Appleton Greene – Leadership Execution
Develop Leaders who know how to help others discover their strengths
Appleton Greene – Many organizations use interviews, scenarios and psychometric tools when trying to decide which candidate is the best fit for a role. They do this to attempt to measure the potential an individual has to perform in a role. The intentional difference (ID) process is unique in this regard, in that, instead of a list of pre-determined labels, the intentional difference process helps individuals come to discover and articulate for themselves their unique difference. As a result, individuals or teams, through the intentional difference suite of tools learn how their personality is presently inhibiting or increasing their ability to perform at a level of excellence.
The intentional difference process® takes the concept of focusing on individual performance to a new level. It is a way of mapping the compounded dimensions of each individual and showing how the individual can work with a team to achieve greater outcomes. One of the most useful benefits of intentional difference® is the data it provides on how to position individuals to make more of a difference rather than more of the same.
A person’s ability to perform a task or do a job well is due to recurring patterns of thought, feeling and behavior that are determined by the basic ‘hard-wiring’ of the brain. intentional difference® process provides a disciplined approach to identifying and understanding a person’s core wiring and how those innate dimensions affect thinking, feeling and doing. The leadership execution program trains the leader how to identify and help others unleash their potential.
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Develop Leaders who use communication effectively
Conversation is likely how you started your day. It may have occurred in the form of a half-asleep, half-awake, “How did sleep” exchange with your spouse. Or a good morning greeting with a next-door neighbor, or casual banter at the checkout counter, or small talk with your carpool partner or a coworker. You will have many more conversations throughout the day. By the end of the day, you will have spoken thousands of words, hundreds of sentences, and have had dozens of conversations. To what end? What will you have accomplished for all the effort and energy spent in conversation? Suppose this was how your effectiveness at work was being measured—by the number of conversations compared to the results achieved through them. Do you have any idea what your conversation outcome at work is like? Whether you realize it or not, your conversation outcome is being measured. In practical and indelible ways, the results that flow out of everyday conversation are measured and they are measurement of your leadership effectiveness. The Leadership Execution program will teach you how to use practice and master Intentional Conversations. Through a six step proven process we provide, you will increase your communication effectiveness exponentially. Appleton Greene
Develop leaders who use their personality to inspire and develop others
The leadership execution program starts with discovery. Here in this step, the leader will take a three-minute, statistically reliable online survey that will measure how the leader’s personality is presently impacting performance. Once that is done the leader is introduced to the Intentional Difference process. Through this process the leader will learn how their personality, even traits they have considered to be weaknesses, may be used to increase leader effectiveness. Next, focus groups will be conducted with the leader’s direct reports, peers, supervisor, and supervisor’s peers. This data will provide the rationale for how the activities and strategies which follow are customized to the individual leader. During this part of the program we will be:
• Identifying and articulating the unique combination of the six dimensions of a person’s intentional difference (ID).
• Using a person’s ID to position the individual in a role where more of his/her 5% may be
increasingly utilized and applied.
• Identifying the critical outcome of a specific role for increased job performance.
• Identifying the achievement emotions of a specific role for increased job performance.
• Identifying the critical activities of a specific role for increased job performance.
• Assessing the match between each candidate’s unique differences and the critical activities of specific roles.
• Assessing the match between each candidate’s unique difference and the unique difference of the supervisor and peers for that specific role.
• Assessing the match between each candidate’s unique difference and the structure, strategy and culture of the organization.
• Developing metrics for tracking improved performance, to be assessed and reviewed six
months into the job.
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Develop Leaders who know how to activate employee engagement
The leadership execution program identifies that there are basically three types of employees in every organization, there is the Activated Worker, who is energized and as a result gives voluntary performance resulting from alignment of personality and tasks. The partially-activated worker who is lackluster and gives only mandated performance resulting from minimum alignment of personality and tasks. And, the de-activated worker who is frustrated, and as a result gives counter-productive performance resulting from misalignment of personality and tasks. Nationally about 36% of workers are activated, 54% partially activated and 10% de-activated. Employee engagement and productivity are negatively or positively impacted by the leadership practices and leaders within an organization. These two, the leadership practices and the leaders, create the leadership experience (LX) within an organization. Research reveals a predictive relationship between the leadership experience and the number of activated, partially activated and actively de-activated employees within an organization. The data also reveals three types of workplaces: The high LX workplace is one where the leadership practices and leaders positively impact productivity and employee engagement; When a leadership team averages above 50% on the LX survey the number of activated employees is at least 5 times higher than actively de-activated employees; The functional LX workplace is one where the leadership practices and leaders sustain existing levels of productivity and employee engagement. When a leadership team averages below 50% on the LX survey at least half of an organization’s employees are likely to be Partially Activated. The low LX workplace is one where the leadership practices and leaders negatively impact productivity and employee engagement. Leaders in the leadership execution program will be given strategies for increasing the number of activated employees, thereby increasing productivity and retention.
When a leadership team averages below 30% on the LX survey more than three quarters of an organization’s employees are likely to be partially activated.
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Develop Leaders who set clear, measurable and achievable goals
Organizations often already have the people needed to get things done, however, the quality of outcomes is up to how well the leader and team work together to do their best work. Leadership execution enables leaders in an organization to uncover the often overlooked and complex dynamics that hinder individual and team performance. To increase productivity, first identify what the present state of achievement is or has been. To do this we help the leader will provide the key performance indicators by which performance is measured within the organization. Next, we help the leader clarify the projections, goals, objectives or success factors they are charged with accomplishing within the present period of performance. Next we help the leader clearly articulates the expectations, goals, objectives he/she has of their team for the same period of performance. During this process, the leader and coach will track the critical outcomes and critical activities required to ensure success by:
• Conducting a gap analysis of the organization’s culture and direction
• Setting or affirming personal goals for their work groups over the next 6, 12, 18 months
• Conducting a conversation audit to assess leader’s impact upon employee likelihood to perform
• Assessing how aligned present critical activities are with the critical outcomes expected of their team.
• Measuring the level of employee engagement in the leader’s workgroup
Appleton Greene
Develop leaders who effectively identify and develop other leaders
It may surprise you to know that your success and the success of the organization is mostly driven by how effective the leader you follow is at leading other leaders. Think of a leader, any leader that you work with. What impact is the leader having upon their co-leaders? Are the co-leaders more inspired to achieve bigger goals because of the leaders’ influence? Are they more productive? Are they nicer to their staff? Do they have a clearer view of their unique talents because of the leader of leaders? Or is it obvious that their talents are ignored and under-valued? Would you say that the co-leaders have increasing opportunity to do what they do best because of their leader? Are they clearly more emotionally attached to their role because of the leader? In other words, what difference is that leader making in the lives of their co-leaders?
The effective leader of leaders makes a difference. They make the kind of difference that improves an individual’s performance and an organization’s outcomes. Before these leaders came along, there was another way of doing things, a different set of expectations, a lesser sense of vision. With them comes a new vitality, a new passion for excellence, a deeper commitment to integrity. Because of them we re-shape our view of the organization, we re-imagine what it is we are willing and able to give, we re-dedicate ourselves to serve. The effective leader of leaders makes a difference in people and through people they make a difference for the organization. The question is, how do these leaders go about bringing about this kind of difference? That is what the Leadership Execution program answers this question and provides effective strategies for developing innovative and confident leaders.
Appleton Greene
Develop leaders who consistently coach their team in a way to exceed expectations
Leadership execution teaches that the effective leader unleashes and empowers others. To be truly successful executives must know how to create a compelling environment where employees each day become more engaged. To do this, leaders must be intentional in how they lead. At this point, using the data collected through the discovery, milestone-setting and leader impact activities, the leader along with the coach, will design a mind-map for leader execution which will include:
• Using the leader’s intentional difference to unleash and optimize the unique characteristics of individual team members.
• Identifying the metrics that matter and how to use them more effectively to increase performance
• Map the four quadrants of employee performance within the leader’s workgroup
• Assessing the existing process and practice of engaging employees
• Creating an environment of accountability and excellence
By assessing leadership practices, the leader’s personality, applying research based strategies, using psychometrically sound tools the leadership execution program has more than 25 years of proven success in developing high-performing executives.
Appleton Greene
Develop leaders who effectively use the power of influence
Do you have influence? In your relationships, are your aware of how influence is at work? How do you exert influence? How do others influence you? These are very important questions for the leader, for they are about presence—your presence in a relationship. Our presence matters to those with whom we are in relationship. They care that we are around. More than that, according to how healthy an impact we have as leaders, they want us in their life and career—they want our participation, our influence. Influence is the subtle and tactful tool of the leader. It provides the leader with passive authority and undeserved empathy. Employees will follow the leader who has positively influenced them. They will identify willingly with them in failure and success. In this step by focusing upon leader impact, the leader is taught how to increase influence.
Research establishes that as individuals become aware of, and gain more understanding about how to apply their unique difference, their influence upon others becomes more positive and collaborative. Their productivity and that of their team increases. We measure leader impact in two ways:
Qualitatively, through the observation (job-shadowing) of the leader in meetings and workplace interaction with direct reports, and focus groups with a variety of constituents of the leader.
Quantitatively, through a statistically sound instrument that measures leadership effectiveness, employee engagement and organizational climate among those that are within the consistent work group of the individual.
There is historical correlation between improvement in the qualitative observations and the quantitative measurement. Hence, both assessments are necessary to monitor progress and to identify areas of celebration and/or further development.
Appleton Greene
Develop leaders who create an engaging environment
In an Intentional organization employees experience genuine support and partnership with their managers. In return, they give freely of their discretionary effort. These employees view themselves as solution partners and the customer as solution seekers. This session will provide executives and managers tools and strategies to create an “Intentional organization” environment. Through anecdotes, humor, interactive exercises and specific client examples, leaders will leave this session with the following:
Strategies to implement:
• Transforming the under-performing employee into an enthusiastic solution provider (Ritz Carlton case study)
• Leveraging top performers to recruit and develop other top performers (Southwest Airlines example)
Tools to take away
• The Intentional Organization On-boarding Guide
• The Intentional Organization Selection Guide
• The Intentional Organization Talent Engagement Guide
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Develop leaders who can inspire and engage a multi-generational workforce
To execute well in the competitive global marketplace, a leader must be able to create a strategy that excites and incites multi-generational workforce to create and maintain a competitive advantage. They must also be able to establish a structure that allows, even at times, breeds creative chaos in order to create and maintain an innovative environment. The effective leader, will allow people to create the process they need to do their best work, rather than enforce a “one-size fits all” set of processes. Knowing how to give people enough space and permission to fail, and individualized reward when they succeed is another unique way the ‘people-smart’ leader succeeds in the multi-generational organization. Ultimately the leader who will execute well in a multi-generational organization will know that rewarding people both as a team and individually leads to higher productivity, collaboration and invention. Without leaders who can execute effectively in a multi-generational workplace across these five areas of strategy, structure, process, people and reward, the organization will soon find themselves unable to retain highly skilled and expensive people, lacking competitive advantage and losing market share.
Appleton Greene
Develop leaders who possess tactical, strategic and transformational acumen
When it comes to how a leader handles problems, the leadership execution program uses the concepts Kevin Ford and I set out in our book, The Leadership Triangle. We discovered that there are three options (tactical, strategic and transformational) a leader must choose from when tackling problems. A skillful leader chooses the right option, which results in exponential success. The art of being an effective leader is in knowing what sort of problem you are facing and what leadership option is required to tackle it.
There are three types of leadership challenges. Challenges can be Strategic, Tactical or Transformational. The two initial jobs of a leader are to identify the type of challenge we are facing and choose the right leadership option:
I. Strategic Challenges – are about responding to the world outside the organization. These are challenges you anticipate, not immediate problems. They are challenges rooted in the future.
An example could be entrants to your market who have a different business model and represent a future threat.
Strategic responses – the leader is a synthesizer, bringing together the elements, the personalities, the interest groups. To do this well means seeking to understand things first, being a vision caster.
Questioning, explore options, consider outcomes and have an open mind before making decisions. Then executing to achieve the objective. A leader must inspire when using the strategic option and be resilient – results may go backward for some time before the fruits of the strategy start to kick in. An early task is to identify Strategic Inflection points – spot fundamental change in a market. See an inflection point coming and you can seize opportunities.
II. Tactical Challenges are operational or technical problems. Challenges of this nature make up the bulk of the challenges faced by an operationally minded leader. They are fixed by work and expertise. By great teams of motivated people. Tactical responses – the leader applies expertise. The leader will have a knowledge base and skill set to `solve these particular and specific problems. Hire right. Get the right people on the bus and
ensure that they are sitting in the right seat on the bus. Identify strengths of each member of the team and play to those strengths. Understand the individuals in the team, what they want to achieve and their purpose. Create a climate of trust – listen, respond plainly, back up with deeds and care about the
individual. Create dissonance – dissatisfaction with the status quo. Provide clear direction, coaching and support and an environment of self-discovery.
III. Transformational Challenges relate to values, behaviors and attitudes. They are not always visible to the naked eye and are embedded in our system. These are the ones that you think of as either insoluble or very tough, a product of competing values. Transformational responses – the leader is a facilitator of outcomes, identifying the root perspective of challenges and raising them to the visibility of all involved. Building leadership and decision making in the team. Know the history, values, and ways of working, stories and legends of an organization and leverage that for the good. Expose competing values. An example in business this can be the need for speed to get a product to market vs. the need to get the product perfect from a production and billing and ongoing care sense. This conflict of values – the need to meet the market vs. the need to get it right can drive organizations into warring factions. A transformational leader facilitates constructive conflict between groups to gain a greater level of understanding as an outcome. Sustainable leadership is about helping the team undertake leadership themselves rather than continuously looking to a figurehead to do it for them. Use dialogue and discussion to build to decision.
Appleton Greene
Develop Leaders who identify and develop star performers
In every organization employee performance may be observed across four quadrants. Understanding whether an employee is in the high performance, high potential for performance, high process needed for performance or high loss from performance quadrant can help a leader/manager increase employee engagement and performance. The employees in high performance quadrant are those who are in an appropriate role where their natural ability, aptitude, and appetite predisposes them with a high capacity to perform well consistently.
The employees in the high potential for performance quadrant are those who are in an appropriate role where their natural ability, aptitude, and appetite predisposes them with high potential to perform well. The employees in top high process needed for performance are those who are in an minimally appropriate role where their natural ability, aptitude, and appetite predisposes them to need high degree of supervision. The employees in high loss from performance quadrant are those who are in an inappropriate role where their natural ability, aptitude, and appetite predisposes them to fail.
These four quadrants provide a way to enhance employee experience within an organization
And also these four quadrants provide a way to improve the leadership experience within an organization. Based on the quadrant results to help a leader increase retention we have them address these questions: Who are the hidden performers on my team? How can I get more like them? Why would I keep or lose them if I had the choice? What can I do to lead them more effectively? And when do I choose to lead or follow them? This is the approach and strategy the Leadership Execution program has used effectively across hundreds of organizations to help leaders change the way they lead.
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Mr Tucker is an approved Senior Consultant at Appleton Greene and he has experience in customer service, management and human resources. He has achieved a Masters of Organizational Communication and a Bachelors of Organizational Communication. He has industry experience within the following sectors: Healthcare; Technology; Education; Construction and Telecommunications. He has had commercial experience within the following countries: United Kingdom; United States of America and Australia, or more specifically within the following cities: London; New York NY; Los Angeles CA; Washington DC and Sydney. His personal achievements include: facilitated leadership effectiveness assessment; implemented management training program; facilitated re-design of leadership team; implemented employee engagement program and facilitated performance improvement program. His service skills incorporate: executive coaching; management development; succession planning; employee engagement and leadership assessment.
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