The companies that select, develop, and reward leaders with the right skills are more likely to drive growth through innovation.

The answers are in the room. - Susan Scott Last week, I was in Chicago at the Human Capital Institute’s Learning and Leadership Development Conference. A resounding theme from Fortune 500 leaders was the need to engage on a deep level with employees, to include them, when solving the most important issues for the business. They encouraged companies to invite others outside of the usual suspects. There were many examples of how ‘best’ practices ended up not being what worked for their companies, and what really worked was listening to their people.This mentality of engaging with others to solve problems applies on an organizational level along with the individual. So I ask you: What do you currently have on your plate that would benefit from other perspectives?From where I sit, the marketing team at Fierce is innovating on some processes we use with our Salesforce system. It is absolutely necessary for the marketing team to get together with the sales team and talk about the problems we want to solve. To be more inclusive, we are creating think tank meetings, and we will be using our team model. In this model, we take the time to truly discuss and understand the diverse perspectives before jumping to the decision. I am excited to see the solutions that come to the table.This week’s tip is to solve a problem by including others. Ask people for their perspectives on an issue and really get curious. Stop being the expert in the room, and rather, facilitate a conversation.Besides different people being invited to the conversation, do you have any tips for being more inclusive? The post Fierce Tip of the Week: Be Inclusive to Solve Problems appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

Toxic workplace cultures can make or break a company. It can be the difference between innovation or routine. Happiness or disappointment. Growth or decay.There’s some significant bottom line impact to boot. Low-level engagement within companies results in a 33 percent decrease in operating income and an 11 percent decrease in earnings growth, as stated in this Entrepreneur article.If we are not addressing the issues around low engagement and unhealthy behaviors, we are making costly mistakes. And sometimes, our mistakes may not be as obvious as they seem.Here are three of the top myths that leaders we work with say: There will be a spontaneous change.In the depths of our hearts, we, leaders, sometimes wish that one day we could walk into our offices and the negative behaviors/people would just be gone. And then, it is affirmed once more, that they still exist. They may have even grown in size overnight.Hope is not a strategy, people. Conversations are required. And not just any conversations, they need to get to the heart of the issues and talk about what’s at stake if things don’t change. We teach this skill set in organizations around the globe, because there is an effective way to do it…and a not so effective way.One negative person will not affect the entire culture.This is a funny one, because we often use it as an excuse to not confront the problem. In fact, in our recent survey, 80% of employees claimed that their organizations are somewhat to extremely tolerant of colleagues with negative attitudes. And they weren’t happy about it.One negative person can really destroy a healthy culture, not only because that person can spread beliefs, but also because people see leadership’s complacency. Silence can be equated to "this is okay behavior as long as you produce that large quota…or launch that new product". People will fill in the silence with their own stories, if you are not communicating.The culture is out of your control.You are the culture. You choose what it looks like every day. You choose it in the conversations you have. And even more so if you lead people, you model and reinforce those choices each time you interact with others.Sometimes this awareness comes naturally to people, and sometimes it doesn’t. There is a need to focus on accountability with cultural expectations. I talk about this more here. Have you told yourself any of these myths? The post Don’t Lie to Yourself: 3 Myths about Toxic Workplace Cultures appeared first on Fierce, Inc..

Have you ever written a thank you card to someone but then forgotten to mail it? For those of us who are postally challenged, this scenario might happen more often than we’d like to admit. We have the desire to do something nice, but we don’t quite have the follow-through. We begin calculating our tardiness and wondering if we’ve crossed an imaginary deadline that prevents us from following through with our good intentions. We may even give up and try to console ourselves with that old adage, "It’s the thought that counts." In customer service, your good thought does not count unless it includes action. Can you imagine approaching a customer and explaining that you thought about doing something nice but it didn’t happen? What customer would be wowed by that? If you want to create true wow moments for your customers, you will need to follow through and sometimes it takes more effort than originally expected. The guest story below is one example of the commitment it can take to get to "Wow." A Mutual Appreciation for Sake A guest was staying at The Ritz-Carlton, Kyoto, and she chose to dine in the hotel at the tempura counter in the Japanese restaurant, Tempura Mizuki. While serving the guest Japanese rice wine, the Manager of Mizuki engaged the guest in conversation and discovered her interest in the varieties of modern rice wines in Japan. The Manager of Mizuki took the guest on a beverage journey during the course of her meal, explaining different styles of sake and providing small tasting portions of each to make her dining experience more memorable. The guest enjoyed the experience. She told the Manager of Mizuki that she was a travel journalist and intended to use some of his information in her next project. Then, she showed him a picture of a unique sake that she had tried on a prior visit to Japan. She mentioned how she wished she could find a bottle to take home with her to the United States. The "Almost Impossible" Sake Search The Manager of Mizuki offered to call sake stores in the city to try and find a bottle of that specific sake. However, when he began calling stores, he found out that the sake was no longer being produced—making it exceptionally rare. Every place he called was sold out of it. The guest’s time at the hotel went by quickly, and she returned to the United States. However, the Manager of Mizuki was determined not to give up and contacted the Purchasing Manager for assistance. The Purchasing Manager contacted the hotel’s usual suppliers only to discover the same dilemma as the Manager of Mizuki. However, the Purchasing Manager went one step further and called the brewery directly, explaining the situation and checking if they had any bottles of the sake left. To his delight, the brewery did have some, and he quickly struck a deal to have a bottle sold to the hotel. The Manager of Mizuki then contacted the guest to inform her that he had finally found a bottle after looking for over a week. He shipped the bottle to her, along with some traditional Japanese sake cups and a warm message. The guest was so happy to hear the news, mentioning that she could not wait to come see the Manager of Mizuki on her next visit to Kyoto. The Rewards of Reaching "Wow" After the guest checked out of the hotel, it would have been tempting to give up the search for the elusive sake. Why bother at this point? The guest had checked out and was no longer a customer, right? However, the Manager of Mizuki didn’t give up. He did the opposite—he escalated his efforts and involved a colleague. Why make that kind of effort for a guest who had left the building? One of the Service Values at The Ritz-Carlton states, "I build strong relationships and create Ritz-Carlton guests for life." The Manager of Mizuki had genuinely engaged with the guest and wanted to honor their relationship by following through. Imagine the surprise and delight of the guest when the package arrived at her home in the U.S. with the bottle of sake and the Japanese sake cups. The "Wow" moment didn’t happen in the expected time frame, but the fact that the Manager of Mizuki didn’t abandon his quest probably made the gesture even more of a "Wow"—and certainly, a memorable customer experience. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Guest Story: Commitment to Wow Moments appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

GP Strategies polled our experts from around the world, asking each to give their take on gamification in learning. The result was an insightful snapshot of attitudes and thoughts surrounding gamification and can be found in our latest eBook. In our third Meet the Expert post, we would like to introduce you to Micah Modell. Micah fondly recalls congregating with friends in a college dorm room to solve the puzzles in the latest installment of the Myst™ series. This interest initially steered him towards leading enterprise software development teams where he found great satisfaction in developing the skills of others - pointing him towards the field of education and instruction. While pursuing a master’s degree in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation, he gained practical experience teaching English to elementary school children in South Korea. His students taught him that they were more interested in earning a point for their team than a grade for themselves.  Later, while managing the curriculum at a large software company, he employed story to drive home the practical value of key concepts to his corporate audience. When Micah began pursuing his PhD in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University, he had the opportunity to design and deliver courses in instructional game design, multimedia development and software development. Students in these courses worked with a team of peers to apply the content in completing capstone projects. Craving further opportunities to explore his passions, Micah joined the GP Strategies’ Bloomington office part time as an Instructional Designer while still a student. He immediately appreciated the culture and his team’s collaborative approach to design and development. He increased his involvement, becoming a full-time Senior Instructional Designer while he completed his coursework. Micah completed and successfully defended his PhD dissertation on how instructors diagnose group dysfunction and it should come as no surprise that his research focuses on effective collaboration. As a designer, he focuses on leveraging peer learning opportunities and incorporating experiential components into his materials to take learners beyond the facts and give them a taste for what is in store upon course completion. To download the eBook, visit: http://bit.ly/gamificationebook.

As an entrepreneur, you founded your business because you are passionate about the product or service you provide the world. However, on the road to success, you probably found that your time spent... Visit site for full story...

The biggest impediment to success is rarely a lack of ideas or strategies—it’s an inability to influence people to carry out those ideas or strategies. In others words, it’s a failure of leadership. Leadership is intentional influence. It is a systematic process of influencing the behavior of others in order to achieve important results. If at the end of your "leadership" people aren’t behaving differently, then you didn’t lead. I’ve never seen a more potent example of influence than at the Delancey Street Foundation. Over the years, I’ve heard leaders around the world complain that the people they lead are especially challenging to influence. I’ve heard if from management who were stumped about how to influence recalcitrant union employees or from union leaders trying to get more consideration from management. I’ve heard complaints about how tough it is to change school systems, physicians, independent selling agents, long-tenured government employees, or even political systems. But I give the prize to Mimi Silbert—she has successfully run top performing businesses with hardened criminals as her employees. Mimi and 1,500 drug addicts, convicts, and gang members run several dozen Delancey Street businesses. And these aren’t just piteous nonprofit make-work shops. These are stellar organizations that grab market share and wow customers. For example, The Delancey Street Moving Company in the San Francisco Bay Area has been the top-rated mover in that high-end market for decades. Imagine that! Mimi laughs at the thought. "These are people who in their previous lives had extensive experience moving your valuables, but at that time they were imprisoned for doing so!" What can we learn from Mimi about creating a high-performance organization from people who have an average of sixteen felonies? Quite a bit. If you’re interested, join me, along with David Durocher and Lola Zagey—two long-time Delancey leaders—to find out how to revolutionize your organization. In the meantime, here are a couple of lessons Delancey can teach all of us. Imagine your employee is a twenty-six-year-old heroin addict named Eli. Two months ago, Eli had most of his large intestine removed as a result of his long-time heroin use. He lay in his hospital bed filled with self-loathing and swore to himself he would never use drugs again. Ten minutes later, a friend entered his room with a small packet filled with white powder. Twenty minutes later, Eli was high. So much for his resolution. After two more months of homelessness and addiction, Eli sat on the bench at Delancey Street and asked for an interview. That’s when Delancey’s prodigious influence went to work on Eli. The most oft-squandered leadership moment is the first conversation. The purpose of this conversation is not small talk. It isn’t about making friends. It’s not about impressing them. It’s about influencing them. Delancey’s first conversation with someone who "sits on the bench" (indicating they want in) is an interview with three senior residents. They want you to know at the outset that Delancey will work your tail off and drown you in feedback. If you don’t want that, or can’t take it, there is no room for you. Many are stunned in this interview as they expect the kind of mollycoddling and sympathy lots of rehabs or social service agencies they’ve frequented offer. Delancey wants you to experience from the get-go the kind of culture you’ll be expected to uphold. For example, as Eli begins to tell his life story, he might say, "My Dad introduced me to marijuana when I was 11. From there I got into harder and harder stuff." Your interviewer then says, "I see. Seems like we’ve got the wrong person here then." "What do you mean?" Eli says. "Seems like we should be interviewing your Dad. He’s the one with the problem." "No," Eli stutters, confused, "That’s not what I said." "I thought you said your Dad got you into drugs." "Of course he did." Eli defends. "Well, then we’ll wait for him." Eli is speechless now. He is quiet for a while. Then says, "Okay, I get it. Yes, my Dad gave me marijuana. But then I took it. And I decided to try harder stuff." "Oh, that’s different," the interviewer says. "Maybe you’re the one who needs help, then." An hour into the conversation you’re clear about two things: 1. They don’t want you if you don’t want to be there. 2. This is a place where people will challenge your thinking. Three months into his time at Delancey, Eli is working at the moving company. This is when the intentional way Delancey leaders first spoke with Eli pays additional dividends. He hates the moving company. It’s hard work. He has to get up early. It’s tedious. It’s predictable. His former life was unstructured and he did as he pleased. Now others depend on him and bark at him if he malingers. One morning he sleeps in—refuses to get out of bed. When his crew boss yells at him to get moving he says, "Screw this. I’m leaving." Now, if Delancey had set the wrong expectations in that initial conversation, they’d be in a corner. If they had allowed themselves to be in the position of selling Eli on Delancey, they’d forever be accepting responsibility to keep him sold. His motivation would be their job. But that’s not how it worked then—and that’s not how it works this morning. "Okay," the crew boss says levelly. Eli sits up, surprised. All his life others have tried to get him to change. But in spite of Eli’s best efforts the crew boss isn’t taking that role. "Seems stupid to me to throw away the last three months work. But if you want dope, go get it." "That’s not what I said," Eli shoots back. "I don’t care what you said. That’s what you meant. So go get it." Eli hesitates. "You mean I can just leave?" "Of course you can leave. The door isn’t locked. You know that. But don’t come back either. You leave, you’re gone. We only want you here if you want to be here . . . " Now here’s the magic moment that the initial interview prepared for. "You sat on the bench. You asked us to take you in. We didn’t go looking for you. If you’ve changed your mind, there’s the door." So, what’s the lesson for leaders, here? Real leaders don’t "give assignments"—they ask for commitments. They understand that the initial conversation is a chance to frame the entire subsequent experience. When people make a commitment—a choice—they feel a far deeper connection to their work. When it is assigned to them—or others sell them on it—a subtle and insidious agreement is made: that the leader is responsible for their motivation. The worker is consenting to this work as a favor to the leader. We hope you join me, Dave, and Lola October 15, for a powerful leadership conversation. Learn how you can create stellar results by influencing in even the toughest of circumstances. I’m also excited to share our vision for The Other Side Academy—an effort to make opportunities like Delancey Street available to all who need them across the world. We would love your help in this life-changing venture and hope we can help you become a more influential leader as well. Sincerely, Joseph

Conversation is a tool that helps people explore ideas and assumptions. The goal of conversation is to deepen understanding, not to debate opinions. These simple questions will spark conversation and help you to engage with Millennials. Click here to download Discussion Starters.

Since version 4.4, the TalentLMS WordPress plugin introduces a new, high demand feature: integration with WooCommerce. WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. 1. Click the Integrate button to integrate your TalentLMS content with WooCommerce   1. WooCommerce must be installed and active in your WP site in order for the integration to take place.  Once you have clicked to integrate TalentLMS WP plugin and WooCommerce, all your TalentLMS courses will populate your WooCommerce product list. Your TalentLMS course categories will populate the WooCommerce product categories. Technical Note: Your TalentLMS courses are cached into your WP site for performance reasons. If you create some new courses or categories in your TalentLMS domain, you need to clear the TalentLMS WP plugin cache and sync the content once again. This means that you need to trash all your WooCommerce products before integrating again, in order to have your new courses/categories appear on your product list. The post WooCommerce and TalentLMS WordPress plugin integration appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

So excited to share that we have articles on the Leadership Traits research that published in People Matters Magazine, India’s largest HR publication and in CLO Magazine.  Here is the link for CLO Magazine:  How Should Leaders Behave? The post Leadership Traits study featured in People Matters and CLO Magazine appeared first on Nelson Cohen Consulting.