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EDITORIAL – “A Leader’s Toughest Challenge – CREATING A CLIMATE FOR POTENTIAL LEADERS”

Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us – they create an atmosphere in which it becomes easier for us to succeed. Creating an environment that will attract leaders is vital to any organisation. Doing that is the job of leaders. They must be active; they must generate activity that is productive; and they must encourage, create, and command changes in the organisation. They must create a climate in which potential leaders will thrive.
Leaders must be environmental change agents. The leaders in any organisation must be the environmental change agents. They must be more like thermostats than thermometers. At first glance, a person could confuse these instruments. Both are capable of measuring heat. However, they are really quite different. A thermometer is passive. It records the temperature of its environment but can do nothing to change that environment. A thermostat is an active instrument which determines what the environment will be. It effects change in order to create a climate.
The attitude of the leader, coupled with a positive atmosphere in the organisation, can encourage people to accomplish great things. And consistent accomplishment generates momentum. Many times momentum is the only difference between a winning, positive growth climate and a losing, negative growth climate. Leaders cannot afford to overlook the importance of momentum:
With momentum, leaders look better than they actually are. With momentum, followers increase their performance. With momentum, followers decrease their performance.
Momentum is the greatest of all change agents. Over 90% of the successful changes instituted in organizations have been the result of creating momentum before asking people to change.
To maximize the value of momentum, leaders must:

1. Develop an appreciation for it early.

2. Know the key ingredients of it immediately, and

3. Pour resources into it always.

The next time you find it difficult to adjust the environment in your company, keep in mind this simple fact from the laws of physics: Water boils at 212 degrees, but at 211 degrees, it is still just hot water. One extra degree, an increase of less than one half of one percent, can make the difference between a pot of languishing liquid and a bubbling cauldron of power. One degree can create a full head of steam – enough power to move a train weighing tons. That one degree is usually momentum.
Leaders in some organizations don’t recognize the importance of creating a climate conducive to building potential leaders. They don’t understand how it works. Advertising executive, William Bernbach, who understands the difference it makes, once stated, “I’m always amused when other agencies try to hire my people away. They’d have to ‘hire’ the whole environment. For a flower to blossom, you need the right soil as well as the right seed.” Until the leaders in an organisation realize this, they will not succeed, regardless of the talented individuals they bring into the firm. Right atmosphere allows potential leaders to bloom and grow. That is why the atmosphere needs to be valued and developed first. Even when a leader from an organisation with a poor climate steals away a potential leader who is beginning to bloom from the rich “Greenhouse” environment of a healthy organisation, the potential leader will not continue to grow and bloom. Unless, of course, the leader has already converted the environment of his own organisation from “artic” to “tropical”.
To see the relationship between environment and growth, look nature. An observation was made by a man who dives for exotic fish for aquariums. According to him, one of the most popular aquarium fish is the shark. The reason for this is that sharks adapt to their environment. If you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium in which it lives. Sharks can be six inches long and fully mature. But turn them loose in the ocean and they grow to their normal size.

The same is true of potential leaders. Some are put into an organisation when they are still small, and the confining environment ensures that they stay small and undeveloped. Only leaders can control the environment of their organisation. They can be the change agents who create a climate conducive to growth.
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Excerpts from an interview with Dr. Stephen Lundin, creator of the “FISH” Philosophy!

FISHING FOR FUN AT WORK

There is nothing fishy about the ‘fish’ philosophy. It is a serious message about creating a work environment that makes people more productive .

It is a Monday morning, and you can’t wait to go to work. You walk past the cubicles of your colleagues and hear enthusiastic conversations about how promising this week looks to be for business.
Your boss greets you with a smile and tells you that you have been a superstar, and he wants you to be in charge of a new project.
Seems unreal? Not if your organisation has adopted the ‘fish’ philosophy, according to Dr. Stephen Lundin, author of ‘FISH’ and creator of the phenomenal organizational change philosophy.
Time and again, research has proven that happy employees are more loyal and productive. Absenteeism decreases when people look forward to going to work.
Most importantly, people who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive and better decision-makers, and they get along better with co-workers.
Yet, very few organizations are able to create such an environment, Dr. Lundin observes.
“It is a tough leadership challenge and it requires commitment. It is about how you can co-create an environment that is fun and joyful and makes people happy. It is about creating a high quality of work life. Very few organizations can make this happen because they don’t understand the special set of principles involved.”
Work Play. So what can you do? Dr. Lundin shares how fishmongers at a Fish market (hence the Fish Philosophy name) are the best examples of what a company can do to introduce fun into the work-place and reap the rewards.
Here, the fishmongers are known for throwing and catching large slippery fish to the delight of customers. It is one of the many ways they ‘play’ – which is the first guiding principle of the ‘fish philosophy’. “Work made fun gets done, especially when we choose to do serious tasks in a light-hearted, spontaneous way”, he explains.
Does fun in the workplace sometimes adversely affect the seriousness of the business? No, refutes Dr. Lundin. “Play doesn’t affect the seriousness of the business, unless you take yourself seriously at work. When you do that, you create a negative atmosphere.” He says.
However, the use of fun and play in the workplace must be appropriate in nature, and, he cautions. “It should never be offensive”.  
Make their day. While fun in the workplace can elevate the productivity level among employees, you can turn routine encounters at business – be it employees or customers – into special memories through an unforgettable engagement, Dr. Lundin says.
In the workplace, a small gesture of kindness, remembering a name or offering a word of support during a difficult time can make your customers and fellow team members feel very happy.
Be Present. Beyond that, Dr. Lundin notes, it is vital to abide by the third guiding principle of the Fish Philosophy – “being there”
“You have to be there. It doesn’t work if you work over your shoulders,” he emphasizes.

Being present wholeheartedly at work is one of the greatest ways to fight burnout and fatigue, “for it’s those half-hearted tasks that you perform while juggling other things that wear you out”.
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“ON-LINE TRAINING ~ E-LEARNING ~ SELF DEVELOPMENT"

Self and Career development refers to the continuing growth and exercise by a person in his/her work life, towards higher performance and achievement which is rewarded by material dividends and personal satisfaction. It implies continual learning ability to recognize and seize opportunities, and management of the balance between work and other aspects of one’s life. Career success is no longer about security and progress in the one organization; it is about continuing employability. As jobs change, organizations change. Individuals like you must be able to adapt and offer the skills and qualities that are becoming needed

The last 10 years have witnessed the downsizing of organizations on an enormous scale. The obvious question to ask of career development is why should organizations concern themselves with it at all? The psychological contract of employment which implied a long-term relationship has been broken. Organisations now appear to employ people on an “as needed” basis, leaving workers to the responsibility of developing and marketing themselves in a fluid labour market.

As an individual, your responsibility is to become an active and productive member of the workforce by constantly accepting challenges to do things better and smarter. Focus is therefore placed on you as an individual. You are responsible for your own learning, and your hunger to learn and grow will be the key to your company’s performance. You are to share the responsibility with your company to establish a meaningful career path for you, and give the company’s customer the excellent service and products expected from the company.

TNI has discovered that working adults can hardly find the time for themselves in this fast and competitive environment. Attending training courses sponsored by their companies is a burden rather than an incentive for them to improve themselves. Most of the time they return to their workplace after a training program more frustrated than ever as they have to complete the day’s work and also those that have accumulated while they were away on training. Furthermore, post-course work assignments, which are to ensure that what has been learned is being practiced, are never performed for the same reasons, unless their supervisor or immediate boss is committed to his/her subordinate’s developmental progress. At the end of the day, the objective of sending people for training may be defeated.

 ON-LINE Training is therefore the answer for an individual who is keen to develop himself and his career, as he/she is able to learn at their own pace/time in their home,/library/office or anywhere convenient. In this respect TNI has designed a series of ten self-learning programs for the benefit of individuals on “Leadership and Management”. The programs are flexible as one can choose a particular program where one is weak or one can choose to take all the ten programs which is a complete package to develop oneself to become an effective  Leader and Manager.

Companies who are keen to develop and train their people are also welcomed to use the programs as a structure to meet its objective in training and development. Customisation may be necessary to align the programs to the company’s needs and objective.

Companies may introduce incentive packages to encourage their employees to register for this on-line self-study program by either providing subsidies or honorariums. Companies may even consider paying the fees in full, only if they complete the 10 programs and sitting for the assessment test organized by TNI on the company’s behalf.

For more information on the On-Line Self Study programs and the Assessment Process, please browse to the Online Training page.
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In our April ‘09 Issue of our newsletter, we promised to produce some tools for assessing and developing your leadership skills and here it is:-

How high is your people quotient (PQ)

Overview
How smart are you with the people you manage?
Based on the book, PeopleSmart: Developing Your Interpersonal Intelligence  (Berrett-Koehler, 2000), the People Smart rating scale can be used to obtain an estimate of your interpersonal intelligence as a manager. Just like an IQ test, it is scaled so that the average score is 100. Because it is a self-test, however, your answers will be subjective. Therefore, the mpre honest you are when you take the test, the more accurate your PQ score will be. Also, your standards may be different from those of other readers. Use other managers you know as your benchmark. Finally, you might find it difficult to make an overall judgement of yourself at all times and with all people. For example, your PQ may be higher with some of your direct reports than with others. As you take the test, consider choosing two or three of your direct reports as your frame of reference.

Next, ask yourself how effective you are in your relationship with whomever you choose. Better yet, invite some of these people to give you their views about your PeopleSmart skills. Either ask them to rate you on the People Smart rating scale, or ask them to look over the content of each skill and discuss their perceptions of your interpersonal effectiveness in each area. Whatever approach you use, you will find that focusing on a particular relationship is the best way to take stock of your PeopleSmart skills. (Mel Silberman)  

Go to PeopleSmart Assessment Now

ARTICLE(S) FROM THE INSTITUTE OF LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT, U.K.,

LEADING MINDS

The psychology of leadership used to be so simple – leaders gave the orders and staff carried them out, no questions asked. But the modern workplace is much more complex, and merely occupying a position of power no longer cuts much ice. Today’s leaders need to be experts in emotional intelligence, practiced in the art of persuasion and masters at motivation – all skills that demand a firm grasp of how the human mind works.
Psychology is never more significant than in a team situation. When a group of people come together, power struggles and personality clashes are always a possibility – the dynamics at play can make or break a project, team, even an entire firm. It’s down to leaders to turn that collection of diverse individuals into a coherent team that works in harmony rather than hostility. The trick is to understand what makes everyone of those individuals tick.
But psychology isn’t only invaluable within the workplace, it’s just as crucial in the wider business arena. Selling is as much about the mind as it is about money – the more you can find out about what drives the people who buy your product, the better your sales be. Take a look at neuromarketing, the latest development in consumer research which claims to shed light on our spending decisions by scanning our brains. It’s caused concern among consumer groups but, as you’d expect, the commercial world has welcomed the insights with open arms. And no wonder because, as retail psychologist Tim Denison tells us, it’s those businesses which really know their customers that are best placed to ride out the current economic storm.
The psychology of leadership may have got a whole lot more complicated, but one thing’s still quite simple: the better you understand your people – staff and customers alike – the better you and your organisation will perform.

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DEFINITION OF THE WORD “MEANING”:
In the context of employment, it can be understood as contributing to society, a job I can do well, and a job I can be proud of.
(Colette Hill,chairman of CHA)

Why do we go to work? For many people the answer is simple – to get paid. For an increasing number of employees, however, the motivation for getting out of bed in the morning is a little more complicated. Take the 10 million or so teens and twenty somethings that make up Generation Y in the UK – this demographic are a job-hopping, brand aware,  technology-friendly bunch. However, despite growing up with the immediacy of the internet and mobile phones, and developing an ever-decreasing attention “span, this ‘millenial’ generation actually craves meaningful work. And they are not the only. The word is that the post-war baby boomers and Generation X this yeariers – those born between the mid-60s and the early 80s – are swapping well paid private sector jobs for non-profit organizations and the public sector in ever greater numbers.
But is all this talk about people wanting more meaningful careers just media hype? And if finding meaning at work is more important to today’s prospective employees, how can organizations go about providing it?
A good place to start looking is Worthwhile Work, a report produced earlier this year by workplace communications consultancy CHA, which canvassed the opinions of 1500 employees from a mixture of private, public and charitable organizations. According to Colette Hill, chairman of CHA, the results are a little surprising.
The Quest for meaning
“Our report found that over three quarters of working people in the UK are searching for meaning in the workplace, especially among Generation Y” she says. “Over 60% of 18 to 25-year-olds say that they would like to have more purposeful work”.
But what does ‘meaning’ actually mean when it comes to employment? “In this context meaning can be understood as, in the words of our respondents, contributing to society, a job I can do well, and a job I can be proud of” says Hill.
Jonanthan Austin, managing director of Best Companies, the people behind the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For list, is another person who has seen a sea change. Austin has been in the business of measuring employee engagement – the level to watch people involved with their organisation – for nine years now. He refers to the book, The Three Signs of a Miserable job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick M Lencioni. The third, after anonymity and immeasurability, is irrelevance, where people have no idea what difference their work makes to the organisation or the wider world. This ties in with the concept of developing a best company, explains Austin, which would involve four essential building blocks – primary purpose; principles; outrageous ambition; and an ingenious plan.
“First is the primary purpose” he says. “Often people think that a job is about making money, but that is a by-product. It is about what they are there to do on a day-to-day basis.”
Thus the primary purpose of Flight Centre, the travel agency, is to open up the world for those who want to see it” says Austin. Similarly for Arup, the design, engineering and planning firm, the primary purpose is ‘shaping a better world’, he adds.
This makes sense – having a clearly defined purpose would help people in an organisation understand how they are making a contribution to the bigger picture. But if employees have started looking for something extra from their work and are trying to contribute to the greater good, why is it happening now?

In terror of English!!!

English is really not a foreign language in Malaysia. In fact, by the decree of Ministry of Education, Malaysia, English is made the second language. Everywhere you go you can easily see advertisements and billboards in English. We have English newspapers and television and radio channels in English - thanks to ASTRO, TV Malaysia  - They offer more English programmes compared to Malay, Chinese or Indian programmes. So imagine my surprise when in my course of being a trainer I’ve met quite a number of  working people who claimed that they are terrified of English language, particularly for oral communication. My first reaction was, “Really? You’re afraid of English? But why?” Mind you, this was my reaction when I was still green in my training experience. Nothing much faze me now… I hope. Okay, back to the issue at hand.  I can understand if they told me that they don’t like to use the language or they feel unpatriotic, but being terrified is a whole different matter already. It doesn’t matter where they work, be it in government agencies or in private sectors, many seemed to share this fear. In the end most of them opt for the easy way out – by refusing to use English at all. Of course, they may slip-in one or two commonly used words of English in a sentence when they are speaking, but overall they prefer to fall back on the national language or their own mother tongues. What could actually be the reasons, you may ask.
So now let me tell you the why of it.  Many say that they are afraid of making mistakes particularly in terms of grammar and structure.  So rather than making grammatically or structurally wrong sentences, they prefer not to use it at all. Another reason says that they developed the fear because their environment do not provide them room to practice the language, so when they are thrown in a situation where they have to use the language, they become terrified. Lack of vocabularies is next in line. Having to struggle for words embarrass them.  In fact some are also afraid to use English because people might laugh at them for their mistakes.  To write in English is even worse because then there is visual proof of their mistakes. Well, I am not discarding these reasons as being unimportant or unrealistic. Like any other problem, any reason for it is a huge reason because it is a personal reason. However, what we have to ponder on is the counter-reasoning - why is it crucial for working people to overcome this fear?
It is essential to change the mindset in order to discourage this fear of English. To do so, the easiest way is to show them the advantages of acquiring this language.  First and foremost, having the skills to communicate in English is a step towards career advancement. Those who can, be it in written or oral English, in general are easily recognised by their superiors. Once you’re recognised, you tend to be given more trusts and opportunities which in turn would give you a higher possibility of a promotion or salary increment. Another is self-advancement. In today’s world without border, information

highway is at its most efficient. The majority of information is delivered in English language. Therefore, you can be one the people who can educate themselves and improve your knowledge particularly in matters regarding your profession. This can also be turned into career opportunities and advancement. It also opens up more options for you in terms of work employment. These are just a few among many more benefits that you can reap by having the ability to communicate in English.

Now that you know the advantages you need to know the ways to improve yourself. The old age advice is to read more English materials. Well, I would not say this is a fast cure for all because not everybody learn the quickest way through reading. If you go along with the Multiple Intelligence theory, those with verbal-linguistic intelligence might be. If you do belong to this group of people then, you should read more English stuff particularly those with more conversational input like dramas, plays or novels. Read the dialogue aloud to practise the pronunciation and intonation use in different situation. The practice will help you be more familiar in using the language.
However for those who are not in this group, you could try watching English movies, series or documentaries. So get some DVDs to help you. Instead of just watching and listening to it, you should copy or imitate the way the actor/speaker says different sentences. That would quicken the way you grasp the usage. You will also learn to use the right grammar/structure automatically as you are taking each sentence as a whole. You will also learn to use it in context.
Another way to practise, if your environment does not provide you with room for it is by listening to the radio – English station of course. So what you can do is try to respond to DJ’s comments in English. Speak aloud, as if you’re talking to him or her. This way you train your brain to structure sentences and find appropriate words to use. If you keep this practice up, your brain will familiarize itself with the language and store up more information/vocabularies subconsciously.
These are among the few ways that you can administer on your own. Of course, the surest way of building up English language competencies is by enrolling yourself in a class. Not just a short two-day class. I assure you there is no miracle worker that can suddenly make you proficient in just two days. A longer duration course would be better to help you familiarize with the language and keep you on the right track, practice wise. So invest and enroll yourself in this type of courses and gain the tool for your career advancement. Best of luck then.

Sincerely,
Kay.

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