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leadership elastic …now that’s fantastic!

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Leadership Elastic …Now that’s Fantastic!

I love this article by WordPress blogger, LeadershipFreak:

Stretched, Not Crushed

Every time things start going wrong we look to the leader for solutions. Beware! The pressure to provide solutions crushes leaders. When solutions come from the top, organizations crumble from the bottom.

A C-level leader recently said, “When I wake up stressed out over problems in the night, I know I’ve forgotten it’s about the team. Things go better when I include others.”

Stretching others: Leaders who can’t ask people to do hard things can’t get hard things done. Meaningful contributions require deep commitment and effort. Weak leaders assume others can’t or won’t step up. They rule out before they ask.

Ruling out: That’s too hard for them. Making it easy prevents people from stepping up. Give people the opportunity to do hard things. I’m not suggesting you intentionally make things hard for others.

  1. They already contribute so much. Translation, they can’t make meaningful contribution in new areas.
  2. They wouldn’t be interested.
  3. They’re too valuable where they are. If anyone says that to you, update your resume’.

The big ask: The big ask is about values before programs. Programs, methods, and techniques are small things when compared with the power of shared values. Align shared values before making the big ask.

It’s the team:

Carrying the load alone crushes;
carrying the load together stretches.

Shared values are magnetic; they pull people together. Success is always about people before it’s about programs and initiatives. People committed to shared values make deep commitments to each other. Connections sustain and energize when things get hard. Blame separates and defeats.

How do you ask others to do hard things?

What should be in place before you ask for deep commitments?

via Stretched not Crushed, by LeadershipFreak

Story Spines Can Inspire Change

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Once Upon a Time, You Created Change…

Storytelling has long been a vehicle for creating a journey of the imagination, a journey in which a transformation happens. In his March 2012 Fast Company article, “Using Great Storytelling To Grow Your Business,” Kaihan Krippendorff writes about how to use effective storytelling to drive change and growth in an organization. He references a tool called a Story Spine, which is a simple bunch of sentence stems that provide the skeleton for building a story. The Story Spine is a tool developed by Kenn Adams as a way for improvisers (actors who work without a script) to build a classic story.

The basic Story Spine structure

Once there was…
And every day…
Until one day…
And because of that…
And because of that…
And because of that…
Until finally…
And so…

Optional ending line: The moral of the story is…

Sound familiar? Many fairy tales and children’s stories, as well as novels and movies,  fit in this story structure. Elegant & easy! So, what if we could use story spines to map out a vision for changing ourselves? Simple genius! Here’s a great Harvard Business Review article that guides us on using Story Spines to craft a vision for changing our own circumstances: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/a_simple_exercise_to_help_you.html.

Bonus Freebie

There are hundreds of possible Story Spine variations, and here’s one:

  • [The balance]: Once upon a time … and every day …
  • [The un-balance]: But then one day …
  • [The quest for a resolution]: … and because of that … and so … until finally ….
  • [The new balance]: … and ever since that day ….

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Your Turn

Now, how will you use a Story Spine to create change in your own life? Share your thoughts in a comment here!

In Praise of Vid-eLearning

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Creating quick knowledge bursts with Vid-eLearning…

Josh Bersin’s We-Learning “Modern Enterprise Learning” chart

 

 The glory days of the week-long workshop or the 6-hour eLearning module have faded. It’s not that face-to-face training or carefully-designed eLearning courses are going away.

 It’s just that in this new age of We-Learning (as coined by Josh Bersin), there are so many more options for learning and performance support. 

Today, let’s focus on just one of these alternative ways of delivering learning content: videos.

Not Your Grandfather’s Video

It used to be that videos were high-cost, high-production affairs involving fancy vendors with titles like, “Production Coordinator” and “Digital Editor,” “Sound Editor.”  Now, with iPhones and other smartphones to capture good-enough quality video, and with YouTube, Vimeo and the like to post it, anyone can create and share their short movie with the world.  We consumers-as-producers are creating, sharing and aggregating our own collaborative learning assets.

Just the Tacks, Ma’am

I visit the video section of  lowes.com all the time for video how-to’s on DIY projects. When I just need to know how to reupholster a chair or ground a GFI outlet, I don’t want to have to sit through an hour on furniture and fabric styles or theories behind Copper vs. Aluminum wiring. I just want to be shown a step-by-step example of what I need to do.

How Can the Learning Organization Evolve

A colleague recently proposed the idea of using QuickTime mini-movies for learning & performance support. This idea really resonates with me. Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, exemplifies the idea of delivering learning through small video chunks in his 2011 TED talk.

Now it’s your turn. Why not create a video to share your thoughts on using mini-videos for learning & performance support? Send me a link and I’ll post it here!

Looking forward to continuing the vConversation.

5-minute Contest: Mentorship and Onboarding

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

Mentor Me…

Here’s an easy contest to win!

In his article, “Mentoring and On-Boarding: Two Peas in a Pod,” Talent Management’s Frank Kalman makes a compelling case for mentorship as a game-changing onboarding tool. I’m going to take a leap by extending Kalman’s theory, and say that I believe that you (yes, you, dear reader) are an expert in onboarding mentorship. Curious? Read on…

 

You Are an Onboarding Expert

Since you’re reading this post, I’m guessing you’re interested in the topics of mentoring and onboarding (either that, or you’re my mom, who reads all my posts – because that’s what mentors do – invest in their peeps). No doubt you’ve been “onboarded” in an organization before – be it your workplace, your place of worship, or your neighborhood association. And I’m betting that somebody helped you with the ropes when you joined that organization. That mentee experience in itself gives you a certain amount of mentoring mavenship. You know what good (or not good) mentorship feels like.

Let’s now transform this expertise of yours into a reward. It’s time to get you published in the blogosphere!

Contest Guidelines

Take five minutes to participate in this Mini-Mentoring Contest and you could win a featured “Guest Author” spot on the Leadership and Learning Innovation site.  Here’s how:

  1. Take a quick read of Kalman’s brief article, Mentoring and On-Boarding: Two Peas in a Pod.
  2. Answer one or more of the following questions:
    • What role has mentorship played in your own onboarding experiences?
    • What kind of mentorship did/do you provide in helping others to onboard?
    • How can you “pay it forward” for future members of your organization?
  3. Submit your ideas/stories here.
  4. Submission Deadline: Tuesday, July 24th

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Winning Entries

Compelling mini-stories, theories of mentorship, or even 3-word mantras on the secrets of onboarding mentorship will be considered for publication in the next Leadership & Learning Innovation article in this series, “There’s No Ship Like Mentorship.”

Create a Contest

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Build Organizational Positivity: Run a Story Contest

Remember in school when you had to write an essay on “What I did this summer?” This was your teacher’s way of teaching you the art of storytelling. Well, who ever said the storytelling should stop just because we’re all grown up? 

Everyone Wins

Soliciting stories from members of your organization is a quadruple win:

  • Storytellers enjoy the chance to highlight a meaningful experience, a proud moment or an appreciated person
  • Leaders learn about positive things happening within the organization
  • Teams enjoy the chance to share important events, moments with each other
  • The organization gains a purposeful archive of the great efforts, triumphs and creativity of its individuals and teams

An effective technique for eliciting stories from the people in your organization or from your customers is to run a story contest with winners and prizes. It’s amazing how excited adults can get over sharing stories. So, how do you create a contest?

Run a Story Contest in 7 Easy Steps

1. Define your contest. What is the purpose? What kind of information do you hope to elicit? Do you want individual stories, workplace stories, or excellent customer service stories? Ask a question that excites your target audience’s imagination. Examples:

  • What do I like best about working here?
  • How has our product or service improved the quality of daily life?
  • What does the future looks like if we succeed?

2. Decide how you’ll use the stories. Will the stories appear in your magazine, your intranet site, your internet site, your management meeting, or maybe on a special wall in the building?

3. Determine the prize(s) you’ll use to incentivize people to participate. Make sure that they are appropriate for your organization, audience, and budget.

4. Establish your timeline and budget. Include the cost of prizes, translations, marketing, and time required. How long will your contest run? Build in time to market the contest, review the entries, and select a winner. Work backwards from your deadline.

5. Draw up the rules. Figure out how you will judge entries in advance – you’ll need to communicate this to participants.

6. Launch your contest. Develop and execute your marketing plan, including the who, what, where and when information on the contest. Monitor submissions, adjusting your marketing efforts as needed.

7. Select and announce your winner(s) and any runner-ups. Notify winners directly in advance before formal announcements are made.  Use winning entries in your communications, as planned.

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Your turn: Have you ever participated in a contest? What type of contest would you like to run? Leave a comment here to share your ideas.