3 Fatal Mistakes Managers Make When Coaching Their Teams
EBOOK
When managers are unable to lead and coach effectively, mistakes are made, and sometimes that can be fatal to your organisation.
Here are three common management mistakes and how to avoid them.
Building Resilience in Times of Crisis
WHITE PAPER
As we all adjust to a changing landscape and a new normal in our personal and professional lives, it is imperative that we each develop an increased capacity to thrive in the face of adversity. This can be done one of two ways: unconsciously, through painful and time-exhaustive trial and error; or consciously, through deliberate cultivation of our own resilience. Beyond personal considerations, building resilience in the workplace is the distinguishing factor that will allow our businesses and communities to bounce back and thrive in unprecedented times.
Getting to the Sweet Spot of Effective Communication
WHITE PAPER
Effective workplace communication is one indication of a high-performance culture and drives the sharing of information and ideas, reduces confusion, and improves accountability. In a study conducted by the Corporate Finance Institute, respondents ranked communication skills as twice as important as managerial skills.
Conversational Capacity® refers to the ability—of an individual or a team—to engage in open, balanced, nondefensive dialogue about difficult subjects and in challenging circumstances. Its value is easy to see in teamwork: A team with high conversational capacity can perform well, remaining on track even when dealing with its most troublesome issues. A team lacking that capacity, by contrast, can see its performance derail over a minor disagreement.
Why a Situational Approach to Leadership Matters
WHITE PAPER
The period from the early 1940s through the late 1950s marked an important evolutionary time for the concept of leadership. During these two decades, researchers developed and refined several leadership contingency theories that introduced the concepts of initiating structure (the degree to which a leader defines, directs, and organises his or her role and the roles of followers) and consideration (the degree to which a leader shows concern and respect for followers, looks out for their welfare, and expresses appreciation and supports them) as distinct leader behaviours that were important for leader success.
However, by the 1990s researchers began to view these leader behaviours as outdated historical artifacts, instead favoring emerging leadership constructs like transformational leadership and full-range leadership. Therefore, consideration and initiating structure began to be viewed as forgotten constructs in both the academic and commercial literature.
But ever since the groundbreaking meta-analysis by Judge, Piccolo, and Ilies, there has been a revival in the study of the two traditional leadership behaviours: initiating structure (direction) and consideration (support). In their meta-analysis, the researchers examined 163 independent correlations for consideration and 159 correlations for initiating structure; they revealed that both consideration and initiating structure had reasonably strong, nonzero relationships with leadership outcomes.
Creating Impact Reports that Senior Leaders Love
EBOOK
If you’re like most learning and development professionals, one big challenge that makes you nervous is having to show the impact of training in a way that makes sense to senior executives in your company.
The good news: it’s not as difficult as you might think.
In this Blanchard point-of-view eBook, measurement expert Jim Irvine shares a simple, straightforward way to produce training impact reports that senior leaders love.
WD40
CASE STUDY
Building Trust and Improving Performance at WD-40 Company
WD-40 Company is a global marketing organisation headquartered in San Diego, California, where the original WD-40® Multi-Use Product was invented over 60 years ago. Probably best known for the signature blue and yellow can that is instantly recognised worldwide, WD-40 Company encompasses a group of brands featuring a full range of maintenance, specialty, and cleaning products for all corners of the industrial realm, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and home. The brands represent truly trusted and valued products that reflect a corporate environment based on trusting relationships.
Exploring The Heart of Human Achievement: Six Simple Truths
EBOOK
Leadership is a journey that unfolds over time. The best leaders adapt, connect, and learn from their people. On the journey to connecting with them, leaders find the formula for engaging with them to perform at high levels.
In this Blanchard Point-of-View eBook you’ll learn the six enduring leadership principles that will help aspiring leaders become more effective and respected along the journey.
Turning New Hires into Top Performers…Quickly
EBOOK
Fallout from the pandemic has spurred a mass job exodus and a hiring spree. Workplaces are being flooded with new hires. And people are looking at their options.
How you and your leaders respond to the influx of new talent will help determine whether new hires leave or stay, coast or contribute, struggle or flourish.
7 Warning Signs That Distrust Is Harming Your Organisation
EBOOK
Building trust from the very beginning is essential for success. However, when employees lack trusting relationships with one another and with their managers, it’s a recipe for a toxic work environment. When trust is broken, it can lead to decreased productivity, low morale, poor communication, and worst of all, high turnover.
High turnover results in bad company reviews, dissatisfied clients, and added costs for recruiting and training new employees.
Why a Situational Approach to Leadership Makes All the Difference
EBOOK
Because little formal examination of the interactive effects of direction and support on employee outcomes had been conducted, the researchers at Blanchard designed a study to investigate the effectiveness of the four leadership styles of the SLII model, which evolved from initiating structure and consideration. Specifically, the study was designed to answer three questions:
- Would individuals report that they received all four leadership styles from their leader?
- Would individuals feel they needed all four leadership styles from their leader?
- When an individual received the level of direction and support they felt they needed, were they more positive about their leader and their work environment?
The Five Drivers of Learning Impact
EBOOK
Organisations invest billions of dollars each year on training initiatives, with the goal of fueling growth and improving organisational vitality. However, training won’t make a difference if learners don’t apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills.
In this Blanchard point-of-view eBook, you’ll explore five drivers that must be in place to ensure the greatest level of traction with learners and measurable performance outcomes from learning and development initiatives.
Core Skills Every Manager Should Master
WHITE PAPER
Managing people is both a huge responsibility and a great honor. For the first-time manager, making the transition from being an individual contributor to a manager can be a dramatic shift. A common mistake organisations make is to promote high-performing individuals into the role of manager, assuming that their track record of success alone will assist them in making this shift. The reality is that the skills that served a person as an individual may not serve him or her as a manager.
Another pitfall for many managers is that without proper support and development, they can misjudge their role or become paralysed from fear of doing the wrong thing. Additionally, they may not receive adequate training to prepare them for their new role. For these reasons, managers can fail to accomplish their goals and develop meaningful relationships with their people.
4 Communication Essentials Your Managers Need to Know
EBOOK
The failure rate for managers can be staggering. But with the right tools and training, all managers can beat the odds.
Learn the four communication essentials managers need to know.
- Listen effectively to learn from others
- Inquire for insight and understanding
- Tell their truth with empathy and compassion
- Express confidence in their people
When It Comes to Customer Service, Is Your Business Flourishing or Failing?
EBOOK
Companies that have excellent customer service are more likely to earn repeat business from customers, to garner more referrals, and to have greater customer loyalty than those that don’t.
But to achieve this, organisations must focus on creating a service-oriented culture and providing the training to support those closest to the customer. Providing training allows employees to better understand the impact their role has on the organisation and to develop the ability to empathise and connect with the customer.
High Performance Teams what it takes to make them work
WHITE PAPER
Properly functioning and thriving teams can improve creativity and productivity, yet aren’t called upon enough when it comes to improving organsational performance. Teamwork is essential to creating competitive advantage, improving innovation, and achieving goals in the most efficient and effective way possible. All too often, teams are formed to accomplish important tasks, but are not always given the skills or proper training to reach peak performance.
4 Critical Focus Areas for Building a High Performance Team
EBOOK
The results of the Training magazine/Blanchard survey provide a fascinating snapshot into today’s teams. The survey results give Training & Development professionals a target to shoot for and recommended first steps as they look to create or enhance team training programs in their organisations.
Connecting the Dots
WHITE PAPER
For years, researchers, organisations, and leaders have been grappling with both the challenge of how best to create a motivating work environment and the role of leadership in inspiring and maximising the work passion and performance of others.
Several years ago, The Ken Blanchard Companies began exploring these issues as well as the relationships between leadership, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and organizational performance. The first study included the creation of a model that we titled The Leadership-Profit Chain. This model was grounded in a literature review of hundreds of studies and meta-analyses from 1980 through 2005.
The Leadership-Profit Chain
WHITE PAPER
A year-long study, including a literature review of hundreds of studies from 1980 through 2005, reveals some profound connections between leadership effectiveness, employee passion, customer devotion, and organisational vitality.
2023 Trends Report: Enhancing the Employee Experience in a Hybrid World
EBOOK
Over 700 L&D professionals participated in The Ken Blanchard Companies® 2023 HR/L&D Trends Survey. Participants represented all levels within the leadership, learning, and talent development functions from organizations of all sizes. Respondents were asked about their top challenges as they navigate a new hybrid world. Hiring, retention, engagement, and the employee experience emerged as dominant themes. Learn how L&D professionals are responding to these challenges by downloading this year’s complete report.
Stuck in the Middle - 2022 Manager Challenges Research
EBOOK
Researchers at The Ken Blanchard Companies® surveyed more than 800 leaders, asking them about the biggest stressors/challenges they are facing and what would help them to be more effective. More than 70,000 data points were analyzed, yielding an in-depth look into the lives of today’s managers.
Are Employees' Needs Being Met by One on Ones?
WHITE PAPER
†Survey Says “No”
Employees want more meetings with their boss. That’s one of the key findings from a survey conducted by Training magazine and The Ken Blanchard Companies®. More than 700 subscribers of Training magazine were polled to learn about their experiences having one-on-one meetings with their managers. Readers were asked what they wanted out of their meetings and how that compared to what was really happening. This research gives an important new look into what is being discussed and how it is meeting the needs of today’s workers.
2022 Trends Report: L&D in a Hybrid World
WHITE PAPER
Over 800 L&D professionals participated in The Ken Blanchard Companies® 2022 HR/L&D Trends Survey. Participants represented all levels within the leadership, learning, and talent development function from organisations of all sizes. In this survey, participants were asked to identify the single largest problem their L&D team is currently facing designing learning experiences for a hybrid work environment. Learn the three main themes that appeared.
Servant Leadership: A new approach to creating a culture of success
WHITE PAPER
Organisations that want to embrace servant leadership need to support their leaders through skill development, knowledge, tools, and human resource systems and processes. In this collection of articles, we explore the concepts and paradigm shifts organisations must consider.
Are You a Directive or Supportive Leader?
EBOOK
Forty years of Blanchard research has proven that the best leadership style is the one that matches the developmental needs of the person you’re working with. Is the direct report new and inexperienced about the task at hand? If so, more guidance and direction are called for. Are they experienced and skilled? In that case, they require less hands-on supervision and a more supportive style.
To bring out the best in others, leadership must be tailored to both the individual and the situation.
Leading at a Higher Level Book Summary
EBOOK
This ebook summarises the four main principles and key concepts from the fully updated third edition of Leading at a Higher Level. Ken Blanchard and his colleagues at The Ken Blanchard Companies explore how to build better leaders based on their 40 years of practice with thousands of organisations around the world. You’ll learn how to:
- Go beyond the short term and zero in on the right target and vision
- Empower and unleash the potential of people
- Deliver legendary customer service and earn raving fans
- Ground your leadership in humility and focus on the greater good
2021 Trends Report: L&D in a COVID World
WHITE PAPER
Over 1,000 professionals participated in The Ken Blanchard Companies® 2021 HR/L&D Trends Survey. Participants represented all levels within the leadership, learning, and talent development function from organisations of all sizes. In this survey, we asked participants to identify the single largest problem their L&D team is currently facing due to COVID-19 going into the new year. Respondents shared over 1,000 individual responses. Learn the three main themes that appeared.
Leading People Through Change Promo Trailer
VIDEO
View the trailer of the teaching video used in The Ken Blanchard Companies' Leading People Through Change training program.
Why Leadership Matters Intro – 2020
VIDEO
With over three decades of helping leaders and organisations, more than 18 million books in print, programs offered in more than 12 languages and clients across six continents, The Ken Blanchard Companies is recognised as one of the worlds leading training and development experts. Our groundbreaking thinking and memorable learner experiences create lasting behavioural change that has measurable impact on the organisations with which we work—companies that wish to develop leadership capacity, improve workplace cultures, drive organisational change and strategic alignment, and become high performing organisations. Using a collaborative diagnostic process we help identify each organisations unique needs and business issues, and then help to develop an appropriate leadership strategy to drive results and profits.
Blanchard Virtual Learning Solutions
VIDEO
Virtual learning offers some significant advantages. Your learners don’t need to suspend their work in order to travel to a training site, and this means less loss of productivity. With Blanchard's carefully curated content and proven curriculum, your virtual learners gain the skills they need right now to get to the next level of development.
Why It's Crucial for Your Leaders to Take a Situational Approach To Management
EBOOK
Done well, performance management is a partnership. But research indicates there are significant gaps between what employees expect from their leaders and what they actually experience at work. SLII® is a model and process that helps managers be more purposeful and intentional in their conversations with people. This creates a culture where people are clear and aligned on objectives so that they can achieve organisational goals faster.
High Performance Teams: What it Takes to Make Them Work
WHITE PAPER
Properly functioning and thriving teams can improve creativity and productivity, yet aren’t called upon enough when it comes to improving organisational performance. Teamwork is essential to creating competitive advantage, improving innovation, and achieving goals in the most efficient and effective way possible. All too often, teams are formed to accomplish important tasks, but are not always given the skills or proper training to reach peak performance.
The Leadership-Profit Chain
WHITE PAPER
It’s no secret that leadership capacity is critical to organisational success, but little research has been compiled about the long-term impact of leadership on organisational productivity and profitability.
In response, The Ken Blanchard Companies embarked on a study to answer some important questions about leadership and its role in supporting the overall success of an organisation. The study focused on four questions
Coaching Skills: The Missing Link for Leaders
WHITE PAPER
For years, coaching has been regarded as a useful strategy for individual and organiSational development. Unfortunately, most organisations struggle with getting their managers to adopt and use coaching behaviours. In order to further understand the impact of leader coaching behaviours, the researchers at The Ken Blanchard Companies® embarked on a study to identify the correlations between leader coaching behaviours and the resulting correlation between trust, affect or emotion, and work intentions of their followers. This paper finds that coaching is a powerful managerial tool.
Managing Coaching for Results and ROI
WHITE PAPER
How a Systemised Approach to Coaching Can Help Organisations Get a Better Return on Their Investment When Coaching Is No Longer an “If” but a “How?”
Conversational Capacity–Getting to the Sweet Spot of Effective Communication
EBOOK
The more challenging the situation, the greater the need to communicate clearly and effectively. Most communication weaknesses and failures in our organisations and teams can be linked to individuals lacking the skills to engage in open dialogue about difficult subjects.
One solution is increasing your organisation's conversational capacity. Conversational capacity is the ability of an individual or a team to remain both candid and curious under pressure.
Five Communication Strategies That Make Leading Change Work in Turbulent Times
EBOOK
Mastering the art of leading change doesn’t need to be mysterious or complicated. Acknowledging that people go through predictable and sequential stages of concern— which can be anticipated and addressed—can help your organisation accelerate change.
By training leaders on how to address the stages of concern and respond with strategies to increase involvement and influence at each stage of the change process—and build the capacity for future change—organisations can dramatically increase the probability of successfully initiating, implementing, and sustaining change.
Leading Successful Change Initiatives: Why We Need a High-Involvement, Collaborative Approach to Making it Work
WHITE PAPER
Each day we are having to invent new ways of working, new ways of interacting, new ways of living. We are having to be courageous, curious, agile, and gritty. We have to react almost hourly, on the fly, to new policies or rules that often were implemented without consideration of the impact they would have on us, without our voice at the table.
High involvement is at the core of Blanchard’s approach to Leading People Through Change. We believe change leaders need to hear the voices of those impacted by the change as we make the change. If that is unrealistic, we need to anticipate the questions and concerns of those impacted by the change. We also need to develop a change mindset that demonstrates to others what is needed to be resilient in the face of change.
WageWorks – Customising Leadership Training
CASE STUDY
“One of the first things I did at my new job at WageWorks, was meet with senior leaders to determine the top three things I needed to focus on to support the company. It was very clear that leadership training was at the top of the list,” says Deanna Miller, director of learning and development. Because WageWorks (recently acquired by HealthEquity) provides administration services to manage health savings and consumer-directed benefits such as flexible spending accounts, the L&D team’s main focus had been product training. However, Miller’s research indicated they now needed to be deliberate about creating a focused, scalable leadership training program for all leaders in the organisation.
Aimco – Aligning Leadership development to Corporate Culture
CASE STUDY
“My challenge was summed up in two words: sonic boom,” says Brian O’Neill, director of learning and organisational development at Aimco. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Aimco is one of the largest owners and operators of apartment homes in the United States. The company serves nearly 250,000 residents in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
Embracing Virtual Learning at H&R Block
CASE STUDY
H&R Block is committed to elevating talent and culture as a key to its successful future. It’s making good on that commitment by making an investment in its leaders so they can unleash the potential in their associates.
Engaging Your People through Virtual Learning
WHITE PAPER
Virtual learning has become mainstream. A study by Chief Learning Officer magazine revealed that seventy-five percent of responding organisations used virtual learning. According to Training Industry, virtual learning has become a $56 billion industry, with learning professionals claiming it is the second most effective training method they use.
When done effectively, organisations find it can reduce time away from the office and decrease the cost of training by eliminating the need for travel. Studies show virtual learning can also reduce instruction time, save energy, and increase the learners’ retention of the content.
The Problem with Performance Review
WHITE PAPER
The practice of performance review has been around for more than a century. Although the practice didn’t become mainstream until the 1950s, the primary function of performance appraisals was to provide a process for organisations to rate the effectiveness of their employees. The problem is most organisations don’t do them very well. In 1972, legendary organisational behaviour researcher Douglas McGregor published an article in Harvard Business Review titled “An Uneasy Look at Performance Appraisal” in which he outlined the pitfalls of traditional performance review.
A Business Case for Optimal Motivation
WHITE PAPER
Activating optimal motivation is far more than a feel-good proposition for individuals and organisations. It provides a pragmatic and skill-based framework, course of action, and solution to helping shift a workforce that costs organisations an estimated $350 billion annually in lost productivity. Organisations will spend $750,000 to $1 billion to fix a problem whose source many of them do not understand.
Millennials in The Workplace - How do Managers Inspire Them?
WHITE PAPER
The Millennial Generation (born 1981–1995) is 76 million strong, and many managers seem to have great difficulty understanding and inspiring them. And that creates a problem, because they comprise 36 percent of today’s workforce, a percentage that will grow to 46 percent by 2020. Managers who learn how to truly inspire Millennials to contribute their talents to address the many challenges facing organisations today could far outperform their competitors.
What do We Know About Development Level?
WHITE PAPER
Since the inception of SLII®, we’ve been asked about the validity of our concept of development level. This white paper will provide a deeper understanding of the concept of development level, as well as a recap of the relevant academic research* that supports the four components of development level.
Employee Work Passion: Volume 7
WHITE PAPER
Performance management is a key leadership responsibility. This survey suggests that significant gaps exist between employee expectations and what they are experiencing at work. Left unaddressed, these gaps represent a drain on overall organisational vitality through lowered employee intentions to stay, endorse, and apply discretionary effort as needed.
Elearning
WHITE PAPER
Online learning allows organisations to provide a consistent, convenient way to educate their employees. In fact, some experts believe that online learning is the way of the future. When designed effectively it can be just as powerful as, if not more powerful than traditional classroom training in addition to saving your organisation time and money. Following a few smart guidelines will enable you to design and deliver effective online learning experiences that meet the needs of learners.
Improving Employee Work Passion
IMPACT STUDY
The organisation and The Ken Blanchard Companies (Blanchard) deployed Blanchard’s Employee Work Passion Assessment in order to benchmark current levels of satisfaction in several key areas.
Multisource Feedback
WHITE PAPER
Goal achievement is central to our positive self-concept and self-esteem. In general, MSF works because when individuals see a gap between their feedback ratings and the desired goal, they generally work to reduce the gap as a way of maintaining a positive sense of self-esteem. Individuals have a natural tendency to correct a certain behaviour when they get feedback that doesn’t align with a standard they’ve held for themselves regarding who they want to be versus how they are perceived.
Employee Work Passion: Volume 6
WHITE PAPER
Employees want more meetings with their boss. That’s one of the key findings from a survey conducted by Training magazine and The Ken Blanchard Companies. More than 700 subscribers of Training magazine were polled to learn about their experiences having one-on-one meetings with their managers. Readers were asked what they wanted out of their meetings and how that compared to what was really happening.
Employee Work Passion: Volume 5
WHITE PAPER
New research from The Ken Blanchard Companies reveals the true impact of self-focused versus other-focused leader behaviours on the people they lead and the correlation to employee work intentions.
Innovations in Learning Design: Learning Experience that Transform
WHITE PAPER
Peak learning experiences have the capacity to transform us, help us to grow, and, ultimately, optimise our lives. In a professional setting, learning gives individuals a chance to accelerate their success and expand beyond their current knowledge and skills. Yet so often those who teach don’t understand how to effectively transfer the knowledge or content in a way that learners can effectively integrate it, utilise it, and sustain it after the learning experience.
A Leadership Imperative for the Oil and Gas Industry
WHITE PAPER
Working in the oil and gas industry is not unlike operating a motor vehicle—inherently but not necessarily dangerous. Many people go entire careers without a lost-time accident or injury while others experience recurring incidents. Each day requires a high level of competence and renewed commitment from each person to masterfully complete tasks that seemingly become routine. The focus on both safety and productivity must be in rigorous alignment with no lack of clarity.
Making The Business Case for Leadership Development
WHITE PAPER
One of the biggest challenges training professionals face when they propose new leadership development initiatives is convincing CEOs of the financial impact of the proposed initiative. Without a clear sense of the positive financial impact, it is easy to dismiss a new proposal as being too disruptive, too expensive, or too time consuming.
Thriving in the Business Reality
WHITE PAPER
Organisations around the world are being forced to change the way they do business. Shrinking budgets, downsized workforces, customers who exhibit totally new buying behaviours and expectations, and employees who may be unclear of what’s happening next are forcing organisations large and small to innovate and find new ways to save–and make–money while rallying their troops for what lies ahead.
