DDI’s Talent Management Intelligence

The Ballad of John and Steve

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

As I've spent the last week working and vacationing in Tokyo and Kyoto Japan and falling in love with this country, I was surprised to have John Lennon on the brain.  Not only is Yoko Ono from Tokyo, but I have been surprised by how much the peace sign is alive and well here in the Far East. It seemed that tourists posing for pictures, young and old, east and west (mostly east as observationally at least tourism has not returned to normal following what they refer to as the “Eastern Japan Great Earthquake Disaster”) broke out into a spontaneous display of a vote for peace.  Echoes of John and Yoko pleading "all we are saying is give peace a chance" have been reverberating in my mind. John was an intimate partner to me, a man I never met who sparked a love for music that today still inspires me and bonds me with my children. When “Sgt. Peppers” came out I was hypnotized.  I still am.  And I remember with abundant clarity exactly where I was when I found out of his death in Dec 1980; the grass wallpaper on my parents' den wall, the ABC-TV newscasters name (Ernie Anastos) who read the announcement; the glassy-eyed vacuous stares of the throng outside the Dakota Hotel on the TV; the lump in my throat that lasted for what felt like years.

And, as I sit here typing on my iPad, I will also remember the night in Kyoto when I found out about the death of Stephen Jobs.  Another intimate friend never talked to.  The shrines to him evocative of those to Lennon; he melded business with art through the look and feel of his innovations and the now omnipresent sound track of my travels.  Of course I knew he was a very sick man and the rattle I feel in my 50s is much less than that of the emotional youth hearing about John.  

I was not surprised to hear that Lennon and the Beatles were very much heroes to Jobs as well.  In the end perhaps both men measured themselves not by their own recognition or wealth, but by their ability to, as Jobs put it, “make a dent in the universe.”  Perhaps their greatest success was nothing less than inspiring others to greatness, to innovate in ways never dreamt.  In our recent Global Leadership Forecast which included 1900 HR Professionals and 12,500 leaders in 74 countries, we found that only 38% of leaders felt the quality of leadership was acceptable, only 25% when we asked the same question of HR professionals. Further, we found that the leaders’ ability to foster creativity and innovation was one of the 5 critical leadership skills of the future, along with managing change and identifying future talent. 

We can’t expect every leader to be the genius that Jobs or Lennon were, but they can learn to be the spark that creates the environment for greatness. For example, they can learn to inspire insatiable curiosity, make it okay to challenge perspectives, and meld those with the discipline to get things done.  And, as Jobs might have said, that would certainly be “insanely great.”

Barry Stern Ph.D. is vice president, Consulting Services and Delivery for Development Dimensions International (DDI). Follow him on Twitter.

Talent Management By The Numbers - 5 Leadership Lessons from Literary Chaos

By Barry Stern Ph.D.

In Rolling Stone last month, I encountered Yoko One quoting one of my favorite John Lennon lines, “life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”. And so it goes with my reading. To me, books are irresistible, bright shiny objects. What I end up reading is borne out of my life’s chaos, a function of ephemeral passions du jour stoked by discussions with business colleagues, friends, family, late night infomercials, and whether I have finished watching the full 6 years of the Sopranos on my iPad. Whether it’s a bunch of post-its on my desk, an Outlook task list category labeled “books,” a sky high pile of ugly unread periodicals on top of my file cabinet, or scribbled napkin notes stuffed disgustingly in my wallet, my reach always overextends my grasp. 

Yes, I am Barry and I suffer from ADBD (Attention Deficit Book Disorder). My new Kindle and iPad life provides an interesting chronology of my pathetic condition. Currently, I have 36 free “Samples” on my Kindle. I have read them all feverishly and, sadly, they all look equally terrific to me. I would be the worst critic in the world – a one man universal hype machine. Amazon’s cloud presents me with a ready list of the 22 books I read in 2010. I won’t even attempt to comment on them all, but if you have hit the hyperlink you have already peeked into my disturbed literary state.

Herewith presented, if only as personal therapy and delusion, are some leadership lessons I’ve taken from these books:   

1. Continue to develop weaker elements of an individual’s “success profile” regardless of the height of towering strengths.  In the tome, The King and Dr. Nick: What Really Happened to Elvis and Me, Dr. Nichopoulos points out our first lesson.  Elvis Presleys’ demons were evident to all, but too many were willing to turn a blind eye to the weaknesses that robbed him of his talent, and ultimately, his life.  
2. A superior performer does not an engaged employee make. In his autobiography Open, tennis superhero Andre Agassi describes how he learned to hate the game. Absurd, unbelievable, and true.  So while I thoroughly enjoy the excellence of the many talented people around me, this book contains a major caveat – they might not be nearly enjoying themselves as much as me. And one day they may well be gone.
3. Augment your leadership approach with an appeal to the intrinsic characteristics of motivation, particularly for more complex endeavors. I struggled with this one for a while, being a classically trained behavioral psychologist, however in Drive, Daniel Pink eventually convinced me that I must take more leadership action based on the power of what he terms autonomy, mastery, and purpose. If you’ve got the time, click here for an engaging 11 minute summary of his work. 
4. Treat people with “total respect and total honesty." Lizbeth Salander and Liesel Meminger  (central characters in, respectively The “Dragon Tattoo” Trilogy [Larsson], and The Book Thief [Zusak]) survived unspeakable atrocities.  Yet, they demonstrated the remarkable spark, preciousness, and resilience of the human condition. I left these ladies inspired to honor the humanity in all our employees, and to give my courageous best to each as they continue their development journeys.
5. Finally, in the post-Christmas spirit, Yes Virginia, there really is a place for leadership vision.  You see it in the remarkable work of Jack Rakove, Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America, which profoundly reshaped my understanding of the formation of the USA.  In a world where blimps represented the technology of the future, brilliant minds and passionate foot soldiers created a reality which still resonates for those of us in the US today. And I have had the audacity to look askance at a 5 year plan? How narrow.

Well there you have it. My secrets are exposed. What leadership lessons did you draw from unlikely places over the last year? I’d be interested to know.   

Barry Stern Ph.D. is vice president, Consulting Services and Delivery for Development Dimensions International (DDI). Follow him on Twitter.

Defining Done

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

 For about the past six months, my newfound friend and colleague Russ has an out of office message that simply says "define done."  Easy for HIM to say. Pretty much impossible for me to do, even when I'm mowing the lawn.  In two words Russ has captured one component of my lifelong struggle. I've never been very good at finishing.  It’s rare that anything I touch really seems done. When I write a sentence I can always tweak it. Is the split infinitive bothering me today?  Why did it bother me yesterday but not today? Can it be said in a more parsimonious way?  My life and my career seem to exist in shades of gray.  I envy those decisive people who just seem to know when something is "finished".  Their world, so black and white, so clean.

Perhaps Russ' question is borne from his IT/software background.  I have been surfing the net and found that one possible definition of done in the world of agile software development is that "a feature is implemented, reviewed, and unit tested, but not necessarily documented". 

Ubiquitous communication options and the liquidity of words has made defining done even more challenging. When am I done with participating in the never-ending email thread du jour?  I want to be "first out" or "never in".  More pervasively,  I notice nobody "writes" formal communications any more.  Now we "craft" them, which yet somehow elevates to new heights of verbosity and self absorption.  We are drowning in a world of crafted bits.

What about HR professionals? How do we define done as we develop people? Do our definitions of done limit those who can fly so much higher?  Or place too many undeserving artificial ceilings on folks? Are we really taking the time to systematically identify their apogees?  Can we ever say that a person has been developed, reviewed and unit tested?

How do you "define done" in your work?  When you deftly design that onboarding  experience for your new employees?  When you develop your new competency model?  Do others agree it's done? How are your definitions of done in fact defining you and your body of work to yourself and others?

Rather arbitrarily, I guess I'll stop here.

Barry Stern Ph.D. is vice president, Consulting Services and Delivery for Development Dimensions International (DDI). Follow him on Twitter.

Have we crowned the wrong folk hero?

By Barry Stern

It’s 6:21 AM Eastern Time on Thursday, August 12th and I just Googled our new folk hero Steven Slater - 4,840,000 results. He has clearly touched an international nerve as a courageous representative for all the downtrodden masses of customer service providers. But I’d like to express my anger and frustration at the folk hero status ole’ Steve seems to have achieved. The high or low point depending on your vantage point was my viewing of Jimmy Fallon’s “Ballad of Steven Slater” the other night on his talk show. Now stories of course are emerging about his apparent instability or that his “fuse was lit”.

As a frequent traveler, this saga certainly caught my attention; I too have felt like exploding at people countless times over the last 25 years of travel. In fact, I felt like clobbering the woman in the row in front of me 2 nights ago who screamed at her kids for the entire flight when all they were doing was being kids.  Or the idiot in the seat in back of me who really didn’t need the phone he was talking on for the person on the other end to hear him before they closed the hatch. You know, I really didn’t need to hear you strut your stuff about your big “deal.” I get it, you’re a very important man, so important it just couldn’t wait. But I had a book to read and I was exhausted, grumpy, and just wished I wasn’t on the plane. I really just wanted to tell you that I thought you sounded like a complete arrogant idiot. But the point is, I didn’t.

I will never forget the angry man sitting in front of me many years ago who was so hostile to a flight attendant that he literally dropped his newspaper in front of her in the aisle in the hope that she would trip.  Or the idiots on my trip back from Puerto Rico who came on board with boatloads of duty free liquor, stuffed them into the first class luggage compartment when they were in coach, and so abused the flight attendants that the pilot eventually had to threaten to land the plane prior to our destination. But these flight attendants held it together. You could see them gather themselves, their training and mindset kicking in.  They are my folk heroes.

I’d like to celebrate you and everyone in your organization who provides customer service. It’s a skill and a motivation, one which you have and companies select for and develop. I’d like to put in each and every one of your names and get 6 Million results. I want your internet presence to out-Slater Slater. I’d like to see your pictures all over the internet coupled with testimonials from clients who were upset about the fact that they didn’t get the prescriptions they need, that their paychecks weren’t deposited, or panicked about how they were going to get to their city after missing their connection. I’d like them to tell us all about how well you handled that situation, and in the end how you brightened their day and alleviated their fears.

I’d like to see stories about how in the face of dealing with the most ornery, unreasonable, and threatening customers your fuses remain “unlit”. You are my real folk heroes.

I want to hear from YOU. Who are the customer services heroes in your lives, in your companies?  Send me a post. Let’s give them their due!  

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

Slouching Towards New Normal

By Barry Stern

Lately I’ve been obsessing about the power of culture to determine individual action. This has been less of an intellectual exploration than a personal one resulting from experiencing various cultures marking my personal journeys nowadays. In fact, I write once again from Dubai, the Middle Eastern summer desert heat forcing a consciousness about how to get the few blocks from hotel to office tower in a halfway presentable state.

My belief is that despite crafted marketing and employee communications to the contrary, many organizations treat culture as we did air quality in the carefree pre-global warming days. We’re alive because it’s there, we measure it just to be sure, but we don’t really understand it that pervasively or believe we need to do too much to change its make-up. In fact, our dirty secret is its better if it doesn’t change too much.

Yes, I’m well aware that many of us have engagement, cultural and pulse surveys galore. And I have yet to find the CEO that considers a revisiting and revamping of culture undiscussible. But the power of information or intent is only released through action and it is in action I fear we fall way short.

We do take halting, expensive steps. One executive recently confided to me his company’s new found success in attracting a bevy of individuals selected for “new normal.” However, since the current culture and systems went under examined and little thought given to how new normal behaviors would be supported, just a few months later only a small percentage remained. In fact, this is fairly typical. Based on data from a recent Recruiting Roundtable study, there’s a 50/50 shot that, mere months after a hiring decision, either a hiring manager or the new employee will experience “recruiting remorse.” Surely a significant percentage of this can be explained by the desperate motivations of an underemployed workforce amplified by an organizational failure to take into consideration the impact of current realities upon employees selected with a critical eye only towards the future.

So have the courage to ask:

• Do your senior executives, despite the data they have, fail to recognize the cultural air deep in your organizational lungs and likely to remain?
• What degree of alignment with the aspirational culture do recruiting practices have?
• How robustly has your organization defined the success profile of individuals needed to bridge the gap between the aspirational culture and the spirit-crushing realities of the current one? Does that profile include the personal characteristics, motivations, and resiliency necessary to survive in both?
• What are the purposeful reinforcements you provide for those more aligned with culture you are trying to create than with your current one? How are you insulating them from “oldthink”?

But most importantly, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are willing to deal with the implications of your answers. Those of us who will be most effective are the ones who have the courage, skills, and yes the risk tolerance to deal with the answers.

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

Free Lunch!

By Barry Stern

The Wikipedia-worthy notion of TANSTAAFL or “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” is widely embedded in our current psyche. TANSTAAFL has a surprisingly long history, but the core notion is that if something feels too good to be true, then quite simply, it is. And generally, this isn’t a bad rule to live by in business, as capitalized upon in the catchy title of Andy Grove’s 1996 book “Only the Paranoid Survive.” In HR, the TANSTAAFL lifestyle seems a very prudent approach. Our employee base is litigious and connected. We need to “craft” our policies carefully to anticipate policy lunch payments, “design” our training programs, gain front end “buy-in” from steering committees and user communities. We are Grandmasters of the HR Chess Game and must anticipate and minimize negative consequences.

Or do we have it at least partially wrong? At two recent Talent Management Conferences in New York and San Diego, I was fortunate to meet Julie Clow, from Google’s Learning and Development area. Obviously enjoying pushing the envelope in extremely provocative ways, Julie ostensibly talked about social networking, however the implications were far broader. Social networking tools and learning designs could be “scrappy,” living organisms composed of disparate pieces and parts. Interventions might decidedly be not final, pretty, or “crafted”.  Unleash the wisdom of the crowd early and often and just perhaps a free lunch might result! And frankly, even if there are occasional negative reactions to less finely honed communications along the way, they are likely to be informative and of minimal cost. But perhaps people might simply get energized, teach each other, and develop their own passionate communities of expertise. Perhaps they might even exceed our wildest expectations if only we had the courage to get our big fat controlling egos (my words not Julie’s) out of the way.

Julie referred me to the first book of Wired magazine’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, which challenged archaic assumptions about the marketplace in our digital age. The essence of the “Long Tail” notion is that historically we have focused on the “head” of a curve for marketing and distribution purposes (i.e., the highly engineered or researched hit or the best seller) – in our field that highly “crafted” rollout or “designed and finished” training program. But of at least equal importance today is the “tail” of the curve (i.e., that boundless reach into much lower quantities of sales or users with eclectic needs which, when taken in aggregate, represent a huge opportunity for product, messaging, or involvement). So how do we start tapping into our “long tail” employee base? What if we:

• Adopted an “open-source” software model of training and development? Much like anyone might write an application for an iPhone, what if we created better tools for associates to build programs and knowledge bases reflective of their interests?
• Viewed ourselves less as sources of information but, like Google, informative filters of information, going beyond mere key word searches to dynamic results based the eclectic interests of our diverse constituency?

If you’re at all like me, you have more than a little hesitancy to delve into these waters for all kinds of conventional and obvious reasons. Yet, as Anderson points out, in a world where inventory is digital and the ability to tap into passion is boundless, there is a very real possibility of enjoying many free lunches. What risks are we taking to enjoy them?

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

Dancing Waters and Fossilized Cranes

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

I’m sitting alone in an outdoor café in Dubai next to the water show at the foot of the worlds tallest building, the half mile high Burj Khalifa. What a wonderful sensory and professional experience here! Working with executives with cultural sensibilities different from mine requires me to amp up my interpersonal antennae. Perhaps I can take this trans-cultural mindset back to the US, one in which my interpersonal assumptions are more limited and my ears more tuned to others’ frequencies.

I leave with a profound appreciation for Dubai and a strong desire to return. Here’s just a taste of east meets west, religious meeting secular:

• I’m in the world’s largest mall (largest, tallest, and most, as in “most cranes” are phrases I hear a lot here).  Although it’s 85 degrees outside, I’m looking through a glass window, where men in dishdashas and women in habayas are skiing, snowboarding, and tobogganing. Yes there really is an indoor ski slope in the Mall of the Emirates.
• I roam amongst the stores, smelling an exotic mish-mosh of gold, spices, Cartier, and Persian rugs. As one of the 5 daily Islamic calls to prayer echoes through the loudspeakers, my eyes light on a nearby Coldstone Creamery.
• I’m in a taxi crossing over to the “Palm,” a man made island built in the shape of a massive palm leaf.  Hotels and restaurants abound, each palm frond budding with condos of various sizes and shapes. The Burj Al Arab hotel built in the shape of a sailboat by the shore of the Gulf is within close eyeshot. 
• I travel to the old Gold “Souk” and here I have the sense of an older, but not ancient, Dubai, as the smells, teeming people, traffic and mosques create the gritty, earthy experience that I find myself gravitating towards as I travel. 

But the promise of the juggernaut that built Dubai appears somewhat unrealized. The magnitude and creativity of the new construction everywhere has reached beyond its grasp.  A countless number of unfinished buildings with motionless cranes adorn the skyline. I’m told that before our global financial crisis this Emirate had the largest single concentration of cranes on our planet. It’s easy to believe.

And, Dubai has only partially delivered to the talent that arrived here. Some Dubai expats abandoned their corporate apartments, drove their company-leased vehicles to the airport, left their keys and jetted out, their lives and their futures probably in tatters. How many were left on their own to pick up the pieces? What are our responsibilities to employees when massively disruptive events leave lives and careers hanging in the balance? These questions stand in high relief as I leave this land of dancing waters and fossilized cranes.

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

Our 'Stuffless' Workplace

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

The late comedian George Carlin claimed that all he really wanted in life was a place for his “stuff”. To Carlin, our homes are mainly places to keep our stuff and most of our extra-home activities merely opportunities to get more stuff. I have developed over the years acute “stuff-radar.” It kicks into high gear with new folks I meet and happens with a few stolen glances. The 10 copies of a book that occupy the top shelf of an executives’ bookcase, the Middle Eastern décor of the New York City sales leader, the hiker attire of the senior food exec—these all accelerate my Holmesian mission to establish professional intimacy and, ultimately impact, fast. 

But our stuff sight lines have decidedly changed. With the stroke of a key we can reach our global workforces, but we can’t see their stuff. To add to the challenge, Kindles are replacing bookshelves, associates are in shared “hotel workspaces”, or alone in their homes, or—as George Clooney’s character was in the movie, “Up in the Air”—working from planes, trains and automobiles. Clooney’s character was the personification of “non-stuff”. Essentially he lived out of a suitcase, felt most comfortable in airline clubs and hotels, and his personal discomfort and lack of stuff in his own apartment palpable.

Now, nearly every aspect of human resources has a technological backbone. As the scope gets larger, our view into the realities of our associates and their “stuff,” dims exponentially. We run the risk of further alienating our already disengaged workforces. Ask yourself:

• Despite the “coolness factor” associated with technology, what steps is your company really taking to use technology to drive employee engagement? Are you even thinking in those terms? And what are you doing especially to address the younger workforce so pinned to their phones and text messages?
• What advances has your company made in deepening the organizational understanding and implications of virtual learning or meeting environments? What have you done to compensate for the missing elements of face-to-face connections?

The promise of technology is to create both deeper employee intimacy and engagement while driving greater efficiency and profit. Only through addressing these types of questions in a fearless way, will that promise be realized.

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

Talent Resolution #10: Live in the crisis mindset

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

It’s time for you to admit it. The last months have caffeinated your world. There’s part of you, regardless of your specific plight, that has found this whole economic mess energizing. Somewhere along the line you decided that you were either going to go fetal or grab for the gusto. And grab you did. You “changed your game” and “did more with less”; thereby developing new muscles, stamina and courage you didn’t know you had. It’s been months since you used the word “proactive” and yet now you actually understand what it means, even in the midst of crises. The term “lifelong learning” actually means something to you. And you found yourself either sitting in a boardroom or at less oxygen-rich organizational levels than those you customarily inhabit.

Eight months ago that craggy jerk who wouldn’t take your calls for the last two years walked into your office, a dumb smile molded onto his face, and asked you to help keep him out of court as he got rid of 20% of his fatso organization. And you did it. And he’s your new best friend and somehow not quite so craggy.

Crises are mobilizing. As new sales plummet and loyal customers flee, the warts on our corporate structures reveal themselves in high ugly relief.  People become figure instead of ground.  As a result, HR professionals are reincarnated as mission critical.  So let’s reflect for a moment as to how you rose to the occasion: 

1. You asked questions to clarify what the end game was unflinchingly and offered your passionate suggestions with nary a thought of intimidation or politics.
2. You resisted your temptation to gather still more data before acting, figuring you were smart enough not to make really silly mistakes.
3. You didn’t define your mistakes as “really silly,” fixed them, and never lost a beat.
4. You implemented while learning and found that you’re pretty good at it.
5. You developed a new personal equilibrium coupled with deepened organizational credibility.

Aren’t you sad all this fun might end? If it does, don’t lose your edge. And if not, I know you will carry on.  Either way, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.

Follow the series 10 Talent Resolutions for 2010.

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

Running Uphill

By Barry Stern, Ph.D.

After having been away from running for around 10 years and beginning to train again about month ago, Saturday I ran in a local 5K and had a blast!  Perhaps I was inspired by the upcoming New York City Marathon, which I completed in a blinding 1997 rainstorm that still brought out about 1,000,000 spectators (or as I thought of them that day, my closest friends) across the Five Boroughs. An incomprehensible celebration of human accomplishment, tolerance, collegiality, and diversity, to this day the experience continues to produce psychic returns.

Less vivid are my memories of the 5AM training runs, or the missed family Sundays when I “went long” with my training partner. Nor do I much reflect on the occasional nausea, the aches, pains, blisters, cold, or the uphill runs when right before blessed relief at the top of some crucifying hill in Chesterland, Ohio, my heart felt like it was about to punch through the back of my ribcage. But there is a steel-like mental connection of that marathon peak experience with those long hours of excruciating training. 

Today it feels to many of my colleagues and our clients that we see the top of that heart pounding hill and perhaps can even glimpse at what’s beyond. The more optimistic of us feel that marathon day is approaching. And we know that getting to this point in some semblance of health has meant we’ve developed new muscle. And yet, for all too many leaders, this singular focus has come at the expense of those they lead.

Understandably, leaders have focused their efforts on managing costs, ensuring profitability, doing more with less, and chasing revenue. But what has been the toll on human capital? Consider these harrowing statistics from our recently completed Pulse of the Workforce survey:

• 55% of those surveyed say they will move to another company if they have the opportunity
• 51% feel stagnant and only 29% of those folks feel like they’re interested in what they do. A typical comment is “same old thing, day after day.”
• 44% of stagnant workers plan on actively looking for another job when the economy improves. Typical comment: “I’m just killing time until the economy improves”.

Many of us feel that our organizations have been left with “the best” as a result of these times. But what actions is your company taking now to ensure that your world class runners are entered and ready for the race?

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