How to Build Your Personal and Business Edge at the Speed of Change – Part 1

“The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.” – John Sculley

My passion for the possible evolved over time. Possibility thinking grew as a result of a wicked melange of success, accomplishments and equally great negative events and crises that challenged every aspect of my life and work at a fundamental level. It was at a place of little hope, incredible challenges and adversities that courage was found and insight were discovered.

It is this courage, this insight and this profound belief in the power of our individual and collective potential to build better lives, better organizations and contribute to a better world that has been the fire in my belly since I discovered 3Q strengths, used them and dedicated my life to sharing them with others.

Thinking, Feeling, Communicating and Succeeding at the Speed of Change The compelling case for 3Q Skills and Leadership

The 3Q Edge™	Cognitive Portfolio Q1: IQ	Emotional Portfolio Q2: EQ	Purpose Portfolio Q3: SQ
Optimizing human potential at the speed of change, in the face of challenges.	Learning Style \| Ability to Flourish	Feeling Style \| Ability to Flourish and Reach Past a Personality Type/Barrier	Being Style \| Ability to Flourish
Empowering Great Leadership	Leadership Style \| The leader as a learner	Leadership Style \| The leader as a communicator	Leadership Style \| The Leader as a champion of the greatest good.
Actualizing Great Results	Possibility Thinking: Intention, Focus, Adaptability of Thought, Ability to Learn-Relearn, Design Thinking, Strategic Thinking.	Emotional Intelligence: Self Awareness, Self-Perception-Perception of Others, Effective Communication, Collaboration, Improved Risk Tolerance, and Resiliency	Motivational Anchors Driving Purpose, Values, and Integrity-Purpose. The identification of your greatest purpose and the key intrinsic motivators that keep you empowered, engaged and moving forward when the going is tough.
Enhanced Thinking, Feeling, Communicating and Doing	Awareness, Discovery \| Enriched Thought, Greater ability to see, express and expand possibilities.	Empowerment, Engagement \| Enriching Self-awareness, Self-compassion, awareness of others, compassion for others- empathy.	Rethinking, rewriting incongruent belief systems (habits of thought) that are impeding your greatest potential while building strong intrinsic motivators.
Simple, powerful 3Q techniques that inspire/empower/enable your greatest potential.	New ways to Refocus, Repurpose-Repower in disruptive times	New ways to Refocus, Repurpose-Repower in disruptive times.	New ways to help you Refocus, Repurpose-Repower in disruptive times.

How can you learn more about 3Q skills? Develop your ability to use or transform changes, challenges, stressors, even failures into a lever for your greatest purpose, potential and success? Browse the blog, send me your questions AND stay tuned for next week’s blog post, Possibility Thinking-5 Steps to a Better, Stronger You!

Anything else? You Betcha!
Become the Change You Seek in 10 Minutes a Day

Irene Becker | Just Coach | irene@justcoachit.com

What Leaders Need to Know About Knowledge Management

Delighted to host this guest post by knowledge management expert and author, Emil Hajric, CEO of Helpjuice

Leaders in any field should appreciate the value of a well managed, easily accessible knowledge base. However, the processes involved in accumulating and curating mission-critical information might either be entirely unfamiliar to you, which is entirely understandable given the intricacies of the systems and solutions involved. To get you up to speed, here are some of the crucial knowledge management processes that it makes sense for every leader to comprehend and acknowledge.

Discovering Knowledge

Before you push ahead with plans to generate new knowledge and tap into fresh fonts of information, it makes sense to take stock and ensure that you are able to detect and harness any existing resources that may already be at your disposal.

Delving into and extracting value from data which is already available in-house requires a proactive approach. You can look for explicit knowledge of this kind using tools designed to analyze documents and search for relevant information according to the parameters you set.

Benefiting from tacit knowledge, specifically, that which is possessed by specialists within your team or wider organization is a little trickier. You need to think carefully and pay attention to individuals to work out what specialized types of information each employee might possess. This can be achieved most effectively through the use of broad tools like surveys or targeted solutions like interviews and group observation.

Another important process involved in discovering knowledge is carrying out an examination of the practices and routines that are embedded in the organization itself. Unless you step back and ask why it is that particular aspects operate in a given way, you may not be able to learn anything from this, for good or ill.

Organizing Knowledge

Once you know where information is available and where it might be gathered from, you need to settle on the processes and solutions that will give you the best opportunity to collate this.

There are generally two options here; the aforementioned knowledge base, which can be centrally managed and contributed to by a small group, or a corporate wiki which is open to submissions from all parties.

A wiki is an accessible, albeit chaotic way to organize knowledge. It may lack structure and central oversight, but it can be a suitable solution in some settings.

A knowledge base is arguably more appealing for a number of reasons. The ability to administer it directly and ensure that all information which is added has your seal of approval can improve consistency and eliminate any potential ambiguity.

Sharing Knowledge

Leaders must make sure that information is disseminated among team members to avoid common mistakes recurring again and again, and also keep levels of productivity on an upward trajectory. It is no surprise that poor knowledge sharing processes can cost large firms up to $47 million annually.

Having suitable solutions in place to allow for swift, unrestricted sharing of knowledge will not just be effective in a training context, but should also catalyze collaboration between colleagues. If everyone is on the same page with regards to information and practices, a lot of the obstacles that can hamper progress with projects will be overcome.

Of course, another aspect of a leader’s role in this respect is to ensure that once the facilities for knowledge sharing are in place, they are subsequently pointed out to relevant parties and harnessed in the right way. If these resources are available but remain ignored, then the potential benefits they offer will be lost.

Ultimately the advantage of successful knowledge management is the ability to stick to your goals as a leader and ensure that every member of your team and organization is focused on a relevant aim. With unfettered access to information, you should stifle inefficient aspects of your operations and makes sure your business is running like a well-oiled machine going forwards.
Image Source: Pixabay

Author’s bio:

Emil Hajric is the Founder of Helpjuice, a leading knowledge management platform used by large and medium-sized enterprises. He is an expert in knowledge management & author of Knowledge Management: A Theoretical and Practical Guide for Knowledge Management in Your Organization

8 Leadership Trends That Will Dictate 2019

Trends like AI and other smart technologies working alongside the human workforce can help to enable future-ready leadership and digital transformation. Learn more about the most important leadership trends facing us this year by reading this guest post and infographic by Jomel Alos, Guthrie-Jensen Consultants.

Leaders come in different shapes and forms. They may subscribe to a single style of leadership or a combination of the best practices in people management. Whatever the case, one thing that you have to consider as a team lead, manager, or officer of your company is how your leadership principles are influencing the people around you. The goal is to keep your followers or employees motivated, guided, and engaged.

Thus, here’s an infographic that can help you lead your team and your company to success in 2019 as it discusses the future of leadership development across industries. Also, it will explain the modern dynamic of leadership wherein artificial intelligence (AI) and other smart technologies work together alongside the human workforce.

Leadership in Numbers

Companies need qualified leaders to create and implement policies, which can help the organization respond to existing or future business challenges. However, it appears that within companies, there’s a shortage of high-quality leaders to steer the business toward success.

Leaders who are either unskilled or unprepared are found in 51% of organizations, according to research on the state of leadership development across industries.

Despite the presence of training programs for leaders, there seems to be a gap. This does not only affect a company’s level of employee engagement and productivity but can also undermine its ability to survive as a business organization.

While the majority of companies or a good 89% of them agree that developing leaders is a worthy business activity, only 10% of C-suite executives think that their leadership programs produce results that are helpful for their organization.

Studies say that the most effective leadership initiatives are those that are properly directed. They also describe successful companies as being able to adapt their leadership development practices according to their business goals, needs, or challenges.

Just as business models are unique to every organization, companies also need to determine the right types of actions or behavior that managers should exemplify. This way, they can inspire employees to work harder and smarter, which can help drive better business performance for the company.

Speaking of leadership effects in the workplace, managers have been cited as one of the reasons that employees leave the company. One in two employees are said to have quit from their job to get away from a boss who is an ineffective communicator or is not approachable.

Survey findings seem to support this lack of communication and people handling skills among 69% of managers, with 37% of managers claiming that they don’t find it easy to talk to employees about their work performance. The downside to this is that employees do not receive enough guidance that will make them efficient and engaged in their work.

Needless to say, these statistics can translate to costly turnovers, which we can all agree are likely to hamper business operations, tarnish a company’s image, and reduce morale in the workplace.

Leadership Trends in 2019

In this section, we’ll delve deeper into leadership trends that have the potential to make an impact on the modern workplace, including your own organization.

1. Decrease of age-based seniority

It used to be that senior employees were the first to be promoted to leadership or managerial positions in many companies. However, the entry of millennials into the workforce merits that you re-evaluate your leadership development initiatives, especially since millennials are expected to make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025.

Instead of relying on age or length of service as a basis for promotion, you should come up with other ways to discover leadership talent or capacity across all of your employees, whether they’re Gen X, baby boomers, or Gen Y. The key is in using relevant strategies that can attract, engage, and retain workers across these generations.

2. Importance of relationships in employee engagement

You need to be the best manager you can be for your employees. There are several ways that you can promote workforce engagement, starting with building relationships with your employees. To realize this goal, you need to focus on certain soft skills, such as emotional intelligence and people skills, as employees feel comfortable toward someone who’s able to relate to their concerns, sentiments, or challenges.

3. Redesign of management structure

Ideally, performance management processes should be two-fold. As leaders, you have to help your employees set clear goals and the means of measuring their progress over time.

In return, employees should feel welcome to give their honest assessment of your leadership style, so that everyone in the organization can help build a collaborative environment.

4. Investing in human capital

No matter how far-reaching technologies may become in the future, they cannot replace employees as the most valuable and capable asset of the company. Thus, it’s only wise that you invest in their further learning as having employees who can work to their full potential can help your business grow.

At the same time, you should be in touch with the need for employees to experience a work-life balance. Free your employees from unnecessary meetings, after-work emails, and additional activities to prevent them from feeling overwhelmed.

5. Defining the impact of effective leadership in business

As mentioned earlier, leadership only becomes significant when it’s in line with the thrusts of the organization. When you have a full understanding of what the company believes in and hopes to achieve, you will exert efforts to stay in that direction and, as a result, inspire the same kind of response among the members of your team. Moreover, a unified approach on how to accomplish business targets can set your company apart from the rest of the industry.

6. Improving the quality and level of coaching

There’s no question that coaching is an integral part of leadership development. Through mentoring, you get to know the individual talents in your organization as well as their attributes, including strengths and weaknesses. This will give you a chance to groom high performers for more challenging tasks or to rally behind underachievers, so they feel included in the team.

For your coaching to really matter, you’ll need to study your employees’ learning styles. Make sure that you’re sharing the right content through proper delivery channels to bring about authentic learning in the workplace.

7. Keeping a culture of agility

The rise of new technologies and creative minds are giving way to unprecedented shifts and disruptions in the market, which can prove to be challenging for businesses. These scenarios call for you to be strategically agile in your leadership style so you can help your organization to be more responsive toward emerging demands and opportunities.

In a culture of agility, you’re supposed to keep track of global trends and analyses how these may affect your own industry. As a leader, you should be able to educate your employees about current market conditions and influence your employees to be more interested in ideas, which can bring about improvements or innovations for the company.

8. Making use of technology

Having both the talent and the technology to serve customers is fast becoming a norm in many business organizations. In the same way, you should take advantage of technology to help you in different areas of talent management, such as training, assessments, and other employee development activities.

Through AI technologies, you can gather valuable amounts of data about your employees. These can range from determining your employees’ leave pattern to analyzing your agent’s speech nuances during client calls – all of which can give you insights on how to help your employees perform their tasks better.

Author Bio: Jomel Alos is a Consultant at Guthrie-Jensen Consultants, a management training and consultancy firm in the Philippines. He enjoys sharing his knowledge of human resource solutions, as well as helping businesses achieve greater growth, competitiveness, and profitability. When he’s not working, he’s watching TV shows about designing like Tiny House Nation, Forged in Fire, and Ellen’s Design Challenge