Sunday, November 7, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves
By Marshall Goldsmith
As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren't ready yet?
In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as "partners" rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders do not want to give up control.
I knew a CEO who was the leader of one of the world's largest global organizations. He received feedback that he was too stubborn and opinionated. He learned that he needed to do a better job of letting others to make decisions and to focus less on being right himself. He practiced this simple technique for one year: before speaking, he would take a breath and ask himself, "Is it worth it?" He learned that 50% of the time his comments may have been right on, but they weren't worth it. He quickly began focusing more on empowering others and letting them take ownership and commitment for decisions, and less on his own need to add value.
Your employees understand their jobs. They know their tasks, roles, and functions within the organization, and it's time for you to let them do what they need to do to get the job done. But there is a critical point that is often missed: It isn't possible for a leader to "empower" someone to be accountable and make good decisions. People have to empower themselves. Your role is to encourage and support the decision-making environment, and to give employees the tools and knowledge they need to make and act upon their own decisions. By doing this, you help your employees reach an empowered state.
The process does take longer — employees will only believe they are empowered when they are left alone to accomplish results over a period of time — but it's effective and worth the time. If a company has a history of shutting down or letting go of initiators, for instance, the leader can't just tell employees, "You are empowered to make decisions."
Part of building an empowering environment is dependent on the leader's ability to run interference on behalf of the team. The leader needs to make sure people are safe doing their jobs. To make sure this happens, an ongoing discussion of the needs, opportunities, tasks, obstacles, projects, what is working and what is not working is absolutely critical to the development and maintenance of a "safe" working environment. You are likely to spend a lot of time in dialogue with other leaders, employees, team members, and peers.
Following are a few things leaders can do to build an environment that empowers people.
Give power to those who have demonstrated the capacity to handle the responsibility.
Create a favorable environment in which people are encouraged to grow their skills.
Don't second-guess others' decisions and ideas unless it's absolutely necessary. This only undermines their confidence and keeps them from sharing future ideas with you.
Give people discretion and autonomy over their tasks and resources.
Successful leaders and managers today are willing to exercise their leadership in such a way that their people are empowered to make decisions, share information, and try new things. Most employees (future leaders) see the value in finding empowerment and are willing to take on the responsibilities that come with it. If future leaders have the wisdom to learn from the experience of present leaders, and if present leaders have the wisdom to build an environment that empowers people, both will share in the benefits.
There are many more things that leaders can do to build and environment that empowers people. Please send any ideas you have. I would love to hear them!
Copyright © 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.
As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren't ready yet?
In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as "partners" rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders do not want to give up control.
I knew a CEO who was the leader of one of the world's largest global organizations. He received feedback that he was too stubborn and opinionated. He learned that he needed to do a better job of letting others to make decisions and to focus less on being right himself. He practiced this simple technique for one year: before speaking, he would take a breath and ask himself, "Is it worth it?" He learned that 50% of the time his comments may have been right on, but they weren't worth it. He quickly began focusing more on empowering others and letting them take ownership and commitment for decisions, and less on his own need to add value.
Your employees understand their jobs. They know their tasks, roles, and functions within the organization, and it's time for you to let them do what they need to do to get the job done. But there is a critical point that is often missed: It isn't possible for a leader to "empower" someone to be accountable and make good decisions. People have to empower themselves. Your role is to encourage and support the decision-making environment, and to give employees the tools and knowledge they need to make and act upon their own decisions. By doing this, you help your employees reach an empowered state.
The process does take longer — employees will only believe they are empowered when they are left alone to accomplish results over a period of time — but it's effective and worth the time. If a company has a history of shutting down or letting go of initiators, for instance, the leader can't just tell employees, "You are empowered to make decisions."
Part of building an empowering environment is dependent on the leader's ability to run interference on behalf of the team. The leader needs to make sure people are safe doing their jobs. To make sure this happens, an ongoing discussion of the needs, opportunities, tasks, obstacles, projects, what is working and what is not working is absolutely critical to the development and maintenance of a "safe" working environment. You are likely to spend a lot of time in dialogue with other leaders, employees, team members, and peers.
Following are a few things leaders can do to build an environment that empowers people.
Give power to those who have demonstrated the capacity to handle the responsibility.
Create a favorable environment in which people are encouraged to grow their skills.
Don't second-guess others' decisions and ideas unless it's absolutely necessary. This only undermines their confidence and keeps them from sharing future ideas with you.
Give people discretion and autonomy over their tasks and resources.
Successful leaders and managers today are willing to exercise their leadership in such a way that their people are empowered to make decisions, share information, and try new things. Most employees (future leaders) see the value in finding empowerment and are willing to take on the responsibilities that come with it. If future leaders have the wisdom to learn from the experience of present leaders, and if present leaders have the wisdom to build an environment that empowers people, both will share in the benefits.
There are many more things that leaders can do to build and environment that empowers people. Please send any ideas you have. I would love to hear them!
Copyright © 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
iPhone app makes homebuying easier
Posted by Lisa Gibbs
January 14, 2010 10:45 am
Shopping for a house? If you’re one of the few people out there actually looking for a new home (okay, I live in South Florida, so I’m bitter), Realtor.com introduced a cool new iPhone app on Wednesday .
I’ve used Realtor.com's main website before, plugging in my zip code and a bunch of characteristics to see what homes are selling for in my neighborhood. This free iPhone app, called Home Search, uses GPS to produce a map of houses for sale near wherever you are with your phone — a map which you can refine based on distance, type of house, price range and other criteria. It can also display results of the searches you've saved on the main website under your log in. (To find the app in your iPhone's app store, look for "Home Search.")
Home Search is by no means the first app of its kind; Trulia launched one in 2008. But Trulia’s listings aren’t as up-to-date as Realtor.com’s, which pulls data from nearly all the nation’s 933 Multiple Listing Services and has agreements to allow for rapid-fire updates. So a house near me was listed at its just-reduced price of $349,000 on the Realtor.com app, while Trulia still had the price as $399,000. If you’re out viewing homes, and you want to see what’s available near you, even a couple hours of lag in price updates can make a difference.
Realtor.com’s app also allows you to enter in notes and assign the property a star rating, which it saves for you – a nice assist when the average home search takes 12 weeks and involves as many as 16 homes.
I do like the fact that Trulia’s app offers a category for Price Reduced, so you can search specifically for homes where sellers have cut prices. (Realtor.com’s Julie Reynolds says more features will be added this year.) Personally, if I were seriously shopping, I’d use both apps.
Bottom line is, technology that puts more information about properties in the hands of consumers — and gets that information there faster — is a good thing. But I was interested to read an agent’s blog post about Realtor.com’s app that suggested some real estate brokers are concerned they’ll lose business if home shoppers can learn more from their phone without contacting agents. Some brokers also harrumphed that Realtor.com will just have more leverage to force agents to pay for “enhanced listing” packages that give more details about the house and better contact info for the listing agents. Other commenters jumped in to say that things are better off with better-informed consumers.
Amen to that.
January 14, 2010 10:45 am
Shopping for a house? If you’re one of the few people out there actually looking for a new home (okay, I live in South Florida, so I’m bitter), Realtor.com introduced a cool new iPhone app on Wednesday .
I’ve used Realtor.com's main website before, plugging in my zip code and a bunch of characteristics to see what homes are selling for in my neighborhood. This free iPhone app, called Home Search, uses GPS to produce a map of houses for sale near wherever you are with your phone — a map which you can refine based on distance, type of house, price range and other criteria. It can also display results of the searches you've saved on the main website under your log in. (To find the app in your iPhone's app store, look for "Home Search.")
Home Search is by no means the first app of its kind; Trulia launched one in 2008. But Trulia’s listings aren’t as up-to-date as Realtor.com’s, which pulls data from nearly all the nation’s 933 Multiple Listing Services and has agreements to allow for rapid-fire updates. So a house near me was listed at its just-reduced price of $349,000 on the Realtor.com app, while Trulia still had the price as $399,000. If you’re out viewing homes, and you want to see what’s available near you, even a couple hours of lag in price updates can make a difference.
Realtor.com’s app also allows you to enter in notes and assign the property a star rating, which it saves for you – a nice assist when the average home search takes 12 weeks and involves as many as 16 homes.
I do like the fact that Trulia’s app offers a category for Price Reduced, so you can search specifically for homes where sellers have cut prices. (Realtor.com’s Julie Reynolds says more features will be added this year.) Personally, if I were seriously shopping, I’d use both apps.
Bottom line is, technology that puts more information about properties in the hands of consumers — and gets that information there faster — is a good thing. But I was interested to read an agent’s blog post about Realtor.com’s app that suggested some real estate brokers are concerned they’ll lose business if home shoppers can learn more from their phone without contacting agents. Some brokers also harrumphed that Realtor.com will just have more leverage to force agents to pay for “enhanced listing” packages that give more details about the house and better contact info for the listing agents. Other commenters jumped in to say that things are better off with better-informed consumers.
Amen to that.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
An Exercise in Changing Yourself
07:22 PM Monday January 11, 2010
By Marshall Goldsmith
When I first began my career as an executive educator, I challenged my clients to pick one to three behavior patterns for personal improvement. Now I realize that three patterns were too many.
The problem was not a lack of motivation or intelligence — the problem was that they were just too busy. I teach my clients now to pick the one behavior pattern for personal change that will make the biggest difference, and to focus on that. If we pick the right area to change and actually do so, it will almost always influence other aspects of our relationships with people. For example, more effective listening will lead to being more successful in building teamwork, increasing customer satisfaction, and treating people with respect.
A Wonderful Exercise
My friend Nathaniel Branden is a psychologist and the author of about 20 books. He has a wonderful exercise that helps people isolate the pattern that makes the most sense to change, because it helps people figure out the benefits of change. This is how he helps people decide whether change is worth it: Five to eight people sit around a table, and each person selects one practice to change. One person begins the exercise by saying: "When I get better at..." and completes the sentence by mentioning one benefit that will accompany this change. For example, one person may say: "When I get better at being open to differing opinions, I will hear more great ideas."
After everyone has had a chance to discuss their specific behavior and the first benefit, the cycle begins again. Now each person mentions a second benefit that may result from changing the same behavior, then a third, continuing usually for six to eight rounds. Finally, participants discuss what they have learned and their reactions to the exercise.
When Branden first explained this exercise to me, I was polite, but skeptical. I couldn't see the value of simply repeating the potential benefits of change over and over. My skepticism quickly went away when I saw the process work.
Moved to Tears
Nathaniel and I were facilitators at a large conference that included many well-known leaders from corporations, nonprofits, the government, and the military. The man sitting next to me was a high-ranking military leader directly responsible for thousands of troops. He also was extremely judgmental and seemed to be proud of it. For example, when conference participants discussed the topic of character, he said: "I respect people with real character — and organizations, like mine, with real values. I don't believe in this situational crap!"
When we began Nathaniel's exercise, our military friend chose: "When I become less judgmental..." as his behavior to change. I was skeptical about his sincerity and thought his participation in the exercise would be interesting to observe. True to my expectations, the first time around he coughed and grunted a sarcastic comment rather than talk about a real benefit. The second time around he was even more cynical. Then something changed. When he described a third potential benefit, he stopped being sarcastic. Several rounds later, he had tears in his eyes, and said: "When I become less judgmental, maybe my children will speak to me again."
Since that day, I have conducted this exercise with several thousand people. Many start with benefits that are "corporately correct," such as: "This change will help my company make more money," and finally end with benefits that are more human, such as: "This change will make me a better person." I will never forget one hard-driving executive who chose: "When I get better at letting go" as the behavior he should work on. His first benefit was that his direct reports would take more responsibility. His final benefit was that he would probably live to celebrate his 60th birthday.
Try It for Yourself
Now, it's your turn to pick a behavior pattern that you may want to change. Complete the sentence: "When I get better at..." over and over again. Listen closely as you recite potential benefits. You will be amazed at how quickly you can determine whether this change is worth it for you.
Try this exercise. And, please send any comments and reflections that you have.
By Marshall Goldsmith
When I first began my career as an executive educator, I challenged my clients to pick one to three behavior patterns for personal improvement. Now I realize that three patterns were too many.
The problem was not a lack of motivation or intelligence — the problem was that they were just too busy. I teach my clients now to pick the one behavior pattern for personal change that will make the biggest difference, and to focus on that. If we pick the right area to change and actually do so, it will almost always influence other aspects of our relationships with people. For example, more effective listening will lead to being more successful in building teamwork, increasing customer satisfaction, and treating people with respect.
A Wonderful Exercise
My friend Nathaniel Branden is a psychologist and the author of about 20 books. He has a wonderful exercise that helps people isolate the pattern that makes the most sense to change, because it helps people figure out the benefits of change. This is how he helps people decide whether change is worth it: Five to eight people sit around a table, and each person selects one practice to change. One person begins the exercise by saying: "When I get better at..." and completes the sentence by mentioning one benefit that will accompany this change. For example, one person may say: "When I get better at being open to differing opinions, I will hear more great ideas."
After everyone has had a chance to discuss their specific behavior and the first benefit, the cycle begins again. Now each person mentions a second benefit that may result from changing the same behavior, then a third, continuing usually for six to eight rounds. Finally, participants discuss what they have learned and their reactions to the exercise.
When Branden first explained this exercise to me, I was polite, but skeptical. I couldn't see the value of simply repeating the potential benefits of change over and over. My skepticism quickly went away when I saw the process work.
Moved to Tears
Nathaniel and I were facilitators at a large conference that included many well-known leaders from corporations, nonprofits, the government, and the military. The man sitting next to me was a high-ranking military leader directly responsible for thousands of troops. He also was extremely judgmental and seemed to be proud of it. For example, when conference participants discussed the topic of character, he said: "I respect people with real character — and organizations, like mine, with real values. I don't believe in this situational crap!"
When we began Nathaniel's exercise, our military friend chose: "When I become less judgmental..." as his behavior to change. I was skeptical about his sincerity and thought his participation in the exercise would be interesting to observe. True to my expectations, the first time around he coughed and grunted a sarcastic comment rather than talk about a real benefit. The second time around he was even more cynical. Then something changed. When he described a third potential benefit, he stopped being sarcastic. Several rounds later, he had tears in his eyes, and said: "When I become less judgmental, maybe my children will speak to me again."
Since that day, I have conducted this exercise with several thousand people. Many start with benefits that are "corporately correct," such as: "This change will help my company make more money," and finally end with benefits that are more human, such as: "This change will make me a better person." I will never forget one hard-driving executive who chose: "When I get better at letting go" as the behavior he should work on. His first benefit was that his direct reports would take more responsibility. His final benefit was that he would probably live to celebrate his 60th birthday.
Try It for Yourself
Now, it's your turn to pick a behavior pattern that you may want to change. Complete the sentence: "When I get better at..." over and over again. Listen closely as you recite potential benefits. You will be amazed at how quickly you can determine whether this change is worth it for you.
Try this exercise. And, please send any comments and reflections that you have.
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