Monday, November 25, 2019

Blessed Beyond Measure

“Wash your hands everyone.”

“It’s time to gather.”

“Thanksgiving is ready.”

These are some of my favorite phrases this time of year. 

When family and friends, young and old, gather round the table for a celebration of the harvest, I know we are blessed beyond measure.

With platters, bowls, and small dishes of good food, we bow our heads, say our prayers, and smile.

A circle of thanks; a circle of celebration.

We listen to new stories and old stories.

We laugh with joy, remembering recent events and past experiences.

We weep for the ones we have lost, and celebrate those who are still here with us.

We honor the work of those who grew the food and prepared it.

We are grateful to have the time to share it with others.

And, in our family, as we do the dishes, we sometimes break out in song.

With three and four part harmonies filling the kitchen, we laugh, we sing and we know that we are blessed with this special time of being together. 

Our cups are full and over flowing with joy and thanksgiving.

I hope this week you can gather with your friends and family, and celebrate the blessings in your lives and the harvest of this season.

We have so much to be thankful for in our lives.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 18, 2019

How do effective leaders do goal setting and execution? - part #5

When think about the importance of evaluating goals post the execution stage, I decided to turn to my Kitchen Table Cabinet. I already knew my own thoughts on this subject but I wanted to hear from others who I consider wise and insightful. Here is what they reminded me about evaluating goals:

- ownership of the goal is required for a successful evaluation. 

- evaluating a goal without the goal connecting to a greater purpose or mission will not yield a successful change in action over time.

- the evaluation process needs to be meaningful for all involved.

- evaluation starts by creating a safe and nonjudgemental space for sharing.

- routine accountability systems and goal evaluation systems are interconnected.

With the above conversations in mind and lots of time to reflect over the summer, I realized the following. First, evaluating a goal is a form of feedback. For it to work at the point of evaluation, there needs to be a steady diet of feedback before hand to make the evaluation of the goals more meaningful. We forget that people need attention and when we give it to them in a safe and nonjudgemental environment, they will receive it better. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall  in their thought-provoking book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, Harvard Business Review Press, 2019, write that “Positive attention… is thirty times more powerful than negative attention in creating high performance on a team…. If you want your people to learn more, pay attention to what’s working for them right now, and then build on that…. get into the conscious habit of looking for what’s going well for each of your team members…. tell the person what you experienced when that moment of excellence caught your attention - your instantaneous reaction to what worked.” In short, people need attention and we as leaders can give it in such a manner that an evaluation is seen as helpful and productive.

Over the course of my career as an executive coach, I have been called in to coach an entire senior leadership team after they have all participated in a 360 feedback/evaluation process. As part of this work, every leader has received a 1.5 inch thick book with graphs, charts and page upon pages of written feedback. For those involved, it is overwhelming to read pages and pages of competencies and detailed descriptions. The charts are complicated and indicate that most everyone was average. As per the norm, the written comments are all over the board and either depressing or confusing. At the end of reading all of these evaluation books, I can even be depressed and feeling hopeless.

When starting a project of this nature, I routinely sit down with each executive and ask the following question: “Did you read the entire book?”

“Yes” or “I skimmed it” is the common response.

Then, I ask, “How did it make you feel?”

The answers are often “depressed”, “confused”, or “angry”.

“Okay, “ I reply. “So, how do you think you are doing? And what do you think you need to work on in order to be a better leader within this company?” 

Every time, those involved give me a frank and honest assessment of what they needed to work on and how long they thought it would take. In short, nearly everyone is good at evaluating themselves and can reliably determine what they need to work on in order to be better.

Finally, when it comes to evaluating goals, focus on the outcomes from completing the goals. Some will be short term outcomes and others will be long term outcomes. Your ability to help people understand these outcomes will help them in the future work more effectively on future goals.

This week, give more feedback, and routinely ask people to evaluate their own performance. These two action will generate positive outcomes over the long term.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 11, 2019

How do effective leaders do goal setting and execution? - part #4

When executing a goal, I love Marcus Aurelius’s mindset as described in Ryan Holiday’s book, The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, Penguin, 2014. “Our actions may be impeded . . . but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” 

As we move from goal setting to the execution stage, we need to discuss two items with all involved. First, we need to define what is the difference between a goal and a priority. As we all know, priorities will surface. We also know that most people don’t know how to determine if something should be more important than executing their goals.

Second, we need to discuss how to prioritize all of one’s different goals. With three to five goals as the norm for peak performance, which one should I focus on first? Remember people will always prioritize day to day work over a goal.

Furthermore, every one needs time to work on their goals. As Greg McKeown, in his excellent book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Crown Business, 2014, writes: “What we can’t do is concentrate on two things at the same time…. Multitasking itself is not the enemy of Essentialism; pretending we can “multifocus” is.” In short, the execution of goals comes down to time and attention

Next, we as leaders need to understand that effective execution involves an accountability system. As Ken Blanchard in his book,  Leading At a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, Prentice Hall, 2006, wrote: “To obtain desired performance from its people, an organization must first have a well-defined accountability system.” He also pointed out that “People must also know what a good performance looks like.”

When we keep the above in mind, we recognize that people need regular feedback about their work. And supervisors need people who are working on goals to send progress reports about how they are doing on their goals. As Gary  Keller with Jay Papasan in his book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, Bard Press, 2012, notes, “Individuals who wrote their goals and send progress reports to friends were 76.7 percent more likely to achieve them.”

This week, remember to help people make meaningful progress on their goals. The outcomes will be spectacular.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, November 4, 2019

How do effective leaders do goal setting and execution? - part #3

Ken Blanchard in his book, Leading At a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, Prentice Hall, 2006, writes “… the goal-setting process works best when both the manager and direct report come to an initial goal setting meeting, having each thought through what key goals are appropriate for the direct report.” Furthermore, “Once both parties have shared their proposed goals, it is easier to reach agreement…. goal setting should be a joint process.” 

After 30+ years of being involved in strategic planning and goal setting, I fully agree with this statement. The desired outcome of the goal setting process is that the proposed goal is owned and understood by the person(s) who need to execute them

For us here today, let’s unpack what a SMART goal actually means. In simple terms, a SMART goal has the following characteristics:

- specific, observable, and measurable
- motivating, i.e. a person needs to know why the goal is important
- attainable
- relevant
- trackable and/or time-bound 

When a goal meets the above criterion, then the person and their supervisor are able to measure performance frequently and praise progress when appropriate.

When I see people set SMART goals, the “S” stand for “specific.” Here, the goal starts with an action oriented verb and there is a behavior associated with the goal. It is concise and it should be able to be communicated easily.

The “M” in SMART goals often focuses on being measurable more than motivating. When goal setting fails and I get called in to figure out what went wrong, I often discover that the measurement connected to the SMART goal was based on a lack of clarity about the difference between a leading measure and a lagging measure. A leading measure can be measured daily, weekly or monthly, and a leading measure is predictive. If the leading measure is effective and understood by the person or persons who have to execute the goal, then the lagging measure will be influenced and change will take place.

The “A” in a SMART goal focuses on being “achievable” or “attainable.” The problem with many goals is that they are more concept focused rather than action oriented. Effective goals are not ambiguous. Ambiguity is death to execution. 

Furthermore, effective goals and the goal setting process are personal. All involved need to have the mindset that “I own my goals and my goals own me. Executing them is a part of my regular work, and I expect my supervisor to hold me accountable to executing them successfully.” Therefore, we as supervisors need to do regular supervision, coaching and check-ins. 

One small note on achievable goals, I have observed this year that actionable goals work better when people are participating in “healthy” teams and within a healthy and well defined work place culture.

The “R” in a SMART goals focuses on being “realistic”. I also like to connect this “R” to being relevant to the strategy of the company. From experience, I have learned that many goals are not in alignment with the overall strategy of the company. I also have learned that many people also don’t understand the strategy or the strategic direction of the company. And without this level of clarity, execution of the goal can become problematic.

The “T” in a SMART goal focuses on “time”. We forget somedays that all effective goals must have a finish line. I often ask people involved in a goal setting process to answer these two questions. Upon completion, how will you know it? Most people just move on to the next thing on the list. And upon completion, how will you celebrate? We get so busy some days that we forget to celebrate when someone effective achieves a goal.

Finally, please remember this advice and counsel from Ken Blanchard in the aforementioned book: “Three to five goals are the ideal number on which peak performance can concentrate, according to most research.”

This week, share and discuss the above with your team. It is time we did goal setting better.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257