The Leaders Edge: Six Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges (J-B CCL (Center for C

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Everyone has the power to innovate. Most of the people I work with could set the world on fire with the brilliance of the ideas they come up with in our training sessions. The good news is that there are proven frameworks and client-tested tools to guide you. The traditional organizational structures—where process trumps culture and where output trumps input—have innovation in a choke hold. But you and your organization can break free. Our approach is designed to help release you and your colleagues from the constraints of typical corporate culture. And rather than implement one more layer of processes to rule your lives, it actually will eliminate those processes and simplify your work.

Whether your company is struggling or sailing high right now, ask yourself whether your focus is in the right place. Creating a culture where innovation can thrive is a strategic goal that cannot be put off until tomorrow. Lisa Bodellis the founder and CEO of future think, an innovation research and training firm that helps businesses embrace change and become world-class innovators. Most of us are familiar with the basic concept of cross-training. For example, a person who aspires to be a serious runner concludes that there are only a certain number of miles she can run per week.

After reading magazines and talking to other accomplished runners, she decides to engage in a series of other activities such as weight lifting, bicycle riding, and swimming. Other runners have chosen to do rowing and water aerobics. Because people who engage in these other activities have found they help them to run better, to be in better physical condition, to gain aerobic capacity, and not to be as prone to injury that would come from only running.

Beyond that, this variety of activities makes the time spent in physical activity go by more rapidly and even more enjoyably. Cross-training is an optimum solution for someone who is reasonably good at something and who wants to continue exceling at it and then move into the higher ranks in any given activity or sport.

As we conducted our original research on leadership competencies, an interesting fact emerged. For every differentiating competency such as drives for results, solves problems and analyzes issues, takes initiative, communicates powerfully and prolifically, innovates, engages in collaboration and teamwork, and inspires and motivates others to high performance , there were a handful of behaviors whose correlations with each competency were statistically significant.

A person who received high scores on a specific differentiating competency also received high scores on several behaviors, and a person receiving low scores on that differentiating competency invariably would receive low scores on those same behaviors. It was as if they were bound together.

As we began to understand the interplay of these competencies, we noticed there were strong interaction effects when leaders performed two competencies well. To understand this interaction effect, we looked at the probability of a leader being at the 90 th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness. We first examined the impact of one competency when it was a strength at the 75 th percentile and the effect of combining it with others that were below the 75 th percentile. The two we analyzed were has technical or professional expertise and communicates powerfully and prolifically.

What we started to understand was that profound strengths are created from the combination of competencies. The following question and answer become clear:. What is better than a leader who has deep technical or professional expertise? A leader who has deep technical or professional expertise and who is able to communicate and share that expertise with others in a powerful way. Technical expertise without powerful communications is much like a great professor who teaches as a mime would i.

The Leader's Edge: Six Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges

The research helped us understand that a profound strength is created by taking one competency that has moderately good scores and combining that skill with another competency. The combination of the two skills creates an effect that is greater than the effect of either skill individually. As we explored these powerful combinations, we discovered that many of them were associated with each competency. We call these powerful combinations companion competencies. We reasoned that if we could map out which companion competencies created the most powerful combinations, that map could provide leaders with better guidance about how to create a profound strength in any competency.

Many of the combined effects were not intuitively obvious. The only way to truly uncover the companion competencies was by data mining huge data sets of degree assessments. As leaders have utilized the competency companion research, they quickly have come to the conclusion that it provides them with exceptional insight into how they can build a strength. The exact reasons for the connection between the companion competencies and the differentiating competency are hard to empirically discover.

We offer one final comment about using competency companions. We have observed that people often get stuck. At the very least, it gives the person hope and encouragement to do something. Personal productivity is not only important to an individual; its effects are magnified throughout an organization. This article illustrates the effect that personal productivity has on company culture, staff relationships, and the bottom line, and offers suggestions for improving business communication, regardless of your position within the company. Personal productivity and workload management habits that sabotage individual productivity lead to corporate cultures that sabotage the results of the company as a whole.

This results in ineffective staff and an unpleasant work environment. Some factors that contribute to this environment include:. Many successful, fast-paced businesses have become very e-mail-centric, relying almost exclusively on e-mail for internal communications. In addition to the hours of time spent on this, there is another, more insidious consequence: When e-mail is the default mode of operation within a company, employees end up on e-mail all day, responding immediately to messages received.

This reinforces the expectation that messages will always be met with an immediate response, so e-mail becomes an acceptable form of communication for even urgent or time-sensitive information. As a result, employees have no choice but to be vigilant about staying on top of their e-mail messages by checking them constantly. Focusing so much attention on e-mail leaves little opportunity to get anything else done; employees are effectively chained to their e-mail.

Studies have proven for more than a decade that multitasking requires more time per task and lowers the quality. In addition to the e-mail-centric culture, personal productivity styles also can cause interpersonal issues. Employees with a heavy workload have different ways of handling it. Some produce competent work and meet deadlines, but they may be unhappy, seem constantly stressed, and work long hours to get their work done.

They are prized for their successes, but these employees are the most likely to suffer burnout and leave the company. Indeed, many business cultures mistake activity for productivity. This problem often is caused by unclear objectives and an inability to prioritize effectively. In some cases, employees serve as company bottlenecks. This is a problem often caused by unrealistic expectations—not only those of management, but also the employees themselves—about what can reasonably be accomplished in a given time frame.

Without a comprehensive workflow management process for capturing all commitments, communication, and information, employees manage their responsibilities by relying on their memories. The result is a muddied understanding of the true magnitude of their workloads, a tendency to substitute activity for productivity, and impractical predictions about task and project achievement. Accountability also plays a role. These situations have the potential to lead to animosity, individual rivalries, territorialism, and resentment.

These complex interpersonal issues within a company reflect the different work habits and abilities of the employees.

Some people are naturally better at managing full and hectic workloads. Most people are ill-equipped to handle the demands on their attention caused by the information and technology avalanche of the 21st century. If you recognize among your staff or co-workers interpersonal challenges, stress issues, excessive work hours, or any combination of these issues, personal productivity skills could be lacking.

Excerpt from Chapter Do what you never thought possible with your time and attention Excerpted with permission from John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Jiffy Lube depends on the technical skills of its employees to support its customer experience and its full range of preventive maintenance services.

The services must be done consistently, correctly, in a team, and at a fast pace. For that reason, the certification program is a structured, time-based process. Stores are evaluated on the percentage of employees certified at each level.

Fifty percent of all employees must be certified in the 10 ancillary services that make up the Service Specialist Certificate within the first days. The certification process follows this path to ensure consistency and accuracy in the services provided to customers:. The Certification Dashboard is a simple yet flexible report used by everyone, from store employees to senior management.

Individual employees can review their progress against the time standards. Franchisee and Jiffy Lube management can monitor stores and areas to identify problems and plan improvement. The Dashboard acts as a common reference point consistently used across all franchise organizations and Jiffy Lube itself. The Dashboard is both simple and flexible. It starts with a filter page, allowing the report to be customized.

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The report is easy to understand through the use of color-coded ratings by certification. One glance provides overview information in terms of green, yellow, and red ratings. All green means the person, store, or organization meets certification criteria.

This goal is part of their annual performance evaluation. The Certification Dashboard is used to monitor progress. Management also can use the Dashboard to compare store certification levels between District Managers to see if they are properly coaching their stores. With more employees certified in more services, the average sale per customer is 18 percent above industry averages. If so, send them our way in an e-mail to lorri trainingmag. Much recent neuroscience and learning research, and andragogical and, more generally, pedagogical theories can easily become business problem remedies, helping learning professionals to develop targeted learning solutions that cut right to the heart of business problems to inject a powerful antidote.

One surefire way to prove a case for or against a proposed solution is to know what the research and science say about it. Science, research, and academe come with built-in credibility. In one case, citing the theory of learned helplessness, a condition of behaving helplessly after having been subjected to repeated challenges one cannot overcome, helped me to justify why developing overly complicated and difficult assessment questions could produce averse and anxiety-laden responses in learners, rather than the intended aim of reinforcing the importance of the training.

If your scholar muscle is weak, strengthen it by keeping up to date on learning theory and research. If you arm yourself with a firm understanding of learning theories, you need not reinvent the wheel or throw everything against the wall to see what sticks when designing learning solutions. Giselle Springer Douglas is an innovative specialist who is expert in providing sound andragogy and pedagogy research and theory-backed, multiculturally appropriate learning solutions targeted at forwarding business and growth objectives.

She currently is completing a doctoral program in organizational leadership at Northeastern University. She can be reached at g. People notice even the smallest behavior nuances of their leaders. They pass along their perceptions about the way they are treated. This is one of the most important determinants of loyalty, commitment, and return business. And you reward the retailer with your loyalty and lots of return business, which, by many metrics, is the best kind of business.

The great leaders I know honor the same principles with their own people. They treat them with dignity. They listen to them. They meet their needs. They understand and practice the principle almost instinctively. For others, the notion of employee-as-customer seems foreign and counterintuitive. They are the ones whose competitive advantage is slipping or nonexistent.

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A lot of the training and development in our corporations focuses on learning about things. People learn what to think, not how to think. They learn what to do , not how to be. They learn what to achieve, not how to achieve. They learn all about things, but very little about the nature of things. Popular definitions of leadership also tend to be externalized. Many of the definitions focus on the outer manifestations of leadership—such as vision, judgment, creativity, drive, charisma, podium presence, etc. This external pattern continues at the organizational level. People often receive recognition for their external mastery.

Success often is measured in terms of revenue, profit, new product breakthroughs, cost containment, market share, and many other familiar metrics. The more relevant issues are:. Authentic leadership is a product of honesty. Honesty about putting the needs of others ahead of your own.

Honesty in communicating information, both positive and negative. Honesty in accepting—welcoming—viewpoints different from yours. Authentic leadership is also a product of clarity. Clarity in what you stand for, and what you will not stand for.

Mediated Dialogue See Your Way through Change | Charles J Palus and John McGuire - bahana-line.com

In pre-Revolutionary Russia, a priest was confronted by a soldier as he walked down a road. Aiming his rifle at the priest, the soldier demanded: Where are you going? Why are you going there? Unfazed by the sudden interrogation, the priest replied with a question of his own: But we can honestly ask the questions of ourselves. If we choose to, we can issue our own self-challenges to push ourselves not only to do better but to be better.

Authenticity is a matter of choice. We deliberately choose to behave in certain ways under certain circumstances. In the area where we live, my wife served on the board of directors of Habitat for Humanity, the volunteer group that builds homes for poor people. One afternoon, I was at the construction site. It was a beehive of activity, and especially colorful because all the volunteers wore brightly colored T-shirts with the names of their churches printed on the front. I was watching a man installing sheetrock.

Remember, these were not experienced drywallers, they were volunteers. This guy was really going after it, pounding nails at blazing speed. Then he got out of rhythm and slammed his thumb with his hammer. I walked over to help him staunch the flow of blood, and inquired if I could ask him a couple of questions. Do you believe he made that deliberate choice? Of course, he did. In our training and development programs, we can give people authentic leadership tools.

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Then, if they choose to use those tools often enough, they will become their default behaviors. Reprinted by permission of the author. To purchase the book, visit http: His focus is leadership development and the strategic management of change. He earned his Ph. No matter the circumstances, being a great manager takes time and dedication. You literally have no time to spare!

Despite the grim statistics and seemingly daunting prospect, the bottom line is that you can get MORE than 57 things done if you know how to manage your team effectively. The key is finding the time.

There are a few small things you can do every day to be the leader people want to follow:. Brad Karsh is president and lead trainer at JB Training Solutions, which offers interactive programs to assist professionals in achieving success in the workplace. For information, visit http: There are ways to get Gen Xers to stay with the organization. You can build them up to be your top talent. And if you have top talent inside your organization, you can bind them to the organization by giving them restricted stock units, giving them a pay raise, or giving them an in-line promotion.

Basically you throw a bunch of love, leeway, lies, and loot at them to buy their allegiance. You are hoping to buy their time in the seat. You are hoping to buy their career aspirations.

The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation

You are hoping to buy yourself or your organization time. If you leave within a year, you have to pay that money back. In this rule, 70 percent of learning and building bench strength for the future is based on a variety of challenging assignments and projects—basically on-the-job experience. Twenty percent is from connecting with others—getting candid feedback, learning by observing, coaching, mentoring, active role modeling.

And 10 percent is from coursework and training. The majority of corporate organizations use training, or learning and development, as a way to prepare their leaders for the future—to grow the talent they need. I am by experience a learning and development professional.

As such, I now look to training courses as the last or least impactful way to grow knowledge, and skills. I have been forever converted to now be a follower of the model On top of that, the 70 percent highly visible, challenging assignments that stretch you and help you grow professionally, who are those reserved for in the organization? The high potentials of course! Or do you go and look for an organization that will allow you to be the high potential you believe you are now but that your current company says you may be in five years.

I suggest you go find that company and be its high potential walking in the door today. Be a free agent. Get unstuck by having the role you want now rather than wonder why there is no corporate loyalty at your current employer. Shift your mindset from your job being the most valuable asset in the relationship to instead seeing your time and talents as the most valuable asset. One of the things mentioned in a recent HR industry magazine article is that there are many ways to develop and hold onto high potentials.

Some of the things they mentioned were suggestions such as: We want the challenge. We want to go and try to do something significant to see if we can do it. He trains in many executive development programs, including leadership development and creativity programs for the international community. Permissions Request permission to reuse content from this site. Table of contents Related Websites Preface. Shifting Between Modes of Attention. Paying Attention to Negative Space.

Developing the Competency of Paying Attention. Learning Begins with the Personal Connection. Practicing Assessment for Development A4D. Practicing Exploration for Development E4D. Tapping Into Your Passion. Developing the Competency of Personalizing. Seeing Organizational Vision in a New Light. Making and Using Metaphors.

Making Poetry in the Face of Complexity. Developing the Competency of Imaging. Play Enhances Learning amid Turbulence. Play Is a Community Activity. Play Is the Heart of Science and Technology. Developing the Competency of Serious Play. Building Creative Leadership Communities. Creating Spaces for Group Work. Putting Something in the Middle. Developing the Competency of Co-Inquiry.

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