Bless Your Heart, Jack Welch (and Thanks a lot!)

By DJ Mitsch, MCC

I am not sure if it was in the tobacco fields, my first sales job, my  broadcast management roles, my last leadership position, or my entrepreneurial venture with my husband that I learned firsthand that women don't really need to work harder or longer hours. . . they need to learn to ask for what they want and need.  In my experience and in my observations as a coach of both men and women over the last 20 years, women are the last to leave the field, the barn, or the office because, as a rule, they hate to leave work undone.  

Jack Welch, often proclaimed as the performance management guy who made GE profitable two decades ago (and took all the credit) was lambasted this month after a speech at the Women in the Economy conference held by The Wall Street Journal last week; Welch, standing by his " third" wife Suzy, told a group of women that the only thing that would aid their advancement is getting results. “Over deliver,” he said. “Performance is it!” 

You might imagine how the attendees of the conference reacted.  I overheard the comment at a reception for Dress for Success where a volunteer and executive with a global company exclaimed she felt gut punched and wanted to do the same to him. 

What I see in Jack Welch is an icon of the old guard, a dying breed, and someone who is out of touch with what other executives are finding as a key to success – not just in hiring and promoting women, but in accessing the wisdom that comes from a feminine energy of vulnerability and receptivity to change.  That energy is true for both genders.

Five years ago, Pyramid was invited to work with the top female leaders in a pharmaceutical company that wanted to address the gap in ratios of women to men leaders at the second and third line leadership levels. We developed a program entitled Accelerated Women’s Leadership Development Program (AWLD) to coach 92 women who had been identified as top talent.  78 of those women were promoted over the course of four years.  Among the findings, most of these women relocated easily because they were the head of household and stay-at-home dads made the move easily or spouses with careers offered to change their jobs too.  Most of these women were not interested in job titles rather in their ability to do something significant and contribute to making patient's lives better due to the therapies the company produced.  We learned that many hesitated to raise their hand to ask for a promotion, because they trusted leaders above them - mostly men - to notice if they delivered that high level performance that Jack speaks about.  When they were overlooked they became resentful.  We started our work by teaching them to ask for what they needed and wanted and to let go of the resentment or anger for things past.  We challenged them to see the life lessons in each situation.  When they shifted their mindsets, learned to ask for what they deserved and ultimately learned to trust themselves, they soared and were quickly promoted.  The fellows around them became champions of the program and often looked for new leaders to promote from this group of talented females.  

Most women don't care about climbing the corporate ladder in their Jimmy Choo Shoes . . . they don't care if they are the highest paid, or have to work late or harder to get things done.  They care about making a positive difference and they - make that WE - care deeply about a sense of community.  That community of women sustains us. 

Jack Welch is married to his third wife, a woman he had an affair with while still married to his second wife who was an attorney with a prenuptial that paid her a reported $180 million dollars. She must have read Smart Women Finish Rich. He doesn't have a great track record with women . . . or maybe he does.  Maybe he really loves women if we would just learn that to get ahead, we need to learn what is meant by performance.

So "bless your heart" (for the real meaning click here) Jack.   You are part of an old regime of executives destined to be remembered for the money you made, your philosophy on shareholder returns - how to fire the bottom 10% and reward the top 20% - which changed the face of American business in the 1980s and 90s and perhaps gave us the foundation for the work we do as coaches to restore the heart and soul in business in this day and age.  And for that, I say "Thanks!  Thanks a lot!"

Team Experience - A Link to Legacy

By Doug Leland, MCC, MBA

The experience of participating on a high performance team has as much (if not more) to do with life skills, leadership development, and legacy as it does with goals achieved by the team.

I encourage you to read that sentence again. It took me a long time to understand it.

From an early age I was introduced to the world of teams, and then immersed in environments of leadership. From captain of high school teams to the leadership lifestyle of the Naval Academy to corporate positions and assignments, all spoke of teams and leadership. Few, however, especially in the corporate world, spoke clearly or convincingly of what team participation and leadership is, why it’s important, or how to encourage, develop, and sustain it.

Too often I found corporate training programs ill-conceived, even if well intended. Too often the emphasis was on getting people to get along by analyzing personalities in effort to sidestep shortfalls, or develop workaround strategies that struck me as manipulative.

Many models had teams sharing a “coming-together, trust me experience,” though lasting benefit often fell victim to early expiration dates, because no one learned how to extend the shelf life. Too often the desire for improved team performance suffered when promotion, reorganization, or separation of a team member upset the equilibrium of a team that just learned how to get along -- too often the team wasn’t prepared to invite and engage new members. Lacking the experience, skills, and knowledge to further the team’s objectives amid changing teammates and dynamics, many (most) would drop back to familiar patterns, as would the performance of the team.

I hesitated to participate in furthering any of these dynamics. I did not want to confer leadership merit badges on those seeking to check boxes nor did I have interest in spiking the adrenaline of a team knowing there was insufficient substance to avoid the inevitable let down and disappointment ahead. There were (and still are) times when I question the business objectives of teams and whether my personal integrity is in peril if I support teams in reaching these objectives.

For all these reasons, I resisted facilitating leadership and team development programs, until …

Until, I shifted my perspective.

Reflecting upon my years in sports, and those as a Naval Officer and corporate executive, I realized that the brightest and most memorable moments were those as leader or teammate on what I considered a high performance team. The actual objectives (no doubt important at the time) are now forgotten or fuzzy, but the experience and sense of deep satisfaction remains clear and present. This is the most important product of experiencing high performance -- knowing what’s possible and how to replicate the experience.

In any endeavor pursued seriously, there’s a point of high achievement … this is where the bar is set. From that moment forward you have means for orienting around a heightened sense of what’s possible and enhanced skills for pursuing what others may deem improbable.

Teams, colleagues, goals, and objectives will come and go. The life lessons, however, from attaining and experiencing high performance -- as leader or team member -- last a lifetime. The wisdom gained from shared experience, enhanced expertise, elevated confidence, and procurement of practiced instinctual skills inherent with high performance, undergird all great legacies. This is the experience and contribution of Team Advantage, which is why I’m back, and fully engaged with shifted perspective and renewed energy.

About the author:

Doug is an executive coach, team development facilitator, health enthusiast, and author.  He has over 10 years of coaching experience and works with senior executives, business owners, and individuals in transition.  Doug has specific expertise in the healthcare field where he spent 15 years in management roles focused on the tensions between medical care costs and quality.  He has a special interest in health and wellness which he practices and encourages, believing that reasonable, responsible, and sustainable approaches to healthy living offer gateways to a balanced and fulfilled life.  Doug is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and holds an MBA from Northeastern University.

Wow Factor #3: Sustainable Change

By DJ Mitsch, MCC with Lynn Hays of Haysmar Research Inc.

This is the final post in a three-part series about the impact of Team Advantage from our recent research project.

Question: “Do training and other development programs really work, and are they sustainable?”

Prior to starting the Pyramid Resource Group in 1994, I was a General Manager and a sales manager of radio stations and sports networks.  I often purchased training programs and hired consultants for programming and sales as well as for leadership development.  Like other leaders, my experience of buying expensive training programs and sending folks to sales rallies or events was good, but short lived.  The best I could hope for at this time (during the 1980s and early 90s) was what research told me…that only about 5% of what folks learned would be retained and used.  Employees felt good after an event.  They enjoyed the time to reflect and learn more about themselves or others, but it was difficult for leaders to gauge the impact or return on their investment.

Part of my personal mission since developing Pyramid’s programs with Barry and the coaching team has been to identify ways that the profession of coaching creates sustainable impact.  I intended to show that coaching could provide the missing link between content and adaptation or execution of learned behaviors.

To summarize, our intention for doing a research project over the course of 24 Team Advantage games, was to identify if team coaching could drive behavior changes, which are at the heart of significant organizational change. We innately knew through our anecdotal stories from following teams we had coached that our participants felt they had been impacted by the experience.  Teams had achieved extraordinary results from games centered on thematic and strategic goals that the teams created, including: changing business models; reorganizing a company; achieving their company’s highest sales award; and improving their ranking in competitive sales organizations.  We had seen amazing results for close to two decades, but we had no scientific data to support what we saw. So this opportunity to measure the impact was welcomed. 

The third WOW factor we learned from the research was that all improvements in engagement and leadership behaviors were sustainable after the Team Advantage process was over.  Not measured but no surprise was that most of the organization’s team leaders who had worked with our coaches and managed the four-month process went on to adopt the format, the frequency of calls to check in with the teams and the skills for coaching and developing their teams long after we completed the process.

The bottom line is that there were 3 WOW factors:

1)      Employee engagement increased (see blog post #1 in this series)

2)      Seven of 12 leadership behaviors improved (see blog post #2 in this series)

3)      All improvements in engagement were sustainable (this post)

This is what we learned about WOW Factor #3:

3) All improvements in engagement and behaviors were sustainable.   

Of the 24 Team Advantage games, several concluded in July and August, and all had concluded by late October.  In January, we conducted a third survey of participants to find out if the improvements we noted at the end of the games had stayed with the participants or if they had fallen back into behavior patterns from the time before they started Team Advantage.  What we found was that every index score, for engagement and for all 12 behaviors, remained stable at the three-month point following the conclusion of Team Advantage.  This is important because training programs are often criticized for getting feedback at the end-point of the training period while there may be excitement from the successful completion of the training and an overall glow from the attention of being singled out to participate.  When you let the individuals return to their jobs and test again several months after the experience, you get a better measure of how sustainable the learned behaviors are.  In this case, all improvements were sustainable, implying that an actual transformation had taken place. 

Transformation is currently an overused word in the world of coaching, yet it is the best word to capture the essence of what happens when a team goes through these stages of development.  Dr. Bruce Tuckman is famous for observing and capturing those as: “Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing”  What we have added are the informing stage of listening to the team to create a gameplan for new actions and behaviors which results in the last stage which is Transforming - or going beyond the old form.”   

The Team Advantage process is one that I created to coach one broadcasting team through the change of their business model.  It worked so well for them, the company hired me to do six more in other divisions and they called it the Extraordinary Game as a result of their experiences.  Hundreds of games later, we now have data that supports what our coaching team realized long ago.

This approach works! Team coaching provides the missing link between a training event and sustainable change! We welcome your comments and ideas.

Wow Factor #2: Improving Leadership Behaviors through the Team Advantage!

By DJ Mitsch, MCC with Lynn Hays of Haysmar Research Inc.

This is the second post in a three-part series about the impact of Team Advantage from our recent research project.

Question: When was the last time your company measured leadership competencies and behaviors?

I have often wondered who decides that these behaviors are the right drivers for leadership.  We’ve found that large management consultancies determine what leadership capabilities could or should be, and we have also found that from one company to another, there is very little variation.  Companies want leaders to be customer centric, to drive change, demonstrate business acumen, communicate well, collaborate with peers and others, build trust, continuously improve individually and, as a sustainability strategy for the company, drive cultural norms, and build teams.  Some variations of these are at the top of every company’s list. 

These competencies (and/or behaviors) are regularly adopted, printed in nice brochures, occasionally highlighted in a leadership meeting and about 18 months later, refined or replaced by the latest consultant’s new approach to leadership development.  We have seen as many as 68 different leadership competencies outlined for leaders to hone and develop in others.  And that is just crazy.  Paring down to six top qualities gives leaders a sense of confidence that they can groom themselves and others to be empowered to take action, understand what they can control and align with a strategy for development. 

Bottom line, “Measuring the improvement in leadership capabilities is possible with the Team Advantage process.”

During the Team Advantage process, we mentored a group of 28 change agents to deliver the team coaching process.  The WOW factors from the research have been summarized in three key areas of impact:

1)      Employee engagement increased (see blog post #1 in this series)

2)      Seven of 12 leadership behaviors improved (this post)

3)      All improvements in engagement were sustainable (next post)

This is what we learned about the impact area – or WOW Factor #2:

2) Team Advantage participants demonstrated behavior improvement in 7 out of 12 behaviors and believed they improved in all Team Advantage behaviors.   

We looked at 12 behaviors: six from the client (flexible thinking, customer focus, driving change, developing people, building relationships and continuous improvement) and six from Team Advantage (self-awareness, communication, ownership attitude, collaboration, comfort in chaos and interdependency).  We measured actual behavior change by asking questions that found out how participants behaved or thought in certain circumstances.  The improvements we demonstrated in the research showed that seven areas significantly improved: flexible thinking, customer focus, driving change, developing people, building relationships, communications and interdependency. In other words, participants were more likely to act and think in ways that positively demonstrated these seven behaviors after they had gone through the Team Advantage experience than before.  For the remaining five behaviors, none declined; they simply did not demonstrate a statistically significant improvement. 

Besides determining the changes in behaviors by noting changes in the way participants said they acted and thought, we also asked participants to rate themselves on the six Team Advantage behaviors.  These self-reported ratings increased for all six Team Advantage behaviors, indicating that participants believed they personally improved in all of these areas.  In this case, these improvements are not so much an actual improvement in behaviors as in self-confidence, but that is an improvement in itself, particularly important for a sales force. 

What we learned as coaches is this – a team really has to go through a full process of creating something that they own – in our process, the Team Advantage game “extraordinary goal” –  storming through creative conflict, norming procedures, performing together so they can change their stories and transforming individually and collectively, ultimately taking ownership for the performance of the entire team.

We would appreciate knowing more about how you see leadership competencies being developed and how you think confidence can best be built in emerging talent and restored or honed in more senior leaders.  What are the best leadership processes you have used or witnessed?

The Secret Advantage, part 1

By DJ Mitsch, MCC with Lynn Hays of Haysmar Research Inc.

Over the course of the last year we conducted a change process for select teams within a global organization using Team Advantage as the accelerator for team development, embedding coaching and change leadership skills. The goal of the program was to train and mentor a host of change agents who could in turn foster change leadership, continuous improvement and team development in their organization. We believed that these change processes could improve employee engagement among those who participated in Team Advantage, so we built a measurement into the process. We invite you to read and explore with us the lessons and successes from the field in this series of blog posts about some of the findings.

Here’s how we started...

The research for Team Advantage, headed by Lynn Hays, was based on a simple principle: behavior changes are at the heart of significant organizational change. Transformation can't be achieved by thinking about or doing the same things the same way. 

Our first research task was to identify the behaviors that Team Advantage was intended to influence.  This was a little tricky because Team Advantage is highly personalized to the needs of the specific team.  (The outstanding executive coaches leading the Team Advantage teams adjust the content to what they see is most needed by the team.)  Nevertheless, we targeted six Team Advantage behaviors that seemed to cover the most significant portions of the curriculum, and we then added the behaviors that the client's performance management system regarded as necessary for success within their enterprise.  There was some overlap between the two.  Being a team activity, Team Advantage is more socially-oriented, helping people interact more successfully with coworkers and clients, while the client's high performance behaviors were more individually focused as expected with a field sales force.

After the behaviors were labeled and characteristics for each were specified, we created statements that were matrixed to each of the behaviors.  The responses to these statements were intended to reveal a way of thinking or acting that reflected whether or not the person had adapted the intended behavior.  The participants saw no behavior names with these statements, nor was the behavior being tested otherwise overtly identified. Some of the statements were positively stated while others were negatively stated with the intention of reducing the tendency to respond automatically.  

To further strengthen the case for whether behavior change took place, the responses to the questions that were matrixed to each behavior were grouped and tabulated as a single index for each behavior.  This technique is used to smooth the results among the individual questions so that changes over time for each behavior are easier to track.  The results of individual questions are still provided so that changes in a behavior can be narrowed down to those characteristics that seem to have the greatest impact on the change. 

That’s the how. Here is the WOW. 

There were three WOWs that this research revealed.  Each one will be explained in a post. The first was that employee engagement increased among the participants of the process.  Employee engagement increased among Team Advantage participants, largely because they gained a new respect for working with others.

Employee engagement usually recognizes three components – people are engaged because (1) they love their job, what they do on a daily basis; (2) they believe in the company, its mission, leadership, products and direction; and (3) they respect and enjoy the people working with them.  Of these three factors, the only one that can be externally affected by an experience like Team Advantage is the third aspect of engagement.  And in fact, that is what we discovered.  The specific engagement statement, “the people I work with adapt easily to new ways of doing things” increased by over 25 percentage points among Team Advantage participants.  For this study it was one of five engagement questions that made up the engagement “score,” and although one other question, “Leaders communicate a vision of the future that motivates me” also increased, another question actually decreased by 4.3 percentage points, “Considering everything, I am satisfied with the company at present.”  (The remaining two questions were unchanged during this period.)  The conclusion from reviewing these responses is that engagement, as defined by the client company, increased among Team Advantage participants, largely due to the positive change in the way they viewed the other people working with them, and this was documented after they experienced Team Advantage.

That gives you a glimpse of our experience…tell us how you have increased employee engagement at your company.  Have you found other ways to promote respect for others, improved communications, self-reflection and collaboration?

The Pyramid Resource Group, Inc. Hires Stacy Lindley, PharmD as Director of Business Development

Former Sales & Marketing Leader from GlaxoSmithKline, Stacy Lindley, brings over 14 years of Sales, Marketing and Change Management Experience to The Pyramid Resource Group, Inc.

CARY, NC; February 2, 2012 – The Pyramid Resource Group, Inc. announced today that Stacy Lindley has joined the company as Director of Business Development.  Stacy will be responsible for Pyramid Resource Group’s global development activities to include initiatives for change leadership, women’s accelerated development, and team effectiveness.

Stacy brings a wealth of experience from GlaxoSmithKline.   Most recently she was Director of Commercial Operations & Chief of Staff for the Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Urology Division where she was responsible for strategic initiatives to increase employee engagement and change management capabilities.  After joining GSK in 1997, she held various leadership positions in Sales, Marketing, Sales Training and Operations.  Stacy holds a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Mercer University School of Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.  Stacy lives in Raleigh with her husband, Matt and their children Jack (6) and Eliza Grace (1).

Co-Founder of Pyramid, DJ Mitsch says,  “Stacy’s enthusiasm for our work is based on her management of several key PRG initiatives while a member of the executive team at GSK.  She has experienced our work from the inside out.  Now she will help to drive these initiatives in new companies willing to play an extraordinary new game. Stacy is an energetic and brilliant partner.  Her expertise and insights into healthcare will serve our growing list of client companies in this arena.  Our goal to guide leaders to create whole and healthier companies will be reached faster with Stacy in this critical role on our team.”

“I am thrilled to join the team at Pyramid Resource Group” commented Stacy.  “With this inspiring, world-class team of executive coaches, the successful launch of Team Advantage [a proven team coaching program] and a brand new Healthcare Coaching Institute on the horizon, the company is well-positioned to grow in the fast-paced changing healthcare market.  There is also tremendous growth opportunity in diversifying outside of healthcare and taking best practices into other industries facing significant change.”

The Pyramid Resource Group, Inc. is a corporate coaching and leadership development company based in Cary, North Carolina.  Founded in 1994, the company partners with Leaders of Leaders and forward-thinking organizations world-wide to provide solutions for executives and their teams.  Pyramid’s principal DJ Mitsch is the creator of Team Advantage, a coaching program specifically designed for team transformation and published internationally by Pfeiffer Wiley Publishing

Contact Stacy:

Phone 1-919-677-9300 ext 104

stacy@pyramidresource.com

More on Pyramid Resource Group:

About The Pyramid Resource Group, Inc.

Sixteen years ago when we started our corporate coaching company, it was often difficult to explain to a prospective client what “coaching” was all about. As time has passed, it has actually become even more difficult to distinguish “coaching” from the myriad offerings available in the training and leadership development space.

Coaching is now a buzz word attached to just about every form of professional development. There are executive coaches, life coaches, marketing coaches, wellness coaches, family coaches, team coaches, group coaches, career coaches, speaking coaches, writing coaches, productivity coaches, and many more. So how do you know if you are buying master level “coaching” or just another training or consulting activity that is labeled as coaching?

The International Coach Federation (ICF) has done a phenomenal job of legitimizing the coaching profession. However, the ICF’s definition of coaching is very broad and leaves open many possible interpretations. The ICF defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” Applying this definition may not clarify the distinction between coaching and other offerings labeled as coaching.

A few additional distinctions may be helpful. Coaching is often compared with the practices of counseling, mentoring and consulting. Given that most people understand the traditional application of counseling, here are a few differences between mentoring, consulting and coaching to help distinguish the three approaches.

In a mentoring relationship, the focus of the work is primarily on succession preparation and training. An experienced executive serving as mentor helps a more junior staff member to learn the ropes and shares their learning and experience. The mentor has the answers and provides guidance and wisdom to help their colleague advance successfully in an organization.

In consulting, the consultant is hired to solve a problem and to provide their unique expertise. They have all the answers and provide advice.

In contrast, a coaching approach stays focused on the present situation with an executive or a team. The coach helps the client find the answers through careful listening, questioning, and challenging. The coach and client work together and most importantly, the coach holds the client or team responsible for their commitments.

Depending on the circumstances, companies may be better served by hiring a consultant or engaging an executive in a mentoring relationship. Just be aware that the approach taken is different than if “coaching” was employed as an option. And this leads to the final question…how do you know if you are truly hiring a “coach?”

With so many professionals labeling themselves as coaches, it can be difficult to wade through the promotional material flooding the marketplace. Here are some tips for hiring coaches and coaching companies:

Look for coaches with ICF credentials. If a coach has ICF credentials, you will know that they have completed coach-specific training and recognize coaching as a distinct profession. A PCC – professional certified coach – - has logged 750 hours of coaching experience and has completed a rigorous application process, including a certificate from coach specific training. The MCC – master certified coach – has completed 2,500 hours of professional coaching and has demonstrated leadership contributions to advancing coaching as a profession.

Look for companies who offer choices among their coaching team. Coaching is a very personal activity and clients need to have the option of choosing the coach with whom they are most comfortable. Simply randomly assigning a coach to an executive or team can be very counterproductive, and not achieve desired results.

Ask for an outline of the coaching process to be followed. Are there processes that provide for feedback and company alignment while also maintaining confidentiality in the coach/client relationship? How will the sponsors stay in the loop on progress, while the coaching contract remains confidential between the coach and leader?

Coaching has come a long way since its humble origins in the early 90’s. Studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of coaching with documented return on investment studies being published regularly. We will touch on some of those ROI studies in a future blog entry. For more about recent research findings, visit CoachFederation.org.

TrainingIndustry.com has invited us to contribute to their popular website. Our coaching team has posted 4 recent blogs on the site. Check out Marcia Reynolds talking about approaches to coaching leaders at Seek to Create, Not Avoid and discussing some leadership tips at When Helping Employees Hurts Performance. Coach Michael Cassatly weighs in on health care issues at The Healthcare Crossword Puzzle. And finally, DJ and Barry Mitsch address the question, What is Really Meant by “Coaching.”

Enjoy all the resources on the TrainingIndustry.com website.

Our affiliate Coach Marcia Reynolds recently published this article on the Training Network. As the economy improves, expect job opportunities to increase for your top talent. See what Marcia has to say about keeping your top talent.

Keeping Your Top Talent