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Hany Malik is president and CEO of Suntiva, a business transformation and technology company. He holds an MBA from the State University of New York and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the American School of Professional Psychology. He is a PCC level certified coach and is a faculty member at Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.

Hany Malik 

November 2021 - TD Magazine

Decrease employees’ resistance to change by using these five psychological principles.

Take a Psychologist’s Approach to Large-Scale Change

Have you ever seen a zombie at work (outside of the office Halloween party, that is)? Have you ever been a zombie at work? We’re not afraid of raising our hand on that. According to Gallup, approximately two-thirds of the US workforce is unengaged—these employees are going through the motions. At CEEK, we refer to unengaged employees as “zombies in the workforce.”Collins English Dictionary defines a zombie as, “a person who is or appears to be lifeless, apathetic, or totally lacking in independent judgment.” Are you uninspired and complacent in your job? Like the zombies of popular fiction, are you lifeless, apathetic, or lacking in independent judgement? If this is you, or if you are surrounded by zombies in the workforce, we have some thoughts on how you can re-engage and inspire your colleagues.Thousands of books, articles, and blog posts have been written on the reasons why employees disengage. Reasons vary from poor management or questionable policies to substandard working conditions, unclear priorities, or a lack of balance and general disregard for employees’ welfare. These are all just symptoms of disengagement. We contend that you will find the root cause of disengagement wherever professed values differ from demonstrated behaviors. That root cause is hypocrisy. It’s what makes people susceptible to zombie outbreaks.Are Your Values and Behaviors Aligned?Do you profess collaboration as a core value yet work behind closed doors? Do you value accountability yet show up late for every meeting? Or do you profess healthy balance as a priority yet demand night and weekend work?Hypocrisy within organizations often is not intentional or malicious; instead, it reflects a lack of shared understanding. Employees hold different standards by which they assess the demonstration of the organization’s core values.If respect is a core value of our organization, what does respect mean in terms of employee management? Does respect mean that we provide employees every opportunity to learn and improve? Or do we respect the workforce by confronting employee problems in a timely and direct manner?What Can You Do?If, as Peter Drucker says, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” why would you have a strategic plan but not a culture plan? To minimize the impact of hypocrisy, we encourage you to develop an intentional culture plan using these steps to get you started:Define your values. If you have not already, engage your team to define the core values by which you will hold each other accountable. Select three to five values that differentiate your team in service to your stakeholders and colleagues.Articulate behaviors. Brainstorm with your team to define the expected behaviors that represent the application of the value (and those behaviors that do not). To do this, group like statements together and vote to embrace four to six behaviors for each value.Establish rituals. Intentionally define daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rituals that represent a tangible, recurring application of your core values. We recommend teams adopt eight to 12 rituals that further reflect the values.For example, we established integrity as a differentiating core value within our company. One of four associated behaviors is to honor our wholeness. Via this behavior, we promote the well-being and balance of our colleagues. We embrace “analog time,” a weekly ritual that allows staff to be offline for a two-hour window during normal working hours. We use this time to promote personal well-being. We recognize that a healthy, engaged, and inspired workforce is good business.Next StepsNo matter where you sit in your organization, you have an opportunity to influence culture. Whether you lead your family, a team of 10, an office of hundreds, or agency of thousands, we encourage you to minimize hypocrisy. Clarify and align behavioral expectations with your values. Once you minimize the one element—hypocrisy—that most commonly destroys engagement, you will be positioned to inspire and promote even higher levels of engagement. Join us in at ATD21 in Salt Lake City to find out more about intentional culture plans and how you can fight hypocrisy and save workforce zombies.

Hypocrisy Makes Zombies

Improving diversity has been a cause since former President John F. Kennedy used the term affirmative action in a 1961 Executive Order for organizations that wanted to participate in the federal contracting process. In reality, affirmative action stopped working in the 1980s and is one of the most maligned programs brought forth by the US government. Yet many of us who are on the frontlines trying to build better teams and better corporate cultures still cling to the idea that the pursuit of diversity is the best first step when the truth is the pursuit of diversity is really a byproduct of the best first step.Let’s illustrate a few terms. Diversity is simply about bottoms in seats—in particular, the bottoms of people who come from traditionally marginalized groups. Inclusion encompasses the actions taken by those in power—typically, those who are not members of marginalized groups—to ensure that everyone, not just people like them, feels included as full members of the organization. And belonging is what people feel when they feel included; it’s what they feel when their viewpoints are valued and they can bring their full selves to work. Inclusion is the seed, and belonging is the flower.As you work to promote inclusion in your organization, here are a few tips that will come in handy. Use them on yourself before trying out on others.Tip 1: Start with a growth mindset.Getting people to act inclusively often requires them to abandon old ways of doing things and adopt new behaviors. The root of being able to change is to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset understands that intelligence can be developed, while a fixed mindset believes that intelligence is static. The great news is that scientists don’t think that anyone is born biased; so, if bias can be learned, then it can be unlearned.Tip 2: Change your actions, change your heart.Being more inclusive is often a matter of changing your heart. Many people from traditionally marginalized groups will tell you that they would be just fine with more people acting to build an inclusive environment even if their hearts were not completely in it.So, how do you facilitate a change in actions? First, promote awareness. Remind your colleagues that awareness can start by doing some introspection along with seeking specific feedback from people who are members of traditionally marginalized groups. Once a person has a handle on what to do differently, encourage them, as Nike would say, to “Just Do It!” You can work with individuals and teams over time as an accountability partner to ensure that new behaviors are being introduced and cemented in the culture. Moreover, the best organizations reward their people for exhibiting these new behaviors, including tying some portion of the pay of the most senior leaders in the organization to defined equity and inclusion metrics.Tip 3: Let the metrics guide you.People are dipping their toes into the water and seeking feedback. They are trying out new actions cautiously and usually within friendly confines. But you want to see more. Maybe you want to recommend an inclusion and equity learning journey for your leaders that targets bias in the talent lifecycle? In this case, let the metrics guide you to any hotspots in the organization where you can take advantage of quick-win opportunities. For instance, maybe it’s gender pay or promotion inequities or low engagement scores across people of color within your organization. The point is, don’t rely on anecdotal evidence to inform your efforts. Don’t yet have the metrics? Your first step is to rally support from your leadership to being naming and collecting them.Tip 4: Have patience but expect progress.Finally, as you see new actions or behaviors entering the culture, expect to occasionally hear someone yell, “Clean up in aisle six!” People, being people, are going to make messes. And when they do, encourage them to stay engaged. But also explain to them that continually messing up in the same way will no longer be tolerated. This is especially useful messaging for teammates with many in-group memberships because it is harder for them to see their bias in action, and it’s even harder for them to see their privilege. Let them know that messing up is okay but as with any other discipline that one is trying to learn and master, continually messing up is unacceptable.With these tips in mind, keep persisting, and keep advocating. By nurturing the seed of inclusion, diversity and belonging will bloom.

You’re Doing It Wrong: It’s Inclusion Then Diversity

What Is the Most Misused Word in the World of Sales?The most misused word in sales may surprise you. It’s “value.”Value is a misguided, misused, maligned word, whose meaning has gone fallow. It is often used without understanding of its true meaning or implications. It’s bantered about in a way that customers (including yours) are becoming numb to anything related to the word.Value has become an empty buzzword. Value is like the word paradigm, only worse because you can’t define value in terms of the customer if your life depended on it.Reality: When you print or speak the word value, it’s usually from your perspective. It is your self-defined interpretation of value. The value you put on your product or service—your value statement, your value proposition, your added-value, or worse, your “value-add” (the slang that no one can define).Grim Reality: Whether implied, given, added, printed, or spoken, the key word that makes “value” both misused and misunderstood is perceived. If the customer or prospect does not perceive value, no matter what you say, there is none. The customer’s perception of value is your reality, and the customer’s perception is all that matters. Your sales hang in the balance.Value ClarificationWhen a salesperson says, “The value-add is: and whatever said implies you must buy before you get any value,” it’s not good. It sounds insincere, but is usually somewhere close to bogus. It’s not value; it’s JACK – and “jack,” in case you’re not from Philly, is half of a word.Ask yourself these questions to discover if there’s any real value in your value offering:Do I have to buy something to get the value offered?Is there a pitch at the end of the free valuable information?Am I required to do something in exchange for the value?Am I stating value in terms of me, my company, or my products?If any of these questions are answered in the affirmative, then the value you’re offering is perceived as negative.Value PropositionIf you have a “value proposition” (most companies do), and you talk about it as your “value prop,” it’s probably self-serving. My advice is to get rid of the value proposition and create a new one. A value proposition is NOT about who you are, what you do, or what your benefits are – rather it’s how the customer wins. Value must be expressed in terms of customers.“Added value” is a phrase that raises my blood pressure. Don’t add value, GIVE value. They are simple words, but there’s a big difference. Adding implies you have to “buy to get.” Giving means the customer receives before buying. Give value – don’t add value. Value AttractionMy marketing philosophy and marketing strategy is this: I give value first. I put myself in front of people that can say “yes” to me, and I deliver value first. Doing that creates “value attraction” – it’s the real law of attraction.Also, consider providing continuous, value-based information after the sale to ensure loyalty.Here are some specific examples of before and after the sale “value ideas.” Think about these and then create your own!Sharing industry best practices.Manufacturing components and offering plant safety tips.Medical devices to doctors and teaching bedside manner.Teaching clerks how to close sales when a customer comes in to buy using your coupon or voucher.Office supplies and teaching customer service to receptionists and accounting.Anything in favor of your customer that helps them increase productivity, communication, operations, morale, and especially profit.Value PerceivedIf you really want to deliver value, ask your customer what he or she considers valuable. Whatever they say, do that, offer that, share that, communicate that, teach that, print that, and say that. In a nutshell, that’s value. Real value. Value perceived.For more value insight, go to www.gitomer.com and enter the words VALUE MOTIVE in the GitBit Box.

Sales Moves by Jeffrey Gitomer 11-30

full disclosure - As some of you may know, I joined Thomson NETg in January to run one of their strategic business units called Collaboration (essentially what was KnowledgeNet whom they acquired in late 2004).Very exciting (at least to me) but what I need is your feedback on a tool that Thomson NETg developed which I think is a hidden gem. By answering 25 online questions it builds a high-level personalized learning profile (for overall learning not just eLearning). I took it and found it to be very useful plus there is little marketing or promotional BS.A sample question is:When you get to work on Monday morning, you discover that, over the weekend, a new phone system was installed in your company. The first thing you need to do is to set up your voice mail for the first time. All employees have been given a short manual about the new system.What do you think you would do?I would read the manual, then attempt to set up my voice mail.I would start setting up my voice mail and never refer to the manual.I would start setting up my voice mail and refer to the manual only if necessary.I would ask someone else for help before attempting to set up my voice mail.Knowing that many of you are experts in this field I would really appreciate it if you could look at it and post your feedback in the comments below. Is this useful or just cleverly cloaked marketing?http://learningprofile.netglearning.comThere is also a good document that goes into the educational theory behind the tool but is more self-promotional:http://www.netg.com/pdf/NETg\_WhitePaper\_Profiling\_the\_Adult\_Learner.pdfThanks,BenIf you get prompted for some reason to login to see this stuff just use my email address ben\[dot\]watson\[at\]thomson\[dot\]com

I need your advice on learning profiles

December 2014 - TD Magazine

One of the many alternatives to the much-maligned PowerPoint presentation is Haiku Deck.

Waxing Poetic About Presentations

At its core, the moving of information. More broadly, the ability to both express oneself effectively through various and appropriate media (writing, speaking, graphics), including understanding audience requirements, needs/pain points, and knowledge, and also effectively listening to others express themselves. Part of communication is knowing what is "in it" for the audience.All communication has a credibility component.Communication strategies often need to be created. Having a weekly open house to combat a rampant rumor mill might be critical. As organizations and teams become more distributed, ad hoc (so called "water-cooler") communication becomes less reliable, and so formal communication technique need to be established.Picking the right genre is important. Letters have different requirements than email. In fact, the best way to trash someone's career is to circulate a colleague's instant-messaging comments reformatted as a letter. Videoconferencing is more formal; web-cams are more casual.Dynamically customizing the content increases effectiveness. This could be based on audience questions, or for self-paced content, providing alternative paths through the content, such as using hyper-linking.An effective communication strategy might involve having the audience do some exercises to internalize the information. This could be everything from taking notes at a lecture to playing a marketing mini-game around the release of a new soft drink or movie.Emotional associations can also be critical. Politicians use the icon of the United States flag. Computer games might tie into famous athletes or movies. Advertisements shamelessly use idealized models, professions, or roles (showing a mother buckling up her children in a minivan while talking about some new fast food product). Create a verbal label for a complicated idea, and you shape the perception of the idea.There are legal requirements for communications, especially around product recalls and shareholder information. Organizations often have different uses of Public Relations and advertising.Some communication is passive. What we wear to work or how we style our hair broadcasts our affiliations and even aspirations. Corporations choose colors and fonts carefully.Some communication strategies are malicious. Spread a lie through so many channels that it becomes thought of as a truth. An ethically-challenged leader leaks a lie to a newspaper anonymously, and then publicly refers to the article as a source of credibility. In the computer world, there are "denial of service" attacks, where many computers try to communicate with a single site in order to overwhelm and shut down the site.And again, I ask the question that no one will answer. Do you have any formal learning programs around communication? If so, to whom and how? If not, why not: a) it is not important, or b) it is really important, but we don't do it because \_\_\_\_\_.

Big Skill: Communications

 The United States has 21.2 million men and women veterans as of 2012. Vets who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both, had an unemployment rate of 10.9 percent, according to the Current Population Survey (CPC), co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service.While there are significant tax breaks for employers through the VOW to Hire Heroes Act of 2011 and other legislation, many vets face considerable obstacles re-entering civilian life and obtaining employment. Challenges include:visible war-related disabilitiesinvisible wounds such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)difficulty integrating back into family/community lifecommunicating their feelings and experiences with others who may not be able to relate to their military servicetranslating the valuable skills acquired during military service into ones desired by employers.Translating military skills into civilian lifeMilitary professionals are trained to work well in teams and lead others—important skills in every type of enterprise, but the terminology and skills sets do not always directly correlate. Both companies and the retuning vets need to create a “bridge” from military to civilian life.From the veteran side, there are many resources to help them think through how the skills they have gained will translate into a corporate structure. According to Jeff Klare, CEO of the Be a Hero, Hire a Hero organization, “Not too many companies are looking for a machine gunner.” However, he emphasizes that vets can bring exceptional value to companies. Among other services and support, his organization helps vets develop an “elevator speech” in which they convert their military experience, such as being responsible for a $3 million piece of equipment, into being an effective steward of corporate resources.Al Malinchak, CEO of Éclat Transitions LLC, has developed an eTransition Guide to help vets convert their resumes so they are business-friendly, along with providing guidance and counseling services.For example, Malinchak suggests vets should try shifting the focus from the “performance of the mission” to bottom-line contribution.From the point of view of companies, Klare suggests that organizations must learn how to translate military acronyms into civilian skill sets. Having a defined job description will be very helpful to a returning veteran, as “they are used to working with SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures),” says Betsy Blee, a former lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps who went on to have a very successful 26 year career at Pfizer, the leading pharmaceutical company.Lisa Rosser, CEO and founder, The Value of a Veteran, notes that veterans can be very rules- and process-oriented and will benefit from a structured onboarding process that helps them identify how things get done. She also emphasizes that vets are very community-oriented, with a compelling desire to serve—traits that can be applied in many organizational contexts.  Rosser recommends that companies become educated about the military. For example, companies may need to make allowances when vets will need to take time off from work to use their Veterans Administration medical benefits, as such appointment schedules are not flexible. She cites several leading companies as being exemplary in being vet-friendly, including GE, Northrup Grumman, and Verizon.Establishing a buddy systemIt is extremely helpful to returning vets to have someone with a military background inside organizations serve as a buddy for the first several months, helping to show them the ropes and how things get done. In contrast to a military environment, where relationships and roles are very clearly defined, today’s flattened and matrixed organizations features many interpersonal complexities and unwritten rules for success that may shift from project to project, and a buddy can help explain how to navigate effectively.Invite recently hired vets into your companies’ Veterans’ Employee Resource Group (ERG), or establish one if needed. This will foster a community and sense of belonging. The benefits to the organization will be amply rewarded in terms of accelerating productivity and enhancing future recruiting of veterans.Other solutions include providing mentors to returning vets to help them leverage their skill sets successfully.Making accommodationsThe CPC data reports that nearly 3 in 10 Gulf War II era veterans have a service-connected disability, equating to some 712,000 individuals. Klare suggests that accommodations, when needed within the workplace, need not be onerous. He cites as an example allowing a vet to bring a service dog to work, or situating a workstation so that a vet with PTSD has full visibility to the surrounding area, or if that is not possible, simply providing a rear view mirror.Key benefitsOur veterans have served our country and deserve to be welcomed back into our communities and workplaces. Blee reminds us: when an organization hires a veteran, they obtain an employee who “has been taught to make decisions, how to be a leader and someone who is a patriot.” That sounds like a good bargain for all to invest in the extra effort to hire our veterans.What best practices have you seen for integrating vets in your organization?To read more D&I blog posts, go to http://www.astd.org/Communities-of-Practice/Human-Capital/Best-Practices-in-Diversity-and-Inclusion.

Valuing Our Veterans

“Our new hire cohort started with 12 but after two weeks and 78 hours of self-based video onboarding, only three of us were left.” — Bonnie, Utilization Review Nurse“After three months of hearing the mantra, ‘It’s a crazy time’ and countless promises that I’d get the training I needed soon, I just couldn’t hang in there any longer.” — Alex, Customer Support RepresentativeNew hires are withdrawing their engagement and joining other ”quiet quitters” in record numbers. Others are expressing this sentiment more overtly as they quit loudly, slamming the door on the way out. And they’re doing it more quickly than ever before. In a Bamboo HR study, 31% of the 1000 US workers polled had left a job within the first six month. For many, it is not that the eventual work that a new hire would perform is not interesting or fulfilling, but rather in many cases new hires cannot even get to the actual work because onboarding processes and training are not meeting their needs as they try to adjust to a new company, team, and new work.As longtime learning professionals, we place a high value on effective development. Even so, we frequently find ourselves cringing when an organization or leader proposes the knee-jerk, “Let’s fix it with training.” Often when a company has employee engagement or retention issues, the problem isn’t with training. But recently, we’ve observed a troubling trend where inadequate or insufficient training is in fact contributing to a problem.It’s not just new hires who are concerned about the state of learning within their organizations. Recent research conducted by MIT Sloan and Deloitte suggests that only 34% of employees are happy with their organization’s investment in their skills development. According to a study conducted by Degreed, 46% of leaders and employees alike predict their current core skills will be “obsolete within five years” and another whopping 46% of workers worldwide are more likely to leave if their employers don’t offer them opportunities to upskill.Given these statistics and stakes, now is the time to emphasize effective training—for new hires and existing employees alike. In fact, it’s necessary to take action if any of the following happens. Does your organization tend to. . .Bring people on without a clear plan and with no one designated to train or support them?Approach training of new hires and existing employees like a side job, to be squeezed in as time permits?Assume learning will happen organically by observing others?Defund, delay, or defer learning initiatives to another time “when things settle down”?These common responses hinder new and seasoned employees in acquiring and mastering the skills they need to be effective in today’s intense and fast-changing workplace. The good news is that there are many people in an organization who can address and reverse these deficits through simple actions.Whether you’re an L&D practitioner charged with delivering effective learning, a manager or team leader who appreciates and is willing to play a key role in ensuring training effectiveness, or an individual employee or new hire who’s committed to growth and development, there are concrete steps you can take to go from quiet quitting to quiet confidence and potent new levels of skill.If you lead or work within the L&D function:Identify one or two team leaders who recognize attrition risks and are eager (or desperate) for help in bringing new people to their teams or leveling up current team members’ skill levels. Share internal resources with them. Partner with them to implement small steps and provide support that nudges them toward developing their teams more effectively. While many L&D professionals work toward scale through sweeping enterprise-wide initiatives, it’s more effective to start small and go slow at first. That will help you go far and faster later.Find “bright spots,” teams that excel at onboarding, training, and retaining new team members (as evidenced by increasing productivity, low turnover, and high referral rates for potential hires.) Deconstruct their approach and communicate their best practices to others via simple-to-follow checklists and resources.Make technology complement person-to-person training. Onboarding and training aren’t just about providing skills and knowledge training. They are about connecting with people and giving them a sense of belonging. They help new and seasoned employees confirm that this is the right place for them and that the organization is invested in their future.If you’re a leader or manager:Identify a primary point of contact for training. This offers a robust development opportunity for someone aspiring to leadership or other roles while ensuring the accountability required for a sustained commitment to onboarding and upskilling. Help them carve out the time necessary to take on this role by adjusting workload, job descriptions, and goals. The additional responsibilities that come with this new role are too important to be squeezed into their “real job” and an already full set of priorities.Make learning a team sport. Institute a buddy system that partners those developing new capabilities with those who’ve already acquired them and can act as coaches and resources.Actively and visibly support learning. This looks like offering the tools, resources, and development that trainers require;helping employees set learning goals; checking in on the process; modeling key skills and behaviors; and offering ongoing feedback and coaching to elevate developing capabilities.If you’re charged with training or onboarding other team members:Lead with empathy. Consider what it was like when you joined the organization or learned a new skill. How did you feel? What was challenging or helpful?Look for ways to streamline. Keep track of what trainees need with an eye toward creating tools, examples, and resources that you and others can use to be more effective.Recognize individual differences in learning styles. Just because something worked for you or one trainee, doesn’t mean it will work for all. Engage in small experiments to expand your range of workable approaches.If you are the new or seasoned employee:Be an active partner in your learning. Managers, team leaders, and trainers aren’t mind readers. You must speak up, share your needs, and ask for the support that will help you optimize your development and performance.Organizations face daunting challenges. Onboarding and skills development don’t have to be among them. In our experience employees place a lot of value on the attention and training they receive.“After my previous onboarding and training experiences, I very much appreciated how organized my new manager was and how well she adjusted things once I explained how I learn best.” — Ravi, Business Development Lead

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