Leading Change in Dynamic Hospitality Industry

Leading Change in Dynamic Hospitality Industry | By Mahendra (Mike) Rathore

Changing Business Dynamics:

In an ever-metamorphosing tourism and hotel industry the biggest fear confronting the hospitality operator's is CHANGE. Change is a reality and constant factor in the dynamic hospitality industry. What we knew yesterday is no longer applicable today. How we operated successfully yesterday can very well be premonition to extinction today. The truth is that change is occurring all the time and the cycle of change is constant and in order for hoteliers to remain competitive and survive must adopt the change. Those managers/ operators who are averse to change will either have to be content themselves with mediocre performance or bleeds with thousand cuts since competition will overtake them soon. In today's business environment, everything is changing the customer's taste & preference, competition, prices, policies, people and employees and products are can literally change overnight. The loyalty of either customers or associates for business is a thing of the past, are governed by the new rules of business. Therefore, the ability to embrace, manage and effectively lead change is of great benefit to today's hotelier and travel professionals. Only those leaders who act boldly in times of crisis and change are willingly followed. To successfully meet and overcome change, we need to have specific attitudes and skills for envisioning; anticipating and once we know the impending change, and planning for that inevitable change. And having known the impending change, we need to know how to effectively communicate that change to co-workers, client's vendors and future prospects to stay abreast of the competition.

While change may not come easily, you as an operator can be sure that it will indeed come. And must be prepared for the inevitable changes that accompany the modern hotelier in variety of ways. Changes brought by the franchisors sponsored new prototypes, forced amenities creeps, new technology adaptation, renewed marketing initiatives, capital expenditures, staff turnover, burgeoning competition, business threats, ADA, New Government legislations, consumer legislation from nowhere to name a few. Leaders must love progress and that comes by embracing and adapting to changing business paradigms. Successful Leaders are not always the first to see the need for change, but they are the first to act, and once they move away from the pack, they are positioned to lead. It is rightly said that "Character is not made in crisis it is only exhibited."

Planning for inevitable changes:

Changes in this business sneak up on you and we have to manage the change for success what has occurred. Therefore, anticipation and alarm are the two things that one has to constantly keep in mind while running the hospitality business. While you may not be able to predict the future, there are some useful indications or issues that you can consider to help you prepare for the future. The paradigms shift can be extremely frustrating and frightful for some depending on their past perceptions, background and educational background and cultural mores & social taboos. However, those who view change positive are more apt to benefit from it and create synergies and new opportunities for future. The most successful entrepreneurs are successful in this business because they always embraced change and found it exciting for their business rather than fearing or being intimidated by the change.

The paradigm can help hoteliers embrace change and plan of the future The example of paradigm could include that every guest will be served in most courteous and professional manners, the hotel will give irrevocable satisfaction guarantee, the communication channels between hotel and franchisers, marketing initiatives, current products portfolios and mix of lodging products etc. Division of roles & responsibilities are some of the paradigms that help reinforce positive service behaviors and deliver memorable guest services and generate desirable returns for the investors and owners. These paradigms help businesses organize their acts and provide structure that fulfill the business security needs. However, when the situations change, paradigm can prevent us from seeing the new opportunities that change brings to our business. We become accustomed to our set of rules and consequently we begin to fear and resist change that challenges our paradigms. When an established set of rules undergoes a change, a paradigm shift occurs. And these paradigm shifts are behind much of the troubles & turmoil's that usually accompanies change. Because we had a set of rules that we followed for years and then suddenly someone or something has changed the rules. We understood our old rules and boundaries and now we have to learn new ones. These changes dramatically upset our well-organized and business structures in today's times.

Dealing with inadvertent: prosper or perish!

In the shipping world the jet planes initiated a paradigm shift. Old reservation system was challenged by advent of technology and Internet revolution that now contribute to about 60 % of all hotel bookings and is rapidly changing the way travel and hotel bookings are made. Similarly in recent years the Hotel chains best rate guarantees on their web sites have threatened the third party travel distributor's sites business. Those who anticipated the paradigm shift and took positive steps to confront the reality change have sustained their business by devising the packaging for the travelers. That includes Air ticket, hotel room, rental car and sightseeing etc. The new packages system has benefited all the constituents of businesses and hence flourishing. Those businesses that resisted the inadvertent change, letting the shift occur without shifting with it, thus accepting a fate they believed meant a doom for their business. Most of such businesses either withered away from scene overnight and many were sold out or merged/acquire by dominant industry players. They became victim of paradigm paralysis, inflexible commitment to the status quo in the face of great change. Some example of such paralyzed paradigm shifts victims when we hear at the check out counter a manager responding to the customer complaint and demand for rebate and or refund: "that's', impossible"; "It's against our policy to give full refund" The owners would reprimand the Managers for meeting guest requests in the form of refunds responding in categorical terms "We don't do things that way in my hotels or around here! Or "Who gave you permission to change the rules" The demoralized Managers would then explain to owners that it is Franchisors written policy for absolute satisfaction or get your full refund. The owners would shoot back it is my business and "Let's get real here, Okay" or "I wish it were that easy to follow everything the franchisors promise to the customers" In contrast, those operators who back the guarantees on service or standards are essentially embracing change and respond positively to business paradigm shift and see opportunity for in the face of change. They assess the present situation and look forward to future in terms of repeat business, positive word-of-mouth publicity. They find success in change and embrace the paradigm shift for betterment of business in the long term.

Embrace change for competitive advantages

Yet another example of such paradigm shift was high-speed Internet access in guest rooms. Some operators resisted the change and took a heavy beating in the guest satisfaction, and consequent loss of repeat clientele. While other perceived as business reality and made it free for all customers and instead made this as a marketing tool to drive traffic to their hotels. Some visionary hoteliers went one step ahead and came out with video on demand with in room fax and long distance service and made stream of revenues, significantly higher than what they might have made on by charging the HSIA in the guest room. Third party online distribution system has too undergone a sea change in recent years. Hotel groups that aw the paradigm shift quickly responded to it positively and made their distressed room inventories available to opaque and not-opaque online distributors and gained significant revenues. Others who were averse and acted late were not able to take advantages of changing business models.

During post September events many hotels started taking recourse to traditional solutions for bad times, some proactive players jump-started sales with SMERF and travel agents business when group sales took all time high cancellations. Star wood Hotels & Resorts made the same bet. The company quickly gained revenues while most companies were at stand still by selling room prices as low as $ per night to travel agents. The group did not wait for customers to come looking, instead they went looking for customers. That is a basic paradigm shift in the business that was executed successfully. In tough times those who don't change are least likely to survive and a business have to be proactive and leaders most willing to accept change.

Similarly Revenue Management System is yet another example of a paradigm shift in hospitality industry. The focus in gradually shifting from heads in the bed occupancy and RevPAR to revenue per occupied guest (REVPAG). In evaluating the performance of hotels in the comp-set hotels, new shift is from the RevPAR index to Share Price index (SPI) that measures the growth in the share of business compared to other hotels in the competitive set. In an ever-changing dynamic business environment, rooms contract with groups and consortia have become outdated and obsolete because the hotels are not taking recourse to dynamic model of revenue Management. Since the room demand and forecasting models are based on several heterogeneous mix of variables rather than just focusing on the group business or corporate contracts for certain numbers rooms at a predetermined rates. In large metro cities hotels instead of quoting for long-term stay on average rates are now quoting rates for each night based on the properties occupancies and demands for property.

Successful hoteliers have come to reckon with the realities of paradigm that are all around them and are quickly responding to those paradigm shifts to stay competitive and to take advantages of changes situations. While paradigms are necessary and useful, the businesses have to realize that they can be detrimental when they block you from new ides or solutions. Winners are those who recognize their current paradigms –and willing to go beyond them seeing the new perspectives or opportunities.

Overcoming Resistance to change:

In the fact of such rapid change, the hospitality leaders need to develop abilities to analyze a situation and respond in a way that benefits the entire organization that most markedly distinguished them from managers who are primarily responsible for micro management with technical and human relations issues. In initiating such adaptations and change leadership and management abilities are necessary throughout the organizational change. Owners and key executives must not involve themselves with managing change but rather proactively commit themselves to leading change. True success occurs from leading change as well as altering the status quo, creating a new vision, communicating that vision throughout the company and getting employees to believe in it and then empowering them to action the desired change.

While planning for change requires owners to assess their own skills and perspectives, communicating change requires them to think of others involved in the change process. Our industry in recent times have witnessed huge resistance to business dynamics and changes in two kind of changes namely, transitional changes and transformational changes. Because both these changes requires dismantling of current way of operating businesses, systems, procedures and replacing those with new franchisers systems, procedures and policies often involving huge CAPEX and investments of time, capital and resources. These changes have basically been evolutionary for hotel business due to growing competition between brands, constant upgradation and evolutions of lodging business. These market driven changes have been very costly but were the only options for the hotels chains to stay competitive and gain firm hold of their market segmentation. These changes have met with huge resistance and bitter criticism by the franchisee community against franchisors. A case in point is of Marriott international , the company faced huge resistance from franchisees for transformational changed of their Select Services brands," Courtyard hotels new prototypes and also about Fairfield inn & Suites etc. Be it the new suites design, new bedding investments or investment in curved shower roads. Although these changes were introduced and hoteliers witnessed improved revenues and guest satisfaction scores, but initially the changes looked little threatening and often traumatic to the franchisees. Along with transformation and transitional changes, the new paradigm shift forced owners to organizational changes, and renewed vision. Similarly, choice hotels new focus on quality services and advent of amenity creeps also met with some resistance from the franchisee owners. Therefore important part of communicating change is anticipating and managing resistance Franchisers can manage the change and its resistance by involving the franchsi8ees in the change decision process right from inception, and explain the benefits of those changes in terms of impact on owners bottom lines. Further provide clearly and frequently information from time to time to allow the franchisees to understand, accept and finally prepare for the change itself.

Managing Change Proactively:

Change management necessitated thorough analysis and well-planned communication strategy before implementing changes Communication is paramount throughout the entire change process. The change should be gradual and phase-by-phase to gradually introduce new elements into the old structure. This would enable people to shift more comfortably from their existing paradigm in to the new paradigm. Such a gradual transition can help overcome paradigm paralysis. People in times of change need additional education & training to boost their confidence and to develop their skills. Associated in particular would need internal training, in the form of coaching, or mentoring, and external training. These could be in the form of educational professional courses and independent training seminars. This is very important and is needed to develop a skilled, motivated and confident workforce. From the first time that people first learn of the upcoming changes, its is important for them to assume responsibility for the change. With each additional efforts they invest in making the change happen, a sense of ownership increases. This fostered ownership sense would most employees should feel committed to change. Management should provide employees to incentives for successfully applying change. Set milestones for soliciting and responding to employee feedback. Incorporate new suggestions and ideas from the employees in the ongoing implementation process. Owners should insist on getting employees involved in implementing changes and that would perk up their pride and commitment in making the changes happen and would remove fears and resistance to the desired change. Feedback should be an ongoing element in planning, implementing change. Feedback is sharing the results of change efforts continuously and consistently. This would strengthen the staff confidence and help the employees stay positive and motivated. Feedback is the best tool to give employees some insight about the outcomes of their performance. Successful implementation strategies must take into consideration barriers that currently might exist or might arise during the change efforts, and the consequences of those anticipated barriers. Once the owners/ leaders have identified anticipated and/or barriers, must find ways to prevent them or at least limit their negative consequences. Here's where your management skills, leadership ability, and common sense is the best way to accomplish the important task.

Leading change- winners Way:

Hospitality operators have to reconcile to the immutable law of change that impacts their businesses. You have to learn to deal with the nuances and effects of a changing environment. Dealing with change is an understanding o change and willingness to adapt. We have a tendency not to change until we really have to .The real threat to our future success comes not from outside the organization but from inside. Changes in the hospitality & tourism sector are bound to happen and its not the change themselves that will destroy our business, It's how you choose to respond and adapt. Sometimes our own past success is the biggest obstacle to change. We tend to rest on our past laurels assuming successful past would guarantee us future success. I t might usually lead us down a different future path. The most successful changes happen when old paradigms are abandoned while they still work. Fixing something that "isn't broke" takes foresight, courage, and a high degree of risk. Only true change leaders hoteliers successfully tackle and accomplish this feat.

Today's hospitality organization need people who adapt quickly, not those who psychologically resist change. Being able to change quickly will build your business reputation, while resisting change can ruin it. To survive and gain competitive advantage in the travel industry environment of fierce competition and fleeting opportunities, hoteliers need operate with an emphasis on ACTION Indecisiveness, resistance to change, or inaction, and excessive analysis is paralysis, and great obstacle to change and would be at the root of the lost opportunity. Owners, who love structures and detest fluid job roles and shifting priorities, try to be flexible. Uncertainty and unpredictability characterizes the hotel business. Hoteliers future success would rests largely on ability accept ambiguity and uncertainty of changing situations. Continue to upgrade sills and knowledge Hotel leaders should embrace change and focus on the big picture. Be responsible for every action you make in pursuit of that goal. Focus on ways that you can make a worthwhile difference in changing times and increase added value to your business and work place. Continuous process improvements should be the focus for improving the operation and gain enduring competitive advantage in ever changing business environment.

About the Author:

Mahendra S Rathore, CHA, CHE, CTA, FCHIMA, MBA - Mahendra Rathore is the president of the Ultima Management dedicated to management of full service, select service hotels and resorts as well as providing turnkey consulting services for the hospitality and leisure industries.

Thinking Outside Your Beliefs

by Stever Robbins

I'll bet I know why you're reading this: You want the secret of success. And today, I plan to deliver. But the secret isn't what you think. It's not a practice, business model, or trend. Those are all just by-products of the real secret. All the "best practices" in the world won't bring you results unless you understand what really drives success. What is it? Simple: belief.

Beliefs are where it all starts—they determine everything. Beliefs about what's possible guide the goals you'll set. Beliefs about human nature guide whom you hire, how you pay them, and how you promote them. Beliefs about the future have an impact on your strategy. In short, your beliefs become policies that become results. As much as we love to think we're logical, beliefs don't come from logic. Beliefs aren't about what's true; they're about what we happen to absorb from family, friends, and culture. When I was seven, I was happily singing away when my dad told me to plan on a different career choice. Wham! For thirty years I believed I couldn't sing. (Six months with a voice teacher revealed a very nice singing voice, thank you very much. Who knew? Not my dad.)

So-called conventional wisdom is just beliefs. Everyone knows this is true, and no one questions it. Growth is good. Sure it is. I always love hearing Warren Buffett discuss See's Candies, a business that funded some of his early acquisitions. Warren is keenly aware that See's has a natural limit to how big it can get without hurting its business. So he lets it stay small (small by his standards). As the second richest man in the world, his beliefs about growth catch my eye.

(Note the hidden belief there? Do you believe being rich means someone is smarter, or that their opinions are worth listening to? That's just a belief. It could be wrong.)

Beliefs are sticky. Once you have a belief, you'll interpret the world to match the belief. You'll throw away or discount evidence against the belief. Just listen to any political debate. When data supports a point of view, the proponents leap. When data doesn't, they try to discredit the data. It's the belief driving, not reality.

Drive your business by driving your beliefs
If beliefs drive everything else, you owe it to yourself to know your own beliefs and choose them carefully. You just need to decide what to believe and then use the real belief-creating methods to drive the belief home. Oddly, you don't have to choose beliefs that correspond to reality. You can choose any beliefs at all, as long as they drive you to create the world you want to create. For example, you can believe people basically want to show up and do a good job. If you do, you'll create structures and systems that support people doing so. In turn, people will show up and do a good job. The belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next time you study the people you admire, ignore the details of what they think made the difference in their success. Instead, listen for their beliefs. When you see a company succeed by having dual career tracks for managers and scientists, the key isn't so much the specific program. Try on the belief that there are multiple forms of excellence and you should offer multiple forms of success to celebrate them all. That underlying belief may well lead to more innovation than just dual career tracks.

Old beliefs get in the way
Even if you identify great new beliefs, your existing beliefs will fight back. You might decide to believe that organic, self-funded growth is the healthiest. Yet your dot-com-fueled fantasies of Google's IPO keep insisting at the back of your mind that high-growth, high-profile is the path to a great company. Your old beliefs put up a formidable roadblock to the new.

When you start fighting yourself or saying, "Yes, but . . . ," congratulate yourself! You've found a limiting belief. If you preface it by saying, "Of course, it's human nature that . . ." or "Everybody knows . . . ," then you know you've found a really powerful one.

So kill it. Mull your conventional wisdom over in your mind, and start taunting it. "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah. You're a limiting belief. Get lost!" If you have fun with your belief, you actually weaken its hold. Slowly start playing "what if" and make them wilder and wilder. You'll find yourself slipping outside the box of your own thinking.

Want some good ones to start with? Try challenging some of my favorite conventional wisdoms:

• growth is good
  
• the goal of business is to make money for shareholders
  
• quarterly results matter
  
• the size of my office matters
  
• pay should be related to performance
  
• people are our most important asset (if you're in Houston, air conditioning is your most important asset, and don't you forget it!)

Use emotion and selective attention to solidify the new belief. Remember that logic is the quickest way not to change a belief. Beliefs, like significant others, are impervious to logic. So go straight for emotion.

Contemplate something you believe is true. Notice the emotions you feel, "rightness," or a confidence. And now hold that feeling while you start repeating your new belief to yourself. You literally want to start transferring your feelings of certainty to the new belief.

But feeling isn't enough! You also have to train yourself to filter reality, just like your current beliefs filter reality. So start reviewing in your mind every example you can think of where your new belief held. If you're adopting the belief, "we can find ways to partner with competitors," start searching for every example you can find where competitors have partnered. For examples, read Co-opetition. Meditate on Microsoft buying a hundred-million-dollar chunk of Apple as the latter struggled for growth. Think about research joint ventures like the MIT Media Lab, where all partners pony up the bucks, and all share the results.

When you come across a counter-example, simply ignore it. "Gee," you think, "my dad did business with a competitor and got wiped out." Forget Dad's two decades of bankruptcy and depression. Just focus on the times when partnering worked. Remember, you're building a castle in the sky here. This isn't about accuracy, it's about training your emotions to act differently.

It's OK to have an unreal belief—your current beliefs are just as unreal, only in the other direction. Remember: Beliefs just act as filters that help you direct behavior; they're not about what's real. You're adopting beliefs because they will lead you to do different things, build different structures, and get different results than your current beliefs.

Regardless of belief, you still need a high-quality decision-making process. Making decisions should include a thoughtful phase where you leave beliefs behind and bring in data, real-world considerations, and lots of alternative viewpoints. That's when you have the chance to avoid Dad's fate, while still getting the benefits from "co-opetitive" innovations. You take reality into account in your decision-making process, not in your underlying beliefs.

There is a lot more to beliefs. They form the box that everyone seems to want to think outside of. They turn into organizational behavior, and they also have a deep impact on your own actions, your feelings, your family, and your culture. They're one of the most powerful forces I know, and we've just scratched the surface here. I will be discussing beliefs on my blog and in my newsletter in weeks to come. Because the more you design your beliefs, the more you can create the results that you want in the world. Or at least, that's my belief.

[Stever Robbins is CEO of The Stever Robbins Company, a firm that helps high-performing individuals build careers and lives that connect deeply to their passion.]

Can You Manage Different Generations?

Can You Manage Different Generations?

by Eric J. McNulty

Managing multigenerational workforces is an art in itself. Young workers want to make a quick impact, the middle generation needs to believe in the mission, and older employees don't like ambivalence. Your move.

As the oldest baby boomers draw closer to traditional retirement age, forward-thinking firms are investing more heavily in leadership development and succession programs. They are focusing on building up bench strength: embedding in their top young talent the skills and wherewithal to take over leadership positions when the time comes. On the surface, it seems like a sensible approach. But what if the people you're counting on to lead your company into the future won't be there when you need them? Or what if they don't even want the roles for which they are being groomed?

According to recent studies, both such possibilities are increasingly likely—especially for companies that are not keeping pace with the changing makeup and diverging priorities of the U.S. workforce.

Companies that expect to compete in even the very near future must recognize new attitudes among their workers. They must acknowledge that new relationships will exist between employees and organizations. And they must open themselves up to revisiting assumptions about which workers are appropriate for which roles and to rethinking the ways in which they hire, motivate, and retain employees.

Where to start this heady effort? Begin by considering the advice of Tamara Erickson and Bob Morison of The Concours Group, a Kingwood, Texas-based consulting company, who have done extensive research on the changing workforce and the age-based cohorts that compose it.

Workers under 35
Younger workers feel much less loyalty to institutions than do older workers. They also want responsibility and expect to have input right away, whereas older workers expect people to earn their way up. Younger workers aren't afraid to make decisions, and if you can create a strong social fabric at work, you can leverage their network-centric attitudes.

One should rapidly place younger workers into responsible roles to get the most out of these workers before they move on. And because the relationship between these workers and their immediate managers is more significant than their relationship to the larger organization, companies need to make retention more of a core responsibility for managers at all levels of the organization. Anticipate that these younger workers will leave (for education, travel, or another job), and make it easy for them to return when it is in the interest of both parties.

Workers between 35 and 54
This middle cohort tends to be antiauthoritarian and idealistic. They are ambitious, flexible, productive, self-sufficient, and people-oriented. On the other hand, they distrust leadership, are juggling busy lives, and demand merit-based systems and participative management. Make their work fulfilling to them, and they will move mountains; if they fail to believe in the mission, they will disengage—as 71 percent of this age group have done, according to Concours research, and become unproductive.

Middle cohort workers, today's middle managers, may have to stay in their roles longer because the cohort ahead of them is retiring later and there are also fewer replacements coming up from below. But they will be detrimental to their organizations if they stagnate. They can be reengaged through fresh assignments, mentoring, and knowledge-sharing roles, and even through career switches within the company. Compensation and benefit policies should be examined so that these workers are not penalized financially because the organization needs them to stay at a certain level. Position lateral moves as opportunities for greater experience, not as "less than" a promotion, and celebrate them as such.

The key, says Morison, is "to provide opportunities for rejuvenation within the organization so those workers you want to retain don't feel the need to go outside."

It is important to have someone for workers to talk to confidentially about their careers—particularly middle cohort workers who may feel stalled—and more and more companies are looking to build such coaching capabilities inside. According to Ellen Galinsky of New York City-based Families and Work Institute, this person should be someone who is visible, a good networker, and a good problem solver. That kind of person may help people find opportunities within the organization that they never thought to consider.

Workers 55 and over
Workers who are 55 and over bring an entirely different perspective, according to Concours research. They trust authority, respect rules, and are loyal to institutions. They expect people to "pay their dues" before being given authority. They place great value on financial security and may be uncomfortable with the ambiguity that is common in contemporary business. They also tend to have stronger social skills than their younger counterparts. This can, for example, make older workers ideally suited for call centers and other roles with significant customer contact.

Erickson and Morison advise getting serious about recruiting and retaining older workers for both entry-level and highly skilled work. Ferret out and eliminate the tacit age bias that often exists in hiring and development processes, and craft roles that leverage the expertise of older workers. Think of retirement as an opportunity to keep talent around rather than as a way to phase people out. St. Louis-based Monsanto, for example, has a Resource Re-Entry Center that helps retirees who leave the company in good standing return in part-time roles.

Younger managers should be sure to explicitly acknowledge the expertise and knowledge that older workers have accumulated; these workers can be great sources of wisdom, particularly when it comes to company and customer history. Don't assume that older workers aren't technologically adept or can't become so. Many, in fact, are quite tech-savvy and enjoy the challenges that come with mastering new skills.

Managers should also be sensitive to the new dynamics at work when the younger are leading the older. Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, recommends that a younger manager who has to manage older workers ask herself what it would be like to be the boss of her mother or father or to imagine how her parents would feel being led by her as a way to better understand some of the potential issues in the relationship.

The inflexible demand for flexibility
If profound changes in the makeup of the workforce weren't concern enough, also consider that many of the workers whom companies will be counting on to fill more important roles may not want those roles—at least not as the jobs are now structured.

A Families and Work Institute study found that only 43 percent of prime candidates for promotion (college-educated workers from their early twenties to mid-fifties) want to move into jobs with greater responsibility. And 77 percent of workers with children consider themselves "family-centric" or "dual-centric" rather than principally "work-centric," a number that has grown with the post-baby boom generations.

Firms that get out in front of this trend by offering greater flexibility stand to reap the biggest benefits. Companies should offer "on-ramps and off-ramps" that allow workers to take breaks from their careers and return later to everyone's benefit, says Galinsky. So, too, should workers be able to shift from the fast lane to the middle lane to the slow lane and back again as their lives change.

In this effort, firms must identify and eliminate "flexibility penalties." While flexibility has been seen to be a key driver of engagement and happiness at work, one Families and Work Institute study of the national workforce showed that 39 percent believed that exercising flexibility options would result in less pay and fewer promotion opportunities. Flexibility policies won't work, Galinsky says, if long hours are seen as the "red badge of courage" in your organization. Reward results, not face time, she advises.

Ernst & Young, for example, has aggressively implemented flexibility programs. It has an internal Web site where participants can share their experiences, and the company's efforts are publicized in internal newsletters and external pubic relations efforts. Ernst & Young says it saves $10 million each year through the improved retention its flexibility programs create.

Firms will find older workers can be a linchpin to making flexibility work. First, workers in this cohort will desire flexibility for their own lives as they aim to enjoy the traditional benefits of retirement while keeping one foot in the workforce. Second, their continued presence in the organization can help ensure that critical tasks are being managed by highly competent people during those times when younger managers are taking advantage of their own job flexibility.

[Eric J. McNulty is the managing director of Harvard Business School Publishing's conference division. He can be reached at MUOpinion@hbsp.harvard.edu.]

The Problem Of Transition

The Problem Of Transition | By Robin Trehan

At the heart of any change management lays the problem of transition. The transition to be brought about might be large or small in scope and scale, and it might focus on individuals or groups, on one or more divisions or departments, the entire organization, or one or on more aspects of the organization's environment.

At a conceptual level, the transition problem is a matter of moving from one state to another state. This transformation is typically accomplished as a result of achieving three types of goals: transform, reduce, and apply.

Transform goals are concerned with identifying differences between the two states. I will call the first stage as unfreeze second change and the third refreeze.

Reduce goals are concerned with determining ways of eliminating these differences which occur while the transition take place from one state to another.

Apply goals are concerned with putting into play operators that actually effect the elimination of these differences.

The transition problem can be further treated as smaller problems having to do with the how, what, and why of change.

Transition as a "Why" Problem

• Why do we need the changes and what are the factors, which force us to bring about these changes. These outside forces are termed as Environmental Factors. (Theses environmental factors can be new emerging technologies, change in economic, social, political or cultural.) The answer to "why" questions is the most important as ends and means are relative notions, not absolutes; i.e., something is an end or a means only in relation to something else. Thus, chains and networks of ends-means relationships often have to be traced out before one finds the "true" ends of a transition effort.

Transition as "What" Problem

• The change effort in the form of "how" question is to focus the effort on means. To focus on ends requires the posing of "what" questions. What are we trying to accomplish? What changes are necessary? What indicators will signal success? What standards apply? What measures of performance are we trying to affect?

Transition as "How" Problem

• The transition problem after "Why" turns out to be "how" question. How do we get people to be more open, to assume more responsibility, to be more creative? To be self-managed teams? How do we move from a network environment to one that of another? How do we get this organization to be more innovative, competitive, or productive? How do we raise more effective barriers to market entry by our competitors?

[Robin C. Trehan (B.A, MIB, MBA) is an industry consultant in the field of mergers and acquisitions. He is also vice president and managing director at CBK Business and National Hotel Exchange.]

Knowledge Management, a Business Perspective

Knowledge Management, a Business Perspective | by Robin Trehan

Knowledge Management is a discipline to systematically leverage information and expertise to improve organizational responsiveness, innovation, competency, efficiency and corporate knowledge. Corporate Knowledge is an aggregated body of experience and understanding of an organization's processes for managing both planned and unplanned situations to achieve the process whereby knowledge seekers are linked with knowledge sources, and knowledge is transferred to attain Knowledge Management.

Knowledge is understandings of the cognitive system possesses. It is a construct that is not directly observable. It is specific to and not residing outside the cognitive system that created it. Given the importance of knowledge in virtually all areas, 5 knowledge-related aspects are vital for viability and success at any level:

1. Knowledge assets perspective- to be applied or exploited, must be nurtured, preserved, and used to the largest extent possible by both individuals and organizations.
   
   
2. Knowledge-related processes perspective- to create, compile, organize, transform, transfer, pool, apply, and safeguard knowledge, must be carefully and explicitly managed in all affected areas.
   
   
3. Business Perspective- focusing on why, where, and to what extent the organization must invest in or exploit knowledge. Strategies, products and services, alliances, acquisitions, or divestments should be considered from knowledge-related points of view.
   
   
4. Management Perspective- focusing on determining, organizing, directing, facilitating, and monitoring knowledge-related practices and activities required to achieve the desired business strategies and objectives.
   
   
5. Hands-On Operational Perspective- focusing on applying the expertise to conduct explicit knowledge-related work and tasks.

Today, Knowledge management is of vital importance for all companies as, Knowledge management is a framework within which the organization views all its processes as knowledge processes. In this view, all business processes involve creation, dissemination, renewal, and application of knowledge toward organizational sustenance and survival. This concept embodies a transition from 'information value chain' to a 'knowledge value chain.'

In a knowledge based society the knowledge workers also need to be facile in the applications of new technologies to their business contexts. Such a perceptive is necessary so that they can delegate 'programmable' tasks to technologies to concentrate their time and efforts on value-adding activities that demand creativity and innovation. More importantly, they should have the capability of judging if the organization's 'best practices' are aligned with the dynamics of the business environment. Such knowledge workers are the critical elements of the double loop learning and unlearning cycle that should be designed within the organizational business processes. "Knowledge is nothing without action. Nothing changes until you do something. What you do will directly determine what you learn." - James A. Belasco & Ralph C. Stayer, Flight of the Buffalo

In the present time, KM helps to deliver the latest and most-up-to-date answers and information across the enterprise, because knowledge sharing and replication ensures that all captured knowledge is current and available. KM is as much a mindset as it is a set of tools and related information. It is concerned with the entire process of discovery and creation of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge, and the utilization of knowledge. In knowledge Management the 'reflection time' is also of prime importance. It's very hard to share knowledge if we do not have enough time to reflect on what we know or what you need to learn. Most companies have squeezed almost all of the reflection time out of their business processes as yesterday values and principles are of no importance in today's dynamic business environment. A quote form Abraham Lincoln "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."

[Robin C. Trehan is an industry consultant in the field of mergers and acquisitions of real estate & development companies. He is also vice president and managing director at CBK Business and National Hotel Exchange.]

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

Understaffed and Overworked: What Now?

by Paul Michelman

When resources are scarce, you need a plan for managing your career, your team, and even your boss. Here's what works: balance, focus, and effective communication.

Meet Cheryl Andrus: Manager. Survivor. A vice president responsible for corporate and product marketing at FranklinCovey in Salt Lake City, Andrus was asked in August 2002 to also take charge of one of the company's business lines. Along with these new responsibilities came the mandate to achieve 50 percent bottom-line improvement during the next year.

To do this, Andrus knew she would need a focused and dedicated team. What she had was an overburdened one. In fact, a company survey showed that 60 percent of Andrus's 48 reports believed that they were working at maximum capacity and couldn't take on any additional work. (The nationwide average in FranklinCovey's xQ survey was 50 percent.)

What's more, over the course of the next six months, the size of Andrus's already overtaxed staff would shrink from 48 to 35—but corporate expectations would not be ratcheted down.

Andrus had quite a challenge on her hands. Perhaps you are attempting to manage your way through a similarly exigent scenario. Trying to accomplish everything that used to be done by two or three people, you may be feeling stressed, maybe more than a bit underappreciated. But take heart: You can weather this storm and come out on top—if you have a strategy.

A well thought out plan for managing yourself, your team, and even your boss through these tough times will not only help you address the new demands being heaped upon you, it will also help you turn this onerous situation into a springboard for future growth.

Let's begin with what you shouldn't do: "The sure recipe for failure is to suck it up and try to do it all," says Isabel Parlett of Parlance Training, a Santa Fe, N.M., firm specializing in business communications. "You'll burn out, your team will resent you, your reputation will suffer, and the work probably won't all get done anyway."

Conversely, if you offer resistance to new duties when the company is down, you may not like the company's reaction. Even if you don't find yourself on the wrong end of a future workforce reduction, you'll likely be tagged with the dreaded "not a team player" label, and future opportunities could be severely limited.

So what's the recipe for successful self-management in this economic climate? The ingredients include balance, focus, effective communication, and more than a pinch of dynamism.

Those were certainly apparent in Andrus's response to her rather large dilemma. "I had a problem," she says, "but there were very specific things I focused on to help me through the dark days and deliver value to the company." Here are two facets of her approach.

1. Stay focused
Since Andrus clearly could not accomplish everything on her agenda, she says she brought "very intense" focus to determining which of her many goals were truly critical—to her, her team, and the company. To do so, she applied a five-part litmus test to each of her existing goals by asking these questions:

— "What is its economic impact?" How will this goal affect the company economically and move it forward?

— "Is it aligned with the company's strategy?" In a time of rapidly shifting corporate strategy, it's essential to regularly reevaluate individual and team goals to ensure that each still maps to those of the company.

— "How will it satisfy stakeholders?" How important is it to your boss, your team, and other interested parties?

— "What is my level of passion, talent, and energy for it?" If you can't bring all three to the table, you're not going to achieve a high return on your efforts.

— "Do we have the resources?" Is there sufficient time, money, and any other necessary resources to accomplish this goal?

Ultimately, you can't determine which goals rate as must-do's entirely on your own, Andrus says. "After I go through this process myself, I go see my boss to make sure I'm aligned with him and with his stakeholders. You have to learn to be open and to listen to how your boss reacts to your analysis. By focusing on economic impact and strategy in particular, you are talking in his language, and it makes you look smart."

Many managers are daunted by the prospect of having these types of conversations with their bosses, notes Thomas DeLong, who teaches organizational behavior at Harvard Business School. "I'm amazed that although organizations are willing to set metrics for success in difficult times, so few individuals are willing to have conversations about what they need to accomplish," he says.

The toughest thing for most people is initiating this type of discussion, DeLong continues. In his work with professional service firms, he's found that many people would rather work 80 hours per week than hold difficult conversations about their workload.

So how do you broach this delicate subject? "When in doubt, share the dilemma," DeLong says.

For example, you might start a conversation with your boss like this: "I'm excited about the opportunities I have. But I have ten great opportunities and the time for four. If you were me, how would you approach this?"

2. Remember the little picture
At a time when her team was filled with fear and feeling burnt out, Andrus used small successes as a motivational tool. First, make sure everyone understands the long-term strategy, she says. Then, "if you get people focused on current results, even small milestones and successes can get people energized really quickly."

Andrus practices what her company's products preach: She holds both regular team meetings and one-on-ones with her direct reports; she also underscores the importance of having daily and weekly priorities. It's all part of making sure that short-term objectives support long-term goals.

Andrus's strategy appears to be working well. She still has her sanity, and her team is moving ahead: "It's been a slow start, but we're making faster progress every month. So far it looks like we can make it [to the 50 percent improvement] by the end of the year."

Andrus's experiences and the strategy she employed dovetail nicely with the best advice we heard from a number of self-management experts. Here are their suggestions for overburdened managers.

Get out in front
"No one in the organization wants to be the one to decide what has to give" when there is a loss of staff, says Parlance Training's Parlett. "So everyone plays corporate hot potato, passing the problem down the line until someone ends up as the scapegoat for not pulling off a miracle. Stepping up to the plate and making the call about what gets done and what doesn't can make you the hero. You do the deed no one else wants to do, and you focus your efforts toward producing the results you've decided are most meaningful."

Create alliances
"Senior managers should develop networks of internal alliances," says Larraine Segil, author of Dynamic Leader, Adaptive Organization: Ten Essential Traits for Managers . These are cross-group relationships that are strategically mapped to include stakeholders with direct relationships to managers' areas of influence. Such internal alliances not only augment your current efforts, they also help your work get noticed.

"Keeping your head down under the burden of responsibilities will mean that your personal and strategic vision will be stymied within your own organization," Segil notes. If you miss the opportunity to court key opinion influencers, they won't be able to assist you when you need help later.

DeLong urges executives to create support networks of "truth speakers." Within your organization, you should seek out two or three people "who will tell you the things you don't want to hear and who will give a fair representation of who you are when you're not in the room," he says. "The last thing we need when things are tough is to have people tell us what they think we want to hear."

Manage up
"Remind your superiors about your added responsibilities," says Susan Battley, CEO of Battley Performance Consulting (Stony Brook, N.Y.), and a leadership psychologist for many Fortune 100 firms. "Human nature being what it is, they are likely to forget or overlook this change if you don't." This can be tricky since you don't want to be seen as a whiny opportunist during difficult times. Seek regular feedback from your boss about your expanded duties, Battley recommends. "This can be a subtle and effective reminder," she says; it keeps your new duties in the forefront of your superior's often frazzled mind while ensuring that you are contributing in the most effective way possible.

Focus on your new duties
The easiest thing to do when you're saddled with new projects is to give them short shrift. In the name of survival, it is tempting to make sure you know enough to manage current processes and leave it at that. This approach misses a big opportunity, says Felicia Zimmerman, author of Reinvent Your Work: How to Rejuvenate, Revamp, or Recreate Your Career and principal of Dallas-based Zimmerman Communication.

If you take the time to really understand your team's responsibilities, you can bring a fresh perspective on how to make their work more strategically valuable. "Get the team focused on what could they do differently to provide better results with greater efficiency," says Zimmerman. By doing this, you deliver more value today and set yourself up to deliver more value tomorrow.

To position yourself, begin with your team
When you are taking on substantial new responsibilities, it's tempting to fancy yourself an essential component of the company's survival—or at least its short-term success. However, Zimmerman cautions against attempting to take advantage of this situation until you have shown concrete results. And when you do make your move, be careful to cast your successes in light of the team's performance.

"You should be talking informally to your boss regularly," says Zimmerman. "Over coffee, you mention how well the team is responding to the challenges and the results they are seeing, with the emphasis always on the team, not on you individually."

Use these conversations to set up next steps. For example, if your team has learned valuable lessons that could provide benefits to other areas in your supervisor's domain, offer to facilitate some cross-team learning. This kind of proactive approach delivers short-term value and shows your commitment to the organization.

What you take away from Andrus's story and how you apply the advice of the experts, only you can determine. But almost everyone should be able to pull at least a small lesson from this observation: "A lot of executives are sitting around waiting for the next shoe to drop," Zimmerman notes. "Worse, many have buried their heads in the sand like ostriches. When you do that, another part of your anatomy is uncovered."

When It Makes Sense to Cut Practices, Not People

When It Makes Sense to Cut Practices, Not People

by James Powers and Michael Connor

Are there alternatives to layoffs? Sure—eliminating unproductive practices and procedures can quickly reduce costs and make your company more efficient. The key is identifying the right practices to eliminate: those that have an immediate impact on spend rates. Here's how.

Do you fear that layoffs are in your company's near future? Try eliminating unproductive practices and procedures first.

"We have to dump the work that doesn't contribute directly to product quality, customer satisfaction, employee benefit, and shareholder value," said General Electric's chairman Jack Welch when he launched the company's Work-Out program in 1988. "We have to shed the work that works against us." Welch's insight is particularly relevant today. Trying to find a way out of the current economic doldrums, companies are emphasizing the need to be more productive. And yet organizational clutter still abounds. Loose ends remain from prior initiatives that were never brought to full closure, and duplication is rife.

A quick-hit cost program can have an immediate impact on spend rates simply by identifying and eliminating the practices and procedures that waste money. Sometimes the cost savings are obvious. For instance: Spike the report that no one reads, get rid of the checks and balances that add no assurance or security, and put a halt to momentum spending—outlays that continue long after their rationale has vanished. Other examples of quick-hit cost savings, drawn from our work, include a retailer that saved $400,000 by halving the number of physical inventory counts taken each week; a "superstore" retailer that saved $440,000 by slightly upping the discretionary expenditures a store manager could approve; and a financial organization that saved $100,000 by simply clarifying who within the company received invoices.

None of these examples involve reducing the head count or making significant investments of cash and capital. In fact, most quick-hit savings result from simply stopping work that makes no sense. One such program identified 50 potential cost savings; eliminating tasks accounted for 78 percent of the total savings.

Where do you find quick-hit savings? A description of three proven forums, with examples of their utility, follows.

1. Bureaucracy busters. These bimonthly meetings of cross-functional managers focus on finding and rooting out unnecessary procedures, forms, and layers of oversight in all operating functions. Meeting participants identify the studies, reports, analyses, investigations, and approvals that have become routine and repetitive—and summarily stop them. Nothing is taboo. Bureaucracy-busting meetings at one airline killed a monthly 300-page report when it was discovered that the same information was readily available elsewhere.

2. Work-Out sessions. At GE and other companies, these facilitated meetings, lasting several days, enable frontline personnel to (1) identify improvements in productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness, (2) develop action plans, and (3) gain senior-level commitment to improvement on the spot. Work-Out sessions deliver quick and clean outcomes to the committed organization, but they're not for the faint of heart. If you're not willing to act quickly, don't waste your time on them. One manufacturer used Work-Out sessions to reduce the number of signatures needed for an authorization request from 19 to 6, halving the time and cost of the entire authorization process.

3. Delta task forces. These initiatives are typically commissioned by senior management and make use of cross-functional teams and external support to systematically review and streamline procedures that develop following the introduction of new technologies and business processes. Participants are often rewarded with bonuses that reflect some portion of the savings realize from their efforts. After installing ERP software, one finance department identified five quick hits that together delivered $940,000 worth of immediate cash savings. Four of the hits resulted from simple changes to standard operating procedures.

For maximum benefit, a quick-hit program requires five key organizational and individual ingredients:

• Support and license from senior executives,
• Incentives for involvement and participation,
• A short time frame for analysis and action,
• The predisposition on the part of managers to listen first and then act, and
• The willingness and ability to step back from day-to-day operations and reflect on how your business should operate.

When times are good, a quick hit is a lot like a quarter lying in the street—most people won't stop to pick it up. It's only when conditions sour that the quarter shines brightest. Properly planned and executed, a quick-hit program will produce savings that far exceed the initiative's costs. Just as important, quick hits give employees the opportunity to help cuts costs, not heads. With layoffs at their highest levels in a decade, that boost to morale alone makes quick hits a smart choice right now.

James Powers and Michael Connor are directors of Meridian Consulting in Boston.

How Could Personality Tests Help Us Pinpoint High Performance?

How Could Personality Tests Help Us Pinpoint High Performance?
	Which personality types tend to be most common among high performers? Would personality tests enable us to pinpoint people who have the potential to be high performers? — Making It Personal, health care, Jacksonville, Florida
	During the last half of the 20th century, there was a great deal of skepticism in the field of psychology regarding whether job performance had anything to do with an applicant's personality. Common sense suggests that an individual's personality should have an impact on work performance, but until the 1990s, studies provided conflicting results. Fortunately, due to an advance in the field of personality called the Big Five (or Five Factor Model), we now know that personality does influence job performance in predictable ways, although the impact can vary for different jobs. Briefly, the Big Five are personality factors, usually measured by personality tests, which are found across cultures: Agreeableness: being kind, likable and respectful of authority. Conscientiousness: hard-working, dedicated and thorough. Extroversion: outgoing, lively and persuasive. Stability: calm, resilient and optimistic. Openness: flexible and intellectually curious. Nearly two decades of research using the Big Five model suggests that, in most circumstances, highly conscientious individuals tend to be better performers in most jobs--they have a stronger work ethic, show more initiative and act more responsibly. People with high levels of stability tend to outperform those with less stability because they respond better to disappointments, pressure and crisis situations. The picture on the other factors tends to differ from job to job. Service workers tend to perform better if they are more agreeable because of their cooperative and respectful nature. Salespeople who are more extroverted also tend to perform better because they are more comfortable interacting with and persuading others. Finally, people who are open and flexible tend to do well in training others, given their interest in expanding their own capabilities and learning new skills. Despite personality's role, it is important to remember that other factors could have an equally strong or stronger impact on job performance. For example, there is a long track record of studies demonstrating that intellectual abilities, job knowledge and job simulation exercises (such as role plays) are excellent methods of identifying people who will perform well on the job. Therefore, a combination of different types of techniques, including both ability assessments and personality inventories, usually will do the best job of identifying candidates who have a high potential for success. You will capture both the "can do" aspects of performing (with the ability assessments) and the "will do" aspects of performing (with the personality inventories). Just make sure that any tests you use for selecting job candidates are properly validated and consistent with professional and legal standards. SOURCE: Joseph D. Abraham, Ph.D. , A&M Psychometrics, Tulsa, Oklahoma, co-author of the Performance Perspectives Inventory, December 22, 2005.

How Do We Get Smarter About Our Recruiting Habits?

How Do We Get Smarter About Our Recruiting Habits?
	How do we get smarter about our recruiting? Our telecommunications company is going through an extended growth spurt. I'd like to challenge management's thinking regarding whether certain jobs are necessary or merely "nice to have." Our human resources systems and processes are very limited, we lack formal systems for job evaluation, and we have no job grading or a structured recruiting model. I'm of the belief that a good route to pursue would be to start with verifiable data. —Grappling With Growth, publishing/communication/advertising, Cheltenham, England
	Starting with verifiable data is a great way to get smarter about recruiting, and with your organization's extended growth spurt, the timing could not be better. When demand is on the rise, the traditional approach to recruiting is to react with fervor: filling vacancies as quickly as possible at the lowest cost, no questions asked. Companies barely take the time to develop recruiting strategies and plans, let alone try to create an overall plan for the workforce. When it gets busy, they don't have time for planning, and when it's not busy they don't see the need for it. Even when organizations figure out how to make the time, many just don't do a good job of workforce planning. With limited HR systems and processes, it may be more challenging to pull together the data, but here is an approach you can take. First, start with the headcount of your current workforce. You will want as much data as possible on this so you can analyze by different variables such as department, job classification, exempt vs. nonexempt employees or geographical locations. Then, take a toll of your active requisitions and map them to these variables. If you have informal systems or processes and your requisitions arrive on the back of a napkin, instead of through an applicant tracking system, you may need to estimate. The last pieces of data you will need are your historical attrition rates, sorted by the same variables, as well as your average time to fill (again, you may need to estimate). Based on your average time to fill and your attrition rates, you can now produce a forecast of what the workforce will look like three months to six months out. You can show projected net gains or losses from a departmental view, job classification, geography or any view that is important to the organization. To take this a step further, you could convert any net gains into estimated cost increases and compare this to existing budgets, or analyze any projected losses to determine the impact on operations. In human resources we have been longing to prove ourselves as business partners. If you arm yourself with this type of data, not only will you be able to challenge management's thinking on the growth of the workforce, but they will probably also listen to you. SOURCE: Ed Newman, the Newman Group, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, December 23, 20

How Do We Establish Assessment Centers?

How Do We Establish Assessment Centers?
	What factors must we consider when establishing assessment centers? —Unsure Who's Ready, manufacturing, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
	Assessment centers often serve multiple purposes insofar as they are used to develop internal talent and to select external job applicants. No matter its purpose, an assessment center uses a variety of techniques to measure traits or characteristics essential for managerial or executive-level jobs. Most assessment centers include some form of the following measurement tools: Psychological testing, usually either personality or cognitive ability tests. Interviews, usually behaviorally based structured interviews that require candidates to discuss how they have handled specific work-related problems. Role playing. This refers to scenarios in which participants pretend to be involved in a work-related situation. In-basket exercises require participants to handle different tasks, including answering e-mails and phone calls, solving business problems, scheduling and delegating tasks, and making decisions. In business simulations, participants are given a body of information and expected to use it to build a business case for their strategic planning decisions. Assessment centers have been shown to be quite effective for evaluations related to future job performance. This is largely due to the use of highly trained evaluators to help make expert judgments about participants. The tradeoff is the cost of using an assessment center, which could be quite expensive. Aside from the time involved, you likely will have to budget money to pay for the use of a team of experts associated with the assessment center. This includes a psychologist charged with writing reports that describe each individual's strengths and weaknesses in relation to their job requirements. Although an assessment center can be quite effective, make sure it is the right tool for your organization. Here are a few things to think about when considering whether an assessment center is a good choice: What type of job or position are you looking to fill? Assessment centers make the most sense for evaluating applicants for high-level managerial and executive positions. They also are used to evaluate the potential of lower-level employees who could be groomed for higher-level positions. The high value of these types of positions, and the quality of information needed to make smart hiring decisions, justifies the expense of using an assessment center. Do you have internal resources to develop an assessment center? Or do you wish to outsource? Creating a good assessment center takes a lot of time and effort. If you are planning on making the assessment center a long-term piece of your hiring and development plans, it would seem to make sense to develop your own content. This option also helps you spell out what it takes to be a high performer in your organization. If you do not wish to spend the time and money developing your own assessment center, there are organizations that could be hired to help you through the process. Are you interested in using the assessment center to develop and evaluate existing employees, to select job applicants from the outside, or both? The content of an assessment center may differ slightly depending on how you plan to use it. The ideal situation is to use the assessment center to link your external selection and internal development programs so that the performance dimensions being evaluated are relevant for both. This allows you to be consistent in rating the factors that serve as gateways to higher positions within your organization. SOURCE: Charles A. Handler, Ph.D., PHR, Rocket-Hire, New Orleans, December 23, 2005.

How To Say: "You're Fired!"

How To Say: "You're Fired!"

by Stever Robbins

Letting people go is never pleasant. It's an emotional time for the employer as well as the employee. But you can ease the process. Here's how to hand out the pink slips.

After the amazing economic growth of the last decade, the managerial ranks are full of people who know only what it's like to manage during the good times. But with more and more companies facing lower profitability and straitened finances, layoffs are becoming a reality that managers must prepare to handle.

Letting people go is an emotional event—not just for those being laid off but for those who remain. Of course those who are let go need help with the transition to new employment. But the employees who survive the cutbacks also need reassurance about their own future—and an understanding of the strategic goals behind the cuts.

The following guidelines for a layoff strategy will not only help you to be a better-than-average employer, but will quite possibly have an important impact on your future revenues. Employees who are spinning dark fantasies about their workplace are not productive employees.

1.) Communicate widely and often. Managers often think they shouldn't let employees know when things are going poorly. They don't want their workers to become discouraged. But people aren't stupid; they know when things aren't going well. Even if top managers spin the circumstances positively, the message comes across through unclear goals, a decrease in resources committed to ongoing projects, and other subtle clues. Discussing and acknowledging the company's position is the first step to keeping people involved—and committed to solving problems they understand.

.) Fill in information gaps for your employees. If layoffs become necessary, people won't be shocked if they have been able to see them coming. To that end, share market data and competitive information. Don't proclaim layoffs without need, of course, but don't undermine trust by lying or being unrealistically upbeat two months before a layoff. It's impossible to regain trust once people believe you've lied to them. For example, when Bayfront Medical Center (St. Petersburg, Fla.) merged with St. Anthony's Health Care in 1997, everyone knew there were redundancies in the merged companies. The management addressed uncertainties with a Q&A column in the internal newsletter that openly answered questions such as, "How many positions have been eliminated?" and "Is the hospital going to close?" People didn't love the answers, but they knew and understood the situation.

3.) Give the most pressing information first. When the question on everyone's mind is, "Is there bad news ahead?" let them know. Don't bother starting with a discussion of the competition, market forces, or the financial environment; no one will pay attention until their most critical questions are answered.

4.) Never delegate pain. The most delicate challenge is letting someone know he or she has been let go. Don't delegate this painful mission to the HR department. Most people are loyal first to their manager, then to their company. Give the employee-manager relationship closure by having the manager deliver the message. For an example of how to do it wrong, consider this. One senior manager—we'll call her Jessica—was told to lay off several dozen people on an unrealistic timetable, with no support from the CEO or other management. Those constraints forced her to announce the layoffs to groups of 50 employees at a time. The situation left the group dazed, confused, and embarrassed, and it severely damaged Jessica's credibility with those who stayed on with the company.

5.) Train the messenger. It does no one a favor to lay off employees with a note on their computer saying, "Don't turn this on today!" Deliver the message in private, and give employees time to react. People have different reactions: some need to vent, some need time to think, and some need facts and explanations. Be prepared to give each person what they need to reach a stable emotional keel. Then as quickly as possible, get them thinking about their future, rather than the company's. The primary message should be, "How can I help?"

6.) Be fully present, like the Buddha said. The CEO must be there for the managers as well as the terminated employees. One company planned to shut down an entire branch without coaching its managers in delivering emotionally troubling news. The branch's employees gathered for the announcement, but the CEO didn't show up. Instead, he sent the branch manager a FedEx box with termination packets and no instructions whatsoever. After an unsuccessful attempt (in front of the assembled employees) to get the CEO on the phone, the branch manager opened the box and proclaimed, "Today is my last day with the company and I'm so selfish, I'm taking you all with me." Cute? Yes. But it destroyed the CEO's credibility. Each one of those terminated employees became an ambassador of ill will in the marketplace. You can bet that the story was widely told in the months and even years after the event.

One CEO helped his managers by giving them his prepared, written statement to read. It covered the relevant facts and let people know about their next steps and outplacement options. Managers were told to keep conversation to a minimum and move the employees right along to the outplacement person. Discussing job options and directing the person towards the outplacement services being supplied are good ways to orient someone in a resourceful direction.

7.) Outplacement is a must. The question everyone asks after a layoff is, "What do I do now?" Few people have a resume at hand and a job-hunting network mobilized. Outplacement helps them land on their feet. You're offering help at a high-stress, emotional time. It sends a signal to them and to the remaining employees that you're treating the ex-workers as people, not simply as resources to be managed.

Along those lines, give people the chance to pick up and immediately begin moving towards their future. Letting people go on a Friday afternoon, for example, is a terrible idea. Employees have all weekend to stew and won't be able to do any job-hunting until Monday morning.

Exit interviews can also be useful, but may best be performed by a third-party firm. Employees can provide valuable information that they might not be willing to share with an insider. Make sure to ask, "How do you feel the layoffs were handled?" so they can have a chance to vent emotions around the layoff process itself.

After a morning of layoffs, no one is in an emotional state to work. Give people the space to deal with what just happened. Accept that you'll lose (at least) a day of productivity, and do whatever it takes to help people cope with their emotions quickly.

8.) Survivors need attention, too. Employees who survive the layoffs will struggle with doubts about the company's future. They want to know how their jobs will change. Will they now be expected to do their jobs plus the jobs of their ex-coworkers? Or will their goals be changed accordingly? What is the precise state of the company financially? Are further layoffs imminent? Their doubts will begin with their own roles and expand outward to their teams and to the company as a whole. You must address each level of concern with as much rational discussion as possible.

Layoffs are never easy. But they can be handled best by remembering that uncertainty is the source of rumors and stress alike. Clear and open communication with managers, laid-off employees, and survivors can keep morale steady through one of the most difficult moments in a company's life.

Stever Robbins is the president of VentureCoach, Inc., a leadership and executive coaching firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Right from the Start: Common Traps for the New Leader

Right from the Start: Common Traps for the New Leader

by Dan Ciampa and Michael D. Watkins

In this excerpt from Chapter 1 of the their book, Dan Ciampa and HBS Professor Michael D. Watkins describe some of the common traps into which new leaders can fall.

Falling behind the learning curve
Not using the time before entry effectively can undermine one's ability to learn and to get on top of the job right away. The time prior to entry is a priceless period when the new leader can go beyond merely absorbing information about the organization to create a joining-up strategy for a successful transition.

Becoming isolated
It's easy for new leaders to isolate themselves from important relationships and sources of information about what is really going on. As one leader said: "There can be a tendency to say, 'Well, I'll lock myself in the room and I'll come up with a plan.' That is important, but you're not going to lay the groundwork to be able to speak and execute with authority until people feel like they know you."

Coming in with the answer
New leaders who show up with a single answer for complex organizational problems usually do so out of arrogance or insecurity, or because they believe they must appear decisive and establish a directive tone. Employees may hesitate to share information if they believe the new leader's mind is already made up. Typically, the result is less support for change.

Sticking with the existing team too long
Many new leaders believe subordinates they inherit deserve a chance to prove themselves. For some, this is a matter of fairness; others are motivated by arrogance ("I can make these people") or hubris ("All it takes is hard work, support, and leadership"). Whatever the rationale, retaining managers with a history of mediocre performance can damage the new leader's credibility and almost always slows the pace of change.

Attempting too much
It is important for the new leader to experiment to discover what works and what doesn't. But too much experimentation can deprive promise change initiatives of resources or the attention they need to reach fruition. Poor prioritizing and inadequate up-front planning can make a leader susceptible to being diverted by peripheral issues.

Being captured by the wrong people
Those who have exerted influence in the old regime will inevitably jockey for position in the new. It is all too easy for the new leader to waste precious time on people who cannot help because they are incapable or outdated, or even wish to mislead.

Falling prey to successor syndrome
At greatest risk is the new leader hired as second-in-command with the expectation that success will lead to promotion to the top position. In the absence of a solid working relationship, the CEO may feel threatened by the new leader's changes and resist letting go of the reins of power.

Excerpted from Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role HBS Press, 1999.

Service Excellence: The Leadership Factor

Service Excellence: The Leadership Factor

by Dennis Snow

We all know that customer service initiatives come and go, usually beginning with a lot of fanfare and ending with a quiet departure. With each occurrence of this pattern, an organization's employees become more and more skeptical about subsequent service initiatives.

When employees don't see intense leadership commitment beyond the program's rollout, they quickly understand that the initiative is another program of the month. The general feeling becomes; "wait it out, this too shall pass."

"The corporation can never be something we are not" Max Dupree, Leadership is An Art

There is no shortage of vision statements, service strategy formation, and service program rollouts. It is in the execution of these initiatives that organizations often come up short. The virtues of customer service have been preached for years, but the results have been less than impressive. Why? The main reason is that most organizations want a "smile pill" that can be taken with little or no disruption to the current routine. In order to truly generate lasting service improvement, a top down commitment to changing processes, behaviors, measurements, etc. is needed. To execute a vision or strategy effectively, leaders must be committed in the long-term. Employees at all levels are watching to see how committed their leaders are. Clues to commitment to execution include; what does my manager spend most of her/his time talking about? What do our meetings focus on? What does my manager hold me accountable for? What gets rewarded and recognized? And probably most important of all, how well does my manager walk the talk when it comes to providing excellent service?

There are three key leadership behaviors that will demonstrate commitment to executing a service improvement strategy:

Walk the talk Before employees take personal responsibility for creating an environment that demonstrates a commitment to excellence, they must see that their leadership team is committed. If, for example, you expect employees to acknowledge customers promptly, it is vital that you do the same. If you expect employees to pay attention to detail, then picking up a piece of trash off the floor as soon as you see it will speak volumes beyond anything you can put in a policy manual.

A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel highlighted Erin Wallace, Vice President of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Part of the story emphasized that whenever Erin walks the park she carries and uses a "nabbie grabber" which is a device Custodians use to pick up cigarette butts off the ground. Imagine the impact this has on Disney cast members. Cast members are reminded that it is everyone's job to keep the park clean. It also reinforces one of Disney World's key values - attention to detail. If, however, Erin were to simply walk by a piece of trash on the ground and not pick it up, cast members would quickly get the idea that "attention to detail" is simply a catch phrase, not a true value.

A clear example of walking the service talk is the willingness to put service support systems in place. Support systems demonstrate that you are prepared to back up the talk with resources. Southwest Airlines, for example, is noted as a service leader. They constantly preach the value of excellent service. They don't just talk about it, however. Southwest is the industry standard when it comes to flight turnaround time; twenty-minutes. They are currently working on a new jetway system, however, that will improve the turnaround time to fifteen minutes. If you watch the Southwest ground crew in action when a plane arrives, you'll see that it is similar to a racecar pit crew. Everything is ready to go into motion as soon as the plane stops. The new jetway system will allow employees to unload and load the plane from the front and rear doors simultaneously, dramatically improving the efficiency of the process. It is clear that the leadership team doesn't simply tell the staff to be friendly. They put systems in place that enhance the ability of their personnel to provide outstanding service. The message is a powerful one. Is it any wonder that Southwest Airlines has the lowest employee turnover in the industry?

Keep the vision in front of the team It is not enough to state the message of service excellence a single time and expect that behaviors will magically change. Research shows that repetition is the key to behavior change. Use all of the communication vehicles available to you to stress the importance of customer service. For example, make it your policy to start every meeting with a customer service item, either a story, a problem/challenge facing the team, or a discussion of service measurement data. Employees will soon get the idea that these discussions are part of the normal course of business and will, over time, begin participating in the discussions.

Use your internal newsletter to communicate your service commitment. More importantly, use the newsletter to tell stories of excellent service. Share specific stories of employee actions that result in excellent service. Send articles about customer service to the team with a note from you highlighting how the information pertains to your business. Ensure that all areas are displaying service measurement information in behind-the-scenes areas and that the information is kept up to date. Nothing screams "program of the month" louder than data that hasn't been changed for months.

Most importantly, be creative about the communication mechanisms used for keeping the vision in front of the team. I recently consulted with a hospital that has variety of mechanisms to remind staff members of the true meaning of their jobs. My favorite example is this: Whenever a baby is born in the hospital, the first 10-seconds of Brahms lullaby plays softly throughout the entire hospital's sound system. This simple mechanism reminds staff members, in very difficult jobs, of the miracles happening in their workplace. They have found that patients often ask why the music is playing. When the staff member explains that a baby has just been born, there is an emotional connection that takes place for the patient and the staff member.

Hold employees accountable for service excellence Leaders must ensure that accountability processes are built into any service improvement initiative. Look at your performance appraisal system. Do appraisals, for both management and frontline employees, emphasize specific customer service behaviors? How much is customer service emphasized in the appraisal? Is it a single rating point amongst thirty items, or is it clear that service is a priority?

It is vital that you become a customer service coach. Whenever you see opportunities for improvement for any employee, take the time to coach. If you do this consistently, word will spread faster than you can imagine. If, for example, you notice an employee displaying negative physical posture or using a bored tone of voice on the telephone, taking a moment to correct the behavior and stressing why it is important to present a welcoming image is more effective in changing behavior than any training program. The immediacy of the feedback is the key. Often leaders do not do this because they are concerned about offending the employee, or there is simply a reluctance to confront negative behavior. But holding employees (at all levels) accountable for service excellence is vital if you are serious about service improvement. When I was a relatively new supervisor at Walt Disney World, I received a call to meet then Walt Disney World Vice President Bob Matheison at a specific location on Main Street USA. As I walked up to Bob, I saw that he was staring at one of the merchandise shops. I knew from his expression this was not going to be a pat on the back for a job well done. "What do you see?" he asked. I saw that a small pane of glass had been replaced, and that the installer had neglected to take the protective paper backing off of the glass. Although I did not install the glass, it was my job as supervisor to make sure that Main Street USA was "show ready" by the time the guests arrived. I missed this particular item. Bob's simple act of holding me accountable for a small detail had a huge impact on the future of my attention to detail.

Of course, the other side of the accountability coin is also important. The Gallup organization has conducted significant research regarding the reasons for employee "defection." Gallup found that one of the main reasons for defection is a lack of recognition for good work. Whenever you observe an employee providing excellent service, take the time to reinforce the behavior through immediate recognition. Recognition can simply take the form of a positive comment, or something greater if appropriate. Again, immediacy is the key. Taking the time to immediately reinforce the behavior greatly increases the likelihood of the behavior being repeated.

As a leader, you are looked upon as a role model of the organization's commitment to customer service. Employees take their cue directly from you. They watch how you treat customers, listen to how you talk about customers, and observe what you demonstrate as important through how you spend your time. By walking the talk, keeping the vision constantly in front of employees, and holding everyone accountable for performance, service excellence will soon become part of the organization's culture, creating a culture of service excellence.

Watch the magic happen A favorite example of "inculturating" service excellence involves a housekeeper at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort. A family was at dinner and the housekeeper was conducting the room turndown service. As she prepared the beds and did the general cleanup, she noticed that the children had several stuffed Disney characters around the room. Taking an extra few seconds, she arranged the characters on the children's pillows, tucked them in, and left a note saying, "I know you had a busy day! The characters were tired so I tucked them in for you." She then signed her name, Helen. Imagine the impact on this family when they returned to the room. Leadership seized upon this story of doing small things that make a big difference and told this story in so many meetings that it became legendary at Disney World. Other housekeepers have come up with creative ideas such as lining up the stuffed characters in front of the TV and turning it on. Some housekeepers will arrange the characters on a table with playing cards in their hands, or with milk and cookies. Guests consistently write complimentary notes regarding this activity. Imagine the loss if leadership did not recognize this behavior, communicate it, and reinforce it. Most people want to do their best. They just need encouragement and reinforcement. Watch the magic happen!

[About the Author: Dennis Snow is the president of Snow & Associates, Inc. Dennis worked with the Walt Disney World Company for twenty years and now consults with organizations around the world helping them achieve their customer service goals. He is the author of the book, Unleashing Excellence - The Complete Guide to Ultimate Customer Service."]