Research
Here are this past week's headlines in leadership development:
Adjusting leadership development programs and marketing of learning and development opportunities to help leaders motivate and retain Mission- and Career focused employees, based on data from a recent Booz Allen Hamilton & Center for Creative Leadership study
The Center for Creative Leadership and Booz Allen Hamilton conducted research to identify the relationship between why people are in their current positions and how motivated and committed they are to their organization. The results shed new light on what drives employees in public and private institutions, and how leaders can motivate and retain employees through continuing complexity and change. It may not be headline news that employees are motivated both by the opportunities they have and by their leaders' behaviors, but the ramifications for what to do about retaining employees is something that many organizations should address and could address in their leadership development programs. Effective leaders in all types of organizations can influence employee motivation by helping find good learning and development opportunities for them and by leading more effectively — and this point is an easy way to help connect the efforts of those in L&D with managers who would appreciate the tip. In the leadership development programs, the study shows, it's important to help leaders be able to recognize and act on different employee motivations, ensuring that they provide opportunities that appeal to Mission- and Career-focused employees, and that they look for ways to alter the perceptions — or the realities — of employees stuck with no options. One of the most important actions leaders can take is to help employees find opportunities that will help them build a career and support the mission. Opportunities to develop new and better skills are critical to motivation and retention in the workplace. This research indicates that having access to learning opportunities is strongly related to being engaged at work for Mission-focused and Career-focused employees. Both types reported that they had access to learning opportunities, but Mission-focused employees reported having more access and also felt more committed to the organization than did Career-focused employees. Learning opportunities, such as those described below, may not always directly result in employees being Mission focused, but our research shows that those employees who say they have more access to learning are more committed to the organization's mission. Read the Booz Allen Hamilton article on this study, "Leading for Employee Motivation"
The connection between guilt, responsibility, and leadership potential: new research from Stanford Graduate School of Business
When we think of a typical leader, most of us picture a person who's gregarious, outgoing, upbeat, and sociable. But new research puts a wrinkle in that stereotype, revealing an unexpected sign of leadership potential: the tendency to feel guilty. "Guilt-prone people tend to carry a strong sense of responsibility to others, and that responsibility makes other people see them as leaders," says Becky Schaumberg, a doctoral candidate in organizational behavior who conducted the research with Francis Flynn, the Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University. The research suggests that although guilt feels unpleasant to the individual, it can be quite beneficial for the group, causing people to do what's good for the group at personal cost — and sometimes even at the expense of other individuals. "If people feel guilty toward their organizations, they’ll behave in ways that make sure they live up to the organization’s expectations," Schaumberg says, "and these behaviors might not look like what we usually think of as guilt." Schaumberg first began investigating a possible link between guilt and leadership when she noticed that driven, hard-working people often mentioned guilt as a motivator. This research may alter the way that leadership development assessments and leadership aptitude surveys are conducted, and should be kept on the radar. Read the Stanford article "Why Feelings of Guilt May Signal Leadership Potential"
Leadership skills for the 21st century: two professors from MIT/Sloan explain how big data analysis can be used to help improve leadership effectiveness
In the MIT Sloan Executive Education course Big Data: Making Complex Things Simpler, MIT professors Erik Brynjolfsson and Alex Pentland suggest the changes to leading and managing that Big Data wll bring to organizations and businesses. At a recent session of the course, Brynjolfsson and Pentland argued that just as revolutions in science are preceded by revolutions in measurement, so, too, are revolutions in business preceded by revolutions in measurement. And indeed, Big Data today is enabling a measurement revolution within the business context. Brynjolfsson and Pentland describes the emergence of the extra-rational manager: someone who listens to reason and the spoken word, but also uses new observational tools to monitor communication patterns that have little to do with rational decision-making. Could managers improve their ability to manage if they knew who is talking with whom, and how often, and where these conversations are taking place and what the tones of these interactions are? New approaches to monitoring communication patterns — through the use of sociometric badges that measure people’s proximity, location, face-to-face interactions and social signals — are revealing valuable patterns and relationships that have a direct and measurable impact on individual and team performance. Read the MIT Sloan Review article, "The Emergence of the Extra-Rational Manager"
No major news in mergers, acquisitions, or product releases.
Every organization, large or small, expends time and resources in training its partners, vendors, and customers. This is only natural, since it is in the best interest of any organization that its product or service be optimally deployed or consumed. When the value and utility of a company's offering becomes fully appreciated by all stakeholders, then the road to success in marketing and selling becomes that much smoother. In spite of this being common knowledge, training efforts are often less than fruitful because a company's partner or vendor education organization is either loosely structured or not leveraged to its full potential. Training efforts therefore tend to pack a lighter punch than they should, or could. With the right knowledge and insights, companies can streamline processes, increase revenues, and reduce expenses for their customer and partner education organization. The authors Terry Lydon and Mitchell Levy offer a few good tips on how to address this imbalance in their book #SUCCESSFUL CORPORATE LEARNING tweet Book01: Profitable Training by Optimizing Your Customer and Partner Education Organization. Buy now
Goal-focused Coaching: Theory and Practice offers a comprehensive, practical guide to goal-focused coaching. Addressing a significant gap in the literature, Ives and Cox contextualize goal-focused coaching within the broader coaching framework and explain the efficacy of this approach across a number of contexts and applications. The book draws on behavioral science, rather than humanistic psychology, to provide a well-researched, evidence-based guide that includes: 1) a detailed examination of the theoretical underpinnings of this approach; 2) a discussion of the skills, models and formats for goal-focused coaching; 3) cutting edge insights into barriers to coaching and managing the coaching relationship and 4) summaries, vignettes, references, and diagrams to aid learning. Because my learning and development professionals will need to have some command of the approach, this book is a good one to have on the shelf. Buy Now
Techtonic Shift in HR technology (Online Conference)
Date: Tuesday - Wednesday, June 5 and 6, 2012
Presenter: Jason Averbook (Knowledge Infusion) and Naomi Bloom (Bloom and Wallace) Register now
Social Learning: Develop Your Strategy
Date: Jun 19, 2012 - 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET
Presenter: Taleo Register now
Empowering future language learners: Formal and informal language learning through social media
Date: Jun 28, 2012, 11:00-12:00 Central European Time / 5:00 - 6:00am ET
Presenter: P.A.U. Education Register now
Gamify Your Training: Use Gamification to Increase Employee Engagement and Improve Feedback
Date: Thursday, August 2, 2012, 1pm ET
Presenter: Greg Greunke, President, Tuzooni & Greunke Register now
National Institute on the Assessment of Adult Learning
Date: June 6-8, 2012
Location: Atlantic City, NJ, USA Register now
2012 International Conference on Knowledge and Education Technology
Date: June 7-8, 2012
Location: Paris, France Register now
Leading Across Generations: Workforce Challenges and Opportunities
Date: June 13-15, 2012
Location: Berlin, Germany Register now
The Talent Management Summit
Date: June 14, 2012
Location: London, UK Register now
Gamification Summit
Date: June 19-21, 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA Register now
2012 ICOI The International Conference of Organizational Innovation
Date: July 10-12, 2012
Location: Indonesia Register now
“I’m grateful to be in this network. The calls I had with other members gave me the information I needed to move my project forward.”
Annette RollsLeadership Development Program Designer, Boeing
“We were able to realize almost immediate value—in terms of definitively quantifiable savings—by implementing the concepts introduced during this [Art of Negotiation] program.”
Ken MurphyEVP of Sales and Operations, Mattress Firm
“In my particular case, I certainly care about the HR functions, but that’s not why I wake up every day. I care about advancing the ball down the field with our people’s professional development skills and knowledge. You guys focus 100% on the learning piece, and that’s what I like.”
Jim StewartCLO, Teradata
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