Manage Like There Will Be A Tomorrow”

This is the third part in a four-part series designed to give managers and leaders constructive insights to navigate these difficult times. Come back to the blog next Monday for the final installment in the series, as well as archives of stimulating content. As always, if the writing supports and inspires you – please share it with friends and colleagues.

Part two described the ways in which managers and leaders can inspire employees to work differently within this period of rapid change and intense competition. Part three will identify some important barriers that can be addressed to improve continuous learning and performance.

Part Three of Four:

We left Part Two of this series making the strong case that the managers, leaders and organizations that understand and promote continuous workplace learning and performance have the best chance at turning the current economic downturn into an opportunity for improved performance and long-term success. Of course, there are many obstacles to continuous learning and performance so now we turn our attention to identifying some of the most common barriers.

It is a very strange thing in life. Often the more ubiquitous something is, the less we seem to notice it. Barriers to workplace learning and performance are everywhere, all the time - yet; these barriers are often hidden in plain sight. The big, ugly ones usually get our attention fast. However, even with these our focus on them is usually reactionary and short-lived. The subtler barriers that quietly disrupt our productivity, diminish our working relationships and make it difficult for us to learn and grow are surprisingly concealed and largely left alone. These are the barriers that managers and leaders need to see right now in order to limit the reach and impact of the current business crisis.

The following list of barriers captures some of the most relevant obstacles that many organizations and their leaders face right now:

- Lack of reflection and learning from past successes and failures
- Too much complacency and not enough urgency
- Learning and change efforts that address only symptoms but not underlying causes of problems
- Inability to let go of past ways of thinking or acting
- Change fatigue and resignation to fail
- Absence of dialogue and fear of raising concerns
- Inability or unwillingness to adapt to fast changing, complex or uncertain environmental conditions
- Clinging to a fixed organizational identity from the past
- Limited expectations about what is possible leading to limited results
- Delaying decision-making and action by getting bogged down with research, information, and analysis
- Not raising questions or exposing uncertainties for fear of being seen as incompetent
- Doing lesser tasks well at the expense of more important priorities

In my forthcoming book, Breaking Barriers: A Survival Guide to Work in the 21st Century, I describe the interrelationships between these barriers and the underlying patterns that often suspend them in place. It is too complicated to delve into on the blog, but suffice it to say there are some very important shifts we must make in order to begin untangling the web of barriers that hold us back. Check back next week for the new post. Part Four will describe some important action steps you can take right now to move past your barriers!

Manage Like There Will Be A Tomorrow

This is the second part in a four-part series designed to give managers and leaders constructive insights to navigate these difficult times. Come back to the blog each Monday for future installments in the series, as well as archives of stimulating content. As always, if the writing supports and inspires you – please share it with friends and colleagues.

Part one challenged you to make an important attitude shift, which all managers and leaders must make in order to survive and thrive in the current business and economic downturn. Part two will describe the ways in which managers and leaders can inspire employees to work differently within this period of rapid change and intense competition.

Part Two of Four:

The intense competitive pressures and the never-ending pursuit of a competitive edge are forcing today’s workforce to be leaner and more agile, more focused on identifying brand value from the customer perspective, and more focused on developing dynamic and innovative strategic plans. These changes require workers to become their company’s best asset as they continually learn and perform as a way of adapting to the only constant in today’s dynamic organizational environment – change.

In my forthcoming book, Breaking Barriers: A Survival Guide to Work in the 21st Century, I describe the urgent need for continuous workplace learning and performance. Managers, leaders and organizations that understand and promote continuous workplace learning and performance have the best chance at turning the current economic downturn into an opportunity for improved performance and long-term success. I define workplace learning and performance as the consistent acquisition and application of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and abilities to successfully fulfill specific job functions that are consistent with the organization’s desired business outcomes.

Unlike the more static work of the past where roles and responsibilities are fixed over time – today’s work is constantly changing and requires continuous development of knowledge, skills and abilities that fulfill our specific job functions and add increasing value to the overall organizational goals. Continuous learning and performance is therefore a matter of survival for employees who must remain relevant to their organizations. For managers and leaders, inspiring continuous learning and performance in your workforce offers potentially the greatest competitive advantage.

At a practical level, this means that managers and leaders should encourage team members to invent and own their work; all employees to be self-initiating, self-correcting, and self evaluating; encourage individuals and teams to be guided by their own visions of work; and empower workers to take responsibility for what happens both internally and externally within the organization. In essence, it is your job to unleash the innovative force of your human capital. In reality, as fiscal capital is in demand, we must rely on the human capital of today’s organization, which is the knowledge worker who understands the clear connection between continuous learning and performance.

Digging a bit deeper, what outcomes can managers and leaders expect when they support the shift to continuous workplace learning and performance? The following characteristics are often developed throughout the workforce as learning and performance advance:

• Clear goals and expectations
• Greater internal motivation.
• Quicker response to feedback.
• Greater resilience in the face of adversity.
• Ability to anticipate success, despite obstacles.
• Confident and assertive communication of ideas.
• Willingness to embrace ambiguity and change.

These are just some of the benefits that continuous learning and performance bring. Of course, there are many obstacles to continuous learning and performance that make it difficult to truly turn our employees into our greatest assets. When obstacles to learning and performance are present for employees, they can negatively impact productivity and hinder overall organizational success. Progress and positive development occur for individuals and organizations when employers remove barriers to performance.

Identifying some of the most common barriers is the subject of part three of this series. Check back next week for the new post!

“Manage Like There Will Be A Tomorrow”

This is the first part in a four-part series designed to give managers and leaders constructive insights to navigate these difficult times. Come back to the blog each Monday for future installments in the series, as well as archives of stimulating content. As always, if the writing supports and inspires you – please share it with friends and colleagues.

Part one is a brief introduction that begins with an important attitude shift that all managers and leaders must make in order to survive and thrive in the current business and economic downturn. Part two will describe the ways in which we all must work differently within this period of rapid change and intense competition. Part three discusses some important barriers that can be addressed to improve our learning and performance. And, part four offers a guided action plan for the first quarter of 2009.

Part One of Four:

We’ve all heard the inspiring call to action “live like there’s no tomorrow.” While this urgent directive can be helpful to get us out of our comfort zone for some things, it is decidedly unsound for the long term. I think something very different is required of those that manage and lead organizations in today’s volatile business economy. We have to manage and lead like there will be a tomorrow. To some, this may sound like the bar has been lowered to a plane just above survival. However, taking on this confident mindset is a prerequisite for surviving and thriving in the downturn.

In trying to sum up the impact of the collective change that I see managers and leaders experiencing across industries, I’ve described it as an “elegant disintegration of all things grasped for.” In practical terms, it means we don’t know which way is up…everything that we thought we knew now seems to be in question…and it doesn’t feel like much of anything can be counted upon. In fact, over the last six months most of my coaching and consulting clients have had one major goal in common – they want to establish at least some predictability during these incredibly uncertain times. More specifically, they are striving to establish meaningful strategies and action plans that can carry them through.

The first step in creating these strategies and plans is to make the conscious choice that the future can be shaped. I have always believed that today is the best preview of tomorrow. The attitudes that influence our thinking and inform the total set of adaptive choices we make and actions we take today are the best prediction of what tomorrow will hold. Therefore, making this subtle, but very powerful shift in thinking – we are managing like there will be a tomorrow – is the start of confidently putting one foot in front of the other. This is the surest way to get a foothold into a productive path forward.