Connecting the Dots
For years, researchers, organisations, and leaders have been grappling with both the challenge of how best to create a motivating work environment and the role of leadership in inspiring and maximising the work passion and performance of others.
Several years ago, The Ken Blanchard Companies® began exploring these issues as well as the relationships between leadership, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and organisational performance. The first study included the creation of a model that we titled The Leadership-Profit Chain. This model was grounded in a literature review of hundreds of studies and meta-analyses from 1980 through 2005.
The study concluded that Strategic Leadership indirectly influenced Customer Devotion and Employee Work Passion by establishing policies, procedures, vision, and values, and that Operational Leadership directly influenced Employee Work Passion and Customer Devotion through the daily operationalisation of Strategic Leadership policies. The study also found that Employee Work Passion, in turn, was a key factor in creating Customer Devotion and Organisational Vitality.
Further research allowed The Ken Blanchard Companies to create a model of how Employee Work Passion is formed, a definition of what Employee Work Passion
is, and a core set of factors that must be present in the organisational and job environment in order for Employee Work Passion to be optimised.
The Coronavirus: An Unexpected Opportunity to Change the Way We Change
The coronavirus pandemic upended our world in a matter of weeks. Businesses closed. Stores shuttered. Unemployment soared. And worst of all, the virus took our loved ones. Companies were forced to reinvent the way they worked in just a few days. IT departments scrambled to provide equipment for employees. Managers and their people struggled to adjust to the new reality.
For those of us fortunate to keep our jobs, the boundaries between work and home vanished. Spare rooms became offices. Some of us worked exceptionally long hours. Some had little to do.
When historians chronicle these dark days, they will write how fear and uncertainty cast a pall over the world. They will also share that there were surprising pockets of innovation as employees exercised their newfound autonomy and rose to the challenges of the moment.
Now, organisations around the globe are reopening, sort of. Unevenly for sure. Making decisions without complete information. Uncertain about the future.
This creates an opportunity for all leaders to embrace the changes ahead in a radically different way.
Are Employees’ Needs Being Met by One on Ones?
Employees want more meetings with their boss. That’s one of the key findings from a survey conducted by Training magazine and The Ken Blanchard Companies®. More than 700 subscribers of Training magazine were polled to learn about their experiences having one-on-one meetings with their managers. Readers were asked what they wanted out of their meetings and how that compared to what was really happening. This research gives an important new look into what is being discussed and how it is meeting the needs of today’s workers.
How often do people want to meet with their manager?
One of the first questions respondents were asked was how often they currently meet with their direct manager versus how often they wished they were meeting with him or her.
Engaging Your People through Virtual Learning
Virtual learning has become mainstream. A study by Chief Learning Officer magazine revealed that seventy-five percent of responding organisations used virtual learning. According to Training Industry, virtual learning has become a $56 billion industry, with learning professionals claiming it is the second most effective training method they use.
When done effectively, organisations find it can reduce time away from the office and decrease the cost of training by eliminating the need for travel. Studies show virtual learning can also reduce instruction time, save energy, and increase the learners’ retention of the content.
Not surprisingly, an increasing number of organisations are turning to virtual learning for these reasons. It offers the convenience of reaching learners where they are regardless of where they work and provides a consistent, convenient way to deliver content across all parts of the organisation.
High Performance Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Work
Properly functioning and thriving teams can improve creativity and productivity, yet aren’t called upon enough when it comes to improving organisational performance. Teamwork is essential in creating competitive advantage, improving innovation, and achieving goals in the most efficient and effective way possible. All too often, teams are formed to accomplish important tasks, but not always given the skills or proper training to reach peak performance.
In its Human Capital Trends report, Deloitte outlines that it found key trends— employee engagement, culture, time to market, innovation—were best addressed via a network of teams. The challenge that arises in this scenario is the proper management of teams and inter-team communication so that each is working in alignment on their respective projects.
Harvard Business Review reveals that three out of four teams are dysfunctional, all because the organisation lacks a systematic approach for supporting them. And Blanchard research estimates that three out of five new teams fail to achieve their goals. Key reasons are inadequate planning, resources, shared leadership, and training.
Leading Successful Change Initiatives
Why We Need a High-Involvement, Collaborative Approach to Making It Work
Each day we are having to invent new ways of working, new ways of interacting, new ways of living. We are having to be courageous, curious, agile, and gritty. We have to react almost hourly, on the fly, to new policies or rules that often were implemented without consideration of the impact they would have on us, without our voice at the table.
High involvement is at the core of Blanchard’s approach to Leading People Through Change. We believe change leaders need to hear the voices of those impacted by the change as we make the change. If that is unrealistic, we need to anticipate the questions and concerns of those impacted by the change. We also need to develop a change mindset that demonstrates to others what is needed to be resilient in the face of change.
Millennials in the Workplace
How Do Managers Inspire Them?
The Millennial Generation (born 1981–1995) is 76 million strong, and many managers seem to have great difficulty understanding and inspiring them. And that creates a problem, because they comprise 36 percent of today’s workforce, a percentage that will grow to 46 percent by 2020. Millennials are tech savvy, ambitious, and fond of working in teams; have a desire to make the world a better place; and like to do things their own way. Unfortunately, some managers see them as lazy, entitled, self-focused, and impatient—hence difficult to manage (White, 2015). The truth is that Millennials offer a set of skills and a mind-set that fit well with the challenges facing organisations today. It is essential for managers to understand how this generation thinks, what they are looking for in the workplace, and how to inspire them to contribute their unique talents.
Millennials have a lot to offer their organisations—in short, they are a trusting and optimistic generation that is tech savvy far beyond earlier generations. They can absorb large amounts of data, and they place high value on social causes in which they can band together with others to achieve change. They are highly educated and want to make a contribution, though they do get impatient at times. Hence, it is imperative that managers understand this generation of associates and how to inspire them—not manage them and just deal with them. Managers who learn how to truly inspire Millennials to contribute their talents to address the many challenges facing organisations today could far outperform their competitors.
The Problem with Performance Review
The practice of performance review has been around for more than a century. Although the practice didn’t become mainstream until the 1950s, the primary function of performance appraisals was to provide a process for organisations to rate the effectiveness of their employees. The problem is most organisations don’t do them very well. In 1972, legendary organisational behaviour researcher Douglas McGregor published an article in Harvard Business Review titled “An Uneasy Look at Performance Appraisal” in which he outlined the pitfalls of traditional performance review.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, nine out of ten companies reported using annual or semi-annual performance reviews—but only three out of ten believed they conducted them well. In a study published in Compensation and Benefits Review, the authors, Edward Lawler et al., state that performance appraisals are one of the most frequently criticised talent management practices. Research by the Conference Executive Board (CEB) indicates that 90 percent of managers are dissatisfied with how their company conducts annual performance reviews. These statistics are a key reason organisations like GE, Adobe, Gap, Accenture, Deloitte, and others are reportedly “abandoning” their current performance review processes.
The Leadership-Profit Chain
Defining the Importance of Leadership Capacity
It’s no secret that leadership capacity is critical to organisational success, but little research has been compiled about the long-term impact of leadership on organisational productivity and profitability. In response, The Ken Blanchard Companies® embarked on a study to answer some important questions about leadership and its role in supporting the overall success of an organisation. The study focused on four questions:
- What role does leadership capacity play in driving organizational vitality?
- What specifically can leaders do to increase organizational performance?
- What are the connections between leadership capacity, customer devotion, and employee passion?
- How are customer devotion and employee passion linked to organizational vitality?
Why a Situational Approach to Leadership Matters
The period from the early 1940s through the late 1950s marked an important evolutionary time for the concept of leadership. During these two decades, researchers developed and refined several leadership contingency theories that introduced the concepts of initiating structure (the degree to which a leader defines, directs, and organises his or her role and the roles of followers) and consideration (the degree to which a leader shows concern and respect for followers, looks out for their welfare, and expresses appreciation and supports them) as distinct leader behaviours that were important for leader success.
However, by the 1990s researchers began to view these leader behaviours as outdated historical artifacts, instead favoring emerging leadership constructs like transformational leadership and full-range leadership. Therefore, consideration and initiating structure began to be viewed as forgotten constructs in both the academic and commercial literature.
But ever since the groundbreaking meta-analysis by Judge, Piccolo, and Ilies, there has been a revival in the study of the two traditional leadership behaviours: initiating structure (direction) and consideration (support). In their meta-analysis, the researchers examined 163 independent correlations for consideration and 159 correlations for initiating structure; they revealed that both consideration and initiating structure had reasonably strong, nonzero relationships with leadership outcomes.
Why it is Crucial for your Leaders to take a Situational Approach to Management
Done well, performance management is a partnership.
But research indicates there are significant gaps between what employees expect from their leaders and what they actually experience at work. SLII® is a model and process that helps managers be more purposeful and intentional in their conversations with people. This creates a culture where people are clear and aligned on objectives so that they can achieve organizational goals faster.
4 Communication Essentials Your Managers Need to Know
The failure rate for managers can be staggering. But with the right tools and training, all managers can beat the odds.
Learn the four communication essentials managers need to know.
- Listen effectively to learn from others
- Inquire for insight and understanding
- Tell their truth with empathy and compassion
- Express confidence in their people
Core Skills Every Manager Should Master
Managing people is both a huge responsibility and a great honor. For the first-time manager, making the transition from being an individual contributor to a manager can be a dramatic shift. A common mistake organisations make is to promote high-performing individuals into the role of manager, assuming that their track record of success alone will assist them in making this shift. The reality is that the skills that served a person as an individual may not serve him or her as a manager.
Another pitfall for many managers is that without proper support and development, they can misjudge their role or become paralysed from fear of doing the wrong thing. Additionally, they may not receive adequate training to prepare them for their new role. For these reasons, managers can fail to accomplish their goals and develop meaningful relationships with their people.
Creating Impact Reports that Senior Leaders Love
If you’re like most learning and development professionals, one big challenge that makes you nervous is having to show the impact of training in a way that makes sense to senior executives in your company.
The good news: it’s not as difficult as you might think.
In this Blanchard point-of-view eBook, measurement expert Jim Irvine shares a simple, straightforward way to produce training impact reports that senior leaders love.
The Five Drivers of Learning Impact
Organisations invest billions of dollars each year on training initiatives, with the goal of fueling growth and improving organisational vitality. However, training won’t make a difference if learners don’t apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills.
In this Blanchard point-of-view eBook, you’ll explore five drivers that must be in place to ensure the greatest level of traction with learners and measurable performance outcomes from learning and development initiatives.
Exploring The Heart of Human Achievement: Six Simple Truths
Leadership is a journey that unfolds over time. The best leaders adapt, connect, and learn from their people. On the journey to connecting with them, leaders find the formula for engaging with them to perform at high levels.
In this Blanchard Point-of-View eBook you’ll learn the six enduring leadership principles that will help aspiring leaders become more effective and respected along the journey.
Turning New Hires into Top Performers…Quickly
Fallout from the pandemic has spurred a mass job exodus and a hiring spree. Workplaces are being flooded with new hires. And people are looking at their options.
How you and your leaders respond to the influx of new talent will help determine whether new hires leave or stay, coast or contribute, struggle or flourish.
7 Warning Signs That Distrust Is Harming Your Organisation
Building trust from the very beginning is essential for success. However, when employees lack trusting relationships with one another and with their managers, it’s a recipe for a toxic work environment. When trust is broken, it can lead to decreased productivity, low morale, poor communication, and worst of all, high turnover.
High turnover results in bad company reviews, dissatisfied clients, and added costs for recruiting and training new employees.
Getting to the Sweet Spot of Effective Communication
Effective workplace communication is one indication of a high-performance culture and drives the sharing of information and ideas, reduces confusion, and improves accountability. In a study conducted by the Corporate Finance Institute, respondents ranked communication skills as twice as important as managerial skills.
Conversational Capacity® refers to the ability—of an individual or a team—to engage in open, balanced, nondefensive dialogue about difficult subjects and in challenging circumstances. Its value is easy to see in teamwork: A team with high conversational capacity can perform well, remaining on track even when dealing with its most troublesome issues. A team lacking that capacity, by contrast, can see its performance derail over a minor disagreement.
Coaching Skills: The Missing Link for Leaders
For years, coaching has been regarded as a useful strategy for individual and organiSational development. Unfortunately, most organisations struggle with getting their managers to adopt and use coaching behaviours. In order to further understand the impact of leader coaching behaviours, the researchers at The Ken Blanchard Companies® embarked on a study to identify the correlations between leader coaching behaviours and the resulting correlation between trust, affect or emotion, and work intentions of their followers. This paper finds that coaching is a powerful managerial tool.
Building Resilience in Times of Crisis
As we all adjust to a changing landscape and a new normal in our personal and professional lives, it is imperative that we each develop an increased capacity to thrive in the face of adversity. This can be done one of two ways: unconsciously, through painful and time-exhaustive trial and error; or consciously, through deliberate cultivation of our own resilience. Beyond personal considerations, building resilience in the workplace is the distinguishing factor that will allow our businesses and communities to bounce back and thrive in unprecedented times.
3 Fatal Mistakes Managers Make When Coaching Their Teams
When managers are unable to lead and coach effectively, mistakes are made, and sometimes that can be fatal to your organisation.
Here are three common management mistakes and how to avoid them.
Getting to the Sweet Spot of Effective Communication
The more challenging the situation, the greater the need to communicate clearly and effectively. Most communication weaknesses and failures in our organisations and teams can be linked to individuals lacking the skills to engage in open dialogue about difficult subjects.
One solution is increasing your organisation's conversational capacity. Conversational capacity is the ability of an individual or a team to remain both candid and curious under pressure.
10 Ways Leaders Aren’t Making Time for their Team Members
The results of a study conducted by Blanchard® and Training magazine suggest that leaders are falling short in meeting the expectations of their direct reports when it comes to performance management, growth, and development.
A new approach to creating a culture of success.
Organisations that want to embrace servant leadership need to support their leaders through skill development, knowledge, tools, and human resource systems and processes. In this collection of articles, we explore the concepts and paradigm shifts organisations must consider.
Rethinking Leadership Now That Everything Else Has Changed
Leaders and human resource professionals have twice the burdens keeping them awake at night. Traditional challenges such as competition, industry disruption, emerging technology, lagging employee engagement, economic volatility, sales, and attrition and retention concerns contend with new demands.