours that avoid those triggers being pulled (Action).

Conclusion

As managers, it feels we are expected to know the numerous ‘soft skills’ expected of us in the work place as part of our ‘life education’ or growing up. As a result, training soft skills is often underrated, and few managers have the opportunity to see this as a key managerial discipline.

Studies show that ‘managing the intangibles’ is what sets effective managers apart from ineffective ones – and that the difference has little or nothing to do with technical knowledge or skills.

Managers able to negotiate conflict through dialogue will be well-placed to thrive in ‘risk averse’ cultures where avoiding conflict is the norm.

Talent Technologies offers management training programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia which includes Conflict Management and our soon-to-be-released Personal Change Programme.

For more details, please feel free to contact us here.

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Talent Technologies :: Management Training Programmes in Thailand and South-East Asia

What makes companies successful?

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:48:38 +0000

Through our experience it’s clear that companies driven with an overwhelming focus on short-term profits invariably meet one of three fates:

They fail to create their tomorrows, leading to a downward spiral of price-cutting as innovation is stifled. Ultimately the company itself may either be acquired or slide into bankruptcy in the longer-term.
They focus inordinately on products, not people, usually leading to employee disenchantment, disengagement and attrition. Often the best people leave. The best people leaving is arguably worse than losing a single product or market. As Andrew Carnegie said: ‘Take away my people, but leave my factories, and soon grass will grow on the factory floors. Take away my factories, but leave my people, and soon we will have a new and better factory.’
The company may enjoy short-term brand success but, ironically, if it cannot sustain it their brand may be tarnished irreparably. This often happens when a company loses focus of the people (bothe employees and customers) and becomes inordinately obsessed with the more ‘tangible’ areas of finance, advertising and products.

Sounds familiar? Well this post in the Telegraph offers hope to those of us who feel parts of the corporate world have got it terribly, terribly wrong.

Professor John Kay’s latest book (‘Obliquity’) asks whether profit maximisation is the way to maximise profits and attacks the obsession with rationality in companies. He gives example of people many of us are familiar with, such as Sam Walton and Bill Gates, and observes that ‘these people cared about the activity. The financial side of the activity was secondary. That’s not to say the financial side didn’t interest them at all, and they certainly made bucketloads of money, but in a basic sense that’s not what they were about’.

The real skill of management, according to Kay, is being able to select the right people and make good decisions and being given the autonomy to do so.

It’s the intangibles that matter…

We couldn’t agree more! Talent Technologies appreciates that the difference between all companies consists largely of their ‘intangibles’. Capabilities in other words like decision-making, identifying the ‘right people’ and making the most of them.

Other key intangibles companies need to continually harness are identifying future leaders, developing teams and creating outstanding customer experiences.

A review of Professor John Kay’s new book is here. What do you think? Share your comments below!

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