Model Class 2013

   Yesterday, I rushed off to attend my daughter's graduation after finishing a 3-day corporate training in Performance Management (PM) for Singapore's leading early childhood education and services provider.

   For my daughter, it has been a long and tiring school year, but she capped it off with very good results, distinction award in her CCA and a credible silver in NAPFA.

   More importantly, her graduating cohort of students and teachers, nominated her class "Model Class for 2013" - high honour considering it is an award garnered from both peer and teacher votes across the whole standard.

   Today in PM, many organisations are moving away from the traditional (supervisor only) review to a more balanced, unbiased and fair performance review by seeking inputs from other segments of the department and/or organisation.

   These peers (department colleagues or project team members), subordinates, other department managers, even partners - whom the staff being reviewed would have interactions with the past year, can also provide more insights into his/her performance, but more importantly, it can highlight other critical areas especially in key organisational values like integrity, teamwork, collaboration and innovation.

   These sorts of peer review, when done correctly, can enhance the performance review experience to ensure greater accuracy and fairness and in so doing, lead to better engaged and satisfied staff, who then have a greater chance of staying longer and performing for the organisation. In today's talent crunch, this makes good business sense.

   Is your organisation still in "traditional" mode? 

   Perhaps it's time to look at improving and enhancing your performance management system for better staff performance outcomes and also business results.

 

Shared Values (define a team)

Last month, I just finished one phase of a HR-consulting project with a client managing a growing beauty and F&B empire - in the last year alone, Singapore headcount increased by at least 30% and they are still recruiting and expanding.

It was no wonder then that the MD wanted to re-visit their company vision, mission, values - to ensure that they are clear(er) and perhaps more importantly, properly cascaded down through the entire organisation to each and every employee, not just the management ranks.
 
This reminds me of #13 of John C Maxwell's "The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork", published back in 2001, following his highly successful "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership".

John is known as America's expert on leadership and he wrote this follow-up in the hope of making teambuilding "simple to grasp, retain and (be) put into practice."

In it he writes about how "values can help a team to become more connected and more effective" and that "shared values are like" glue to hold people together so they can reach their fullest potential as a team, a foundation for teams to make (special) things happen, a ruler to help set the standard for team performance, a (moral) compass to help teams make (right) decisions, a magnet to attract like-minded people to the team and finally to allow the team to form a unique identity of their very own.

Are you ready to empower your team to business success?!

Policy Letter #4

I was doing a Managing Diversity module this week but this time, post BE2013 and the SGP White Paper, the messages and discussions seem more real, urgent and intense.

This was a group of future Chief People Officers* who will need to make sense of their own organisational diversity and make it work with their management and programs to drive innovation and employee engagement - hopefully, they will be as inclusive as possible.

In the D&I space, IBM is well referenced with their very established program, which is already far advanced to many organisations and even countries. They would be described as a "comprehensive proactive organisation" for their D&I initiatives.

For IBM's Diversity 3.0 to work, it has to be driven from the very top echelons of the corporation and cascaded thru the entire command and control function. They do it very well, cos they have been at it for sometime now...since the EO days to today's inclusive corporation.

A shining symbol of the values they espouse for their D&I initiatives can be traced back to this letter from former Chairman and CEO Thomas J Watson. They even did a very inspiring video.

This letter was written 60 years ago in 1953.

source: IBM

 

Diversity=about the "Mix", Inclusion=how the "mix" works well together!

Are you ready for a truly diverse and inclusive workforce?





*CPOP is registered to Human Capital Singapore

心想事成 , 万事如意

金龙腾飞辞旧岁 , 玉蛇起舞迎新春

Wishing One & All A Happy & Safe

Lunar New Year!

 

Season's Greetings

It's been a busy year but I am glad I ended it working on projects with new partners. It never is easy moving out of status quo / comfort zone to do new things, even for a consultant advocating embracing, managing and leading change. Ironic? No..., just human nature.

With the holiday season upon us, I would like to take this opportunity to thank partners, colleagues, clients for all their support this past year and wish each and everyone of you - A Blessed Christmas!

 

May you also have a Great & Safe 2013 ahead and let us not forget

"The Reason for the Season."

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

 

Leadership Vision

Last week, I spent 3 days at one of the training rooms inside the Supreme Court, working with a team involved in the legal industry on a leadership module about change management. Participants included the Chief Executive, Directors and Senior Managers.

On the second morning, as I waited patiently for security to check my credentials and clear my vehicle for entry and parking, I noticed a small visual display just above the card access slot, it displayed upcoming events of the week at Supreme Court like overseas visitors etc.

The other screen shot, perhaps reflective of the current state at the Singapore judiciary with a new Chief Justice just coming onboard on Nov6,  was a very poignant reminder to me about the role of leadership in managing and leading change. The message read as follows:

“ Vision without Action is a Dream …
                                           Action without Vision is a Nightmare.”

The power of visioning by leadership cannot be underestimated, especially in this age of employee engagement and with the different generations and needs at work, in particular the Gen Y.

The leading authorities on leadership are single-minded about this value.

In his seminal work on change management, John P Kotter shared his “8-step Change Model”  in his 2006 book Leading Change with one step being “creating a vision for change”.

Management guru Ken Blanchad also expounds on the topic of leading through change, shared about the need for leaders to provide an inspiring vision by “envisioning the future”.

Leaders must have clarity of purpose and be clear about how to go about achieving, in addition to providing guidance about the way it should be done. So ensuring clarity of vision, mission and values is NOT an out-dated notion, but a management imperative for continued organizational success.

I am currently consulting with the Managing Director (MD) and senior leadership team of a very successful  beauty and food & beverage group here in Singapore. The MD was recently named Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year 2012.

After more than a decade of tremendous growth and expansion, this life-style group finds value in re-visiting their vision, mission and core values to ensure better alignment across the entire empire by each and every employee, as they prepare to meet the challenges of today and grow in the future.

In the book “Roosevelt :  1940-1945 - Soldier of Freedom”, James Macgregor Burns wrote:

      “Where does leadership begin?... Where change begins.”

 

 

Maverickism

It was the call sign for the fighter pilot character played by Tom Cruise in the hit movie Top Gun which propelled him to Hollywood stardom.

And recently when I conducted a talent management training, the participants and I had a lengthy discourse about the pros and cons of having “mavericks” in the organization when I introduced the term to the more familiar mix of core contributors, high potentials, leaders and critical roles.

As Cruise’s character typically portrays – mavericks shun the dictates of the group, tend to be poor team players and generally low in the “agreeableness” quotient. Yet they also have other qualities that can save the day – as in the movie.

In a recent study due to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of New South Wales, Australia (UNSW), suggests that for businesses to be more competitive in the global market, they need to be more resourceful and make greater use of the talents of mavericks within their organizations.

Dr Elliroma Gardiner of LSE and Professor Chris Jackson of UNSW said in a statement dated 4th April 2012 that “being a maverick is more than just having an idea or a hunch pay off, it is about taking real risks and achieving in a way that is unique and unexpected”.

Mavericks are described as independent thinkers, creative problem solvers, quick decision makers, and goal-oriented individuals. They are open to new ideas and are risk takers, usually extroverts who are highly persuasive in gaining support for their ideas.

Real life mavericks in the corporate world include Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and also Sir Richard Branson - who started his own airline Virgin Atlantic to challenge the mighty British Airways, and which has become one of the more if not most profitable airline in the world.

Gardiner and Jackson go on to say that "understandably, some aspects of the maverick personality profile, such as risk-taking and low agreeableness, might make some hiring managers quite nervous. However, our research suggests that when combined with other traits, such as extroversion, creativity and openness, the results can be quite positive.”

Do you have a maverick in YOUR organization?