Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Wed, Sep 01, 2010
If you are tasked with heading company-wide development initiatives, join us on September 21-24 and learn why more than 10,000 clients and over 3,000 consultants consider our research-based measurement tools as some of the most respected in the field of organization and leadership effectiveness.
Designed for HR/OD/TD professionals, this interactive "how to" workshop will provide you with an integrated system and practical tools for building a highly effective workplace culture.
To learn more or to reserve a seat today, click here.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Tue, Aug 24, 2010
To be successful, organizations must fully utilize the skills and abilities of their people. Getting the best effort possible from members of your organization and operating in a manner that encourages growth and fosters new ideas are even more crucial in a down economy. According to Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm, organizations can increase innovation and effectiveness without negatively impacting their bottom lines.
In their article for the Harvard Business Review, Wiseman and McKeown separate leaders into two categories: diminishers and multipliers. Diminishers “underutilize people and leave creativity and talent on the table” and have a “view of intelligence […] based on elitism, scarcity, and stasis.” Conversely, multipliers “bring the right people together in an environment that unleashes their best thinking—and then stay out of the way.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wiseman and McKeown’s research shows that leaders who are multipliers get the best performance and results from their people.
Don’t despair if your organization has a few diminishers—according to Wiseman and McKeown, anyone can learn to lead like a multiplier. All it takes is a willingness to “shift the responsibility for thinking from yourself to your employees.” Becoming a multiplier will not only add to your organization’s success; it will boost the morale and engagement levels of the individuals with whom you work.
Want to find out if your colleagues see you as a diminisher or a multiplier? Consider using team-effectiveness activities, such as our Survival Simulations combined with the Group Styles Inventory™ (GSI), a flexible suite of interactive exercises that promotes collaborative decision-making and constructive change. Programs that pair a simulation with the GSI offer an opportunity to achieve positive team growth in a low-cost, easy-to-use format.
To learn how to teach teams to break down the personal interaction barriers that prevent them from achieving their full potential and provide a focused direction for team improvement efforts, join us for our Foundation Workshop. The Workshop takes place September 21-24, 2010, in the San Francisco area—sign up and reserve a seat today!
Source Article: “Managing Yourself: Bringing Out the Best in Your People”—Harvard Business Review, May 2010.
Special thanks to Meghan Oliver for this article contribution.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Wed, Aug 18, 2010
According to a recent "Management Tip of the Day" by HBR, faced with failing businesses, most leaders tighten the purse strings, take strict control over the organization, and put strategy first. However, in the famous words of Peter Drucker, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." To right an organization headed for trouble, you need to build a culture that supports strategy implementation. Give employees a reason to care about your customers, their colleagues, and about how to do business right in a world that rewards cutting corners and compromising values. During a turnaround, don't focus exclusively on distinguishing yourself from the competition; find what brings you together as a company. It may be values, a vision, or a set of shared emotions. Articulate this sense of unity well and the business will follow.
In a recent blog post by HBR's Bill Taylor, he asks leaders two questions: What keeps you up at night, and what gets you up in the morning? What keeps you more committed than ever, more engaged than ever, more excited than ever, as the environment around you gets tougher and more demanding than ever?
According to Taylor, that question—what gets you up in the morning?—is one organizations need to take seriously if they hope to prosper during this period of crisis and (slow) recovery. And that's exactly what new CEO, Kent Thiry, did for DaVita just over 10 years ago in 1999. To read Taylor's article on Thiry's incredible culture change at DaVita, click here.
For Western Region/San Francisco-area OD, HR, & TD professionals looking for research-based training and development tools that engage participants, inspire sustained culture change and measurably improve organizational performance, consider attending our 4-day training forum, Foundation Workshop, on September 21-24. Click here for details.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Fri, Aug 13, 2010
With a trend toward increasingly diverse workgroups, conflict in the workplace is becoming more pervasive and unavoidable than ever. However, the negative impact of conflict on the financial and emotional well-being of an organization and its employees can be significantly decreased with effective leadership and a constructive organizational culture that encourages conflict resolution.
Agatha Gilmore, a senior editor for Chief Learning Officer magazine, reports that engaging in or resolving conflict in the workplace consumes anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of a manager’s time. In her article, Gilmore cautions that “conflict results in stress, frustration and anxiety—which, according to the Centre for Conflict Resolution International, can end up costing an organization $1.7 billion in lost work.”
So what’s the solution? According to Gilmore, leaders must be able to model and facilitate positive conflict resolution strategies.
Leadership development is not an easy task, but with the right tools, organizations can provide their leaders with insights into their personal styles and how these styles combine to shape their leadership performance. Multi-rater assessments, such as our Acumen Leadership WorkStyles™ tool, offer leaders a 360° feedback experience and a clear and meaningful direction for growth.
Take a moment to read Gilmore’s article and find out if your organization and leaders are heading in the right direction to build a constructive culture and foster effective conflict resolution.
Special thanks to Meghan Oliver for this article contribution.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Wed, Jul 21, 2010
Bnet.com provides a video series titled, CXO Unplugged - Smart Business. The series offers insights into how top international executives are addressing the challenges of working smarter and for a more sustainable future. The focus is on the future and on how businesses need to evolve.
In this first video clip, Tom Barry, managing director of BlessingWhite Europe, discusses employee engagement in tough times and explains what it takes to get the best from your teams and why every manager must become a coach.
Most clips are under 10 minutes and all of them offer valuable learning gems for managers, leaders, and team members. Be sure to view at least one full clip. Enjoy!
BNET video: CXOs Unplugged
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Mon, Jun 21, 2010
If you are tasked with leading firm-wide development initiatives, take a minute to read this...
We work with organizations across the country to strengthen performance and turn challenges into opportunities. On September 21-24, we will host our first ever Foundation Workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Designed for consultants and change agents, this interactive "how to" workshop will equip you with an integrated system for building highly effective individuals, teams, and workplace cultures.
Join us on September 21-24 and learn why more than 10,000 clients and over 3,000 consultants consider our research-based measurement tools as some of the most respected in the field of organization and leadership effectiveness.
For additional program details, click here.
Thank you for your interest. We hope to meet you soon!
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Fri, Jun 18, 2010
For over 20 years, our Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI) has been at the core of successful business transformations across the US and abroad. In this brief video, our Australian colleagues celebrate successful culture change projects of client firms at an annual conference.
Using the Circumplex for visuals, the leadership at Kennard's Self Storage shares an amazing turnaround story that continues to thrive today.
If you are leading a change project, feel free to share your learning experience.
UPCOMING WORKSHOP: If you are tasked with change initiatives for your company or a client firm, click here for information on our upcoming Foundation Workshop, Sept. 21-24, 2010, San Francisco area.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Thu, Jun 10, 2010
The 6-week feature on The Future of Leadership by Harvard Business Review has now ended and the blog contributions will be featured in an upcoming symposium. My May 13th post below by the same title picks up the multi-week effort about 3 posts into their launch. See my reference below - it's a fantastic series on leadership - but check out this video first. It's packed with information and fun to watch.
Take 6 minutes to grab a cup'a joe or tea and enjoy this clip. Your thoughts are welcomed.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Tue, Jun 01, 2010
Our workshops help you measurably impact the effectiveness of the individuals, teams and organization(s) you support. These interactive, hands-on workshops prepare you to expertly apply our processes, assessments and simulations to meet a variety of organizational change and development goals including:
- Enhancing the positive impact of managers and leaders
- Quantifying, creating and reinforcing constructive cultures
- Capturing and developing team synergy
- Optimizing organizational effectiveness
Foundation Workshop | June 14-17 CLOSED | Sept. 21-24 | San Francisco
This three and a half day workshop provides an introduction to the Circumplex, the driving force behind Human Synergistics' Integrated Diagnostic System. It focuses on several products that illuminate the connection between behaviors and outcomes at the individual, team and organizational level, equipping you to address factors that increase productivity and produce measurable, cost-effective improvements.
The Advanced Workshop Series | July 27-30 | Chicago
Comprised of three discrete workshops, the AW series is designed to provide both a theoretical and practical understanding of Human Synergistics International’s more advanced products. The series focuses on:
- Learning how to provide leaders with insights into their personal styles, and how these styles combine to shape their leadership performance.
- Moving beyond culture measurement by identifying the specific impact of culture in terms of business outcomes, as well as potential change targets or “levers” that can be adjusted to improve organizational effectiveness.
- Learning to install a proven process for assisting leaders and managers in determining development opportunities, selecting the most fruitful change strategies, and monitoring ongoing improvement efforts.
- Getting to the heart of performance difficulties by providing leaders with insightful feedback on how their actions influence others and the culture.
Developing leaders and providing leadership feedback can be a delicate and challenging task—InPractice provides you with the tools necessary for success. Learn how to...
- provide leaders with insights into their personal styles and how these styles combine to shape their leadership performance
- install a proven process for assisting leaders and managers in determining development opportunities
- offer feedback on the impact of one's current leadership style
- identify behaviors and attitudes of effective leadership
- develop an action plan to enhance one's effectiveness
- use Leadership WorkStyles (LWS) to promote leadership development, team development, and a more collaborative learning environment
For more information, click here.
We look forward to training with you at our events.
Posted by Kalani Iwiula on Tue, May 25, 2010
ASTD ICE in Chicago was awesome! The American Society of Training and Development is the world's largest gathering of professionals dedicated to helping organizations train and develop their employees, and they're a very smart bunch.
Thank you to our customers and visitors who came by our booth to say hi and to check out our new Management/Impact assessment and other organizational diagnostics -- it was wonderful seeing everyone! According to ASTD numbers, there were about 8500 attendees with 1800 international professionals representing 70 countries.
With 340 booths to visit over 3 days, so many of you were ready for our Yoga session. Thank you so much for attending and learning our Circumplex constructive styles in a uniquely physical way with instructor, Dr. Janet Szumal, Ph.D.
Congratulations to Ram Charan and other distinguished colleagues who won various workplace learning and performance ASTD awards for 2009. A best-selling author and coach to CEOs, Ram's introduction to business came early in life while working in the family shoe shop in a small Indian town where he was raised. That background, combined with decades of observing and working with successful leaders, shaped his belief that business leaders learn best through a combination of experience, feedback, and self-correction.
Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group presented the keynote on Tuesday. If you did not attend, be sure to purchase the keynote audio from ASTD; you'll be glad you did, especially if you're tasked with strategic planning for your company's use of social media. Her new book, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform The Way You Lead, suggests that leaders must gain the confidence to give up the need to be in control while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals, and Charlene's keynote included ample business examples to support her claims. I just opened my autographed copy and look forward to sharing more about it later.
If you attended ASTD ICE 2010, please share your experiences or what you enjoyed most.
Thank you!