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Lee Wright

ATD Links Archive - ATD Links

Online Content: Still a Pain In the SaaS

Got Government Talent Challenges? Get Answers at ATD 2015

Tina Mertel and Lynne Velling review research that explains the importance of breathing and eye contact on staying in control during a presentation.

Solving Stage Fright Is a Relational Process

Lee Lazarus is the co-founder at The Presentation Company, a business communications training firm that helps the world’s largest brands – like Nestle, Marriott, Accenture, and T-Mobile – become strategic communicators. She’s also the co-author of the Amazon bestselling book Everyday Business Storytelling. Lee is an evangelist for visual storytelling and the profound impact it makes in helping people – at all levels – communicate influentially. She understands that storytelling, done right, is nothing short of a career game-changer.

Lee Lazarus

 By 2025 Millennials, individuals between the ages of 20 and 35, will comprise 75 percent of the global workforce. Organizations are justifiably concerned about attracting and retaining them. Many articles on Millennials often focus on their desire to find purpose in their work and to collaborate. But to truly understand Millennials requires a broader perspective. Longing to Connect When the global marketing firm McCann WorldGroup surveyed 7,000 Millennials in 2011, it found that more than 90 percent of those surveyed rated “connection and community” as their greatest need. As the researchers put it: “To truly grasp the power of connection for this generation, we can look at how they wish to be remembered. It is not for their beauty, their power, or their influence, but simply for the quality of their human relationships and their ability to look after those around them.” Connection is a bond that promotes affection, trust, and cooperation. Connections can be tight, as with family members and close friends; or connections can be loose, as with acquaintances. The opposite of connection is to feel unsupported, left out, or lonely. Feeling Disconnected Despite their avid use of social network sites and cell phones, whether for calls or text messaging, there is evidence that Millennials actually experience less connection these days. While it may seem counter-intuitive, increased media use is a contributor. Excessive media use has been shown to diminish connection. Research by Norman Nie at Stanford concluded that an hour spent on the Internet reduced face-to-face contact by 23.5 minutes. The lack of meaningful connection makes individuals vulnerable to stress, anxiety, depression, and addiction. Connection is one of the most effective ways human beings cope with stress. Feeling connected to others reduces the levels of stress hormones, including cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine. Without connection and other healthy means of coping, stress has been shown to produce emotional and behavioral disorders, including anger that leads to a fight response, fear that leads to a flight response, and depression that leads to the body shutting down. Many people deal with their stress by self-medicating with the use of alcohol, mood-altering legal or illegal drugs, binge eating; cutting; or promiscuity. These behaviors provide short-term relief by stimulating the brain’s reward centers, but they eventually rewire the brain with a negative-reward reaction so that cessation exposes the addicted individual to unpleasant sensations of withdrawal. Creating Connections  Employers are wise to help Millennials experience the connection they desire so they perform at the top of their game and avoid negative coping behaviors. Here are three ways for employers to connect with their Millennial workers.Communicate an Inspiring Vision—and Live It. Millennials want to work for a cause greater than themselves. Being part of an organization that has a mission that serves others helps. Meaningful core values also connect Millennials to the organization, especially if they see leaders living them out. I recommend identifying and consistently communicating simple and memorable phrases that reflect your organization’s mission and values. Here are a few examples: The most useful and ethical financial services in the world (The Charles Schwab Corporation) Connecting People with HealthCare (Beryl Companies) Opening the Highways for All Mankind (Ford Motor Company) The Change Agency (FCB New Zealand) Making Cancer History (M.D. Anderson Cancer Center) Learning to Change the World (TCU) Don’t Be Evil (Google) Strive for perfection, settle for excellence (Alpha International) In the spirit of straight talk (Pfizer)  Value Them. Valuing people is the heart of connection. Take time to get to know Millennials, including their career aspirations, past work experiences (ask what fired them up and what burned them out in past jobs), their strengths, the skills they want to develop, and even what there interests are outside of work. Encourage and mentor them so they learn and grow. A 2014 IBM Institute Study showed that Millennials prefer face-to-face contact when they are learning new skills. When you give Millennials projects to complete, don't micromanage. Be clear about what you want them to deliver, and let them know you are available if they run into obstacles or would like your advice or assistance. This gives them autonomy and conveys your respect for their competence. Give Them a Voice. Many Millennials want to be in the loop and have a voice in decisions that affect them. This isn't always possible when time is of the essence. However, if the situation permits, explain what you are thinking about an issue and ask them what is right, wrong, or missing in your analysis and perspective. Consider their opinions and ideas, then implement those that make sense—giving them credit it’s when due. Communicating an inspiring vision and living it, valuing people, and giving them a voice engages Millennials (and the rest of your employees as well). You’ll find that engaged employees put greater effort into their work, align their behavior with the leaders’ and organization’s goals, and more fully communicate so that decision makers have better information to make optimal decisions  These advantages provide a powerful source of competitive advantage. Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work.

3 Ways to Connect with Millennial Employees

It’s ironic that successful self-leadership has more to do with others and less to do with self. I learned this later in life. The sooner you see it, the better for your career. Following are three lessons I learned from personal and professional experiences.Surprise #1: Serve a Cause Greater than SelfThe first surprise about self-leadership is that working for money, power, and fame is an unfulfilling pursuit. Frances Hesselbein says it succinctly: to serve is to live.Choose a career that helps others by bringing truth, goodness, or beauty into the world and you will find greater career satisfaction and contentment. From time to time, you will experience the joy that comes from seeing the efforts of your work directly improve the lives of others. Here are a few examples:The teacher who helps a student learn to read brings greater truth and goodness to the world.The landscape architect who designs aesthetically pleasing outdoor environments brings greater beauty to the world.The journalist who helps the public see both sides of a story brings greater truth to the world.The salesman who helps a customer find the right product or service to meet a real need brings greater goodness into the world.You should seek to serve others in these ways, too.Surprise #2: Get a Coach or Mentor(s)No world-class athlete gets to the top without the help of a coach or multiple coaches. We need other people to help us achieve our potential.For instance, each of us has blind spots. Your blind spot may be that you are argumentative or perhaps you don’t speak up when you should. Some people have a blind spot when it comes to not knowing when to end a conversation or meeting. Some managers have blind spots of being over-controlling, and others don’t interact enough with the people they are responsible for leading.The need for coaching and mentoring goes beyond needing to address our blind spots, though. We need experts to help us develop skills. When I left Wall Street to write a book and begin public speaking and teaching, I needed the help of Twyla Thompson, a top acting coach at the Actors Institute. Twyla taught me how to emotionally connect with an audience.On Wall Street, I had learned to turn off my emotions when communicating and I needed Twyla’s help to turn my emotions back on. She had me do exercises that included speaking to a group of acting students. I had to make eye contact with one student at a time and maintain eye contact until the student raised his or her hand to signal that he or she felt connected to me.Twyla’s colleague Gifford Booth would stand at the back of the room and yell, “Louder, louder,” as I spoke. He helped me see a blind spot I had: I was too soft spoken. I could never have learned these things on my own and I’m grateful that Twyla and Gifford helped me become a more effective speaker.#3: Be Intentional About Connecting With PeopleI learned the hard way that all people are hardwired to connect. Connect with God.  Connect with one another. When we don’t connect, we become dysfunctional. We feel lonely, which makes us more vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and depression.  Connection makes us healthier, happier, and more productive. It helps us grow in competence and character. It gets us through the inevitable difficult seasons we all experience in life, a lesson I learned as our family and friends helped us get through the three bouts of cancer my wife Katie experienced. Today, she is cancer free and thriving.Bottom line: You can be more successful in your career and life if you serve a cause greater than yourself, get coaches and/or mentors to help you learn and grow in competence and character, and be intentional about connecting with God, family, and friends. As you experience greater peace, hope, and joy that comes from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will discover wealth of even greater value.Is your workplace culture supporting your success with self-leadership? Join Michael Lee Stallard for the June 23 webcast, “Your Workplace Culture: Life-Giving or Draining the Life Out of You?” to learn about three predominant relational cultures in the workplace—and how each affects your productivity, health, and happiness.Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work. Read more on the Connection Culture website.

3 Surprising Ways to Succeed in Self-Leadership

The right metrics—data points that take success measurements above and beyond traditional L&D methodologies—can bring your new learning story to life.

The New Learning Metrics: Demonstrating Business Value and Impact

In our post “Being a Can-Do Leader: Want to Be On the Ball as a Leader? Think TPL!” we promised to explain how an easy to remember acronym, VITALS, can help you unleash an engaging “Can-Do” spirit in people that sparks their willingness to drive for high levels of performance. Please note that we said “enable you to unleash” this spirit, in your role as manager. Not create it, but unleash it. This is because the true Can-Do spirit isn’t just a matter of being persuaded that we can do something. The “spirit” part of it is a visceral feeling that energizes us to want to do something—want it a lot. And, of course, when these feelings are in force, performance is likely to soar.   Feelings of enthusiastic determination can only come from within each person. A leader cannot force this to happen with exhortations, demands, and speeches. But here’s the good news: You can, as a manager, create the conditions that will unleash this Can-Do spirit in others. Before we explain how, here’s a very important can-do leader caveat: Do not put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Most likely you’ve heard the oft quoted homily: “If you want to understand another person’s point of view, you must put yourself in the other person’s shoes.” We feel that is bad, or at least misleading, advice! It’s not enough to mentally put yourself in the other person’s position. If you do that, it’s still you that is being put in that position. If the issue is what will motivate this person in these circumstances, it is irrelevant what would motivate you in this situation. The fact is that each person has his or her own particular set of personal motivators, which cannot be identified by simply projecting our own motivational profile onto another person. So, how can we go about identifying and making good use of the motivational profiles of the people who work with us? Check their VITALS An effective way to zero in on a person’s key motivators is to do your best to become familiar with their particular Values, Interests, Talents, Aspirations, Longings, and Style. In other words, check their “VITALS.” This word can serve as a useful acronym to help you remember each of these important motivational factors. Simply put, the Can-Do spirit is most likely to be unleashed in people when their most important VITALS can be satisfied at work. You might think of this as mentally checking a little box associated with each of their VITALS. Here’s how it works: Values refers to the standards or principles that a person believes are important to uphold in life, which could include things like trustworthiness, loyalty, fairness, and beliefs. A person’s values are important to consider when giving an assignment because if you ask someone to behave in a way that is opposed to what he believes in, you may actually motivate him to work against you. In a diverse workplace, it is particularly important for a leader to appreciate the power of the cultural beliefs of the different groups represented. For example, if Lee comes from a culture where being singled out for public praise is personally embarrassing, it would be more effective to praise him in private. Interests are the particular work-related subject areas that grab and hold a person’s attention. The deeper a person’s interest in something, the stronger her motivation will be to work on projects that allow her to pursue that interest. The curiosity associated with strong interests is what motivates the kind of learning that pays dividends in the workplace. For example, if John loves to solve problems, giving John an opportunity to solve a complex customer fulfillment issue is likely to pique John’s interests in a way that unleashes his can-do spirit. Talents refer not only to strong skills that a person may have developed, but also to the underlying ability or aptitude that makes it possible for someone to develop a noteworthy skill. When a person has a strong talent in a particular area, that person often enjoys developing and displaying that talent. The key is to identify the particular talents a person has that he or she would enjoy developing and displaying. For example, if Maria is very skilled at creating innovative software designs and likes to talk about her creations, providing Maria opportunities to demonstrate this talent on the job is likely to be very motivating for her. Aspirations are the ambitions that a person has—what this person wants to be and achieve in the future. A person’s aspirations may shift over time, but the more you know about what a person thinks he wants to achieve in terms of his career goals, the better able you will be to match him with assignments that will make him feel like he is pursuing his dream. For example, if Sandip, a very competent engineer in a high-tech company, has aspirations for management roles, giving him opportunity to manage an engineering project is likely to be highly motivating for him. Longings are the nagging (when not sufficiently satisfied) psychological needs that people bring to the workplace. This includes things like a fondness for stability and predictability, a desire for personal achievement, a continuing need for close personal relationships at work, a strong desire to be held in high esteem by colleagues, or a desire to be in charge or in control. For example, if Trish has strong relationship needs, she is likely to be most engaged when given opportunities to work collaboratively in a group. If Damita, on the other hand, has a low need for affiliation but a very high need for autonomy, she is likely to be quite motivated when given opportunities to work independently. Style at work refers to a person’s characteristic ways of taking in information, making decisions, dealing with success and failure, and interacting with others. The style concept focuses on preferences rather than abilities. When we understand other people’s personal styles, we are better able to find effective ways of being influential with them. For example, if Pablo is a planner by nature and likes to be particularly well organized and structured in how he approaches work, giving him an assignment that allows him to draw on this preferred style is likely to increase his level of motivation. A thought you might be having right now is: This "Check their VITALS" strategy might sound like a good idea, but how can I possibly know all these things about the people who work with me? Identify their VITALS To get a handle on someone’s VITALS, you can observe his or her reactions to different situations and assignments and make your best guess. But a more reliable way to understand other people’s VITALS is to simply ask them to tell you about themselves. Ask them what particularly interests them: What are their near and long-term ambitions? Ask about the kinds of activities and hobbies they find most interesting when not at work. Listen carefully to their responses and use the VITALS acronym as your mental checklist. You’ll never learn everything there is to know about another person’s motivators. But if you ask people a few questions about their VITALS, you’ll know a lot more about what motivates them than you did before. And when you give them an assignment, you’ll be better able to unleash the Can-Do spirit!

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