secret sauce

a special feature or technique kept secret by an organization and regarded as being the chief factor in its success.

Would you like to know about the Secret Sauce for leadership and how to use it with your team for success?

Let’s explore this One-to-One tool and how to implement it at your organization.

What is the One-to-One Meeting?

It’s time between a leader and her employee that is unlike any other interaction.

• It’s not a Staff Meeting – although these are excellent opportunities for the whole team to meet, plan and collaborate.
• It’s not the usual drop-in time that occurs during a typical workday – although these are critical to discuss issues and solve problems in a timely manner.
• It’s not a Project Update session – although these are crucial to keep goals on track for a team.

It’s not like any of these meetings, although the one-to-one meeting may have some of these components, such as:

• Planning
• Solving problems
• Providing updates

So why is the one-to-one meeting necessary? I mean, do we really need another meeting?

Benefits of the One-to-one Meeting

An employee has many occasions to talk with her leader but none focus on her needs alone; her goals, her career path and development opportunities. Only the one-to-one meeting provides this type of focus and attention.

Here are other benefits of this meeting:

• Able to review and set goals for employee
• Creates accountability for both the leader and employee
• Offers individual attention for the employee – provides time with her leader to discuss problems or goals the other meetings do not offer.
• Provides specific feedback that should only take place in this private setting.

Are there benefits for the leader as well? These may seem obvious, but here are some unique gains for the leader:

• Increases rapport with individuals (perhaps even those difficult employees?)
• Gains insight into the team from employee’s feedback
• Documentation from these one-to-one meetings can be used for annual performance evaluations.
• Private conversations such as these can give the leader a chance to receive personal feedback about their leadership skills.

Logistics for these meetings:

So let’s say you’re convinced and you want to start using this valuable tool with your team. What steps do you need to take for success?

• Launch the concept with your team:
  • Use whatever reason you’d like to begin these sessions (blame this article, if that’s helpful) and announce it at your next staff meeting. This allows everyone to hear the new initiative at once.
  • Give a quick outline of the benefits for both sides and convey your optimism for the success of these meetings.
  • Wait for the anxiety.
    • Believe it or not, many leaders tell me their teams worry about the motivation for these sessions (staff reductions? budget cuts?).
    • Address any concerns with your team members should they come up – individually or as a group.
• Schedule the meetings as soon as possible.
• Commit to these sessions and don’t change them unless truly urgent. If it does have to be changed, reschedule right away.
• Create an Agenda Method:
  • Both parties are expected to bring items to discuss at the meeting
  • Take the first few minutes of each meeting to determine the priorities for today’s meeting. Remember, these are to take place regularly so every item doesn’t have to be completed today.
  • Take notes and encourage your employee to do the same.
    • Increases accountability on both sides
    • Tracks trends and successes.

Frequency and Length of the Meetings:

• How often?
  • Most leaders agree that once a week or every other week is a frequency that works for both parties.
  • This often results in a time management benefit – the team member may not “drop by” with a question today because his one-to-one is coming up and can be addressed at that time.
• How long?
  • The meetings shouldn’t exceed an hour – remember these are meant to take place often and a limit helps everyone use the time effectively.

To Summarize:

• Launch the initiative with optimism
• Commit to have the meetings regularly
• Take notes and encourage your employees to do the same

A Final Word:

Once you’ve had these meetings in place for a few months, check in with each employee to ask what they think:

• Are the meetings taking place often enough (or too often)?
• Are they long enough (or too long)?
• Are both parties getting time for the important items?

Then make adjustments accordingly.

Now you know the Secret Sauce for leadership success.

Bon Appetit!

The rate of change in our world is constant and ever present. Change fatigue is real and in both our personal and work settings we are assaulted by endless changes that can take a toll on our productivity and success.

To help us understand this phenomenon at work, we’ll examine the following:

• The “Gap” – How leaders and employees view change differently
• Common mistakes leaders make in leading change
• 3 Keys to Overcome the Pain of Transitions

How Leaders View Change?

Leaders have the benefit of advanced notice for most change initiatives. In fact, they are often involved in the original ideas and discussions taking place in an organization long before the decision is made to launch a plan.

Imagine a group of leaders talking about a change process for their organization – over a period of many months, they discuss, create options and slowly craft a strategy. Through the rigor of this planning process, they have weighed numerous options and had the benefit of ownership for the final result. They have also had the advantage of time.

However, they’re also tired. It’s taken a long time to get to this point and they’re anxious to implement this plan. Now they need to tell their teams and get going …

How Employees View Change?

The employees of this same organization are blissfully unaware of this time consuming and often exhausting process.

The leaders assemble the teams and announce the plan. There are no decisions to make. No discussion needed. The leaders anticipate (and frankly expect) the employees to comply.

However, there is little to no ownership of the plan by the employees. In fact, they’re just hearing about it (they haven’t had the advantage of time). There are a million questions. And concerns. (You can almost hear them say, “And isn’t this what always happens? Our leaders present the final product without asking us, the people who will do the actual work? Typical!”)

There are two other “Truths” about Change in our organizations:

• Truth #1: All change is personal
  • Although change takes place at work, our experience is very personal and emotional. What if I can’t handle the change? Will I be successful in the new environment? Will I still have a place here?
  • Each person views change through this lens of “how will it affect me?”
• Truth #2: Change creates fear
  • Closely related to being personal, change is very scary. And when we’re afraid, we don’t always make the best decisions or respond appropriately to situations.
  • As cavemen, this served us well. The adrenalin that surged through our bodies when confronting the saber toothed tiger allowed us to run – fast – to safety. Our adrenalin saturated brain in modern times actually impedes rational decisions.

Common Mistakes Leaders Make

We’ve looked at the “gap” between leaders and their employees experiencing change. In addition, there are common mistakes leaders make in leading change.

• Mistake #1 – Fail to create a powerful Vision for the change
• Mistake #2 – Under-communicate the change by a factor of 10 (or even 100).
• Mistake #3 –Fail to create short term wins
• Mistake #4 – Declare victory too soon

With all of this information, it’s not a surprise that recent research shows that 70% of all transformations fail. (McKinsey and Company: Forbes – July 25, 2017).

This failure has a high cost in our organizations. Not just the obvious impact to our budgets and fiscal resources. But our employees can be severely affected as well. Imagine the effort and energy given to a project, only to have that project fail? How will this impact morale of our employees? Will staff be hesitant to give their best efforts to the next project if they fear it will not be completed?

3 Keys to Overcome the Pain of Transitions:

Even with the bad news about creating effective change, there are several steps leaders can take to make change projects successful. Here are three steps to accomplish our goals:

• Slow down
• Create a Communication Plan
• Make it stick

1. Slow Down– earlier, we identified the “gap” between the time leaders and employees have to become comfortable with a change plan. One step to increase employee buy-in is to allow them to experience some of the process time that was necessary to make the decision. Examples are:

• Walk the staff through the decision-making steps. Allow them to see the twists and turns it took to finalize the plan and encourage questions and discussion.
• Include employees in planning the steps for implementation. Although the “big picture” has been established, staff can be involved in the steps to achieve the desired results.
• Give teams time to process the change announcement, then return with questions, comments or concerns. These can take place in large or small groups or even individually. Listen carefully to these issues and make changes when possible.

2. Create a Communication Plan – this is by far the largest and most important component of the change process. It has several distinct parts:

• The large, all-encompassing method:
  • Meetings with all staff to announce the change – this gives everyone a chance to hear the news together and is often a more formal presentation.
  • Details of the plan can be presented and a Q and A portion may be included (depending on the size of the group and the culture of the organization).
  • Written versions of the presentation can be distributed for employees to review and published in the company newsletter or website, if available.
• Regular opportunities/meetings for updates:
  • Department meetings for smaller groups to answer questions for their specific area.
  • Regular updates allow progress to be tracked as well as opportunities to ask questions about new issues that have arisen.
  • Other methods for this category are Executive Visits or “Coffees” –leaders drop by to talk at department meetings or offer an open forum for the leader to answer questions from anyone who attends.
• Individual meetings:
  • One-to-one meetings with staff to include time to discuss the change process. These individual check-ins give employees the chance to talk about concerns they might not be comfortable doing in a larger meeting.
  • Leaders can offer “office hours” or drop-ins to ask a question or get an update on an issue.
• Visual updates:posters, graphs or pie charts with current results in a central location can also be effective to keep people motivated and aware of the progress of the project. If the group is in several physical locations, these can be kept in a virtual location such as shared folders or an internal website.

3. Make it Stick – to help with a change “culture” there are several steps leaders can take:

• Celebrate successes – even (or maybe especially) small ones. Your team needs to see themselves in this positive light throughout the change project.
• Be courageous and consistent – and encourage your employees to do the same. Debrief each stage of the project and answer the questions, “What went well?” and “What should we do differently next time?”
• Realize that change is the “new normal” and help your staff to do the same. Keep the communication flowing throughout the project and beyond. When possible, involve your employees by asking, “What’s next?” for future changes in the organization.

In whatever ways you determine your organization will be served best for their change initiative, be aware that the many steps needed for success can be exhausting. Many leaders are surprised at how much more effort is needed after the decision process for the change is made. Implementation is the real work – but well worth the effort for true success for your organization and for your employees.

What is Time Management?

Time management is not just a habit to be changed or a skill to be learned. It is a point of view, a set of priorities and perhaps even an emotional state.

Many people try some type of external method of time management – a planner system (low or high tech) or some other gizmo – but fail to solve their basic time management problems. They run into difficulty and then they simply quit. This creates feelings of guilt and frustration, as if they’ve failed at something crucial in their lives.

Perhaps a different approach would be more helpful. Consider the following question: What do you think is effective about your time management system? What isn’t working? If the answer is fraught with hopelessness and frustration, it is clear that there is an emotional component that is getting in the way. We’ll have to deal with emotional issues, as well as the practical steps required, to improve time management skills.

It is therefore beneficial to try to separate the emotional aspect of the situation from the skill sets. We do this by:

• Exploring what does work?
• Making adjustments to that program
• Allowing time to learn the new system
• Assessing for further changes and improvements

Throughout this skill building process, it is useful to discuss what the emotional process is, too. What if you find that all of your to-do lists and calendars don’t address your larger need, and you are not meeting your goals? It might be because you are not prioritizing these goals. You need to determine your most important objectives, and to spend time on those things first. As a bonus, when goals are clearer, the steps to get there are also more evident.

So how do you decide which are your priorities? By first determining what is most important – today. “Today” is important because reassessment of goals and direction is key, and should be a constant, ongoing process.

How to Assess Priorities?

• Find some quiet time to explore what are your highest priority goals. While more easily said than done, this step will save you more time in the long run.
• Use that time to simply write. Don’t edit yourself or try to put it in any particular order. Stream of conscious works best at this point. Start with broad categories like these:
  • Work/Career
  • Home/Family
  • Self development/Hobbies
• Ask what is most important for you to accomplish within each of these areas?
• Take a break from writing and come back to it later – an hour, an afternoon, even a day later. Review your lists and if you’ve left anything out, add it now.

You now have a working list of the most important things in your life.

The Big Four

In exploring what has worked successfully for leaders, the FranklinCovey™program for Time Management describes four main areas that are necessary for any system to be effective:

• Tasks – all of the big and small things you must DO
• Appointments – non-negotiable times for meetings, phone calls, lunches, doctor appointments, etc.
• Notes – information passed on to you in those meetings, or elsewhere, that you want and need to remember.
• Contacts – the numbers and addresses for everyone you know

Let’s look at each of these categories in more detail:

Tasks: What do you have to do each day? When many people start this list, several years of pent-up to-do items come tumbling out – and can include more things to do than they could possibly accomplish in a day. Breaking down the tasks by category helps you focus on their relative importance. The frequency of each task is important, too, for example monthly, weekly and daily. These categories make it easier to update your lists regularly. Doing so makes it simpler to stay current with shifting priorities.

Tip: Do you often have more to-do items than you can complete from your daily list? Reduce the number for your success (and sanity). To decide which items to list, be sure to focus on your most important items for today.

Appointments: Note your appointments as they arise, regardless of what method you are using to do so. Remember:

• Include the time spent commuting to and from an appointment. Forgetting about commute time is a common reason for running late.
• Do you have a meeting with someone who is always late or runs over the allotted time? Schedule it – add 15 minutes to both ends of the meeting. If the person is late, you have a few extra minutes to look at your notes, consult upcoming appointments or work in your planner.
• If you need prep time for that weekly meeting or big project, schedule that in your calendar as well. Give yourself enough time to prepare properly – think of this as making an appointment with yourself.

Notes: Keep your notes where you can find them. For example, create a category in your planner or notebook for each of your regular meetings or clients. There are managers who keep a category for each of their employees. Be wary of creating a hodgepodge “Notes” section, with all of your important information in one undifferentiated area. Finding the note you need will be much more difficult – if not impossible.

Tip: If you use “paper” for this category, be sure to have it in a notebook or planner where you can add/remove pages. This will keep it current and you can also include dividers for added organization.

Contacts: Everyone you know in your life, business, community or local charity is likely to have several numbers and contact information. And you never know when you’ll need one of them right now. So an easily located and updated method for tracking them is crucial. A mobile method is also helpful; you can take advantage of “down time” in between activities (you know – waiting for an appointment to show up or sitting at the dentist) to make a call or review your list.

However, you must also have a method for backing up this critical information, like a phone that backs up to a computer, so in case you lose it (yikes!) you still have all of that information stored safely.

Finally, in creating your personal time management program and developing your system, consider your existing preferences. For example, are you high tech or low tech? Do you enjoy gadgets or do you find that low tech is more comfortable or practical? Of course, many people use a combination of high tech and traditional methods to stay organized, such as a phone for appointments and contacts (easy to update) and a notebook for notes and tasks (easier to write lengthy or complex notes). Sub-files or tabs work well to keep categories clearly defined and easy to locate.

Schedule time to update lists, appointments and contacts. Take a few minutes every day or two to reflect, plan and prioritize. Reassess your system regularly, too. Remember that this system is a tool. Like any tool, you want to keep it in working order. If you find you are struggling with some aspect of your time organization, change it.

Another way of developing and perfecting your system is to talk to people who are organized. How do they do it? Read articles or books for new ideas, and try methods that sound good to you.

Prioritize your goals and stay on top of your lists and you will find that you are working on the most important things each day. Most of all, be proud of your successes in planning your day and time better and accomplishing your goals.

Tina Barry has been teaching and coaching time management principles to leaders for over 21 years. She can be contacted through her website: www.barryconsultinggroup.com