DDI’s Talent Management Intelligence

A Startling Shock of Insight

By Matt Paese, Ph.D.

Sometimes a startling question can lead to shocking insight. Out of nowhere last week, someone asked me to comment, on camera, in 30 seconds or less, about what I believe leaders need to do differently to be effective today. Now, this wasn’t live television or anything, but still. 

I asked if I could use the bathroom first.  

After cursing my decision to skip a shower that morning, I cleared my teeth, face, and hair of debris from lunch and life in general and took a moment in front of the mirror to reflect, on leadership. Drawing that familiar blank, I did what any self-respecting person would do in a moment of quiet desperation – I thought about someone worse off than me.

More specifically, I thought about an executive I know, a leader in a big corporation, who is having a pretty tough time right now. It seems that as soon as the economy tumbled, so did any semblance of leadership effectiveness in his organization. As though losing their grip on the future, the executive team clenched tighter, using words like execution, accountability, discipline and driving performance which my client said were code for obscene C-suite aggression.

In other words, the reaction to the economic crisis was to make double sure that everyone was doing their job and doing it right. Command and control.  So what’s the harm in that?  Isn’t that what’s required to survive in difficult times? 

Maybe it used to be. 

In my view, at this moment in time we’re sitting on more human potential than at any other time in history. Don’t get me wrong. We aren’t better than our predecessors, but we can generate, share, distribute and organize information and knowledge faster than ever before. We have vast abilities to travel the world physically and electronically, and encounter global events and discoveries in ways never before seen. In short, we have more opportunities to make superstars out of inexperienced people – fast.

Which is exactly why command and control is such a colossal mistake in a crisis. 

Crises are opportunities, and the greatest leaders leverage them by involving others in the solution.  Fist pounding may feel good to anxiety-racked leaders, but for everyone else, it creates fear – the enemy in a crisis. 

After a quick splash of water in my face as a proxy for a shower, I went back out and stumbled through my 30 seconds–What’s needed now is to leave the single-leader model behind, and to adopt a “we all lead” approach that leverages the capability we’ve developed to learn and grow on the fly, together.  That’s the way we’ll lead through this crisis, and those yet to come.

Matt Paese is the Vice President of Executive Solutions for  Development Dimensions International (DDI).

Creepy Crypts and Derailing Daemons

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

The last few months have provided me a spate of opportunities to provide 360 survey feedback to senior executives. Without exception it was easy to see the “towering strengths” that catapulted these folks to organizational heights. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of their makeup was their intellectual and sometimes emotional inhalation of the feedback. Intimate and knowledgeable about themselves, their passion for converting the feedback into action permeated each conversation.

Last week found me doing this work in my New York City hometown. Hopping on mass transit around the island, I found myself amidst a sea of magazines and newspapers competing with one another for “Michael Jackson Mind Share”. My personal favorites were the two line rhymes and alliterations such as “Wacko Jacko” and his “Creepy Crypts”. One need only glance at the more recent photos of Jackson to know something had gone frighteningly wrong.

I’m sure because of the juxtaposition of these two events I found myself speculating about Jackson’s “feedback environment”. There were undeniable towering strengths. The first time I saw him moonwalk I was convinced he had figured out a way to defy the laws of physics. But he was of course very human. If Jackson did have a serious problem, how many people talked with him? Did he listen? Was he such an “alpha” presence that to be with him was to be reduced to sycophantism? For goodness sakes, did anyone tell poor Michael that he was starting to look like an alien? Where was the feedback loop?

Perhaps they did. Perhaps what we witnessed was the horrible distortion that results when power, wealth, and world class talent meet unwillingness to hear the words of others. DDI’s President Bob Rogers will cite receptivity to feedback as the most important interpersonal predictor of leadership success. For me, I want to redouble my efforts to continue learning, and I am re-inspired to amplify the voices of others to those executives who so profoundly impact the professional fate and well being of so many.

How successful are the leaders in your organizations at taking a step back to really hear and understand the feedback they receive? And how aggressively do you pursue creating a feedback-rich culture?

Barry Stern is vice president, Consulting Services and Delivery for Development Dimensions International (DDI).

Making the Call

By Mark Busine

In 2002 I transitioned to a consulting role and one of my first assignments was working with a large Australia-based project engineering firm to profile the key attributes of successful leaders. As part of this process, I met with the CEO to gain his perspective on the key ingredients for leadership success in the organization.

In response to one question, he paused, looked inquisitively in to the air and said, “Mark, basically my role comes down to judgment; this is what I have to do everyday.” I remember the immediate impact that this comment had on me. I was acutely aware of the important role of decision making in leadership, but his use of the word “judgment” made an important distinction.

He was clear to point out that, in practice, managers and senior executives are often unable to apply rational models of decision-making because of the limitations and demands of a business environment, characterized by complexity, competition, rapid change and uncertainty. Further, our own personal predispositions and biases may influence the objectivity of our decisions and actions. This was where judgment came in.  

Over time, I have continued to explore this notion of judgment and the role it plays in leadership success. What have I concluded? That judgment is influenced by the interplay of four factors—experience, knowledge, competence and personal style, which shapes our interpretation of situations and influences our actions in new and unfamiliar environments. As a result, while it may be difficult to learn judgment, we can develop and enhance judgment by:

• Gaining a broad and considered range of experiences
• Acquiring knowledge relevant to the organisation, industry and discipline
• Developing an awareness of one’s own style and potential derailers
• Learning and applying more traditional models of decision making and more contemporary models of rapid decision making

How do your organization’s leaders practice judgment everyday? How do you prepare leaders to maximize the quality of their judgments?  Read more on the topic and share your thoughts.

Mark Busine is the Managing Director of Southeast Asia for Development Dimensions International (DDI).

The Supreme Court on Ricci: Boon or bust for employment testing?

By Doug Reynolds, Ph.D.

I’ve been asked by several colleagues now about the implications of the Ricci case for hiring practices in the U.S. This is the one where the City of New Haven chose to discard the results of a promotion test for firefighters because it produced an adverse impact on protected classes who failed the test. The city was sued by a group of firefighters who passed the test, and the Supreme Court found in favor of the firefighters, citing that the city had engaged in disparate treatment by using race as a factor in their decision to throw out results from a validated test.

Some labor attorneys believe this decision will dampen enthusiasm for employment testing. My feeling is that this interpretation is short-sighted. The legal logic is that employers will see the decision as a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t conclusion, with risk coming from all directions, so you’d might as well give up and not use tests at all (and pick fire lieutenants by lottery, perhaps?). 

For those who design selection procedures, the case means something much different. Employers use valid assessment tools because they add tremendous value and fairness to the process of making decisions about people. Decades of scientific research support this, and organizations that use well-designed tools stand by them even when the lawyers start sniffing around. In fact, the use of assessments has been steadily increasing over the past decade.

A better interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision is based on the fact that the validity of the test was supported. To be clear, the New Haven test was far from perfect. However, the test designers did take necessary steps to map the test to the body of knowledge required for promotion, and outside experts in testing and in firefighting looked at the test and judged it to be reasonable and relevant. In the end, the court did not take issue with the validity of the test—giving employers who use valid assessments the confidence that selection decisions made based on a well-designed process can be defended.

Had the New Haven test not been validated, most people would never have heard of the Ricci case; the test would have been thrown out with good reason and the case would not have made its way to the Supreme Court. Sophisticated employers will continue to benefit from the value that objective and valid assessments provide, regardless of the shenanigans in New Haven.

Doug Reynolds is vice president of assessment technology at Development Dimensions International (DDI).

Man on the Moon

By Rich Wellins, Ph.D.

Recently I had an opportunity to hear Gary Hamel speak, which ranked right up there as one of my top five ever. That’s saying a lot after three decades of listening to management gurus. Gary, a Harvard professor, talked about his new book, Competing for the Future. You can read a great summary of his recent thinking in a Harvard Business Review article called “Moon Shots for Management.”

Some of Gary’s moon shots:

• Eliminate the pathologies of formal hierarchy.
• Reduce fear and increase trust.
• Redefine the work of leaders as architects of innovation and collaboration.
• Empower the renegades, disarm the reactionaries.
• Make key decisions based on the collective wisdom of the entire organization.
• Share the work of setting direction.

While I listened to Gary I could not help but think, no way!  I could not think of any corporation that truly embraced more than a very small handful of his moon shots. That is, until last week when I met Johan Dennelind, the CEO of DiGi Com, one of Malaysia’s leading telecoms.

A tall, blond, blue-eyed Swede, he almost seems out of place with 2,000 plus Malaysians. What blew me away was his relentless focus on culture. Almost everything went back to culture; talent and culture, strategy and culture, innovation and culture. I asked him how much of his time he spends thinking about culture. His answer: all the time!
Just a few examples:

• The building was designed with clear glass purposefully to reflect transparency.
• All titles were eliminated (even Johan’s) to reflect equality.
• Levels went from 16 to just 6 to reduce hierarchy and foster empowerment.
• All space was open.  No walls or cubes.  Employees sat at large worktables with 6-8 colleagues and could move from day-to-day.
• Signals of the importance of constant and shifting change include hour glasses installed on the wall.
• There are forums for associates to get involved in all aspects of the business.  For example, regularly scheduled free-flows allow employees to work directly with the CEO on critical issues, like embracing the customer experience.

I could go on and on. DiGi Com’s business transformation was led by a cultural transformation. And, it paid off with substantial sales gains!

Rich Wellins is senior vice president at Development Dimensions International (DDI).

Give ‘em a Nudge

By Barry Stern, Ph.D. 

Renting a car at the Houston airport late one night last week, I was asked if I wanted the CDW (Collision Damage Waiver) or “just” the LDW (Loss Damage Waiver) coverage. My automatic “no” response to the “would you like insurance coverage” is deeply ensconced, but this variation caught me off guard.  Trained to respond to the less costly of the two options I’m typically offered, I naively went for the limited coverage.

But why are these tricky “choice closes” so effective even for a tired ole travel dog? Some provocative answers are contained in a powerful, fun read I’ve just completed in the book Nudge by Richard Thaler (an economist) and Cass Sunstein (an attorney) both from the University of Chicago. They explain we are, well, “Human”, contrasting our condition with fictional and always logical “Econs” who, like Spock from Star trek, behave based solely on logic. Econs don’t have upside down mortgages, they get the right amount of exercise each day, and are impervious to the latest manipulations of salespeople trained and incented to trap you into thinking you need something you actually don’t.

What are the broader implications for organizations? Conscious practice of “choice architecture” or engineering the environment to nudge people to make better choices.  For example—

• Want people to make healthy food choices in your company cafeteria? Put healthy foods at the beginning of the line. 
• Want people to contribute to the company 401K so they receive the full company match? Set the default value of your company’s 401K to “contribute @ X%” level.
• Love that succession management practice adopted by IT last year? Or the impact of that front line training in your Chinese operations? Spend more of your precious time broadcasting their successes instead of trying to “logic others” into doing the same thing.

The rather controversial term “libertarian paternalism” is used for such conscious practice of choice architecture. That is, one doesn’t eliminate choices, just orchestrates the environment to have people choose the options that are beneficial.  Why not learn the rules and then nudge boldly, consciously, and creatively? 

Barry Stern is vice president, Consulting Services and Delivery for Development Dimensions International (DDI).