I vostri collaboratori sanno il massimo?
10 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Vi lascio a questa interessante lettura che esplica chiaramente quanti si pensi all’oggi e ai problemi di tutti i giorni e non all’evolversi delle situazioni.
Inoltre, le interviste fatte ai diversi CEO, dimostrano quanto non sia reale quanto dicono, altrimenti non esisterebbe la consulenza e il coaching, cosa che in questo momento si sta evolvendo in maniera forte.
At the World Economic Forum last week, I attended a small dinner that included eight Nobel Prize winners. What a privilege in itself.
The question the Laureates were asked to address was “What do you see as the world’s biggest challenges?” They facilitated conversations at each table, and at the end, each of them reported out.
Their suggestions included overpopulation, unemployment, the environment, and inequality. Each of the Nobel winners was eloquent and wise about these issues, but the reality is that the challenges are familiar, and they’re getting worse, not better. The common denominator among all of them is that they are problems created by humans. So why can’t we humans solve them?
The most basic answer is that we don’t make a connection between our current behavior and its future consequences. As Muhammad Yunus, the Bagladeshi economist, put it, “Leaders don’t have time for the future because they’re too busy with the present.”
The more primitive parts of our brain conspire against our thinking about the future. Our amygdala is designed to be hyper alert to signs of threat, but only immediate threat. At the same time, we’re powerfully pulled to immediate gratification, even if it’s undermining our own long-term well-being.
As the wonderfully gentle and self-effacing astrophysicist and two-time Nobel Prize winner Saul Perlmutter put it, “We’re limited by being human. We want results fast, and we discount the future.”
Consider, for example how this applies to companies and their employees. The factual arguments for investing in employee well-being — so that people can bring more of themselves to work every day — are now overwhelming.
A meta-analysis of existing research, conducted by three Harvard researchers, found that the savings from wellness programs in organizations averages $3.27 for every dollar spent. That’s true even though the quality and depth of many such programs is still very limited.
At one point during a Davos session last week, I asked more than a half dozen CEOs at a discussion I was leading, “Do you believe that your employees perform better if they’re happier and healthier? The unsurprising and unanimous answer was “Yes.” Then I asked the CEOs, “If that’s the case, how much time, energy and money do you invest in insuring that your employees are healthier and happier?” Nearly all of them agreed the answer was very little.
The value of investing money and time in taking care of employees, rather than simply trying to get more out of them, can seem hard to measure. Also, because it doesn’t produce instant results, it may seem at odds with the urgent aim of getting more done, faster, right now.
When we’re run by the more primitive parts of our brain — and we are far more often than we recognize — we become myopically short-term in our perspective.
So what’s the antidote? It’s to rely more on our pre-frontal cortex, which allows humans alone to imagine the future consequences of our actions. Too often, instead, we use our pre-frontal cortex after the fact, to rationalize and minimize our short-term and ultimately self-defeating behaviors.
We don’t lack for potential solutions to our problems so much as we do the willingness to intelligently sacrifice in the short term, in the service of generating more value in the long term.
To do that, we need to learn to better regulate our emotions, which begins with gaining more control of our attention. That’s the next great evolutionary leap, and it’s on the horizon.
The most interesting conversations I had at Davos were with two neuroscientists — Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin and Tania Singer of the Max Planck Institute — and one of their experimental subjects, the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.
Through their research, both Davidson and Singer have demonstrated that our brains have extraordinary plasticity. It’s possible, they’ve found, for human beings to systematically train the regulation of negative emotion and to increase our capacity for calm reflectiveness in the face of high stress. MRI scans can measure, for instance, brain activity associated with empathy and compassion — and people can cultivate those attributes through deliberate practice. Mathieu Richard, who runs 110 humanitarian programs around the world, has done precisely that.
Our own work at The Energy Project focuses on helping individuals and organizations institute highly specific rituals — behaviors and practices that eventually become automatic and serve sustainable well-being and effectiveness.
We can learn to be far more conscious and intentional in our behavior, and less self-centered and short-term in our perspective. Doing so requires deliberate practice.
I primi 100 giorni da CEO
8 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
I primi 100 giorni di un CEO o COO (oserei dire), come in politica sono i giorni in cui si esegue il cambio di rotta, e vengono intraprese le nuove scelte e/o decisioni. Ma non sempre, questi 100 giorni sono decisivi e i più facili, ecco quindi di seguito cosa può accadere e come gestire le attività
It’s tough at the top and getting tougher. CEO turnover in medium and large U.S. companies is speeding up: Today CEOs last just six years on average, down from eight years a decade ago. More than 15% of current CEOs are freshmen. Starting off on the right foot is crucial, especially during “the first 100 days,” when new top executives are under intense scrutiny to prove they’re equal to the job. Unfortunately, the 100-day strategy has fallen victim to several myths that make it more difficult for leaders to lead.
MYTH #1: New CEOs should look outward and move quickly, rapidly inspecting personnel and procedures and identifying shortcomings in order to “sort out the mess.” One CEO, newly installed in an ailing industrial goods company, wasted time investigating and disparaging his predecessor. After a year of “I’m-not-the-other-guy” leadership, this executive hadn’t stamped his own identity on the business or made any distinctive decisions.
FACT: New CEOs benefit from introspection, not just inspection. They should reflect on their leadership style in order to adapt and harmonize with the company. One CEO, for example, excelled at communicating to small groups, delegating and team-building. Because he initially concentrated on assembling a strong team and personally communicating with them, he was able to develop a firm launch-pad for a variety of initiatives aimed at transforming the company.
MYTH #2: New CEOs should make an impact as soon as possible, notching up some “quick wins.” Consider one American executive who took over a foreign-owned manufacturing company. Without pausing to fully appreciate the company’s culture, ownership structure and tolerance for change, he developed a turbo-charged reorganization and growth plan. The Board of Directors rejected it, forcing him to backtrack, rebuild credibility and endure increased scrutiny.
FACT: New CEOs should find out what makes a company tick and work with this reality to achieve goals. In this spirit, the CEO-elect of an established media company devoted eight months prior to her accession to soliciting the views of stakeholders and identifying areas of future innovation and growth. After taking office and completing her review, she assembled her team. Her patience and precision instilled confidence, enhanced morale, and was rewarded with impressive growth.
MYTH #3: New CEOs should establish their executive team by recruiting the ablest functional and line leaders. One over-enthusiastic food company CEO established a team of outstanding executives, only to find that it wasn’t a team at all, but rather a group of individuals with divergent and conflicting approaches. His role became that of compromise-seeker and peacekeeper, not leader.
FACT: “Teamability” may be more important than individual ability. New CEOs should look for team players, rather than individual superstars, when they establish the inner circle. A top talent who can’t work effectively with colleagues is a liability, not an asset.
MYTH #4: New CEOs must promptly define and communicate performance metrics. An incoming CEO of an entertainment company, eager to secure first-mover advantage, instituted an ambitious growth strategy and set specific targets for managers. The board, concerned he had taken his eye off the core business, forced him to start again.
FACT: Before defining standards and evaluation criteria for others, new CEOs should first establish and communicate how they themselves will be evaluated.
MYTH #5: New CEOs must strive to be the smartest person in the room; you’re the chief, right? After a healthcare executive was promoted over longer-serving colleagues, he took a crash course in their fields of expertise. Whenever they made constructive suggestions, he knew better. Except, of course, he didn’t, and he suffered for it.
FACT: Omniscience is unattainable and does not guarantee great leadership. Smartness is helpful, but so are humility and inquisitiveness. The new CEO of a financial services business, an outside hire, studied just enough to ask the right questions. He acknowledged and deferred to those with superior expertise, but knew enough to challenge easy assumptions. This enabled him to slowly reset the organization’s goals, with his senior colleagues firmly on board.
Perhaps the most dangerous myth of all is that a new CEO’s worth can be judged in the “first 100 days.” That’s often not the case. New CEOs need to maximize job preparation through research, consultation and introspection. They need to listen to others, seek impartial, external counsel who can discuss the un-discussable, and differentiate between self-interested counsellors and the advice of team players. The most successful CEOs are not always the leaders who are most knowledgeable and decisive. Often they are the leaders who create the best teams, inspire peers, and set a coherent vision in keeping with the organization’s mission.
LEAN HEALTHCARE – iniziamo in Italia
6 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Su questo argomento ci tengo ad evidenziare i risultati ottenuti in USA, in struttura ospedaliera, dove è stata introdotta la LEAN ORGANIZATION.
La nostra esperienza Internazionale, derivante da una JV con un gruppo Americano specializzato in LEAN HEALTHCARE, ci permette ci confermare che quanto indicato è assolutamente reale, e fattibile, confermato da qualche raro caso in Italia, che può sostenere questa tesi. (i progetti sono però stati sviluppati solo in ambiti ristretti).
Ogni qualvolta entro in un Ospedale Italiano, guardandomi intorno possono osservare sprechi continui, dispersioni, tempi di attraversamento “biblici”, dovuti fondamentalmente ad una mancanza di cultura rivolta “al fare meglio”.
Quante volte, quante cose potremmo svolgere in maniera migliore e con spesso la metà della fatica?, ve lo siete mai chiesti?quali risultati potremmo ottenere guardando dalla stessa parte e con un processo chiaro e condiviso?
Credo che l’Italia, con le sue persone, tanto creative, quanto (concedetemi) indisciplinate, potrebbe essere la migliore nel panorama quanto meno “europeo” a livello di crescita e miglioramento continuo.
Ribadisco che la nostra esperienza sostiene che la Sanità in Italia potrebbe fare grandi miglioramenti ed essere Guida a livello Internazionale, basta volerlo
BUONA LETTURA
Over on the Hospitals and Health Networks site, I read this great article about the Denver Health organization’s incredible benefits resulting from its six-year Lean journey. Patricia A. Gabow, CEO of the Denver Health and Hospital Authority, believes the $135 million financial benefit since 2006 is a result of the adoption of Lean management techniques. In addition, in 2011, the hospital evidently saw “$46 million in financial benefits from Lean projects.”
Other than the amazing benefits discussed in the article, I found this detail quite interesting: “There are 16 value streams and an organized method for picking improvement projects. Some are short term, others extend over multiple years, such as revenue cycle, the OR and community health. Each value stream has an executive sponsor and a steering committee that meets monthly. Gabow reviews metrics for all of the value streams and rapid-improvement events every month.”
What do readers working in the healthcare industry think of this format for value stream maps? Are your maps used in the same fashion?
After winning the coveted Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence (the first healthcare organization to achieve this feat) , Denver Health now offers its own Lean Academy.
Cosa è la Leadership
4 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Quante volte si è parlato di leadership, ma ancor di più se ne sente l’esigenza oggi.
Di seguito un articolo che descrive a pieno e in maniera molto semplice cosa vuol dire Leadership
Voi avete queste caratteristiche?
This may seem like a fairly simple question. As an author who has written, trained and spoken on leadership for a number of years, I know there are nearly as many definitions as there are people to define it.
If you are, or aspire to be, a leader your personal answer to this question is important; it will, knowingly or not, inform and guide many of the decisions you make and the tasks that you perform while leading.
My goal in this article is to share some things that leadership is, and some things that it is not. I hope my insights will cause you to think and – whether you agree or not – to use these ideas to help you form a clearer definition of what leadership is.
What Leadership Is
Complex. In visiting with an experienced aerospace engineer (a.k.a. a rocket scientist), I asked him which was more complex – rocket science or leadership. His response was swift and simple. “Leadership is much more complex. In my world we can come up with the right answer. We know the equations and formulas. If we put the right numbers into them, and do the right things, we will get guaranteed results. But as a leader you are dealing with people – and people are inherently more complex. And the issues, while perhaps not as dramatic as sending a rocket into orbit, are far more dynamic and contain tremendous amounts of gray area.” I couldn’t have said it better. Leadership isn’t easy or simple. And, like rocket science, it is something that requires lots of study and practice to become skilled.
Action. Leadership is often considered a thing, i.e. “She is the leader.” From a dictionary perspective leadership is a noun, but it also is a verb. Leadership is not really something to have or possess; it is something to do. When you think about leadership, think actions; think behaviors. It is with better actions and behavior that you will gain better results.
Responsibility. If you are placed in or accept a formal (or informal) role of leadership, you have taken on a responsibility. It is easy to think about that if you are President, a C.E.O. or a business owner. The fact is that every leadership action carries responsibility – no matter your “title” or job description. People are looking to you. If you are leading, people are following you. You have a responsibility therefore for more than yourself and your own results.
Opportunity. As a leader you have an opportunity to make a difference: for Customers, for the organization, for those you lead, for the world at large. When you exhibit the behaviors of leadership you are actively trying to create new results that will make a difference in the world. Few things hold greater opportunity than this.
What Leadership Isn’t
Management. The skills of management are focused on things, processes and procedures. The skills of leadership focus on people, vision and development. Both are valuable skill sets and in many cases we need to exhibit both, but great leaders aren’t necessarily great managers and vice versa.
A title or position. You are a leader when people follow you. That action of others isn’t guaranteed by a job title, the color of your desk or the size of your office. A title that proclaims you a leader doesn’t make you a leader any more than calling a lion a zebra creates black stripes.
A power grab. Others giving you power as a leader is different than people who want power. True leadership comes from your relentless focus on serving others, not wanting to be powerful. Leaders inherently have a great deal of influence, and therefore a certain amount of power, but that isn’t a true leaders focus.
A gift from birth. Leadership skills aren’t doled out in the genetics of some while others are left wanting. Everyone is given a unique bundle of DNA that can allow some to become highly effective, even remarkable, leaders. Do some people have innate strengths that help them as leaders? Of course, but so do you – even if they are different strengths. None of that matters though if you don’t do the things to use those strengths and do the things to improve in areas that are harder for you. Few things are sadder than unfulfilled potential. Leadership success isn’t nearly as much about genetics as it is learning and improvement.
This isn’t a complete list in either case – creating some sort of compendium wasn’t my goal. My goal, as stated earlier, was to give you food for thought. I’ve set the table, now I hope you sit down and eat at this table of ideas to help you build your own definition of leadership.
Potential Pointer: Your definition of leadership will have a huge impact on how you behave and perform as a leader. Time spent thinking about the role and your beliefs about it will have a drastic influence on the results you see as a leader. Because of this, time spent thinking about and answering the question, “What is leadership?” is time well spent.
Rovinare i migliori talenti – prendiamo spunto per migliorare le nostre aziende –
2 febbraio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Perchè le aziende anche quando hanno degli ottimi talenti non sanno valutarli o rivalutarli, e quindi nel tempo tendono a perderli?
inoltre i punti sotto indicati possono essere utili per effettuare un check Aziendale
Buona lettura, attendo commenti
Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent
Whether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.
Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don’t. I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent :
- Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say “check please.”
- Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — by definition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a “nice to have” rather than “must have” conversation. However, unless you see it as a “must have,” say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.
- Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’t really interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4….
- No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’ll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.
- Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or “brickhouse” around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be “jerked around.” If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’ve promised.
- Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs. Although you can’t “jerk around” top talent, it’s a mistake to treat top talent leading a project as “untouchable.” We’re not saying that you need to get into anyone’s business or telling them what to do. However, top talent demands accountability from others and doesn’t mind being held accountable for their projects. Therefore, have regular touch points with your best people as they work through their projects. They’ll appreciate your insights/observations/suggestions — as long as they don’t spillover into preaching.
- Top Talent likes other Top Talent. What are the rest of the people around your top talent like? Many organizations keep some people on the payroll that rationally shouldn’t be there. You’ll get a litany of rationales explaining why when you ask. “It’s too hard to find a replacement for him/her….” “Now’s not the time….” However, doing exit interviews with the best people leaving big companies you often hear how they were turned off by some of their former “team mates.” If you want to keep your best people, make sure they’re surrounded by other great people.
- The Missing Vision Thing. This might sound obvious, but is the future of your organization exciting? What strategy are you executing? What is the vision you want this talented person to fulfill? Did they have a say/input into this vision? If the answer is no, there’s work to do — and fast.
- Lack of Open-Mindedness. The best people want to share their ideas and have them listened to. However, a lot of companies have a vision/strategy which they are trying to execute against — and, often find opposing voices to this strategy as an annoyance and a sign that someone’s not a “team player.” If all the best people are leaving and disagreeing with the strategy, you’re left with a bunch of “yes” people saying the same things to each other. You’ve got to be able to listen to others’ points of view — always incorporating the best parts of these new suggestions.
- Who’s the Boss? If a few people have recently quit at your company who report to the same boss, it’s likely not a coincidence. We’ll often get asked to come in and “fix” someone who’s a great sales person, engineer, or is a founder, but who is driving everyone around them “nuts.” We can try, but unfortunately, executive coaching usually only works 33% of the time in these cases. You’re better off trying to find another spot for them in the organization — or, at the very least, not overseeing your high-potential talent that you want to keep.
It’s never a one-way street. Top talent has to assume some responsibility as much as the organization. However, with the scarcity of talent — which will only increase in the next 5 years — Smart Organizations are ones who get out in front of these ten things, rather than wait for their people to come to them, asking to implement this list.
Linee guida per una rapida trasformazione LEAN from HBR.org
30 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Anche la famosa importante rivista Harvard Business Review, sottolinea come trasformare l’azienda verso un processo LEAN – ci tengo a sottolineare che non si tratta di un passaggio facile e nemmeno immediato (forse per qualche attività), ma indispensabile per crescere e sviluppare il VERO VALORE dell’Azienda
Buona Lettura
One of the most common mistakes that companies make when embarking on a lean program is trying to do too much at once. These “boil-the-ocean” initiatives are long, costly and often end up stalling under the weight of their own ambition.
The fact is, smaller and faster can be better when it comes to lean. One thing we’ve consistently seen in our work with manufacturers is what a huge impact a quick plant “health check” and a few focused changes can have on cost and performance. Companies can see major savings in specific areas in just a few weeks. The key is to pick the right improvement levers by taking the time to quantify the value they could deliver, weigh the trade-offs, and choose only the top three or four priorities to tackle immediately.
Sounds simple, right? The problem is that many companies either don’t take the time or don’t have the analytical skills needed to look cross-functionally, dig deep, find the underlying cost drivers, quantify the improvement opportunities and evaluate the trade-offs. Once they bring these diagnostic skills to the table, they can see the potential big wins.
Clarity on the payoff is a critical first step, but sometimes even when the source of problems and the financial upside of addressing them are clear, no action is taken. There may be too many competing priorities, not enough manpower, limited access to the capital needed to get the ball rolling, or just plain inertia. Other times companies think they’ve already done all they can to reduce waste, cut costs, and improve efficiency, so they don’t bother to look any further. For example, one manufacturer we worked with cut costs so deeply that it assumed its people had to be more productive. But by simply observing the crew and their activities on the production line, we saw just the opposite — too much downtime, wasted effort and inefficient work habits. The company’s lean efforts simply hadn’t gone far enough.
In addition to the above, there are often “hidden” costs that — by definition — aren’t immediately visible, especially in complex global production networks. One company had a continuous improvement program underway and thought it was quite lean. But a cost comparison across its network of plants revealed a multi-million dollar cost gap between the top and bottom performers. By doing a deeper analysis of underlying cost drivers such as scale, efficiency, overhead, and logistics, the company gained new insights into why some plants and geographies performed so much better than others — and what high-impact areas to tackle for greater savings.
Based on our experience, the best opportunities for quick improvements in manufacturing costs and performance typically lie in five key areas:
Equipment — By reducing machine downtime, improving maintenance and boosting overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and output
Processes — By standardizing work, cutting out low-value steps, optimizing work flow and improving line staffing
Material yield — By reducing loss from scrap and obsolescence
Logistics — By boosting warehouse productivity and minimizing freight costs
Inventory — By right-sizing, rethinking levels of buffer stock, streamlining material flows and improving demand forecasts
Although these categories are quite broad, the key is to focus sharply on a small number of specific levers in a few high-impact areas of the plant. Interestingly, at virtually every company we work with, the biggest opportunities for quick wins are in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), line staffing, and scrap reduction — probably because these areas are easy to analyze, can be changed without a major capital investment, and almost always have room for improvement no matter how much attention has been paid to them in the past.
Just observing a plant’s operations can deliver “aha” moments that lead to real insight and simple fixes. For instance, at an industrial products manufacturer with a one-operator-per-line set up, we noticed that the line operators were walking around a lot and doing things that seemed to add little value. This excessive movement was a clear red flag. By reorganizing the work flows and slightly modifying the production lines so the work area was more concentrated, the manufacturer was able to assign each operator two lines instead of one —reducing labor costs by about 40 percent.
Another quick, simple fix with a big payoff was at the factory of an automotive company. The tip-off there was seeing parts and materials sitting on the floor, where they often ended up getting damaged by forklifts or workers before they could be used. The manufacturer saved millions of dollars per year simply by designating a section on the shop floor for this inventory, creating racks to move it off of the floor and putting guardrails around it to protect it from damage.
But sometimes the problems aren’t so obvious. In these cases, a deep analysis often reveals a very counterintuitive solution. For instance, we were looking into a manufacturer’s warehouse operations. The warehouse had slotted its SKUs in a way that seemed to make sense — the high-volume movers were closest to the main doors. Unfortunately, this layout actually resulted in congestion, interference and delays. By creating a “heat map” showing relative areas of activity throughout the warehouse in a typical week, we were able to reorganize the layout and traffic patterns to make better use of the space. These changes shortened movement and transit times by 20 – 25 percent overall.
If new best practices such as these are shared among all of a company’s factories, a multiplier effect often takes hold and costs can drop substantially across the whole production network. The right metrics and incentives can ensure that this sharing happens. Again, small changes and big results.
Done right, a “fast lean” approach can generate major savings and be a catalyst for a larger lean transformation, even funding it. To get started, we would suggest companies keep in mind four simple guidelines:
Prioritize opportunities based on time to results, relative effort and financial impact
Focus scarce resources on top priorities to generate quick wins
Develop a coordinated effort within and across plants to rapidly surface and adopt best practices
Create an environment that rewards speed and an acceptable level of risk taking
If a broader lean program is already underway, this approach can turbo-charge it and increase momentum. There’s nothing more invigorating to an organization than fast, visible performance improvements that people can see and touch — and that hit the bottom line.
Sviluppare LEADER Consapevoli
29 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Buongiorno a tutti
Sviluppare Leader oggi Leader, è oramai da considerarsi fondamentale, senza di essi le aziende non possono progredire; in questo momento solo chi è in grado di prendere decisioni in breve tempo in maniera consapevole può rimanere in “Vita”, proprio così, rimanere in Vita, non vi sono altre parole per descrivere questo momento complesso dove il negativismo sta colpendo anche chi si trova in una situazione, come dire positiva, ha il timore a muoversi, a fare ogni singolo passo
Di seguito, viene spiegato come e quanto sia importante avere consapevolezza e avere leader
Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as “leadership development,” which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks “hi-pos” and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.
What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?
In other words, what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?
That was the question Todd Pierce asked himself in 2006 after years of experimenting with the full menu of trainings, meetings, and competency models in his capacity as CIO of biotechnology giant Genentech. He had just scoured the development reports of some 700 individuals in the IT department and found that “not one of them had an ounce of inspiration. I remember sitting there and saying, ‘There’s got to be a another way.'”
At the time, Pierce was benefiting personally from work with a personal coach and had recently woken up to the power of the practice of mindfulness. He called in a kindred soul, Pamela Weiss, a long-time executive coach and meditation teacher, to help design an experiment that would cast out the traditional approach to leadership development to focus instead on helping people grow.
“If you want to transform an organization it’s not about changing systems and processes so much as it’s about changing the hearts and minds of people,” says Weiss. “Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings.”
Pierce and Weiss distilled a set of principles that form the basis of what became the “Personal Excellence Program” (PEP), now heading into its sixth year inside Genentech (Pierce left the company this fall after 11 years to join salesforce.com). Together, these pillars offer up a short course in unleashing human capability, resilience, compassion, and well-being (and they’re unpacked in even more detail in Weiss and Pierce’s entry).
1. Developing people is a process — not an event. “Development is all too often considered a one-time event,” says Weiss. She and Pierce designed PEP as a ten-month-long journey that unfolds in three phases, with big group meetings, regular small group sessions, individual coaching, peer coaching, and structured solo practice.
2. People don’t grow from the neck up. Too much training focuses on the the mind — it’s about transferring content. “We talk about the head, the heart, and the body,” says Weiss. In fact, they do more than talk about it — they enact it every day at the start of every meeting. The “3-center check in” is the gateway drug to mindfulness. As Weiss describes it: “You close your eyes for a moment and you notice, ‘What am I thinking — what’s happening in my head center,’ then you notice, ‘What am I feeling — what’s happening in my heart center.’ then, ‘What am I feeling — what’s happening in my body.’ It’s a way in which people start paying attention and practicing mindfulness without ever practicing meditation.”
3. Put mindfulness at the center (but don’t call it that!). Weiss and her team were careful to keep the language of specific belief systems and religions out of PEP. The program revolves around three phases: reflection on and selection of a specific quality or capacity you want to work on (patience, decisiveness, courage); three months of cultivating the capacity for self-observation; and the hard work of turning insight into deliberate, dedicated, daily practice.
4. It’s hard to grow alone. “People grow best in community,” says Weiss. “People don’t grow as well just reading a book, getting an online training, or just taking in information. There’s an exponential impact in having people grow and learn together.” That’s why the PEP “pod” (small 6-8 person group) is the main vehicle throughout the year.
5. Everybody deserves to grow. Pierce felt strongly that PEP should be available to people across the board — not just the usual “stars” — and that it should be voluntary. “The program is by application and not declaration,” he says.
As PEP heads into its sixth year at Genentech, some 800 people have participated in the program. (Weiss added a graduate curriculum and a student training program to create “PEPtators” as few people want the journey to end.) The impact has been nothing short of transformative for individuals and organization alike. When Pierce took over the IT department in 2002, its employee satisfaction scores were at rock bottom; four years into the program, the department ranked second in the company and is now consistently ranked among the best places to work in IT In the world (even in the wake of Genentech’s 2009 merger with Roche Group — always a turbulent and dispiriting experience).
Pierce attributes that to “the emotional intelligence of people and the capacity to change” developed in PEP. But don’t take his word for it. The data-obsessed Pierce commissioned a third path impact report on PEP. It came in glowing: 10-20% increase in employee satisfaction, 50% increase in employee collaboration, conflict management, and communication; 12% increase in customer satisfaction; and nearly three times the normal business impact.
“Through PEP we have created a smarter, more agile, and more responsive organization,” says Pierce. “The reduction of suffering, the capacity to deal with difficulties, the level of engagement — these things are very powerful and you can’t call a meeting to get them or give people stock options and have them. These are skills and qualities you have to cultivate and practice.”
So how’s this for a new year’s resolution for hard-charging leaders: turn every ringing, pinging, tweeting, and blinking thing off — especially your mind — and just breathe.
Pensiamo ai prossimi 12 mesi nel web
27 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Iniziamo ad utilizzare i social media in modo corretto, in modo che possano generare valore.
Ad oggi sono pochi coloro che possono dire di utilizzare i social generando valore per la propria impresa.
Di seguito vado ad elencarvi alcuni suggerimenti per procedere nella direzione di generazione di valore
While everyone else is busy thinking about or already breaking their New Year resolutions, it’s time for us to take a moment to rethink what it is we can really do better now and over the next 12 months.
I’m sure you heard it everywhere last year. Experts found the highest blog mountains and social network skyscrapers to Tweet in concert, “You need a Facebook brand page! Why are you not on Twitter yet? Have you checked-in on Foursquare? Hurry up and get set up on Google+. If you don’t get on social media, you’re going to go out of business!”
And, here you are…still in business, I presume. But like any keen business leader or entrepreneur, you’re avidly thinking about your next move and your social media strategies for 2012.
You already know that running the show in a mode of “business as usual” is not only limiting, it’s terribly complacent. But if you are to change, you need to better understand exactly how technology is influencing the behavior of your customers and why.
The truth is that you can create your company brand pages on every social network you can imagine and you won’t succeed unless you know whom you’re trying to reach and where, what it is they expect and value, and how these channels represent a meaningful opportunity for you and your consumers to connect.
You first must answer what’s in it for them and what’s in it for you.
Defining your Social Media Strategy Social networks, smartphones, tablets, review sites, gamification, geo-location, et al. are producing a new breed of consumer, and businesses are largely missing them altogether. In fact, the emergence of this more “connected consumer” is forcing the end of business as usual.
At the same time, the decision patterns of these connected consumers has ushered in an era of risk where any business, large and small, is vulnerable to digital Darwinism — the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to adapt.
Ten Social Media Tips
In 2012, consider yourself a digital anthropologist or sociologist as you immerse yourself in a day in the life of your connected consumer and seek to close the chasm between you and them.
There are many professional social media analysts, researchers and strategists who can help you find the answers you seek.
Starting now and forever, technology and empathy are now part of your business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your markets will depend on your industry and the rate of adoption within it.
Priority areas for your social media strategy should include an understanding of the following:
1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses
2. Geo-location check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts.
3. Crowd-sourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why.
4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing.
5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic, and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services.
6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty.
7. How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing. Also, how they’re comparing options, reviewing experiences and making decisions while mobile?
8. The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. You must realize how consumers are experiencing the online presences you create and whether or not they deliver a holistic and optimized experience for each platform.
9. The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using. Are you steering experiences based on the expectations of your customers? And are you taking into consideration the device or network where the clickpath begins and ends? Are you integrating Facebook F-commerce and m-commerce into the journey?
10. The expectations of connected consumers, what they value in each channel and platform, where they engage and how your business can improve experiences and make them worthy of sharing.
This is your year…
2012 is the year for you to grow your small business while earning relevance among a growing class of connected consumers.
Regardless of technology, the future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created. To succeed, it takes a culture of customer centricity and the ability to recognize new opportunities and adapt based on what they present.
In the words of Charles Darwin, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
Come iniziare bene le giornate
25 gennaio 2012 § Lascia un commento
Iniziamo bene le nostre giornate, ecco come fare, nulla,di nuovo, ma dobbiamo abituarci ad essere costanti nelle azioni che fanno bene a noi stessi e di riflesso anche alle persone intorno a noi
Do you want to get more done, reach more of your goals, and make a bigger difference?
If so, the morning is when that can all begin!
However you came to read these words, I’m confident you are interested in greater productivity, achievement and success. Perhaps you want that for yourself, or perhaps you want that because you lead others and you owe it to both yourself and them. Either way, this article will help you when you take action on what follows.
Before We Start
Before I share the ten ideas, a couple of caveats.
1. There is likely nothing on this list you haven’t heard before. That doesn’t make the list less valuable. In fact, it proves these ideas work if you use them!
2. You can’t do them all. I’ll say more on that at the end of the list, but don’t read thinking “I can’t do all of these,” because that would be missing the point of doing something.
Making the Time
None of these would have to be done in the morning though, from Ben Franklin to the present day, it has been proven that getting up earlier is a great way to accelerate your success (and “find” intentional time to do important things for you).
My intention with this list is to give you a list of things that you could do in 30 minutes or less each day. Trying to find 30 minutes in an already-packed-like-sardines-in-a-can day might seem daunting. That is one reason why I suggest creating a new morning habit.
Making a decision to change your morning routine and getting up 30 minutes earlier than usual is the first part of this habit. I am a morning person, and you may not think you are, and that’s ok. I’m not suggesting when you get up; just that you get up 30 minutes earlier than you have in the past!
Ok, now, on with the list!
The Ten Habits
The list is in no particular order. My point isn’t to prescribe one, rather to present them all. Any one of these actions, made into habit, can change your life for the better (and perhaps much sooner than you think).
Read powerful material. This could be spiritual or uplifting, it could be edifying to a goal or objective. I don’t mean the newspaper, your blog reader feed, or a celebrity magazine. Read intentionally, to put powerful and valuable ideas into your head at the start of your day.
Exercise. Exercise is good for your health and it releases powerful chemistry in your body for greater energy and productivity as well. If you are a lunchtime or after work exerciser, that is fine; just pick a different habit on this list!
Write Notes. Get out your pen and paper and write notes to people. It could be a thank you note to a client, colleague, or team member. It could be sharing a resource, article, or idea. It could be a letter to a family member. It could be appreciation or a note to let people know they are remarkable. All day, you will be on your computer. This habit is about personal, intentional, and handwritten communication and connection.
Review Your Goals. If you have goals (if you don’t, make that the first new habit —to write them), reviewing them daily is powerful. Look over your daily, weekly, short and long term goals. Review your bucket list ,or lifetime, goals. This can be a simple reading of the list and then allowing yourself time to soak them into your subconscious. While or after you read them, think about why these goals are important to you, too.
Plan Your Day. While a great point can be made for doing this in the evening for the next day, starting each day with a clear picture of what you want and need to accomplish is important. This short time will help you keep the important items on your mind and help you from falling completely into reactive mode all day long.
Meditate or Pray. Quiet your mind. Follow a process that you already know, or learn one. Especially if you are moving quickly past this one to find “something better,” for you this might be the most valuable one of all.
Think! Closely related to meditating or praying this is quieting your mind to specifically work on a challenge, a problem, or decision. This one might also be less of a singular habit, but one that is done in tandem with many of the others on this list.
Work on a Goal. What if you invested 30 minutes each day to progress you towards one of your goals? Do you think you would achieve more of your goals? Duh.
Reflect on Yesterday. One of the best ways to improve and get better is to make sure you are learning from your experiences. Making time to consciously ask yourself what you have learned, what you want to repeat, and what you want to change is a powerful productivity habit.
Journal. This one truly is a combination habit; it can be coupled with almost any other one on this list (yes, you can even journal about your exercise, keeping track of what you did each day, for example). When you write your thoughts you make them clearer. When you write you become more focused, learn more, and improve your results.
Final Thoughts
Pick one, two at the most. You may like all of these ideas. That’s fine, but you have to pick. Perhaps you will try two each day (some can be done in less than 30 minutes), or perhaps you will do one during the week and another on the weekends.
Find what works best for you.
And start today (or tomorrow morning, at the latest).
Wtco 
Devi effettuare l'accesso per postare un commento.