Paul's Update Special 5/5

Thinking Through How Automation Will Affect Your Workforce

Thinking Through How Automation Will Affect Your Workforce Start by assessing tasks, not jobs.

Today, executives have to cut through a lot of hype around automation. The right question isn’t which jobs are going to be replaced, but rather, what work will be redefined, and how? Based on our work with a number of organizations grappling with these issues, we’ve found that the following four-step approach can help.

1. Start with the work, not the “job” or the technology. Much work will continue to exist as traditional “jobs” in organizations, but automation makes traditional jobs more fluid and an increasing amount of work will occur outside the traditional boundaries of a “job.” Deconstructing and then reconfiguring the components within jobs reveals human-automation combinations that are more efficient, effective, and impactful. AI and robotics increasingly take on the routine aspects of both blue and white collar jobs, leaving the non-routine to humans.

2. Understand the different work automation opportunities. AI can support three types of automation: robotic process automation (RPA), cognitive automation, and social robotics. RPA automates high volume, low complexity, routine administrative “white collar” tasks — the logical successor to outsourcing many administrative processes, further reducing costs and increasing accuracy. Cognitive automation takes on more complex tasks by applying things like pattern recognition or language understanding to various tasks. Social robotics involves robots moving autonomously and interacting or collaborating with humans through the combination of sensors, AI, and mechanical robots. 

3. Manage the decoupling of work from the organization.  The future global work ecosystem will offer alternative work arrangements including each of the three automation solutions, along with human work sources such as talent platforms, contingent labor, and traditional employment. The human work that is created or remains after automation will not fit easily into traditional jobs, nor will it always be optimally sourced through employment. Work will need to be freed from “jobs within organizations,” and instead be measured and executed as more deconstructed units, engaged through many sources.

4. Re-envision the organization. The combination of automation, work deconstruction, and reconfiguration will often redefine the meaning of “organization” and “leadership.” The “organization” must be reconsidered as a hub and capital source for an ecosystem of work providers. Those “providers” include AI and automation, but also include “human” sources such as employees, contractors, freelancers, volunteers, and partners. 

AI will significantly disrupt and potentially empower the global workforce. It won’t happen all at once or in every job, but it will happen, and leaders will need an automation strategy that realizes its benefits, avoids needless costs, and rests on a more nuanced understanding of work.

CEOs Not Seeing Big Picture On 'Big Data'

CEOs Not Seeing Big Picture On 'Big Data' Nearly half of CEOs believe that all of their employees have access to the data they need, but only 27% of emplo...

Nearly half of CEOs believe that all of their employees have access to the data they need, but only 27% of employees agree.

That’s according to study results from Teradata, a data analytics and marketing firm. The company commissioned The Economist Intelligence Unit to survey 362 workers across the globe -- including those in management, finance, sales and marketing, business development and more.

CEOs also overestimate how quickly “big data” moves through their company, with 43% of CEO respondents believing that relevant data is made available in real-time, compared to 29% of all respondents.

Overall, CEOs are wearing rose-colored glasses when examining the overall effectiveness big data has on their initiatives: 38% believe their employees are able to extract relevant insights from the data, while only 24% of all respondents do.

“The survey is clear that organizations succeed when the data-driven vision and leadership are shared, and the benefits of data initiatives are consistently tracked, promoted, and most importantly, linked to corporate goals and business results,” stated Chris Twogood, vice president of products and services marketing at Teradata.

The full report can be found here.

What great leadership and music have in common

What great leadership and music have in common Jim Crupi is a management consultant with a long, brilliant resume. (Heard of CNN? He helped set the strategic s...

Music is all-consuming. Our reaction to a great song can be so visceral that we are forever connected to it. Hearing that song can bring you back to a moment in time, and often, it binds you to a person too; every time you hear it, you are there with them again, reliving a wonderful moment. This is something every leader aspires to do with those around them as well: to inspire and move people like great music does. Over my career I've identified these leadership lessons embedded in the music:

1. A leader is both a singer and a songwriter.

As a leader you have to touch people’s hearts as well as their heads. What you say, the lyrics, must tell a meaningful story — and the way you tell that story, the music, must resonate in the heart of the listener.

2. Make sure everyone is on the same sheet of music.

At the concert, every violin player, drummer and singer knew why they were there and what their role was. The result was harmony. The same is necessary in any organization. Each employee needs to be on the same page. And that page must be seen, understood and emotionally absorbed.

3. Develop a simple theme — then repeat it.

Have you ever noticed how a song’s lyrics repeat themselves over and over again? They become so familiar that you sing along; you absorb them into your being. An effective vision statement does the same thing. As a leader, you need to put it in language so everybody can “see” it and understand it.

4. Get the right players around you.

Playing in the concert were people from many nationalities and ethnic groups, children and senior citizens, women and men, it did not matter. All were dedicated to excellence and being in harmony with one another for a common purpose. Their cultural diversity built a harmony and strength that fed off itself to produce results. It is the same in an organization.

5. Let others shine.

The concert in Modena, Italy, had three conductors, who were somehow invisible. It was the same with Zucchero and Pavarotti. One minute they were stars; the next minute, they were in the background, replaced by the voices of children or the sound of a guitar player. The focus was on the music, not the individuals. It is the same in a company. The focus should be on the message and the music.

6. Cultivate commitment and enthusiasm; they’re contagious.

As the music reached into the hearts of the audience, everyone began singing along and clapping their hands with the singers and the orchestra. At the end of the song, the singers and the orchestra and the 1,000 people in the audience were as one, united by purpose. It is my experience that people who commit themselves to something bigger than themselves are just different people. There’s some new research that shows that these people have a more significant impact than those who see what they do as just a job. They are so driven beyond the normal that their actions are contagious. People stand in awe of their determination and drive.

7. Commit yourself to a bigger cause than yourself.

The concert was not just about the music; it was dedicated to raising money for Bosnian refugees. People will follow you if they come to believe that you are about something greater than yourself.

The key to understanding the music of leadership is to understand that really good leaders know how to manage emotions as well as direction. In effect, they are in tune with those around them. And when the time comes to sing a new song so that they can take people in a new direction, they do just that.

Paul's Update Special 4/28

Does Your Organization Drag? Three Secret Ingredients for Higher Productivity | The Fast Track

Does Your Organization Drag? Three Secret Ingredients for Higher Productivi... These are the specific causes of organizational drag. Here's how to zero in on your organization’s time, its...

In their new book, TIME | TALENT | ENERGY: Overcome Organizational Drag and Unleash Your Team’s Productive Power, Bain & Company partner Michael Mankins and his co-author Eric Garton identify the specific causes of organizational drag – otherwise known as the collection of institutional factors that slow things down, decrease output and performance, and drain people’s energy.

The book claims that the average company loses more than 25 percent of its productive power to organizational drag. This is often an inevitable complication of companies getting larger and instituting more processes and procedures. As Mankins told writer Stephanie Vozza at Fast Company, the most common processes relate to expense management.

One secret of companies with less organizational drag involves putting a majority of star performers on mission-critical projects that are essential to the business. Another relates to the development of inspiring leaders.

In the book, Mankins and Garton suggest the following strategies for liberating employees’ time, talent, and energy, and consequently eliminating organizational drag:

Understand Exactly How Time is Spent

Software is now available to track meetings and other activities that eat up staff hours. Because time is money, it should be treated as such. This means being vigilant about creating and sticking to time budgets, and practicing good meeting management.

Connect Everything to Your Mission

Make sure your “reason for being” translates into an effective employee value proposition and that your people are engaged and motivated by your mission. Help employees understand how their daily work relates to the big picture and do what you can to ensure that they “head in” as opposed to “back in” to work in the morning. This will be easier if you deliberately develop leaders who are capable of inspiring their people AND getting results.

Eliminate Needless Bureaucracy

Strive to create a high-autonomy organization without losing benefits of scalability and repeatability. Strike the optimal balance between autonomy and organizational needs, and ask yourself whether you have fallen victim to unnecessary processes, micromanaging, and overly prescriptive rule books. Count the nodes – or intersections – in your organization. Are individual employees empowered to make decisions, or are they held up by the number of nodes through which they must pass? Examine your operating model carefully, looking at structure, accountabilities, governance, and methods. Your goal should be to simplify wherever possible!

What to Do About Mediocrity on Your Team

What to Do About Mediocrity on Your Team Four ways to raise the bar.

The toughest test of a manager is not how they deal with poor performance — it’s how they address mediocrity. Mediocrity is not destiny. In fact, I’ve even seen examples of government bureaucracies in tragically broken countries that dramatically turned around their performance in a matter of months. They do it through four leadership practices that lead to performance excellence. Each is a prerequisite for the next.

1. Show the consequences of mediocrity. Your first job as a leader is to ensure everyone is clear about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Find ways to connect people with the experiences, feelings, and impact of good and bad performance. Keep the human connection alive by telling stories that illustrate work well done — or not. And avoid impersonal/bureaucratic language when talking about performance; frame your work in human terms every time you can.
2. Use concrete measures as influence. Mediocrity often hides behind a fig leaf of absent, fuzzy, or excessive measures. In contrast, meaningful measures make poor performance painfully apparent. Goals should connect clearly and meaningfully to the work leaders are doing and why they are doing it.
3. Establish peer accountability. Mediocrity is also often a sign of strong supervision. My colleagues and I have found that:
1. On the weakest teams, there is no accountability.
2. On mediocre teams, bosses are the source of accountability.
3. On high performing teams, peers manage the vast majority of performance problems with one another. On top performing teams, peers immediately and respectfully confront one another when problems arise. Once you’ve helped the team connect deeply with what they do and why, and established meaningful measures, you need to build a culture of peer accountability – where everyone can challenge anyone if it is in the best interest of serving the shared mission.
4. Speak up. High performance is a norm that needs to be defended regularly and vigilantly. There will inevitably be times you will be asked to make personal sacrifices to defend that norm. What you do in these moments is a sign to the team of your commitment to high performance — and, therefore, your worthiness to demand it of them. 

Individual performance problems are far easier to address if you’ve done the work of establishing a norm of excellence. These four simple but important practices can rapidly and profoundly shift a group’s expectations in a way that leads to both better results and a substantially more rewarding work experience for everyone.

Employees Are Your Biggest Brand Advocates

Employees Are Your Biggest Brand Advocates By Pratik Dholakiya Engage staff to show off your culture.

Who do you think has the most intimate knowledge of your brand culture and business? Your employees are without a doubt one of the most untapped, organic sources of promotion and content within your organization, and yet few companies know how or when to use that resource and why it works.

Finding your hidden brand advocates.

Not every member of your team is going to be authentically emphatic about your company. If you have agreed to pursue the opportunity of using employee brand advocates in your marketing strategy, the first step is finding them.  A questionnaire or voluntary online survey will help you expose the staff members who are most passionate about your brand, and the survey model will help them speak freely and comfortably about your products or services.

Once you have received the survey responses, a qualitative review will connect you to the staff members who are activated and ready to share positive things about your corporate culture. Engage those who provided the most energetic responses in the campaign planning. One important aspect about sharing your culture and brand from the inside out, is to make sure that you are involving staff from various departments, and not just sales or marketing. Then what you produce will be an authentic, non-fabricated expression of who you are as a business and why your products or services are outstanding.

Campaign strategies and ideas.

Did you know that one of the most endearing exercises that brands can engage in is transparency? Giving consumers a glimpse behind the scenes can include:

• Video tour of a production facility
• Meet and greet introduction to staff, from executive leadership to shipping and receiving
• Meeting the talent or creative team behind favorite commercials, products or services
• Celebrating long-term employees who achieve benchmark anniversaries with the company
• Holiday or fun corporate events that punctuate your brand’s mission and how that carries through to cultivating an enriched social and team environment

Consumers love brands who love their employees. And they also favor organizations that are proud of achieving a positive corporate culture.

Set Key Performance Indicator’s and guidelines.

Introduce the campaign to your employees and document your expectations and standards for sharing appropriately on social channels when referencing the brand. This may involve some training and support about social media best practice for employees who many not be used to sharing in an official capacity.

Make it fun! Create an incentive, contest or reward for staff who contribute to any advocacy campaign. It will help keep them excited about their involvement and inspire them to share more often.

Paul's Update Special 4/21

Five Strategies for Leading a High-Impact Team

Five Strategies for Leading a High-Impact Team Why "teams are not cocktail parties," and other words of wisdom.

Nobody sets out to lead an ineffective team. The only problem? Many of the strategies leaders have adopted to improve teamwork, while well-intentioned, are not all that effective. Leigh Thompson, a professor of management and organizations at Kellogg and an expert on teamwork, clears up five popular misconceptions. In the process, she offers a roadmap for building and maintaining teams that are creative, efficient, and high-impact.

1. Teams are not cocktail parties: don’t invite everyone.

When building a team, business leaders often fall into two traps: they make the team too big and too homogenous.

Trying to be overly inclusive leads inevitably to a team that is too large. One strategy for managing team size is to consult specialists only when their expertise is required rather than keeping them on full time. Adding some fluidity to team membership can also help with the problem of homogeneity. 

“We found that changing the membership of a team—taking out one member and putting in a new member while holding everything else constant—actually leads to an increase in creative idea generation,” says Thompson. This process also prevents so-called “cognitive arthritis,” which happens when static teams start to think along well-worn mental ruts.

2. It is possible to set ground rules without stifling creativity. Some structure may even spark creativity.

For team leaders, nailing the balance between offering freedom and providing structure is never easy. Though it may seem like a drag on creativity to spend time establishing ground rules, teams function better over the long term with an explicit written charter. This document identifies—ideally in one sentence—the goal of the team, establishes the rules of operation, and defines where responsibilities lie.

“Teams do a pretty good job of evaluating or expanding on ideas, but they don’t do a good job of generating ideas.Teams that develop a charter end up being more nimble, having more proactive behavior, and achieving their goals more than teams that don’t bother,” says Thompson.

Even the process of developing a charter can improve team cohesion and effectiveness. 

3. Drop the pride talk. Vulnerability can be a good thing.

Corporate retreats tend toward the celebratory. Managers highlight progress and recognize employees of the year. Such praise aims to act as a kind of cultural glue, binding teams together through shared accomplishment and optimism.

“This is pride talk,” says Thompson. But does pride talk actually improve teamwork?

Thompson ran a series of studies in which some teams were told to share accomplishments with each other while other teams shared embarrassments. To her surprise, Thompson found that team members who talked about an embarrassing moment generated more ideas in subsequent brainstorming sessions. Embarrassment, not pride, spurred creative and effective teamwork.

“It’s somewhat unintuitive that putting out our worst moment in the last six months can actually help our team,” says Thompson. “Almost all of our intuitions are wrong.”

4. You may be able to cut your meeting time in half—if you are smart about it.

In theory, meetings are designed to increase team efficiency—a purpose they rarely live up to in practice. Most teams meet too infrequently and for too long, says Thompson. Research has demonstrated that, given a two-hour meeting, people will work to fill it; but meetings that are half as long are usually just as productive. It is better to have four hour-long meetings than two two-hour meetings.

What can leaders do to make the most of a shorter meeting? “Teams do a pretty good job of evaluating or expanding on ideas, but they don’t do a good job of generating ideas,” Thompson says. So to optimize meeting time, she recommends a facilitator solicit contributions related to the agenda beforehand to serve as the starting point for discussion.

Facilitators are also responsible for encouraging full participation. After all, the diversity of a team is only valuable if that diversity is given voice. Studies have shown that on a team of eight people, one or two members often do up to 70 percent of the talking.

Thompson recommends “speed storming”—“think of it as brainstorming meets speed dating”—as one way to get the entire team involved. This exercise briefly pairs team members for one-on-one discussion and ideation sessions. After pairs have talked for a short period, people shift seats and begin again with a different partner.

5. It is possible for teams to get along too well. Agree to keep disagreeing.

“Some teams are too polite,” warns Thompson. “They don’t challenge one another because they’re afraid that they will drive a wedge in team cohesion.” But properly managed disagreement helps teams avoid groupthink while probing the strengths and weaknesses of any idea.

The challenge for leaders lies primarily in sowing productive disagreement, which means creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable voicing their own opinions and challenging others’. And the disagreement must remain free of personal attacks.

“You’re hard on the problem and respectful of the people,” says Thompson.

In practice, eliciting this kind of “responsible feedback” can be difficult. So Thompson offers a tip: have team members write down rather than vocalize their opinions and recommendations. Studies of brainstorming indicate that teams often never make it past the second idea before they suppress their concerns. However, when ideas are challenged—without being assaulted—this can often spur truly great ideas.

“When team members are thinking through different possible courses of action, then everybody can be writing cards that talk about a pro and a con. This helps build a balance of feedback,” says Thompson. “Let’s talk about the positives; then let’s talk about the negatives.”

Ready or Not, The Future Is Now

Ready or Not, The Future Is Now Machine learning is changing the way organizations curate content and manage learners. But are CLOs using its fu...

Machine learning is changing the way organizations curate content and manage learners. But are CLOs using its full capabilities?

Machine learning is the underpinning for many common learning technologies, including learning management systems, MOOCs, data analytics and other tools. The allure of machine learning is clear, said James Cross, director of learning product strategy for Workday. “Research shows that it increases engagement and makes the learning experience more relevant and ‘sticky.’ ”

The technology works through a series of algorithms, or computer-based queries that allow a piece of software to learn from data over time so it can identify trends and patterns that inform future searches and suggestions. In other words, the software watches what learners do, and how they engage with content, then proactively provides them with content they need the moment they need it.

“The ultimate goal of this technology is to create a more custom learner experience,” Cross explained. “Think of it as Netflix for learning.”

Machine learning offers exciting opportunities for learning leaders to deliver better, faster, custom content. It also should prompt them to take stock of their current skill set. Machine learning enabled tools can automate common tasks, like updating LMS databases, transcribing documents or assigning content. “That can free CLOs to focus on more important tasks, like culture building and strategic planning,” he said.

Before a company can make use of machine learning or artificial intelligence to improve their learning strategy and programming, they need to figure out how the technology applies to their business case, what benefits they want to derive from the tools, and how to make that happen, said Dani Johnson, vice president of learning and development research for Bersin by Deloitte. To do that, learning leaders need to educate themselves on how these technologies work, what questions they want answered, and how to use the information they glean.

They also should think about how these tools will change the way they do their jobs and the knowledge their people need to acquire. Johnson said in the past two years there has been a huge shift in the skills organizations need. The most innovative CLOs are crafting new learning strategies in response to technology trends to meet long-term talent development goals and to effectively engage learners. “There is a huge opportunity here for forward-thinking CLOs to have a dramatic impact on organizational strategy — if they are willing to adapt.”

4 Things You Need To Know To Build A High Performing Team

4 Things You Need To Know To Build A High Performing Team These four conditions to success provide teams the tools they need to be productive and efficient.

Everyone wants a team that gets results, but the process is often easier said than done. High-performing individuals and teams operate above the market average and consistently meet their goals. It can be trial and error to put together the right combination of employees with the right project responsibilities, but building a framework for a high-performing team means the environment is in place that nearly every combination of employees can work together to reach their goals.

Mary O'Hara, Chief Human Resources Officer and SVP at Blue Shield of California, provides her four conditions to success to create a high-performing team environment in any office:

1. Critical few. Every person or team should have the critical few things they are working on. With these tasks as the focus, employees know exactly what their responsibilities are and how to use their time and direct their effort to meet their goals.
   
2. Multiple modes. High-performing teams distribute the work and create multiple modes of how people work. This will look different for each organization and can include things like breaking it into smaller teams, having employees focus on different areas of a project, or using various technologies to solve problems.
   
   
3. Established operating norms. High-performing teams aren't immune to challenges and obstacles, but they know how to handle difficulties when they arrive. With operating norms in place, the team isn't completely de-railed when obstacles arise and can continue working after putting the operating norms into place. Having a clear and agreed-upon process also removes office drama and interpersonal conflict because team members already know how to interact with each other.
   
4. Feedback training. A big part of working in a team is being able to give and receive feedback. Employees at all levels learn how to apply feedback without it taking away from their work experience. Giving employees the tools allows them to quickly apply feedback and speak openly with their team members without worrying how people will respond.

These four conditions to success take some effort but can provide teams the tools they need to be productive and efficient. A main theme is providing employees and teams with the tools and training they need before the work gets difficult and people can get distracted and sidelined.

Creating a high-performing team isn't something that only applies to a single team at a company--it becomes part of the culture and is soon applied to every team within the organization.

High-performing teams can make a huge difference within an organization in morale, revenue, and efficiency. The good news is that putting these teams together isn't as difficult as it first may seem. In the team-oriented future of work, creating strong teams will be of utmost importance.