Category Archives: Leadership Development

Postings and discussions about leadership development

Intercultural Training Best Practices

Posted on January 5, 2010 by | 10 comments

Author:
Michael Tucker, Ph.D – Tucker International

[Editor’s Note:  We are very pleased to introduce Dr. Michael Tucker as a guest author.  Dr. Tucker is the Principal at Tucker International, a full-service international human resources development company.  He is the author of the Overseas Assignment Inventory (OAI), and Tucker Assessment Profile (TAP), which are validated instruments used to assess, select, and develop personnel and their spouses for international assignment.]

Your company is embarking on a new venture in a new market.  Management has asked you develop a program for assessment and intercultural training for the team that will be deployed there from all over the world.  Where to start?

The best practice to address this situation is to partner with an intercultural consulting firm that understands international business and your company.  Using a well-planned and customized approach will deliver the best results.  Here’s a real example from one of Tucker International’s clients, which illustrate the most effective approaches.

Case Study
An international HR Director at her global company’s headquarters contacted Tucker International to discuss a new company project in Africa.  We knew the client organization well in terms of its international business strategy and international assignment policy and practices.  She invited us to a meeting at headquarters to discuss the project.  During the meeting, a review of the project was conducted – its business goals and schedule, organizational structure and staffing plans (some sixty-eight expatriate positions were planned).  The start-up had just been approved, and there were very short time frames.  Tucker International staff were dispatched to South Africa, where a situation and project assessment was conducted with client representatives, local informants and current expatriates from other companies.

The next step in the process was the provision of an intercultural assessment and selection program among multiple candidates for the project along with their spouses.  About one hundred and forty candidates were assessed for the sixty-eight positions.  The most culturally adaptable candidates and spouses were chosen to go on a look-see and home finding visit.  They then completed written and telephone needs assessments with the consulting company.

Tucker International designed a five-day intercultural training program, which was delivered for everyone assigned to the project —- employees, spouses and youth.  Immediate post-program evaluations were conducted and subsequent programs were modified based on the evaluations.  The training program was very staff-intensive, and included the following resources:

  • Highly Qualified Senior Master Trainer
  • Expert on the Assignment Country
  • Business Culture Consultant
  • Belief Systems Consultant
  • Host Country Resource People
  • Returned Expatriate Spouse
  • Assessment and Development Consultant
  • Highly Qualified Youth Trainers

About one-year into their assignments in South Africa, Tucker evaluated the success of the expatriate employees and their families’ intercultural adjustment, as well as expatriate job performance.  We also looked at the success and usefulness of the intercultural training program, and areas which required additional attention.

The project was a success from many perspectives – no early returns, business objectives were met on time and high levels of intercultural adjustment and expatriate job performance were achieved.

This approach is illustrated as follows:

  • Company and Project Situation Assessment
  • Participant Needs Assessment
  • Intercultural Assessment and Selection
  • Custom Design
  • Three or More Training Program Days
  • Training Staff Intensive
  • Short and Long-Term Evaluations and Feedback

Summary
This case represents a true service approach to preparing expatriates for international assignments.  In an ideal world, every global company would utilize a comprehensive and even elegant intercultural service like the one presented in this case.  Unfortunately, corporate budgets don’t always allow International Human Resource Professionals to take their expatriate programs to this level.

The intercultural services approach illustrated here is certainly most applicable and affordable when a fairly large group is being mobilized.  However, many of the aspects of this approach can be applied even for “one-off” assignments. With a global company’s success often depending to a great extent on the successful intercultural adjustment of their expatriates, it is critical that they try and provide as many of the services from this “Best Practices” approach as possible.

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Posted in Cross Cultural Insights, Expatriates, Leadership Development

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International HR Forum Year in Review 2009 – Best of Leadership Development and Cross-Cultural

Posted on January 4, 2010 by | Comments Off on International HR Forum Year in Review 2009 – Best of Leadership Development and Cross-Cultural

This is the final installment of our three-part “Best of …” series, where we will feature links to our best posts on selected topics. This part is focused on Leadership Development and Cross-Cultural topics.   If you missed the first post about Compensation and Benefits, you can take a look at it here.  The second in the series covered Expatriates and International Assignments.

The posts below are some of the most popular ones featured on the International HR Forum.

We hope you find these summary posts to be a helpful way to explore some of the best content on our blog.

Best of Leadership Development and Cross-Cultural topics from the 2009 Archives of the International HR Forum:

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Red Flag for Global Recognition Programs

Posted on November 15, 2009 by | 9 comments

bio_400x400 Author:
Chuck Csizmar – CMC Compensation Group

When designing programs to recognize and reward an employee’s extraordinary achievements it’s important to understand the cultural implications of these programs.   Companies with a truly global operating mindset, vs. domestic-oriented organizations with international operations, will take into account national and cultural differences that distinguish its widespread employee populations.

One size rarely fits all.

You might think that the positive aspects of employee recognition programs are a universally accepted principle, but that’s only partially correct.  Important differences exist.  In some cultures / national identities the role of the team is such a core element of employee identification that seeking out an individual contributor for recognition would not be a welcome practice.  Some employees might be reluctant to step forward, or to be pushed into the spotlight.

In other countries you will find that the perceived value of cash as a recognition award varies a great deal.

Case study

A former employer of mine once implemented a global Spot Award program for its worldwide employees – without including their international HR community in the planning discussions.  Finalized program elements and procedures covered employees in over 20 countries in exactly the same fashion.  The premise was to provide immediate (read that, fast) recognition and financial rewards (Spot Awards) for those employees who demonstrated performance above and beyond their normal job roles.  Nominations for awards would come from an employee’s manager, though employees could recommend co-workers as well.

While the program was deemed a success in the US (though defined by only the dollars spent), it was much less successful elsewhere among the company’s far-flung international operations.

Lessons Learned

The first problem was that Managers outside the US placed a much more conservative financial value on so-called “extraordinary” employee contributions.  Or put another way, the US Managers were more generous in their payment awards than elsewhere.  The result was that the cash payments on a per-employee basis were widely skewed to the US employee.  Notwithstanding the vagaries of the various currency exchanges, the international offices did not spend their allotted recognition reward monies as frequently or as generously as their US counterparts.

I recall one scenario where a US employee received thousands of dollars for a particular project effort, while their European counterpart was given a non-cash award (recognition dinner).  This created more than a few awkward moments when the two employees shared experiences.

The second challenge was that many international employees did not want to be individually spotlighted by the recognition program.  They were willing to receive the award, but would rather the recognition be confidential.  Given that Corporate had planned an internal communications campaign to highlight individual award winners, that reluctance proved quite a hindrance.

Compounding the preference for anonymity was the desire for team over personal awards, as individual employees proved resistant to receiving the planned fanfare or preferential treatment – especially in front of their co-workers (team members).

The bottom line was that the recognition and reward program recognized a smaller than anticipated number of non-US employees, less reward money was spent per international employee, and Corporate Communications was hard pressed to find international employees amenable to being highlighted for the program.  Not exactly what the program designers had intended.

Corrective action

The answer seems straightforward, does it not?  If a global program is to affect all employees, then possible national or cultural distinctions among groups should be addressed, well in advance.  However, that would mean including representatives from those groups in the design and communication phases of the project.  Such a simple step seems a difficult one to take for many corporate plan designers.  Why?

When they have the bit between their teeth developing a program that affects the majority of employees, management is often reluctant to change course to include the differing sensitivities of small populations, especially if those populations do not speak with one voice.  What they prefer to do is have local representatives “tweak” the round peg into the square hole.

How does that work for you?

 

More About Chuck:

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Posted in Compensation, Cross Cultural Insights, Global HR Expertise, International Expertise, Leadership Development, Professional Development

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Leadership Development in Africa – Part I

Posted on October 27, 2009 by | 11 comments

Lex LindemannAuthors:
Lex Lindeman – HR Boosters and
Dr. Paul Rono – Kenyatta University (Nairobi)

In my last article, I highlighted the latest thinking in the area of western leadership development and the deployment of training programs in a corporate setting. In this short article, we will discuss some specific approaches to leadership development for public and private organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I would like to welcome Dr. Paul Rono as my co-author.  With Paul’s experience as a university lecturer and my experience as leadership developer for numerous private and public companies in Africa, we think we can give the reader a good ‘blend’ of effective leadership development for African managers.

Natural Leaders?
The leadership and philosophies of African political leaders have affected institutions and companies in various African countries for many years.  For example, charismatic leaders were believed to be those who have the natural capacity and personality traits or qualities to lead.  Hence, leaders were said to be born or natural “great men.”   Traditionally, leadership was said to be an attribute of personality.  Born or charismatic leaders become real leaders because they have such personality qualities but also: ambition, patience, pride, humility, wisdom, friendliness, dependability, force, endurance and, of course, managerial competencies.

Modern Functional Leadership is essentially to facilitate the interaction within a group to achieve preset goals, to realize the organization’s strategic objectives.  Such functional managers or leaders are usually nominated, appointed and selected from among equals.  If people utilize proper and effective managerial tools and motivation, performance and effectiveness increase considerably.  Of course, this is also applicable to African managers and leaders acquiring or possessing modern functional leadership skills in a target achievement and ‘productive’ environment.

Successful Leadership Behaviour
The elements enumerated above are essential to successful leadership behaviour.  The successful leader is:

  • Sensitive to the feelings of others, helpful, responsive and friendly.
  • Loyal to his ideals and ideas and respectful of the beliefs, rights and dignity of others.
  • Strong in his/her feelings of self-confidence and ability to identify easily with co-workers and supervisors.
  • Enthusiastic when informing others about the introduction of a strategic program.
  • Takes interest in improving the group and get work done and avoid envy and jealousy.
  • Endeavours to give others the benefit of doubt and or advantages and firm but not proud or stubborn in making judgments and decisions. They are sincere and straightforward.
  • Embraces change in their departments and don’t avoid reasonable risk taking.
  • Manages individual performance and steer their subordinates on a regular basis.

Successful African Leaders Competencies
The modern African leader or manager should be more ‘democratic’ in his/her relations with subordinates and at the same time maintain the necessary authority and control in the organization or institution for which he/she is responsible.  The somewhat less modern African leaders rely on collective accountability.  Good (thus effective) leaders inspire people/staff to perform optimally if necessary individually or as a team.  The best African leaders, despite their many differences in personality, practice certain principles like delegation, creativeness, networking, individual accountability and decision-making.

What are Effective Leaders?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • They take an interest in employees and communicate clearly and transparent.
  • They keep morale high. They encourage team spirit. They also give a feeling of being respected and being needed. They awaken enthusiasm and motivation.
  • They use commands sparingly. They avoid giving orders such as, “Do this!”, “Stop this,” or “Do it this way.” They request, not demand.
  • They show respect and faith to subordinates. They show the same consideration they would like to receive and show interest to others.
  • They welcome suggestions and prompt employees to think creatively. They avoid the phrase: “Yes but…” which generally is considered as a: “No!”
  • They handle grievances fairly. They act fairly. No favourites when assigning work. They are impartial.
  • They express approval. They show appreciation and complement, but they allow a certain level of mistakes made.
  • They create highly productive teams, delegate tasks wisely, and step aside.
  • They develop their people to enable them to prepare them to achieve more challenging goals.

 

 

Characteristics of Effective Leaders
The nature and style of functional (managerial) leadership greatly influence job satisfaction and motivation.  Effective leaders show consideration for employees and enable them to have a sense of participation in decisions that affect them and they will have the following characteristics:

  • Sensitivity to the individual problems people face on the job.
  • Availability and openness to people in need of help.
  • Sympathy with adverse conditions in the work environment.
  • The ability to establish more than a boss-worker relationship.
  • Above all delegate challenging tasks to their subordinates.

Highly productive leaders tend to spend more time than less productive managers to:

  • Motivate and inspire their employees and provide structure.
  • Keep employees informed.
  • Get ideas and suggestions on important matters before going ahead.
  • Try out new ideas with them.
  • Show consideration for their needs.
  • Coach their workers individually.
  • Develop and train employees for increased responsibilities.

Managers and Leadership Development
Most leaders want to be more effective in their leadership.  Some think they only need to learn techniques, others assume that they can learn a magic formula or foolproof method.  Effective functional leadership implies an intensive development process.  Some of the ability comes as a result of experience, some by learning from mistakes, by profiling from the experience and mistakes of others, from personal insights and by learning managerial skills.

To become truly effective African Managers and Leaders they will have to be developed through sustainable leadership competency programs that offer training with a difference.  (See “Trends in Leadership development” Part II).  These development efforts should be highly interactive, aimed at leadership and managerial competencies such as delegation and responsibilities acceptance.  These customized interventions are generally short (maximum 4 to 5 days) followed up and coached by their superiors, i.e. the participants should be given room to ‘experiment’ with their newly acquired skills.

In Summary
It is certain that African countries will grow and develop in the coming years; look at the example of the pace of growth of mobile phone networks and coverage.  Efficient infrastructures, systems and processes are put in place. However, just this is not enough; Inspiring Functional Leadership is an absolute necessity for growth.  Sustainable investment in the modern development of African managers and leaders is primordial.  In order to accelerate and maintain growth in Sub-Saharan Africa we must put in place the right learning work environment and formal, high-impact development possibilities.

In our next article, Paul and I will go deeper into specific competency development aspects such as the ability to delegate tasks, sense of responsibility and speeding up the execution of tasks, again related to African managers and leaders.

More About the Authors

More About Lex:

More About Paul:
Dr. Rono is a lecturer at Kenyatta University in Nairobi.  He is an authority on leadership development, and has published various articles related to leadership development in Africa with a progressive yet adoptable and realistic view.  Watch for his new website coming soon!

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Posted in Africa, General, Global HR Expertise, Leadership Development, Professional Development, Training

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Can’t You Just Convert the Currency?

Posted on August 10, 2009 by | 9 comments

Chuck Csizmar – CMC Compensation Group

It is human nature to look for simple solutions to perplexing problems.  Simple avoids confusion, keeps you “on message” and helps create greater employee awareness and appreciation of programs and policies. However, when you are dealing with the diversity and complexity of international compensation it is just not that easy – nor should it be.   For those seeking the simple life it can be difficult to understand and accept that each country operates in a different environment from the next.

Perhaps because of its long history of isolationist tendencies, or perhaps due to a bit of Yankee arrogance, but US managers tend to struggle with the challenge of this concept more than other players on the global scene.

For the most part US Managers do not want to hear that pay levels in Finland, or Argentina or Tunisia are different from the US.  They would rather treat everyone the same, call it globalization and consider themselves a one-world player.  Many push an agenda of simplicity that is in fact a misleading distortion, will be a costly strategy to implement and its results will more than likely irritate key talent within their workforce.

Consider the senior manager who simply wants to convert a foreign national’s salary into US dollars – based on a concern with what they call “internal equity”?  The assumption is that everyone pays approximately the same for an “XYZ Manager”.

Other considerations:

  • If simple conversion was a viable approach, why do we not see such formulae prominently displayed by salary survey providers?
  • Employees will be skeptical of the simplistic approach, as in their mind too many local realities would be ignored in favor of what is perceived as the Company somehow saving money
  • Lacking a strong correlation you will either needlessly increase your compensation costs, or under-value your employee talent and risk disengagement – or worse

I once developed a formulaic approach that explained to a COO why he could not (should not) establish internal equity between the US and the UK by simply converting GBP into USD.   I factored in a host of elements, including local taxation, competitive pay levels, incentive practices, cost of living, required social charges, benefit costs, etc. to make my case.   My point was that a simple conversion would be a distortion of the economic realities that drive pay levels in both countries.

Sad to say, but the explanation was ignored and the COO, though he acknowledged the logic of my argument, continued to prefer a simple conversion to establish relative values in his own mind.

To operate successfully on a global basis management needs to understand, to truly believe that each country operates like a separate and sovereign national entity, with distinct economies, taxes, competitiveness, employment laws, culture, statutory benefit requirements, etc. that make a 1:1 comparison with any other country a distortion that will cause you to either over spend or under spend your reward dollars.  Either result should be avoided.

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Posted in Compensation, Global HR Expertise, International Expertise, Leadership Development

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Resourcing in Southern Africa

Posted on July 20, 2009 by | 1 comment

Imported Photos 00033Author:
Yendor Felgate – Emergence Consulting

Recessionary times have dramatically impacted the volume and level of resourcing opportunities available in Southern Africa.  Anecdotal evidence from resourcing companies we engage with or have trained over the last 6 months, suggest that in the first half of this year we have seen vacancy levels oscillate between 30 – 60% less vacancies.

The impact in Southern Africa has been uneven, with the obvious exceptions being Angola and Mozambique, where local environments and skills shortages continue to fuel resourcing opportunities.  The relatively small markets of Namibia, Zambia and Botswana have slowed, with a number of companies placing moratoriums on new or replacement hires. These markets are highly susceptible to any slowdown in the worldwide demand for commodities, even impacting governments, who tend to be the largest employers.

South Africa is by far the largest resourcing market in the region and has been similarly impacted.  The knock on of the slowdown in the region has led to increased Southern African applicants applying for South African jobs.  In turn South African companies increasingly look to apply job moratoriums in the work place, with an overt South African first policy. When speaking to companies, many are literally ‘holding on’, using natural attrition to right size their businesses.  Our sense is that this can only go so far, and that we will see a range of corporate restructuring in the South African market in the last of half of this year, despite the perceived upside of hosting the World Cup next year.  Such a dramatic market change has impacted applicants and recruitment companies alike.

Firstly this has slowed down the use of non-South Africans in the South African market, which is a big blow to encouraging Southern Africa as a region, to utilise skills co-operatively.  Our view is that companies and recruitment agencies continue to miss significant upside opportunities in the hiring of African talent, both in terms of pricing and value add.

Secondly, the South African recruitment market will go through a significant restructuring of the players offering recruitment services.  The larger companies will consolidate during this period, with some of the more adventurous ones looking to expand in the region.  Small to medium companies are under pressure, with some already closing.  In order to survive, these entities will increasingly need to come up with different customer propositions or products.

We see the market differentiating between low cost producers and the higher end players, who increasingly operate in a more consulting role, with a wider range of products or services.  This period will be very difficult for ‘traditional’ players, who want to simply ride out the storm, as margins will reduce in tandem with the recession.  This will be exacerbated by the trend of companies accessing candidate databases directly and using social networks in lieu of recruitment agencies.

The third impact will be an escalation of tension between stakeholders around what it means to employ people.  Governments will look to protect full time employment, whilst the market will intensify their search for labour flexibility.  This tension has already erupted in Namibia, with the recent banning of labour broking and the South African government is also looking to do the same.

This brings us back to the question of where next for commercial recruitment.  We have a two scenario view.  The first or low road suggests that recruitment becomes unattractive as a commercial venture with the banning of labour broking and the commoditisation of recruitment.

The second scenario is hardly a high road, but one that will benefit those recruitment companies that look to diversity their services and become low cost producers when mining their candidate IP.  This implies a significant change in current recruitment approaches, pricing and funding models.

In the short term, our sense is that a complex combination of the two is occurring currently.  None of the above in our mind necessarily benefits applicants and we think that recruitment professionalism will be increasingly under pressure.

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Posted in General, Global HR Expertise, Immigration, Leadership Development, Professional Development

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Managing Across Cultures

Posted on July 9, 2009 by | 2 comments

Warren Heaps photoAuthor:
Warren Heaps – Birches Group LLC

Cultural knowledge is critical when operating in today’s global business environment.  There is a wonderful new book penned by my friends Mike Schell and Charlene Solomon from RW-3 called Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset.  It’s a terrific read.

If you work with global teams, deal with people from different countries, or perhaps your company is exploring business expansion into new country markets, you will find this book extremely valuable.  Check out this interview from Fortune magazine with the authors, too.

More About Warren

Warren Heaps

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Birches Group

 

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Posted in Cross Cultural Insights, Global HR Expertise, Leadership Development, Professional Development, Training

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Trends in Leadership Development – Part 2

Posted on July 9, 2009 by | 4 comments

lexierwandaqwAuthor:
Lex Lindeman and Han van der Pool – HR Boosters

In my previous post, I wrote about the various ways to approach Leadership Development in Public or Private Organizations.  In this blog, I will go somewhat deeper into recent developments and strategies within Leadership Development.

The traditional executive development programs which concentrate on management theories and exhaustive cases studies have in recent years become less and less popular.  The poor usability of these modalities for current complex global business challenges, coupled with low ROI (Return on Investment) is the reason.  But there are interesting alternatives.

New Approaches
There are many new ways to expose current and future leaders to development activities.  Some of the most interesting ones include:

  • Customized programs developed specifically for the company by consultants and universities in which current questions and strategies are carefully observed.
  • Action learning projects in which participants treat real questions and where the implementation of the solutions in a follow-up session can be discussed.  The so-called Journey programs, in which managers are exposed to problems which can only be solved through good teamwork and perseverance, are examples of this.
  • Company simulations in which the participants are faced with the impact of their decisions.  These can include presentations of experienced managers from the company, in which examples and experiences are analyzed and discussed.
  • Personal development plans coupled with feedback coaching and execution of specific tasks.
  • Master classes to promote acquisition of technical skills and general knowledge sharing, including follow-up instruments to indicate the degree of success directly to the participant.

Developing A Program
A successful leadership development program is achieved by following these basic steps:

  • A Leadership Framework – Define the skills and characteristics of effective leadership within the company.
  • Curriculum – Link to specific leadership programs with several target groups within the company.
  • Measurement of the success of the programs and evaluation of their impact on both short- and long-term results of the company.
  • Continuous Adaptation to changing or new leadership profiles.

Authoritative Strategies
Here are some of the best strategies for creating your leadership development program and implementing it in your organization:

Use of Technology
Computer technology can be used to support development and learning.  The electronic support can focus on:

  • The learning process itself, both individually and in groups;
  • Developing and mastering education material and learning processes;
  • Organizing learning activities.

Some corporate universities have, for example, their own virtual learning environment. Participants from all over the world can work on specific learning programs. The virtual learning environment supports them with the learning process.  The websites offer the participants the possibility to get access in a simple way to specific and often personalized e-learning sources.

These sources are categorized in the website, so the visitor can simply click on internal and/or external Internet sites with specific content coupled to the learning curricula. These so-called learning platforms have been organized around one or a number of specific subjects.

The websites provide the user with the possibility of gathering information but also providing a contribution himself.  This is enabled through several functionalities (supported technologies) such as chat-functions and groupware.  E-learning applications replace a part of the “physical learning routes”, and as a result, the `classroom’ components become shorter.

“Just-in-Time” Learning
On-the-job experiences are a valuable component of development and learning.  We talk about interventions instead of courses because the element of coaching, training on-the-job, action learning and exchange of knowledge and skills through networks play an important role in the development of employees.

The chosen intervention must be related as close as possible to the needs of the employee.

The direct superior is the most suitable person to confirm the need related to the work processes, and the right time to pursue it.  A modular program off-the-shelf and managerial training can support the development if necessary.

Corporate Universities
Many organizations have decentralized their training departments or fully outsourced them.  Many have created corporate universities exclusively for their own employees.  These training departments serve a broad target group and organize a large variety of training and workshops including ‘open registration’.

The difference between a corporate university and a traditional training department is the strategic position it has in the organization, and the role it plays in leadership development, creativity and the problem solving capacity within the organization.

Corporate universities contribute to translating the vision of the company to work processes of the employees.  They focus on those skills which are essential for the functioning of the company.  In increasing complex and competitive business environments, traditional universities are not always fast enough to be able to anticipate to the specific needs of a company. Many organizations also prefer to keep the specific knowledge exclusively within the company.

In Summary
In this post, I’ve highlighted the latest thinking in the area of leadership development and the deployment of training programs in a corporate setting.  In my next blog, I will go deeper into more specific approaches to leadership development for public and private organizations in sub-Saharan Africa.

More About Lex:

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Posted in Leadership Development, Training

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What’s In A Title?

Posted on June 28, 2009 by | 9 comments

Author:
Chuck Csizmar – CMC Compensation Group

I once faced a client situation where I was asked to uncover why a Senior Accountant (non-exempt) reported to an Accountant (exempt).  This same company used the title “supervisor” to describe individual contributor positions and it was not uncommon for Managers to report to Managers and Directors to report to Directors.

Given that these situations occurred in a large and presumably sophisticated company, one might ask – is there really a problem here?  What’s the big deal, and is anyone being harmed?  Advocates would say that offering an employee a special title is a harmless and inexpensive reward, one that doesn’t raise employer costs.  It also improves the morale of affected employees.

Where do these scenarios come from?

  • Managers grant esoteric titles to those for whom they have limited means of reward.  “They won’t let me give you the salary increase I think you deserve, but let’s change your title to xxxxx”.  Like greasing a squeaky wheel for a short term fix they want to do *something* to keep the employee quiet / motivated / not thinking of leaving.
  • Employees are given job opportunities (titles) where none should exist.  Have you experienced the long serving Secretary / Administrative Assistant promoted to the newly created role of Office Manager, all while performing the same job?
  • As a salve to employees a “special” title is used because somehow the position (usually clerical) is considered so different from other jobs that it needs to be specifically identified.  Special titles can also be seen as reflecting on the importance of the managers themselves.

In my experience it is usually those in management who consider themselves “above the fray” who do not see title inflation (puffery) as a problem.  Interestingly enough, that level of management can be severely put out if the same title giveaway happens within their hierarchical level.

At the risk of being called Mr. Gloom & Doom, let me explain the type of harvest that you can expect from planting these problem “seeds”.

  • Role clarity (job duties, business impact, decision-making, etc.) behind questionable titles will become blurred.  This in turn would generate more confusion as the company creates Senior Managers and Group or Area Directors and other in-between titles in the hierarchy to differentiate the “real” jobs from the inflated titles.
  • When attempting to determine the competitiveness of your positions the less accurate the title is in relation to the work performed, the more likely your analysis will be skewed.  Benchmarking unique, employee-specific and inflated titles will make a correct assessment of your competitiveness more difficult.  This could have real cost impact.
  • Those with inflated titles will expect whatever perks or privileges that normally accompany the title and their absence could cause difficulties.  It’s an awkward conversation when you tell an employee that the import of their new level in the organization is “title only”.
  • Inflated titles can be a detriment to incumbents as well, such as the “Director” who now only qualifies for a “Manager” title with a prospective employer.  These employees have limited opportunities outside your company because other employers would be reluctant to hire someone where the title is lateral or even backward to what they currently hold.  The result could be that mediocre performers remain with your company because they have no where else to go.
  • The natural extension of inflated titles is inflated grades / salary ranges, as the bogus “senior” position would be placed in a higher grade than the “intermediate” position, right?  This practice will gradually increase your fixed costs without a corresponding rise in either performance or capability.
  • Some employees legitimately find themselves in a dead end job, and granting them a cosmetic title as a salve doesn’t help anyone.  Lead or supervisory mail clerk?  Or the “supervisor” that no one reports to?
  • Employees do not like giving up these inappropriate titles.  Thus employee relations / morale issues will likely develop if you try to correct poor past practices.  You may have to develop creative “buy out” scenarios or grandfather employees.

If you are in a situation with inflated, redundant and confusing job titles, what steps can improve your lot?

  • Organize a Spring cleaning exercise:  start with the low hanging fruit by eliminating (deleting from your systems) all titles that are unoccupied.
  • To avoid backsliding you should accompany that initiative by implementing tighter procedural requirements necessary before a “new” title can be authorized.  While perhaps only a finger in the dike or closing the barn door after the horses have left, you must cut off the flow of new problems before you can effectively address the core issue of incumbents.
  • The company would need fewer job descriptions if the wording was more generalized.  Standardized titles would clear away much of the role responsibility confusion while clarifying an employee’s duties.

Especially in clerical positions, the general nature of duties for most positions (filing, record keeping, secretarial, forms processing, correspondence, etc) lends itself to standardization – which in turn makes it easier to move employees from position to position without having to “promote” someone when their title changes.

Bear in mind though, that title standardization makes more sense in a conference room than it does during an employee discussion.  A “Senior Depository Research Clerk” will always sound more important than a “Clerk III” or even “Senior Clerk”.

Companies try to reduce the number of titles whenever a new HRIS is established (that’s usually when the huge number of active titles becomes widely known).  Anyone who has been exposed to the process of implementing an HRIS (SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle, etc.) will tell you that job title standardization is a key component of the project.

However there is always a degree of passive resistance when individual leaders realize that *their* area is being cleansed of superfluous / redundant / misleading titles.

Fewer titles can mean more role clarity in your organization, greater accuracy in assessing pay competitiveness, more control of labor costs and indeed higher morale as employees know where they stand and what they must do to succeed in your organization.

A final caution: be careful of setting up titles without occupants “in case we want to promote someone down the road.”   Guess what?  You will.

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Trends in Leadership Development – Part 1

Posted on June 16, 2009 by | 1 comment

lexierwandaqwAuthors:
Lex Lindeman and Han van der Pool – HR Boosters

Leadership is the most important condition for success in organizations. Quality of products and services, improvement of sales results and innovation are all positively influenced by leadership development within a company.  Leading organizations believe development for executives and managers should be an integrated part of their company strategy. Globalization, company growth, and the continuous introduction of new technologies require new skills for company leaders.  In the end, it is leadership that determines the economic performance of the company.

Executives Are Taking Charge of Their Own Development

Research shows that executives who take care of their personal development have a competitive advantage.  Leadership development has also a big influence in the way employees can exploit their knowledge and competencies, and also enhances the retention of talented staff.

Organizations are now offering more and more proactive leadership development within individual development plans.  According to a survey of the American Management Association (AMA), more than 25% of organizations spend more than one-third of their annual training budget on leadership development programs.  Some of the latest leadership development approaches include:

  • External leadership development programs organized by universities, executive training institutes and training through professional companies
  • Internal leadership training programs
  • Temporary ‘stretch’ assignments which help an individual to develop new skills and competencies
  • International assignments to obtain new experiences
  • External leadership training organized by consultants
  • Job rotation
  • Formal mentoring programs

Of course, not all learning takes place in a formal training situation. Experience based on internal and external studies for the US Department of Labor (1995) into the way in which high performing leaders learn, indicates that formal training is just 10% of how people learn.

High-Teach, High-Tech, High-Touch

In the current competitive market, Human Resource professionals always try to find ways to organize training in the most effective way.  Some options:

  • High-Teach methods are all methods aimed at the person to ensure that learning takes place as effectively, pleasantly and efficiently possible.  High-Teach is all about learning and lesson methods.  From an initial interview, specific learning objectives for the participant are formulated, and the learning methods and instruments are adapted to the participants, their context and the characteristics of the competencies.
  •  High-Tech methods are all the applications and instruments which can be offered for preparation, deepening or development of subjects on-line with a computer
    (e-Learning).  E-Learning is common for both applications training (learning to work with software packages) and for general managerial skills.  This method is usually very efficient; a participant can learn at a moment of his choice wherever he is.  By means of the computer, you can gather knowledge, but real insight in your own person, or to practice skills and behaviors, you’ll need to interact with others.  The computer doesn’t offer that interaction, yet the bulk of your development always takes place in relation to others.
  • High-Touch methods are all working methods which are aimed to deepen and intensify contact with the participant.  This process requires confidence and security for openness, and the courage to explore.  It is always the mutual connection which makes the moment instructive.  Inviting people to openly explore new ideas is the nature of High-Touch.

Coaching Methods

Coaching is considered as a flexible and confidential communication from both sides in which an executive can give feedback, and receive support and recommendations. Executive coaching is organized in three different manners.

  • Feedback Coaching is direct feedback given within the framework of a personal development plan, and addresses specific questions (duration: on average up to three months).
  • In-Depth Coaching is a close and deep relationship between the executive manager and a coach.  During the sessions, they work on specific and mostly personal questions (average duration: from six up to twelve months).
  • Substantive Coaching provides leaders with support to address substantively complex questions with the objective to increase skills, capacities and competencies (duration: variable).

In successful leadership development programs, several methods are often used.  Support from top management and a strong link to strategic questions are conditions for success.  The outcome of the programs must help the managers to solve questions from their daily business practice.

Recent Developments

Creative and non-traditional programming is becoming more and more important.   Traditional course programs in an auditorium are de-emphasized, and there is a clear movement from High-Teach to High-Touch.  Some organizations also add High Tech elements to their programs.

Other recent developments include:

  • Tailor-made programs developed specifically for the company by consultants and universities in which current questions and strategies are carefully observed.
  • The development of ‘action learning’ programs such as the so-called ‘journey programs’ in which managers are exposed to problems which can only be solved through good teamwork and perseverance.
  • Elaboration of personal development plans with coupled feedback, coaching and execution of specific tasks.
  • Increasing attention to acquiring technical skills and sharing knowledge.

In my next post, I will provide additional, in-depth insights into several of these recent innovations.

In Summary

Organizations have to deal with a range of challenges to anchor leadership. Research has shown (Tichy, 1997) that successful organizations have several leaders, at each level of the organization.  This starts at the top.  Leaders with an established reputation and a track record of success are the best learning masters for others and future leaders.  Developing leadership in an organization is not possible without the commitment of the top leaders in the organization.

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