GO
Daniel Pink on What Drives People 26
Capital Power Innovates On-boarding 17
The New Reality of Mid-level Leadership 22
COFCO’s Frank Ning Talks Strategy 28
Great People. Great Organizations. Great Results.
2010 Vol. 7, No. 2
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BOB ROGERS
VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 2 • 2010
PUBLISHER
Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D.
MANAGING EDITORS
Craig Irons and Rachel Moody
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Susan Ryan
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Elizabeth Speed Kabus
CNNMoney.com recently ran a wonderful online slideshow called “I Have
the Best Job in America.” The piece profiled 10 people, each from a career
field with high projected job growth.
There was the business consultant who loved the “freedom” of his job, the civil
engineer who raved that “every day is different,” and the database administrator
who said, “The job is often very challenging in a good way.” A physician’s
assistant, meanwhile, said, “You get satisfaction from seeing patients and
getting the feedback every day that you’re helping people.”
I love people who love their jobs. They are energizing to talk to, and many
times I come away from these discussions realizing that they had verbalized
something positive about their jobs that I also love about mine, but which
hadn’t occurred to me.
I like to think that when you’re in the right job, when you truly love your work,
it really does love you back, in ways that go far beyond money, accolades, and
promotions. That’s the feeling I get from those 10 people in the slideshow.
It’s also the feeling I get from the people from two companies profiled in this
issue of GO. Sara Lee is remaking its culture by improving the skills of its
leaders. Capital Power, meanwhile, is employing a blended-learning approach
to get its new employees off to a strong start.
Also here you’ll discover how Quintiles is putting to work DDI’s latest assessment innovation, Manager ReadySM; see what best-selling author Daniel Pink
believes about motivating employees; find highlights from recent DDI research
on mid-level leaders; and read execution insights from Frank Ning, COFCO’s
chairman and the 2009 Asia Business Leader of the Year.
As you thumb through the following pages, I’m sure you’ll find a lot to love.
Editorial and Circulation:
GO
c/o Development Dimensions Intl.
1225 Washington Pike
Bridgeville, PA 15017-2838
Telephone: 412-257-0600
go@ddiworld.com
ABOUT DDI
For over 40 years, DDI has helped
the most successful companies around
the world close the gap between where
their businesses need to go and the
talent required to take them there.
Our areas of expertise span every level,
from individual contributors to the
executive suite:
- Success Profile Management
- Selection & Assessment
- Leadership & Workforce Development
- Succession Management
- Performance Management
DDI’s comprehensive, yet practical
approach to talent management starts
by ensuring a close connection of our
solutions to your business strategies,
and ends only when we produce the
results you require.
You’ll find that DDI is an essential
partner wherever you are on your journey to building extraordinary talent.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc.
MMX. All rights reserved.
Bob Rogers,
President, DDI
2
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10
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28
17
26
13
contents
GO VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 2
FEATURES
4
9
28
Sara Lee’s Main Ingredient for Growth—Strong Leaders
The global food and beverage company is building a
leadership culture as it sharpens its strategic focus.
Perspective: Is the iPad a Training Game Changer?
DEPARTMENTS
Apple’s tablet computer is a hot seller.
But what’s its potential as a training tool?
10
16
17
What’s GOing On
OPAL® and Leadership Mirror® are now even better!
10 Ways and 100 Days to Jump-Start New Employees
Start your newest team members off right with a
solid on-boarding strategy.
13
Strategy Execution from the Top
An interview with Frank G. Ning, chairman of
COFCO, and the 2009 Asia
Business Leader of the Year.
21
“Data with Teeth” for Selecting and Developing
Frontline Leaders
Manager ReadySM, a revolutionary new virtual assessment
center from DDI, provides a highly accurate—and highly
affordable—way to assess frontline leaders.
26
Trend Tracker
Findings from an Aberdeen study on frontline
and mid-level leaders.
Coffee on the GO
Daniel Pink, author of the best-selling book Drive,
discusses what organizations need to understand
about motivation.
Power to the (New) People!
How Capital Power is helping its new hires hit the
ground running.
22
The New Reality of Mid-Level Leadership
Two DDI research studies explore the current
state—and challenges—of mid-level leadership.
3
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
GO TO WORK
MAIN INGREDIENT
FOR GROWTH:
STRONG LEADERS
The global food and beverage company is building a
leadership culture as it sharpens its strategic focus.
Within Sara Lee’s corporate headquarters, not far from
Chicago’s O’Hare airport, the company operates a store.
Deb Sinta, senior manager, learning and development, is
taking a few minutes out of her busy day to give a tour.
“We have all of our different products for sale here,” she
says of the establishment, which is about the size of a
convenience store. And those products are numerous.
Coffees and teas. Breads and sandwich buns.
Refrigerator and freezer cases filled with many items
familiar to consumers—Hillshire Farms and Jimmy Dean
packaged meat products, Ballpark Franks and, of course,
the famous Sara Lee cheesecakes and other dessert items.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
4
The store is symbolic of Sara Lee’s renewed strategic
focus on food and beverages. As the company returns to
emphasizing its core product categories, it’s also ensuring
the success of this new direction by building a stronger
leadership culture. Prior to escorting her guests to the
company store, Sinta and Deby Rossignol, who’s also a
senior manager for learning and development, had spent
the previous several hours helping to bring them up to
speed on Sara Lee’s initial efforts in what they acknowledge
is a long-term process.
“Organizationally, people were telling us that they needed
development. We had some people managers who either
didn’t understand the importance of coaching or who
lacked the skills to coach,” Rossignol had said during that
meeting, describing a symptom of the Sara Lee culture
that pointed to a need for change.
Change began to arrive hand-in-hand with the new strategic
direction for Sara Lee’s business, and it came in the form
of sweeping initiatives designed to build a new leadership
culture. These initiatives extend well beyond company
headquarters to Sara Lee facilities around the world and,
as senior leaders within the business will confirm, they
are every bit as important to Sara Lee’s future as bread,
meats, coffee, and cheesecake.
BACK TO BASICS
Sara Lee was founded in 1941 to sell cheesecake (Sara Lee
was the founder’s daughter’s name). Over time, as the company grew, often through acquisition, it diversified into a
wide range of businesses, including household and body
care products, and even apparel. But some of those businesses proved to have more growth potential than others.
Among the most dramatic steps taken toward executing
the new business strategy were the divestiture of several
non-core businesses and a restructuring of operations.
With this refocusing and restructuring came the need to
look closely at the organization’s workforce and establish a
new high-performance organizational culture—an undertaking that meant instilling a new leadership culture.
“Our long-range plan specifically outlines a goal to create
a high-performance culture that engages all employees and
develops leaders who reinforce our culture,” said Stephen
Cerrone, executive vice president of human resources, in
comments published prominently on the company’s
intranet. “We know that more engaged employees drive
better business performance.”
While cultural transformation was a primary driver, there
was visible evidence that Sara Lee had much to gain by
investing in developing its leaders and making its teams
more effective. Sinta points out that there were signs that
poor leadership skills led to issues with high employee
turnover, and low productivity and morale.
“Our people spent a lot of time fighting fires and telling
people what they needed to do versus empowering their
teams to solve problems themselves,” says Michelle
Stidwell, regional training and development manager, based
in Atlanta. “We had a lot of line leaders who essentially
spent a lot of their time doing their direct reports’ jobs.”
“The anecdotal information highlighted the need for a
greater focus on leadership and team effectiveness skills,”
recalls Mark Demich, vice president of organizational
development. “But we didn’t have true data to back it up.”
5
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
When Brenda Barnes became the company’s CEO in 2005
(Barnes resigned earlier this year for health reasons), she
and her team determined that as Sara Lee had moved away
from its baked goods roots, its path to future growth was
unclear. What’s more, Sara Lee lacked consistency and
unity. The processes, functions, and strategic language
that defined a packaged meat products plant in California
were not necessarily the same as those found in a bakery
in Georgia or a corporate office in Barcelona.
“When we look at our
strategic framework as
an organization, the
people and culture are
the foundation,” says
Nilgun Langenberg,
vice president, global talent
development and learning. “I think
most people would agree that it’s critical
to our success overall.”
GO TO WORK
Then in late 2008, a companywide engagement survey
confirmed the need to address critical areas such as
respect, development & learning, and senior leadership—results that underscored a need to systematically
develop the organization’s leader population.
The organization’s global learning plan, which had been
in place for several years, was updated to align to the
Leadership Profile and to better support the development
of a high-performance culture. The plan identifies two
programs as critical pillars that support the high-performance culture. One is the Shared Leadership Experience,
“That was the first time we surveyed every single
targeting vice presidents and directors. The Shared
employee globally, and the data came back very strongly
Leadership Experience sessions for vice presidents are
and very powerfully,” says Demich. “Our senior mandesigned to show participants how to translate the
agement team looked at those results and recognized
desired culture into specific behaviors that accelerate
that there were things that required global attention
business performance and apply the target behaviors to
when it came to our approach to developing our leaders
specific business initiatives. The sessions for directors,
and managers.”
meanwhile, focus on alignment
To become “one Sara Lee,” and
and the role of leaders as shapers
begin shaping the culture to supof Sara Lee’s culture. They also
When we look at our
port the new direction for the
promote understanding of the
company, Sara Lee’s corporate
strategic framework as
desired culture, translating it into
HR team, working with the supan organization, the
specific behaviors, championing
port of and direction from the
people and culture are
and modeling those behaviors,
senior management team, began
the foundation. I think
and engaging team members
building a robust infrastructure.
most people would agree
behind the behaviors.
This infrastructure defines the
that it’s critical to our
A second program, Leadership
required behaviors and skills leadsuccess overall.
Essentials, is a global leadership
ers needed to move the company
development initiative targeting
forward.
Sara Lee’s 5,000-plus people
TRANSLATING CULTURE INTO
managers. Leadership Essentials is designed to impart
BEHAVIOR
the skills Sara Lee leaders needed to be more effective,
The first step in the journey toward creating the new Sara to engage their team members, and to drive results.
Lee leadership culture was the creation of a Leadership These include skills related to communication, coachProfile that articulated elements of the desired culture ing, providing feedback, and managing performance.
and translated those elements into specific behaviors. The Leadership Essentials curriculum is made up of 11
The Leadership Profile included four core leadership courses from DDI’s Interaction Management:
competencies: Performance & Accountability, Exceptional Leaders... Extraordinary Results® leaderCommitment to Change, Collaboration, and Positive ship development system. Over the course of the twoEnergy. Specific behaviors (e.g., “Delivers on commit- year timeframe, each business unit will deliver four
ments with strong process discipline,” “Drives customer courses annually, each of which is a half-day in length.
excellence and consumer focus”) were mapped to each
In 2009, Sara Lee’s HR staff certified 78 facilitators.
of these competencies.
These new facilitators, along with 26 facilitators who
“The senior management team identified that those four had been certified previously, began immediately to
competencies were the areas where we needed to focus deliver the courses at locations around the world. The
in order to execute our long-range plan,” says Cerrone. divisions and individual locations were free to deter-
“
”
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
6
Results of a post-training survey captured, in quantitative
terms, how Leadership Essentials is having a positive
impact on Sara Lee’s people managers: 88 percent of
respondents said the program will increase employee
satisfaction, 73 percent said it will increase productivity,
and 92 percent said it will support their ability to apply
the Leadership Profile behaviors.
mine how best to deliver the training. This flexibility
was important, given the unique characteristics of the
businesses and locations, and also given that some
Sara Lee leaders worked in corporate offices while
others worked shifts in manufacturing plants. The
course materials were made available in 11 languages to
accommodate global audiences.
Sara Lee’s HR organization conducted overview sessions “We are now working on one leadership language, and I
to introduce senior leaders to Leadership Essentials con- think that is key,” says Annelies Balistreri, senior manager,
cepts and content, and reinforce their roles in making organizational development and recruitment, who spearthe program a success, including their role in modeling headed the implementation of Leadership Essentials in the
and coaching. Many of the managers of those leaders Netherlands. “It’s also helpful for us as an employer of
slated to go through the Leaderchoice because we offer a leadship Essentials program also
ership curriculum. I think that
attended Supporting Leadership
makes you attractive to people
Development, a DDI course that
you want to have stay or who you
showed them how to help the leadwant to have join the company.”
The message we’ve been
ers reporting to them apply their
At Sara Lee’s San Lorenzo, Calif.,
sending to employees is that
new skills on the job and continue
plant that produces meat products,
applying them moving forward.
we do care, we do want
Brian Personett, HR manager, saw
your buy-in.
Perhaps most important in driving
his facility’s engagement scores
true behavior change, the behavjump 15 points in a single year, in
iors identified in the Leadership
part because leaders were hired
Profile have been incorporated
who were a better fit with the new
into the performance management
culture, and in part because of the
process, so that leaders’ job performance is evaluated, in Leadership Essentials training.
part, on their behavior.
“The message we’ve been sending to employees is that
While these efforts helped to reinforce the business case we do care, we do want your buy-in,” he says.
for the training, most senior leaders were already strong
While acknowledging that building a leadership culture
advocates. In most of the business units, each course is
is a long-term endeavor, Demich believes that ultimately
kicked off by an executive who either appears in person or the success of the training will prove crucial to the
via videotape to speak to the importance of the training. future success of Sara Lee’s business.
“
”
THIS IS ABOUT BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
“This is not a learning and development program.
Individuals who have participated and are demonstrating
the leadership and managerial skills that are being developed are seeing better business results. Their teams are
more aligned around goals. This is truly about business
performance.”
The initial results of the Leadership Essentials program
are promising. Through the first year of training, the
majority of the target leader population in the U.S. has
benefited from the program, as has most of the target
leader population in international locations. And regardless of the location or the business unit, the program has
been well received.
Senior leaders from outside of HR echo this sentiment.
“Leadership Essentials is really the start to building our
7
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
GO TO WORK
overall high-performance culture,” said Michelle
Knibbs, a regional operations vice president, in an internal video promoting the program. “We think it’s critical
to our sustainable success within Sara Lee.”
“As leaders provide that timely, relative feedback using
the different tool sets that have been outlined for us,” he
said. “I think that will make us collectively successful as
an organization.”
Appearing in the same video, Kevin Williams, a regional
manufacturing vice president, offered a similar endorsement of Leadership Essential’s importance to Sara Lee
moving forward.
✪ To learn more about Interaction Management: Exceptional
Leaders... Extraordinary Results® visit www.ddiworld.com/GO.
HOW TO: KEEP FACILITATORS ENERGIZED
12345
1.0 Deb Sinta and
Deby Rossignol
Deby Rossignol
Deb Sinta
Sr. Manager, Learning and Development
Sr. Manager, Learning and Development
point to the following best
practices that have helped
keep Sara Lee’s 104 facilitators
engaged and effective in
delivering the Leadership
• Provide ongoing development.
Essentials training.
Sara Lee has implemented a
one-and-a-half-day development
• Create an atmosphere of
workshop for its facilitators to
sharing. “We hold monthly
preview content they will be
webinars where we get all of
delivering in coming months and
the facilitators together and
reinforce the importance of skill
talk to them about success
stories, obstacles, things that
practice, measurement, and
are working, and things that
other aspects of training. “A nice
aren’t working,” Sinta says.
chunk of the day was recogniThese sessions also cover
tion,” Rossignol says of the first
how facilitators are creatively
workshop. “We brought in the
applying various training
facilitators from all over the
ideas.
country and then we had 20
executives come to a happy
• Promote continuous
hour where we gave out awards.
improvement. Facilitators
So much work goes into facilitawho are rated highly are
tapped to serve as Leadership tion, we wanted to reward them.”
NET FACILITATORS : 104
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
Essentials coaches, who
observe course sessions and
provide feedback. “They give
written feedback using a tool
around the dimensions we use
for certification,” Sinta says.
“We’ve found that everyone is
committed to maintaining quality.”
8
PERSPECTIVE
iPad a Training Game Changer?
alternative to a desktop or laptop computer and, with its larger screen, a more learner-friendly alternative to the smaller
iPod Touch and iPhone.
Apple’s tablet computer is a hot seller.
But what’s its potential as a training tool?
DDI training experts weigh in.
Looking beyond its uses for accessing static content, however, Weaver and Bissett-Powell point out that the device lacks
an effective means for users to interact with media or communicate with others, either through text, live speech, or
video.
Apple’s iPad tablet computer, with its full-color, backlit 9.7-inch
screen, Internet connectivity, and multimedia functionality,
sold 3.27 million units in just its first three months on the market. That, according to The Wall Street Journal, easily beat a
Forrester Research forecast that Apple would sell “a modest
3.5 million units” in the U.S. for all of 2010.
“If you need to reply back or interact with the source of the
information or with others, it is more limiting,” Weaver says.
The most vexing limitation, he believes, is the absence of a
keyboard (while a dock with a keyboard is an available accessory, the iPad itself has only a virtual, on-screen keyboard).
Given its instant popularity the iPad is already a tech gadget
to be reckoned with. But what potential does it offer for training? Is it a true game-changer that takes mobile learning, or
“mLearning,” to a new level? Does it have the potential to
replace established training modalities? And perhaps most
important, given the hype, does it make sense for organizations to invest their training dollars in purchasing iPads?
Weaver and Bissett-Powell agree that the iPad’s true potential is largely unknowable because it is yet to be determined
how users will ultimately use the device. Still, they don’t
believe that the iPad will, in the end, revolutionize training as
we know it.
With these questions in mind, two DDI training experts, Pete
Weaver, DDI’s chief learning officer, and Verity Bissett-Powell,
a leadership development consultant based in the U.K., testdrove the iPad shortly after its release. Their conclusion: It’s
a neat device that can make some mobile learning or training
activities better or easier. But they don’t see it as a gamechanger—at least not yet.
“There is training where you access and absorb information,
then there is skill practice, a whole other kind of experience,
where you are interacting with a human being, not text
to speech but human speech to brain, brain to speech,
and you’re getting feedback from a human observer about the
nuances of your gestures and behaviors, your tone,
your choice of content, and your approach,” says Weaver.
“It’s a long way before an iPad or anything else is going to
change that kind of learning.”
“It’s an incremental improvement on an iPod Touch,” says
Weaver, drawing a comparison to Apple’s handheld device
that is smaller than the iPad and which, like the iPad, allows
users to select from more than 250,000 apps to download.
Says Bissett-Powell, “I’m not sure that I’m going to hurry
to recommend iPads for interpersonal training. I’d be very
surprised if somebody ever says to me, you know,
the iPad guarantees more behavior
change than people doing skill
practice. I just can’t see
that happening.”
The iPad has already found at least a niche home in academia, as well as in organizational training environments.
Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania and Brandon Hall
School, a prep school in Atlanta, presented iPads to all of their
students returning to classrooms this fall. New Jersey’s
Rutgers University has made the device the centerpiece of its
digital marketing courses. And the British military has begun
using iPads to train pilots for operations in Afghanistan.
✪ For more on
the iPad as a
training tool,
check out Weaver
and Bissett-Powell’s
video at www.
ddiworld.com/GO.
Weaver and Bissett-Powell see the iPad as “a superb device”
for informal learning, especially for accessing “static” content,
such as audio, video, books and other text, and web sites—
content that doesn’t require interactivity.
“I could see that the iPad would be useful because of its relatively small size,” says Bissett-Powell, who thinks the device
is perfect for training pre-work because it’s a more portable
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
9
10 WAYS & 100 DAYS
TO JUMP-START
NEW EMPLOYEES
By Scott Erker, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Selection, DDI
WHAT happens during an employee’s first 100 days on the job predicts how successful he or she will be in that
role from day 101 and onward. Turnover is highest during the first six months of employment, which can also be the
most frustrating as new associates struggle to learn the ropes. When new employees hang in there for the short-term
and are able to taste success early on, we find they are more engaged, productive, and able to contribute. Plus, they’re
likely to stay long-term.
So what can you do to set your newest team members up for long-term success? Start them out with a solid on-boarding strategy that capitalizes on their excitement for their new opportunity, and reduces the risk that they’ll become
another early-tenure turnover statistic. DDI has developed Strong Start®, a course that can be added to our Targeted
Selection® behavioral interviewing system that focuses on accelerating a new hire’s initial ramp-up. Try out these 10
strategies, many of which are highlighted in the course, for managers to ensure every associate gets a strong start.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
10
THREE:
Clue Them in to Culture
ONE:
Uncover Turnover Triggers
What do your newest hires find
appealing about their new jobs? And
conversely, what aspects will send
them looking for employment elsewhere? You sized up your candidate
to determine fit for the role while
hiring, but many positions have
some latitude for tailoring. Starting a
dialogue, understanding expectations—and making accommodations—help drive engagement, and
secure it for the long term.
TWO:
Reveal Your “Secrets”
Organizations do an excellent job of
providing information about formal
culture through things like employee
handbooks and orientation. But
every organization has an informal
culture—a personality that has to be
accounted for in order for employees
to be successful. This covers everything from knowing a shortcut to
beat evening traffic, to understanding the CEO’s hot buttons before a
critical meeting. A lot of organizations drive this through mentoring or
networking, matching a new hire
with a high-performing incumbent,
or jumpstarting relationships with
peers who can fill them in. Managers
should foster the right relationships,
because you don’t want your best new
hire taking performance advice from
your least effective team member.
FOUR:
Share Your Selection
Perspective
Don’t keep your employees guessing as to what makes you happy. Do
you want frequent updates and
involvement in projects? Or would
you rather your new hire run with a
project and check in only when
needed? Sharing your preferences
not only gets a better result for you,
it also prevents a new hire from
becoming frustrated when forced to
figure it out alone. Understanding
your expectations is not something
to leave to chance, especially if
there’s a chance that they won’t figure it out before they leave.
Why not discuss results from the
hiring process with the new hire?
We learn so much about people in
interviews, and all too often that gold
mine of information languishes in a
filing cabinet. Sharing why an individual was selected for the job (or, we
should add, promoted into the job, if
the new hire was an internal candidate) is a morale booster. And when
growth areas were uncovered during
selection, this discussion is a positive
way to kick start development while
inspiring confidence.
11
FIVE:
Define the First 100 Days
Development plans often span a year,
but for a new hire, a three-month
plan is a springboard to engagement.
It helps pinpoint what to focus on
during a period that’s wrought with
ambiguity. And it gives your new
hire a target to aim for, harnessing
the new hire’s energy during a time
when they’re highly engaged and
primed to learn.
SIX:
Get a Quick Win
What can you offer your new hire
that’s sure to make him or her successful? Facilitating an initial win is
a confidence booster. It’s our theory
that early career success predicts
long-term career success. We know
engagement is highest the day a person walks through the door to start
the new job, and declines (one hopes
just slightly) as the novelty wanes.
A quick win boosts engagement,
sustaining those important initial
highs and combating future lows.
SEVEN:
Don’t Be a Stranger
New hires need a connection to their
managers, especially early on. It provides opportunities for validation,
coaching, and advice. Regular meetings foster this connection, while regularly canceling them undermines it.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
NINE:
Encourage Requests
for Help
EIGHT:
Have an Open Door Policy
There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy
to on-boarding. Some jobs—and
some personalities—require a more
hands-on approach than others. So
how can you tell? The more complexity a role entails, the more
involvement required. New hires
need to know where to get necessary
information, and how they fit into
the interdependent web of information exchange that’s necessary to get
work done. There’s almost always a
steep learning curve, and access to
teachers, coaches, mentors, and
managers keeps a new hire from getting overwhelmed.
Your new hire wants to impress you.
Sometimes this leads the new hire to
struggle with a problem that has an
easy answer—if only he or she had
questioned it. There are a lot of reasons why people won’t ask for help,
but one reason why they will: they
know it’s okay.
TEN:
Prompt Network Building
For information-driven organizations, knowing where to get information and who can help is one of
the most important skills to have.
You don’t know what you don’t
know, so they say, and that’s true
here. Effective networks can’t be
built by chance. Managers should
purposely forge connections that
give people “roots,” and multiple
avenues to advice and assistance.
Try weaving the formation of a network into the initial plan through
meetings with key players.
These are 10 strategies we use at
DDI, and foster in our clients’
organizations. Time and again, we
reap the benefits. New hires get up
to speed more quickly because they
have the information they need, or
know where to get it. They’re more
engaged in their work, with their
teams, and even with their bosses.
And they stay. They stay because
they have the skills, they stay
because they have the will. We hope
these tips help your newest hire
become, someday, your oldest one.
✪ To check out Scott Erker’s on-boarding
podcast, and learn more about Targeted
Selection® and Strong Start®, visit
www.ddiworld.com/GO.
✪ To read a real-world example of onboarding in action, see “Power to the
(New) People” on page 17.
Follow us on Twitter. Go to www.twitter.com/ddiworld
Should unemployed job seekers be punished for a slow recovering economy?
Our commentary on @NPRnews story http://bit.ly/9YabFD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------@WSJ featured our latest leadership research today. Guess what?
Leaders are overconfident. How about you? http://bit.ly/d1p1Vg
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We voted yesterday at the polls...
what about voting at the office—for our bosses, http://bit.ly/dh5FYn
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------More insights from #wbf10 from @MDembo on...
power, control, social media and leadership. http://bit.ly/aJzH5n
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The war is over, now it’s about winning the 'Battle for Talent'.
Retention matters now. http://bit.ly/97rRGF via @recruitingtrend
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Do we make good decisions about who lands in the corner office?
#cleveldecisions Read more from HR Executive, http://bit.ly/cqIDrf
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
12
“Data with Teeth”
for Selecting and Developing Frontline Leaders
Manager ReadySM, a revolutionary new virtual assessment center from DDI,
provides a highly accurate—and highly affordable—way to assess frontline leaders.
- Just 34 percent of first-level leaders rate their organization’s leaders as good or excellent.
Quintiles, a global biopharmaceutical services provider
employing more than 20,000 people worldwide, has found
a solution to a longtime challenge. Like many organizations, Quintiles needed enhanced information on current
and prospective frontline leaders. Now, it’s using Manager
ReadySM, DDI’s new virtual assessment center.
> A Bersin & Associates study examining talent capabili-
ties at different levels found that frontline leaders are the
“least ready” workgroup to execute their roles.
“This data has some teeth, which in an organization like
ours is hugely important,” says Tim Toterhi, Quintiles’ senior director of global organizational design, lauding the
breadth and quality of data his organization is now able to
gather through Manager ReadySM. “We see this as a highvalue add on to both our selection and development efforts.”
Manager ReadySM
assesses for nine
competencies, more
than 50 key actions,
and 906 data points.
It also includes
multiple situational
judgment items.
That “data with some teeth” that Quintiles is
now leveraging marks a sharp contrast to the
absence of actionable data on frontline talent in
most organizations—an issue that has resulted
in a shortage of effective leaders in frontline
positions.
Research confirms the severity of
this problem:
> A DDI survey of more than 13,000 lead-
ers and HR professionals revealed that:
- Only one in four leaders, from across
multiple organizational levels, have
high confidence in their organization’s
first-level leaders.
- 37 percent of those who fill leadership
roles fail to achieve their role objectives
and/or leave their positions.
13
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
While these statistics illustrate the
shortage of talent at the frontline level,
what they really confirm is the lack of
information about that talent. As
Quintiles has discovered, Manager
ReadySM addresses this critical information gap.
A BREAKTHROUGH
FRONTLINE ASSESSMENT
The assessment center has long been
the diagnostic tool of choice for organizations looking to identify talent, and make
selection and development decisions
about their senior leaders. Organizations
rely on assessment centers to mitigate
risk when making high-stakes talent
decisions and investing in the development of their most critical leaders.
Even though they uncover rich data
and insights, assessment centers
haven’t been a popular option for
assessing frontline leaders because of
their prohibitive cost and complexity. In
their place, organizations turned to
tests, 360°s, and other cost-effective
tools that provide just enough information to make acceptably accurate selection and development decisions. But as
research makes clear, these tools are
not as accurate or as meaningful to participants as assessment centers.
Manager Ready provides a solution.
Unlike tests, 360°s, and other tools,
Manager Ready is an assessment center—delivered virtually, but providing
the same quality information as a traditional assessment center.
HOW MANAGER READY WORKS
Participants access Manager Ready
from their organization’s on-site computers. When they do, they are presented
with highly engaging, realistic chal-
lenges requiring them to interact with
team members, take action, and solve
problems. These challenges accurately reflect the role-specific responsibilities that define a frontline leadership
position. For example, a participant
may be asked to coach an underperforming direct report, ask team members probing questions to uncover the
source of a problem, or resolve a conflict between two associates.
Unlike a test where participants respond
to a series of multiple choice questions,
the Manager Ready challenges require
participants to provide freeform
responses using e-mails, just as they
actually would do on the job. These
responses are collected electronically
and evaluated by skilled DDI assessors.
The assessors’ observations and data
collected electronically are then combined using a proprietary research-driven algorithm. The information captured
is voluminous—906 data points.
Manager Ready summarizes this data
into the nine competencies most needed for success in a frontline leadership
job (see sidebar) and more than 50 key
actions. The assessment also provides
situational insights, such as whether the
individual is more effective in interactions with peers than with direct reports.
This wealth of data is captured in multiple comprehensive feedback reports. A
report provided to the frontline leader’s
manager provides a detailed picture of
the individual’s strengths and development areas. In addition, the individual
frontline leader receives a report detailing the assessment results and arming
her or him with information needed to
target development efforts where they
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
14
are needed. Reports also can be generated that give HR and senior leadership a snapshot view of the leadership
capability of groups of frontline leaders.
“Part of the reason we like Manager
Ready is that it gives us robust, factbased data to help enhance the decision-making process for selecting people, either for promotions or for hiring
them into the organization,” says
Toterhi, pointing out that Quintiles has
piloted Manager Ready in both the U.S.
and Singapore, and is exploring an
additional rollout.
Toterhi also says that Manager Ready
is helping Quintiles ease the transition
for those team members moving into a
frontline leadership position for the first
time—the most challenging leap an
individual will make over the course of
his or her career.
Manager Ready measures
the NINE COMPETENCIES
most CRITICAL FOR success
in FRONTLINE LEADERSHIP:
• Coaching for Success
• Coaching for
Improvement
• Managing Relationships
• Guiding Interactions
• Problem Analysis
• Judgment
• Delegation &
Empowerment
• Gaining Commitment
• Planning & Organizing
“Manager Ready provides valuable
guidance for developing people before
they are placed in a leadership role.
Then once they’ve been selected into
the role it helps frame ongoing development, both for the collective groups of
managers and also for individual frontline leaders.”
HIGHLY PREDICTIVE—AND
HIGHLY AFFORDABLE
“One thing that makes us especially
proud of Manager Ready is its accuracy,”
says Bill Byham, DDI’s co-founder and
chairman and one of the pioneers in
introducing the assessment center
method to the corporate world. “It is
incredibly predictive.”
A validation study has indicated that
those who score high in the Manager
Ready assessment are 3.6 times more
likely than those who score low to excel
in job performance. The study also
shows that individuals who were top
rated in leadership skills on the assessment are 5.7 times as likely to excel in
the application of those skills, when compared to those who were rated lower.
While it might be assumed that high
validity has its price, in the case of
Manager Ready it’s a surprisingly reasonable price. One of the most revolutionary things about Manager Ready is
its cost-effectiveness. It’s a fraction of
the cost of a traditional assessment
center—making it an affordable and
realistic option for assessing frontline
talent, as Quintiles has found.
“Quintiles executes clinical trials for
pharma companies and commercializes
their pharmaceutical biotech products.
Therefore, we’re selling our services
and the expertise of our employees versus selling a product,” says Toterhi.
“The value we add is found in the
knowledge of our people, so we have a
strong incentive to focus on the continued development of employees with an
emphasis on our frontline leaders.”
Bill Byham,
Co-founder
and
chairman
of DDI.
✪ To learn more and to download a
podcast on Manager Ready, visit
www.ddiworld.com/GO.
Validation of the Manager
Ready Assessment Center
Manager Ready is one of the most
accurate predictors of frontline
leadership success on the market.
DDI validated Manager Ready with
hundreds of frontline managers from
large North American companies.
Managers who earned high scores
during this assessment were 3.6
times more likely to be a top performer on the job.
“One thing that makes
us especially proud of
Manager Ready is its
accuracy,” says Bill Byham,
DDI’s co-founder and
chairman and one of the
pioneers in introducing the
assessment center method
to the corporate world. “It
is incredibly predictive.”
Early Reviews for Manager Ready
“DDI has a really awesome new technology-backed product for
managerial selection. This new technology provides the benefits of
assessment centers (i.e., highly realistic job content, the ability to
measure complex problem solving, and the use of live assessors) in
a short format that is available for a lower price-point than traditional
assessment centers. This product is a very nice blend of technology
and content and provides a highly valuable way to evaluate managerial
performance both pre- and post-hire, allowing for a nice continuum along
the employee lifecycle.”
Dr. Charles Handler, Founder of Rocket Hire, ERE.net,
Blog posting, October 5, 2010
“The most thorough, objective feedback we have ever gotten.”
Senior Manager, Hi-tech Manufacturing Company
“WOW!” Vice President, HR, Travel Industry
15
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
WHAT’S GOING ON
MEXICAN CLIENTS GIVE WARM
WELCOME TO DDI’S CHAIRMAN
0
Top 1
Place !
rk
to Wo
DDI’s chairman and CEO Bill Byham recently made a trip to
Mexico City to meet with DDI clients. In addition to addressing
executives at Grupo Nestlé, Grupo Bimbo, and HSBC, he
hosted a roundtable discussion with representatives from
20 client companies. He was also interviewed for the cover
story of the Mexican Federation of Human Resources
Associations magazine.
DDI Named a Top 10 Place to
Work for the Second Year in a
Row
We are proud to announce that in September, for the second
year in a row, DDI was named to the list of Best Small &
Medium Workplaces by the Great Place to Work® Institute
and Entrepreneur magazine. DDI earned the number seven
spot in the Best Medium Companies rankings.
DDI Mexico City gave Bill Byham (center) a warm welcome during his
recent trip.
You Shared Ideas: We Made Them a Reality!
DDI was chosen for this honor based largely on the results of a
randomly distributed employee survey. In addition, we completed
an extensive culture audit that examined our HR and management practices in selection and on-boarding, training and development, recognition and celebrating, benefits and perks, quality
OPAL® and Leadership Mirror®–Now Even Better
DDI has launched the updated OPAL® and Leadership Mirror® 6.0
with improvements reflecting client feedback, input from our
experts, and nearly a year of research and development.
Here are a few of the enhancements:
> Leadership Mirror® includes the new ProgresScanSM
Surveys, follow-up surveys which measure development
in targeted competencies. Plus, the Survey Creator can
now add up to 39 additional languages.
Looking for More Talent
Management Direction?
> Leadership Mirror’s competency library has been updated
We’ve got you covered with our talent management e-newsletter,
DDI Directions. Each month, you’ll receive our experts’ insights
into hot talent management issues delivered right to your inbox, as
well as pertinent new research from DDI and our partner organizations. Sign up today at www.ddiworld.com/directions.
to include job family libraries for Sales Executive, Sales
Leader, Consultative Sales Professional, Health Care
Executive, and Patient Care Provider.
> The OPAL® Course List now includes nine new courses
from Business Impact LeadershipSM and eight new courses
from the Interaction Management: Exceptional Performers
(IM: ExPSM) series.
✪ For more information on OPAL® and Leadership Mirror® 6.0,
please contact your DDI representative.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
16
Power to the
(new) People!
How Capital Power is helping its
new hires hit the ground running
which may be markedly different from what they were previously used to.
Jennifer
Nordstrom had it relatively easy. A new
college graduate when she joined Capital Power earlier this
year as an auditor, she already was familiar with the organization. While a student at the University of Alberta, she
worked for Capital Power’s former parent company, from
which it spun off in 2009. That meant even though
Nordstrom was starting a new job with a new employer
she already had a base of knowledge about Capital
Power’s business.
A newly independent power producer (and one of the first
IPOs coming out of the recession), Capital Power is acutely
aware of the risks that can accompany the on-boarding of
new hires. The company has 1,100 employees, operations
spread across North America, and an aggressive growth
strategy with a base case to triple in generating size by
2020—which may translate into an average of up to $1 billion a year in growth. As such, Capital Power needs all the
quality talent it can get. And it needs to do what it can to
engage and keep that talent.
“I had a little bit of experience with the company before,”
she says. “As a result, I wanted to work for Capital Power
in part because I knew it was in the power generation business, which I’m interested in.”
“Before the recession hit it was challenging to find the right
talent within our sector. Even during the recession, the
demand for talent in certain roles was no less competitive
and it is still an unbelievable business challenge for the
organization,” says Deryck Litoski, director of talent management. “We had to ensure that our success in bringing
new talent into the company wasn’t marginalized by long
ramp up times to full productivity or, even worse, lost to
turnover.”
Of course, Nordstrom’s situation isn’t typical. The more
common scenario is for a new hire to be unaware of company policies, procedures, and the way work gets done on
a day-to-day basis. New hires, in most instances, don’t
know what they don’t know about the job or the company.
They also don’t know who does what and where to go for
information or assistance. If they come from another
organization, they also will have to adjust to a new culture,
17
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
of business or business units. We’re all here to make
megawatts regardless of our province or state or country.
We needed to solidify that one company approach and
what it means to be an employee of Capital Power.”
AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE EXPERIENCE
The Strong Start program isn’t a complete orientation that
imparts all of the critical information a new hire needs to
know. Given the diversity of jobs within the company, which
includes engineering and operations positions in addition
to leadership and professional roles, and also given
Capital Power’s operations throughout North America, it
was necessary for Strong Start to be just one part of the
on-boarding experience for new hires.
Suzanne Gauchier and Deryck Litoski drove the launch
of Capital Power’s Strong Start Program.
But, as Litoski enthusiastically points out, Capital Power
is meeting its talent challenge through innovation, as evidenced by a program designed to on-board valued new
employees while also promoting the new organization’s
still-solidifying culture.
“If you work at a plant, you’re still going to do your heavily
focused safety orientation and site-specific orientation,”
says Litoski. “Strong Start is a deliberate and dedicated
focus on corporate topics that bind us together to give us
commonality.”
BREAKING AWAY FROM
THE OLD PARADIGM
Still, there’s a lot to it. An individual begins the Strong Start
process by accessing a new hire portal, a link-based
intranet page that re-directs the new employee to appropriate content. From this portal, two e-learning modules are
accessible. The first, called Capital Power 101: The Basics,
presents information about the organization, including organizational design, vision, values, the leadership team, major
policies, and how the company makes money. Also covered in this module, which takes about 90 minutes to complete, is business-relevant information, such as the growth
strategy aimed at developing or acquiring up to $1 billion a
year in power generation, how power generation is fueled,
the importance of safety, and operational facts.
Litoski and his team of talent champions designed and
implemented Capital Power’s on-boarding program, called
Strong Start, as an antidote to traditional new hire orientation programs. The old model was to rely heavily on telling
and showing, as opposed to encouraging and empowering
new hires to explore and interact with the information presented to them.
To break away from the old paradigm Litoski and his team,
in partnership with DDI, employed a blended learning
approach that combines highly interactive e-learning and
classroom components to bring alive the voluminous information that all of Capital Power’s new hires need to learn.
The second e-learning module, Capital Power 102:
Powering Up & Plugging In, introduces the 100-day initial
development plan each new hire must create in partnership with his or her manager. In addition, this 45-minute
module overviews the networking plan that each new hire
must also create.
Litoski says that there were multiple business outcomes
identified as objectives for the Strong Start program,
including reducing turnover in the first year of employment, improving speed to productivity, and increasing
engagement. In designing the program itself, the aim was
to leverage technology while ultimately having the program accurately reflect Capital Power’s emerging culture.
“I believe that the networking piece is a game changer,”
says Litoski. The networking plan is based on the DDI
concept of courageous and purposeful networking. It is
designed to encourage the new hires to reach out to and
“One of the things we really had to get right was to establish a sense that although we’re new and spread out, we
are one company,” says Litoski. “There’s not multiple lines
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
18
“The classroom piece is designed for you to come in and
show you know this stuff. We have moved away from a
‘sage on the stage’ approach, where information only
flowed one way, to a learning environment where there are
equal contributions from all participants.”
build a network of colleagues from across the organization
that can provide information, assistance, and guidance to
help avoid beginner’s mistakes and successfully complete
tasks more quickly.
The e-learning modules offer new hires the flexibility to
experience the training whenever they find it to be most
convenient. “The technology is allowing us the opportunity,
if the hiring manager wants, to grant the individual access
before their first day on the job. Even before they report
for work they can log on to Strong Start and begin the
process,” says Litoski.
GETTING THE BIG PICTURE
Sian Barraclough, senior manager, market assessment
and forecasting, has been with the organization since 2006.
Though today she’s a manager of a team of nine, from her
past experience she can personally relate to the challenges
new hires face.
The talent management team also has been able to take
“It was very difficult when I came in to get a big picture
advantage of technology for tracking and measurement.
view of the organization. You were very reliant on what“Although included, we have moved past tracking basics
ever context you got from the people
such as completion rates, to measuring
around you. You also had to be pretty
knowledge transfer and key performance
aggressive and persistent and willing to go
indicators that align to our business outYou can step in
out and ask questions of people to get the
comes and objectives,” says Suzanne
and get that big
context you needed.”
Gauchier, senior manager, talent managepicture, and find
ment, who played a central role in impleBarraclough participated in one of the
out here’s who
menting the program.
Strong Start pilot sessions and in the prowe are, here’s how
“
gram she sees a vast improvement when
we operate.
Further contributing to the effectiveness of
compared to her original on-boarding
the modules is their learning design. The
experience.
modules are interactive, bringing together
elements such as video clips, online coaching, an intranet
“Today, you can step in and get that big picture, and find out
scavenger hunt, and knowledge checks. In planning the
here’s who we are, here’s how we operate, and start with
implementation, the talent management team made sure
that foundation.”
each employee, regardless of work environment, had
She also sees great merit in the program’s emphasis on
access to a computer at a quiet spot at their facility where
networking. “You start reaching out to the areas you need
they could complete the modules.
to, and to the people who can help you fill in the blanks and
Positive user feedback confirms that the e-learning modget more detail specific to your job.”
ules have been well-received; however, e-learning is only
Jennifer Nordstrom had already been on the job for a few
one part of the Strong Start program. Having completed
months when she participated in a pilot session of the
the two online modules, the new hires then participate in a
Strong Start program, yet she still found it helpful.
day-and-a-half classroom session, where they come
“Sometimes orientation sessions can be kind of dry,” she
together with other new hires to continue their on-boarding
says, offering an observation that many can identify with.
experience.
“So much of it is this is what we do, this is how we do it, and
The classroom portion includes a personality inventory that
this is what you need to do. But Strong Start was interacpromotes self-insight and awareness, a talk from the CEO
tive, it was fun, and I think you
or another senior executive to “breathe life into the vision,
learn more that way.”
mission, and values,” and a plant tour. Litoski says that, like
the e-learning modules, the classroom session is interactive, and participants have to come prepared.
”
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
19
“I think the power industry in and of itself can be very daunting to a new person because it has its own kind of culture,”
says Troy Laursen, director of supply chain management.
Still, he says that Strong Start hits the mark.
“I have a new employee who’s just going through the program right now, and his feedback is that it’s a very good tool,
it’s very comprehensive, there’s a lot of good information,
and it’s easy to get to the information he needs.”
While most of the impact of Strong Start will be seen over
time as Capital Power moves to bring more new people on
board, Litoski and his colleagues already point with pride to
the results from pilot sessions and an official launch in which
200 people participated. These participants included some
new hires, along with experienced employees and managers who anticipate sending their newly selected team
members through the program at some point.
In post-pilot surveys, the participants expressed their
agreement that Strong Start is just what Capital Power
needs for more effective on-boarding. Ninety-six percent
agree or strongly agree that the program assists in engaging new employees; 96 percent also agree or strongly
agree that Strong Start aligns new employees to the Capital
Power culture; 92 percent agree or strongly agree that it
enables new employees to be successful. A strong majority
of Strong Start pilot participants also agree or strongly
agree that the program will assist in reducing turnover
among new employees and decrease time to productivity.
“Many of the people in the pilot were existing employees and
not new hires,” says Litoski, who believes that one of the most
remarkable outcomes of the pilot was that pre- and post-tests
showed a sizable increase in key knowledge transfer.
“Typically, companies assume that employees know the basics.
Yet, we saw a 22-percent improvement in that knowledge.”
As for how new hires will receive the program when they
begin going through it in large numbers, the initial returns are
also strong. Since officially launching the Strong Start program, Capital Power has seen a 30-percent increase in
organizational knowledge among participants. Furthermore,
senior leaders in the organization are taking notice.
“We see Strong Start as key to our future success,” says
Allan Danroth, vice president, Genesee operations. “The
program allows our new employees to quickly assimilate into
the organization’s culture and embrace our values. We
believe having these employees as ‘early adopters’ with
standardized, in-depth knowledge of our policies and protocols gives us a competitive edge.”
✪ To learn more about effective on-boarding, see “10 Ways and 100
Days to Jump-start New Employees” on page 10 and check out
the accompanying podcast at www.ddiworld.com/GO.
HOW TO: BUILD EXCITEMENT FOR A NEW INITIATIVE
Strong Start is designed for Capital Power’s new hires. But
it is the organization’s other key stakeholders, including the
leadership team and hiring managers, whose buy-in and
support are necessary to make the program a success.
Suzanne Gauchier, senior manager, talent management,
cites the following as keys to building excitement for the
on-boarding program.
Get yourself excited first. “[HR professionals] need to
get excited about our programs and we need to know how
to sell them in the organization,” she says. “It’s one thing
to build the business case that aligns to the strategy but
you’ve got to have a belief and passion for it and then
you’ve got to have that desire to go out and market it.”
Invite the skeptics into the process. Gauchier says that if
she heard any negative feedback, she addressed it head-on.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
For example, Gauchier tells of a leader who voiced concerns about how much time Strong Start would require of
his new hires. “What I realized was that what this person
needed was some one-on-one time and a preview of the
program before we rolled it out.”
Plan to communicate with multiple audiences.
Gauchier says that multiple tactics, including posters and
electronic postcards, were used to get the word out about
Strong Start. But what really mattered were the efforts to
build positive relationships with the content owners and the
development of a communication plan targeting all key
stakeholders. “When putting together a communication
plan you need to address executives, new hires, managers, the managers’ managers, people in the field, people
in the office. Everyone.”
20
TRENDTRACKER
Telling Number:
Developing Better Leaders on the
Front Lines and at the Mid-Level
51
Percent of best-in-class
organizations that attribute
change in profitability and/or
revenue directly to learning
and development efforts.
A recent study from the Aberdeen Group examines frontline and mid-level
leadership development practices among best-in-class organizations.
Highlighted here is a selection of the findings from the study, which compiled
data collected from 529 respondents.
✪ The full study report, Learning and Development: Arming Front-line and Mid-level Managers to Deliver
People and Performance Results, can be downloaded at www.ddiworld.com/GO.
Source: Aberdeen Group
Top Three Skill Areas Addressed by Best-in-Class Organizations
Frontline Managers
Mid-level Managers
100% 100%
100%
100%
Percentage of respondents, n=189
Some shared
priorities
Most best-in-class companies are
addressing the same top three areas
for both frontline and mid-level
managers.
96%
94%
95%
92%
90%
85%
80%
75%
People
development skills
Giving and
receiving feedback
Performance reviews/
writing appraisals
Differentiated Skill Areas by Best-in-Class Organizations
Frontline Managers
Mid-level Managers
After the top three skill areas, however,
differentiation begins to show between
the levels. The graph at right shows the
marked difference between the skill
areas best-in-class organizations are
addressing for frontline leaders and for
mid-level leaders.
100%
Percentage of respondents, n=189
Some important
distinctions
93%
90%
80%
75%
71%
74%
68%
70%
63%
61%
60%
60%
50%
Interpersonal
communication
DDI clients do it better!
We are particularly
proud of this finding!
Collaboration/
leading crossfunctional teams
Business
management
(i.e., finance)
Conflict
resolution
According to a
company break-out report
by Aberdeen Group, DDI clients are
14 percent more likely (67 percent
versus 59 percent) than all other
companies to improve frontline and
mid-level management performance.
21
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
f
o
y
t
The Newr e a l i
Mid-Level
Leadership
TWO DDI RESEARCH STUDIES EXPLORE THE CURRENT
STATE—AND CHALLENGES—OF MID-LEVEL LEADERSHIP
By Tacy Byham, Ph.D., Vice President, Executive Development,
and Kris Routch, Executive Consultant, DDI
Long
maligned or overlooked, and all-too-commonly
downsized, mid-level leaders are gaining new respect.
Organizations have finally begun to appreciate that their
mid-level leaders are integral to the successful execution
of business strategy. Yet, the day-to-day reality of mid-level
roles, defined in recent years by ballooning workloads,
competing priorities, slashed budgets, and staff reductions, remains challenging. And the challenges carry over
to providing the development these important leaders
need to succeed.
Two recent DDI studies sought to explore the current state
of mid-level leadership. In the first of these studies, we sur-
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
22
veyed 2,001 mid-level leaders across Asia, Australia,
Europe, and the United States. The study report, Put Your
Money in the Middle: A Meta-study and Talent
Management Guide for Mid-level Leaders, describes the
several themes that emerged from this research.
In addition, DDI partnered with the Human Capital
Institute (HCI) on a survey of 109 HR executives. The
study report based on that research, Mid-level Managers:
The Bane and Salvation of Organizations, also captures
several important trends.
Following are highlights from these two informative studies.
There’s a disconnect between what
mid-level managers are—and what
they need to be.
Respondents to the Put Your Money in the Middle survey
indicated that leading change, executing top priorities,
and making tough decisions top the list of challenges midlevel leaders expect to face. Meeting these challenges
will require a sophisticated and strategic skill set, yet our
survey found that mid-level leaders operate more tactically than strategically. In fact, when asked which hat they
wear most frequently, strategic roles were low on the list
(see Figure 1).
FIGURE 2:
ARE MID-LEVEL TRAINING PROGRAMS EFFECTIVE?
12%
Don’t know
40%
Somewhat
25%
Extremely or very
FIGURE 1:
22%
Slightly or not at all
WHICH HAT DO YOU WEAR MOST FREQUENTLY?
19%
Resource Allocator
17%
Negotiator
15%
Executor
Navigator
10%
Change Driver
9%
Innovator
9%
7%
Global Thinker
Talent Advocate
3%
When it comes to mid-level leaders having the skills they
need to be effective in their roles, especially troubling is
that just 25 percent of executives think their company’s
mid-level management training program is “extremely or
very” effective (Figure 2). Meanwhile, less than 10 percent
of HR leaders believe that their organization’s mid-level
leaders view their development programs as “very effective” in the areas of relevance to business issues, support
of their organization, and level of engagement in training.
As companies do more with less—midlevel leaders are feeling the stress.
Nearly 7 in 10 mid-level leaders say that their work stress
has increased. The top factors leading to stress are
increased personal workload (24 percent) and increased
pressure to succeed (22 percent). Couple that with their
perception of being unprepared for their roles and it paints
a very difficult picture for today’s mid-level leaders.
The DDI/HCI research study labels the effect of the stress
on mid-level leaders as “The Gloom Spiral.” Seventy-nine
percent of leaders reported that “the struggle to do more
work with fewer staff, increasing their own stress” was
a top concern. Managers’ stress affects their teams,
furthering teams’ stress and disengagement. And when
their teams are struggling, managers find themselves
farther behind. Companies need to break this cycle before
it spirals out of control.
23
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
Stagnation has become an issue.
Growth matters—opportunities to
advance are coveted by mid-level
The majority (54 percent) of mid-level leaders would take
leaders.
a demotion to a non-leadership role for the same amount of
money. And 16 percent said they would take the demotion
even if compensation was reduced. Why? Because nearly
50 percent are feeling stagnation in their current jobs. The
more stagnant leaders’ jobs were, the more likely they were
to say they would give up their leadership position if they
were offered the same compensation or reduced compensation to be an individual contributor.
For the Put Your Money in the Middle study we asked
respondents to identify the likeliest next step in their
careers. The outcome? Many would choose to stay with
their current organization if they could (Figure 4).
FIGURE 4:
LIKELIEST NEXT CAREER STEP FOR MID-LEVEL LEADERS
HR leaders have caught on to restlessness among midlevel leaders. When asked how concerned they are about
retaining mid-level leaders, 75 percent express concern
(see Figure 3).
FIGURE 3:
HOW CONCERNED ARE YOU ABOUT RETAINING YOUR
HIGH-PERFORMING MID-LEVEL MANAGERS?
40%
40%
30%
35%
Breaking down the numbers by age, however, yields contrasting results. For example, the first move anyone under
50 is looking for is a promotion within, while mid-level
leaders who are over 50 overwhelmingly intend to retire
in their current position. Also, the younger the leader, the
more likely he or she is to look for outside opportunities.
20%
18%
10%
7%
0%
Very
concerned
Concerned
Somewhat
concerned
Not very
concerned
0%
Not
concerned
at all
✪ To download both Put Your Money in the Middle and Mid-level
Managers: The Bane and Salvation of Organizations visit
www.ddiworld.com/GO. There you can also hear a DDI webinar
on the challenges facing mid-level leaders.
For more information, GO deeper!
✪ Podcasts ✪ Downloadable Research Reports ✪ Video
✪ Bonus Content
Visit www.ddiworld.com/GO
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
24
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The Talent Management Expert
Give
your employees the chance to
direct their own lives, learn and create
new things, and work toward a purpose
greater than their own. In return,
they’ll deliver better results
through increased productivity.
That’s the provocative promise Daniel Pink puts forth in
Drive, his best-selling book about motivation.
Coffee
on the
GO with
Pink says businesses are doing it all wrong, offering carrots and sticks instead of promoting autonomy, mastery,
and purpose. In fact, in the book he offers seven reasons
why carrots and sticks aren’t effective. He also advocates
for a shift toward results-oriented workplaces and free
time for employees to explore their own projects. Pink
backs all this up with a diverse docket of sources that
show this approach works! We recently asked him how
his ideas might affect leaders, managers, and HR executives who are looking for new ways to engage and motivate their people.
DANIEL PINK
GO: Drive focuses on the importance of self-directed
work and giving associates autonomy. What are the
implications of this for how leaders need to manage
their teams?
Pink: The implications are huge. Instead of monitoring
people, managers have to create an environment where
people are accountable, have enormous amounts of autonomy, where people can get better at something that
matters, and where people are doing what they do in the
service of something larger than themselves. One of the
most important things a manager can do today is give people context. Why they’re doing what they’re doing, how it
fits into the larger whole, how it contributes to the broader
enterprise. Looking ahead, managers who can transform to
a new role of context-makers, environment-builders, and
purpose-infusers are going to be even more in demand.
The author of the
best-selling book
Drive discusses what
organizations need
to understand
about motivation.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
GO: What’s the implication of self-directed work on
how organizations hire people?
Pink: Organizations want to hire for self-direction, but
there’s no foolproof way to measure it. You need to look
for evidence in a person’s work history and background
that they’re comfortable with large measures of autonomy.
26
COFFEE ON THE GO
They should demonstrate that they want
to be held accountable, and have the
chops necessary to reach their goals and
accomplish what they need to under
their own esteem, without having their
hands held.
GO: You describe performance
reviews as “the annual or biannual
rituals that are about as comfortable as a toothache and productive as a train wreck.” You also talk
about the need for accountability.
If the old way of conducting a performance review isn’t working,
what’s a better way to hold people
accountable?
Pink: The question is, Are performance reviews obsolete? In some ways,
yes. The whole point of a performance
review is to give people feedback that
will help them get better, and to hold
them accountable. But the problem
with annual performance reviews is
that they are annual. It’s impossible to
get better if you only get feedback once
a year. These are often not authentic
conversations—they tend to be formalized, stylized, almost ritualistic. And if
they only happen once a year they will
feel a little uncomfortable.
What we need to do with performance
reviews are three things. One, quicken
the tempo so they happen more often.
Two, widen the breadth of them so they
measure a range of things to help people get better. Using a 360° survey as
part of the process provides feedback.
Expand the range of metrics, not just
encompassing explicitly measurable
performance but also including attributes like collaboration, contributing
new ideas, and being a good teammate
or leader. Third, involve individuals
more. One option is a “do-it-yourself”
performance review to supplement formal ones. At the beginning of the
month, individuals set their goals, then
at the end of the month they themselves
do an evaluation. If you look at high
performers and high performing teams,
they’re often already doing this—not
because the boss says to, but because
they want to.
GO: Manage less, get better results
—it’s an idea that goes against the
grain. What kind of resistance do
you get from people when you
speak about this topic?
Pink: Sometimes people think I’m
saying money doesn’t matter. That’s
absolutely not the case. If you get the
money wrong and don’t pay people
enough, it’s game over. Organizations
can’t offer autonomy as a means to
make up for not paying enough. That
won’t work.
The second idea where I get pushback
is around autonomy. Some managers
believe that their teams just can’t hack
this, they just aren’t this way. Their
belief is some people are just passive
and inert and lazy, and but for this endless menu of carrots and sticks they
would not do anything. I ask them, are
you motivated by punishments and
enticements, not autonomy? Managers
say they are different from the people
they manage, and I’m skeptical of people who think they are somehow so
fundamentally different from the people they work with every day.
GO: What have you learned about
motivation since the book went to
press? What new ideas would you
add in now that you’ve had more
time to think about it?
27
Pink: I wish I’d looked more at sales.
One would think sales is an exception,
the way you reward salespeople is
with commissions and bonuses. The
classic problem with “if then” motivators is that people become focused on
the reward, rather than the work. One
company I spoke with found that
salespeople would game the commission system—holding a sale another
month to meet goals, for example. The
CEO eliminated commissions and
offered a high base salary and profit
sharing. Sales went up. Why? The
new system enabled collaboration. It
improved relationships with customers, who felt less pressured by
reps working on commission. And it
freed up a huge amount of senior management time and resources, which
was previously devoted to policing the
compensation system. Academic
research also supports this, for example showing sales quotas were hurting
profits in many companies.
GO: What would you say to senior
HR professionals about transforming their workplaces?
Pink: There’s a power in challenging
orthodoxies of every kind. When
we’re talking about transforming
workplaces, the folks in the HR function play a profoundly important role
because they understand talent better
than anyone else in their organization.
If we’re really going to develop workplaces that are more humane and more
effective, I think HR executives will
lead that charge.
Pink’s book, Drive, is available at bookstores
and through major online booksellers.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
STRATEGY EXECUTION
FROM THE TOP
AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANK G. NING, CHAIRMAN OF COFCO.
Frank G. Ning, chairman of COFCO Limited, is recognized as one of the most influential business leaders
in China. Under Ning’s leadership, COFCO has grown into
China’s largest diversified product and service supplier in the
agribusiness and food industries, and also expanded into
other markets and businesses. Today, COFCO is a $26 billion
conglomerate with over 100,000 employees and a spot on the
Fortune Global 500.
In 2009, Ning was awarded the prestigious Asia Business
Leader Award at CNBC’s 8th Asia Business Leaders Awards
(ABLA) ceremony. He spoke to DDI senior vice president Rich
Wellins about the vision and strategy that guide COFCO, the
challenges of managing change, and the importance of talent.
Wellins: Your results are very impressive. What are some
of the key themes of your strategy that you feel drive
COFCO’s success?
Ning: We have a very clear picture of where the company is
going for the next five to six years. We are a diversified business and we have an overall strategy that pursues specialization at the individual business level. That strategy is paying
off, as we have seen a 45-percent increase in revenue over
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
the past three years. We’ve also doubled our profit in the
same time period, attained the 312th spot on the Fortune 500
list, and been rated as having one of the top 30 most valuable
brands in China.
As for the individual elements of the strategy, they include a focus
on diversification, broadening our revenue stream, optimizing our
value chain, and continuing to become more global.
Wellins: With a company as large as yours, getting everyone behind a common vision is critical. How do you do it?
Ning: At COFCO we use numerous traditional methods to
communicate and sell the vision. We use newsletters, web
sites, and employee meetings that are intended to communicate the company’s status as well as our longer-term strategies. We also hold frequent sessions at COFCO’s new university, which incorporate discussion around vision.
The real strength of a vision comes from the bottom up. It
demands extensive customer input, as well as seeking input
from multiple layers of management. When I meet with the
senior team to discuss strategy, I often ask, “If you were the
CEO, what would you do?”
28
Wellins: We have interviewed leaders from numerous
companies that have a great strategy but poor execution. How do you ensure COFCO’s strategy happens?
Ning: As a diversified enterprise, COFCO manages the performance of its multiple businesses mainly through what we
call our 6-S management system, which contains a strategic
planning system, a comprehensive budgeting system, a
business management report system, a performance
assessment system, an internal auditing system, and a
manager evaluation system.
As for processes to support the use of the 6-S tool, we
require divisions to review the longer-term strategic plan for
the next five years. Individual company strategies are then
analyzed to identify synergistic opportunities. This is followed by the creation of specific work plans for the upcoming year, setting comprehensive budgets supporting the
plans, and confirming and signing actual internal performance contracts. Then we regularly assess the completion of
the plans and implement incentive measures, such as
bonuses tied to meeting goals. In addition, we have a number of measurement systems in place that include monthly
division reports, our internal auditing system, and individual
team performance plans.
Wellins: Among state-owned organizations, COFCO is
one of the leaders in China in developing its talent.
What are some of the things you have done in this area?
Ning: We recently opened COFCO University, near Beijing.
The university serves as the heart of our leadership development efforts, with thousands of employees trained there
each year. It’s truly a conduit for developing leadership skills
while, at the same time, it’s also a channel for communicating and reinforcing the corporate culture.
We’ve established a four-level training system covering key
individual contributors right up through senior executives.
Recently, we rolled out a program for mid-level managers
that covers industry competition, our 6-S management system, financial management, and leadership skills.
Then we also have comprehensive succession management and performance management systems, and a program for high-potential leaders.
We have made a major investment in the identification and
development of our future leadership talent. Our talent
management initiatives are a model for other China state-
owned enterprises, but they are quickly becoming global
best practices.
Wellins: How would you characterize your personal role
in talent management?
Ning: I devote a great deal of time, attention, and financial
resources to support talent management. I also have been
personally involved in our executive-level development program. Most of my time is spent in the field coaching and
developing managers around their businesses. As for my
leadership team, I think it’s important that I am aware of their
personal strengths and weaknesses in addition to tracking
their business performance.
Wellins: COFCO is an organization that has successfully evolved and, in many respects, reinvented itself.
What is your approach to leading change?
Ning: COFCO has been making a major shift over the past
five to seven years, from a traditional commodity trader to a
conglomerate of diversified businesses. A key element of
this transition is a major focus on the needs and requirements of customers. In the past, COFCO was mainly a
monopoly commodity business with a “trading” mentality.
The shift we needed our workforce to make, and our workforce numbers 100,000, was to begin operating and
excelling in a market-facing culture. We approached that in
a number of ways. First, we emphasized as one of our values that the customer is the employer and we did extensive
outside benchmarking for all of our businesses. Also, we
increased our emphasis on customer satisfaction, introducing secret shoppers for our consumer products, and setting
performance standards and consequences for employees
that are tied to customer service.
Wellins: How important is innovation to COFCO’s strategy execution and continued success?
Ning: Very important. I’ve taken it upon myself to be a
champion of innovation within COFCO. That’s because
innovation requires leadership in order to happen in a way
that is meaningful to the business.
For instance, COFCO has a huge export business in tomato paste. Because this business was not always profitable,
we invested in new fertilizers, planting methods, and harvesting equipment. This allowed us to produce a higherquality product at lower cost. We also introduced a “whole
chain” food safety model and committed to guarantee quality
29
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
STRATEGY EXECUTION FROM THE TOP (CONTINUED)
from raw material to end-user consumption. As a result, we now
have the ability to track any problem at the appropriate spot in the
food chain. We have five R&D centers around the world that focus
on agriculture and each year the board selects 11 major projects
for funding. This process has led to numerous innovations.
The performance standards and bonuses for our business managers are also tied to creation of new ideas and products. We take
innovation very seriously.
Wellins: How have you and the other leaders in COFCO gone
about building the organizational culture required to support
the business strategy?
Celebrating the
Best Business
Leaders in Asia
Since 2004, DDI has worked as CNBC’s
Research Partner for the Asia Business
Ning: I see myself as very culture-driven in my leadership. I wrote
my book, Why, which is a collection of 95 management papers I
have written over the past decade, as a reflection on corporate
management, the business environment, society, and life. In my
role within COFCO, I am constantly making speeches to new and
current employees that reinforce our company values.
Leaders Awards (ABLA) to identify, assess
and recognize leaders who have contributed and shaped the Asian economy.
Serving as CNBC’s research partner,
DDI conducts in-depth, face-to-face
As for the COFCO organization, we have a strong values-driven
culture. Turnover is extremely low and the corporation is held in
high esteem as a place to work. Opportunities for professional
growth and career progression are substantial. High moral values
are critical to COFCO’s success and we promote that culture in
multiple ways. We are committed to creating a positive, transparent, and pleasant work atmosphere for employees while avoiding
bureaucracy and complicated interpersonal relationships that
commonly exist in large enterprises. We also seek to provide
employees with competitive salaries and long-term incentive
measures, such as stock options.
interviews with the award finalists to
Staff training and continuously improving the quality and expertise
of employees is important to us, as well. We have established
employee career development
plans, carrying through job
rotation and exchanges
among employees within
COFCO, and providing
employees with a
broader space for
development.
Thailand. These assessments are a
Frank Ning celebrates after
receiving the prestigious
Asia Business Leader Award
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
30
assess their leadership qualities based
on criteria including strategy formulation
and execution, talent management, innovation, culture, and social contribution.
During our involvement with ABLA, DDI
has interviewed more than 300 CEOs
across China, Hong Kong, India,
Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and
crucial part of determining the award
winners, and we are proud to take part in
this prestigious event.
The 2010 Asia Business Leaders Award
winners will be announced in the next
issue of GO magazine!
Enjoy GO? Find out what else DDI has to say on our blog:
DDI Talent Management intelligence
>>> Mike
Hoban on “Is 'Fun' the Answer to What Ails Us?”
As the great recession ends, Mike Hoban wonders if companies
can inject happiness into the workplace. “The ‘fun’ movement is
well-intentioned—at its heart it’s trying to create a more engaged
workforce, but what it’s missing out on is addressing the bottom line
of what makes and keeps people engaged and motivated.”
>>> Mark
Dembo on “Today’s Leader—A View from the World
Business Forum”
Blogging live from the World Business Forum 2010, Mark Dembo had
this thought: “Openness, transparency, authenticity, and collaboration—all themes that loomed large today at the World Business Forum.
That’s how work gets done, and how great companies are made.”
>>> Verity
Bissett-Powell on “Is Your HR Initiative a Sinking Ship?”
In a commentary about the Titanic’s unfortunate end and the actions
that led to the fateful collision with an iceberg, Very Bissett-Powell
asks: “Of course this is a very extreme example, but I started to
wonder—how many times has a change been poorly implemented
and had cruel consequences?”
>>>
COMING SOON <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
We’ll conclude the year with a series of blogs featuring round-ups of the
best of thought leadership from 2010. Log on to read what Dan McCarthy
picked as the Best Leadership Blogs, Barry Stern’s Favorite Business
Books, Mark Dembo’s Five Most Innovative Ideas on . . . Innovation.
And we want to hear from you about what you read or heard this year that
was a game changer in your job. Log-on to http://blogs.ddiworld.com/tmi/
2010/11/game-changers.html and add a comment to share an article, blog,
interview, book, or video that really changed the way you thought about
your role and how you were doing your job. We’ll compile them in January
for a final blog on HR’s Game Changers.
© Development Dimensions International, Inc. MMX. All rights reserved.
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