We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.
- Anais Nin

Participating in a 360 feedback process is a potent opportunity. Done well, the process can give you a clear picture of how your peers, direct reports, and customers view your strengths and blind spots, allowing you to identify some game-changing ways to advance your skills as leader. The key to getting the most value out of a 360 process is making it easy for people to give clear and honest feedback, and then leveraging your follow-up plan after you receive it.

Common formats for 360s are:

• formal company-wide programs
• programs designed for a team often using customized tools and followed by team development, or
• a custom program designed for an individual leader and coordinated by his/her coach.

In each of these formats the feedback is typically aggregated anonymously by rater group so you don’t know who said what (except your boss, whose feedback is often identified).

As I’ve coached leaders through each of these types of programs, I’ve found that several common strategies can make a difference in getting valuable results. If you have the opportunity to arrange a 360 feedback process through your company or coach, here are six things to keep in mind:

1. Select the right raters.
Usually, you’ll choose 10-12 raters from among your peers, direct reports, cross-functional partners, and customers. Often the most useful feedback comes from people who are invested in your success and who care enough to make the effort to offer useful observations, but for well-rounded feedback, include a few “critics” – those you may struggle with in some way.

2. Ask for frank, honest feedback.
Set a strong context with your raters by encouraging them to give you useful and honest feedback. Don’t assume that HR or the program administrator will set the context for your raters for you… send an email saying why you’d like each person’s feedback and ask for specific, honest comments about both areas of strength and struggle.

3. Make sure the feedback instrument fits you and your role.
Which behaviors are most crucial to your success? Does your company’s 360 instrument cover these? If not, see if you can adjust the questions for your team or role. Or arrange for your coach to do a custom 360, either via an emailed survey or confidential 1:1 interviews. (Make sure you’re working with someone who is experienced in 360s and is able to design a valid survey instrument or interview guide.) An interview-based approach can reveal helpful examples and suggestions with rich context from raters – a true advantage for understanding and applying the feedback. If your raters recommend that you increase your ability to handle conflict, for example, the interview data can provide examples of when you’ve done this well, and how you could do it more effectively.

4. Recognize the value of perceptions… and then make your own assessment.
You may feel defensive about some of the feedback, but remember that even if your raters have a limited view of the demands and constraints you face in your role, they still perceive your behavior as more or less skillful. And they act on those perceptions. Ask yourself, “What am I doing that causes people to see me differently than I see myself?”

Parts of the feedback will be more useful and relevant to you than others, depending on your current situation and objectives. Regardless, accept all feedback graciously… and then make your own decision about whether and how to use it.

5. Focus on just 2-3 areas for development and make a plan.
Ask yourself two questions for each specific behavior you’re considering for improvement:

What’s the relative value of increasing my skill in this area? What will it bring me?
How easy or difficult will it be to develop this area? Take a look at your motivation to invest in that area, whether it corresponds to your preferences and talents, and how easily you can put together a plan and some support to make progress on it.
Pay attention to what others perceive as your strengths. Elevating one of your strengths is often a more useful investment of time and energy than developing an area of weakness.

Finally, create a plan. At a minimum, jot down the specific behavior you’re doing now and the specific behavior you want to do instead (or if you don’t know the behavior yet, write what result you want to create with new behaviors). Map how you’ll get from what you’re doing now to what you want to do, and any support to get there (e.g., training, coaching, reading, mentoring). Consider what obstacles might occur and what you’ll do to get back on track.

6. Respond to your raters and involve them in your continued success.
Before finalizing your plan, talk with your raters (especially direct reports) to acknowledge what you’ve heard, clarify any areas of varied feedback, get their suggestions for your action plan and express your commitment to doing your best. You may want to involve a coach in preparing to be clear, confident, and objective in these meetings.

Use the 360 process to start generating more real-time feedback. One of the primary benefits my clients have experienced from our 360 programs is that participants tend to give more useful “in the moment” feedback more often after the program than they did before. If you want to get more feedback from your customers, peers, and directs, involve them as described above… the more they see you appreciate and consider their feedback, the more likely they are to offer real-time suggestions.

Also, consider a follow-up survey process in six to nine months to check your progress. An abbreviated version of the original 360 process often works well, focusing just on areas you identified in your plan. Clients say that committing to this follow up survey has them put more “skin in the game.” It also prompts their raters to identify the results they’ve noticed — a potent way to impact their perceptions.

Recommended Resources:

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, by Marshall Goldsmith, 2007
– Straightforward advice on gathering feedback and determining which behaviors to change.

For Your Improvement, A Guide for Development and Coaching, by Lombardo and Eichinger 2004
– An in-depth resource for creating targeted development plans

The Art & Science of 360 Feedback, by Lepsinger & Lucia, 1997
– An introduction to 360 programs. Ideal for those leading a program for their team or organization.

If you’re interested in further resources for designing 360s or leading a 360 process in your organization, contact us.

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Did you enjoy this article? Consider reading our book on accountability!

The following article was submitted by Tom Zahniser. Tom is a fan of our book “Winning With Accountability, The Secret Language of High Performing Organizations.” A leader of CEO think tanks in the Seattle area, Tom purchased the book for all of his members. We think you’ll agree that his thoughts are very much to the point. Please read and enjoy.

Who Is Holding You Accountable?

by Tom Zahniser

Why is it that senior executives, the people most responsible for fostering accountability in their organizations, are often not held accountable themselves? Often, because of the power they wield, their subordinates are not willing to risk giving candid feedback or holding them accountable. With no one holding them accountable, it can become seductively easy for senior execs to put off tough decisions, let difficult actions slide, or act in other ways that do not benefit themselves or their stakeholders.

Recently I read Henry Evans’ “Winning With Accountability, The Secret Language of High Performing Organizations.” From my perspective this book is timely. With the collapse of financial markets,high profile bank failures, and government bailouts, the lack of accountability of business leaders is in the national spotlight. For many companies, this lack may lead to unwanted legislation and regulation, as well as lower performance and effectiveness at all levels, including the senior management level.

Although leaders hold others accountable to a demanding standard of performance, my question is, do they apply the same level of scrutiny and specificity to themselves? A “do what I say and not what I do” approach negatively affects the commitment and performance of everyone in the organization.

Personal Accountability and Effectiveness

Recently, one of my CEO clients was excited about an impending deal to sell his business. A substantial portion of the purchase price was to be paid out of future earnings. He confessed concern about whether his company could generate the higher earnings needed to pay the purchase price. He hoped that by taking a more active personal role in the sales process, he would help his company achieve the desired result. I asked why, if this worried him, he hadn’t jumped in earlier? He then admitted that focusing on sales was difficult for him and would force him out of his comfort zone. He was ashamed to admit it, but he realized that he might perform to a higher standard if he were reporting to someone else.

After this revealing dialogue we included my client’s fellow CEOs in the conversation by asking this question: “If you had someone overseeing your performance who had the power to fire you, are there things you’d do differently?” Many in the group said that they would either start doing something they knew they should do; or they’d stop doing something they knew they shouldn’t.

Although all of these CEOs are successful and running profitable businesses, they were able to identify examples of their own under-achievements, times when they had sacrificed performance for comfort and let themselves off the hook. They recognized that what is true for their direct reports is also true for them–a lack of accountability leads to lower performance and effectiveness.

A tough part of any top executive’s job is carrying the weight of responsibility that comes with sitting where the buck stops. Though they may be fiercely independent and like being their own boss; they must allow themselves to be held accountable if they are to be successful as champions of performance and accountability in others.

Seek First To Be Accountable Yourself

Henry Evans has said that “leaders don’t make commitments; leaders make promises.” People listen carefully to leaders and take their commitments as solemn promises. Then they watch the behavior asking themselves, “Is this someone I can trust?”

You might ask yourself the same question: Can I trust me? How good is my word? If I could trust myself more would it change the way I feel about myself? Would it change the way I lead? Would it affect the commitment of my people to me and the business?

If, as a result of asking these questions, you want to strengthen the power of your word and enhance your leadership capabilities, try the following:

Be transparent: Create a clear, complete and specific outline of what you are responsible to deliver for your organization
Be accountable: Share your plan with a trusted group of people and ask them to review your plan, give you feedback, and meet regularly with you to monitor progress..
Be honest: Look at your current commitments; act on those you need to and let go of those you are not fully committed to. Also make sure that everyone who is affected understands what you are doing.
Defining Moments

These are tough times, and organizations are fighting for survival. Fear and anxiety surround us. If we look at this fear and trace it to its roots, we see that it comes from a lack of trust in others, in ourselves, and in our ability to survive the challenges we face. Earn the trust of yourself and everyone else by consistently coming through on your word. When you do what needs to be done despite any difficulty or discomfort, you create confidence that you and your business will survive. Set a high standard for yourself and then walk the talk. This will give you the right to ask others to step up. Henry’s book, “Winning With Accountability, The Secret Language of High Performing Organizations” provides methods you can apply immediately. I’ve seen my CEO members do it.

QUESTION TO OUR READERS:

“If you had someone overseeing your performance who had the power to fire you, are there things you’d do differently?

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Do you feel challenged by this article? Learn how to become an accountable individual and developer a high-performing culture by reading our book.

Recently I was confronted with my limited thinking about communicating through social media. This was such an important lesson for me that I felt compelled to share it.

I was leading one of my classes, Creating High Accountability Cultures to MBA students at the Cox Business School. Afterwards, I spoke with Hunter Foreman, an MBA student, who is also a young entrepreneur. His start-up firm “Delta Tribe” specializes in internet marketing services. I asked Hunter if he could help optimize our online image. He said “I could do that for you, but a longer-term strategy would be for you to create a powerful social media presence.” I asked, “Do you mean use Facebook?” He answered, “Yes.”

My reaction was automatic and defensive “That’s just not who our clients are! Not a single executive-level client is on Facebook. It’s just not me! I don’t want to tell the world when I’m going to the bathroom. Besides, they have better things to do than read about what kind of pizza I’m eating and when.”

His response: “When you were teaching our MBA class you said that your mixed martial arts trainer, Greg Jackson, would always demonstrate and demand ‘leading from the front’ – how are you doing that right now?”

He had me. I was busted and feeling sheepish! He continued. “Your clients may not be using social media today, but the day will come when they wake up and realize their survival depends on it. On that day you will know nothing about social media and prove yourself obsolete.”

Now he really had my attention: “Although this may not be the way your generation communicates, my generation will be replacing yours and this is how we communicate. Since we are going to be your customers and your employees, perhaps it’s time you learned our language.”

I couldn’t argue. He was not only absolutely right, but his confidence and ability to counter my mindset was impressive. He was modeling the kind of savvy emotional intelligence we teach CEOs! With these few words he caused me to shift my perspective and within two weeks, with his help, we set up our company’s Facebook and Twitter pages. I even ordered a Flip video camera to begin recording video blogs which we will launch on or before February 28, 2010. My deep thanks to Hunter Foreman for showing me positive next steps; and, as always, I welcome any feedback you care to share.

In closing, consider what our friend, Suzanne Hoenig said recently, “Social media is communication….it’s the best thing to happen to society since the neighborhood. You remember the neighborhood, don’t you? That’s where people talked over the backyard fence, and kids could safely run around without adult supervision.” So become part of our Dynamic Results neighborhood, and weigh in on this topic.

So really, it’s all about relationship! As we near the end of this year, and we celebrate holidays with our families, we want to thank you for our relationship. We appreciate your trust in our team, and the privilege of serving you. We wish you the best of everything in the up-coming year, and we look forward to having the opportunity to continue to grow and make a difference in our world together.

In partnership,

Henry J. Evans, Managing Partner

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Find yourself in the same shoes as Henry did? Read our book and discover how a culture of accountability can help solve this problem!

There is some warranted optimism about an improvement in the global economy this year. With this uptick we assume that hiring will increase, making it more challenging to find, develop and retain top talent.

During the downturn many executives hesitated to jump ship, but with recovery more opportunities will open, making it harder to retain top talent.

To assist our clients in attracting, developing and retaining top talent Dynamic Results has launched two initiatives:

We formed a strategic alliance with a leading executive search firm, Taylor Winfield; and
We developed The Retention Edge™, an executive assessment tool.
For their part of our integrated services, Taylor Winfield finds mid- and executive-level talent for our client organizations. Once Taylor Winfield has narrowed the search to two or three final candidates, Dynamic Results assesses them and makes a hiring recommendation based on these assessments. During the first year of employment to further assure integration and retention, Dynamic Results uses the assessment to guide the development of the successful candidate.

About The Retention Edge™: Knowing that we needed an assessment tool that included measuring vital core competencies such as accountability and cross-cultural sensitivity we searched the market for a suitable product. Not finding one, we created our own:The Retention Edge™.

You will find that our assessments yield a report that:

• is easy to read and interpret
• fully describes the candidate’s competencies in two pages
• presents a groundwork for future developmental planning

In addition, The Retention Edge™ provides the candidates with a clear picture of:

• their leadership style
• how they think and decide
• what drives them and how they react to challenges

After the hire we use the report to help the employee continue to develop those competencies having the greatest impact on their work, and to help them continue increasing their value to the organization.

As always, we welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.

We are energized about the emerging possibilities in this New Year, and we wish you and yours the best of everything.

Henry J. Evans, Managing Partner

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Enjoy this article? Read our entire book!

The signs of the impending economic upturn are clear. Soon leaders will need to hire for the upswing. In an environment in which finding the right candidate is essential and the costs of a hiring mistake escalate, how can you increase your odds of selecting the best people?
Learn the difference between “Produce Something” people and “Show Up” people
Ask interview questions that identify which type of person a candidate is
Hire only “Produce Something” people
Every employee at heart is one of two types of individual: a “Produce Something” Individual or a “Show Up” Person. “Produce Something” people believe they are hired for output – they take accountability to deliver results. They view activity as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. They like being compensated based on what they deliver. Certain occupations attract this type of person and weed out non-producers. But “Produce Something” people can be found in all fields of endeavor.

A “Show Up” person’s orientation is activity first and foremost. To these individuals, results are nice, but activity is an end unto itself. “Show Up” people sincerely believe that they have fulfilled their job responsibilities by arriving on time and staying until closing. “Show Up” people are not measured based on their output. They resist being heldaccountable.

For the leader interested in finding a producer, there are questions you can ask to determine a candidate’s orientation.

• In your current (or most recent) job, how do (did) you measure your success?
• What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment at work over the last year?
• What aspect(s) of your job give(s) you the greatest satisfaction?
• Describe a recent problem or challenge at work? What was it? How did you go about addressing it?

Listen carefully to the answers. A “Produce Something” person will phrase her answers in the language of results and output, use action verbs and be specific. A “Show Up” person will rely heavily on adjectives and adverbs and speak in generalities.

Be especially careful if interviewing for a staff role or a role for which job performance metrics are unclear or not yet established. Find out whether the candidate is comfortable with defining his or her results as well as delivering them by asking questions such as:

• What motivates you? Why?
• Describe a situation in which you found your results were not up to either you or your boss’s expectations. What happened and what action did you take?
• What has been your greatest challenge at work? How did you respond?

Whittling a candidate pool down to a group of “Produce Something” people won’t address the hiring challenge completely. How, for instance, does a manager select from among a pool of talented “Produce Something” people? But ensuring a pool of results-oriented candidates greatly improves the odds of a winning hire. Youraccountability as a leader depends on it.

Dynamic Results is a strategy and organizational development firm serving clients globally. As part of our strategic alliance with TAYLOR WINFIELD, Dynamic Results helps find, develop and retain top executive talent for our clients.

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Did you find this article useful? Consider reading our book!

“A leader is someone who can get things done through other people.” (Warren Buffet)

In short, you are a leader only if others will successfully follow you.

This month we highlight our client, Natalie Knight, CFO of adidas North America. Henry Evans observes that Natalie models a leadership style that inspires others to eagerly follow her lead. She has three outstanding strengths that exhibit seasoned business skills along with emotionally-intelligent influencing competencies:

1) Operational Understanding – Natalie is not only interested in the numbers, but makes the effort to understand the operations, challenges and opportunities of other departments. This is an important emotional competency called “empathy” – not common in more left-brained, analytical leaders.

2) People Skills – she empowers each team with open information, making them feel stronger. She networks formally through her direct reports, and peers. She also makes sure she connects through more informal channels by reaching out to colleagues in other departments and divisions, giving her a more global outlook that impacts her decisions.

3) Good Balance between Strategic and Tactical. Strategy involves planning for the future to realize the longer vision while tactics relate to immediate and short-term goals. Natalie is known for having a strategic eye, both for the finance division she oversees and the overall corporate vision yet she never sacrifices needed attention to detail in day-to-day financial management.

Learn how Natalie did it!

Here is our interview:

Elaine: What are your biggest accomplishments since you joined adidas 1½ years ago?

Natalie: I am most proud of restructuring and energizing the finance organization, growing it from a more “old school” form of management. Now we go beyond being “number crunchers” and foster real business partnerships, getting people engaged in strategic discussion. Because of this, we are more able to hold people accountable and have designed new Key Performance Indicators.

Elaine: Tell me more about how you did that.

Natalie: One of our best incentive programs this past year was the “back to school” push contest, which addressed completion time on open orders. We hold people accountable on a weekly basis and keep the results visible on published scoreboards. We use a football field analogy, which everyone in our sports-oriented company loves. We highlight three big metrics to show how each group is driving its contribution. In this example, open orders were driving our backlog. The managers took the ball and carried it down to the account executive level. This rallying cry from management, sent a clear message about our focus. We discovered the power of incentivizing people to achieve targeted goals. Each management group receives a nice dinner for winning the contest; and if they win for the overall period they receive additional team bonuses.

Elaine: That’s great, but it doesn’t sound like something a CFO would initiate! In setting up this interview with your assistant Karine, she shared that you have a great deal of energy and go out of your way to share your enthusiasm. She said you make sure everyone understands your directives and really connect with people by exhibiting a truly supportive attitude. What has been your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

Natalie: Despite a difficult economic environment we have made huge strides in cash generation and inventory control. We created a greater focus on cash and changed the mind-set to inspire increased ownership in monitoring inventory. We brought all stakeholders to the table to increase cost containment and inaugurated many creative strategies for achieving short and long-term goals.

Elaine: What advice would you give to other CFO’s?

Natalie: I believe three things are most important for any CFO:

1) Go in and prove the value you bring with good information and decision-making. You have to look for ways to drive the value by giving others the information to help them operate more effectively. You don’t want others perceiving you only as the dreaded financial head who always says, “No,” to budget requests.

2) Strengthen your own team – this provides value for other managers by ensuring that your team is competent and can serve others well. It must be transparent that it’s not just “me” doing it all. Everyone must understand that the entire team is providing value.

3) Drive creativity – Don’t be afraid to think outside the box – and inspire others to look for ways that are not traditional.

“In any organization, it’s all about people and you won’t be disappointed in over-investing time on that side” Natalie Knight

How’s that for a take-away? Thank you Natalie!

Join us for discussion: “What do you most need from your CFO?”

Dynamic Results is a strategy and organizational development firm serving clients globally. As part of our strategic alliance with TAYLOR WINFIELD, Dynamic Results helps find, develop and retain top executive talent for our clients.

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Want to exhibit the kind of leadership Natalie possesses? Learn how!

Spock: “It’s just not logical, Captain.”
Kirk: “As humans…we can’t just ignore our feelings, Mr.Spock.”

This exchange between Kirk and Spock illustrates an age-old dilemma. Spock believes that emotions and feelings are always to be mistrusted and avoided in pursuit of the most rational, logical and sensible decision. Not being Vulcan we know how extremely difficult it is to even attempt to keep emotions out of our decision-making.

Here is a different view of the hierarchy of mind and emotion (emotional intelligence):

“The intuitive (emotional)* mind is a gift from God and the rational mind, its servant. We have created a society that reveres the servant and has forgotten the master.”
-Albert Einstein

Emotions trigger gut-reaction decisions made without thinking. (This type of decision is a crap-shoot with results that could be favourable or otherwise.) Emotions also bring leaps of inspiration, that seemingly flash out of nowhere. (These also are no guaranty of successful outcomes.)

OK. Now, recognizing that emotions impact our decisions, how can we take advantage of this knowledge? Recent research identifies areas in which understanding and managing our emotions can facilitate optimal decision-making.

1. The impact of positive mood

In a positive mood we open ourselves to our environment and are freer to explore situations and uncover solutions. One respected concept: the “broaden and build” theory states that positive moods expand our thinking; help generate new ideas; and allow us to consider alternative possibilities. Think about the difference maintaining a positive mood could make in a brainstorming session.

2. The impact of negative mood

Although negative emotions are less obviously helpful, they can also play a crucial role in decision-making. Research shows that negative moods induce more critical thinking, provide clearer focus; closer examination of detail, and a more thorough search for errors. Thus a negative mood can be useful for work on reviewing contracts, or conducting risk analysis planning, for two examples.

3. The impact of emotion-rich messages

Psychologist John Mayer shows that emotion-laden messages form memories that are recalled more clearly and over longer periods than those not containing emotional impact. If you want your messages to be engaging, compelling and memorable, ensure that they connect with your audience on an emotional and rational level.

Stephen Stefano, former CEO of Smith Kline Beecham, suggests that you must connect emotionally before the logic of your message can even be heard. “People do not care about how much you know, until they know about how much you care.”

4. The impact of emotional suppression

In trying to ignore our emotions in the attempt to make purely logical decisions we lose the emotional connection to our information content. Furthermore, in suppressing our emotions we divert mental resources which are needed for the decision at hand. This is a “double-whammy”. We not only miss out on the impact our feelings can provide; we end up with less mental horsepower available for processing the logic needed to resolve the situation.

Conclusion

Your mood has real and measurable effects on your decision-making. You need to understand and use mood to optimise your decisions and minimize the stress caused by ignoring or attempting to suppress the inherent wisdom and power of your feelings. Learn more about assessing and developing Emotional Intelligence here.

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

The pursuit of happiness and meaning is short when we realize that they can be found when we achieve two straightforward goals: loving what we do and showing it. I call this Mojo and all of the successful people I know have it. It is apparent when the positive feelings toward what we are doing come from inside us and are evident for others to see. Four vital ingredients need to be combined in order for you to have great Mojo.

1. Identity: Who do you think you are?

This question is more subtle than it sounds. It’s amazing to me how often I ask people this question and their first response is, “Well, I think I’m perceived as someone who . . .” I stop them immediately, saying, “I didn’t ask you to analyze how you think other people see you. I want to know who you think you are.” After people think for a while, I can generally extract a straight answer. Without a firm handle on our identity, we may never be able to understand why we gain—or lose—our Mojo.

2. Achievement: What have you done lately?

These are the accomplishments that have meaning and impact. But this too is a more subtle question than it sounds—because we often underrate or overrate our achievements based on how easy or hard they were to pull off.

3. Reputation: Who do other people think you are?

What do other people think you’ve done lately? Your reputation is a scoreboard kept by others. Although you can’t take total control of your reputation, there’s a lot you can do to maintain or improve it, which can in turn have an enormous impact on your Mojo.

4. Acceptance: What can you change, and what is beyond your control?

On the surface, acceptance—that is, being realistic about what we cannot change in our lives and accommodating ourselves to those facts—should be the easiest thing to do. It’s certainly easier than creating an identity from scratch or rebuilding a reputation. After all, how hard is it to resign yourself to the reality of a situation? Very. Acceptance is often one of our greatest challenges. And, when Mojo fades, the initial cause is often failure to accept what is—and get on with life.

By understanding the impact and interaction of identity, achievement, reputation, and acceptance, we can begin to alter our own Mojo—both at work and at home.

About the Author
Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders get even better by achieving positive, lasting change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams. In November 2009, he was ranked as one of the fifteen most influential business thinkers in the work in a study (involving 35,000 respondents) published by The (London) Times and Forbes.

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Did you enjoy this article? If so, you might benefit from reading our book.

Do you have trouble disconnecting from the office while on vacation? If so, you are not alone. Business Week reports that over 76 percent of executives said they work at least a few times a week, and 33 percent said they conduct business every single day.

Is this healthy?

The American Institute of Stress reports, “Increased levels of job stress have been demonstrated to be associated with increased rates of heart attack, hypertension and other disorders.”

Is this productive?

As executive coaches we see the effects of prolonged stress on our clients every day: reduced focus, lack of energy, loss of enthusiasm and creativity; with increased negative interactions with team members. The Families and Work Institute found that overworked individuals are more likely to make mistakes.

So, our big question is: Is it really necessary to always take the office with you?

It is, if you haven’t done sufficient planning. Like everything else in business and life – insufficient planning leads to poor results.

One client, the President of an International Manufacturing company, candidly shares what so many others suffer through. “I normally practice the Robin Williams concept from the movie RV; I do my work when the family is asleep.”

Our Dynamic Results team is committed to demonstrating accountability; which goes way beyond getting things done on time. Being accountable includes taking good care of yourself and living life in a way that is nurturing for you and inspiring to the people with whom you live and work.

Here are a few tips to help boost your accountability for taking healthy and refreshing vacations:

• A few weeks before leaving, review the status of your key projects. Decide what you will complete before leaving and what and to whom you will delegate remaining tasks.
• Consult with all your team members and communicate to each one what you want them to handle while you’re away. Make sure to have them state their understanding of what you require to guard against mixed signals or other miscommunications.
• Notify everyone concerned in your projects who will be responsible while you’re away; how to reach them, and when you’ll return.
• Set your voice mail and email accounts to inform everyone you are out of the office on vacation.
• Leave the day before and the day after your trip unscheduled. This will allow you to leave with confidence knowing that you have not only a manageable situation to return to, but time do deal with any unforeseen problems when you get back.
• Most importantly – commit to letting go and not checking your email and voice mail while away.
• Finally, make yourself accountable to your spouse and family by showing them this article.

One client, a SVP at a Global Manufacturing company advises that to develop strong, independent thinkers and doers, letting go while away gives all concerned the opportunity to rise to the next level.

Henry Evans, Managing Partner of Dynamic Results, shares, “I leave my computer and blackberry behind. I do carry a cell phone in case of emergency but usually leave it turned off and packed away. My objective is to focus on recharging and rejuvenating for a happier and more productive Henry when I return.”

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Learn how to build a culture of accountability at your organization.

It is a well know fact that people resist change at first and can be threatened by new standards of performance. How do effective leaders communicate their vision in a way that creates accountability while achieving results?

This month, Senior Associate Elaine Morris interviews Dynamic Results’ Managing Partner, Henry J. Evans, author of “Winning With Accountability, The Secret Language of High Performing Organizations”. Henry has led workshops all over the world in the last 18 months since the book came out. Over 11,000 books have been purchased and thousands have attended the Accountability workshops. Henry will share, in this 5 minute video, how to face the challenge of implementing these methods and how to help others in your workplace embrace the needed changes.

Here’s a transcription of the video:

EM.: Hi Henry, how are you doing?

HE: Great.

EM:Well, I’m here to talk with you about your book, “Winning with Accountability” and I know it’s been very popular and a lot of people have gone through your course and how many books have been sold now?

HE: Well, we know that over 11,000 have been purchased directly through the publisher, but we don’t know how many have sold total.

EM: I imagine, when people pick it up they want to practice it and they want other people to use it with them. Is it useful if they go back and share the book with people they work with, is it applicable enough, will they be able to really use it?

HE: Well, the book was written to do a few things very simply. Since the average executive only reads the first 80 pages of a book, we are a 100 page book. So we figure if you’re that close to the end you’re probably going to finish. The other is that it was written to give you intellectually simple, immediately accessible and applicable ideas, and there are only four of them. So, it’s a very limited in terms of what it’s offering and it’s very simple and you should be able to read it on a 60 or 90 minute flight, land and communicate better in your next meeting.

EM: What would be your best tip to leader or employers trying to change their culture?

HE: Well the first thing I would do is focus on myself and not on all the “stupid people” around me, and that’s the trap I think we all fall into, I think it’s very easy to identify the contributions other people are making to our challenge to identify our own contributions to others. So if you read the book or attend one of conferences and take in one of my concepts, my number one bit of advice is that you will take the time to practice them and do not expect other people around you spontaneously the ways you’re trying to cultivate.

EM: Leaders have been effective in holding people accountable in their performance and in general just to communicate better in the workplace. However, we’ve also heard stories where people go back and get pumped up after the workshop and they’ve had a chance to practice the language of accountability methodology you teach them, and they encounter challenges and resistance from the people around them. Can you give me some examples of the kinds of challenges people can expect and what you would advise them to do about it?

HE: The expectation that other people are going to change because you read our book or because you’ve been exposed to our method. So, when you’re excited about creating a more accountable culture, in our method that begins with the way you behave and the way you internalize this method, so it’s about the clarity of commitments when you are making them, it’s about the clarity of requests you make in others. So everything boils back to you, not to the organization.

EM: I’ve heard you often say it’s about looking in the mirror. It’s about working on yourself. And yet when they go out there, back to their office, and they try to use your method effectively, what kind of challenges can they expect?

HE: Well, one challenge can be that when you start asking people for more specificity when you’ve never done that before, they can interpret that as you suddenly not trusting them, they can interpret that as you losing faith in their ability to perform at a high level. So one of the things we encourage people to do through our method is to go back to their teams and say, “Hey I’ve been exposed to a method, I’ve set some developmental goals for myself, and I want to be better at being more specific when I make requests. I also want to be better when asking people for more specificity when I’m asking people, so if you notice me asking for more details or information, that’s part of my effort to develop myself, that does not imply you’re doing something wrong.

EM: And I hear you saying that with peers in direct reports. What about when they use it with people above them, like with their own bosses, what kinds of challenges do people face?

HE: Well that’s a cultural diversity question, and I mean cultural in regards to your country of origin, but it’s also your corporate culture. So, within individual teams, some bosses and leaders strongly encourage feedback and they love getting constructive criticism but those leaders are rare. Most leaders will make the mistake of pulling rank and they might say, “Well Elaine, I appreciate you asking me when I’m going to keep that promise I made but why don’t you worry about your own performance and I’ll worry about mine. I didn’t get here because I’m a dummy or low performing.” And they deflect the accountability as a company and encourage leaders of developed leaders and actually embrace appreciation for being held accountable for their own commitments.

Henry’s tips include:

• Focus on yourself and improving your own communication with the use of the 4 piece Accountability Puzzle™
• Let your team members know you will be practicing a new way of relating that may possibly come across as more challenging at first.
• Especially assure those around you that you do trust them – this is important because you will be increasing the amount of detail you are sharing in your expectations and in your requests, which can trigger tension.
• Be a good model for being accountable in keeping your own promises, giving commitments with specific outcomes and deliverable times and being open to feedback from your team members when they share how you can better meet their needs.

As always, we welcome your comments. Join us on facebook to share your experiences or email us at moreinfo@dynamicresults.com.

Did you find this article challenging and beneficial? If so, consider attending one of our accountability workshops!