Imagine if you could ask one question that would tell you if your customers would buy more of your products and services or if they were going to your competitors! Looking at how revenue has increased or dropped in your different product and service lines is useful but it is a rear view mirror approach – it tells you your past, not your future. Customer surveys, by phone, face-to-face interviews, focus groups or on-line surveys are common ways to find out how customers see your products but they ask a lot of questions, take a lot of time, and are costly.

How many of us cringe when we get that phone call, are stopped in the shopping mall or get an email from the ‘customer representative’ who just wants a few minutes of our time to answer questions about our experience of company X’s product or services? Our first thought is often; “Oh yeah, a few minutes my foot, I know you’ll wind up asking 30 or 40 questions and take at least 15 minutes of my time!”   Our response is often’ “No thanks, I am busy right now!” – and that’s why the response rate to these surveys is often lower than 30%.

Fred Reichheld in his new book, The Ultimate Question, suggests that there is one question that predicts better than anything else if your customers are going to continue their business with you.  This question leads to a ‘Net Promoter Score’ which indicates the amount of commitment … Continue reading →

HR EDGE: In your extremely insightful book, you expose the dynamics of the toxic workplace and provide practitioners with clear guidance on how to deal with this serious problem. The book’s rich observations stem from the exhaustive research you conducted with over 400 business leaders, many from the Fortune 500 List. I am curious as to how you managed to get so many business leaders to “open up” to you about the “dark side” of their workplaces?

Dr. Holloway: Interestingly, these leaders were more than willing and prepared to share their stories. Many had never talked about it before. For most, I think the interviews we conducted were cathartic. Leaders also are genuinely interested in understanding how to better deal with these kinds of individuals. We know that toxic individuals can cost the company substantially in both human and financial terms. Leaders understandably want solutions.

Dr. Kusy: It came as a complete surprise to us that 94% of the respondents in our research reported they had worked with or were currently working with a toxic person. So far, most solutions have been short-sighted— simply firing the person without attention to the effect the toxicity has had on the team, the culture, and the leaders. The fact is, a toxic personality can infect a whole team and potentially bring down a company.

HR EDGE: In your experience, how well does the “average” person cope with a toxic colleague or a toxic boss at work?

Dr. Kusy: Although much has been written … Continue reading →

On TED.com ‘ideas worth spreading’, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg offers an illuminating 15-minute talk on why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions.

Sandberg states that of the 190 heads of state only nine are women and women comprise only 13% of parliamentarians worldwide. In the corporate sector numbers are the same as in 2002, says Sandberg, with only 15/16% of top level jobs held by women.

Sandberg highlights the necessity for female leaders to develop their capacity to be assertive in constructive ways when dealing with professional difficulties and to capitalise on their sense of potency.

There are many psychological, social and cultural obstacles to female professional leadership aspirations. If the obstacles that one struggles with personally are identified, a course of action can be determined to facilitate a dynamic sense and experience of personal potential that will lead to lasting change.

Putting to rest one’s personal demons is the key to unlocking true success both personally and professionally.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

Recently I was contacted by a CEO who wanted to build his executive and management team.  He had the right people, but they weren’t operating as leaders of the business. They were more focused on their own technical areas than on the overall success of the business.

After some discussion he decided to do a 360 profile on each manager to build their leadership and team skills. As part of the process, the CEO was very eager to see the reports and find out each person’s ratings and what other managers said about them.  Although this might seem natural, it actually compromises the confidentiality of our process, and could be seen as a betrayal of trust – which would have damaged the moral of the leadership team.

Instead I suggested the CEO could receive a copy of each manager’s development plan and that he could meet with each manager and our coach and tailor a performance program ensuring the CEO’s goals for each manager were taken into account.  His response was great and we will go ahead on that basis.  The CEO will get the outcome he was looking for and the participants will feel that our 360 feedback process is about their development and we will maintain their trust.

It made me wonder though, if you did a 360 Profile, would you be o.k. with your CEO seeing your specific results?

For Toxic Personalites Part 1 Click Here

So what did we find out about toxic behaviors in organizations?  Toxicity included behaviors that did not necessarily meet the threshold of bullying or harassment, but rather were more subtle and habitual. Based on our research, we discovered three types of toxic behaviors:

Shaming Passive hostility Team sabotage

These types of behaviors included, for example, pot shots, sarcasm, passive aggression, team surveillance, and territoriality.  Sound familiar?

We also asked leaders if their reactions and strategies in coping with these people were effective.  Surprisingly, they reported that the typical reactions of reconfiguring the team, simply avoiding the person, or giving performance feedback, just did not work. In fact, the often touted strategy of one-on-one feedback is largely ineffective because toxic individuals are unaware of the negative effect they have on others or simply feel justified in treating others badly.  As many of our respondents claimed, “the toxic person is mostly clueless they are toxic”.

Another revealing finding was that many toxic persons have a protector in the organization or on the team. In some cases the protector was a person who deliberately covered for the toxic person because they received something in return (such as high sales numbers or special consideration for advancement).

However, some protectors were actually trying to protect their teams from the debilitating effects of the person’s behaviour and were inadvertently enabling the toxicity to continue unabated. In our workshops, there are many participants who report the “aha” of discovering that … Continue reading →