Archive for July, 2011

Resilient Communities

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

One of the most interesting aspects of resilience is how frequently people think and describe resilience as a critical factor. Of course, I talk about resilience as a way to handle stress and pressures. Others discuss resilience in terms of crises management, metallurgy, and even how your favorite baseball team recovers from a 3 game losing streak.

Kathryn Foster, a professor at SUNY Buffalo and her colleagues in the Building Resilient Regions academic consortium just released a new report identifying the most resilient communities in the country. Rochester, MN (home of the Mayo clinic)

Rochester,MN

being named the most resilient community in the country with my town, Pittsburgh being ranked 35th. For a complete list you can go to here.

Like anything that we try to measure, the BRR group identified 12 criteria to measure resilience looking at regional economic capacity (for example such as how much it costs to live, what the business environment is) , socio-demographic capacity (such as educational levels and  number of people that have health insurance)  and community connectivity (such as how many people own home and how many vote). By the way, we have nine criteria in our Building Resilient Organizations model

In this recently released report, she also goes on to point out that political will is not a measured criteria so the fact that Minnesota State government is closed for business due to a financial crisis does not show up as a measure. However with resilience all around those good people in MN, they’ll need it once the politicians get their act together.

I’m never sure what to make of these reports, but I have met Kathryn Foster and know that her research helps communities see the importance of resilience and that helps  them to address critical community issues. Resilience, more and more is being seen as a vital tool in meeting the increasing challenges we face as individuals and communities. My take away from this report is that we can think of resilience not just on a personal level but also from a big picture perspective. While your catching up on your own resilience through rest and fun, or navigating a tricky project at work, keep the big perspective in mind so that you can help yourself and company to be resilient.

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What Keeps You Around?

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Several months ago I was talking to a really smart Vice-President of a company. She wanted to put a career development program in place at her company. She and I discussed what that could look like, how to bring it on board in a phased manner and created the business case to demonstrate its value to the organization’s CEO. The feedback she received after her presentation was that the company did not see this as a priority and that as long as the economy was struggling, the company was not going to worry about retaining employees at this time. I told her that her boss was right…that “from 2003 to 2008, it was an employee marketplace and from 2008 to today its been an employer’s market. However that will change and the companies that are not ready for the change will pay a price by losing valuable staff.”

I just finished reading a  Deloitte Consulting survey that showed that over a third of employees plan to stay with their current employer which amazingly means that over 2/3 of employees are actively or passively looking for new employment. This is a staggering report and indicates that people are ready to jump as soon as they get the chance

There are  four primary factors  cited in the Deloitte report as to why people plan to leave their current employer:

  • Lack of career progress
  • Lack of compensation increase
  • Lack of job security
  • Lack of trust in leadership

While the second and third items may be difficult for companies to address in today’s economic climate, there is room for action on items 1 & 4. In fact by addressing career options with employees and anticipating what may happen to opportunities as the economy strengthens companies may be able to take care of 2 birds with 1 stone in that employees will feel better about their leaders if they communicate honestly about career options and provide development experiences to help them achieve their work goals.

There is a lot of things that leaders must do in their organization to keep things running smoothly but nothing is more important than insuring that you have the best people working for you who are engaged in what they are doing. Paying attention to small things like communicating frequently, telling the truth and helping people achieve their career goals can go a long way to helping employees feel good about their career and work

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Just Do It

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Nike knew they hit upon a great ad campaign when they saw their sales grow following the rollout of their “Just Do It” advertisements over 20 years ago. Faced with tough competition from Reebok and Adidas, the campaign perfectly hit the burgeoning fitness craze and emphasized the American edict of grit and determination. Sales grew and Nike became the preeminent athletic shoe company around the world.

What I like about the slogan however is how it emphasizes resolve in getting things done. For many of us we know what it is we have to do…lose weight, write an article, call that customer you need to talk to, attend a lecture… but somehow we are not able to get it done. You might call it the classic battle between execution and resolution. We know what it is we have to do (execute) but we may not have the discipline to do it (resolve).

How can we get better at getting things done. Try these out for size…

  1. Get yourself organized and set your priorities–Just take a few minutes to write down your intentions and then establish the priorities of what is most important
  2. Break them down into bite size pieces. A former principal use to say to me “inch by inch, its a cinch”. Most of the time we try to do too much at a time and wind up getting frustrated by the entire event.
  3. Make sure you are working towards your goal and not to just do the tasks. Outcomes is what you are looking to achieve.
  4. Be accountable–Make your goal public to another person and ask them to help you achieve your goals. This afternoon, I have an accountability meeting with a few colleagues so that we can discuss our progress on the improvement of our websites
  5. Reward yourself. Whatever it is that gives you enjoyment, build that into your day.

Even watching the US women lose to the Japanese in the FIFA world cup last night, I could not help thinking that there are thousands of young girls out this morning who are committed to work of their soccer skills so that one day they will be on that field determined to bring the cup back to the USA. And they are going to do it!

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Home/Work/Life/Balance…Finding a New Way

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

I am doing some consulting for a small business owner who is focused on growing his business in the next few years in anticipation of selling it and moving into retirement. He is wanting to maximize the value of his company and is lining up his business model so that he could sell the business to some of his current employees or an outside company.

This week he asked me if I would meet with he and his wife so that they could do some life planning for themselves and we agreed to spend an afternoon doing a little personal workshop for them, which I think will be great fun. In preparation, I decided I would interview each of them to find out what they wanted to achieve in our session, what would be the focus of our discussions and how they would know they got the kind of outcomes they were hoping to achieve from our get together.

After just a few minutes of talking with them, I realized that they have a perspective on “retirement” that is based on their parents model of life after 65 and while I would never besmirch the idea of morning walks to the beach, I also know that these guys are way to active and involved to lead that kind of restive life.  I think they know that about themselves yet I think they have an image base on certain biases and stereotypes that have them thinking that this is how it should play out.

The cool thing is that everyone is really redefining not only retirement, but all aspects of their life. I love the show Modern Family because it depicts a small corner of how different families are and how each of us create our own story lines and family histories.

While I’ll be meeting with these guys in a few weeks but in the meantime, consider how you want to create a work life model that will bring these aspects of your life together and not necessarily keep them apart.

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July 4th–Make More Comments and Be Heard

Monday, July 4th, 2011

Most of us consider July 4th to be the half-way mark of the summer. After all, there are two big holidays down and one to go. We’ve honored our military, now our nation’s independence and next will be to honor all of us who work hard to make great things happen.

There’s been lots of debate this week about the role of the constitution in our lives these days. There is an active force of people who say the constitution is a static document designed to avoid having the majority try to change things to fit their pleasures while an equally impressive group say, “no, the constitution is a living breathing document that changes as we change”

While these debates become heated from time to time, everyone agrees that the best part is that we all have a voice and that our nation allows these conversations to go forward.

It reminds me that we should be active about what we say and think, not just around political debate but also around life and work discussions.  I’ve decided that I am going to do more than just click like or dislike on my Facebook page, but instead I’m going to make more comments so that others know my thought, ideas and beliefs.

July 4th happened because those brave men and women spoke their mind. We need to make sure we all do the same

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