Author: Susan Stamm

Overall, I found this to be a very good book and there are many things I really enjoyed about it.  It’s fairly short and easy to read as the 42 rules are separated into 42 chapters and the whole concept of employee engagement is one which is very deer to me and an invaluable tool when it comes to leadership.  The book presents 42 easy to digest rules covering a good variety of topics. There are items that need you to focus on yourself and skills in order to perform well in your team then there are many more showing how you need to put your attention towards your team if you plan to engage them more in their work and for better performance.

I like how Stamm put specific actions you could put into place for each of the rules in order to get started and if you were to tackle each of those, this book would be a sure recipe for great engagement, and ultimately, great management as a result.  I know that management is an area that often gets looked upon poorly as a result of so many bad managers spreading those impressions, but Stamm breaks that with good advice and solid recommendations.  Everything covered is useful for being a better manager but it’s certainly not limited to managers. Many of the rules are things that any employee can do or at least strive to learn for a future role.

As with any book on engagement, I expect to see that it is about people, relationships and working on behaviors in those relationships, as that is what employee engagement is all about.  I am happy to say this book easily meets that expectation and in fact, I was quite happy to see the D.I.S.C. profile used to outline behavioral tools for the 4 quadrants of that model.  The one thing that I did not enjoy as much about this book is that it was hard to read because the rules were so individual.  They book could be read 2 pages at a time which is great for someone well distracted but I found the disconnected rules to be distracting on their own when I sat down to read though a number of pages.  I’d love to hear more on each subject and have the author ties the rules together more, as many are related but not presented that way in this short book.

Overall, it’s an excellent short book and one to be very useful if you don’t know much about employee engagement. I definitely recommend it. So whether you are interested in the book itself, this I recommend even more! The website covering the book’s content and reference site is excellent!  There are brief outlines for each of the 42 rules and there are templates available for excersizes on each of the rules.  This is an incredable resource on the subject so please do check it out and explore more about what this book and website have to offer!

Team Approach – 42 Rules Resources

42 Rules – Templates

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 1 Comment »

Why it is so hard for companies to find great leaders?

A guest post by By Dan MacDonald

When leaders are chosen, the decision is often based on the wrong criteria. Many look to people with strong, charismatic personalities, or passion for personal achievement. They may also look to people who are commanding or who manage the efforts of others well. Some people even look to physical attributes as an indication of leadership ability.

The misconceptions of what makes a person a good leader are not limited to these factors. They also include our choices of personality characteristics. Some see great leaders as people who can mesmerize a crowd with their stage performance, who can make those around them relax with their confidence, or who can think circles around other senior people in the organization. In reality, these traits and characteristics are not indicators of great leaders. Rather, great leaders are characterized by their focus on integrity over stage performance, passion for what is best for the company over self-importance, humility and passing forward credit over ego, and empowering their people over making decisions on their behalf. There have been numerous books written, researches conducted, and data compiled that point to these findings; however, even extraordinary companies with insightful, intelligent, and experienced boards of directors and senior executives have erroneously chosen leaders based on their perception of leadership capabilities.

Leadership Development at HP

Take Hewlett Packard for instance. In January of 1999, Hewlett Packard’s board of directors met in the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto, California to discuss, among other things, the rapid changes in business caused by the unsubstantiated growth of internet IPOs. There was concern among the board that changing times may call for a leader better suited to lead the company into the future. In his book, How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins summarizes this concern best, stating that, “HP’s stalling growth and languishing stock price relative to the skyrocketing technology sector lend credence to a growing worry that HP needed an entirely new type of leader”. At the meeting, Lewis Platt, then CEO of HP, suggested he retire early to make room for an appropriate leader. The board accepted and replaced him with Carly Fiorina, announcing in July of that year, that she would become the next CEO of Hewlett Packard.

Lewis Platt and the board of directors believed that a new CEO with a fresh perspective would help mobilize the company towards the rapidly-changing landscape of the technology industry. Fiorina, who once held Forbes magazine’s ‘Most Powerful Woman in Business’ title and had an impressive sales background as Executive VP at AT&T, was just the type of executive HP was looking for. In retrospect, it seems as though the board of directors may have erred in its judgment; during Fiorina’s tenure HP realized its first loss, its stock price fell from $45.36 to $20.14 and heavy job losses were incurred. In comparison, Platt, the Ford Taurus-driving down-to-earth former CEO, grew HP’s annual sales from $16.2 to $42 billion and earned Chief Executive Magazine’s distinction as the 11^th highest wealth creator of all time.

After closely examining HP, it becomes evident that leadership plays an important role in the rise or fall of an organization. Leaders can either drive organizations to market capitalization of hundreds of millions dollars or to losses as equally great. It is hard to dispute that leadership does not play a vital role in the success of a company, yet many organizations do not have systems in place to identify and develop potential future leaders.

Leadership Development at Wal-Mart

Consider Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart. From a young age, Walton displayed a natural ability to lead. In high school, he was the starting quarterback of the football team and never lost a game. He was Vice President of the student body in his junior year and President his senior year. He was voted ‘Permanent President’ of his graduating class in university. But Walton didn’t fit the standard description of a leader. He was not an Ivy League school graduate and did not hold an MBA. Walton was a humble, scrappy, pick-up driving country boy.

Walton went to work as a manager trainee at JC Penney three days after graduating university, marking the beginning of a passionate love affair with the retail industry that would help shape the remainder of his life and affect the lives of millions of people. At JC Penney, Walton embraced the customer centric JC Penney approach to retailing – especially JC Penney Ideas #2 and #3, guiding principles related to giving the customer the most value for their money. But Walton was not the most thorough employee; he hated making the customer wait while he completed paperwork, so his books were a mess. His boss often threatened to fire him, saying he was not cut out for the retail business. Walton managed to keep his position due to his ability as a salesman. After only eighteen months with the company, Walton resigned.

If JC Penney had systems in place to identify the leadership potential in Walton, they may have been able to entice him to stay and develop him into their future leader. Instead, he started his own department store which would rival and eventually surpass JC Penney in the quest for retail dominance. As many companies begin to adopt the ‘promote from within’ mindset, leadership development systems are becoming more and more common. The problem remains that many companies base their criteria for identifying future leaders on misconceptions of what makes a great leader.

Identifying Leaders

So the question remains—how do we create a system for identifying great leaders in the early stages of their development? Do we use psychometrics profiles to identify the leaders with the best traits and fast track them on a path to more senior roles? Do we let people inside or outside of the organization decide who will be the next leader?

Many experts have spent countless hours researching enduringly successful companies in order to develop a list of traits that might be an indicator of an individual’s leadership potential. These experts paid close attention to key characteristics commonly held by the leaders of these organizations. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, and Jason Jennings, in his book Think Big, Act Small, discuss the patterns that emerged in their research.

The patterns that emerged were often surprising even to the researchers. The researchers determined that great leaders were passionate about doing what was best for their companies. This drive for the advancement of the company took precedence over their drive for personal advancement and recognition. The leaders of these companies also exercised personal humility by passing forward credit and accepting blame. Additionally, they asked questions as often, if not more often, than they gave answers. This empowered their people to make important decisions which increased their confidence, skills, and commitment to the organization. These leaders also exhibited commonalities within their personal lives. Many of the leaders studied were extremely modest. They often preferred domestic cars or pick-up trucks over exotic sports cars. They also had a tendency to live in moderate houses instead of sprawling mansions or estates. Though humble and modest, these leaders were not meek. They tended to be stoic when it came to important business decisions. They would make tough decisions without great emotion and fanfare but rather with quiet resolve and determination. In short, great leaders are defined by their humility, integrity, determination, and strength of character, not by their stage presence and strength of personality.

The characteristics described above help in the development of a personality profile which can be used to identify strong leaders. Companies need to work to determine which other qualities are required for their particular company or industry. Once the leadership profile is complete, a company can begin building systems that identify these characteristics in its employees. There are many effective tools available to assist in this process including psychometric testing, 360 degree feedback, personnel assessments, and employee surveys. To achieve the best results, it’s important to combine a variety of these tools. As Shane Sabatino, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for The Brick LP Group said, when it comes to identifying potential leaders, “There really is no silver bullet”. Sabatino recommends incorporating a variety of assessment tools into the hiring and strategic planning processes. These processes should continuously evolve, however, they should continue to focus on identifying and developing leaders who possess the required traits.

Lasting Leadership

The question remains, “How do I know the right combination of assessment tools to implement?” To answer this question, it may be useful to examine companies which have experienced enduring success regardless of changes in their leadership. The Fortune 500 list is a great place to being your research. This annual ranking of America’s largest corporations has chronicled the spectacular rise and fall of hundreds of companies. If you compare the first Fortune 500 list published in 1955 to the most recent edition, you will find only 68 companies appear on both lists. Some of these companies have even appeared on this list every year. The exclusive list of companies who have achieved this continued success year after year include General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and Marathon Oil. It is no surprise to learn that each of these companies invests heavily in leadership development.

General Electric is world renown when it comes to leadership development. It is considered to be one of the greatest leadership development schools in the world, which is impressive for an organization that is not an educational institute. General Electric invests hundreds of millions of dollars in the continual development of their potential leaders and even has a school in Crotonville, New York, that is dedicated to achieving this objective. As part of their employment, senior leaders in the organization must dedicate time to teaching or learning at this school.

A.G. Lafley, former CEO and President and current Chairman of the Board of Procter & Gamble, takes leadership development seriously. He views leadership development as a source of competitive advantage for P&G. This makes it easy to understand why he spends over thirty percent of his time on leadership development. Lafley views effective leadership development as one of the most important components for the future success of Proctor and Gamble therefore, he is supporting a full leadership evaluation program that assesses how people lead and manage within the P&G organization.

Marathon Oil in another Fortune 500 company which invests heavily in partnerships with leadership and management training companies to help develop their executive team. They constantly conduct 360 degree evaluations and provide classroom training and online support to their management and leadership teams in efforts to help them develop.

Unfortunately, many organizations do not invest in leadership development until there is a pressing requirement for it. This is a poor and often ill-fated approach. A company cannot afford to be partially engaged in the development and identification of its future leaders. As JC Penney learned, great potential leaders can be overlooked by failing to fully engage in this process.

Dan MacDonald is President of Business Improvement Solutions (BIS), an Alberta based training and development company. He is the co-author of three books: Leadership, Management, and Success. To find out more about BIS visit www.bisconsulting.ca

Sources:

CNNMoney. (2009). Fortune. CNNMoney. Retrieved September 19, 2009 from the World Wide Web: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/full_list/401_500.html

Collins, J. (2009). How the Mighty Fall. USA: Harpercollins.

Entrepreneur. (2009). Sam Walton. Entrepreneur. Retrieved September 8, 2009 from the World Wide Web: http://www.entrepreneur.com/growyourbusiness/radicalsandvisionaries/article197560.html

HP. (2009). Executive Team. HP. Retrieved September 8, 2009 from the World Wide Web:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/bios/fiorina.html

May, R. (2005, November 15). Leadership Development as a Competitive Advantage. Business Pundit. Retrieved September 19, 2009 from the World Wide Web: http://www.businesspundit.com/leadership-development-as-a-competitive- advantage

Siegel, B. (2009). A.G. Lafley P&G. Siegel Innovations. Retrieved September 19.2009 from the World Wide Web: http://siegelinnovations.blogspot.com/2007/10/leadership-ag-lafley-procter-and-gamble.html

Walton, S. (1992). Sam Walton: Made in America. USA/Canada: Bantam Books.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 17 Comments »

Author: J. Barry Griswell and Bob Jennings

An Unconventional Guide to Achieving Uncommon Business Success

The Adversity Paradox is a fantastic business book.  It looks at how obstacles and setbacks in life (adversity) can create the experience a person needs to overcome such challenges and development themselves to improve their circumstances and prepare themselves to be better equipped in the future.  It’s a book with stories and a close examination of what are the main contributors to people overcoming tough circumstances in life to be successful.  It specific looks at this paradox of how great challenge and some times suffering can lead to so many later great things.  There are a number of factors in those challenges that if handled well allow a person to overcome it and turn things around.  This of course is not something that happens to everyone, but those that do overcome the paradox seem to have a lot of similarities and understanding them and learning from them allow each of us to better prepare for adversity and to achieve more.

Business Savvy

The book first looks at the term business savvy and explains it as those who understand how to do well in business, consistently achieve their business goals and to be proficient in the realm of business.  This is something you develop through practice and experience and there are a number of core competencies of a business savvy profile:

• Systems and linear thinking: Big picture perspective with ability to execute smaller consecutive tasks
• Continuous thinking: Having forward or visionary skills to steer and react quickly to future events
• Synthesizing: Able to turn data into meaningful and useful information
• Knowing what you don’t know: Seeing gaps, working to fill them through learning and through the help of others
• Communication: Solid skills to communicate at all levels
• Empathy: To recognize and understand the thoughts and feelings of others

“And Then Some”

Throughout the book the stories are shown to have each of the characters practicing an over arching theme where no matter what is expected, no matter what the circumstances and no matter how difficult something is, you should always work to go above and beyond which is described and doing the task or job “and them some”.  Always that little bit more.  Each of the characters practiced the idea of “and them some” and it continually payed off, not immediately, but eventually, it always payed off.  This is big contributor to overcoming these challenges.

This concept is put forth as a universal one where you can practice “and them some” in anything you do, which I personally think is a great message on its own in the book with or without the paradox of adversity.  If you gain anything from the book at all then I hope it is this concept since it is so simple yet so effective. I can’t stress enough how powerfully this is portrayed in the book and the chapter on “and them some” is easily worth the price of the book alone and I’ve already gone back several times to re-read pieces as it truly is brilliant!

Next, this chapter expands to look at the concept of “and them some” in a general sense of self improvement and outlines in text and pictures two main steps.

The first step, that any adversity has two options:

1. Wallowing and pessimism
2. Acceptance and analysis

It takes a step to progress from 1 to 2 and this is the key to overcoming adversity.  Move from 1 to 2 quickly and then get into the next main step of the self improvement process.

The second step requires using introspection (more on that below) to look specifically at the other human capital components to identify what can be done to better oneself.

Human Capital

1. Introspection

This is the practice of observing and evaluating oneself to assess your personality, goals, performance, ideas, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses.  This skills collides with our egos and so an honest assessment is very difficult and this skill takes time to hone.  One cannot truly assess the other human capital components until this skill develops.  However, it must be conducted with the help of what the authors call, “mirrors” or other people who can honestly provide feedback about our character and human capital components.  This understanding helps us grow and realize what we need to change to direct our efforts to improve ourselves.

2. Values

This component outlines the values and beliefs a person has.  What is it that they are founded in and can rely on for extended periods through their life. Matching your behaviors then with these lasting values is what allows you to stay consistent and stay on purpose through your career.  Doing what is right and good is outlined as an important factor to success and moral leadership is hinted at as something that defines true success.  I love that and I definitely agree with the authors that this component ought to have a spiritual foundation where the values steer a person towards a purpose in life and that only living that purpose can deliver true lasting happiness.  Ahh…

3. Work Character

It just keeps getting better and I particularly loved this component as its one that I have changed a lot with (my own introspection) and so now I value this component a lot to how it has impacted me personally and in my career.  Anyway, work character is outlined here as how committed and hard working you are.  Of course it goes deeper than that and to me its a lot about the attitude you have when it comes to work as well and its an easy place to practice the “and then some” concept from above.

4. Purpose and Passion

This one connects with work character because to have a good attitude about work while consistently working hard and always putting in a little more than expected, you really need to love what you do.  You need to find a way to enjoy your work and be passionate about it.  One line from the book that I think deserved far more attention is this piece of great advice:

The trick is to view work as a means to far greater benefits or enjoyment.

This is just brilliant and I hope that you take a minute to really think about that and your own work.  I personally can find joy in my work easily and be passionate about it because of that statement above, not always the work itself.  I find it troubling that people always say they work 1/3 of their lives so you need to love your work as its the majority of your life.  I hate that message and its really not true anyway.  People only work 17% of there entire lives so there is clearly much more to life than work.  Let your work feed your passions and bring your passions and purpose into your work, not the other way around!  Anyway, back to the book, purpose and passions are obviously important to have included in your work and they are definitely an important component in this human capital outline from the book.

5. Thirst For Knowledge

And the fifth component wraps this up well with a look at learning.  How appropriate as the enitre book is about changing from adversity and improving oneself to have business success.  This thirst for knowledge and the power of applying knowledge is transformational and can keep you on an upward success trajectory for life.  Life long learning is obviously something I write about often, I completely feel the same way about it as the authors and I too, have had that shift in my life where I realize life long learning is now a given for me, not some kind of band wagon I am on.  This type of realizating and the transformation it brings can be sparked by overcoming adversity through knowledge but its more than it, it feeds life long change, powers you to be excited about doing what you are asked “and then some” and it keeps you looking for more and more areas of introspection and building your work character.  Knowledge brings on curiosity and these thigns are absolutely essential to great business success.

Summary

So, I don’t have much criticisms about the book.  Personally, I thought that 80% of the content was packed into the first few chapters and the second half had lesser value but overall, the stories and expansions in the second half of the book certainly added more understanding and were still well worthwhile reading.  The first half is simply brilliant and I know I will be recommending this to more people and re-reading sections of it again.  The concepts and messages are realistic and can be applied whether the adversity is experienced first hand or not.  The book states, there are no secret insights, quick success steps or other tricks or promises, its straight forward and offers accounts from those tested with adversity to put those misfortunes to good use and gain business savvy from them.

I certainly learned a lot from the book and as you tell from this review, I loved the content and the message of the book so yes, I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in business success or really, any level of self improvement since the patterns can be studied and learned from in any area of life.

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 11 Comments »

This article is part of a series about the 7 ages of a business, an entrepreneur perspective, initially published at eDragonu.ro . The remaining 6 articles are published as guest posts on 6 other fine personal development and business blogs. You will find links to them at the end of this article.

Time For A Change

Exhaustion is by far the most difficult stage to accept from an entrepreneur perspective. Exhaustion happens when your market is so crowded that you can barely keep your profit and clients, when your employees can switch instantly from you to your competition (and vice versa), and when the market share is calculated in fraction of percents.

Exhaustion is usually the natural consequence of leadership. Every process in the world is a cyclic one and business can’t be an exception. After a high rise, a lower altitude will follow, after a huge inspiration, expiration will follow. These are metaphors for a rather harsh reality: during this stage your efforts will seem huge and your reward almost inexistent. It’s extremely difficult to accept exhaustion especially after the leadership stage when everything seemed to happen effortless.

From an entrepreneur standpoint, the exhaustion stage is much a like an old, small shirt. It simply doesn’t look good on you. You grew up and your shirt isn’t fitting anymore. Takes time to understand and accept that because we humans have a tendency to attach to our past images. An entrepreneur is often identifying himself with his business and can’t accept its decline. I know I did this mistake.

What To Avoid

Although you reached the end of the journey, there are still some things you can do to make it worse than it need to be. Here’s what I found better to avoid.

Salvage

The first reaction at this stage is trying to salvage your business. Although you came through all the stages, from enthusiasm to leadership, it seems that things aren’t running quite smoothly as before, so, you need to change something, you need to save your business. Well, you can’t. At least, you can’t go back to the leadership stage. Trying to salvage the business will often lead to risky solutions and will make it more unstable than before. Salvage will do more harm than good at this stage. The salvation process is mostly at the entrepreneur’s psychological level, the business is following a normal pattern.

Depression

That’s serious. Depression is one of the most common consequences for an entrepreneur reaching the exhaustion stage. You’re so overwhelmed with guilt and frustration, you’re trying so hard to come back on the game, you’re feeling so sad because the leadership days are over, that your psychological circuits can break. Depression is pretty common among entrepreneurs, although the images of entrepreneurs aren’t showing it. And it’s in the final stage of a business that is most likely for the depression to appear. Well, be prepared.

Conclusions

Jumping to conclusions is also one of the most common mistakes in the exhaustion stage of a business. Been there, done that, I don’t want to do it anymore. You’re analyzing your success level by the current business level. If the business is going so slow, you tend to think your success is not for real. That’s jumping to conclusion. You forgot how much you accomplished so far and tend to minimize your efforts. This is why is so important to assess your business experience during the leadership stage. Exhaustion is natural, but so is leadership, so stick with leadership and just accept exhaustion.

What To Do

Every crisis is in fact an opportunity. The business exhaustion phase is usually a powerful trigger for several really liberating activities. Here are some of them.

Exit

During the exhaustion stage and entrepreneur is almost forced to make an exit. I’m not talking about an investor or manager perspective here, which might be completely different, but about the entrepreneur’s desire to ignite things, to start something for scratch, to create. Exhaustion stage is like the click for a new adventure. I never met any serious entrepreneur who “survived” an exhaustion stage. Keep in mind that an “exit” can be done in million ways: you can sell all, just a part, remain investor, silent partner, etc.

Delegate It Big Time

If you’re not going to sell, which is highly improbable, the next best thing is to delegate it big time. Find somebody to run the business for you. It could be a person, another business (like in integrating your business with another one) it can be a group, it can be anything, as long as it gives you the freedom to start again. Delegating is not “exit”, if you’re delegating the business you’ll still have to exert some control over it, but at least you won’t be taking it as serious as before. Delegating wasn’t an option for me, after I hit the exhaustion stage I decided the best thing for me was to sell it completely. Your mileage may vary.

Accept It

That’s the most difficult yet most rewarding step you can take during this stage. Accepting that your business, your initial idea, has hit a certain level and it won’t go further will open your eyes to new roads. You can’t really run again if you don’t accept that you finished something, there will always be some lose ends that will make your running slow. Just accepting that you’ve done everything was to be done and you’re ready to start something new will be a great gift for yourself. Acceptance is the door to your new adventures. Entrepreneurship is not about money, it never was, it’s all about adventure.

Run Again

That’s the final stage of your business. It was a great journey. You started with enthusiasm, continued with a lot of trust and naivety, become attentive and then hit the maturity level. With courage and inspiration you expanded beyond your imagination and finally become a leader. It was an incredible journey.

There is only one thing that could level with that experience. And that is your next journey.

***

You can find the remaining 6 ages of your business on these fine personal development and business blogs:

• The Enthusiasm Business Age @ Attraction Mind Map
• The Naivety Business Age @ SmallBizBee
• The Attention Business Age @ Advanced Life Skills
• The Maturity Business Age @ Steven Aitchinson
• The Expansion Business Age @ Rat Race Trap
• The Leadership Business Age @ My Wife Quit Her Day Job

Guest Author:Dragos Roua is passionate about success, and he blogs at DragosRoua to share his insights about life’s many lessons and his travels and discoveries within it.  You can subscribe to his blog with his RSS feed here or catch him on Twitter @dragosroua

Posted by Mike King under Business | 16 Comments »

My last article I discussed how to use delegation specifically as a learning tool and why it is useful as one. I want to cover a few more benefits of delegation and give an outline on how to implement it and make it work for you. Its not an easy or comfortable thing to do at times but learning to do it well will improve your interaction with others as a leader and in any group where teamwork is important. And in additional to the learning capacity of delegation, it provides other benefits as well.

• Increase your productivity and that of the people you work with
• Provide motivation and opportunities to others
• Increase your own time available on a smaller focused set of tasks

Roadblocks to Delegation

A number of things are regular roadblocks to delegation and are important to eliminate before you can ever master delegation.

I can do it faster myself

This thinking and attitude is a major roadblock for delegation. Just because you may be able to do it faster yourself one time, doesn’t mean that you will always be faster at it, nor have time to do it every time. It often seems that delegation may be an option for something that at first seems like a one time event, but it almost always crops up again where you end up in the same situation, thinking that you will just have to do it yourself again. Getting past this mindset and looking at ways to delegate things out to others gives you more options when it comes up again and frees some of your time even when it is first delegated. It may very well take longer for someone else to do, but only the first or second time, they will get faster and then there are two of you able to do the same task, or to do it twice as fast. It definitely increases productivity so take note of anything you think you can do faster yourself and explore options to delegate that out without whatever help and training you need to provide to make it happen.

If I teach someone to do my job, I won’t have one!

This is wrong in so many ways. Not only is it generally a career limiting move to try to protect your own position but its obvious to others. Anything you are not willing to let go and you hold onto yourself is a risk in your bosses eye. No one wants to have a single person the only person able to do something, and when those people exist, they are the greatest threat to the organization, not asset. Once you start using delegation effectively, you will be using the time, skills and experience from other people, not just yourself! The fear of loosing your job by delegating and training portions of it is completely unjust. This provides you more time to do planning, problem solving and training that will allow you advance in an organization. If you have trained others to do your job, you open doors for promotion since there is someone to transition into your old role. This is opposite what most think and so changing your thinking and attitude about delegation will kill this common roadblock.

Effective Delegation Steps

I had this list of steps in my last article, but I wanted to show them again and elaborate on a couple of them in particular.

1. Identify something that someone else could do that you currently do yourself
2. Pick someone who is able to take on that new delegation
3. Discuss and make clear that you need that persons help and give them the reasons you picked them
4. Describe what you would like them to do and what the benefits are
5. Have them paraphrase and repeat in there own words to ensure they understand
6. Brainstorm and discuss any resources or training needed and who can provide that
7. Plan some actions to get started
8. Agree on how to report back on the delegation

Step 1 – Identify something to delegate

To accomplish step 1, list your activities in your role and critique them as to if they must be done , should be done or could be eliminated . Focus your time on the must be done items and look at the should be done items to delegate, leaving the could be eliminated to be eliminated. Of those items, determine which you must do personally, which ones someone else could do and what items can be simplified or broken down into smaller pieces to delegate.

Step 2 – Pick someone who can take it on

This would generally be a person who will be best at the job but it never needs to be limited to that. Since delegation is such a great learning tool, its often someone who isn’t yet good for the task and the delegation will be an opportunity for them to learn and improve in that area. Don’t limit your options here, there is room to delegate to almost anyone, you simply need to look at how to break down the tasks to something manageable for that individual. More on this in Step 8.

Step 3 and 4 – Discuss why you need it and what you need in detail

Be honest with your reasons here and explain why you are asking them. If your reason is based on that person being best for job, tell them that. It helps them to accept the task when its complimentary and a way to prove themselves. If its not complimentary and perhaps just a normal part of the job, its still important to relay the reasons why it is important and what benefits it has. You should always have some more details about the task when you ask for help. If they say yes, then you can go into those details. If they say no or want to know more, you have more to add instead of a dead end. You want to be able to convince them and get them agree to help before you are out of benefits and reasons why you are delegating to them.

Step 5 – Have them paraphrase your expectations

Telling someone what you expect isn’t very valuable unless you know they understood you. This goes without saying for all communication so make a habit of having them paraphrase it ALL back to you to ensure they understand what they need to do for the delegated task. Remember that delegation is a transfer of responsibility, so ensure they are accepting it themselves. They should be using phrases like, "I will do…" and "I’ll complete this by…" and never the word we. You should not be included in the responsibility so listen for this when they are paraphrasing back to you. If you skip this paraphrase, you can never tell if they have really accepted the responsibility.

Step 6 and 7 – Brainstorm and generate some plans

This step is what you do with the person to help them transition and take on the new tasks. Be careful you don’t get other resources involved and owning any responsibilities, they need to stay as resources to the person being delegated to. Help suggest people and other sources of help, perhaps the same ways you learned it, or techniques and tricks you’ve learned with experience that can save them headaches in taking on these new responsibilities. Another important point here is to not tell them what resources to use, let them decide for themselves. Everyone learns best in different ways and their style will likely not match your preferred style to don’t force them into your style of learning. Give them options and let them decide how to proceed with it. You can offer your opinion if they ask or let them know that you have a suggestion if they want it, but leave it to them as much as possible. This is an important coaching tool to ensure that the actions of picked by the person responsible for them.

Step 8 – Define reporting

I think this is the most crucial step in using delegation effectively and is most often ignored or done poorly. If you don’t have the appropriate level of reporting in place with delegation you will quickly find yourself disappointed or the new tasks dropped with no attention put to them. The ability of the person you delegate to will determine the level of reporting you need. This varies hugely and is why most times delegation doesn’t work as people usually wrongly assume that everyone will take a task and that’s the end of it. That is definitely not the case most of the time. I learned these degrees in freedom with reporting in a supervisory course I’ve done and I think they are the key to effective delegation.

1. Act and report routinely – Completely independent work with reporting included with existing reporting practice, no additional frequency required. You can completely trust a person to own and deliver on a delegated task at this level.
2. Act and report immediately – Provide only coaching help to improve them or when they are struggling with anything. Expect that the person will be reporting regularly and immediately for any problems that arise.
3. Seek approval, then act – Support with training and have them report back, get approval and then act on that before returning for more. At this level, the person is learning to take things on and make some decisions themselves.
4. Wait until told – Provide the direction for the person and all decisions. Have them do the tasks and return when completed to learn what is involved and begin understanding what you expect at each step.

You start at the bottom and work your way up to level one reporting. In any team that has delegation, the more team members there are higher up the list, the more productive they will be and the better results you will get. You need to use ensure, however, that you are starting people at level 4 and moving up the list. Delegation will fail if you let or expect someone to report at level 1, but are only capable or familiar enough to do this at level 3. To make delegation work and to get better and better at it, you need to learn how to recognize where the best level of reporting is and work with people using feedback, coaching and training to move them up to higher levels.

Posted by Mike King under Business | 5 Comments »

Author: David Vise

The Google Story is a great story and covers everything Google has done to be where they are today. Its covers a wide range of everything Google without getting into too much technical detail and at the same time, not focusing entirely on the business or financial side. If you are looking for only one or the other in great detail, you won’t find it here, this book covers everything. Its written by a journalist and he obviously had some insider access to develop the story and tell many things from the perspective of the founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The book demonstrates how consistent the founders have been to develop the search giant by building upon their vision of delivering a product focused on solving the problem of search, as globally as it gets. The attitudes and mantra of “Don’t Be Evil” is carried well through the book as well and evidence is seen in the many decisions made by Brin and Page to grow Google in a particular way.

While the story covers some of the problems that Google has faced and reasons why some people don’t like it, ultimately this book is a success story about Google. Come to think about it, it doesn’t really matter how you want to criticize Google, they are still extremely successful! So, don’t expect to read a bunch of insider info to help tear down or bash Google. They have done a lot of things right and also done a lot of things some people don’t like, every company has that. Now, I personally like Google very much and use it all the time, but I’m not a fan just to be a fan. The book was rather interesting as I’ve never looked into the full story of Google or kept up with all of its related news over the years and I certainly didn’t know half of the things in the book about the Google culture and how it became what it is today. I thought that was the most interesting and hopefully something that I can take a piece of and have more impact with in my own company.

So I think the book is well worth reading and many things can be learned from it about driving a company towards a vision with a unshakable attitude and mindset about HOW that can be done. If you’re a die hard Google fan and read every story published about them, you probably won’t learn that much, but if your interested and expect to learn great lessons about business, marketing and entrepreneurship, then the Google Story is well worth it!

Posted by Mike King under Book Reviews | 1 Comment »