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Kate Harker

March 2011 - TD Magazine

Leadership Development: What’s Evaluation Got to Do With It?

Most organizations track learner satisfaction and completion rates, but does that really move the business forward? Our joint research with ATD shows that only 43 percent of organizations report strong alignment between learning and business goals. That means more than half risk investing in training that fails to translate into performance gains and measurable outcomes.What Alignment Really Means and Why It MattersAlignment isn’t a buzzword; it’s the operating system for strategic L&D. True alignment exists when L&D leaders, HR, and the C‑suite share a common definition of success and design learning experiences to advance it. In practice, this means mapping every learning objective to one or more business KPIs, whether that’s revenue growth, customer retention, safety incidents, cycle time, or quality metrics. Hence, the connection between training and value is explicit, visible, and testable.This clarity does three things: Focuses limited resources on the highest‑impact skillsIncreases executive confidence in L&D investmentEquips teams to iterate quickly because outcomes are tracked with the same rigor as any other initiativeDiagnosing MisalignmentMisalignment rarely announces itself; it shows up as familiar symptoms. There’s overreliance on activity metrics (enrollments, completions, smile sheets) without behavioral or business indicators. L&D gets kept out of strategic conversations about growth plans or capability gaps. Demonstrating ROI becomes a struggle, which slows funding decisions. Programs stagnate as content falls out of step with shifting priorities. Each symptom erodes trust and makes it harder for learning to influence performance at scale.The Four‑Step Alignment FrameworkUse this simple, repeatable framework to tighten the connection between learning and results:Discover. Start with the business problem, not the course idea. Clarify the desired outcome (for instance, increase win rate from 28 percent to 34 percent in H2) and the behaviors that would move that needle. Interview leaders and exemplary performers; mine performance dashboards to identify capability gaps.Design. Translate outcomes into skills and practice. Build learning objectives that mirror the KPI and embed practice activities that simulate real work (role‑plays, system sandboxes, decision games). Co‑create content with stakeholders to maintain relevance and ownership.Deliver. Meet learners in the flow of work. Blend short, applied learning assets with manager‑led coaching. Managers influence a large share of engagement, so equip them with conversation guides, observation checklists, and micro‑challenges to reinforce transfer on the job.Measure. Track leading and lagging indicators. Pair learning analytics (progress, proficiency, practice quality) with behavioral and business signals (pipeline hygiene, NPS shifts, first‑call resolution, defect rates, time‑to‑productivity). Review results monthly with stakeholders and adjust.What High‑Performing Organizations Do DifferentlyIn our findings, high performers consistently co‑create training with senior leaders, focus on a small set of KPIs that matter to both HR and the business, and use performance data to continuously refine programs. The key difference is philosophical: They don’t just measure activity, they measure contribution to business success. This orientation turns L&D from a service provider into a strategic partner.Manager Enablement Is NonnegotiableEven the best course fails without manager reinforcement. Provide managers with “day‑one” toolkits like talk tracks, observation rubrics, and simple dashboards so they can coach to the targeted behaviors. Recognize and reward managers who model desired behaviors and create time for practice. When managers champion the effort, adoption accelerates and results stick. Managers account for more than 70 percent of team engagement, so their role is critical.Technology as an Enabler (Not the Strategy)Modern platforms can make alignment easier to execute. AI‑powered solutions such as Learn365, embedded in Microsoft Teams, bring learning into daily workflows and surface real‑time insights through Power BI dashboards. That matters when only a minority of organizations feel confident evaluating impact; technology helps consolidate data, automate evidence collection, and free L&D to focus on coaching and design. The tools don’t create strategy; they make good strategy scalable.Start Small, Prove Value, Then ScalePick one business outcome and run a 90‑day pilot. Example: reduce customer churn by two points. Map the chain of impact: skills (active listening, needs discovery) → behaviors (probing, summarizing) → metrics (repeat contact rate, NPS, renewal). Instrument your pilot with a pre/post skills check, manager observations, and a simple dashboard that pairs learner progress with operational KPIs. Share results with leaders monthly and capture quick wins and lessons learned.This approach builds a repeatable playbook: define outcomes, design for practice, enable managers, and measure what matters. Do it once, then standardize templates, data definitions, and governance so future programs start aligned rather than retrofitting alignment after launch.Where to Go NextAlignment doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen by design. Begin with a single program and ask, “Which business outcome does this serve, and how will we know?”For deeper benchmarks and practical checklists, explore the full research report and see how peers are operationalizing alignment in the flow of work.

Driving Business Impact: Aligning Training With Strategic Goals

Just a couple years ago, companies were conducting hiring sprees, scooping up a seemingly unlimited supply of talent. Today, however, more talent professionals are asked to do more with less, while facing intense competition for individuals with the most business-critical skills. But this reset has given rise to a new way of thinking about talent—the skills-based transformation, in which candidates are hired, and internal talent developed, based on their unique skills and strengths.To make the skills-based transition successful, companies must ensure their talent acquisition (TA) and learning and development (L&D) teams work more closely together. This will be especially important since talent with key skills is harder to find than ever. According to Randstad Enterprise’s latest in-demand skills research, global hiring complexity for AI and automation skills is two times higher than average, while data analytics skills are 2.3 times higher.In this landscape, rather than always turning to recruiting external talent, consider how individuals with key skills—or at least the potential to learn them—may already be in the organization. But without insights and development plans from L&D, those high-potential employees, and their skill sets, may remain hidden. Along the same lines, when new talent is brought in, L&D should be involved as well, helping to ensure they continually learn and grow to develop the skills needed for the future.But for TA and L&D to collaborate most effectively, they must leverage the right data to help guide their decisions. With access to up-to-date talent intelligence—about the supply of skills both within your organization and outside it—TA and L&D teams gain the insights to better work together and ultimately ensure the company acquires the right skills.Identify the skills you need.Due to the growing use of AI, the skills companies need are changing constantly. With access to the right talent intelligence, companies can better predict the skills that will be most critical for their organizations today and into the future. And if talent with those skills is too difficult to find internally or externally, the data can help identify talent with the adjacent or transferable skills most indicative of success in attaining those needed skills. Once those skills are identified, TA and L&D can work together to determine the best way to acquire those skills, whether hiring externally or developing internal—or even external—talent.Build a skilled and diverse workforce.As part of the skills-based transformation, many organizations leverage talent intelligence to conduct skills mapping or create skills ontologies to better understand the skills already in the organization. Such insights can also reveal the individuals who show strong potential to learn the new skills that TA may be struggling to find externally. This approach is also helpful for enhancing workforce diversity and creating equity. With female talent largely under-represented in some of the most in-demand skills, like AI and automation, providing promising female employees with the right training and development can improve diversity while ensuring the company gains those needed skills.Understand the external talent market.Strong talent intelligence can help you find the best sources for the skills your organization needs. It can also uncover essential data about what those individuals are looking for in their next role, like salary expectations and desire to work remotely, so TA can be better positioned to attract and engage them. If talent with the exact skills can’t be found, TA can still hire based on the potential and inherent skills of the top candidates, working with L&D to create the development paths to fill those crucial gaps.Make smarter decisions with talent intelligence.While finding talent with the most in-demand skills may be challenging, companies that drive collaboration between their TA and L&D teams will be better positioned to identify the right people, or nurture promising talent to help them learn those skills. When guided by robust talent intelligence, the result is a streamlined approach to acquiring the skills needed immediately, while providing the training that keeps up with the skills needed for the future.Download Randstad’s latest in-demand skills research. See the supply and demand of the skills you need with the in-demand skills dashboard.

Why Talent Acquisition and L&D Must Work Together to Find Talent With Key Skills

When executives want to measure the ROI of training, they rarely focus on hard skills. In fact, 90 percent of the time, they are trying to find the value of their investment in soft skills training. It is usually harder to identify the connection of those skills to strategic objectives. Resources are always limited, and there will always be more requests for the budget than dollars to fulfill those requests. So, as leaders make choices and trade-offs, they will be looking for evidence of ROI. You should recognize the importance of these inquiries to present a compelling case. When the executive asks for justification, what should you know?When making an investment, there are two measurements you should pay close attention to. The most obvious is the result you hope to get from making the investment. The other is the behavior or action you believe will create that result. For example, your organization may be seeking to increase the number of leads you receive. That is the result you are targeting. The behavior, or action, would be the purchase of online advertising. If you want the result of an increased number of prospects for the sales team, the action you may take is hiring and training more inside sales reps. What are the behavior and result measures for coaching?Leaders commonly make the mistake of saying the result measure for coaching is the act of coaching. The result measure of coaching is NOT coaching itself; rather, it is the outcome or goal that coaching was applied to. For example, you may be trying to reduce staff turnover—that’s your result. Take note of the current turnover rate and target what rate would represent a satisfactory change. Lower turnover means fewer new hires, saving significant costs ranging from a third to double the annual salary per hire for recruiting, training, and other startup expenses. Beyond those savings, consider the productivity boost from a more engaged and stable team. These benefits offer a clear metric for your result. Your behavior is to train your teams in coaching and to assure they practice and use it. The behavior of coaching now has a quantifiable result upon which to weigh the cost of coaching, helping you understand the real return on your investment.Deciding to invest time or money in coaching means either you are facing a challenge you wish to overcome or seizing an opportunity for growth. Here are some examples of how you can apply coaching to a strategic objective:Business PriorityResultsBehaviorsROI (Possible Metrics):Enhance leadership effectivenessIncrease in leadership competenciesDevelop leadership skills across all levelsKPIs related to team performance, project completion rates, and overall organizational productivityChanges in voluntary turnover rates and length of employee tenurePromotion rates, internal mobility, and leadership succession planning effectivenessBoost customer satisfaction and loyaltyIncrease in customer satisfaction scoresImprove service delivery and product qualityPercentage of customers making multiple purchases or renewing servicesCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV) or repeat customer revenueNumber of complaints, support requests, and ticket resolution timeOptimize operational efficiencyReduction in operational costsStreamline processes and reduce wasteReduction in operational costs, such as labor, materials, or overheadTime taken to complete core processes, such as production cycles, customer orders, or service deliveryUtilization rates of equipment, technology, and other assetsFoster innovation and creativityIncrease in the number of new ideas generatedCultivate a culture of innovationPercentage of revenue generated from newly introduced products or servicesTime taken from idea conception to product or service launchAmount of cost savings generated from innovative process improvementsStrengthen cross-functional collaborationIncrease in the number of successful cross-functional projectsImprove interdepartmental communication and teamworkKPIs for cross-functional teams, such as output, quality of work, and achievement of key milestonesThe time it takes cross-functional teams to resolve complex issues or challengesEmployee engagement scores or satisfaction surveys focused on teamwork and interdepartmental cooperationThere are four simple questions that can help you build the ROI case for a coaching program:What are we aiming to change?Where do we currently stand?Where do we aspire to be?What is the value of achieving this difference?When faced with questions about ROI and the impact of coaching is unclear, it’s important to reflect on your objectives and the measurable differences you aim to achieve. Coaching isn’t merely an assumption of improvement; it’s the catalyst that propels all your strategies forward, enhancing effectiveness and ensuring smoother operations across the board.

The ROI of Coaching: A CEO’s Perspective

When making the leap from individual contributor to people manager, you quickly learn that your existing skill set doesn’t automatically translate to success in your new role. And it’s the same when you’re learning to manage a hybrid or remote team. This new(ish) way of working brings its own set of challenges. Hybrid work doesn’t appear to be going anywhere—83 percent of workers say they prefer a hybrid model versus working in an office full-time. This means that it’s essential to be aware of the common pitfalls of managing hybrid teams and be intentional about avoiding them. Here are some tips from Udemy instructors on managing remote teams.Common Challenge #1: Proximity Bias Proximity bias is the (often unconscious) preference we give to people who work onsite simply because we see them more often and work more closely with them. Think this isn’t a problem? Gartner finds that 64 percent of managers say onsite employees are higher performers than remote employees, and 75 percent say onsite employees are more likely to be promoted. It’s easy to see how these beliefs could create a self-fulfilling prophecy, where managers think remote employees aren’t as worthy of promotions, so they don’t advocate for them as equally or provide the same opportunities as those given to people working onsite.How to overcome it? Consider how you’ll attempt to limit this form of bias both in everyday activities and during critical points of the employee lifecycle, like performance reviews and promotions. Udemy instructor Hassan Osman suggests making meetings more equitable by asking all participants to call in from their laptops (even if they’re working out of the same office) and using tools like chat and polls to keep it interactive. For more tips from Hassan on leading a hybrid team, see his course, Better Virtual Meetings.Regarding your team members’ performance, Alexis Haselberger recommends several tactics such as intentionally advocating for your remote workers, highlighting their work in public forums, and regularly auditing who’s being promoted or rewarded, so it doesn’t skew toward in-person employees. For more tips from Alexis, see her course, Essential Skills to Lead From Anywhere. Common Challenge #2: MicromanagementMost people don’t set out to be micromanagers—they simply care about meeting deadlines and quotas and delivering high-quality projects. But somewhere along the line, they stop trusting their team members and start feeling compelled to follow up with them excessively or check their work far too often. While micromanagement is a threat in any work environment, it’s much more likely to occur when we have less visibility into what our team members are doing every day.How to overcome it?Alexis Haselberger recommends establishing explicit working and communication norms. For example, does your team observe core working hours? When and how should team members share updates? What is an acceptable response time to an email or instant message? Any time you assign someone a task or project, discuss the expected timeline and check-in points at the outset. This way, they can be responsible for sending you updates, and you don’t need to interrupt their work by asking for ad hoc progress reports. Udemy instructor Axel Rittershaus recommends relying on digital documentation so all team members can see that everyone is working on their tasks and making progress. Using project management tools like Trello or Asana makes it easy for anyone to get a high-level overview of a project’s progress. You can also reduce the need for progress update meetings when everyone has access to this information through shared tools. For more tips from Axel, check out his course, Leading & Working in Hybrid Teams/Remote Teams. Common Challenge #3: Burnout Burnout is a very real concern in the workplace. McKinsey finds that 49 percent of employees are experiencing burnout, but the real number may be much higher since those who have experienced the worst burnout have likely already left their roles.Burnout is even more of a concern in a hybrid or remote setting because we often need clear boundaries. When does our workday start and end? Should you respond to “one last” email or message? It can be difficult to balance our desire to appear productive and helpful with our need to care for our families or ourselves.How to overcome it?As a leader, look for ways to model good boundary behaviors. Alexis recommends taking vacation days (and not working during them!) and avoiding sending work emails or messages outside of regular work hours. If you can only find time to look at emails late at night or on weekends, make sure you use the “schedule send” feature so it arrives in your team members’ inboxes at a reasonable time, and you don’t create the expectation that they should respond outside of the usual workday.Axel says leaders have a responsibility to pay attention to their team members’ behavior. If you notice any changes—like a lack of enthusiasm, excitement, or participation—make sure you check in and encourage them to take some time off to rest and recharge.Common Challenge #4: Social and Professional IsolationWe gather a lot of information and build a sense of belonging when we share the same workspace as our team members—even if we’re not doing it intentionally. We might overhear a bit of a conversation and join in or run into someone while grabbing a snack and sharing a quick update. These types of serendipitous encounters are much harder to replicate in the hybrid setting, making it easy for people to feel left out in terms of social interactions and the information needed to do their jobs well. Gartner research finds that only 33 percent of organizations practice true information transparency, so we can’t just assume our team members automatically have access to information.How to overcome it? It’s become a bit of a cliché to host a Zoom happy hour, and many workers are over this trend, says Alexis. Luckily, you can do plenty of other team-building activities with your distributed team, including playing virtual board games, taking virtual classes together, or attending a virtual food or beverage tasting with an expert guide. Axel says there are four main categories for team building: Space and time for informal conversationsPlaces to chatVirtual team-building eventsIn-person team-building events Aim for a balance between each of these types of activities to best support your team. You might also offer optional ways for people to connect casually, such as through a watercooler channel in Slack, chat roulette where people get paired with a random coworker and have a virtual coffee break, or even a silent working hour where people can call into a Zoom meeting and work together quietly.When it comes to information sharing, it’s important to have clear documentation and processes, so people know exactly where and how to search for the answers to their questions. Many managers create “working with me” guides to share with their direct reports and encourage every team member to make their own version.Prepare Managers for the Challenges of Leading Remote and Hybrid TeamsThe companies that best adapt to remote and hybrid work are the ones that will maintain a competitive advantage in the future. When asked what they’re looking for in the future of work, most employees are hoping for better work-life balance and flexibility for day-to-day work. When done well, hybrid work has the potential to deliver both of those outcomes.Managers don’t just automatically have the skills that make them good leaders in today’s challenging work environment. Help your managers prepare to face the challenges of leading remote and hybrid teams through cohort learning from peers and other leaders. 

Avoid These 4 Common Challenges When Managing Remote Teams

A lot of people are finding it hard to force themselves through another workday. Maybe it’s a case of employees taking on more responsibilities due to leaner teams or difficulties separating work and home life. No matter the cause, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared burnout as a syndrome. It’s one of the biggest issues facing companies right now and affects a whopping 76 percent of the workforce. But most companies don’t have a handle on how to gauge the impact, and with so much remote work happening, it’s even harder to recognize when it’s happening. So, what can companies do to prevent burnout? The good news is that leaders play a major role in preventing burnout. With the right skills, they can help bring employees back from the brink of total job burnout. The bad news? Few leaders are confident in these key skills. In fact, preventing burnout in their teams is one of the areas where leaders rate themselves the lowest.What Is Workplace Burnout?Let’s start with a clear definition of burnout. The WHO declared it as a syndrome referring “specifically to phenomena in the occupational context…resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” The WHO stated that burnout “should not be applied to describe other areas of life.” Even before the pandemic, many companies began to prioritize employee well-being initiatives. Even with these efforts, most leaders were still largely unprepared to prevent burnout and the risks it now poses.Why Burnout Is a ProblemEmployee burnout is dangerous for companies because it creates a huge retention risk. If employees are feeling burnt out, they’ll head for the door. Perhaps worse is if the employees stay. Burnt-out employees tend to produce a lower quantity and quality of work. This is particularly dangerous for those in critical jobs that require detail, such as healthcare or finance. Furthermore, burnout can have serious effects on employees' physical and mental health. Keep in mind that your leaders are prone to burnout as well. And it’s a major issue threatening the future of leadership and companies’ pipeline of top talent they’ve worked so hard to attract. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2021 research identified that 86 percent of high-potential employees feel burnt out. That rate has climbed 59 percent since before the pandemic. High-potential employees are even more at risk since they may be reluctant to reveal their frustration to leaders. Why? They may fear being outspoken could cost them a chance for a key opportunity. These employees are twice as likely to leave than those who said they didn’t feel used up at the end of the day. But what can companies do when employees are struggling with burnout? It starts with the people who manage employees—the company’s leaders. But first, what are leaders doing to contribute to their company’s burnout culture? So what skills are essential to address this burnout culture? Find out by reading DDI’s blog.

Don’t Let Burnout Burn Your Leaders and Employees

As the talent development field continues to grapple with the impact of AI, ATD’s talent development leader communities are finding their own unique ways to help their members upskill on AI. The ATD Forum’s Collaborative Approach to AI Best PracticesThe ATD Forum is a consortium for member organizations to connect, collaborate, and share, with the goal of leveraging proven practices to address organizational challenges and accelerate performance. As with all Forum content, their approach to AI is informed by the needs of their members. In 2025, the Forum formed a working group dedicated to AI practice and experimentation. This group aims to go beyond the theoretical and showcase specific ways that members such as Whole Foods Market, Accenture, and Gant Travel are already using AI in their talent development practices. Because Forum members have all signed a non-disclosure agreement, companies have been very open about sharing AI use-case details, such as prompt libraries and agent instructions.In addition to the bi-monthly meetings, the Forum’s AI cohort group also has access to the ATD Community platform. This allows members to collaborate in between meetings and share questions and resources related to AI as they emerge in real time.Outside of the cohort group, the Forum is helping members upskill on AI through quarterly roundtables that bring in experts in the field to share their insights on the current AI landscape. These roundtable sessions are smaller and more interactive than traditional webinars, making them a great way for members to ask questions of and get facetime with AI thought leaders, as well as continuing to connect with other Forum members who are interested in AI.The Forum also fields an annual survey that asks members about the impact and usage of AI in their talent development programs. This allows Forum members to track usage over time and access up-to-date information on other members’ practices, so they can reach out to peer companies with specific questions or challenges. Forum members can also field surveys on specific AI or learning tech questions as they emerge throughout the year.You’ll find all related materials—cohort resources, recordings, surveys, and curated AI content from ATD and the field—on a dedicated landing page inside the Forum’s members-only site. Forum members are also encouraged to reach out to each other directly to brainstorm and collaborate on AI-related questions as needed.CTDO’s Tools for Leading Talent Development in AI StrategyCTDO is ATD’s premier membership for talent development executives who want to shape the future of the profession. This network of global learning leaders focuses on transformations that are influencing the field, including skills-based talent development, the expanding role of the TD leader, and how to reimagine traditional career journeys for the future of work. In 2025, AI topped the list of transformations CTDO explored, and the community developed a series of practical tools to help the talent development profession navigate this significant disruption. These resources were designed to move beyond theory, giving TD leaders the frameworks and methods they need to evaluate, adopt, and apply AI with confidence. Together, these tools provide TD leaders a practical roadmap for leveraging AI to drive workforce capability, organizational performance, and business credibility. They include the following, among others:Are You Ready to Be in the AI Strategy Conversation? This self-assessment is structured as a practical checklist across 13 dimensions, including AI literacy, alignment with business goals, ethical governance, change management, and workforce analytics. It provides a clear picture of where a TD function stands today and what gaps must be addressed to lead confidently in an AI-enabled workplace. AI Job Impact Toolkit. As AI continues to reshape the workplace, talent professionals face a critical challenge: understanding how AI will affect the jobs and skills within their organization. This toolkit helps the TD function navigate that challenge with clarity, consistency, and strategic insight.Six Essentials to Keep Talent Development at the Center of AI. As organizations adopt AI, TD professionals must secure their role in shaping AI strategies. Follow these steps to ensure TD remains central to AI-driven workforce transformation.AI for Strategic Readiness. This toolset helps talent development leaders move beyond reaction to strategy, pinpointing the areas where AI can create the most meaningful value and ensuring that implementation aligns with organizational priorities.CTDO follows a THINC approach to create content outputs, such as the tools mentioned previously for the profession. Together, the community discusses, shares best practices, and learns about each Transformation. Then, they determine the Necessary Changes and New Capabilities required to ensure the success of talent development in the future.Explore how the ATD Forum and CTDO senior leader communities can help you stay ahead in AI practices and strategy.

Navigating the AI Shift: How ATD’s Talent Development Leader Communities Are Leading the Way

 In my last post, I explored how certain personality differences--described by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment—give rise to an approach to work that is often confused with procrastination. MBTI preferences for either Perceiving (P) or Judging (J) describe how we organize the world, and at what point we want to make a final decision. The tendency of those preferring P to usually wait to make a final decision until close to the deadline—and thus begin the actual production portion of a project later—is often mistakenly labeled as procrastination. This behavior stems from the need to gather as much information as possible before closing off any options, not from a lackadaisical approach to work. Although often misunderstood, their most effective and efficient energy actually comes close to the deadline or end of the project. Those preferring Judging, on the other hand, are most efficient at the beginning of the project, and naturally employ a work style that incorporates making decisions and going into production mode much earlier in the process--a characteristic that our culture more frequently associates with productivity and efficiency. Within teams, simply knowing that these differences exist can pave the way toward a less stressful, more productive work environment that enables individuals to more fully leverage their natural talents. However, intellectualizing J/P differences is one thing, but actually implementing changes that allow team members to deploy both work styles within the same project is quite another issue. Individuals can achieve top-notch results employing either approach, but teams can also encounter major problems if these radically different work styles aren’t effectively integrated. Making Team Tradeoffs That Don’t Sacrifice Individual Effectiveness Often in teambuilding we talk about “flexing” one’s preferences to work more effectively with someone with an opposite preference, which involves operating outside one’s preferred style. For most of us this is a growing experience and a necessary part of career development. However, while flexing works quite well when bridging Introversion/Extraversion differences, for example, it is actually quite difficult to flex your work style between Judging and Perceiving without diminishing your effectiveness. Those preferring J who try to operate within a P work style will perform below their abilities, and vice versa. Rather than expecting individuals to flex their natural styles, teams need to make structural trade-offs that will allow every member of the team to work within his or her own preferences. Agreeing on Deadlines The most immediate area where this can be applied involves deadlines and milestones. Both J and P preferences find deadlines to be a helpful tool in accomplishing goals. Yet the way that those preferring P approach deadlines may be confusing to J-preferring colleagues, and vice versa. Those who prefer P are averse to the kind of arbitrary or fake deadlines which are sometimes imposed by those with J preferences for the purpose of motivating their P colleagues going into production mode earlier in the process. Meanwhile, those who prefer J might use deadlines as a tool to keep a project on track and are usually motivated to complete projects significantly before the deadline to avoid the last minute rush. Those preferring P tend to view deadlines as markers indicating the point at which something truly must be completed. This also helps them determine when they need to start working on the project in order to maximize their productivity—which for them is closer to the deadline. Consequently, if J-preferring team members try to impose arbitrary deadlines on P-preferring colleagues as markers or motivators to keep a project on pace, they’ll know they really have more time, and will view these as “fake” and often won’t take them seriously. Furthermore, this creates a situation that likely forces those with P preferences to complete tasks early in the project, when they’re less productive because they haven’t had sufficient time to explore all the possibilities for the projects direction. You can get better results from P-preferring colleagues by setting deadlines that accurately reflect a project’s realities, allowing them to plan their work in such a way that lets them get most of the project done at the end, when they’re most productive. When negotiating milestone dates, be sure that they are visibly tied to the real-life consequences of not meeting that deadline. If, for example, a client needs a set of blueprints by a certain date, the milestones should reflect the actual steps that need to be taken in order to make that happen--not just the J-preferences need to complete a project significantly before the actual deadline to allow time for revision. Accepting a Larger View of What Constitutes “Reality” On the flip side, those preferring P must appreciate that their J-preferring colleagues operate most efficiently on a more scheduled timeline. What’s more, they must respect the fact that some J preference team members may not do their best work when handed a project at the last minute. So, if you must deliver a set of blueprints to a J-preferring colleague for review or iteration, understand that they really need to do this earlier in the process in order to offer their best, most efficient work. Adopt the point of view that this is not an arbitrarily early deadline, but rather one that is necessary to ensure the quality of the project. Be willing to set and adhere to milestones that accommodate the J’s need for more structure, and earlier project completion. Bottom Line: Don’t Ask a Pea Factory to Produce Carrots Furthermore, a P-preferring manager working with a predominantly J-preferring team must take into account that last minute changes to a project may have a profoundly negative effect on the group’s ability to deliver excellent results. J-preferring individuals tend to work along a more even pace, accomplishing a great deal of a project’s tasks near the beginning of the process. Throwing a last-minute curve ball at a team that primarily prefers P might be okay, because they don’t go fully into production mode until the end of a project. In other words, they’ve been spending their time getting their ducks in a row, and in manufacturing parlance, the “factory” hasn’t yet opened. A predominantly J-preferring team, on the other hand, will have likely gone into production mode much earlier, so significant changes in direction can’t occur late in a project. It’s like asking a factory to produce canned carrots when it’s already started producing peas. If you want carrots, ask for them before the factory turns on its conveyor belts.

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