Not many people know that I was an Instructor during my National Service days.

 

For the uninitiated, all able-bodied males in Singapore have to serve in the armed forces (The Army, Navy or the Police) for at least 2 years usually before they head-off to college or university.

 

As a senior instructor in the Army, I had the privilege of picking my co-trainers.

So I decided to approach one of the junior instructors to ask if he will join my team.

His answer was a firm “NO! You always pull rank!”

I was shocked.
I was hurt.
And I was confused.

What was wrong with using my rank to get things done?

 

But that was the TURNING POINT in my life.

After I joined the Corporate world, I set out to change my leadership style.

I read voraciously on leadership and motivation.

Bit by bit I put into practice what I learned on leadership and motivation.

 

One day I was asked to build up a regional team in Asia Pacific.

I switched from being COERCIVE and COMMANDING, to being AFFILIATIVE and DEMOCRATIC.

 

Eventually I built a regional team so cohesive that we achieved 0% attrition rate; hit almost 100% of all KPIs; and almost 100% engagement rate.

Over 10 straight years!

 

I don’t remember his name. But I still remember how he looks like.
And if I see him one day, I will thank him for making me who I am today.

 

So what kind of leader are you?

 

If you would like to find out how you can be a better leader, check this out: Leadership Styles Questionnaire

 

 

Recently, I was invited to conduct a Leadership Styles workshop for a Korean software company. This Korean software company is an established company with a global footprint with its global headquarters based in Seoul, Korea.

Over the last decade, this company has grown by leaps and bounds and have established bases as far as the United States of America. Its entity here in Singapore is a small but rapidly growing one, and it has plans to grow and expand here in South East Asia over the next several months.

As part of its aggressive plans for expansion here in S.E.A, the Managing Director of the Singapore office realised that it was important for them to build and establish a strong culture here in Singapore and within the South East Asian region, that includes offices in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

When I met with the M.D. to discuss the details of the workshop, he made it clear that he wanted to the leaders in this region to be effective leaders leading the growth of the organisation over the next several months.

 

Different Strokes for Different Folks

So based on the information gathered from the M.D. during the meeting, I decided to discuss Leadership Styles with the leadership team for the workshop. As this is a growing team, the leaders needed to understand how their leadership styles would affect the organisation at different stages of organisational growth and maturity.

We all know that we can’t use the same leadership style for all people in different circumstances. But the challenge is that most of us are not aware of which styles we use most often and how to switch between styles in different situations and when dealing with different people.

 

The Power of the Team View

So the workshop focused on the six leadership styles by Dr. Daniel Goleman but we discussed only the Consolidated Group Style Report as shown in the picture above.

From this report, it is very obvious which style the leadership team tend to gravitate towards. For those who are familiar with the six leadership styles, the Democratic Style has a strong correlation to positive performance. However, we all know that too much of a good thing can be bad. And it is no difference in this case.

A leadership team that is too democratic tends to breed mediocrity in the long-term. The team will most likely end up in endless meetings and discussions. Coming to concrete decisions may be an extremely long drawn-out process.

 

And herein lies the power of the consolidated leadership styles report.

The report avoids highlighting the individual styles of each individual, but instead highlights the leadership style of the entire leadership team.

I have conducted this same exercise for different leadership teams and the conclusion is always the same – the leadership team knew exactly why they have been ineffective just by looking at this chart, and instantly knew what they needed to do in order to be more effective going forward.

 

What about YOUR leadership team?

Do you feel that your leadership team is ineffective in leading your organisation, but don’t know exactly where the problem is?

Do you feel that your leadership team can do better leading your organisation, but don’t know how to go about improving?

If the above questions resonate with you, then the Leadership Style Questionnaire is just the tool for you. It will show you exactly why your team is ineffective and what you should do to improve.

 

Discover your own Leadership Styles here

 

Author Bio

Steven Lock is the Founder of FutureTHINK! Training & Consultancy LLP. He is a Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him 20 years of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

Steven is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. The model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach.

Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been interviewed twice on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital, LinkedIn and other publications.

His comment on Team Collaboration has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven is certified in MBTI® (Step I & II) & DiSC® Personality instruments.

On 15 September 2016, I was the plenary guest speaker for the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City. I was invited to talk about my CAAP® High Performance Model to over 600 delegates at the convention.

As this was my first time to Vietnam, I was initially a little apprehensive about how things would turn out. But to my pleasant surprise, the entire event went extremely well. It was very well planned and organised. The entire event, including the various break-out sessions were all very well executed. It was a grand event.

 

 

My session on The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High Performance Teams was the second last session of the day, and I was concerned that by the time it got to my speaking slot, the audience would have been zonked out after hearing so many speakers speak before me.

But I was wrong.

The audience remained ever-attentive. And they were so eager to hear what I had to say.

 

 

After the entire event was over, I realised the real learners weren’t the audience that day — I was. And here are 3 things I learnt at the HR Summit in Ho Chi Minh City that day:

 

After the entire event was over, I realised the real learners weren’t the audience that day — I was

 

1. They are very well-read.

As a guest speaker for the event, I had the privilege to join in their break-out sessions. These break-out sessions were led by many established and senior executives from various organisations in Vietnam.

The moderators and presenters were from MNCs such as HSBC Bank, AkzolNobel, Uber and Intel. One of the presenters focused on advanced management concepts particularly from Stephen Covey – the author of The 7 Habits of Effective People.

I was totally amazed at the depth of knowledge of some of these presenters. The depth of knowledge and understanding of the various management models truly surprised me. They were clearly very well-read and they understood many of the management concepts that would put many of us to shame.

 

I was totally amazed at the depth of knowledge of some of these presenters.

 

2. They are hungry for new knowledge and skills.

 

 

Even though the average Singaporean worker is 15 times more productive than an average Vietnamese worker, I could sense that they are on an accelerated trajectory. These people were HUNGRY for new knowledge and skills. These people, given sufficient time, will catch-up with Singapore and other nations here in ASEAN. And with the TPP in place, Vietnam’s overall economic outlook is set for an explosive growth.

 

These people were HUNGRY for new knowledge and skills. These people, given sufficient time, will catch-up with Singapore and the other nations here in ASEAN.

 

3. It is a matter of time before they catch-up with us.

With Vietnam on an accelerated economic trajectory, it is only a matter of time before the typical Vietnamese worker catches up with the Singaporean worker.

I worry that Singaporeans have become very much complacent. Many I have encountered seem to have an arrogant streak in them. Many think they are very well educated and therefore already know whatever there is to know.

The bad news is, arrogance and complacency, will only lead to stagnation. And while Singaporeans stagnate, the other nations and economies around us continue to surge forward. The closing of the gap may not be obvious at this time because Singapore is still very much ahead in terms of growth and productivity. However given sufficient time, this gap will close.

As the saying goes, “Time and tide waits for no man”. And it is a matter of time before their economic trajectory intersects with ours and we’ll find ourselves on an even keel with these fast growing economies.

 

arrogance and complacency, will only lead to stagnation… it is a matter of time before their economic trajectory intersects with ours…

 

Author Bio
Steven Lock is the Founder of FutureTHINK! Training & Consultancy LLP. He is a Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him 20 years of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

Steven is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. The model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach.

Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been interviewed twice on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital, LinkedIn and other publications.

His comment on Team Collaboration has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven is certified in MBTI® (Step I & II) & DiSC® Personality instruments.

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.” ~ Hesoid, 700 BC

Strawberry Generation.

Millennials.

Generation Y.

These terms are commonly used to describe the generation born between 1980 and 2000.

We’ve heard lots of horror stories about these Gen Ys and Millennials and the Internet is full of articles and stories about them. In fact, I have heard first-hand horror stories about Gen Y workers in our workforce.

But seriously, are they any different from the rest of us? If yes, then what and how are they different from the rest of us Gen Xers and Baby Boomers?

Comparing Gen Xers with Millennials

To begin with, I belong to Generation X. So you probably can guess my age.

As far as I can recall, when I was in my twenties, I had very similar experiences as today’s Millennials. Unkind and disparaging comments were made against my generation. It was not uncommon to hear comments about how my generation was a useless generation compared to my parent’s generation and the one before.

Some of the comments passed by the previous generation included remarks such as “These youngsters are so useless” or “These youngsters don’t know what they want in life” or “Life is too good for these young people”. Or worse, we were just “good-for-nothings”.

The problem I see with these comparisons of people of my Generation with those of the previous generation is that it is not a fair comparison at all. It is not an apple-to-apple comparison.

Comparisons of people of my Generation with those of the previous generation is that it is not a fair comparison at all. It is not an apple-to-apple comparison.

What I Really Cared About When I Was in my 20s

Truth be told, when I was in my twenties, I had no clue what I wanted to be. I had no clue what I was good at. And I had no clue what I should do for the rest of my life.

But after I started working, I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. I wanted to achieve more than what my parents achieved. I wanted to be promoted as quickly as possible, and I wanted to earn higher salaries every year. I too, wanted that dream job, that dream home and that dream car.

I would think of different ways to climb the corporate ladder and achieve what I wanted. And if I couldn’t get what I wanted in the current organisation, I would look for opportunities in other organisations that would give me the chance of moving up the corporate ladder faster. I was always on the look-out for a short-cut to success.

So I never stayed in one job for more than 3 years. It wasn’t until I was in my early thirties that I started to mellow down and stayed on a job for 13 years.

So how is this so different from the current Generation Y?
They too want to get promoted. They too want higher salaries. They too want to be recognised.

The fact is, inter-generational comparisons are not doing all of us any favours. It only highlights the biasness we have against the Millennials.

The fact is, inter-generational comparisons are not doing all of us any favours. It only highlights the biasness we have against the Millennials.

It isn’t a Fair Comparison

In most cases, when we compare ourselves with the younger generation, we are not doing justice to them and to ourselves. How do we compare a 40+ year old Generation Xer with a 20+ year old Millennial? How do we reconcile values of a 40+ year old with that of a 20+ Millennial?

When I was in my 20s, ALL that mattered to me were status, salary and a lifestyle that others would envy. I wanted a nice home. I wanted to drive the coolest car. I wanted to go on long holidays. And I wanted that senior job title.

Now that I’m in my 40s, my values are entirely different from what they were when I was in my 20s. I no longer crave for recognition. I no longer care what type of homes others live in or what cars they drive. And I don’t give a hoot about what others think of me.

What matters to me now are a happy home and family; to spend quality time with good friends over a meal or a great conversation; to enjoy life’s journey for whatever its worth.

When I was in my 20s, ALL that mattered to me were status, salary and a lifestyle that others would envy. I wanted a nice home.

What Your Parent’s Generation Said about YOU

Now if you are a Generation Xer, think back to your younger days — when you were in your 20s.
What were your priorities back then?

What were those years like? What were your values? What was your aim in life? What did you really care about? What did you really want to do?

And most of all, what did your parent’s generation say about you and your generation?

I would go out on a limb to say that they said very similar things about you and your generation, as we do the younger generation today. I’m sure they experienced similar frustrations as you do now with the younger generation.

I would go out on a limb to say that they said very similar things about you and your generation, as we do the younger generation today.

Are There Any Differences At All?

Now I wouldn’t say that we were exactly the same as the Millennials when we were in our 20s. There are definitely differences between a 20-something Millennial and the 20-something you years back.

The good old 1970’s are not the same as the rolling 1990’s.

So what are the differences?

For starters, we never had iPhones and iPads back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. And we sure didn’t have WhatsApp and Telegram. The 20-somethings today prefer to text their friends than to have a face-to-face conversation. They prefer to “Google” than to go to the library to do research. And they prefer to shop online than to make their way to a bricks-and-mortar store in Orchard Road.

In addition, economic life cycles are getting shorter and shorter. And so are the expectations of the younger generation. Gen Xers may have expected a promotion every couple of years, but a Millennial today would expect a promotion every year or so. (Yes, I know some who expect to be promoted just 2 months into their new jobs, but these are more the exception than the norm. And I would venture to say that these are the ones who stick out like a sore thumb attracting the unkind comments levied against the entire generation of Millennials.)

The Secret to Engaging Millennials

The fact is most Millennials are still quite sensible. They know what is realistic and what isn’t. I have hired and worked with 20-somethings before and they were a fantastic bunch of people. They gave me no problems and we all enjoyed a great working relationship for many years.

And the secret to that great working relationship was because I took care of their career paths. I took pains to plan their career paths and to help them move forward in their careers. I gave them opportunities to discover their strengths and to shine. I gave them the space to make mistakes and to grow in their jobs. And I gave them the opportunity to learn new things on the job.

Now ask yourself: When you were in your 20s, did you wish your boss would do all of these things for you? To look out for you? To help you progress in your career? To take care of your professional development?

If your answer is yes to any of the above, then what is so different about you and the 20-something Millennials of today?

When you were in your 20s, did you wish your boss would do all of these things for you? To look out for you? To help you progress in your career? To take care of your professional development?

What the Research Shows

Research after research have shown that generational differences are greatly over-hyped. As Bruce N. Pfau said in a recent Harvard Business Review article: “Part of the reason is the proliferation of poor ‘research’ or overreaching and invalid conclusions based on otherwise valid facts. The most glaring examples of faulty research are ‘studies’ of Millennials that lack comparisons to any control groups of other workers or young people of other generations… in addition, it is also more attention-grabbing to talk about differences among groups and changes in the workplace than it is to report on how alike they are.” (Harvard Business Review, April 2016, “What Do Millennials Really Want at Work? The Same Things the Rest of Us Do”)

And in a paper by Profs Brent Roberts, Grant Edmonds and Emily Grijalva, they concluded that the differences between generations is “an aging phenomenon, and not a historical phenomenon”. In other words, we are unconsciously comparing two generations of completely different age groups, and completely different values. And that leads to a seriously flawed conclusion about the two generations.

In the words of Roberts, Edmonds and Grijalva, “The fact that one can find complaints about the younger generation being more narcissistic going back to Hesiod helps make the point that every generation is Generation Me. That is, until they grow up.”

Conclusion

So perhaps the next time you are tempted to point your finger at a Millennial and accuse them of being frivolous, shallow, and irresponsible, it might do well for you to remember that you are probably looking at them through your own pair of coloured lenses.

Author Bio

Steven Lock is the Founder of FutureTHINK! Training & Consultancy LLP. He is a Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him 20 years of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

Steven is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. The model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach.

Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”

• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been interviewed twice on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital, LinkedIn and other publications.

His comment on Team Collaboration has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven is certified in MBTI® (Step I & II) & DiSC® Personality instruments.

 

Our conventional wisdom about teams are about to change radically because everything we previously knew, or thought we knew, about team work have all been quite incomplete.

What would you say makes a cohesive, effective and high performing team?

I’m sure most of us would start to think about the following:

– Clearly defined goals
– Strong, charismatic leader
– Competent team members
– Personality types
– Skills
– Educational background

But are these the be-all and end-all for a high performing team?

Project Aristotle

In 2012, Google embarked on an initiative – code-named Aristotle – to study hundreds of Google’s teams and figure out why some teams stumbled while others soared.

As we all know, Google loves data. And that is exactly what they did. They combed through half a century of academic studies on how teams worked. They also studied 180 different teams within Google and collected a huge amount of data. Amongst some of the data they collected include insights into the following questions:

– Did team mates socialise outside of office hours?
– Were the best teams made up of people with the same interests?
– Did they have the same hobbies?
– Were they of similar educational backgrounds?
– Was it better for all teammates to be outgoing or for all of them to be shy?

They also wanted to know why teams stuck together and if gender balance had any influence on the success of a team.

But no matter how they arranged the data, they were not able to identify any useful patterns that would indicate why a team did really well.

However in their research, they kept coming across research by psychologists and sociologists that focused on “Group Norms”. Norms are the traditions, behavioural standards, and unwritten rules that govern how we function when we gather. One team may be comfortable with being more confrontational. While others may be comfortable with giving every team member equal airtime for them to voice their comments, concerns and feedback.

Group Norms

After studying over a 100 groups for over a year, Project Aristotle’s researchers concluded that understanding and influencing group norms were the keys to improving Google’s teams.

Group norms include unwritten rules about how each team member should behave and how each team member disagreed with one another. Some groups may be comfortable with a more confrontational style while others may thrive on a more civilised and polite way of disagreeing with another team member.

This is sometimes known as Team Culture. It is the way each member on the team interacts with each other, and how each member treats other members on the team. At this juncture, I would like to point out that there is a difference between Organisational Culture and Team Culture.

Organisational Culture refers to the over-arching culture within the organisation at large. Team Culture refers to the team norms and culture within the team (or function or department).

Psychological Safety

As the researchers continued their studies, they noticed TWO behaviours that all good teams had in common.

1. Equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking

First, is the “equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking”. This gobbledygook simply means whether each team member is given more or less equal airtime to talk and voice their opinions. They found that as long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well.

2. High average social sensitivity

Second, all good teams had high “average social sensitivity”. What this simply means is that team members were skilled at intuiting how others felt based on their tone of voice, their expressions and other non-verbal cues. Research shows that the more successful teams seemed to know when someone was feeling upset or left out.

Psychologists sometimes call these two behaviours “psychological safety”. Harvard Business School professor, Amy Edmondson, defines psychological safety as “shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”

In other words, it is a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up. Such a climate is underscored by a strong sense of interpersonal trust and mutual respect, and this in turn, encourages everyone on the team to be themselves.

Were there other important behaviours or norms that would encourage good teamwork? The answer is yes. Things like setting clear goals and creating a culture of dependability were important.

However Google’s study indicated that psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work.

Workplace FEAR

Clearly, the primary reason for under-performance in teams everywhere is this thing called FEAR.

All you have to do is look around you in your office. Are people comfortable speaking up in-front of the boss? Do most people keep quiet during meetings when the big boss is present? Is the office generally very quiet all day, with very few people talking and interacting – because they are afraid of who might hear what they are saying? And when you conduct team meetings, and you invite feedback, suggestions and comments, do most of your team members say they have no comments and just keep quiet?

Well, these may be signs and symptoms that FEAR has a strangle-hold on your team.

And this directly contributes to sub-par team performance.

Conclusion

If you want your teams to reach their full potential, you need to foster a High Trust–Low Fear environment because people communicate and perform best when they feel safe and trusted around their leaders. Create a “psychologically safe” environment for everyone on the team.

It is only with a psychologically safe environment that you can foster the meeting of minds, incubate great ideas, and establish a crucible of performance excellence.

Hiring the wrong employee could cost the organisation dearly in terms of time, productivity loss, and opportunity costs, just to name a few. What most employers fail to realise is the enormous opportunity cost bad hires can potentially cause. The amount of time, resources, and money expended mitigating the fallout and negative impact of a bad hire could have been invested in other areas of the business to generate much needed returns and profits.

With the tanking global economy and shrinking revenues and budgets, hiring the right people becomes even more critical for organisations. It is imperative that those you hire into your organisation are able to cope with the additional workload, adapt to constantly changing and unpredictable environments, and be agile enough to handle unfamiliar and new challenges.

Most of us know the WHATs and the WHYs of hiring right. However most of us fall short when it comes to the HOWs. 

• How do you know if a candidate is the right one for you?
• How can you ensure the candidate actually possesses all the competencies you are looking for? 
• How do you craft effective interview questions so that you are able to find out more about your candidate? 
• How do you ask effective follow-up questions so that you dig deep into the candidate’s given answers? 
• How do you tell if a candidate is lying to you?

The Right Talent is precisely written for recruiters who are determined to weed out bad hires through effective hiring. Based on the CAAP® High Performance Model, the book addresses common mistakes and difficulties faced by interviewers and help them understand the interview process, prepare for the interview, and craft the ultimate interview questions using the Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach.

Click here to find out more

“Hiring someone, whether it is for a junior or senior position has always felt like a gamble. Some of the best hires I have come across hinged heavily on the hiring managers’ seemingly well-honed instincts. Their ability to read a person correctly and ‘listen to their gut’ is not as spontaneous or as random as they appear. It comes from years of experience in interacting with people and knowing what to look out for. Steven Lock’s Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach, empiricalises the interviewing process, making it possible for one to fast-track through the learning curve and achieve competence in the hiring process.”

Shirley Go
Global Marketing Manager, Cytec Industries

“A company is only as good as its people. For a start, you need to hire the best people. Steven Lock captured the essence of what is required to accomplish that. When I was a new manager, I used to follow my instincts when I was interviewing and hiring. As you may have guessed, the quality of people I hired was inconsistent. Over the years, I have learnt from my experiences and developed some tactics for successful hiring. Steven’s book reinforced these best practices and elevated my knowledge in this area to the next level. It is truly enlightening. He has converted hiring from an art to a science. He maps out the process in easy-to-follow steps to achieve the results you aspire. This book is a must-read for new managers and those who are serious in building the best teams for their company.”

Bernadette Ho
Regional Services Sales Director, Agilent Technologies

Click here to find out more

Looking to improve employee motivation, engagement and fire-up the passion of your employees?

Over the last decade, a lot of things have been said about employee engagement, motivation and passion, and most leader know the “Whats” and the “Whys”. However, most are still in the dark about HOW to actually engage, motivate and inspire your employees.

For instance, HR professionals talk about replacing “Exit Interviews” with “Stay Interviews” and Leadership gurus talk about leading teams with a purpose and vision, and communicating effectively.

However I would like to boil all of these down into 10 simple strategies that will enable you to motivate, engage and retain your best employees.

So here are 10 things I did with my team that kept my attrition rate at 0% and employee engagement at 100% and achieving 100% annual objectives for 10 years straight:

• I had regular personal conversations with each and every team member
• I genuinely cared for their professional career development and growth
• I genuinely cared for their personal growth
• I took pains to plan their career paths
• I regularly asked for their feedback, suggestions and comments
• I delegated important tasks and projects to them
• I encouraged them to run their own race
• I always gave credit where credit was due
• We celebrated every success
• We solved problems as a team

I did all of the above with each of my team members, and they rewarded me with loyal service, 100% engagement levels and achieving 100% of all our annual objectives – for 10 years straight.

It’s important to keep in mind that employee engagement is a two-way street, and to be successful, you as the manager or the leader need to be available, genuine and authentic. The fastest and surest way to kill employee engagement is to be arrogant, fake and ungenuine.

Do you need to do all of the above. The answer is YES.

However doing all 10 would be overwhelming for most people. So for a start, identify 2-3 strategies that you can implement immediately and then put them into action. When you experience positive results from the actions you took, identify another 2-3 strategies and put them into action.

If you do all of the above diligently, I can assure you that your employee motivation, engagement and retention will go through the roof.

 

---

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

---

It’s that time of the year again when performance appraisals are done, budgets are set and strategies are put in place.

This is the time of the year when you identify the weakest links in your team and identify the individuals who have not performed up-to-mark and decide what to do with them.

However, not all of us are comfortable confronting employees about their poor work performance, and not all of us are experts at conducting performance reviews.

And to add fuel to the fire, not all organisations provide the required training for leaders and managers to conduct proper performance reviews with their employees.

Many of us, as leaders and managers, often struggle with what to say, how to say it and what to do when it comes to performance reviews, especially with an under-performing team member.

So how should you approach the performance review of an under-performer and what can you do to ensure the performance review is effective and productive?

Here are some tips for you as a leader or a manager on how to approach a performance review:

Self-Reflection

Before you jump to the conclusion that the employee is a poor performer, you need to do a little self-reflection.

As Leaders and Managers, sometimes we get so caught up with our own objectives and agendas that we overlook the fact that disengaged employees and poor performers may be the direct result of our own actions (or inaction).

---

“As Leaders and Managers, sometimes we get so caught up with our own objectives and agendas that we overlook the fact that disengaged employees and poor performers may be the direct result of our own actions (or inaction).”

---

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do they have the necessary resources (tools, money, time, skills) to do their jobs?
• Have I provided them with the required guidance to do their jobs?
• Have I given them proper instructions for them to get their jobs done?
• Have I clearly communicated my expectations and objectives to them so that they understand what they need to do?
• What have I not yet communicated to them so they are able to get their jobs done efficiently?
• What might I have done to cause the employee to under-perform?

We need to accept the fact that not all under-performers are incompetent or disinterested in their jobs. We need to accept the fact that some employees under-perform because we as leaders and managers fail to provide them with the right environment, resources and the necessary support and guidance for them to excel. Many times, employees do not perform up to expectations due largely to our neglect and oversight.

Begin a Dialog

Start a one-on-one dialog with the employee in question. Your dialog should be focused on the possibilities and solutions rather than on the problems and the past.

Use the following STAGES* model to guide your dialog with your employee during the performance review:

S – Set the Stage

T – Be specific about the Topic

A – Ask for opinion

G – Give evaluation

E – Establish action plan

S – Set review date

First, set the stage for the dialog with the employee.

This is the time for you as the leader or the manager to outline and explain why this dialog is taking place and what the employee can expect from this session with you. This is your opportunity to establish the correct rapport and to create an appropriate climate for the dialog.

Second, be specific about the topic you want to discuss with the employee.

Clearly identify the topic for discussion and ensure the employee fully understands what you will be discussing. Avoid addressing too many topics or subjects during a single dialog. Be focused. It is best to focus on one topic at a time.

Third, ask the employee for his/her opinion.

Here you may ask for the employee’s self-evaluation or self-assessment of the issue or topic you are discussing with him/her. If this is a performance issue, ask for the employee’s self-assessment of his/her own performance in that area.

Fourth, give your evaluation of the employee’s performance.

This is when you provide the employee with your honest evaluation of his/her job performance. Remember to stick to the specific subject/topic/issue that both of you had agreed to at the beginning of the session. Do not digress. Focus on possibilities and solutions – not problems and the past. Remember, the aim here is to get the employee to move forward and to improve. So the focus should be on the options and possibilities.

Fifth, establish an action plan.

Agree on an action plan with the employee. It is important that the employee agrees with and is fully committed to the action plan. Ensure that the action plan is reasonable and actionable, so that the employee is able to work on it and make progress towards improvement.

Finally, set a review date.

Again, it is important that the employee agrees to the timeline and the review date. The review date should not be too far off into the future, nor should it be too soon that you do not allow sufficient time for the employee to take reasonable positive actions to make progress.

Review Regularly

Once the performance review is done, you need to follow-up regularly to ensure that the action plans you have agreed upon together with the employee is executed and done as agreed. Schedule regular mini-reviews between major review milestones.

One of the biggest mistakes most managers and leaders make is to put off consistent, regular reviews. Doing a review once a year or once every six months is not sufficient when managing an under-performer.

---

“One of the biggest mistakes most managers and leaders make is to put off consistent, regular reviews. Doing a review once a year or once every six months is not sufficient when managing an under-performer”

---

Consistent, regular reviews to ensure the employee is making positive progress and that the employee is taking concrete actions is extremely important if you want to see measurable and tangible improvements in performance.

Performance reviews need not be the dreaded year-end exercise leaders and managers have to go through with their employees. When approached and done correctly with the right attitudes, performance reviews can be a very powerful tool to motivate your employees and to re-kindle their passion for their work.

Share this article with your friends and colleagues!

 

*The Manager’s Coaching Toolkit by Dr. David Allamby

---

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

---

NOTE: This article first appeared on LinkedIn in June 2014.

There has been so much focus on Employee Happiness recently. There is even a National Workplace Happiness Survey Information Session coming up soon right here in Singapore to talk about – you guessed it – Workplace Happiness!

Not too long ago, I came across a blog on Twitter written by a senior consultant from a huge international HR consulting firm saying that Happy Employee = Successful Company.

It certainly sounds great at first glance and I’m certain that most people would agree with it.

However I respectfully disagree.

You see, it all depends on how you define “Happy Employee” and how you define “Successful Company”.

If you simply took this at face-value, you would likely come to the conclusion that as long as you keep your employees happy, they will do good work for you and positively contribute to the success and growth of your organization.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Happy Employees ≠ Successful Companies

I have worked in companies and organizations with very happy employees, but the performance of most employees were at best mediocre. Those companies were successful but they weren’t wildly successful. So what was holding these “happy” employees from performing at their best and taking their organization to new heights?

I have also come across companies that place too much emphasis on Employee Satisfaction (aka Employee Happiness) and they pull out all stops to ensure they get the highest scores on their once-yearly employee satisfaction survey results. And some of the things they do to desperately keep their employees satisfied are to organize dinners, social get-togethers and Karaoke sessions.

Unfortunately, most people – managers and organizations alike – have grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted the true meaning of “happy employee”.

The Case of a Happy Employee and a Very Unhappy Manager

I was recently told of an incident about a head of a department who chided a manager for not giving an employee the option to “consider??? being deployed to a branch office on a temporary assignment.

As I was told, the company had just set up a new branch and needed to deploy existing employees from the head-office to the branch.

The manager was not able to hire new employees due to a headcount freeze, and therefore had no other options but to redeploy existing employees from the head-office to the branch to ensure operations at the branch would proceed as planned on opening day.

However the employee who was to be assigned to the new branch objected violently and protested against being assigned to the branch.

The head of the department got to know about it and chided the manager for not considering the feelings of the employee who protested. And so the head of department sat down with the employee to “listen??? to her complaints. The final decision was to give the employee one month to decide if she wanted to accept the assignment to the branch.

The decision by the head of department to allow the employee one whole month to think about the assignment led to huge backlash that almost derailed the opening of the branch. And in the end, someone else still had to be assigned to take the place of the employee who protested!

So was the employee happy? Absolutely!

But was it productive? The answer is obvious.

Why did the head of department decide to give the employee a full month to consider the assignment? Well, you guessed it – their recent employee satisfaction survey results were not good!

So in a desperate attempt to do better in their next employee satisfaction survey, the head of department decided to pander to the wants and demands of his employees.

Know the Difference between Happiness and Contentment

It should be obvious by now that keeping employees happy does not mean pandering to their wants and demands, because pandering to their wants and demands may make them happy but is not going to motivate your employees to do their best for your organization. In fact, it will do just the opposite and will do more harm than good.

It is vital that managers and organizations understand that there is a fundamental difference between a motivated and genuinely happy employee, and one who is simply contented.

Employees who are genuinely motivated will naturally be happy with their jobs. They see challenges as opportunities to do better and to improve. They are always looking to do more and achieve more. Motivated employees are naturally happy and that in turn translates into higher productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.

In contrast, an employee who is simply contented will not be motivated to do a better job, to improve or to achieve more. Contented employees are happy (no pun intended) with what they have, happy with what they are doing and will not seek out challenges or opportunities to do and contribute more.

The Bottom-Line

Happy employees create a successful company – only if the employees are genuinely motivated and happy. Contented employees (who are incidentally also happy) do not contribute to the success of any company. Contented employees breed mediocrity.

So if you want your organization or department or team to achieve peak performance, you will need genuinely motivated and happy people doing the jobs they love. And in order to motivate people to love their jobs and the company they work for, you will require a certain type of leadership.

---

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

---

It was 1986. It was a cold January morning at Cape Canaveral.

Engineers had been frantically preparing for the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. On board the space shuttle were 7 crew members.

Just as in all previous launches, safety checks had to be done prior to the launch of the mission to ensure the space shuttle was perfectly safe before launching.

As part of the checks, Engineers working on the space shuttle had to sign-off a declaration that the space shuttle was safe to proceed. However, 4 Engineers had refused to sign-off on the declaration forms that morning.

At the height of the Cold War, the political pressure for this mission to proceed was huge. A lot were at stake. This mission had already been delayed several times and it would have been a huge political embarrassment to the United States Government if this mission did not take off again this time.

And because the political pressure was overwhelming, the Director overseeing the Engineers decided to ignore the concerns of those Engineers who refused to sign-off on the safety forms. Instead he signed-off on the safety forms for the launch to proceed.

We all know what happened to that ill-fated space shuttle that day. The space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of all 7 crew members. The space craft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean in a huge fireball, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Watch the live video footage here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSTrmJtHLFU

The reason for the disaster?

The O-Ring seal in its right rocket booster failed at lift-off. The failure of the O-Ring caused pressurised burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to escape and affected the external fuel tank.

The O-Rings were qualified only to 4˚C (40˚F). The temperature that cold January morning was -7˚C (4˚F).

So what lessons can we draw from the 1986 Challenger disaster?

The Challenger disaster has since been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.

Workplace ethics has become a critical competency in most organisations today. However cases where Bosses override the concerns of reporting team members still happen every day in the corporate world.

As a leader, do you have a habit of dismissing feedback and comments from your team members? Do you always insist on your own ways? Do you always think you know best?

If you are a boss or a manager of a team of experts or highly competent individuals, it usually pays to listen to the opinions and concerns of your direct reports.

The reason is very simply: Your direct reports have the expert practical domain knowledge that you may not have.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment today, it is impossible for any one individual to have all the answers, and it is impossible for any one individual to see all the different options and possibilities.

It is important to listen to their views, opinions and concerns and not dismiss their concerns prematurely. You need to solicit their feedback and expert opinions before you make any major changes or critical decisions.

Avoid becoming the next Challenger.