We recently did a survey and were surprised that our employees had negative feelings about their work. They felt frustrated and unappreciated. What should we do?

Congratulations first on taking the time to survey and listen to your employees; second on paying attention to the results, even if they were not what you expected. Without strong positive ties to work or the work experience, employees have little incentive to go the distance or deliver consistently top performance.

So the next step is to understand the reasons for employee negativity. Don’t skip this step or you may be wasting your money, time and credibility by investing in the wrong solutions.

Let’s say that you find out that people don’t feel appreciated because your company tends to reward everyone in the same way. Rewards are most appreciated when they are individualized. Not one size fits all. What delights one person may mean little to another. In addition, people change over time, so that what is rewarding today may not be in the future. To make sure that rewards are genuinely effective in encouraging people, it is worth investing a bit of time in an “armchair analysis” to identify potential rewards for individuals.

Here’s a suggested process:

• Make a list of feasible rewards you could possibly offer your staff members.
• Sit back in your armchair with the list and with a particular individual in mind.
• Review what you know about that individual: the way she likes to work, the kind of work she likes, hobbies, interests, etc.
• Decide which of the possible rewards would be most appreciated by that individual.
• Offer one of these rewards the next time you observe good performance and then check the individual reaction

Management Success Tip

Think of this as an opportunity to determine what is most effective for each individual in the team. You may also find that the exercise causes you to become aware of things about the people you work with, that you hadn’t really paid attention to before. Also see How to Encourage Everyone to Do Their Best Work, Five Ways to Motivate Your Best People and Not Break the Bank and Recognize the Importance of Recognition.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

In today ’s business world many meetings take place virtually using a variety of media, including the Internet, videoconferencing, the telephone, and other technology vehicles that allow participants to be in different geographical areas. Although these virtual media can reduce the cost of meetings, they can also present significant challenges to the facilitator. For despite the geographical dispersion, the facilitator must still find a way to get the participants excited from the very beginning, keep everyone engaged and focused on the objective, gather and document the critical information, build consensus, manage dysfunction, keep the energy high, and close with a clear understanding of what was accomplished, the value of the accomplishment, and the steps to be taken once the meeting ends.

In my new book, The Secrets of Facilitation, 2^nd Edition, I included an entire chapter on The Secrets to Facilitating Virtual Meetings. Here is one of the secrets from the book on preparing for the meeting.

Secret #63- The Secret to Preparing for a Virtual Meeting

In your preparation, select the appropriate technology and plan and prepare your facilitation methods so that everyone will be able to “see.”

Whenever possible with virtual meetings, consider using technology that will allow all participants to see the same information. In face-to-face meetings, flip charts serve as a major focusing tool; similarly, virtual meetings are far more productive when participants are seeing the meeting output created as the meeting is progressing. Having the meeting information visible can keep participants engaged, reduce off-topic conversations, minimize misunderstandings caused by people mishearing information, and provide a method for identifying and correcting when the facilitator has misunderstood a point that is made.

The number of tools available to assist facilitators with virtual meetings continues to grow. At the time of this publication, the more popular ones include WebEx, Live Meeting, Adobe Connect, GotoMeeting, Join.Me, Skype, Google Docs, Powernoodle, ThinkTank, TeamViewer, iLinc, and iMeet.

• For basic desktop sharing functions that allow others to see your screen while the meeting is progressing, tools that are free or relatively inexpensive, such as GotoMeeting, Join.Me, Skype, and Goggle Docs, may be more than adequate.
• When you need more robust capabilities, such as the ability to divide into breakout groups or have participants simultaneously record on a whiteboard, more powerful tools, such as WebEx, Live Meeting, or Adobe Connect, may be more appropriate.

Whatever tool you select, consider the following to help ensure that you are fully prepared with the tool. (These suggestions are adapted with permission from Challenges of Virtual and Blended Meetings, by Rachel Smith, director of digital facilitation services at the Grove Consultants International.)

• Spend time practicing with the technology before the meeting. Be sure to load any files you will be showing and to run through all the tools and options you think you might use. Consider practicing using two computers, one showing what you will see and one showing what participants will see, to ensure that you understand what you and the participants will experience.
• Offer to give a brief orientation session to participants in advance of the meeting to increase the comfort of those who are unfamiliar with the technology. The orientation session can also serve to identify potential technology problems early.
• If possible, arrange to have someone on hand during the session that can answer technical questions and help attendees who get stuck. Having a partner working with you to handle technical issues will allow you to keep the meeting running smoothly while your partner assists attendees in trouble.
• Ask attendees who are calling in from their computers to use a headset or earphones. When people don’t use a headset or earphones, their computer microphone can sometimes pick up the output from the speakers and broadcast it back into the conference. Although the offender often can’t hear this, others on the call will likely hear feedback or echoes.
• If some people simply can’t use a headset or earphones, ask them to keep their microphone muted unless they are speaking.

Preparing for a Virtual Meeting

 

Along with preparing the technology, there are several other preparation steps, starting with identifying your 5 Ps.

• Define the 5 Ps for the session: the purpose, product, participants, probable issues, and process.
• When defining the process, think carefully through O-P-Q-R-S-T for the virtual setting.
• What is the most appropriate Order of the processes?
• What Process technique (for example, listing, brainstorming, or grouping) will you use with each agenda item?
• What will be your type B starting Question for each agenda item?
• How will you Record the responses for the agenda topic? Will you be using a Word document, PowerPoint, or whiteboard?
• What Supplies do you need for the session? Although the session is virtual, consider what other tools you might need, such as pen and paper to diagram who is on the call.
• What’s your estimate of the Timing for each agenda item?
• Distribute a meeting notice in advance of the session, stating the purpose, the product, the agenda, and proposed ground rules, and that include any relevant handouts. The meeting notice should indicate what documents participants need to have for the meeting and any advance preparation required. If participants from multiple time zones are attending the meeting, be sure to specify the time zone when informing participants of the start and end times.
• As with face-to-face meetings, state a gathering time and a start time in the meeting notice. The gathering time should be ten to fifteen minutes before the start time to have everyone logged in and ready to go prior to the official start of the meeting.
• In planning the meeting, limit agenda items so that the entire call can be completed in two hours or less to help participants maintain focus. If necessary, break the meeting into several calls.
• Consider having participants do preliminary brainstorming and submit their ideas prior to the meeting. You can summarize these ideas into “brainstorm lists” and send them in advance to participants along with the agenda and other written materials. This advance preparation allows more time in the meeting to be spent grouping, prioritizing, or evaluating the brainstormed material.
• If there are multiple people at the same location, consider having them assemble for the meeting in a conference room or some other suitable environment. Having as many as possible in the same room promotes teamwork and helps people avoid the temptation to multitask (for example, answer emails) during the meeting. With each “call-in” location, consider appointing a scribe to document key points on flip charts during the meeting.
• Prior to the meeting, create a list that shows the name and location of each person expected in the meeting.

For the next virtual meeting you facilitate, try these techniques. Expect that the preparation will take you about twice as long the first time, as you will be establishing new tools and approaches.

Read more in “The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition.”

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For more resources, see the Library topic Facilitation.

__________________________

Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., “The Facilitation Company” and author of the brand new “The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition”, “The Secrets to Masterful Meetings”, and the brand new “The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.” Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. They are also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

The following post was posted by Carter McNamara in the LinkedIn’s group, International Coach Federation. There are two responses following Carter’s post.

What do you think are the differences between coaching and consulting?

—

Carter’s Original Post

It seems that many coaches distinguish coaching from consulting by asserting that consultants “give advice” to clients and coaches “work from the inside-out” with clients.

That’s a misconception about consulting.

Peter Block’s book, “Flawless Consulting,” is the basis for several prominent consulting training programs. The book is considered a seminal writing about consulting.

He defines consulting as ““You are consulting any time you are trying to change or improve a situation, but have no direct control over the implementation (p. v). That definition fits coaching, too — so coaches are consultants, too.

Good consultants can use a variety of roles, depending on the nature and current needs of the client, including giving advice, training, facilitating, asking generative questions, etc.

Trainers, facilitators, advice-givers and coaches call all work with people “from the inside-out” — no one has to accept the advice from the “outside,” i.e., from anyone in these roles — you can’t teach someone something if they don’t want to learn.

I’m not trying to be contentious — I’m just trying to get us to question what might be an overly simplistic assertion about consulting.

Romain Bisseret’s Response to Carter

It’s not because a coach can fit in the definition of a consultant that the reverse is true. And as I read this definition, I’m not so sure it fits. As a coach, I’m not trying to change or improve anything, the client is. I’m here to support her/him to do so in her/his own way, tapping into her/his own resources.

In my book, indeed, a consultant cannot fit in the definition of a coach, because of many reasons. And amongst them, the fact that a consultant tells/shows/recommends how to do something. Another difference is, the consultant is most of the time hired for his knowledge of the field per se, and therefore act as an authority figure, whereas the coach is hired mainly because of her/his skills as a coach (of course, a good knowledge of the field, too), but is equal to the client in the relationship.

As for advices given by the consultant, that doesn’t mean the client then has to execute them, but the consultant would have done his job. In the last company I worked as a coach, that was very clear: they had consultants for guiding them through change, whereas I was there to coach employees finding their own solutions/places in the changing environment.

Romain can be reached at http://www.linkedin.com/company/in-excelsis .

Karen Kane’s Response to Carter

I agree that the distinction between coaching and consulting that you describe is overly simplistic. In the discussions I hear in the coaching world, I rarely hear a recognition of the distinction between the expert coaching model and the process coaching model. Yes, there are some consultants who give advice, or are hired for their technical knowledge, but there are also many consultants out there who work from a more process-oriented model, where collaboration with the client is paramount.

It seems to me that it’s less important to have opposing definitions of coaching and consulting, and more important to focus on clarity of roles at any given time with a particular client. Whether a client calls me a coach or a consultant, my job is to help them develop capacities that they don’t currently have, so that they can produce results that are currently unavailable to them. I don’t subscribe to the view that clients have all the answers that they need inside of them – none of us knows what we don’t know – so I see offering news ways of seeing and thinking about a situation as part of what good coaches do. Good consultants, too.

Karen can be reached at http://stillpointleadership.com .

For more resources, see the Library topic Personal and Professional Coaching.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, and Strategic Planning.

“I have over 100 staff nurses and one-third have been here longer than 10 years! This is a stressful environment with long hours and lots of overtime. I need something other than salary increases to hold them here and that they won’t think is stupid or useless.”

Retention of specialized talent in a price-competitive market is always a challenge. Some workers are just looking for more money and will simply follow the dollar. For others, money isn’t as important as:

• Flexibility and Support
  Can you give your nurses any control over what hours they work? Minimize their hassles by going to bat for them? Modify the traditional shifts because of childcare or transportation issues?
• Acknowledgement of Their Dedication
  Can you arrange for recognition from your hospital administrators, board, and doctors? Make the local community aware of their contributions through pictures in the newspaper, signs in the parking lot, luncheons at the chamber of commerce?
• A Bright, Cheery Environment
  What about pleasant music, pizza or ice cream surprises, potluck lunches, occasional fun activities? Yes, these things work with hardened old-timers.

Management Success Tip:

Ask your valued people what they like about working with you, and then give them more of what they like. Ask what they don’t like, what gets in their way, and then reduce those factors. Remember, it’s more than money today. People want to enjoy their work and make a meaningful difference. Your environment provides excellent opportunities!

Also see Employee Motivation, One Size Doesn’t Fit All; Morale Boosters For Tough Times; Seven Ways to Keep Your Staff Energized; How to Motivate Your best and Brightest; Recognition: Get People to Give Their Very Best

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Every trainer and facilitator has his/her favorite team building activity. Some facilitators like the more active interventions such as rope courses; others prefer the more “touchy-feely” ones like trust walks; still others like using blind-folded instruction, or simulations like Gold of the Desert Kings.

Of course the most appropriate team building activity for a group depends on a number of factors, including your overall purpose, the nature of the group, the amount of time you have, the limitations of the space, etc.

Yet, of all the team building activities I have experienced, my favorite by far is an activity called Crossing the River. I’ll describe the exercise first and then I’ll tell you why I think it is so great.

Objective	Have all members of the team cross the river at the same time.
Preparation	Create three islands by taping together four 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper for each island. Create a pebble for each person by cutting sheets of paper in half length-wise to form 4.25 x11 sheets. Create one rock (an 8.5 x 11 sheet) for every six participants. Tape off an open area at least 10 medium strides (25-30 feet) long and six strides wide. Place the islands as shown in the diagram.
Instructions	Have all participants stand on the left side of the bank and hand out a copy of the instruction sheet to each person and review the situation and rules together. Then give two minutes for questions. The clock starts after the last question is answered.The Situation You and your teammates are on one bank of a poisonous, deadly river. The river is so contaminated that if any part of a person’s skin or clothing touches the river, they will die instantly! Each of the people on your team must cross from one bank of the deadly river to the other. You have 20 minutes. The Rules No part of a person’s skin, clothing or personal articles may touch the river. The only items that can survive in the river are islands, rocks and pebbles. Islands, rocks and pebbles are safe spots (touchable). Islands in the river may not be moved. Rocks may not be moved once placed in the river. Each team member owns a pebble. Only the pebble owner, may place a pebble in the river, take a pebble from the river, or move a pebble once it is in the river, and he/she may do so using his/her hand only. All team members must step out of the river at the same time.
Execution	During execution, pay close attention to group dynamics. Some items to be conscious of in particular follow. Points for ObservationCommunication How long did it take for there to be a single conversation going? Did everyone who wanted to speak get an opportunity to be heard? When suggestions were made, was a response given every time? (Or did some people’s suggestions get listened to while other’s were ignored?) Planning Was a plan created? Who initiated the plan? How many people were involved in developing the plan? How was agreement reached? Did the group check to ensure understanding and agreement from everyone before acting on the plan? Did the plan provide a complete picture of how to start and how to end? Execution Was there a leader or multiple leaders? How was the leadership chosen? Was the leadership followed? How willing were people to rely on one another, to help one another and physically support one another? Was the goal achieved? How much time was required? What was the key to achieving or not achieving the goal?
Debrief	At the completion of the exercise, debrief with the team. Have them identify their own observations. Be sure to offer your own observations as well. Following observations, have them identify their learnings, and how to apply their observations and learnings to the workplace.

Crossing the River is ideal for 8-16 people. If you have up to 24, you can choose several to be observers and assign them different sections of the Points for Observation. If you have more than 24, you can split into multiple teams that do the exercise all at the same time, each with their separate “rivers” they have to cross. I have done this with 16 teams simultaneously in a very large room. As each team completed, they let out a team cheer.

What makes Crossing the River so great for team building?

1. The goal requires team planning and execution; the team has to come together for success.
2. No one can do it on his/her own; the team either succeeds or fails together.
3. The exercise breaks down barriers; it requires people to share their thoughts, share their resources, and share their space.
4. And perhaps most interestingly, the time limit creates a sense of urgency that frequently results in people defaulting to the same behaviors that do in the workplace: those who typically takeover, do so in this exercise; people who drop out, also do the same; people who frequently serve as naysayers, often take on this same role when faced with Crossing the River.

For years I have been looking for a second team building exercise as good as this one. If you have one I would love to hear from you.

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For more resources, see the Library topic Facilitation.

__________________________

Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., “The Facilitation Company” and author of the brand new “The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition”, “The Secrets to Masterful Meetings”, and the brand new “The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.” Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. They are also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

I just returned from a conference at which Meg Wheatley spoke about her new book: So Far From Home. Some would say the picture she paints of our global situation is bleak, dark even. I feel that it is accurate, even if it is difficult to face. But her book is not really about what we, civilization, faces but more about how we can face it. The word warrior requires a note at the beginning. Its use comes from the Tibetan word for warrior – “pawo, [which] means one who is brave, one who vows never to use aggression.” I find this an interesting paradox for leaders in today’s organizations!

Spirit Warriors

“[Spirit] warriors would not succumb to aggression or be paralyzed by fear. They would know where best to use their skillful means of compassion and insight.”

The two core aspects of Spirit Warriorship, if this is a word, are compassion and insight.

• Compassion is the capacity to live in the collective. The means for achieving compassion in our complex times include: a loss of fear when faced with challenge, the energy to “carry on” (which makes me recall the song “Wooden Ships” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash), and the ability to chose action when overwhelm threatens. I like this definition of compassion better than the commonly held version, it recognizes the need for choice and localizes compassion to the lived moment.
• Insight is the capacity to see clearly into the interdependence of “all phenomena.” For those leaders who are not systems thinkers, this is the time to learn. If compassion leads us to action (and there are neurological studies that show compassion lights up the motor cortex of our brain), insight allows us to discern right action by seeing the interrelatedness that surrounds us.

The experience of using compassion and insight create what Dugu Choegyal calls our “radical interconnectedness with all life.” (adapted by Joanna Macy)

Lessons for Leaders

This book has much to offer and I recommend it to those who want to better understand how the elements of quantum physics are informing business. For this blog I am focusing only on the last three chapters. Here are some behaviors Wheatley describes that allow you to contemplate your leadership and personal well-being:

• Can you resist using negative emotions to motivate and instead rely on a positive belief in yourself and others?
• Watch your own reactions to events and be mindful (a practice that is never mastered) of the impact they have on you and those around you.
• Be aware of your inner dialogue and the lived story line that it creates. Our personal narrative becomes the mindset with which we perceive the world and react to it. When our inner dialogue includes compassion and insight we can pause before acting out.
• Leaders today need to work with different maps because the terrain is not what it was when management and leadership were defined. The biggest challenge is letting go of where we are and understanding how we are.
• These new maps have different signposts, which show up as questions rather than directions.
  • What are you learning?
  • What triggers you? How do you react when triggered?
  • What aspirations guide you in your daily work and interactions?
  • How are you refraining from adding to the fear, anxiety, and confusion of the times?
  • How did you apply your skills of compassion and insight today?
  • What are the ways you rejuvenate yourself and care for those around you?
  • What have you accomplished today that you can be quietly proud of, that will nurture your own well-being?
  • How did curiosity guide your actions today? Conversation? Connectedness?

Leading wholeheartedly

When I was writing my thesis I was a wreck. Every day I faced down a pile of blank pages, reams of data, and a backlog of information that hadn’t yet morphed into knowledge. Every afternoon my advisor, Cecil Doige, would suddenly show up, leaning against the door jam with a cookie in his hand. As he calmly ate his cookie he listened to my latest rant, disappointment, celebration, or challenge. I don’t recall that he ever gave me advice or provided solutions to my anguish; he just listened and asked questions. When I finally ran out of gas he would push off the door jam and say, “Glad you’re making progress.” Progress?? In the moment of my stunned pause, a piece of the puzzle invariably fell into place and progress was actually achieved. Cec was a Spirit Warrior.

Meg’s admonitions to Spirit Warriors are simple and few:

• Pick up the phone and call
• Visit someone, stop by to listen
• Offer your availability

These were the things I needed and the things my Spirit Warrior offered.

Asking questions prompts answers. Asking great questions can result in great information about a potential job seeker’s qualifications.

Here are a list of questions to ask to find out more about the person and to determine how good a match there is between the individual and the job.

Warm-Up Questions

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What made you apply for this position?
3. What do you know about this company?

Work History

4. What parts of your work experience has prepared you for this job?
5. Can you describe one or two of your most important accomplishments?
6. Which job did you find the most satisfying and which job the least satisfying?
7. What kinds of people do you find it easy to work with? Difficult to work with?
8. In your previous jobs what kinds of pressures did you encounter? How did you deal with them?

Job Performance

9. How did your supervisor, on your most recent job, evaluate your job performance? What were some of the good and bad points of that rating?
10. When you have been told or discovered a problem in your job performance, what have you typically done? Can you give me an example?
11. What are some of the things on your job you feel you have done particularly well or in which you have achieved the greatest success?
12. What are some of the problems you encounter in doing your job? Which ones frustrate you the most? What do you usually do about it?
13. If I were to ask your present (most recent) employer about your ability to do____________ what would he/she say?

Self-Assessment

14. What kind of things do you feel most confident in doing?
15. What things frustrate you the most? How do you usually cope?
16. What do you think are the most important characteristics and abilities a person must possess to become a successful? How do you rate yourself in these areas?

Leadership

17. What specifically do you do to set an example for your employees?
18. What approach do you take in getting your people to accept your ideas or department goals?
19. Can you describe your basic leadership style? Give specific examples of how you practice it.
20. What would you most like to accomplish if you had this job? What might make you leave this job?

Management Success Tip:

Avoid these popular but meaningless questions: What animal would you like to be? what’s your favorite movie? What book would you want to have if you were stranded on a desert island? Although you may get interesting answers, it doesn’t tell you what you need – is this candidate the most qualified and the right person for the job. Rather focus on specific questions to get specific answers. Also see The Top Five Hiring Mistakes and Behavioral Interviewing.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Facilitators often use breakout groups to increase involvement and get more done in a short amount of time. However, following breakout groups, there is typically a report-back process. During the report-back, each team presents its results to the other teams. Yet, one of the challenges with the standard report-back process is that people generally are not as attentive to what other teams are saying: some people may be still preparing their own report-back; while others may feel little obligation to give quality feedback, given the number of other people in the room.

Over the years, I have adopted a different process for report-back that I call rotating review. I believe the process is quite effective for achieving quality feedback on the work of breakout groups.

During a rotating review, each team has three-to-five minutes to review another team’s work. Using a colored pen assigned specifically to that reviewing team, the team places a check mark on each item to indicate agreement. They indicate disagreement by placing an “X” and posting a comment on how to improve. After the time limit is reached, teams then rotate to the next chart and perform the same review, while also reviewing the comments of all past reviewers of that chart.

When the teams rotate back to their own flip charts, they will see multiple check marks in different colors to indicate those teams that agree with each item in their report. They will also see where disagreement resulted and the number of teams that concurred with that disagreement. The teams now review all the disagreements and indicate whether they agree (YES) or disagree (NO) with the written comment. At this point, all NOs are reviewed by the entire group and final decisions made.

The rotating review process allows each team to receive focused review from each of the other teams. This process also increases the participation and ownership of the entire work by all members. And surprisingly, the rotating review process takes about the same amount of time as the standard report-back process!

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For more resources, see the Library topic Facilitation.

__________________________

Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., “The Facilitation Company” and author of the brand new “The Secrets of Facilitation 2nd Edition”, “The Secrets to Masterful Meetings”, and the brand new “The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.” Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. They are also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

The world and our species are in states of deep transition. Many describe our present situation as a planet and a people as one of great turmoil. We experience constant “wars and rumors of wars;” we hover on the verge of economic collapse; our political systems seem unable to address societal problems.

Even more profoundly, the ecosystem necessary to sustain human life on our planet is at risk; we have created for ourselves a major threat to our civilizations, and to our survival as a species. Our climate is changing; extreme weather events are occurring more frequently, and time is running out.

As Kurt Vonnegut stated so poignantly, these realities are having a powerful effect on our consciousness:

”Is there nothing about the United States of my youth, aside from youth itself, that I miss sorely now?” opined Vonnegut. “There is one thing I miss so much that I can hardly stand it, which is freedom from the certain knowledge that human beings will very soon have made this moist, blue-green planed uninhabitable by human beings.”

From Our Choice by Al Gore

Indeed, earlier civilizations have experienced economic, political and

environmental Collapse. Numerous Central and South American

civilizations had come and gone over the thousands of years before Columbus arrived at islands off this continent’s shores. Some of these earlier civilizations destroyed themselves through war, some through greed, and, yes, some through destruction of their environment. Others were destroyed by disease brought by visitors from across the oceans. (See 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann and Guns, Germs and Steele buy Jared Diamond).

The difference now is not that we as a species are encountering these cataclysmic shifts for the first time. The difference now is the scale on which we are experiencing them. Our species has become so large in number, and so interconnected, that we now face these challenges on a global scale. We are regarded by many, and I think accurately so, as a species out of control, a species in danger of destroying not only ourselves, but also the ecosystem on which we depend for survival.

Some refer to this period as “The Great Turning.” Many believe that we are at a critical, make or break turning point as a species. One fork in the road will lead to disaster, to a situation in which our planet can no longer support human life and human civilization as we know them. The other path leads to a new level of integration with one another and our environment and a new level of consciousness as a species. Depending upon the choices we make, we can either destroy ourselves or evolve to a higher state.

We need many things to address today’s crises and to evolve, including a clear vision of a better world, the ability to collaborate in ways we haven’t yet imagined, and the political will to make the required changes in our legal and social infrastructures. Another of the things we certainly need is to be grounded in who we are—to be able to act with a conviction based on our deepest view of ourselves. To meet today’s challenges effectively, we need leaders and followers who can operate from this deeply grounded state and draw upon our wellsprings of wisdom, strength and courage. Story work can help us become so grounded and operate from that place of personal alignment. It will help us be clear about who we are and enable us to have the reserves of strength, authenticity, and good sense to address contemporary challenges successfully.

This post is the second one from Unleashing the Power of your Story, an upcoming E-Book by Steven Ober.

If you would like to learn more about story work and/or consider story coaching, feel free to call or email me at:

Steven P. Ober EdD
President: Chrysalis Executive Coaching & Consulting
Affiliate: Systems Perspectives, LLC
Office: PO Box 278, Oakham, MA 01068
Home: 278 Crocker Nye Rd., Oakham, MA 01068
O: 508.882.1025 M: 978.590.4219
Email: steven.p.ober@gmail.com
www.ChrysalisCoaching.org

Leadership Blog: https://staging.management.org/blogs/leadership

Steve is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has developed and successfully uses a powerful approach to leadership coaching, Creating your Leadership Story, which enables leaders to make deep, lasting improvements in their leadership effectiveness in short periods of time. He and a group of partners created a breakthrough educational program, Coaching from a Systems Perspective, in which you can significantly enhance your abilities as a systemic leadership coach. See http://SystemsPerspectivesLLC.com.

“I was totally surprised when one of our top people quit. I thought he was satisfied with his job. I don’t want to get sandbagged again. What are some early warning signs of someone leaving?”

That was said to me by an accounting supervisor. Yes, you can expect a certain amount of turnover, even in these tough economic times. However, if it’s a valuable employee who you now have to replace (which takes time and money), you certainly don’t want to be caught by surprise. If you can see the signs ahead of time, then you are better able to deal with the situation.

Be Proactive Rather Than Reactive

First, be aware of situations that can trigger job dissatisfaction and provoke a valued worker to start looking at what’s out there. Here are some examples:

• Major project ends and there is nothing “in the wings”.
• Mentor or friend or manager left recently and therefore could try to recruit this employee.
• New manager is assigned who mayor may not be as great as the employee’s last one.
• Major reorganization occurs and the employee doesn’t know his or her place or value.
• Recent stock crash or options went underwater and therefore there is less financial commitment to stay.
• Position of increased visibility (holding office in a professional association) that gets the person known outside the company.
• Changing life event such as receiving an advanced degree; turning 40 (or 30 or 50); family divorce or death etc.

Then go into action to prevent key people “jumping ship”: Here’s what you need to do:

• Identify high performers or special groups who might be vulnerable.
• Find out their satisfaction level through surveys or focus groups or one-on-one’s.
• Use this knowledge to improve the potential “looker’s” job and career opportunities.
• Realize that one size doesn’t it all. Know your people and what motivates and demotivates them.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their book, First Break All the Rules said “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.” If employees don’t get along with their managers, don’t like them or don’t respect them, they will leave a company despite a high salary or great benefits. A bad manager is a big factor in employee performance. A good manager, no matter the salary, will inspire loyalty. Therefore focus your retention efforts on training and supporting all your managers to engage, motivate and develop their people. If they don’t do it well some one else – a competitor perhaps – will!

Management Success Tip:

Employee turnover is a complex issue. There is no one magic bullet. What I have consistently found is: That it’s NOT the money. When someone leaves for ‘better opportunities’, what has happened is that certain dissatisfactions – like ineffective management- caused the person to put out feelers or to become curious about recruiter calls or to start surfing the job boards. So to stop turnover, start to identify and eliminate the demotivators. Also see 10 Things to Do to Have Engaged Employees.

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• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.