Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from the failures and setbacks that every leader faces. Making lemons into lemonade is an art that every leader will want to cultivate.

Employee engagement research recently surfaced by Answers - a company that empowers consumers, brands and organizations by connecting them with the information they need to make better informed decisions - suggests only 27% of employees are engaged at work, whereas 45% of employees find themselves in the middle of the pack of engagement. Not surprisingly, 28% of the employee population is not engaged at all. This particular data point isn’t new, per se, as other firms have very similar data points. What’s more interesting has to do with the additional insight depicted from the 4,115 American employees who were queried on their work experiences. From the interviews and surveys that researchers at Answers conducted, results suggest the top three drivers of employee engagement are: Leadership Job Supervisor Furthermore, employees yearn for "company leadership that supports long-term growth over short-terms gains and that can provide a clear vision of the company’s direction." Timely feedback, recognition for a job well done, feeling included, understanding how their role contributed to the overall success of the organization and providing a general sense of accomplishment at work were also factors that contributed to highly engaged employees. If it were easy to achieve, every organization would be highly engaged, but that’s not happening, is it. How can leadership and the supervisor enact and perhaps revitalize the workforce such that everyone’s ‘job’ feels more like their ‘purpose’? Let’s turn our attention (again) to the ‘Giant Sequoias’ …one of nature’s finest gifts, for a metaphor that just might help. In terms of volume, they are the world’s largest trees and the biggest is none other than 2,300 year-old-ish General Sherman, a tree weighing over 5,400 metric tons, spanning 83 meters in height and 1,486 m³ in volume. Its roots reach out some 60 meters influencing roughly four square acres of the Sierra Nevada, California land it inhabits in beautiful Sequoia National Park. As we discussed in last week’s Forbes column, "The Roots of Becoming a More Effective Leader," many of us could learn a lesson from our friend General Sherman. In fact, leaders of any stripe might try to emulate this magnificent natural spectacle, analogously of course. To become such a giving tree, full of life and strength, General Sherman is made up of three key elements: Roots (becoming attributes) Trunk (being attributes) Branches and foliage (going beyond attributes) Let’s investigate the true strength of the tree; the trunk. The trunk provides the power in which to cast both depth and breadth of a tree’s span, to equally achieve success and beauty. Like General Sherman, the core of the tree provides the nutrients and foundation that helps one to grow and to reach new heights. Without it, stunted growth is assured and a mediocre if not futile leadership example will manifest. The leadership trunk - otherwise known as the ‘being’ leadership attributes - are the 5 leadership behaviours that ensure the leader can effectively work with the team to accomplish goals in a manner that is precise, yet coupled by collective participation. It’s a way in which the leader can also create a fun and creative environment in which to operate. It is through the long and strong tree body of our General Sherman analogy where leaders help their people (and themselves) turn ideas into action. It’s the trunk that might bridge the gap that surfaced from the Answers research between leadership, job and the supervisor. It is the ability to help employees execute on the chosen path, and it comes with a responsibility to ensure the leader continues to be open and harmonious yet capable of getting things done. It is being able to execute on given and/or agreed upon actions, but doing so in a manner that is participative yet not wasting anyone’s time. The five behaviors and attributes I believe that make up the trunk of the tree (the being attributes) are as follows: Analyzing Deciding Delivering Cooperating Bantering Each of the five attributes that make up the trunk of the tree can be further defined as follows: Analysis: Leadership is about being able to analyze situations, not only in terms of profit and loss or goals and objectives, but in terms of the human condition. A leader who is conscious of their team culture and levels of engagement is one who analyzes situations with their people in mind. Analyzing is to observe the pro’s and con’s of various situations before actually making decisions. But it is with grave cultural danger when the leader analyzes situations when only profit, loss, deadlines or self-fulfilling promotion are the outcomes. It is deleterious to the health of a team or organization to do so otherwise. President Obama in his famous "I’m going to sleep on it" remark regarding the potential killing of Osama bin Laden may have been mocked by some for taking 16 hours to give the operation a thumbs-up, but he in fact was continuing the analysis of facts and data in order to make the right decision for the health of all those involved. Deciding: The Latin root of the word "decision" — cis — literally means to cut. Seems simple enough, but leaders shouldn’t think of the act of ‘cutting’ as a negative term. Deciding is a process rather than a one-time action. By defining it as a process we take away the illogical thinking it’s an absolute. Deciding (or cutting) as a process is really about ‘being’ a more effective leader while including others. Those leaders who utilize the deciding attribute as a basis to collaborate with their team and the organization are indeed engaging with employees. Deciding, as a process and in the context of a team or organization, should involve others. Deciding is not about consensus but it is about inclusion. Deciding is a verb not a past tense. Leaders should shift the focus from the weight of making a decision themselves to involving others in the process. If so, it opens the lines of communication and breaks down some of the entrenched disengagement issues of employees. John Yap - Parliamentary Secretary for the Government of British Columbia - made decisions to update the antiquated liquor laws of the province not by unilaterally making decisions, but involving the entire province in the discussion. Delivering: In his quirky yet fascinating official autobiography, "Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way", Richard Branson writes: "My vision for Virgin has never been rigid and changes constantly, like the company itself. I have always lived my life by making lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up, lists of people who can make things happen. Each day I work through these lists, and it is that sequence of calls that propels me forward." Doesn’t that sound to you like a leader who is delivering? It’s a leader who knows all too well that in order to achieve strategic growth and business results, specific order is required but it’s coupled with an eye towards the human condition. It’s no wonder he is personally worth over $4 billion and revenues earned at Virgin Group come in at over $20 billion, but the organization and Branson never forget societal contributions either. To deliver, a leader will use SMART objectives to ensure clarity, adjust as necessary and remain malleable, address issues as soon as possible, build in proper resource management processes, ensure roles & responsibilities of the team are clearly articulated and inspire and fete the team throughout delivery of the action or project. Cooperating: In research conducted for her book "Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz With Energy: And Others Don’t" author Lynda Gratton summarized an environment that was more cooperative as follows: "… the energy of the cooperative mindset comes not from a mindset of competition but rather from a mindset of excellence. The focus is on the excellence toward which people are striving together rather than the competition of beating everyone else to the goal." A leader may work tirelessly in the ‘being’ level of our tree metaphor to analyze, decide and deliver … but if it’s being done in a competitive atmosphere - if the team feels as though it’s being less than cooperative - it is unlikely to produce the results long-term that we are seeking. It may stall a leader’s efforts to improve employee engagement which will ultimately stall levels of productivity and business improvements. Cooperating - it is ‘to work with’. As you work with your team, as you create a community amongst the team, you are bound to achieve excellence. Bantering: One of the fourteen characteristics Etienne Wenger suggests that makes up a true community of practice is "local lore, shared stories, inside jokes, knowing laughter". Several researchers - including Sigmund Freud himself - have also emphasized the function of humour in the organization as a relief trait. They suggest humour offers a safe release for feelings at work which ultimately prevent anti-social behavior while fostering organizational harmony. Bill Gibson was the Chief Operating Officer at Crystal Decisions, a company eventually bought by Business Objects. Throughout his tenure Bill knew the importance of banter. During the Sales Kick-off Conference in 2002, Bill spent most of the time in a boxer’s outfit playing on the tag-line of "We’re going to knock the BO out of BO"; Business Objects being a competitor to Crystal Decisions at the time. Throughout the office, Bill was known to kid around with anyone that he came into contact with. He knew what it meant to get down to business, but through his humour and down-to-earth humble and clowning around attitude, Bill was a legend. People wanted to be around him; people would go the extra mile because he made things fun. Bill knew the link between people and emotional intelligence. As COO, he didn’t have to employ such an attitude, but everyone throughout the organization wanted to be a part of his environment. To banter is to be human, but it can also help achieve business results in a more hospitable, and engaging manner. In summary, being a more effective leader is having the ability to drive results while inspiring and motivating employees to act as one. The ‘being’ attributes (the trunk of a tree) build off the ‘becoming’ attributes (the roots of a tree) to achieve those desired results … while engaging the workforce. As Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan wrote in their book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done: "Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business world today. Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most of the disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes." I agree, however, it’s through the attributes of analyzing, deciding, delivering, cooperating and bantering where the leader is ‘being’ more effective at execution and engaging. Note: originally posted to Forbes Dan's Related Posts:The Fifteen Habits of a Connected LeaderThe Roots of Becoming a More Effective LeaderThe Real Beauty In Leadership Happens By Going Above And BeyondConnected Leader Attributes Graphic from Flat Armythe FLAT ARMY cheat sheet

With a miserable 75 percent failure rate, mergers and acquisitions seem risky at best. Yet in today's economic climate, they are more in vogue than ever. How can you increase your odds for M&A success?

You may already know the benefits of adopting a collaborative approach to leadership; but many people complain that collaboration is unwieldy and slow.

"Compassion leaves an indelible blueprint of the recognition that life so sorely needs between one individual and another; one nation and another; one culture and another. It is also valid for the road which our spirit should be building now for crossing the historical abyss that still separates us from a truly contemporary vision of life, and the increase of life and meaning that awaits us in the future." - Laurens van der Post This is the final post in a three-part series that aims to define new and improved leadership attributes using a tree as a metaphor. Recall the roots of a tree were the "becoming" leadership attributes and the trunk of the tree were the "being" leadership attributes. This final post outlines the real beauty of a tree - the branches and foliage - as the "going beyond" leadership attributes. A leader capable of demonstrating the three components to a tree is one that is proficient not only in terms of inclusion (becoming) and open execution (being), but one that is magnanimous and panoptic. Simply put, this final stage to the metaphor ensures a leader is seeing the big picture in his or her team. The leader is looking out for the goals and objectives both for today, and the future. It is the ability to nurture the team to greater heights coupled by an acknowledgment that we grow through the development of one another. It is the branches and foliage of General Sherman (our tree hero example) that creates the beauty of our metaphor. By moving beyond, the leader shifts to a third level that drives the entire team and/or organization to incredible new heights. It is the sense of green and foliage that creates a leader who is much more than a tactical leader for they are truly a leader of humanity. This "going beyond" leader is a navigator of the human condition. The five attributes that I believe make up the "going beyond" leadership attributes are as follows: Coaching Measuring Adapting Exploring Bettering Coaching Coaching is an ongoing informal conversation with the employee that focuses on providing the following: counsel on current objectives and actions to categorically improve the result; feedback concerning their progress or improvements on Flat Army habits; and advice on personal and/or career advancement or opportunities. In summary, to demonstrate the attribute of coaching is to assist your team member — and to help them improve — with issues going on at work, on the personal development front and with respect to career development. That’s it! It’s an ongoing and informal discussion with your team members, albeit individually, to help them get better. The problem is too many human resources professionals, consulting shops and accrediting institutions have whipped organizations into a frenzy just by the mention of coaching. We must demystify the term in order to bring some sanity back into the definition of leadership and to the definition of coaching. Measuring Leaders are wise to begin measuring their various actions (personal, team, unit, organization) if they want to go beyond a standard level of leadership. It’s not simply about quantity but also of quality. But how? Financial and other quantitative measures are pervasive in today’s organizations. That’s not a bad thing. But, we must add another component to the attribute of measuring, and that is to ensure qualitative measurement is on an equal footing with quantitative business metrics. To measure is to take into consideration the soul of the employee. Measuring is not new, but the equal weighting of both quantitative business metrics and qualitative humanistic metrics might be for leaders to go beyond. In describing the African humanist philosophy known as Ubuntu — a philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other — Nelson Mandela said: "[Ubuntu is] the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievements of others." If only we could measure it. Some questions to consider include: Are people in your organization working more collaboratively together, communicating more efficiently and feeling as though more cooperation is happening? Are your employees satisfied with senior leadership, company direction and strategy, corporate social responsibility and community efforts? Are team members being asked about concepts like life-work balance, career development opportunities, their feelings on the state of compensation, work processes or organizational learning opportunities? Exploring Exploring is the ability of an individual to deviate from the norm, to look outside the box, and to play devil’s advocate in any given situation. It’s to be a well-rounded leader, thinker and person. Exploring encourages leaders to be a contrarian. If looking at situations or problems the same way, time and time again, you’re simply not exploring the options from different angles well enough to make a discernible difference for anyone. Henry Mintzberg uses the expression "Worldly Mindset" to depict a leader who takes advantage of external environments to further one’s leadership competence. He writes: Should we not, therefore, be encouraging our managers to become more worldly, defined earlier as experienced in life, in both a sophisticated and practical way? Leadership (and going beyond) is about exploring with the employee what’s going on in his or her role, in an effort to help both sides of the newly formed relationship. By exploring, you are imparting your wisdom, understanding and insight with respect to your role and how it impacts their role. And conversely, you are there to explore the intricacies of their role so as to learn and bring back that value to your own role and responsibilities. It’s a way in which to break down the organizational silos while simultaneously building culture, engagement and competence. Adapting What is evident in the business world is steadfastly simple to some and eerily overlooked by others. A failure to adapt, to anticipate or to possess continual flexibility in previous decisions will be the unnerving undoing of an organization. The company formerly known as Research in Motion (RIM) and makers of the Blackberry smart phone line is a classic example. Former co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were innovation machines, producing technology products that were snapped up in droves by their customers. But an unwillingness to adapt or to look ahead and predict what was going to happen in the smart phone market ultimately led to their resignations in early 2012. The company is currently trying to pull off a corporate rescue for the ages. It’s a rather desperate quest of adapting, but only time will tell if it’s too late. How does a leader better adapt? The future happens every day, get used to it: leaders need to be continually uncomfortable with the status quo. No road is ever smooth: anticipate bumps and barriers so others can succeed in changing business conditions. Uncertainty is not a negative: explore options, dig into possibilities, get creative and be relentless to improve. Do not stay on the white line: shift priorities or approaches to address needs of today and the future. Perfection is not the goal: adapting to change and progressing forward is how to be perfect. Others don’t own the future: be accountable to yourself. No one will adapt for you. The words of Alexander Graham Bell nicely summarize the adapting attribute for a leader aiming to go beyond: "When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." Bettering In the 2012 Democratic National Convention held in Charlotte, North Carolina, First Lady Michelle Obama gave a speech, some argue, for the ages. It painted her husband, President Barack Obama not as the President of the United States, but as a true leader of the people. She depicted a graceful, loving and empathetic man who clearly possessed the entire suite of attributes we have been describing in our tree metaphor: becoming, being and beyond. One line in particular stuck out for me: "Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives." We might take some creative license with her words and suggest the attribute of bettering in our framework is as follows: "Success isn’t about how many direct reports you have; it’s about how well you are bettering your team and the organization whatever the situation." Who cares how big your team is or your organizational girth. The goal is not a larger team, it is making that team — whatever the size — the best it can be. It is the leaders responsibility to assist team members to hit their professional or career pursuits. And the truly connected leader will take interest and provide counsel on personal endeavours as well as we discussed in the coaching attribute. Likewise, it is incumbent upon connected leaders to refrain from invoking a culture of status quo. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, said, "Good is the enemy of great," and it is this phrase leaders should tattoo onto their foreheads. Bettering is improving. This is the essence of moving beyond status quo leadership. In summary, and to conclude this 3-post exploration, I truly believe that to be a better leader, one ought to look at a tree and think of the three main parts as key levels of leadership: The roots (becoming attributes - read more here) Trusting Involving Empathizing Developing Communicating Trunk (being attributes - read more here) Analyzing Deciding Delivering Cooperating Bantering Branches & foliage (going beyond attributes) Coaching Measuring Adapting Exploring Bettering If the leader were to hone his or her skill in the attributes where he/she believes they are deficient, I’m certain the horrid state of employee engagement would begin to inch upwards. Note: originally posted to Forbes Dan's Related Posts:The Fifteen Habits of a Connected LeaderThe Roots of Becoming a More Effective LeaderCoaching Should Be An Expectation Of All Connected LeadersThe Strength Of A Leader Comes From The Tree TrunkConnected Leader Attributes Graphic from Flat Army

The timestamp on this post is February 13, 2015, 10am Pacific Time. Lucky, ‘Friday the 13th’. Perhaps it is. At this precise moment in time, I’m ‘under the knife’. I’m hoping it’s a rust-proof knife, because the last thing I need now is tetanus. I’m also trusting the doctor is old and wise enough to ably perform the surgery that is necessary on one of my two remaining eyes. Right now somewhere on Vancouver Island, a doctor is cutting into my right eye because I’m the benefactor of a nasty gremlin who decided to set up camp on my right eyelid for the past two months. The nasty bugger didn’t even offer marshmallows or beer. It reminds me of the Ukraine. Yes, I am the graceful host to what is commonly referred to as an "eye stye" (more formally a hordeolum) which is really an abscess on the eyelid caused by a staphylococcus bacteria eye infection. I suppose I need better eye hygiene. My friend decided to pay a visit on Wednesday, December 10. When returning from a nutty travel schedule where I visited five cities in three days, as I landed at the final destination (home) I felt this powerful and painful form of acne surface on my eyelid. By Friday we had a full-scale panic on our hands in the homestead, so I visited a walk-in clinic. We were heading to Maui for a Xmas holiday the next day, and I didn’t want my friend to cramp my over zealous surfing ambitions. "Oh, that’s gross," shrieked the doctor. Not the best start, I thought to myself. We pressed on. "Well, there’s not much I can do for that," she continued. I pulled out my phone right in front of her - disobeying the signs on the wall - and immediately headed for WebMD.com. Apparently there really isn’t much you can do, other than hot compresses, keeping it clean, and doing some sort of "burst the eye stye" dance which I never mastered. I swear it stated to drink more scotch somewhere on the site, so I headed for the liquor store. By the time we were in Maui, the swelling had subsided somewhat, but the stye never fully went away. My friend remained the same size for the next three weeks — we celebrated New Year’s Eve together — and then all Hell broke loose. By this point in time, the stye deserved a name. I chose Putin. After all, this was the Eastern region of my body and it had no business being there. So, Putin and I went back to the doctor’s and pleaded for mercy. Putin was getting larger (and feistier) and I really needed him to return to Russia, or wherever he came from. The doctor arrived in the room. "Oh, that’s gross," shrieked the doctor. Where have I heard this before, I thought to myself. "Well, there’s not much I can do for that," he continued. Screw you Putin! But, alas, there was some welcome respite on the horizon. A referral was forthcoming, to another doctor, who specializes in repatriation exercises of the eyelids. (technically, I believe they are called ophthalmologists) So I left the second doctor’s office (still with Putin) but with a skip in my step as I was happy to know an annexation was about to happen. Two weeks passed, and no call. Were there no ophthalmologists on Vancouver Island? Did I need to dust off my Morse Code apparatus or perhaps the Fax machine to communicate with this all-mighty healer? Magically, the phone rang. "Hello, it’s Dan … and Putin," I said. "Ummm, hi, it’s Doctor Merkel’s office from Germany, we’d like to offer you an appointment on February 13, 2015 at 10am for surgery," replied the rather transactional voice on the other end. "Do you know it’s January 13 today?" I asked incredulously. "February 13, 10am … are you free, otherwise we’re looking at April?" she flippantly retorted. "Yes, Putin and I are free, we’ll be there," I responded with a palpable sense of dejection. Click. I didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye to that voice on the other end of the phone. She was probably onto another call. Maybe it was someone from ISIS. So, fast-forward to today — February 13 — where I have been living with a stigma for the better part of two months. It’s been painful, and embarrassing at times, and annoying, and consuming. What have I learned? Generally, people don’t want to look you in the eye when your eye is about to explode liters of pus onto the floor, or their sandwich. When you are proactive and say something like, "Sorry for the way my eye looks," people lie through their teeth with the usual remark being, "I can hardly notice it." It’s nice, but they’re lying. Putin is evil. Placing circular tea bags on your eye are far better than square tea bags, when seeking comfort or respite for a minute or two. I recommend camomile, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Oh, and don’t forget to boil the water - a dry tea bag does nothing. (literally, nothing) I’ve had to come to grips with my vanity. I like dressing up, and going out, and being on stage to speak, and working with clients and team members, and answering the door … but Putin put a damper on my normally jovial spirits. But then I really came to grips with my vanity. Who cares? There are so many individuals on this planet who have it worse than I do — particularly in terms of physical deformities or abnormalities — that I am actually glad Putin paid a visit. It made me appreciate my life more than ever, and it put into perspective some things I was taking granted for. Was Putin painful? Yes. But did Putin help me in my quest to continue growing as a person. Indeed. Stigma no more. UPDATE: the surgery was going to be more complicated than anticipated, so it now has to be performed at a hospital (versus a clinic) and my new date is February 18th. Putin lives.   Dan's Related Posts:The Platonic Leader: Stage 3 of 5 in the Leadership Tonic ScaleWhen Life Flashes Before Your Eyes"Oh, you’re one of those. You want to work anywhere, anytime."Please Don’t Let There Be Anonymity After Death100 Years Ago Today, In Flanders Fields

First, we measured "employee satisfaction." Then, business became obsessed with tracking "employee engagement." Now, there's a new measurement in town: "employee involvement."

By some estimates, there are well over 100 million managers of people in the world. Since the New Year rolled around, many of those managers have been in the midst of their organization’s annual performance review cycle. Employees have been or are about to sit through a one-hour performance review, based on their efforts over the past year. A few of them are actually enjoying it. With regards to the robots — who are coming for our jobs — will they love performance management too? Forced Performance But first, some background. It’s long been sport in the corporate world to take potshots at the performance management process. There are several reasons for the pervasive disdain and melancholy that drips from office walls and laptop screens on behalf of performance management processes. First, there is an organization’s fixation on performance stack ranking. It’s the process where employees are pitted against one another as the manager is encumbered to fill out a bell curve of annual performance for her team. Forced to plot employees against an arbitrary curve — where a certain number of employees must be classified as low, medium or high performers to fill out the curve — it creates angst for the manager, and depression, envy, guilt, rage or happiness for the employee. But, as Josh Bersin brilliantly notes in his Forbes post entitled, "The Myth Of The Bell Curve: Look For The Hyper-Performers," we need not use this process any longer: Research conducted in 2011 and 2012 by Ernest O’Boyle Jr. and Herman Aguinis (633,263 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes in a total of 198 samples). found that performance in 94 percent of these groups did not follow a normal distribution. Rather these groups fall into what is called a "Power Law" distribution. There is proof the bell curve of performance is bogus, but employee stack ranking remains entrenched in an organization’s performance management practices. (Thanks Jack Welch, although he now refers to it as ‘differentiation‘.) To further the point of stack ranking, in Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense — written by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton — the authors state, "performance rankings can lead to destructive internal competition, which can make it tough to build a culture of knowledge sharing." Well that’s just great. Second, annual performance classifications are simply a cop-out for bad leadership. I don’t personally have anything against organizations who use a fair (and non-bell curve mandated) performance classification system — after all, employees do seem to appreciate a formal classification — but to do so annually is a bit like waiting for the Easter Bunny to show up each year and then wondering how many chocolate eggs might be waiting for you. For me, the Easter Bunny of performance management should come monthly, preferably bi-weekly, but ideally weekly or even daily. In their book, The Progress Principle, authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer referred to a study that claimed, "of all the events that engage people at work, the single most important - by far - is simply making progress at meaningful work." And how does an employee make progress at meaningful work? In part, it’s the direct manager that is providing a coaching and supporting role as frequently as is possible throughout the daily efforts of the employee. Performance management, therefore, is more like brushing your teeth (daily, three times a day ideally) versus the once a year Easter Bunny visit. Leadership, ergo, is about coaching and developing the performance of employees all the time, not once a year. About Those Robots They’re coming, so we best prepare for them. In 1982 Time magazine declared the personal computer its "Machine of the Year." Time publisher John A. Meyers wrote, "Several human candidates might have represented 1982, but none symbolized the past year more richly, or will be viewed by history as more significant, than a machine: the computer." I don’t recall my Commodore 64 or Apple Lisa computer ever having to go through a performance review like us mere mortal humans. Those lucky computers. But about those robots … they are definitely coming soon to an organization near you. Authors Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson of the brilliant book, The Second Machine Age, state rather chillingly: "After spending time working with leading technologists and watching one bastion of human uniqueness after another fall before the inexorable onslaught of innovation, it’s becoming harder and harder to have confidence that any given task will be indefinitely resistant to automation." Comforting, I know. Let’s visit the country capital of all things robots, Japan. A hotel, scheduled to open July 17, 2015 will soon be staffed by robots where they will "provide porter service, room cleaning, front desk and other services to reduce costs and to ensure comfort." President of the hotel and amusement park, Hideo Sawada, mentioned at a news conference, "In the future, we’d like to have more than 90 percent of hotel services operated by robots." I can’t wait for the day R2D2 brings me ice for the ice bucket, but I’m a bit alarmed by a robot who is employed to "ensure comfort." Not to be outdone, Nestlé Japan has announced it will begin using robots in December of 2015, "to sell Nescafé Dolce Gusto and Nescafé Gold Blend Barista coffee machines in home appliance stores." I’m not certain if it’s a translation issue, but the company has decided to name the robot Pepper. I don’t know about you, but anyone (or any robot) called Pepper trying to sell me coffee is a tad pungent. Japanese banks are also getting in on the C3P0 craze. Nao is a 58cm tall robot about to start ’employment’ in April of this year at Japan’s biggest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. "Robots can supplement services by performing tasks that our human workers can’t, such as 24-hour banking and multilingual communication," said Takuma Nomoto, the chief manager of information technology at the company. Last I checked, humans are in fact capable of working at times outside the normal 9-5 time clock and many workers are even capable of speaking multiple languages. But I digress. The Ultimate Robotic Question My ultimate question (cheekily and with a dash of humour) is intended to address the pending avalanche of robots earmarked for organizations everywhere. They’re coming, so it’s best we prepare. Is HR (or perhaps it should be IT) ready to add the robots to the existing performance management practices already established in the organization? After all, if humans are currently suffering from the indignation that is the ‘annual review’, shouldn’t the robots suffer too? For example, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported only 26 percent of employees were satisfied with performance management processes in their organization. I say let’s add robots to the mix. Let them have just as much fun as the employees are having with the annual performance review rhetoric. Sadly, Sibson Consulting discovered even worse results, where only 5 percent of respondents graded their company’s performance management practices at the highest level on a 5-point scale. To rub salt in a wound, the firm also found that 58 percent of HR managers actually disliked their own performance management practices. Now how is a robot ever going to enjoy being part of their organization’s performance management system if HR won’t even fess up to liking it themselves? Maybe the robots should work in HR? Deloitte has even come out and suggested "Performance Management is Broken" claiming"only 8 percent of companies report that their performance management process drives high levels of value, while 58 percent said it is not an effective use of time." When Mercer conducted their Global Performance Management Survey, asking the question, are company performance management approaches effective, 51 percent of respondents claimed their planning process needed work, 42 percent stated their linkage to compensation decisions required improvements, and 48 percent suggested their overall performance management approach needed to be improved. Incidentally, the firm surveyed performance management leaders from 1,056 organizations representing 53 countries around the globe, so not even those responsible for performance management are 100 percent onside with the process and practices. To summarize nicely, in their book, Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing and Focus on What Really Matters, authors Samuel Culbert and Lawrence Rout state, "Mainstream management is embedded in, and relies on, a culture of domination and the performance review is the biggest hammer management has." How will the robots ever cope in this maddening world of performance management? "Don’t call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease." If successful companies such as Microsoft, Adobe, Juniper Networks and Expedia have done away with the madness that is the stack ranking process of performance management — while witnessing, according to research firm i4cp, "increases in either bottom line revenue or employee engagement, or sometimes both" — isn’t it time for all organizations to do the same? Isn’t it time to have a rethink about the entire performance management system before the robots arrive? Bob Rogers, president of DDI (a leadership development company) says in his book, Realizing the Promise of Performance Management that this type of employee segregation "causes damage by filtering employees from the bottom, and causes changes in people’s behavior, and not to the good." From firsthand experience I’ve witnessed the nutty behaviours of managers and employees alike when it comes time for the annual performance management process. Favourtism becomes an issue. The derogatory term "managing up" makes an appearance. Vendettas surface. Finally, the bell curve quota creates mental anguish for a leader and the team members particularly when the team is perfectly functioning, if not high performing. When the robot begins to out-think the human — perhaps the intelligence explosion often referred to as the ‘singularity‘ — it will probably be smart enough to recognize it’s time to do away with much of the performance management nuttiness that exists today. How ironic would that be. In the meantime, what should we do? When on the topic of the performance management process during an interview, noted organizational development guru Edward Lawler stated, "every organization I’m aware of has trouble doing [performance appraisals] well and effectively." He takes it a step further in his book, Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage, where he suggests for performance management to be effective, 4 things need to be accomplished: It needs to define and produce agreement on what type of performance is needed. It needs to guide the development of individuals so that they have the skills and knowledge needed to perform effectively. It needs to motivate individuals to perform effectively. It needs to provide data to the organization’s human capital information system. I’ll take it a few steps further. Performance management needs to become: A daily leadership action, armed by coaching and development attributes. A model in which constructive feedback is applied as often as necessary. A system that provides both formal and informal recognition for a job well done (or when things go awry, we should recognize what the employee learned through the process). Linked to career — and dare I say purpose — ambitions. Devoid of stack ranking. Failing any imminent changes to an excessively flawed system, may we yearn for a time when performance management processes and practices have to be updated because the robots made us do it. Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto. Originally posted to Forbes Dan's Related Posts:Selling Yourself & Your Ideas is the New 20 Percent TimeThe Social C-SuiteBook Review of WORK RULES: Insights From Inside GoogleFlexible Working WorksRedefining the Social Employee

I have never understood the fridge magnet adage, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." In my particular life, I’m happy to get the lemon in the first place. It reminds me of the story of Alfredo Moser. In the sleepy town of Uberaba, situated in southern Brazil some 500 kilometres and five hours from Rio de Janeiro, Alfredo Moser has a home. In 2002, Alfredo — a lifelong and what we may call eudaimonic yet curious mechanic — was suffering yet another one of the debilitating power blackouts that bedevils many of Brazil’s shantytowns, also known as favelas. As is his non-consumerist and natural tendency, he took matters into his own hands and cooked up a way to provide light in the midst of darkness. He looked not for fame, fortune or notoriety, he simply wanted to solve a problem and share with the world. He used his heart and his mind to deliver back to his community. You’re reading this post because you have reasonable access to money, electricity and arguably the internet — perhaps the only way in which to market and read these days. What happens when those accoutrements are taken away? We cannot justifiably compare this dilemma in the Western world to the plight of our friend Alfredo. Why? Alfredo is the quintessential example of living a life with purpose. Under the doldrum of yet another night of electrical darkness in his native Brazil, Alfredo put mind to instrument and gave the world the Moser Light. You may find his invention crude or even simple — tell that to the one million people who now use the Moser Light — but for those who live their lives with a lack of money, electricity and the internet, it is the second coming of Benjamin Franklin. Moser devised a way in which to provide light for free. By simply taking an empty two litre plastic bottle, filling it with roughly 50 millimetres of bleach, affixing the cap and placing it outside in the sunlight for a few hours a 40 to 60 watt light will emerge. It may have taken over a decade for word to creep out about the Moser Light, but it’s a near perfect example of an individual who sought to give back — while on the job and in their place of employment — fixated solely on generosity and a willingness to help others, not profit or notoriety. We might take liberty with the thesis that Moser had found ‘signifiance’ through an action involving his heart and his mind. Not to be outdone and via his Thomas Edison-esque invention, Alfredo clearly delivered purpose in a way that gave the world what he calls a ‘divine light’. "God gave the sun to everyone, and light is for everyone. Whoever wants it saves money. You can’t get an electric shock from it, and it doesn’t cost a penny." Alfredo’s lemon might have been living in a shantytown, riddled by blackouts and a low paying job, but there would be no crying over lemons for him. He felt compelled to turn a sour situation into something sweet. He took it upon himself to distribute the lemons — his creative mind and open heart — for all in his community to enjoy. He brought together and used both his head and his heart such that he further fuelled his purpose. In doing so, he helped thousands of his global citizens. Here was a man, living in the desperately poor favelas of Brazil, living off of meagre scraps of life as a mechanic seeking not fame or fortune, but to help his fellow neighbours in times of literal blackness and difficulty. Alfredo Moser used his head and heart to help others. Even in as low a paying and as tough a role as a mechanic, Alfredo is someone who demonstrated open and helpful attributes. His purpose was to assist others in the community regardless of the societal situation that surrounded him. Alfredo felt the community was in need of his talent. He delivered, with both his head and his heart, and asked for nothing in return. This story of Alfredo Moser brings me to the question I’d like to pose: How can leaders become more like Alfredo Moser — using their hearts and minds — to create engaged workforces that think about the well-being of the communities in which they live? According to Hay Group, a global management consulting firm, 63 percent of CEOs and other members of the top team reckon it’s the top leaders in the company who are "chiefly responsible for staff engagement and leadership," but only 38 percent of those outside the C-Suite agree that the top tier is responsible. Now that is a disturbing leadership and engagement paradox. Sadly and equally paradoxical, a study suggest 69 percent of executives agree they too feel engagement and leadership is a problem in their organization. How about job satisfaction correlated to employee engagement? Or is job satisfaction more correlated to life satisfaction as per the research conducted by Rain, Lane and Steiner? And if it is — if job satisfaction is akin to life satisfaction — are leaders paying enough attention to their employees such that they are in fact caring about their lives, connecting in ways that allow them to enact life-work balance and possessing a sense of belonging with their colleagues? What about an employee’s connection with the community in which they serve? Moser provides us with a glorious example of someone not looking to profit from an idea, but to help those in need, particularly in the community he was a part of. Between 1985 and 2005, the number of Americans who stated they felt satisfied with the way life was treating them decreased by roughly 30 per cent. Even more shocking was the number of dissatisfied people; this increased by nearly 50 per cent. The reasons appear to be related to Americans’ declining attachments to friends and family, lower participation in social and civic activities, and diminished trust in political institutions. What if leaders were to take the story of Alfredo Moser, and create an environment at work that instills a sense of purpose, one that allows employees to feel as though they can put both their heart and mind into their work? Has the organization become so blind that — within the underbelly of the top leadership ranks — a professional mutiny is in the works? Perhaps it’s already in motion. A mutiny that manifests in human capital contradiction where employees are either punching in their time to simply get through the day or they are in eternal job searches hunting for the Holy Grail organization that actually cares about their well-being and that of the community in which they are a part of. Alfredo Moser is a hero. We need more leaders to think like Alfredo. Dan's Related Posts:Whose Job Is Leadership, Anyway?Storytelling is EngagementAlarming Trends in CIPD Employee Outlook SurveyWhy I’d Work With Google’s Laszlo Bock (one day)Amidst Uncertainty the Inuksuk Surfaces

On March 17, almost one hundred years ago in 1917, a young soldier by the name of Harold Simpson from Bayview, Prince Edward Island, and stationed on the front lines of World War I wrote to his mother. We are not fighting for territory, or wealth or glory. The terms of peace may bring us new colonies, possibly we may become a richer nation after the war and certainly Britain’s record will be a glorious one. But even if  these were all attained in the fullest measure possible, if they were our prime objects in entering a struggle, then I think we would have fought in vain for they could not begin to make compensation for the sacrifices which we, as a nation, have been called upon to bear. No, thank God, those are not our objects. We have a stronger, nobler purpose leading us all in through the valley of pain and sorrow, and sacrifice to the fairer and purer heights of the glorious attainment called an honourable and lasting peace, peace in which the autocrat no longer holds sway and which stands for the liberation of the oppressed and downtrodden and a peace which shall finally establish, without a doubt, the sacred right of humanity and in which nations shall regard each other as an essential factor of the whole and live together in brotherly love, instead of hatred and suspicion. I found the letter both disheartening and incredibly positive. On one hand, Harold was casually lamenting about the state of war, and the possibility that their efforts might be in vain for some unbecoming purpose. On the other, he believed the purpose of ‘The Great War’ was to establish peace, such that citizens could live in harmony and thus parallel to the sacred right of humanity. I only recently came across the letter (and many more via excellent archival services in Canada, the United Kingdom and America) but it triggered something deep within my core, and perhaps my own humanity. It brings me to provide an update on Book #2. I’m done! But in hindsight — and upon some reflection after the discovery of Harold’s letter — it’s a book written with two things in mind. It turns out I am both disheartened and positive, much like Harold. First, I’m disheartened with the way in which our organizations — and leaders in general — are operating the organization itself. I believe organizations have lost their purpose, and by extension, employees have fallen into a job and/or career mindset, versus one that might be coined a purpose-mindset. Second, I’ve realized there are many organization (and leaders) that have in fact defined the purpose of the organization extremely well, and in doing so employees have also benefitted by feeling as though there is meaning in their roles. This next book was unknowingly written along the lines of Harold’s letter. The first part laments what is wrong in today’s organization (including many of the inanities with leadership) and the second part depicts a sense of hope and a manifesto of action for the betterment of society. I believe leaders have a responsibility to, therefore, redefine the purpose of the organization. Equally so, leaders have a responsibility to help employees find purpose in their roles. I’m excited to announce that my next book will be called DUAL PURPOSE. The book breaks down the true purpose of purpose in the workplace and suggests that there are two parts to purposeful organizational impact. The central arc of this book is two-fold: every leader has a responsibility to redefine the purpose of an organization, and; every leader ought to assist employees reach a sense of purpose in their roles. Every leader, therefore, has a responsibility to develop and instill a DUAL PURPOSE in the organization. I’ve signed a contract with a wonderful publisher, Elevate Publishing, one that fully understands not only the meaning of purpose, it is a truly reciprocal partner in the launch of a new book project. DUAL PURPOSE: Redefining the Meaning of Work will be fully available on all mediums on November 10, 2015. An early ‘shout out’ to those who provided such clever and innovative suggestions for the book title as well earlier in 2014. Your ideas were the early catalysts for the title I’m going with, DUAL PURPOSE. Many more details to come over the next six months or so, but for now, I wanted to give you a wee bit of an update given how moved I was after I read Harold’s letter to his mother. As always, thanks for reading … and thanks for dropping by. Dan's Related Posts:Perhaps the Purpose of an Organization?My Definition of Work and an Update on Book TwoThree Types of Workplace MindsetsWaxing Lyrical On Leadership, Engagement, Purpose & InnovationCan Humanism Replace Capitalism?