Marshall Goldsmith's Blog

When Your Employees Know More Than You

Managing today's highly skilled professionals takes special skills — and not the ones that you may think. Oftentimes, knowledge workers know more than you do about their jobs. So, how do you manage people who know more about what they do than you do?

In such instances, you have to look at leadership through the wants and needs of the worker as opposed to the skills of the leader. Here are some quick tips for effectively managing knowledge workers.

Demonstrate passion

In days past...

When Your Employees Know More Than You

Managing today’s highly skilled professionals takes special skills — and not the ones that you may think. Oftentimes, knowledge workers know more than you do about their jobs. So, how do you manage people who know more about what they do than you do?

In such instances, you have to look at leadership through the wants and needs of the worker as opposed to the skills of the leader. Here are some quick tips for effectively managing knowledge workers.

Demonstrate passion

In days past, working 40 hours per week and taking 4-5 weeks of vacation meant that people often focused less on loving what they do. Today people work 60-80 hours a week and it’s crucial that they love their work to avoid burnout. Those who lead by example and demonstrate passion for what they do make it much easier for their followers to do the same.

Strengthen abilities

With less job security and more global competition, it’s critical that people update and refine their skills continuously. Leaders need to look beyond skills needed today and help their workers learn skills they will need tomorrow.

Appreciate time

People have less time today, which means the value of that time has increased. Leaders who waste their workers’ time are not looked upon favorably. Leaders will be far more successful if they protect people from things that neither encourage their passions nor enhance their abilities.

Build networks

Today, job security comes from having ability, passion, and a great network. Leaders who enable people to form strong networks both inside and outside the company will gain a huge competitive advantage along with the loyalty of their workers. These professional networks allow people to expand their knowledge and bring it back to the organization.

Support growth

The best knowledge workers are working for more than money. They want to make a contribution and to grow in their fields. Leaders who ask their people, “What can our company do to help you grow and achieve your goals?” will find it comes back tenfold.

Expand happiness and meaning

No one wants to work at a meaningless job that makes them unhappy. Leaders must show their workers how the organization can help them make a contribution to the larger world and feel rewarded for doing something about which they are passionate.

Managing knowledge workers is a challenging and rewarding job. Leaders who do so must look beyond the work and think about the person who does the work if they are to be successful. By appreciating and encouraging the dedication, time, and experience of their workers, leaders help shape not only the futures of the professionals they lead but also the future of their organizations.

Learn to Embrace the Tension of Diversity

As leaders, the rich diversity of culture and thought around the world is one of our greatest resources — if we use it as such. Differences of ideas, methods, motivations, and competencies can be used to build great organizations. However, this wonderful resource can be a double-edge sword as cross-cultural exchanges present unlimited possibilities for misunderstandings and cultural blunders.

As companies grow and expand around the world, diversity in the workplace increases. Successful...

Learn to Embrace the Tension of Diversity

As leaders, the rich diversity of culture and thought around the world is one of our greatest resources — if we use it as such. Differences of ideas, methods, motivations, and competencies can be used to build great organizations. However, this wonderful resource can be a double-edge sword as cross-cultural exchanges present unlimited possibilities for misunderstandings and cultural blunders.

As companies grow and expand around the world, diversity in the workplace increases. Successful organizations identify, recruit, and train professionals from a diverse blend of backgrounds, cultures, styles, and motivations into positions of increasing power and responsibility.

In the midst of individual contributors with such diverse backgrounds, success calls for leaders who are comfortable with diversity tension. Diversity tension is the stress and strain that accompanies mixtures of differences and similarities. The task of leaders working in the global business arena is not to minimize this tension, but rather to use it as a creative force for change, and, of course, to make quality decisions in the midst of identity differences, similarities, and pressures.

Leaders who prepare and empower their employees to understand others without judging, to be requirement-driven, and to be comfortable with diversity tension are more productive and successful. It just isn’t enough for leaders to possess these capabilities themselves; they must also develop them throughout the organization.

What are some good first steps to developing positive diversity tension in the workplace? Well, one is to not make any assumptions about the cultural base or outlook with whom you work or do business. Another is to understand the dynamics of diversity (through historical, political, and economic references), how it affects the workplace, worldviews, life and communication styles, ethics, and etiquette of co-workers.

Developing positive diversity tension takes an understanding of both the big things and the small things that form unique cultures, including leadership and work styles (for instance formal vs. informal); decision-making styles (e.g. intuitive vs. analytical); information-sharing methods (do people prefer written, oral, face-to-face, text, email, video conference, etc.); and motivations (these could be power, achievement, affiliation, money, etc.). It’s not necessary to hold everyone’s views on these matters, but it is important to accept that there are many different methods, positions, and styles by which people can accomplish goals and directives.

Utilizing diversity tension in the workforce requires that leaders understand that differences in race, culture, and background are advantages — not deficits — for effective teamwork and problem solving.

To take embrace diversity tension, leaders need to:

Create an inclusive work environment where people feel welcomed and valued for sharing their opinions and skills
Recognize and reward successes that result from valuing diversity
Assess the different learning styles and strengths in people
Involve people from a variety of backgrounds in decision-making and problem-solving processes
Utilize the full potential of all employees and build on complementary skills, backgrounds, and cultural knowledge
Refuse to accept behaviors that attack the self-respect of others and confront people who stereotype others or display prejudiced behavior
Participate in diversity training
Involve a wide variety of people in their personal and professional lives, and take the time to get to know them

Using tension of diversity as a positive, rather than viewing differences as negative, a well-rounded diverse team will be able to produce valuable brainstorming sessions, imaginative problem-solving and decision making, unique perspectives on strategic planning, and inventive product development ideas. The benefits of such a diverse workforce will be felt throughout the organization and are key to competing successfully in the global marketplace.

Sharing Leadership to Maximize Talent

With global expansion, intra- and inter-industry restructuring, and increasing numbers of merging organizations, the need for dynamic flexibility and a broad base of knowledge and expertise is greater than ever. Shared leadership, by virtue of its use of the combined best of leaders' abilities, is being tested as one possible solution for meeting these challenging business needs.

What is shared leadership?

Shared leadership involves maximizing all of the human resources in an organization b...

Sharing Leadership to Maximize Talent

With global expansion, intra- and inter-industry restructuring, and increasing numbers of merging organizations, the need for dynamic flexibility and a broad base of knowledge and expertise is greater than ever. Shared leadership, by virtue of its use of the combined best of leaders’ abilities, is being tested as one possible solution for meeting these challenging business needs.

What is shared leadership?

Shared leadership involves maximizing all of the human resources in an organization by empowering individuals and giving them an opportunity to take leadership positions in their areas of expertise. With more complex markets increasing the demands on leadership, the job in many cases is simply too large for one individual.

Sharing leadership isn’t easy, but it’s definitely possible, and in many cases, highly successful. For instance, at a company that creates user interfaces for web design, the role of CEO was too extensive for one leader. As a result, it was split into two positions with equal status and complementary skills sets and responsibilities. After splitting the role of CEO, the leaders built on the new team, hiring experts to head up research and development, architecture and design, and sales. Using the shared leadership model gave these leaders the opportunity to focus on the areas in which they are most talented, to hire team leaders, and thus develop a successful, well-rounded and somewhat “flattened” company versus a more hierarchically structured company. For this organization, flattening has also meant that power, authority, and decision-making are more widely and deeply dispersed, both laterally and vertically, giving each individual an opportunity to show his or her prowess in certain areas of the company. It has meant deferring to others when they have more expertise. This is not always the easiest thing for leaders to do.

Here are some suggestions for sharing leadership and maximizing talent.

Give power away to the most qualified individuals to strengthen their capabilities.
Define the limits of decision-making power.
Cultivate a climate in which people feel free to take initiative on assignments.
Give qualified people discretion and autonomy over their tasks and resources and encourage them to use these tools.
Don’t second guess the decisions of those you have empowered to do so.
Consider yourself a resource rather than the manager.
Set appropriate follow-up meetings to review progress and take corrective action if necessary.

If you do delegate more to people who are closer to the customer and allow them to take on challenging responsibilities, you will find that you have more time. You will spend less time directing their projects and you may even develop a sense of accomplishment from the achievements of your people rather than from your own direct efforts. Even better, your employees may feel they are more like partners and become more engaged ultimately paving the road for greater success for the organization, the team, and themselves.

Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves

As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren't ready yet?

In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as "partners" rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders do not want to give up control.

I knew a CEO who was the leader of one of the...

Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves

As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren’t ready yet?

In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as “partners” rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders do not want to give up control.

I knew a CEO who was the leader of one of the world’s largest global organizations. He received feedback that he was too stubborn and opinionated. He learned that he needed to do a better job of letting others to make decisions and to focus less on being right himself. He practiced this simple technique for one year: before speaking, he would take a breath and ask himself, “Is it worth it?” He learned that 50% of the time his comments may have been right on, but they weren’t worth it. He quickly began focusing more on empowering others and letting them take ownership and commitment for decisions, and less on his own need to add value.

Your employees understand their jobs. They know their tasks, roles, and functions within the organization, and it’s time for you to let them do what they need to do to get the job done. But there is a critical point that is often missed: It isn’t possible for a leader to “empower” someone to be accountable and make good decisions. People have to empower themselves. Your role is to encourage and support the decision-making environment, and to give employees the tools and knowledge they need to make and act upon their own decisions. By doing this, you help your employees reach an empowered state.

The process does take longer — employees will only believe they are empowered when they are left alone to accomplish results over a period of time — but it’s effective and worth the time. If a company has a history of shutting down or letting go of initiators, for instance, the leader can’t just tell employees, “You are empowered to make decisions.”

Part of building an empowering environment is dependent on the leader’s ability to run interference on behalf of the team. The leader needs to make sure people are safe doing their jobs. To make sure this happens, an ongoing discussion of the needs, opportunities, tasks, obstacles, projects, what is working and what is not working is absolutely critical to the development and maintenance of a “safe” working environment. You are likely to spend a lot of time in dialogue with other leaders, employees, team members, and peers.

Following are a few things leaders can do to build an environment that empowers people.

Give power to those who have demonstrated the capacity to handle the responsibility.
Create a favorable environment in which people are encouraged to grow their skills.
Don’t second-guess others’ decisions and ideas unless it’s absolutely necessary. This only undermines their confidence and keeps them from sharing future ideas with you.
Give people discretion and autonomy over their tasks and resources.

Successful leaders and managers today are willing to exercise their leadership in such a way that their people are empowered to make decisions, share information, and try new things. Most employees (future leaders) see the value in finding empowerment and are willing to take on the responsibilities that come with it. If future leaders have the wisdom to learn from the experience of present leaders, and if present leaders have the wisdom to build an environment that empowers people, both will share in the benefits.

There are many more things that leaders can do to build and environment that empowers people. Please send any ideas you have. I would love to hear them!

How to Keep Good Employees in a Bad Economy

As we make our way through the challenges of the global economic crisis, high-impact performers are in demand. I'm speaking here of the indispensible workers who are willing to do what it takes to help the company succeed even in the most difficult of times. Those who pick up the slack when the organization is forced to cut back; those whose ideas save time, money, and effort; those with a positive outlook who help keep the organization moving forward.

How do you retain these people? The...

How to Keep Good Employees in a Bad Economy

As we make our way through the challenges of the global economic crisis, high-impact performers are in demand. I’m speaking here of the indispensible workers who are willing to do what it takes to help the company succeed even in the most difficult of times. Those who pick up the slack when the organization is forced to cut back; those whose ideas save time, money, and effort; those with a positive outlook who help keep the organization moving forward.

How do you retain these people? The answer, simply put, is leaders must manage their human assets (i.e., employees), and they must do so with the same vigor that they devote to financial assets. In tough economic times, this may seem difficult; however, it is critical for the success of the organization.

Here are some steps that organizations can take that will help them keep today’s high-impact performers and tomorrow’s great leaders.

Show Respect: This may seem rote, but genuinely treating employees with kindness, respect, and dignity will elicit the continued loyalty of employees to both the leader and the organization. It is possible to lead people through fear and intimidation; however, the odds of retaining and developing people using this style are slim.
Focus on a Thriving Environment: Creating an environment in which high-impact performers want to stay and will put their all into an organization takes more than a gimmick or enrollment in the fad-of-the-month leadership development program. It takes an environment where people are learning, getting training, and developing their skills — where through inquiry and dialogue, the leader creates an environment that allows each individual to thrive.
Offer On-Going Training: High on the list for leaders who want to retain high-impact performers is training and on-going education, both of which ensure that people can 1) do their jobs properly, and 2) can improve on existing systems. Cross training — giving people the opportunity to experience and train in different aspects of the company — is a great way to cross-fertilize between departments and across regions. This is a great competitive advantage when organizations are required to cut back on manpower. Cross-trained employees are equipped to handle different functions in the organization far more easily than those confined in silos.
Provide Coaching: By working one-on-one with employees in a coaching relationship, leaders can discover and tap the talents of individuals and direct their development, as well as align their behaviors and skills, thus becoming active as agents of change, enhancing the success of the organization.
Give Feedback: More than an annual review, leaders may give employees assistance in specific areas, such as developing networks, handling work/life balance, and attaining job and skills training. Providing feedback is more than an annual or semi-annual performance measure. It is a continual process which comes in the form of mentoring relationships, support groups, and action groups.
Money and Decision-Making: I haven’t yet mentioned compensation, which is an obvious employee retainer, but it’s not enough. In addition to compensation, people need to be involved in decision-making. The leader who asks people for their input on how the corporation can increase effectiveness is the leader who achieves buy-in from his or her employees. Not only does this help retain key talent, it also is a great way to generate ideas for organizational improvements.

Developing people is a strategic process that adds value to both the employees and the bottom line of the organization. Highly committed, highly competent people create financial rewards for the organization; organizations that develop their people and provide opportunities for growth are sought-after by high-impact performers. Great leaders know this simple formula. They understand it and strive to create an environment that supports it. And the result is success!

Readers: Please share your stories about retaining high-impact performers.