This is not mine, it’s by Brian Tracy (www.briantracy.com).  But I think, as a Professional, this should be our “mantra”.  Thanks Brian

July 7, 2011

How to set standards for excellence and back them with total integrity.

A Commitment to Excellence

Leaders have specific responsibilities and must fulfill certain requirements. One requirement of leadership is the ability to choose an area of excellence. Just as a good general chooses the terrain on which to do battle, an excellent leader chooses the area in which he and others are going to do an outstanding job. The commitment to excellence is one of the most powerful of all motivators. All leaders who change people and organizations are enthusiastic about achieving excellence in a particular area.

Be the Best!

The most motivational vision you can have for yourself and others is to “Be the best!” Many people don’t yet realize that excellent performance in serving other people is an absolute, basic essential for survival in the economy of the future. Many individuals and companies still adhere to the idea that as long as they are no worse than anyone else, they can remain in business. That is just plain silly! It is prehistoric thinking. We are now in the age of excellence. Customers assume that they will get excellent quality, and if they don’t, they will go to your competitors so fast, people’s heads will spin.

Have A Vision of High Standards

As a leader, your job is to be excellent at what you do, to be the best in your chosen field of endeavor. Your job is to have a vision of high standards in serving people. You not only exemplify excellence in your own behavior, but you also translate it to others so that they, too, become committed to this vision.

This is the key to servant leadership. It is the commitment to doing work of the highest quality in the service of other people, both inside and outside the organization. Leadership today requires an equal focus on the people who must do the job, on the one hand, and the people who are expected to benefit from the job, on the other.

The Most Respected Quality

The second quality, which is perhaps the single most respected quality of leaders, is integrity. Integrity is complete, unflinching honesty with regard to everything that you say and do. Integrity underlies all the other qualities. Your measure of integrity is determined by how honest you are in the critical areas of your life.

Integrity means this: When someone asks you at the end of the day, “Did you do your very best?” you can look him in the eye and say, “Yes!” Integrity means this: When someone asks you if you could have done it better, you can honestly say, “No, I did everything I possibly could.”

Integrity means that you, as a leader, admit your shortcomings. It means that you work to develop your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses. Integrity means that you tell the truth, and that you live the truth in everything that you do and in all your relationships. Integrity means that you deal straightforwardly with people and situations and that you do not compromise what you believe to be true.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

1. Identify the area of your work where excellent performance can contribute the very most to productivity and profits. Focus all your efforts in this area.
2. Do your very best on every task. Imagine that everyone is watching even when no one is watching. Imagine that everyone in your company was going to do their work exactly the way you do yours.

Never compromise your standards!

One would think that highly-qualified “knowledge” workers would, generally, be a happy lot. And why not as their job is to foster innovation, resolve problems, and think strategically. And they probably earn reasonable incomes. Clearly a recipe for high engagement. Or not?

Well, despite general high engagement with their jobs, these people appear to have greater levels of stress than other workers. They struggle for work-life balance, and worry about job security. “Greater education opens the door to more opportunities in the job market,” says Thomas Hartley, vice president of GfK Customer Loyalty and Employee Engagement. “But with that comes higher levels of responsibility and pressure to deliver results”.

To investigate this further, GfK Custom Research North America recently conducted a survey of more than 30,000 highly qualified “knowledge” workers worldwide. And their findings were:

• 29% of North American workers with PhDs say they experience extremely high levels of stress at work.
• 39% of those with a master’s degree frequently worry about stress
• 30% of PhDs report extremely high levels of pressure about job security
• 25% of people with a master’s degree frequently worry about work-life balance
• Just 38% of the “creative class” employees with PhDs say they’re highly engaged at work
• 41% of US workers age 29 or younger are considerably stressed at work, the highest of all age groups
• 43% of US workers age 29 or younger are highly concerned about work-life balance, the highest of the age groups.

The main reasons given for why they feel disengaged are:

• They can’t influence decisions that impact their work
• Unclear communications from their boss
• No company commitment to career development

So really, it’s back to the age-old Leadership problem. And I guess it’s quite comforting to know that these “creative class” people actually have the same problems at work as us mere mortals.

Some people are born leaders, but most of us learn the art of leadership along the way. The better you are at nurturing leadership potential in others, the more valuable you will be to your organization. To cultivate these skills, you must push people toward peak performance while convincing them of your commitment to their personal growth.

The following are 10 of the strategies suggested by authors Scott J. Allen and Mitchell Kusy in their book, “The Little Book of Leadership Development: 50 Ways to Bring Out the Leader in Every Employee” for creating a greater sense of ownership and direction within your team. Follow these guidelines and you will distinguish yourself as an essential leader in your own right.

Treat team members as Customers – Let them know their professional development is a readon you challenge them.

Set aside One-on-one time – Individual exchanges are opportunities for discovering passions and aspirations.

Help People set goals – ownership inspires accountability, improving chances of success.

Stretch Capabilities – Make sure team members are working on something that expands their skillsets.

Let Them Lead – Choose a meeting organiser, a mentor, a project supervisor, etc.

Encourage People to Answer “How” – Set objectives, but allow the team to come up with ways to get there.

Promote Associations – Participating in industry groups elevates professional profiles.

Share Organisational Knowleddge – Your team will appreciate and benefit from transparency,.

Share Team Knowledge – Have members document challenges met and lesson learned.

Confront Effectively – Approach confrontation as collaboration to maximise mutual gains.

Buy this book at our book store on www.talentalign.com – or look through many of the most-read and influential books on Human Capital Management available from our book store.

“Reading body language can be very interesting and informative. People don’t realise how much information they display and how noticeable it is to other people.” So says Peter Clayton in a recent post in Soft skills. Understanding business body language can be very rewarding. You’ll know when to move forward, back off or slow down. It is also invaluable when interviewing, negotiating, running a training course or leading a team.

So what should we be concentrating on? The short list that can be used for Business Body Language is:

1. Voice tone, inflection and volume.
2. Eye contact.
3. Head movement.
4. Body movement including hands, arms, body and legs.

Voice tone, inflection and volume

Use the first few minutes of any business meeting to read and memorize the normal body language of important attendees, including voice tone and volume. Using small talk allows your to understand how they speak and how they communicate. Later in the meeting when things get serious you can use your original benchmarks to check how genuine they are.

Eye contact

Next, consider how much eye contact they are displaying and in which direction they look when using small talk. A dominant person maintains eye contact approximately 99% of the time which is a great deal more than a reserved or quiet person which is normally 60% of the time. An enthusiastic person would look you in the eyes approximately 75% of the time and would tend to look upwards and around when recalling memories.

Try to include a question about the marketplace and the way the economy is affecting all of us. This is a negative topic for most people, the eyes will probably go down and the voice will be lower. What you want to know now is how their eyes drop and for how long and in which direction left or right. When important points are mentioned during the meeting, if eye contact drops further and lower and is more focused then there is probably something to be concerned about and the person may be concealing something.

Remember, these are only indications of something to be concerned about or partial concealment. It is not, as some believe, an indication that someone is lying.

When lighting conditions are favorable it is very useful to gauge whether someone’s pupils are constricted or dilated. If you see a small piece of body language that concerns you and you can also see that the eyes are constricted then you know the person you’re talking to is concealing something. Likewise, when negotiating it is good to see someone’s eyes become dilated, it tells you they are far more interested than they would like you to believe and that the negotiations are going well. The easy rule is that the eyes constrict when someone is concealing negative thoughts, where as dilated pupils are a sign of enthusiasm and interest.

Head movement

It is important in the first few minutes of any meeting to see how much head movement a person is using when talking about small issues. When someone is attempting to conceal something, they will increase their eye contact to 100% directly into the eyes whilst holding their head steady. It is a subconscious movement that says if they are not looking away or fidgeting you will believe them. This stronger eye contact and steady head comes from childhood when we were told by our parents to “look me in the eye and tell me the truth”.

Hand to face

When we are thinking one thing and saying another, we feel uncomfortable. The facial skin gets warmer, especially around the base and side of the nose, ear lobes and neck. When you hear somebody say something which appears to be positive, but then they slightly rub the base of their nose at the same time, something is wrong. What happens is that blood has come to the surface of the skin and causes minor irritation which prompts someone to touch it to clear the irritation. Note – it is not blushing and you will not see any redness.

Body movement

Going back once again to the beginning of the meeting, what posture does this person have? Are they sitting upright, slightly forwards or slightly relaxed with their arms on the desk? How far away is their body from the desk? Enthusiastic people tend to come forwards, their hands become slightly animated and involved and their voice is a little louder. We can all see these expressions because unless you’re negotiating there is no need to conceal them.

However, as the meeting progresses it may appear that someone is becoming more relaxed, they move slightly away from the desk and turn to the left or the right very slightly. If this happens it is a sign that they are losing or have already lost interest and are being polite about it until the meeting finishes. This is almost certainly the case where the person you are talking to has respect for you and therefore the posture they have is an attempt to look relaxed. If when you ask the next question the voice is lower, with less inflection and tone then you can be sure that they are just being polite.

Peter Clayton is a leading body language expert, speaker and trainer as well as a consultant for the BBC and ITV. He writes for a wide range of national papers and magazines and is a specialist consultant to other speakers, leading businesses, celebrities and politicians. For more information, visit his website:www.peterclayton.com

Do we spend too much time focusing on our own and others weaknesses and trying to make them stronger, rather than recognizing strengths and trying to capitalize on them?

When considering Employee Development, we tend to make 2 incorrect assumptions:

1. That a person can become competent at anything if they are trained properly – so we spend a lot of time training the workforce.
2. That the greatest areas of “opportunity” or growth are in an employee’s area of greatest weakness – so the individual development plan for an employee will often focus on these areas of weakness or work to minimize them.

But, are these assumptions correct, or maybe we should, instead, make these assumptions:

1. Each person’s talents are enduring and unique (i.e. they were born with them and will always have them)
2. Each person’s greatest room for growth is in their area of greatest strength

The definition of Strength is “Consistent near perfect performance in an activity”. For something to be a strength, you must be able to do it consistently and predictably. People excel by maximizing strengths, not by fixing their weaknesses. One exception is that “fatal” weaknesses must be addressed. These are weaknesses that prevent growth and good performance. We need to learn to acknowledge and manage around these weaknesses. An example would be a manager hiring someone who has great attention to detail, since they know that is something they lack that is needed for the team they manage.

Strength can be seen as the sum of Talent, Knowledge and Skills that exists at any time in an individual.

• Talent – naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour that can be productively applied. Usually talents come so easily to us that we don’t recognize them as talents. We assume everyone can do the same things.
• Knowledge – facts and lessons learned. Knowledge includes “Factual knowledge” – knowing product features or protocols, etc., and “Experiential knowledge” – learned through experience.
• Skills – the steps of an activity. Skills bring structure to experiential knowledge and aid performance but not necessarily excellence. For example, you may learn some of the basic steps of public speaking and even become a better public speaker than you were before. But without the natural talent, you will never be great at it.

A person cannot have a strength without having the requisite talent. You may develop the knowledge and skills to get by, but without the talent you won’t be able to achieve consistent, near perfect performance.

The key to building a strength is to first identify your dominant talents, then refine them with knowledge and skills.

To find out what your strengths are, purchase Clifton StrengthsFinder access codes at www.strengthstest.com.

“Performance” today needs to be viewed across 3 levels:

• Organisational performance – how well am I contributing to the overall success of the organisation? This is generally about things like Scorecards.
• Job performance – how well am I performing in my specific job? This is generally about KPIs.
• Competence – do I have the necessary competencies to perform in my job? This is generally about Competency Management and Measurement.

These 3 levels roll up – if I don’t have the required competencies, I’m unlikely to be able to perform well in the job, and if I’m not performing well in my job, then its probably impacting on the ability of the organisation to achieve its goals.

So when you say “measure HR performance”, the question has to be “at which level”?

At the top level, measures such as:

• By how much has the workforce improved this year over last year? (borrowed from the book “The New Human Capital Strategy” by Bradley Hall – it’s a MUST read)
• By how much has the value of the workforce increased this year over last year?
• Which HR plans achieved their intended outcome?
• What was the return on investment in strategic HR initiatives?
• etc. (for more info, download our free ebook “Develop a Human Capital Strategy Scorecard” on www.talentalign.com and look at the book “The Workforce Scorecard”)

At the “operational” level, measures such as:

• How many exceptional candidates do we recruit and retain for each strategic job opening?
• How many hours of results-oriented training do new employees receive annually?
• What is the differential in merit pay between high-performers and low-performers?
• etc (for more info look at the book “The HR Scorecard”)

At the “competency” level, you need to have a well-structured Competency Framework in place. There are many Competency Frameworks available for different industries (we have one for the IT industry – go to www.talentalign.com to find out more), you just need to search to find the correct one for you.

So, this is just not a simple questions. Performance, to be realistic and meaningful to the organisation, needs to be measured across all 3 levels.

Each of us make decisions at some emotional level. How well do you know your employees? What are their emotional “triggers”?

These emotional labels and single paragraph descriptions were derived via extensive quantitative research with thousands of consumers, a panel of psychologists, and marketing consultants who specialized in assessing emotional purchase motivation. Taken together, the list is probably the best representation of the full spectrum of human needs which can be met by good people management.

1. Feeling Loved: Feeling Loved implies that a person has a satisfactory number of significant attachments in his or her life from whom (s)he receives an adequate amount of emotional nourishment on a daily basis
2. Feeling Attractive: Having a strong level of comfort with one’s physical being. Knowing that one is pleasant to look at and able to draw attention by virtue of one’s physical presence. (Note: ‘Feeling Sexy’ … the specific ability to attract a desired sexual partner, is a special kind of attractiveness, which is rated separately)
3. Sense of Adventure: Interested in exciting and remarkable experiences, sometimes involving unknown danger and risk. Rising to the challenge, exploring new territory, feeling excited about new leanings, new experiences, etc.
4. Feeling Financially Secure: Believing one has adequate money to take care of the majority of their BASIC needs and desires in the present and in the future. Feeling Financially Secure is different than Feeling Affluent or Wealthy – which means one believes they have enough money to buy WHATEVER they desire (more than basic needs and wishes) and has more money than one could reasonably spend.
5. Sense of Accomplishment: Seeing progressive evidence in one’s life that particular worthwhile goals are being sought after and achieved.
6. Feeling Caring or Nurturing: Interested in providing emotional, physical, financial, or spiritual support to others, warmly enjoying the process of doing so.
7. Being Altruistic: Able to sacrifice oneself for the benefit of society. To forgo one’s own gratification in favor of the interest of others whose well-being will not enhance one’s own.
8. Being Assertive: Able to stand up for and strive to obtain one’s own interests, especially given the presence of difficult people who stand in the way.
9. Feeling Brave or Courageous: Being willing to face risk and danger for the purpose of obtaining a positive benefit (when it is judged to be beneficial and wise to take the risk). (Being willing to face risk and danger without judgment is ‘foolhardiness’).
10. Feeling Creative: Interested in and able to UNIQUELY express oneself in words, behavior, or the arts.
11. Excitement or Liveliness: Having a strong sense of being alive, having the energy and interest to partake of all life has to offer.
12. Feeling Fair, Just, or Ethical: Marked by impartiality and honesty. Able to make judgments free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism. Interested in upholding these principles.
13. Feeling Luxurious or Pampered: The belief that one has enough resources at hand to enable splurging on things that are understood to be unnecessary DESIRES as opposed to essential NEEDS.
14. Feeling Healthy: Having confidence in one’s physical well being, strength, and ability to avoid disease and illness.
15. Feeling Athletic: Having confidence in one’s physical strength, stamina, flexibility, and ability to meet various physical challenges. (Especially sports, but also non-competitive physical challenges)
16. Feeling Flexible or Adaptable: Able to change one’s perspective and use one’s strengths according to the demands of a wide variety of situations.
17. Feeling Free: Being able to say what one wants to say, think what one wants to think, go where one wants to go, be with people one wants to be with, and behave how one wants to behave. Generally, being able to do as one pleases!
18. Being a Good Friend: Believing oneself to be attached to and supportive of a cared for other. Providing companionship and enjoying their company.
19. Enjoying Humor: Seeking to laugh regularly. Enjoying the ludicrous or absurd. Liking to make others laugh.
20. Feels like a Good Teacher: Able to successfully impart useful knowledge or abilities to others.
21. Being In Control: Able to influence one’s self and surroundings as desired. Being able to predict, manage, and successfully react to the occurrence of stressful events. Having the ability to decide when, how, and where one will engage in particular verbal or behavioral expressions.
22. Feeling Independent: Able to care for oneself, not requiring others to meet one’s needs.
23. Being Insightful: Able to make useful new connections. Seeing the broader picture, able to understand the way things work in new ways.
24. Having Integrity: Walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Knowing one’s behaviors are consistent with one’s principles. Able to put off or deny one’s own gratification at the moment in favor of a cherished principle. Being willing to hold oneself accountable for one’s actions.
25. Feeling Wise or Intelligent: Being mentally keen or quick. Knowing that one has a high degree of mental capacity which has been used to accumulate the kinds of knowledge and experience which makes one particularly well suited to meet the challenges of life.
26. Taking a Leadership Role: Serving as a leader for others, helping guide others towards worthwhile goals and being directly responsible for their supervision and performance.
27. Peaceful – Relaxed – Calm: Feeling peaceful, relaxed or calm. Having peace of mind, body, and spirit.
28. Having a Sense of Power: Able to wield influence over one’s own life and over others. Occupying a position of importance in life.
29. Being Productive: Believing oneself to be effective in consistently contributing some valuable work product to one’s own life, family, or society.
30. Feeling Respected: Being acknowledged and recognized for one’s value or contributions to one’s loved ones, family or society.
31. Feeling Spiritual: Feeling an established connection with a higher power of one’s own definition (one that transcends the mortal world). Can be, but is not necessarily, the higher power defined in one’s chosen religion.
32. Feeling Sexy: The specific ability to arouse the desire to mate in a potential partner of the desired gender. (Feeling Sexy is a specific type of the more general ‘Feeling Attractive’: which is knowing that one is pleasant to look at and able to draw attention by virtue of one’s physical presence).
33. Feeling Romantic: Enjoying the thoughts, feelings and perceptions associated with the desire to be ONE with another human being.
34. Feeling Safe: Reasonably knowing no harm will come to oneself. Able to rest assured in life or in a relationship.
35. Sense of Belonging: Knowing on a gut level that one is part of a family, group of friends, or society where one ‘fits in’ due to similar values, beliefs, and behavioral tendencies.
36. Feeling Trustworthy: Will not harm others in favor of one’s own gratification if given the opportunity. Reliable, dependable, able to be counted on.
37. Feeling Unique: Feeling unique implies that one is aware of being an individual distinct from all others.