Labels – why they “are” and “are not” important

The 9th Planet

Growing up in the 1970′s I had a fascination with Pluto.

It was cool.  It was the farthest planet from the sun.  It was the smallest planet.  It’s orbit intersected with Neptune’s and sometimes was closer to the sun and other times further away – but it would be 100′s of years before that happened since it takes over 200 years to orbit the sun.  It was the last planet discovered and it was discovered because they were looking for planet X.  It was cold and icy and mysterious.

I mean it couldn’t get much cooler.

The only downside was that Mickey Mouse’s dog was named after it…

But then, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded Pluto from the 9th planet to a dwarf planet.

Now, the basic make-up of Pluto hadn’t changed.  It’s orbit was still the same.  It’s size the same.  It’s history hadn’t suddenly been altered – but Pluto was no longer a planet.

And now, my son, who was born in 2006, will never know Pluto as the 9th planet.  It will be just one of the many dwarf planets that are in the Kupier belt and not even the biggest one.  He won’t be reading about it in any of the new solar system books.  He will grow up in an 8-planet solar system.  Our knowledge of the solar system changed, and with it, so did Pluto.

But Pluto is still Pluto – only it’s label has changed. 

3 letters

I started my PhD process in 2003.  It took me 8 years to finish.  Over those years, I learned a lot and my experiences grew (mostly in the first few years where I was taking classes and researching my topic and less in those last 5 years when I was trudging through writing my dissertation).  However, the difference in knowledge and skill the day before I earned my diploma and the day after I earned my diploma was zero.

But people looked at me differently – my label had changed. 

I taught the same sessions.  I did the same consulting work.  Yet, I was now viewed as an expert.   I had three letters after my name and that gave me clout and authority.  It actually changed the way that they experienced the information that I shared with them. 

People who didn’t know me prior to my PhD would never know that I was once just one of the many struggling students out there working hard at getting their dissertation done.  To them, I was Dr. Nelson.  Just as my son won’t think of Pluto as a planet, these people will not think of me as anything but having a doctorate.

And that changes how they perceive me.

But I’m still me.  Pluto is still Pluto.  We just have different labels…but those labels change how people view us.  They can change the dynamics that we have with individuals – how much attention we get, how much credence is placed on us, and how they interpret the information that we provide.

And remember, we place a lot of labels on people: president, chairmen, all-stars, diva’s, minister, deviants, heroes, just to name a few.   Those labels impact how we interact with those people – but underneath it all, we need to remember that they are still human beings.

More info on Pluto here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

How We Are Developing a Reward and Recognition System using the 4-Drive Model

I’m consulting with a 12 Billion dollar sales division of a Fortune 500 company regarding the future of their reward and recognition system.  Without going into much detail, they are trying to take a strategic approach to how they can improve the effectiveness of their reward programs.  As part of this process, we are using the 4-Drive Theory as a model to help guide how we build this system.

As one can imagine, the organization’s current reward and recognition programs rely heavily on the Drive to Acquire & Achieve.  By far, this was the predominant focus for over 90% of the components.  Additionally, our research showed that the current system has a number of legacy programs and other recognition items that are no longer strategically aligned with the organizational mission.

There are a number of ways that a reward system can be developed.  We aligned on developing a system that would tap into all four of the drives and focus on motivating actions on three specific sales behaviors.  With this in mind, we wanted to create a framework that would leverage various reward and recognition components.  That framework is shown below:

Within each of these four components could be a number of different programs that would be focused on driving one or more of the desired behaviors.  We also identified that while any of the components could activate any of the four motivational drives, that particular drives would be more readily activated by programs within specific components.  We’ve mapped this below:

So while both the incentive compensation and the non-cash components easily activated the drives to acquire and challenge, group trips and other recognition were more likely to tap into the drives to bond and defend.   This provided us with a framework to think about how we could leverage all four drives with various reward and recognition programs.

While this is a high level perspective, it does provide a company with way to think strategically about their reward and recognition system that aligns it with the 4-Drive Model.  We were able to map out specific programs within this framework that provided both a means for effectively driving behavior as well as leveraging all four drives.

To our knowledge, this framework has not been used previously within a large company.  We are very excited about how this is being applied and the impact that it will have.
Please let us know if you have any questions or thoughts by leaving a comment below.   Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Change Happen

Change is hard.  In fact, it is damn hard.  Yet we are being asked (or forced) to change more frequently than ever – in both our personal and business lives.  The world is moving and changing faster than at anytime in our history.  Think about it, five years ago, no one owned an iPhone.

Most people don’t like change.  We fight it.  We avoid it.  We dismiss it and hope that it will just go away

Change often makes us uncomfortable.  It alters how we do things, how we think about things, how we perceive things.  It causes us to change habits that we’ve been perfecting for years and years.  Change often replaces things that we’ve held dear for a long time – with new things that we are uncertain about.

Example: I used to advertise in trade journals.  Now we focus more on social media and the web.  Because I’m not alone in this shift, trade journals are forced to change how they do business or go out of business.  They have to overcome a paradigm shift and explore unknown avenues of generating business.

So what separates those companies that are successful at change and those that are not?

Great leaders

Great leaders understand that change is hard.  They know that just issuing a command from up-top isn’t going to be enough to make change happen down in the trenches.  They understand that they need to work at changing the systems and environment in the workplace to allow change to happen. Great leaders understand that they need to show why change is necessary and important – not just for the stockholders, but for the workers and the customers.  Successful change requires a multifaceted approach that requires fortitude to keep with it and not revert back to old ways of doing things at the first sign of resistance or negative results.

Focus on people

All the companies that I’ve worked with that were successful with change did one thing really well – they focused their energy on their people.  When a large division of a telecommunication firm implemented a major new computer system and software that impacted their sales force, they spent months in communicating, training, and listening to their employees.  They adapted their processes not only because of the new systems capabilities, but to help drive the adaption of the system with their employees.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Look at any book on organizational change and you will see that communication is vital.  Companies that are successful at change make sure that they over communicate elements about the change to their employees, their suppliers, their customers and often even to the general public.  Successful communication tells a story and starts to impact the culture – not only explaining the “what” and the “how” but the “why” and “impact.”

Make change as easy as possible

If I’m on a diet, I don’t want to be tempted by the ice cream in the freezer so I don’t buy ice cream and keep it in the freezer.  In the same way, companies that do change successfully take away those elements that could entice workers to not change.  They focus on getting the right people working together with the right tools and with the right incentives.  Too often I’ve seen change initiatives that do a great job of being led by management, having training and communications reinforce the key messages, and then fall flat because the recognition or incentive system hasn’t been changed or wasn’t changed enough.  For instance, a large company was trying to change the sales culture to one of great customer service and they even added in a metric to their incentive plan around customer satisfaction.  However, the sales team quickly realized that sales results still drove the majority of the incentive plan and trumped the customer measure hands down.  Needless to say, the focus on customer service was more lip service than getting that next sale.

Let me know your thoughts and your experiences with change – good and bad…

Are you spending more on office cleaning than staff motivation?

There was a recent blog from HRZone UK that claimed, “Blog: Most employers spend more on office cleaning than staff motivation.”  I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this statement or info in the article.

That being said, accuracy is not the point.  The point is, you get what you pay for – right?  So what is it that your organization is paying for?

How is your company spending its money?  Is it on it’s people or on systems?  Is it on sales or is it on customer support?  R&D or discounts to suppliers?  The money often points to where the focus is for your company?

Two things that I often do when working with companies trying to improve their employee motivation is 1) interview key leaders to understand what the key drivers of the business are and 2) conduct a total rewards audit.   I use step one of this process to get at the underlying drivers of the business.  This often isn’t the first thing that comes out of leaders mouths.  In fact, it usually requires me to probe with them to really get at the root cause.  This understanding of the key drivers is vital to being able to motivate the appropriate behaviors and performance.  What we find in step two of this process is that the company’s Total Rewards are NOT in alignment with the key drivers.  In other words, companies are often spending their money on things that are not key to driving their success (similar to the clean office analogy in the HR Zone article).

This is not a good way to spend money.

Hopefully your company isn’t doing this.  But a simple way of finding out is to look at where you are spending money and then seeing if that aligns with the key drivers of the business.  If it aligns, you are doing well, if not, you have a problem.

Here is a link to the HR Zone article if you care to give it a glance: http://www.hrzone.co.uk/topic/managing-people/blog-most-employers-spend-more-office-cleaning-staff-motivation/119615

Have a great day!

The happiness advantage

Tying into the video from yesterday, this presentation by Shawn Achor, author of “The Happiness Advantage” reminds us that we are fulfilled and happy, not because we are successful, but we are successful because we are fulfilled and happy.  Again, we need to focus in on the journey.

Take a moment to think about how this applies to motivation and to work?  How do we instill happiness as a part of our job role?

In the 1990′s, I was introduced to Appreciative Management and Inquiry as laid out by Dr. David Cooperrider.  In his books he identified that many organizations and leaders focus in on the negative.  What get’s attention in the business world, is not so much the successes, but when we make a mistake.  Think about the last time you got a call from your boss or boss’s boss – was it when you achieved your sales target or when you missed it?  Which had more salience for you?  Organizations, Cooperrider contends, need to do a better job at focusing our thoughts and effort on the positive.

When we look for the positive inside organizations (positive inquiry) we tend to find positive things.  This reinforces our mindset and we start seeing the positive things all around us.  Restating the line from Field of Dreams, “if you look for it, you will find it.”  It is a reinforcement loop that helps us weather the downturns and firestorms that always occur.

We all need to start looking for the positive things in our lives – both at work and at home.  I start by trying to be grateful for something everyday.  You can try it too.

A big hearty thanks goes out to Bob Ebbers of Workplace Stars for sharing the Shawn Anchor video with me – as Bob said, “Enjoy this gem!”  I couldn’t agree more!

Leave a thought by clicking on the comment section below!  Come on – its fun.

Who do you want to be?

This short film from Nic Askew has a few good points in it (and it is just plain fun).  I think that we are all someone on a journey…and the best learning is the learning we take from everyday.  Enjoy!

 

http://soulbiographies.com/the-perilous-journey/

Leadership blindspots and how to avoid them

Blindspots.

In cars, we have blindspots where we can’t see what is going on right around us.  The larger those blindspots are, the more dangerous.  We can have blindspots in our life as well – things and behaviors that we do that we don’t understand or appreciate the impact that they have on others and in ourselves.

In her book, Fearless Leadership, Loretta Malandro, PhD., identifies  10 behavioral blindspots that can derail leaders.  The following slideshare builds off of those 10 blindspots and helps to figure out ways to get past them and become fearless leaders.