Silver Medalist at 41 – Leveraging Your Silver (Graying) Workforce

Dara Torres Settling for Silver and Winning Gold in the Hearts of Many

After a sixteen day run of full Olympic coverage at every hour imaginable, the Olympics came to a conclusion last evening on NBC. There were memorable moments after memorable moments that were written about and highlighted throughout the Games and will be for many days to come. Everyone most likely has something to remember that will stick with them for years.

One of the stories I will remember is Dara Torres in the 50 meter freestyle event. Dara at the age of 41 competed at the Olympics for the fifth time and came 1/100th of a SECOND from winning a gold medal in an individual event. At Age 41, Dara Torres swam her personal best and competed against others much younger than her including Cate Campbell of Australia 25 years younger!

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Not to mention the admiration I had for someone at her age competing at the ultimate level of competition, she did it with a grace that is often unseen in sports. In the preliminary rounds, she selflessly asked to delay the beginning of the race so a fellow competitor could change their swim gear. As she realized she lost out on gold by a fraction of a second, she graciously smiled, cherished the moment, and realized she had swum her personal best. After her heartbreaking finish, she quickly recouped and helped her relay team capture a silver medal as well.

 

Torres said, “I’m hoping that my age paves the way for other athletes, who maybe think they are too old to do something to get back in or continue in the sport.”

 

As others observed the performance and style of Torres, one has to ask whether businesses and leaders are allowing an older generation of employees to achieve success and accomplish their personal best later in their careers. With the impending talent shortage, organizations that understand how to tap into their senior workforce as they near and even after retirement will have a distinct competitive edge.

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As you assess your aging employees ask yourself,

• Are we taking advantage of the knowledge this person has accumulated over the years and asking them to capture their knowledge and transfer it to others? Are we helping them accomplish this and making it easy and enjoyable to do?
• Have we asked them to mentor others and coach and teach younger employees the tangible and intangible aspects to achieve success and achieve great performance?
• Are we asking them to achieve their personal best later in their career by focusing on a project or program that utilizes their abilities and wisdom accumulated throughout the years?
• Have we involved them in determining the legacy they want to leave at the company? If not, we may be wasting an unbelievable talent that could help us increase our medal count in the game of business.

For all of those that watched Dara Torres perform and do so in style and class, don’t waste another moment…determine how to have your older employees achieve the same success!

America’s Pastime – Learning from Failure

Babe Ruth - Home Run AND Stikeout Records

As we head into August, America’s Pastime rounds into their pennant race with two months left in the regular season. In recent weeks, baseball has been front and center with some memorable events. The midsummer classic, All-Star game, was played at historic Yankee Stadium for the last time and was also the longest in history – 4 hours and 50 minutes. The American League won to extend their unbeaten streak to 12 games (including the tie in 2002).

The baseball hall of fame inducted the class of 2008 the other week. Heading the list was Richard “Goose” Gossage a long-time nemesis when I was a Kansas City Royals fan in my youth. Watching Costas Live on HBO, an interesting conversation took place on the opinions and thoughts on what signifies a Hall of Famer and what doesn’t. There was plenty of lively debate that included Pete Rose live in discussion along with the debate of those that may have used performance enhancing drugs. During the discussion, the one comment that truly captured my attention was by Dave Winfield. He stated that the great thing about the game of baseball is that it allows you to learn from your failures. He said that someone like himself failed to get a hit 70% of the time and is considered Hall of Fame status with his 30% success rate (.300 batting average).

After listening to the dialogue on America’s Pastime being a learning foundation from failure, I also heard a list of other successful people and their failures before their success:

• John Grisham was turned down 28 times before publishing his first novel
• Thomas Edison had over 2,000 inventions before discovering the one he is best known for today
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team
• Marilyn Monroe was told that she should consider secretarial work instead of acting
• Elvis Presley was fired after one performance, and…
• Getting back to today’s topic of baseball, Hermann “Babe” Ruth holds the all-time strikeout record.

Legend has it that the Babe said “I’d rather make a BOLD move and miss; than hit singles every time.” Of course, the Babe held the home run record for many years and is considered one of baseball’s all-time greats.

As a leader in your business, are you allowing your employees to make bold moves (hit home runs) and occasionally miss (strikeout) these days or are you only playing for singles? Our belief is that the economy can be a great excuse these days for leaders and employees to begin playing not to lose versus playing to win.

One leader that highlighted the five mistakes she made as infamous CEO of Pets.com and also how she moved on from them is Julie Wainright. Read the entire article at Five Life-Changing Mistakes and How I Moved On .

Now, it’s your turn …

• Are you taking the time to step back and learn from your failures?
• Have you established a culture that allows people to play to win versus playing not to lose?
• How are you helping others regain their confidence when they make a mistake?
• When is the last time, you took the time to really listen to your employees and understand how you can help them be more successful?

“Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories.”

               — Ralph Waldo Emerson

All-Williams Wimbledon Final: Leveraging Your Strengths to Win in Business

Venus winning the family title

Arguably, Wimbledon is the biggest stage in tennis. Imagine reaching the finals … competition will be fierce, your strengths must be leveraged and your competitor’s weaknesses must be exploited … and your opponent that you are squaring off against is your sister.  

Although sisters for life and doubles partners later in the afternoon for the Wimbledon final which they won as well, the sisters put most of that aside for nearly two hours as Venus Williams defeated Serena Williams to win her fifth Wimbledon singles title leaving Serena with two.

Setting aside the debate on the methods Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, utilized to manage the talent of his daughters, there is no debating the success the sisters have had in tennis and especially at Wimbledon. Leveraging the strengths of her game, confidence was oozing out of Venus throughout the tournament and finals.

Leveraging the strengths of your employees and allowing them to exhibit confidence in their jobs is every bit as important to elevating performance in business as it is in sports. The question for all of us:

• Are we taking accountability for the outcomes of our talent management efforts (how many “business-like” Wimbledon Finals have your employees won) or are we caught up and more concerned with the process to achieve those outcomes?

The term Talent management seems to be popping up everywhere these days. A Google search on the term provides over 2.6 million results. The tricky part seems to be the various definitions associated with talent management depending on whether you are involved in recruiting, development, etc.  Donald Taylor’s blog (http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/what-is-talent-management/) provides a strong definition for talent management that is more outcome based rather than activity based … making capability match commitments. 

As much as this makes sense, we often forget our employee’s capabilities and strengths that allow us to deliver on the organization’s commitments. Instead, we spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on what our employee’s can’t do or don’t do to the level of our satisfaction. This leads to development plans and identifying weaknesses (opportunities) to improve. No doubt, polishing the areas for improvement is valuable … as long as you don’t do so to the detriment and dilution of your employee’s strengths.

Just as Venus Williams’ game is suited to leverage her strengths for Wimbledon success … set your employees up for similar success by finding jobs and responsibilities that leverage their strengths to win the game of business.

Welcome Talent Management Community

Welcome to all of those that joined the LinkedIn Talent Management Community! If you have not joined already, we would like to have you as a member of our group. Click on the link to join – http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/134021/3C745D36A322 .

Our community believes an organization’s greatest asset is their people. Our purpose is to connect leaders interested in unleashing the power of their organization’s talent by sharing insights, research, tools, and networking opportunities on the topic of talent management.

Read the articles and information on the blog to date and share with us your ideas and topics of interest so we can make this community as useful as possible.

Learning from the NBA Draft – Unleashing the Power of Your Talent

2008 NBA Draft - Talent for the Future

“With the first pick in the NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls select … Derrick Rose from the University of Memphis.”

On Thursday night, a similar announcement for sixty different basketball players occurred. And with the announcement, the player’s childhood dreams came true…being drafted and having the opportunity to play in the NBA.

After the announcement, players in attendance hugged and kissed their family, strode up to the podium for pictures, TV analysts recapped and dissected the player’s college or international career, an interview followed with the player, chat boards began humming about the pros and cons of the pick, and the hopes for teams and players looking forward to the next season began.

It is truly amazing the amount of analysis that occurs on each and every potential NBA player. Organizations interview, test (physically and mentally), observe, review, scrutinize, etc. to attempt to predict the future performance of these athletes. See http://www.nbadraft.net/nba_draft_history/2008.html for a complete rundown of the draft and a “summary” of each and every player drafted.

Now that the draft is complete, many say the even more complex task begins…the development of the player for each and every team.

Is it really any different in business … “With the acceptance of our job offer, XYZ Company is proud to announce (fill in the name) will join our team as the starting point guard (oops) President of … ” The person gives the great news to their family and friends, expectations begin to buzz around the office, competitors and clients take note of the new person … Or is it different?

Even though many companies and leaders say people are their greatest asset, we see many that give the statement lip service. They “hope” their largest investment (people) produces the return needed for the business. Those that truly mean it and have a strategy and plan to accomplish it have a competitive advantage over others.

If people are your greatest asset, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Are you thoroughly predicting and assessing future performance before it comes in the door? Are you utilizing behavioral assessments to gain data and information that may be missed during interviews?
• Do you share with the person how you keep score, what is expected of them and what success looks like? Our belief is that people want to be successful but many times don’t know how you are keeping score … be as specific as possible about what extraordinary results look like.
• Do you take the time to ensure that the person gets off to a phenomenal start to their career? Once the person is hired, the game just begins. Accelerating a new employee’s on-boarding drops exponential results to the bottom line.
• Do you take the time to understand what motivates your employees? Too many times, managers try to determine this on their own and fail. Take the time to ask and listen, employees will give you the answers.

These are only a few of the many ways you can unleash the power of your organizational talent. We want to hear from you … share with us what’s working for you.

Tiger Woods Gritty U.S. Open Championship – What’s the (Business) Doctor Telling You?

Tiger Woods’ memorable performance in last week’s U.S. Open Championship provided another example of what a special athlete, competitor, and role model he truly is. Defining moments in sports live through the ages and are replayed for years to come…Babe Ruth pointing towards the bleachers and then hitting a home run, Michael Jordan’s last second game winning shot against the Utah Jazz before his retirement with the Bulls, Joe Montana’s touchdown pass to Dwight Clark against the Dallas Cowboys, Mario Chalmers last second shot just months ago leading the University of Kansas to a NCAA basketball championship. Tiger Woods accomplished his championship and memorable moment while he was in excruciating pain and over five consecutive days.

The interesting storyline on Tiger Woods continues to be how he never just settles for continuous improvement or incremental improvement. He looks to transform himself or his game to set the standard for success higher and higher. Whether it is redefining his swing, improving his strength, or recovering from surgery to win a championship, he transforms himself and the game of golf to a much more elevated level of performance.

The question debated in stories all over the media is whether he did the right thing by ignoring his doctor’s advice and playing in the U.S. Open. Will the short-term success of the championship take away from the long-term success remaining in his career? Only time will tell but hard to ever bet against Tiger.

In business, the health of your organization may be easier to ignore than the physical swelling pain in your knee on the golf course. The symptoms that would normally drive you to a doctor or even have you see doctors for your annual physical exam many times are ignored. We’ve heard from leaders that business is hard enough just keeping up with customers’ demands, finding, motivating, and keeping employees, and just delivering the services and products. Having to listen to all of the things you should be doing as a leader to ensure sustainable success can be overwhelming…it doesn’t have to be and can actually help you sort out where you should be spending your time. By ignoring the check-up, you may cause your business to plateau or experience really difficult times.

Some things to consider determining whether you need a check-up from your (business) doctor:

• Have you experienced great success for an extended period of time? We believe this is the best time to evaluate your business and determine what you will need to do to transform your business to take you to the next level. The danger is riding the momentum of your success and realizing too late that what got you to the current level of success won’t be the same things that get you to the next level.
• Are you just beginning to experience success? Now is the time to be thanking your customers for their business and understanding why they do business with you and what you can do better for their business in the future. Start asking your internal customers (your employees) what you can do better to ensure they remain motivated and engaged in the business. Without this information, it is difficult to determine where to invest your time to ensure sustainable success.
• Has your business softened or is struggling? Many leaders avoid help during these times. They believe that getting help is a sign of weakness and hope everything will reverse and get better. If you are really lucky, it may for a short amount of time but eventually you will be right back in this situation. We believe a much better solution is working with someone to help you see your “blind spots” and together determine the paths to take your business to a healthier place. 

It’s summertime. Why not schedule that exam for your business or for yourself as a leader? Visit our website to receive a free assessment on your strengths and opportunities as a business leader and request the article “Where You Are on the S-Curve” to understand more about the business life cycle of your organization.

 

Winning a State TEAM Track Title by Herself – Doing More with Less!

Bonnie Richardson stepped up and accepted the 1A team track championship for Rochelle High School. Definitely, the state title was a great accomplishment for any high school. Winning the state title with one person, Bonnie, was an even more remarkable accomplishment.

Richardson crossed over traditional track boundaries and competed and placed in sprints (winning the 200 meters and placing second in the 100 meters) and field events (winning the high jump, placing second in the long jump and third in the discus).

With all of the personalized trainers and expensive state-of-the-art equipment being offered to athletes these days, Bonnie’s high school doesn’t even have a real track. The football field has a ring of caliche and grass around it.

During these times of escalating gas prices and financial tension in the economy, we can all learn from the accomplishments of Bonnie Richardson and Rochelle High School of DOING MORE WITH LESS. It is easy to get caught up in the media’s never-ending coverage of distraught and begin to “admire the problem” and believe it is not your responsibility to solve things.

In working with Southwest Airlines throughout the years, I often remember a pointed speech Herb Kelleher gave at an all-Employee meeting. He declared, “As long as we (Southwest Airlines) believe we are small and the underdog acting with a warrior spirit, we will grow and become large. Once we believe we are large, we will become complacent and quickly become small.” Southwest Employees often rattled off stories of how they found ways to do more with less – opening up service from California to Las Vegas with $0 budget for promotion (think Elvis contest and TV coverage on the news) and how Herb asked EACH Employee to have a goal of saving a $1 a day during a previous fuel crisis (with 30,000 Employees…this adds up fast).

As you look to DO MORE WITH LESS, ask yourself the following questions:

• As a leader, are you mobilizing your organization, team, and employees to take action and identify opportunities or encouraging them to admire the problems?
• Have you evaluated what you need to start doing that you currently aren’t, what you need to stop doing given the low return on investment, and what you need to continue to do and invest in going forward? Helping Southwest Airlines with their Employer Branding program allowed them to reevaluate their people investment and refocus investments on the areas delivering the most value (see a recent interview in Workforce magazine on this program  http://email.workforce.com/a/tBIRU6dBmLlMBB7RP1FBvXUJZ8G/wfw75  and also Libby Sartain’s remarks in the Client Testimonial section of this blog).
• Are you challenging yourself to extend beyond typical boundaries for your role, function, and team to reinvent the game during these times? Bonnie evaluated what her skills allowed her to do and went out and did them versus letting the typical barrier of only participating in sprints OR field events get in her way.

Great opportunity exists in challenging times for those that seek it out.

Thanks to all of you for your comments on our blog and additional ideas utilizing sports stories for business insights. Please continue to send these to me and you never know when your idea will appear in a future post.

Celtics and Lakers: Lasting Dynasties – What about Your Organization?

As the NBA Finals begin, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers championship rivalry renews itself after a twenty-one year hiatus. The Celtics currently lead in total championships with sixteen to the Lakers fourteen – thirty championships between the two!

The joy of the rivalry is that different generations grew up watching the rivalry cheering for the Celtics and Lakers and those allegiances from childhood still tug at who you root for today. A tremendous amount of loyalty through the years! Whether it was my generation watching Bird versus Magic or my Father’s watching Russell versus Wilt and now my Children’s watching Garnett (or should it be Pierce) versus Kobe.

With all of this success, both organizations have had to reinvent and transform themselves many times to create lasting dynasties with great accomplishments through the years.

As you step back and think about your business, are you setting your organization up to be a lasting dynasty? We believe many organizations and leaders get trapped. Trapped in the day-to-day, trapped wishing for certain expectations while not seeing a clear path on how to get there. What use to work no longer does. But Why?

If this sounds familiar, begin asking yourself the following questions:

• What is your edge in the marketplace? Are you investing to keep this edge and do all of your employees understand how it differentiates you from others? Can your employees articulate it to customers and new employees?
• Do I understand how to get to the next phase of the business life-cycle and am I making changes to the organization and as a leader to move there? What got you where you are, won’t get you to the next level.
• Do I have the right talent to take the organization to the next stage of the business life cycle? Am I exhibiting the characteristics of a leader at the next level?

These are tough questions to ask yourself about your organization and yourself as a leader. And…you have to do so on a regular basis to create a clear path towards a lasting dynasty for your business.

Welcome to the world of elevating performance!

Welcome to my blog!

Imagine elevating the performance of your organization with a quantum leap in results in a condensed amount of time.

Successful organizations are not looking for continuous improvement. That’s a given. Michael Jordan didn’t just set out to continually improve his performance. Neither did Tiger Woods, Southwest Airlines, Apple Computer, or Starbucks. These people and companies made a conscious decision to transform the playing field and themselves.

Successful athletes are taught to understand that it’s perfect practice that leads to success. Practice in and of itself only leads to habit. Enjoy the insights and ideas to help you fine tune the “perfect” part on your journey towards elevating your performance.

Come back and visit regularly to read about insights and ideas from sports, business, and life to apply in your journey towards elevating your performance.