Don’t Teach Managers About Engagement: Teach Them to Be Engaging

“One day he challenged me and he said, ‘Listen, I want you to help our 477 store directors be great. But listen, I don’t want you to go and teach them about engagement. They don’t need like a history lesson. But I want you to teach them how to be engaging.’ As I’ve navigated through various organizations, what I realized is that most organizations have the same challenges around manager performance.”

Kamaria Scott, Manager Enablement Expert at Accenture

We’re Only Human — Episode 150

 

During a recent livestream event, when first-time managers was brought up as a conversation topic, multiple attendees quickly pointed out their own follies and challenges when it came to first time leadership roles. 

Yet most companies still don’t have a structured way to identify, select, and equip managers to be capable professionals. 

In today’s conversation with Kamaria Scott from Accenture, Ben and Kamaria talk about:

  • Some of her favorite methods for helping to create more openness around manager performance enablement
  • Supporting open dialogue with “manager circles”
  • Carefully applying training where it needs to go instead of wielding it as a weapon.

This is a powerful discussion for any organization or leader who has wondered how to create a more capable and connected manager. 

 

Show Notes

This RPO Firm Hires Thousands of People a Year-Here’s How Hiring is Changing

“What I’ve seen over the last six to 12 months is that companies are literally craving this information to understand: are they still competitive? Because they’ve made so many moves, whether it was with pay or benefits, they want to understand where they stack as it relates to their competition.” 

Terry Terhark, Founder and CEO, NXT Thing RPO

We’re Only Human — Episode 149

If you want to be an Olympian, you’d look at what Olympians do and learn from their approach. If you want to achieve that same world-class level of success in hiring, you should look at what world-class organizations are doing in hiring. 

NXT Thing RPO is a recruitment process outsourcing partner for innovative companies that desire support in their hiring operations. The leader of NXT Thing is Terry Terhark, a veritable legend in the RPO industry and a wealth of information about what creates successful hiring outcomes. 

In today’s discussion, Ben talks with Terry about how hiring is evolving, what’s next for the economy, and how cultural alignment between employers and service providers plays a role in success of outsourcing relationships. 

Show Notes

Better Managers, Better Support, Better Results

And so we experimented and said, let’s have a trial run at being a manager. We took about 25 people that wanted to be a manager as a cohort.  We said, okay, for a period of six to nine months, we would give you a small team you’d be responsible to learn how to interview and make hiring decisions. Then you get to decide whether or not you want to continue the manager path or not.

Pat Wadors, Chief People Officer, UKG

We’re Only Human — Episode 148

Managers are an essential part of getting work done.

But many times managers and talent leaders end up butting heads, having mismatched expectations, or simply not getting along. In this episode, Chief People Officer Pat Wadors shares her experiences and advice for creating stronger manager relationships and outcomes that benefit not just HR and line managers, but their teams as well. Pat also dive into belonging and what it means in the modern workplace, giving each of us some ideas on how to make it a part of what we do every day. 

Links and Show Notes

Positioning Culture as ”Business Success Insurance” on We’re Only Human

“I guarantee there is a direct correlation between a fantastic culture to business success.  They are always together. I would say that the strong culture is the insurance policy of every business.”

Ronni Zehavi, CEO, HiBob

We’re Only Human — Episode 147

What if we had a way to shield our businesses from unnecessary turnover, disinterested staff, and other similar challenges?

It turns out that we do. It’s called culture. In some new research, we found that just 52% of HR leaders say their technology supports the employee-focused culture they desire. That’s a big gap. 

In today’s interview with Ronni Zehavi of HiBob, Ben dives deep with Ronni into culture, why it matters, and how HR technology helps to support an employee-focused culture in practical ways. Ronni talks about transparency, teamwork, flexibility, and other tangible examples based on his experience as a business leader. 

 

This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta. 

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Links and Show Notes

How Mayo Clinic Selects Leaders: A Case Study

“When we select leaders, what we have found is leaders may have great, innovative ideas. They may be very driven to achieve. But if they’re not inspiring people, if they’re not demonstrating those interpersonal qualities that people see them as servant leaders, we’ve noticed that people are not willing to follow them. So we really emphasize that [serving] is exactly the quality that we want to see in leaders.”

Ji-Yun Kang, Leadership Assessment and Selection, Mayo Clinic

We’re Only Human — Episode 146

 

All of the data indicate that a leader can make or break someone’s experience at work. In this episode of We’re Only Human, Ben talks with Ji Yun Kang, head of leadership assessment and selection at Mayo Clinic. Ji-Yun shares the key attributes the organization looks for in its leaders, including the things that push someone into the “no” pile when under consideration. 

Ms. Kang also suggests how to evaluate if leaders are actually successful or not, offering examples that help to make this conversation very practical for companies that want to use their leaders to engage, develop, and retain their workforce. 

 

This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta. 

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Links and Show Notes

Mentoring the 80% – Avoiding the Rock Stars and Duds

“The first thing is 100% look for difference [when mentoring]. If you are only looking for more of the same, you are hurting yourself. Cloning was bad in Star Wars, and cloning is bad in real life. The second one is related: get away from the rock stars and the duds when you are mentoring.”

Lt. Col. Chaveso “Chevy” Cook, PhD, Executive Director, MilitaryMentors.org

 

We’re Only Human — Episode 145

 

Mentoring has been a bigger conversation in the last year as more companies are looking for ways to develop women leaders, move diverse professionals up the ranks, and support the workforce in a more tangible way. But employers often look at just the top 10% and bottom 10%, according to today’s guest, missing the chance to connect with the 80% of employees who are typically excluded from mentoring opportunities.

In this conversation, Ben speaks with Lt. Col. Chevy Cook about key ideas in successful mentoring based on research and practice. They not only tie in the science of mentoring but also the art of relationship dynamics and more. 

 

This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta. 

Workplace from Meta

 

Links and Show Notes

Making ”No Regrets” Changes as People and Business Leaders

“The more that we could be pushing that on the business side to say beyond revenue and profitability, what is the quality metric? What is the wellbeing metric? Obviously, employee engagement many companies measure. Are we measuring the investments in learning that we’re putting out there for our people, even if they are people that end up leaving, if we’re improving the future employability of a workforce, surely that’s a good business and  society metric.”

Bhushan Sethi, People & Organization Joint Global Leader, PwC

We’re Only Human — Episode 144

In the last 24 months, HR and People leaders have been in the spotlight more than ever before, and this has given birth to opportunities to influence and change the workplace for the better. But how do you know which priorities to set, where to put your focus and effort, and what to do first? 

In this episode, Ben talks with Bhushan Sethi, a global people leader from PwC, to understand how he makes these decisions. Using a blend of research and practical perspectives, Bhushan offers helpful advice to people leaders at every company that is proven to drive employee retention and the organization’s employer value proposition. 

This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta. 

Workplace from Meta

 

Links and Show Notes