Mentoring in the Workplace Part 2

Piloting a Mentoring Program

Component 1 - Design

• Determine strategic purpose
• Obtain a champion from senior management
• Select an appropriate task force
• Create learning objectives
• Select mentoring model
• Determine application, selection, and matching criteria
• Establish guidelines for all activities
• Review of pilot results and modification

Component 2 – Implementation

• Market the program to stakeholders within the organization
• Recruit, interview and match the participants
• Meet with the managers of the mentorees

Until next time...
 




Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/

Coaching in the Workplace Part 2

Designing a Coaching Program

• Define goals and make sure that they are aligned with the overall strategy of the organization
• Set a timeline
• Agree on coach and coachee relationship
• Set goals
• Coaching sessions
• Interim and final review sessions

 A Simple Model for Coaching

• Develop a Vision Statement
• Set goals
• Develop a weekly action plan
• Discuss possible roadblocks
• Discuss and celebrate accomplishments

Communication Skills for the Coach

• Listening
• Actively listen to the coachee
• Gather all information both verbal and non-verbal
• Check for understanding
• Questioning
• To facilitate the process
• To gather further information
• Challenge the coachee

 Coaching Tips

• Ask the coachee about a time when he/she was ineffective or stuck
• Ask for examples of the assessments he/she made of these situations
• Ask him/her to be specific about the problem area
• Help him/her to find the strategy behind the action  

Until next time...






Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/

Critical Elements of Strategy Part 3

To begin thinking about critical strategic questions and become clearer about what you know and don't know about your organization strategy, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How does our strategy give us competitive advantage for the future?
2. What is the core ideology that describes who we are and what we are about?
3. What are our 3 top business objectives for this year?

Here are the steps of the strategic design sequence that we will discuss in the future:

• Analyze the business environment
• Forecast the future
• Create a core ideology
• Define strategic direction
• Define competitive advantage
• Set goals
• Create a master plan

 Until next time...






Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/

Critical Elements of Strategy Part 2

THREE APPROACHES

1. Internally-Driven:

• Most businesses are internally-driven.
• This means that their strategy is driven by what they have done in the past.
• Their thinking is from the inside out – they decide what to make, how to make it, and then how to get customers to buy it.
• The weakness of this strategy is that organization members are not anticipating changes in the marketplace and so fail to be adaptive and innovative. This results in the buggy-whip syndrome in which they keep making buggy whips, which they are good at, in an era of automobiles.

2. Customer-Driven:

• Organizations that are customer-driven try to develop a business strategy by "being close" and "listening" to the customer.
• They ask the same questions as the internally-driven organization: "What products should we make and sell?"  However, now they want the customer to answer these questions.
• The consequence of trying to be to customer-driven is that these companies end up trying to be "all things to all people."  They fail to link what they do to their core competencies, how they want to differentiate themselves from their competitors, or how they add value as an organization.

3. Market-Driven:

• This strategy is based on making conscious choices about which markets organizations will serve and how they add value to their customers.
• They seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors by identifying the specific benefits they will or will not provide and organizing around the delivery of those benefits.
• This is not the same as asking customers for their input and feedback. It is based on making decisions about how they want to compete.

We believe that it is through a market-driven strategy that organizations will best compete in the present and plan for their future.

Until next time...






Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/

Critical Elements of Strategy Part 1

In today's dynamic and rapidly changing world, organizations need a dynamic business strategy that anticipates change in the marketplace .  Although some industries are more stable than others, the organizations that flourish in the long run are those who engage in continual strategic renewal.

ELEMENTS OF STRATEGY

• Strategy is a synonym for conscious choices.
• It addresses the interface between the organization and its environment
• It lays the foundation for tomorrow success while competing to win today.
• It involves anticipating, adapting, and creating change.
• It is the most important and difficult challenge facing businesses today.
• It requires trade-offs (can't be all things to all people)
• It includes differentiating oneself from competitors.
• It necessitates risk taking.
• It is the task of the whole organization.
• It must be operationalized into plans and actions.

TWO ORIENTATIONS

Preserving:

• Reacting to changes in environment
• Protecting stable domain
• Looking to the past
• Doing things the same
• Playing catch up
• Feeling anxious

Renewing:

• Anticipating changes in environment
• Seeking new opportunities
• Looking to the future
• Innovating
• Being in front
• Feeling hopeful

Keeping Score on Organizational Goals

What is the most important factor in a team's success?

A clear and elevating goal!

Research has shown that teams who are successful have clear and compelling goals which become a performance challenge to team members.

It is not only important to have clear and compelling goals, but people must also know how well they are doing in attaining those goals.  Imagine that you go to a basketball game of your favorite team and the announcer says at the start of the game, "Folks, we've decided tonight that we won't keep score.  This game has become too competitive and we want you to sit back and have fun watching the game and enjoying the athleticism of the players!" How would you feel?

People like to know how they're doing. Much of the appeal of sporting events and games would be lost if we did not know the score.

Keeping Score has Three Benefits:
1.  It motivates individual performance
2.  It becomes the basis for analyzing and making improvements.
3.  It helps team members to focus on a common purpose and work together.

Unfortunately, many teams and organizations do not do a good job of keeping score and so lose out on these benefits.

Keeping Score:

• Is how we know how well we are doing
• Must include several complementary measures
• Must be linked to the strategy and objectives of the larger organization
• Must be "owned" by the team

Until next time...






Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/