The Lighthouse Beacon

Tactical Behavior Change
Strategies for Business Success

November 2006

Inaugural Issue
Volume 1
Theme: Accountability By Values

In This Issue
Events
Hear Katharine on WARL 1320 AM Radio (www.universal7radio.com) with Greg Norman show entitled: “Dare to Dream”

Macera’s Restaurant, Warwick, Rhode Island, November 14, 2006
“Strategic Planning for Bringing Work to Life and Life to Work”

Watch here for Teleseminars in the future.

—Fun, interactive, and complimentary, a Teleseminar is just like attending a seminar, from the comfort of your own phone.

Light on Great Quotes
“We become what we think about the most.” Earl Nightingale

“If you want to be successful, put your efforts into controlling the sail, not the wind.” (Anonymous)

“Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude toward us.” (Unknown author)

“There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment. “
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
 

Resources
Coaching
www.coachfederation.org
www.coachu.com
www.coachville.com

Eichinger, Robert and Michael Lombardo, The Leadership Challenge
 www.lominger.com

Jordan, Peter, “Closing the Accountability Gap” CRM Learning
 www.crmlearning.com

Zadra, Dan “Accountability Quotes” Integro Consulting
 www.integro-inc.com
Watts, Al, Integro Consulting

 

 

Contact Us
Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc.
Katharine Bird White, Editor and Publisher M.S., C.S., CPHQ
Phone: 401-632-4237 / 401-474-0092
Fax: 401-632-4831
www.lighthousePSI.com
lighthousecoaching@cox.net
 

 

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Home Who We Are What We Do Tools
Lead Article: The Winning Combination of Attitude and Accountability Unlocks Organizational Success
Walt Disney World is famous for saying “We Hire for Attitude, and Train for Skill.” Consider how functional your organization would be if prospective employees could be successfully screened to have a winning attitude; so much so, that holding accountability would be as simple as informing these positive employees on what the job expectations are. The unfortunate reality is that most companies are plagued with a fair share of workers with bad attitudes. Their individual and collective “negativity” diminishes organizational success and often causes leaders to be stopped cold in their tracks. How can leaders “performance manage” a bad attitude? In our quest to determine the competencies most required for performance excellence, the stumbling block of bad attitude and negativity feels like a rock that just can't be budged.
Lombardo and Eichinger, in The Leadership Challenge, define competencies to be behaviors, skills, attributes or attitudes. Employers prefer employees who demonstrate behavior consistent with “being open and listening well”, who are skilled problem solvers, who exhibit optimism, and have an attitude of “loving to work.” Holding accountability would be a veritable “cake walk.” Since attitude is a behavioral competency, it can be effectively “performance managed” given the following tactics:

  1. Emulate Disney’s approach to hire for attitude first, even if technical skills require development, since “positivity” is difficult to teach and hiring employees with positive attitudes will tip your collective employee group to quickly become more enthusiastic. Organizations need to identify behaviors consistent with a winning attitude for the company, then interview for it through competency based behavioral interviewing.
    2.
     
  2. Use simple language to describe the organization’s core values and the associated measurable behaviors that exemplify those values. Give consistent feedback on what are and are not effective attitudinal responses in simple concrete terms understood by all, tied to real-life work examples. At least monthly 1:1 formal coaching is recommended to proactively hold accountability.
    3.
     
  3. Consistently “step up in the live" to provide behavioral feedback to all with as much conviction as addressing technical mishaps. A “bad” attitude might be exhibited by eye rolling, ignoring a co-worker, staying longer on break, calling in sick excessively or withdrawing from conversations. The message to employees if leadership does not step up with each and every transgression is that bad-attitude isn't really that important a problem and employees demonstrating such are not personally responsible for their actions.
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  4. Publicly and prominently reinforce positive attitudes, in the short term with "in the live" reward and recognition, and in the longer term with annual pay for performance merit awards. Consider beginning all meetings with R&R and initiating some form of "employee of the month" focusing on attitude excellence.

    5.  
  5. Beware of spending a disproportionate share of resources on employees with “bad attitudes,” as the rest of the work force will suffer from under-attention of leadership. The biggest motivator according to management researchers at Harvard is the opportunity to advance. Employees want their companies to help them advance, and need leadership development resources. A new model of accountability is required in this fast paced complex work world (Jordan) where all employees, not just management, are consistently needed to be responsible for results. This model cannot take root when leaders unwittingly reinforce poor attitudes by giving too much attention to negative employees.
    6.
     
  6. Look for a malleable “root cause” of the attitude; it may be that this is not a rock solid perspective the employee has, but one that stems from a perception of being ignored or not being treated well by a supervisor or the organization as a whole. In such cases, the cure is as much within the system as in the person. Employees want to know that the organization cares about them, appreciates their work and is willing to keep them up on company news. Organization-wide approaches that communicate caring, appreciation and current events can positively influence even the most negative workers.
So what happens if even employees with positive attitudes are not accountable for outcomes? Faced commonly with breakdowns in communication, missed deadlines, poor outcomes, and lackluster business results, the collective result is often a “poor accountability” culture. A culture of accountability only grows if the following elements are in place: A) clear reasonable expectations that are well communicated with responsibilities understood; B) employees owning responsibility through the empowerment given them by their organization to take action without fear of punitive measures; C) receiving positive feedback tied directly to measurable examples of behavior; D) If A-C are observable from the very top of the organization (no sacred cows).
Dan Zadra (Integro) reminds us that children sometimes say “It’s not my fault…they made me do it…I forgot... and adults sometimes say “no one told me…it couldn’t be helped.” Our leaders would unlock business success more often if attitude expectations were addressed as vigorously as all others, and if a culture of accountability was nourished through motivating employees to own the outcomes of their actions. If accountability can be summed up as “keeping promises, paying attention to what matters and stewardship,” (Watts) then companies would do well to help employees: a) make their promises in keeping with clear values-based measurable expectations; b) strongly contribute to what matters in the company; c) reward them for delivering excellence regarding the projects and responsibilities that have been placed in their care.
The winning combination of attitude and accountability is included in LPS Inc.’s fast track mission critical values consultation. It involves a strategically driven, conceptual alignment and structural integration of an organization's quality and human resources infrastructures. Staff and management participation to develop measurable behavioral competencies driven by core organizational values is a basic tenet. The consultation experience also emphasizes pay for performance based on customized predetermined performance measures consistent with organizational success.

Call Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc. for more information or visit www.lighthousePSI.com.

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Light on Health Care: The Achilles Heel of Holding Accountability in Health Care
Imagine Achilles' mother holding Achilles over the water, as she almost fully immersed him in a magical sea of protection portending future immortality. The unprotected heel, where her hand held his small foot, is symbolic of how change management efforts fail in organizations. The Achilles' heel of all transformation efforts is that very moment when an employee needs feedback that what they are NOW doing is not how “we work here“. Health care organizations often spend a great deal of time defining their mission's values. They come to consensus as a group that these are the values around which all will rally, will believe in, and will orient their work lives around. Yet, in that moment where the teachable corrective moment happens, when the very behavior that needs changing is observed, health care managers often exhibit their own Achilles' heel. They let the moment pass, are at a loss for words, and don’t feel they would be supported if they told the employee “what you are now doing is not how we work here”.
What will happen if the manager demonstrates managerial courage, uses the words PROVIDED by the mission critical values, and delivers feedback according to an accountability script? The sky will fall? The employee will be defensive? The employee will walk out? Whatever the fear, and often in health care, it is the fear of losing yet another care provider in the face of serious staff shortages, it holds the manager back from holding accountability right then to the very values that all have identified as critical to meeting the safety and satisfaction goals that prompted organizational transformation in the first place.
The better question is what will happen if the manager avoids confronting the behavior right then?
The employee will think that how they are behaving is all right. Co-workers will see that this behavior is all right (despite the values glistening in the three ring binder on every manager’s desk). The manager will not build their accountability muscle, which in health care is so necessary, given that strong clinicians often find themselves in management roles for which they are unprepared. With each passing moment, the ability diminishes to hold accountability the next time. The mission critical values lose their power and crumble like a foundation without proper cement. The proverbial house of quality topples, and the preventable error, safety incident and satisfaction improvement goals that have not been able to be achieved in the past 10 years, as referenced in the Institute of Medicine’s Call to Action, continue to be out of reach.
What makes the difference? In that moment of Accountability, the crux of the Achilles Heel, the manager speaks instead of shrinks.

Mission Critical Values Initiatives are about speaking the truth in a firm, fair and empathic way about what behavioral changes need to happen and be sustained, in order to achieve these most critical health care improvements.

Guard against the Achilles' heel of holding accountability. The success of health care delivery depends on it.
If you or a member of your health care organization, would like more information on a new simple-design process to successfully manage accountability, contact Healthcare Renaissance Consulting of Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc. for a complimentary consultation.
kwhite@healthcarerenaissance.net
www.healthcarerenaissance.net
401-632-4237
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Light on Professional Practices
Stemming from our work with physician office practices, we discovered that professional practices of all kinds might be at risk to function less efficiently, resulting in below target profitability.
...light on legal professional practices
Thomas Lyons, President of the Rhode Island Bar Association, warns that attorneys will need to provide substantial value or clients may soon look to cheaper legal services providers overseas and/or on line. Are lawyers who manage firms aware that their future competitors may loom in India or on the internet? Attorney Lyons plans to provide education to lawyers on optimizing their use of technology and how to deliver more specialized and satisfying legal services. But we think a critical additional piece of education is necessary for this nexus in time for law firms. And that is, training which improves the effectiveness of how the attorneys interact with their public, how attentive they are to clients, the timeliness and completeness of follow-up and how to empower their partners and associates within the firm to work effectively together toward the mission, values and goals of the firm. Not a foreign concept in law, Marcia McGair Ippolito, Esq. and Susan Leach DeBlasio Esq. presented a session at the last RI Bar Association meeting, on Best Practices for lawyers: Practice Management, Client Communications and Professionalism. This concurrent session focused diagnosing those areas in legal practices which detract from providing substantial value, such as the hesitance to delegate to assistants, poor organization, ineffective client relations, inefficiencies in the office and the deleterious effects of stress and poor work-life balance on the professional.
What is the business case for getting additional training or consultation for professional practices such as this?

Profitability is a compelling reason. The top ten profitable law firms booked a profit per partner of 2 million or more, compared to the average lawyer, working at a small firm making between 60,000 and 160,000 per year. The disparity according to Edward Poll and Associates, Inc. of LawBiz Management Company should not be just accepted as a “done deal.” Simple key steps can assist lawyers to increase profitability from identifying ideal growth potential clients, delivering perceived high value services to charging fees commensurate with value. To effectively complete these steps, lawyers must have what isn’t taught in law school - how to operate both as an effective attorney, and business owner. Therefore, to attract and retain high-end clients and high performing employees, a firm usually benefits from objective consultation to strategically plan for and tactically implement improvements which drive business profitability.
Profitability stems from a solid strategic plan, which includes a primary goal of being a provider and employer of choice. Identifying the firm's core values (e.g. teamwork, respect, innovation, efficiency and empowerment) and defining associated behaviors that all in the firm demonstrate every day, will catalyze the firm to achieve business success. Benchmarking with high performing firms will demonstrate that the protected time taken to bring the team through values identification, behaviors clarification and leadership development (how to hold iron clad accountability) will create a firm that is a magnet for high-end clients and employees alike.
Along with profitability, a savvy business perspective will decrease client complaints, increase efficiencies, and improve the work-life balance of the busy attorney.

If you or someone in your company is interested in more information on a values based approach to improving profitability, contact Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc
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Light on Business
A business owner asked me what he should do about the fact that his receptionist just didn’t “fit the bill” for what he needed her to do. I asked him what the mission critical values of his business were. He hadn’t articulated them formally, but he knew one value was to aggressively outreach to customers and delight them with customer service, so they would remember his company over others. He felt that the receptionist could be much more outwardly friendly to already existing customers, and could actually also do some marketing for the company. When he discovered that he had not selected the receptionist based on her ability to emulate these values, he had to decide if he could develop her this way, or find a better fit for the talents she had. Stating up front the mission critical values of a company makes selecting best fit talent for all positions much easier. In the end it will save management time, by decreasing the need to “retro-fit” the employee through holding accountability post hire.

For more information on our customized consultations for organizing the business around mission critical values, contact Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc.

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Light on Personal Renaissance
Don’t we all want to be happy? And as we strive to find happiness, it often eludes us. Even in trying to define happiness, statements like “I know it when I feel it” emerge. Where and how then, do we find more happiness?
We find happiness when we orient our lives around our personal mission critical values. When our behaviors are in alignment with what we deem as critically important, we are much more likely to experience more peace, connectedness, and yes, happiness.

Denis Waitley described a place we tend to “live” called “Someday I'll" (Isle). Someday, when I get married, when the kids grow up, when the bills are paid, when the kitchen is remodeled, when I lose 10 pounds, when my golf game is better, when I get the new car, when I win the lottery, I’ll be happy.

The Dalai Lama said; “Happiness can be achieved through training the mind to embrace positive thoughts and reject negative ones, and that each precious moment should be used enthusiastically to accomplish this."

Are you ready to identify what your values are, and begin training your mind and body to behave accordingly?

Training can be accomplished most effectively with a coach, who will be your accountability partner.

If you are interested in more information about life-coaching, contact Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc. and check coaching websites in the Resources Section.
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